2
Two days before Winterfest, a fencing lesson ended when Andor’s wooden sword thunked across Rap’s armored abdomen hard enough to split the leather, spill the peatmoss padding, and force an agonized “Ooofl” out of the victim.
“That will do for today, I fancy.” Andor’s amusement was evident even in a voice muffled by a fencing mask.
“Not fair!” Rap protested, straightening up with difficulty. “You said—”
Andor pulled off his mask and laughed. “I said that the point was almost always better than the edge, yes. But I did not say that one should never use the edge, my friend. That’s why swords have edges! And you left yourself wide open for that one. Let’s go and have a drink.”
Ruefully Rap noticed that Andor’s hair was barely ruffled after almost two hours' vigorous exercise.
They put away the protective garments, the masks, and foils; they washed themselves at the communal trough; they prepared to depart. There were no other fencers in the garrison’s gym. Krasnegar was preparing for Winterfest.
“A beer at the Beached Whale would soften the tissues pleasantly,” Andor suggested, expertly snuffing candles. He was carrying a large and unexplained bundle of furs, which Rap was trying not to worry about.
“I’ll keep you company for a while.” Rap thought glumly of the lonely attic to which he must return, the long hours until the evening meal, and the longer hours after that until he could expect to sleep. Foronod’s affairs were shut down now for Winterfest, so Rap would have nothing to do for days. Yet he had no great longing to linger in the crowded, ill-lighted Beached Whale with its thick fug of beery odor and oil fumes and reek of unwashed bodies. The gaming would stop as soon as a seer entered; sometimes women would ostentatiously depart. For Andor’s sake he would be tolerated—briefly—but he was not the most popular of customers. He never stayed for long.
“On second thought,” said Andor, who always seemed to know what a man was thinking, “let’s go straight to your place. I have something private to discuss.”
They stepped out into one of the covered stairways of the palace and picked their way carefully down toward the light of a distant torch sizzling in its sconce.
“How’m I doing, Andor?” Rap asked. “In fencing?”
Andor frowned in the darkness… Rap thought he frowned. “Well, you’re still growing like a sorcerer’s sunflowers, and that throws a man’s coordination off. You’ll soon be over that, which will help. Otherwise—you’re average. Thosolin would be happy enough to take you on now. The Tenth Legion would not.”
After a moment of echoing footsteps he added, “It’s a pity you only have farsight and not some foresight as well; they often go together. Foresight makes deadly swordsmen, unbeatable. Even so, you should have known that carpet-beater was coming just now. It was not exactly a subtle stroke.”
Rap snarled. “Damn farsight! I still won’t believe it! I don’t see anything.”
“It’s a name, that’s all. And a precious gift. Stop fighting it!”
They went through a door and crossed a courtyard between high snowbanks, spectral in the starlight. The sky was a black crystal bowl, clear and bitter and infinitely deep. Soon the moon would come to dull the stars, but the sun was a brief visitor to Krasnegar at Winterfest. The air was deadly as steel. It could kill a man in minutes.
Then came more ill-lighted stairs and corridors. Starlight glimmered but faintly on the windows, yet Rap led the way without hesitation, his companion following closely. The final stair was black as a closed grave, but Rap hurried up it to his room. He went to the flint and candle on the shelf. He struck a spark and light danced over the floor. “There!”
“Most people keep their candles by the door,” Andor said dryly.
Rap swore under his breath. He went out again and hurried along to the drivers' office to borrow a couple of chairs. There was no light at all, but he put his hands on them without hesitation. He told himself that he was doing nothing out of the ordinary—he had put the chairs back there after Andor left the last time, and no one came near that office for six months at a stretch, so he had known exactly where they would be. But as he carried them to his room, he knew that Andor’s comment was valid—he did wander around in the dark. He had nothing to trip over in his little attic, only his bed and one small box, but he could always put his hand on anything he wanted. The thought troubled him. He was slipping, starting to make use of an ability that he refused to recognize or accept.
By the time he arrived with the seats, Andor had extracted the wine bottle from his mysterious bundle and was standing under the candle on its high shelf, fiddling with the seal. The bundle lay on the bed, a cushion shape of obviously fine-quality white fur, bound with a ribbon. Rap looked away from it quickly and told himself that it was not what he feared it was.
It was, though.
Andor glanced around for goblets, shrugged, and held out the bottle. “You first! Merry Winterfest!” He grinned.
“Merry Winterfest,” Rap echoed obediently. He did not care much for wine on principle, but he took the bottle and swallowed a mouthful. He did not like the taste much, even. He tried to return the bottle, but it was refused.
“You are not your father. You have a word! People who know words of power do not have nasty accidents like he did.”
Andor did not usually discuss such personal matters, and Rap was surprised that he knew the story. He took a long swig and collapsed into coughing and gagging.
“A man of taste and discernment, I see?” Andor sat down and sipped small mouthfuls for a while in silence.
Neither man had removed his parka. The wine would freeze if they took very long to drink it, but that was not unusual in Krasnegar. Only the rich could afford peat. Rap’s garret did not even possess a stove, although it did gain some warmth from the horses that lived below. Andor was probably comfortable, for his parka and fur pants were thick and down-lined. Rap’s were neither, and had he been alone he would have crawled into bed.
For the thousandth time he wondered why? He looked at the coarse plank walls, the low, canted ceiling, the equally rough floor. Every nailhead in that ceiling was highlighted by a small cap of ice. The tiny window was a shine of starlight through frost, a square eye of cold silver. Why would a man who could afford such clothes, a man who could enter almost any chamber in the city—with or without a beautiful hostess waiting—why would such a man spend hours in a place like this? Rap had not forgotten the king’s warning, yet Andor seemed like a true friend, improbable though that was. He had never suggested any wrongdoing, he did not pry. And he was the only friend Rap had. For a man who had once fancied himself as popular, that was a galling reflection.
Andor offered the bottle again. “Drink up! I want you good and drunk.”
“Why?”
Andor’s teeth flashed in his irresistible grin. “You’ll find out! I need your help on something.”
“You can have my help sober, for anything.” Rap took another swig.
He meant that. Andor was lavish with his time. By day he would often accompany Rap on his errands for Foronod, expertly checking the addition on a tally, carrying burdens like a common porter, throwing in a rapier question or two when a memory stumbled. Many evenings he had spent in this bare box, patiently explaining the mysteries of the alphabet and the arcane ways of numbers. He had pretended to enjoy being introduced to Rap’s other friends, the horses.
Why?
Andor had been everywhere. As Rap knew Krasnegar, Andor knew the Imperial capital of Hub, the city of five hills. He had described its avenues and palaces, its fountains and gardens, in words enchanting to a son of the barren north. Silver gates and golden domes, lords and fine ladies, crystal coaches, orchestras and zoological collections—he had paraded them all through this dingy attic under the protection of glittering Imperial cohorts with bands playing and bright banners waving.