and you think the evening wasn't there before she stepped out
As the weather gets increasingly threatening, the prospect of stopping somewhere for shelter becomes less of a prospect and more of a requirement. The (granted tedious) proposition of setting up tents is put off by the arrival of Kring riding back with a small carriage behind him to introduce 'Baron Kotyk', a landowner who seems very pleased by the ( Read more... )
"Speak not disparagingly of our host, light of my life," Sparhawk says, mildly, and Maryani is suddenly stricken by how similarly sarcastic Sparhawk and Martel can be. She's grateful they don't snipe at each other any more than they already do.
"Aren't you feeling well?" Ehlana asks, and an explanation and discussion on what pretense Ehlana will use while they are staying in the Baron's home follows. Not to mention the decision to have them all pose as Emban's entourage, rather than Ehlana's, which Maryani thinks is quite wise, if the Baron is the sort of person she suspects.
Kotyk ushes them toward the doors to his home, where three women approach, one with fading remnants of beauty, two with obvious blood relation to the Baron, judging by their builds and coloring. The pale young man that follows them is, apparently, a poet, and Maryani critically eyes him thinking he has hair almost as long as hers. Vanity in men has its limits, she thinks, wryly, leaning over to Martel to speak in his ear.
"Perhaps it's best if I don't interact overmuch with our hosts," she murmurs, "They seem the type to be more besotted with you nobles."
Maryani, don't throw Martel to the annoying wolves, it's not nice.
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On the pretext of helping her with her cloak before they sit, Martel murmurs back, "If you abandon me to these people, I will leave you behind." Speaking of the young poet's vanity, he looks a little sick when Martel's own hair shines beacon-bright in the glow of the lit lamps.
"We're so isolated here," Katina -- one of the Baron's sisters -- sighs to Melidere, "and so dreadfully out of fashion..." As she continues, and the Baroness obligingly feigns shock appropriately, it's difficult to tell which of them Stragen seems more keen on getting away from.
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Maryani just grins at Martel, and listens to the extraordinarily tedious conversation.
"And what in what capacity do you serve?" Astansia asks Maryani, dubiously; Maryani is acquainted with that sort of look some women get at both her apparel and her audacity. It's possible she induces it on purpose.
"Entertainment," she says, blandly, gazing far too steadily and coolly back at Astansia for the look to be interpreted as anything other than challenging. Wisely, Ehlana expertly steers the conversation back to other things that don't include Maryani's host of morally dubious skills. This prompts another fascinating question from Astansia, who Maryani notes is getting less attractive by the moment by dint of personality.
"Wouldn't your Atan be more comfortable with the serfs, Margravine?" The dark-haired Baroness asks Ehlana, whose response is to the effect of being more comfortable with Mirtai around, and understandably so--though Astansia seems to doubt it due to Mirtai's gender, apparently.
"Tell that," Ehlana tells her, smiling, "to the ten men she's already killed, Baroness."
Sometimes, Maryani really loves Ehlana.
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There are days when Martel does, too. Watching the baroness stare gape-mouthed at the blonde queen in horror or shock or probably both, this is probably one of them. Stragen helpfully advises, "The Eosian continent has a thin veneer of civilization, my lady, but underneath it all we're really quite savage."
Astansia snaps her mouth shut and objectively Martel thinks she rallies well, considering. Less objectively, he comments, "It keeps us occupied in the summer months. Only madmen go to war in winter."
Across the room, Bevier appears to have been trapped by the beringletted poet--'Elron', an unfortunate name if ever there was one. The Cyrinic sighs of his own lack of worldliness, commenting instead on Sparhawk's 'almost poetic descriptions.
"I should be most interested," Elron lies, with a professional's contempt for the amateur, "Does he touch at all on colour?"
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Bevier, Maryani has observed, is very intelligent, for all his rashness, and moreover very literate--the recanting of detail he gives for little Elron has the whole of her attention while it proceeds. It's probably not fair of her to aim that particular look at anyone who hasn't had years of experience ignoring it (like Martel has, for example), but she really can't help it!
After Bevier's mild rebuke, Elron makes his excuses and fled the room.
"Sir Bevier and his many layers," Maryani laughs a little, mostly to herself, and watches as Sparhawk chides Bevier for putting words in his mouth. (That doesn't surprise her. Sparhawk's clever, but not quite so given to poetic turns of phrase.)
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"--what a donkey!" Bevier finishes his pronounced judgment on the 'poet'.
Martel misses the response to that covering his laughter with a half-hearted attempt at a cough as Sparhawk moves away towards the window where the rain is still beating down. "Don't look at him that way, Maryani, it'd undercut his victory to fluster now," he says, mildly severe, and observes briefly the by-play between Sparhawk and his daughter.
The dining table doesn't offer any respite.
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Maryani has this look on her face like bloody discontent Elenes the entire time; her temper is an extraordinarily unpredictable thing, and it's being sorely tested by the incredible self-pity and self-aggrandizing natures of these people.
Fortunately, they're far more interested in speaking to the obvious nobility--Melidere gets much of the brunt of it, from the women, and Nourelle looks at all of them as if she can't believe what easy marks they all are. (To be fair, they really are easy that way.)
"Is this what the common folk are missing out on?" Maryani whispers to Martel, eyebrows raised.
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Glancing between the crying sisters at Melidere's side, Ehlana trapped in conversation with the Baroness and her frankly unjustified hauteur, and Emban's near-saintly patience with the Baron himself--Martel grimaces behind the glass of wine he's not bothering to truly drink. Too caught up in their own self-absorption, at least the lack of patience for it over here seems to be going unnoticed for the time being.
"We were warned the Astels are an emotional people," he murmurs back, instead.
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"This is over the top," Maryani disagrees, disdainful. Dinner proceeds tiresomely, and Maryani excuses herself and Martel to a quiet nook near the sitting room as quickly as possible. She also notices Stragen and Sparhawk disappearing into the veranda at one point, but dismisses it--in favor of spending a few blessed minutes away from their charming hosts.
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Privacy isn't always easy to come by on a trip like this even so, and for now the bare illusion of it when they're stuck in Baron Kotyk's home (choice of words Martel considers extraordinarily generous of himself) does just fine.
"Enjoying the trip so far?" he asks Maryani, sardonic.
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"It's not as if anyone would miss them," she responds, in Styric, tone speculative, "And it would be terribly easy..."
No, Maryani, you may not. That's sort of an answer to his sarcastic question, however.
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"We're making a state visit, Maryani, 'they're pitiful' isn't sufficient reason." He'd love it if it were, though, that much is obvious.
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"Oh, all right," she relents, "But I want it noted for the record I am being exceptionally good. Is that Stragen, there?"
She notes him coming back inside, and beckons him over.
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Stragen saunters casually over to join them--unconvincing, Martel decides, watching the other man's face rather than his movement. "You look a touch damp, Milord," he greets, dry. "Taking a bit of fresh air?"
"Clearing my head, Martel," Stragen informs him in an urbane drawl, taking a seat as invited. "I had a fascinating conversation just now."
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"Oh? Do tell."
"It seems our young master Elron," and Stragen somehow manages to say that name with so much disdain packed into just a couple syllables, "has certain opinions on the matter of Sabre--it almost appeared as if he were minutes from throwing himself in with Sabre's lot, he spoke of him so admiringly."
"Isn't Sabre some sort of hero to the serfs?" Maryani looks puzzled. "Elron hardly strikes me as a do-gooder for the common man."
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"He insists it's a smokescreen," Stragen elaborates, "and that the real 'movement' is directed at the--" he gives her a slightly apologetic look, although he doesn't so much as pause, "--'yellow devils'."
"Manipulating the lower classes," Martel surmises. "If this is what it's like in Astel, I truly look forward to whatever we're going to find in Matherion."
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