“And aren’t you just the feistiest thing?” Bahzell said with a laugh. “Not but what you’ve a point.” He shrugged again. “And I’ll not be brokenhearted if it should be you’ve more success than I at making him see reason. There’s times I think he’s stubborner than a hradani!”
“Ha! No one’s stubborner than a hradani, Bahzell! If anyone in the entire world’s learned that by now, it’s me.”
“A bit of the pot and the kettle in that, Vaijon,” Brandark pointed out mildly.
“And a damned good thing, too, given the job He and Bahzell have handed me,” Vaijon retorted.
“Actually, you might have a point there,” Brandark conceded after a moment. “And speaking as someone who always wanted to be a bard, I can’t help noticing that there’s a wagonload or two of poetic irony in where you’ve ended up, Vaijon.”
“I’m so glad I’m able to keep you amused,” Vaijon said.
“Oh, no! Keeping me amused is Bahzell’s job!” Brandark reassured Vaijon, as they turned a corner and started up the steps to the keep’s second floor.
“You just keep laughing, little man,” Bahzell told him. “I’m thinking it would be a dreadful pity if such as you were to be suddenly falling down these stairs. And back up them-a time or two-now that I think on it. It’s a fine bouncing ball you’d make.”
Brandark started to reply, then stopped and contented himself with an amused shake of his head as Bahzell opened a door and led him and Vaijon into a well lit, third-floor council chamber. Diamond-paned windows looked out over the gray, rainy courtyard, but a cheerful coal fire crackled in the grate and a huge, steaming teapot sat in the middle of the polished table. The red-gold-haired man seated at the head of the table, closest to the fire, looked up as Vaijon and the hradani entered the chamber.
“Good morning, Vaijon!” Sir Tellian Bowmaster, Baron of Balthar and Lord Warden of the West Riding, said. He rose, holding out his hand, then coughed. The sound wasn’t especially harsh, but it was deep in his throat and chest, with a damp, hollow edge, and Vaijon frowned as they clasped forearms in greeting.
“Good morning to you, Milord,” he replied, forearms still clasped. “And why haven’t you let Bahzell deal with that cough of yours?”
“Well, that’s coming straight to the point,” Tellian observed, arching his eyebrows.
“I’ve been dealing with hradani too long to beat about the bush, Milord,” Vaijon said. “And since, at the moment, you have not one but two champions of Tomanak right here in your council chamber, it seems to me to be a pretty fair question.”
“It’s only a cough, Vaijon,” Tellian replied, releasing his forearm. “I’m not going to run around panicking just because I don’t shake off a winter cough as quickly as I did when I was Trianal’s age. And there’s no need to be asking a champion-or two champions-to waste Tomanak’s time on something that minor!”
“I don’t think He’d mind, Milord,” Vaijon said dryly, “and I know neither Bahzell nor I would object to spending four or five minutes taking care of it. So perhaps you should balance your laudable determination not to pester Tomanak over ‘something that minor’ against the fact that we’re both going to be just about insufferable if you don’t let us take care of it and it gets worse again.”
“I think you’d better surrender while the surrendering is good, Uncle,” Sir Trianal Bowmaster said, smiling as he crossed the council chamber from his place by the windows and held out his own arm to Vaijon. “I’ve certainly been suggesting the same thing to you long enough, and so has Aunt Hanatha.”
“And why doesn’t one of you just go ahead and say ‘You’re not as young as you used to be and you need looking after, Tellian’?” Tellian demanded acidly.
“Because we’re thinking as how it would only be making you stubborner still?” Bahzell suggested in an innocent tone, and despite himself, Tellian laughed.
“Seriously,” Vaijon said, “you ought to let us get rid of it for you, Milord. Perhaps it is only a minor inconvenience, but there’s no point in your putting up with it, and I agree with Bahzell. There are enough people who wish you ill for something that just keeps hanging on this way to make me unhappy. I’m not trying to encourage you to look for assassins under your bed every night, but we know for a fact that the Dark doesn’t much care for you. You’re probably right that it’s nothing more than a simple cough…but you might not be, too, and it would make all of us feel a lot better if it went away. Especially if you’re going to be traveling to Sothofalas with Bahzell and Brandark and this damned rain hangs on the way it looks like doing. The last thing we need is for you to come down with something like you had last winter when you need to be on your toes dealing with Lord Amber Grass and Prince Yurokhas.”
Tellian glowered at him for a moment, then sighed and shook his head.
“All right. All right!” He shook his head again. “I yield. I still think you’re all worrying like a batch of mother hens, but I can see I’m not going to get any rest until I do it your way.”
“And why you couldn’t have been realizing that a week ago is a sad puzzle to me,” Bahzell told him with a slow smile.
“Probably because I’m getting so old, frail, and senile,” Tellian replied darkly, then pointed at the chairs around the table. “And I suppose we should all sit back down before my aged knees collapse and I fall down in a drooling heap.”
The others all laughed, although at forty-six, Bahzell was actually a few months older than the baron. On the other hand, he was also a hradani, and hradani routinely lived two hundred years or more, assuming they managed to avoid death by violence. That made him a very young man by his own people’s standards. Indeed, he was little more than a stripling, younger even than Tirinal of Balthar, by hradani reckoning.
They settled themselves around the conference table and Trianal poured a big, steaming cup of tea and passed it to Vaijon.
“This wouldn’t be more of that vile morning moss tea, would it?” the champion asked, sniffing the fragrant steam suspiciously.
“Not in Hill Guard,” Tellian reassured him. “Would you like me to drink some first to reassure you?”
“That won’t be necessary, Milord,” Vaijon said. “Unlike some of the people sitting around this table, I don’t think you’d deliberately set out to poison an innocent and unsuspecting man.”
“You’ve a way of holding grudges, don’t you just?” Bahzell observed. “We told you as how it would relieve your cramps, and so it did, didn’t it?”
“That’s your story, and you’re sticking to it, I see.” Vaijon sipped cautiously, then smiled and drank more deeply. “Thank you, Milord,” he said. “It’s good.”
“You’re welcome.” Tellian leaned back in his chair, covering his mouth as he coughed again, and Trianal poured him a cup and slid it across to him. The baron grimaced, but he also drank dutifully, then raised both eyebrows at his nephew. “Satisfied?”
“For now,” Trianal replied, and Tellian snorted.
“Well, pour yourself some,” he directed sternly. “I wasn’t the one running around out in the rain without even a doublet, now was I?”
Trianal smiled and shook his head. But he also poured himself a cup obediently and sipped from it.
“I trust you’re satisfied now, Uncle?” he asked, and Tellian chuckled.
“For now,” he said, drinking some more of his own tea, and then cocked his head at Vaijon.
“Prince Bahnak asked me to give you his greetings,” Vaijon said, responding to the silent invitation to begin. “And Princess Arthanal’s sent along that pillowcase she’s been embroidering for Baroness Hanatha. I understand this one completes the entire set.”
“Your mother’s skill with a needle never ceases to amaze me, Bahzell,” Tellian said with simple sincerity, “although how she finds the time to use it with everything she and your father have on their plates amazes me even more. Please tell her how much Hanatha and I appreciate the gift…and the thought that went into it, even more.”