On the edges of the world
Derek notes, and takes advantage of, an opportunity. Takes place after this scene in which Derek discovers that Ownah has some problems with some certain guys at the Hold.
Derek walked around the inside of the mineshaft. It was not so wide as to serve as a dragonweyr, and carved high into the west-facing slope lacked much flat space out front to invite dragons to linger. The trail that led up to it was strenuous and pebble-strewn: it promised treachery after dark.
So did Derek's plans for this space.
When he'd first found it he thought it might suit Nera as a place to secret away whatever things she might wish to hide or keep safe from curious fingers. But there was no reasonable way to hide the entrance, and no cracks or crevices inside to bury things in. It wasn't good enough for Nera.
But it was good enough for him.
Dinner had been several hours' finished when the men started to arrive. Four of them, the best and most loyal of his guardsmen from the island, from before the island. Men of High Reaches Hold. One at a time they came up the path, their steps cautious, their boots heavy but graceful. They were aging now, but their princely demeanor remained.
Solvi. Manny. Amarind. Ilonzo.
Derek knew them each intimately. Solvi and Manny were High Reaches' born and bred. Manny'd married Solvi's sister and joined the guard to support her. She sucked the both of them dry trying to play Lady Dress-up. Derek remembered.
Amarind was out of Crom and had charmed all the women there. Two of them had made the trip clear over to High Reaches to present him with sons. He felt obliged to support them and was naively hopeful about their futures. He was desperate for advancement and for pay, was willing to take special assignments.
And Ilonzo. Ilonzo had been a highwayman by trade. He had come to the Hold because he thought Derek looked a little familiar. Like the others he joined the guard and then the elites, and Derek had eventually introduced him to other men in the movement.
Ilonzo arrived last, with an armload of wood. Five Mines was mountainous, and mountains - in the north, especially - meant cold. And Derek did not want their guests to be cold.
When the men arrived, Derek was leaning against the wall far back in the cave, where the fallen rubble of prior excavations blocked off the rest of the shaft. The other four divided themselves along the corridor and gestured the pair inside.
This was the hard part. It had been a couple of turns since it had mattered much how Derek's visitors took his message. Even when he was gathering numbers, back on the island, there were some men Derek wasn't interested in making his. Some of them, after all, were beyond saving - burdens on society who'd been rightly exiled. Men Derek would have left behind, if he'd known how.
But now it was again necessary to make every head count.
The two men, their honored guests, objected strenuously - sometimes interrupting Derek's soft, sandy voice. He didn't stop for them; what he had to say was repetitious enough that it wouldn't matter if they couldn't hear him over their own rowdy sneers and jibes once in a while. They, of course, did not know that - and after a few rounds of being spoken straight through they stopped defending and started listening.
Derek observed, from a distant place somewhere in his skull, which of the things he said moved them most. One of them was intrigued by the promise of the admiration and willingness of numbers of women as opposed to what he'd been getting. The other - whom Derek identified as the dominant personality of the pair on this basis - was not impressed by this, and started really paying attention only when Derek raised the notion of a kind of respect so absolute that women's willingness would no longer matter.
From the safety of these far reaches of his mind Derek observed also that his princes were smiling, their eyes hungry and relieved all at once. They'd come home. Life was full of promise and reminiscence.
Then Derek heard himself say "Now," and felt his body come away from the wall. He noted the different feel of the rough-hewn stone beneath his thick boots, contrasted it with the smooth and sometimes slick floor of the Alley back on the island, or the room in the back of the bar at High Reaches Hold. He saw the princes glance at one another, and among them silently nominate their first representatives.
Manny and Ilonzo came up, one beside each of their guests, and Derek went to each couple in turn. He formed their hands with his own, his fingers warm and dry and gentle beneath the callus of work-a-day life, making fists; he listened to his voice as he tutored them in the art of knuckles, the benefits of keeping the muscles loose, how to protect the thumb. He looked into their eyes, especially his princes. Manny'd picked the subordinate of the pair, whose name was Corvet. They'd go first. It would be brief.
When he looked into Ilonzo's eyes, he could see how it would go with the meaner man, Solein. It would take longer. There would be yelling and catcalls. He hoped their voices, all four of them who would cheer - Derek never cheered - would be enough to fill the mineshaft, to make it feel chaotic and crowded. Between the sweat of men and the fire's crackle he hoped it would be warm enough, too. He had a feeling that this man who was Ownah's nightmare would be in danger of shock if it were too cold.
Then he stood back, his body a barrier between the first pair and the fallen rubble behind him. The other four men, one of them half unwilling and half hungering to see his little buddy beaten, formed a loose arc behind them. There was no rule against running, if you could get past your friends.
Four hours later, the cave was empty but a dying fire, stains and echoes.
Dawn found Solvi readying for breakfast. He was singing to himself when he tucked away a freshly-written letter into the outgoing messenger-bag hung by the common-room door, and practically singing to everyone he met by the time he made it to the hall where meals were served. Manny met the new day much the same, though rather than write to family or friends he took his time cleaning out the deep scrapes across the heel of his left hand. Good-natured, he imagined how he'd be teased for the fall and for catching himself on the cave's rough floor. Good-natured, he wrapped his hand and went out to breakfast.
Amarind was leaning in the entrance of the mineshaft, a broom propped under one elbow and a wet rag streaked brown and red over his shoulder, watching the peaceful work of the holdfolk in the pit below. He looked past them into the Hold's poor courtyard and imagined standing there to attention while Derek led the Lord past them all. He imagined the mix of fear and delight in the eyes of Odern's ridiculous courtiers. And most of all, he imagined his sons, noble and powerful and gleaming, among those standing ranks.
Ilonzo and Corvet were walking down the road that led from the mine to the foothills. They had not got far, and would not go far before turning back. Ilonzo was talking, amicably and jovially in his rich mongrel accent, about the captain and the captain's men. He made sure to include the riders from time to time, and even spent half an hour as the sun crested over the western mountains describing the future they all desired, where hard work and fairness would prevail over wealth and privilege.
And Solein lay in Derek's room, sleeping in the old captain's simple bed. His upper arm was bandaged, his jaw tended with stitches and his nose put right by the force of the healer's hand. His left eye was swollen shut and the skin around it a puffy mix of blue and violet, but he slept peacefully, hands folded over his chest, dreaming of fruitful fields.
Soundtrack: Silhouettes in Disguise by Kansas (click to download).
Derek walked around the inside of the mineshaft. It was not so wide as to serve as a dragonweyr, and carved high into the west-facing slope lacked much flat space out front to invite dragons to linger. The trail that led up to it was strenuous and pebble-strewn: it promised treachery after dark.
So did Derek's plans for this space.
When he'd first found it he thought it might suit Nera as a place to secret away whatever things she might wish to hide or keep safe from curious fingers. But there was no reasonable way to hide the entrance, and no cracks or crevices inside to bury things in. It wasn't good enough for Nera.
But it was good enough for him.
Dinner had been several hours' finished when the men started to arrive. Four of them, the best and most loyal of his guardsmen from the island, from before the island. Men of High Reaches Hold. One at a time they came up the path, their steps cautious, their boots heavy but graceful. They were aging now, but their princely demeanor remained.
Solvi. Manny. Amarind. Ilonzo.
Derek knew them each intimately. Solvi and Manny were High Reaches' born and bred. Manny'd married Solvi's sister and joined the guard to support her. She sucked the both of them dry trying to play Lady Dress-up. Derek remembered.
Amarind was out of Crom and had charmed all the women there. Two of them had made the trip clear over to High Reaches to present him with sons. He felt obliged to support them and was naively hopeful about their futures. He was desperate for advancement and for pay, was willing to take special assignments.
And Ilonzo. Ilonzo had been a highwayman by trade. He had come to the Hold because he thought Derek looked a little familiar. Like the others he joined the guard and then the elites, and Derek had eventually introduced him to other men in the movement.
Ilonzo arrived last, with an armload of wood. Five Mines was mountainous, and mountains - in the north, especially - meant cold. And Derek did not want their guests to be cold.
When the men arrived, Derek was leaning against the wall far back in the cave, where the fallen rubble of prior excavations blocked off the rest of the shaft. The other four divided themselves along the corridor and gestured the pair inside.
This was the hard part. It had been a couple of turns since it had mattered much how Derek's visitors took his message. Even when he was gathering numbers, back on the island, there were some men Derek wasn't interested in making his. Some of them, after all, were beyond saving - burdens on society who'd been rightly exiled. Men Derek would have left behind, if he'd known how.
But now it was again necessary to make every head count.
The two men, their honored guests, objected strenuously - sometimes interrupting Derek's soft, sandy voice. He didn't stop for them; what he had to say was repetitious enough that it wouldn't matter if they couldn't hear him over their own rowdy sneers and jibes once in a while. They, of course, did not know that - and after a few rounds of being spoken straight through they stopped defending and started listening.
Derek observed, from a distant place somewhere in his skull, which of the things he said moved them most. One of them was intrigued by the promise of the admiration and willingness of numbers of women as opposed to what he'd been getting. The other - whom Derek identified as the dominant personality of the pair on this basis - was not impressed by this, and started really paying attention only when Derek raised the notion of a kind of respect so absolute that women's willingness would no longer matter.
From the safety of these far reaches of his mind Derek observed also that his princes were smiling, their eyes hungry and relieved all at once. They'd come home. Life was full of promise and reminiscence.
Then Derek heard himself say "Now," and felt his body come away from the wall. He noted the different feel of the rough-hewn stone beneath his thick boots, contrasted it with the smooth and sometimes slick floor of the Alley back on the island, or the room in the back of the bar at High Reaches Hold. He saw the princes glance at one another, and among them silently nominate their first representatives.
Manny and Ilonzo came up, one beside each of their guests, and Derek went to each couple in turn. He formed their hands with his own, his fingers warm and dry and gentle beneath the callus of work-a-day life, making fists; he listened to his voice as he tutored them in the art of knuckles, the benefits of keeping the muscles loose, how to protect the thumb. He looked into their eyes, especially his princes. Manny'd picked the subordinate of the pair, whose name was Corvet. They'd go first. It would be brief.
When he looked into Ilonzo's eyes, he could see how it would go with the meaner man, Solein. It would take longer. There would be yelling and catcalls. He hoped their voices, all four of them who would cheer - Derek never cheered - would be enough to fill the mineshaft, to make it feel chaotic and crowded. Between the sweat of men and the fire's crackle he hoped it would be warm enough, too. He had a feeling that this man who was Ownah's nightmare would be in danger of shock if it were too cold.
Then he stood back, his body a barrier between the first pair and the fallen rubble behind him. The other four men, one of them half unwilling and half hungering to see his little buddy beaten, formed a loose arc behind them. There was no rule against running, if you could get past your friends.
Four hours later, the cave was empty but a dying fire, stains and echoes.
Dawn found Solvi readying for breakfast. He was singing to himself when he tucked away a freshly-written letter into the outgoing messenger-bag hung by the common-room door, and practically singing to everyone he met by the time he made it to the hall where meals were served. Manny met the new day much the same, though rather than write to family or friends he took his time cleaning out the deep scrapes across the heel of his left hand. Good-natured, he imagined how he'd be teased for the fall and for catching himself on the cave's rough floor. Good-natured, he wrapped his hand and went out to breakfast.
Amarind was leaning in the entrance of the mineshaft, a broom propped under one elbow and a wet rag streaked brown and red over his shoulder, watching the peaceful work of the holdfolk in the pit below. He looked past them into the Hold's poor courtyard and imagined standing there to attention while Derek led the Lord past them all. He imagined the mix of fear and delight in the eyes of Odern's ridiculous courtiers. And most of all, he imagined his sons, noble and powerful and gleaming, among those standing ranks.
Ilonzo and Corvet were walking down the road that led from the mine to the foothills. They had not got far, and would not go far before turning back. Ilonzo was talking, amicably and jovially in his rich mongrel accent, about the captain and the captain's men. He made sure to include the riders from time to time, and even spent half an hour as the sun crested over the western mountains describing the future they all desired, where hard work and fairness would prevail over wealth and privilege.
And Solein lay in Derek's room, sleeping in the old captain's simple bed. His upper arm was bandaged, his jaw tended with stitches and his nose put right by the force of the healer's hand. His left eye was swollen shut and the skin around it a puffy mix of blue and violet, but he slept peacefully, hands folded over his chest, dreaming of fruitful fields.
Soundtrack: Silhouettes in Disguise by Kansas (click to download).