Kingmaker (5 page)

"We'll have to spar some time,” Arnold continued. “Perhaps you'll be able to show me some new moves. I'm completely bored with the competition around here."

He was challenging her and she didn't think she could afford to back down. “I'd like that."

Before Arnold could push further, Ranolf called them to the table.

It was barely a foot high and Ranolf and his children knelt near it, waiting to start until Ellie and Mark had joined them. Ellie was comfortable enough sitting like that, but Mark ended up sitting with his legs crossed—something that got the girls giggling.

Whatever it was, apparently it wasn't a terrible social blunder. The girls took Mark under their wings, feeding him tidbits from their plates and teaching him words from their language. Although his immediate need for words like lips, cheek, calf, and knee weren't obvious to Ellie.

Ellie shouldn't have been surprised that many of the dishes tasted vaguely familiar. She'd always thought her parents had weird tastes in food, combining spices from around the world in ways that nobody had even thought to try before. Apparently, though, they were simply trying to reproduce the tastes and textures of their native cuisine.

Ranolf sipped his wine—a lavender-colored beverage that Ellie suspected had never come from a grape—and explained the war.

It had started with a succession struggle. The old King's eldest and favorite son had died while the King was still alive, leaving an infant son. The dying King had named his grandson as heir, but his younger sons, the boy's uncles, had battled over the regency. Someone had invited foreign help, although neither side would admit to having done so first.

Whichever was responsible, Ranolf thought it was dangerous, especially as the Rissel king had his own claim to the throne. As Ranolf pointed out, the aristocracy and royalty were so interbred that just about anyone could fashion a claim to the throne—which was how the current King's great grandfather had seized the crown in the first place. Even Ranolf could have staked a sort of claim—if he'd wanted to have his head removed.

The story was as old as history and Ellie found herself nodding along. A combination of civil war and foreign invasion is about the worst thing that can happen to a country. “Where does magic fit in?"

Ranolf's eyes narrowed. As if she'd asked the wrong question. She probably had. But there was no way she was going to learn what she needed to know if she didn't take some chances.

"Magic is just magic. Everybody uses it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it backfires. Just as it must have misfired when it sent you into my Barony."

"Unless Ellis is a mage himself,” Arnold said. “A true mage can appear to be any age. And who but a mage would wear such strange clothing and be accompanied by a strangely articulate mute.” He gestured toward Mark who was laughing at one of the girls’ jokes.

"
I
don't know magic.” That much was the truth. She'd never even gotten a Ouiji board to tell her fortune the few times she'd gone to one of her schoolmates’ slumber parties.

"If you are a mage,” the Baron said, “you'd do well to keep it a secret. The Rissel think magic should be reserved to their priests. If they find unlicensed mages, they either press them into service or kill them."

Ellie nodded slowly. “As I said, I don't know any magic."

"Perhaps."

His tone made it clear that he wasn't convinced. Since she was only telling the truth on a purely technical level, she couldn't blame him. She might not know how to do magic, but she had done it.

The history lesson seemed over and Ranolf fell into an uneasy silence, allowing the girls’ chatter and Arnold's infrequent outbursts to dominate the conversation.

After Kalfr and another servant cleared the table, Ranolf started to stand, then knelt heavily.

"Arnold is right. You are hiding something. Not that I blame you: I can't think of a more dangerous time. Still, I can't just let you wander through my lands.” He took another deep swallow of his wine, then jabbed his finger at her. “Whether you're telling the truth, or are actually Rissel spies, the only solution is to send you to the capital. The Bishop can use his magic to pierce your secrets and ensure that you don't endanger Lubica. Heavens know our nation has enough dangers already. So, tomorrow, Arnold will lead an escort to take you to Moray, our capital.” He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe you can be of some help to our beleaguered king."

Going to the capital was a great idea—once Ellie knew what was going on. Going there now, though, might be the worst thing that could happen.

Mark blathered about the girls until she put her sword on the bed between them and warned Mark he wouldn't be interested in any girls ever again if he reached over the line.

He only laughed. He might believe she was female at some intellectual level, but he still treated her like she was a kid. Which was fine, mostly.

She hadn't slept the previous night and had spent all day walking. She was asleep as soon as she put her head down.

Kalfr wakened them before sunrise and they met Arnold and Ranolf's daughters in the kitchen and had a cup of spicy tea and what Arnold called bread, although it was more like a tortilla made from a gritty grain that had a strange taste.

The young man frowned at them. “I assume you can ride."

"A little."

Arnold spat. “Are you sure you didn't just find that sword lying in a ditch?"

She had found it, but it hadn't been lying in a ditch, it had been lying by her father's side.

"I can use a sword."

"We'll see. And we'll also see how you can ride."

Ellie wasn't completely surprised to see horses. Although this world was strange, humans were the same here. It made sense that other animals would also be similar. She was surprised, though, that they were so large. The beasts towered over even Mark.

Arnold gave her a grudging nod when she checked her horse's girth, then swung herself up into the saddle. Mark, in contrast, looked like he'd never even seen a horse before, let alone mounted one. His joints almost creaked as he clambered onto the poor animal's back.

"Jeez. This saddle is hard as a rock."

"Haven't you ever ridden?"

Mark shrugged. “A couple of times in scout camp."

"Great. It'll come back fast.” In his dreams. Mark was going to be awkward and sore and there was nothing she could do about it. Jeneen and Shalla, though, looked like they had decided there was plenty that
they
could do. They cooed over Mark like he was a suffering angel.

She checked out Arnold's sword as he mounted. It was steel, and it looked more like a fencing saber than a medieval weapon. If they had to fight, his lighter weapon would give Arnold a speed advantage.

In addition to Arnold and his sisters, about a dozen soldiers joined their party. So the chateau had a military purpose as well as its ornamental value.

While she and Mark had been lost in the woods, Ellie had been too busy to really notice the world she'd brought them to. Riding a horse took a bit of her concentration, but after the first few minutes, she was riding instinctually and was free to examine her surroundings.

From the angle of the sun, they seemed to have moved further north than California. That sun, itself, looked slightly larger but also a bit darker than the sun she'd grown up with, possibly explaining her parents’ insistence on sunglasses.

"What time of year is it?” she asked Jeneen when the girl rode close to her.

Jeneen gave her a strange look. “Spring."

It had been summer when she'd left L.A. So time moved differently here, or maybe the trip through the dimensions caused time to elapse.

Jeneen answered her questions about the strange trees—perfectly normal according to the girl—but got bored when she asked about politics and reined back to ride near Mark.

Despite the glow of the sun, it was cooler here than in California. Occasionally, under the shade of one of the cactus-trees, she even spotted a bit of snow—something Californians only find in the high mountains.

The road they traveled was barely more than a pair of dirt tracks through the grasses although Arnold explained that it was a main highway. For the first four hours of their ride, they didn't see anyone else on the road. The few farmhouses they passed were rough stone with thatch roofs. Scrawny cow-like animals, some as big as the huge horses she was riding, nibbled on grass but moved well away from them as they rode by. Once, Ellie thought she saw a farmer moving among his crops, but if she did, he quickly managed to hide because she didn't see another trace of him.

She couldn't prove it, but it seemed that the people were frightened. Could Ranolf have been such a bad Baron that the farmers hid from him? Or was this part of the general deterioration of a nation in the middle of a Civil War?

At noon they reached a clearing in a wooded area they were riding through. Arnold held up his hand and announced that they would stop for a meal.

The guards fanned out, checking behind the few trees scattered within the clearing while Arnold jumped down and started pulling food from his saddlebags.

Mark climbed down from his horse, tried to stand, then collapsed as his legs buckled under him.

His horse would have bolted if Arnold hadn't grabbed her bridle and brought the animal under control, losing what looked like an oversized chicken-leg in the process.

"You are trouble,” he told the American.

Mark nodded. “Sorry.” It was a key word to learn in a new language. Ellie was glad Mark had picked it up quickly.

But Mark's accent was atrocious.

Arnold frowned, suddenly reminded of their foreignness. Mark's lack of riding experience had to be additional evidence that they weren't like him, that they were a threat.

Ellie couldn't magically teach Mark the language but she could do one thing to assure Arnold that she, at least, came from a warrior culture like his own.

"You promised me a chance to spar. How about now?"

Arnold grinned. “If you know how to use that oversized bar of iron."

Ellie had spent plenty of time practicing her draw and cuts. But Kendo sparring was done with bamboo shinai rather than with real weapons. With a sharp-bladed Katanga, the chances of an accident were too high and the consequences too severe for casual sparing. It didn't look like Arnold cared.

Arnold handed Mark's horse to one of his sisters, then yanked off his jersey.

He had a build on him. With his long blond hair and ripped muscles, Arnold could have featured on the cover of a romance novel back home. Ellie couldn't help appreciate it, but she was also interested in the thicket of scars that crossed his arms and chest. Either he'd been in the wars, or he had plenty of dueling and brawling experience.

Arnold drew his rapier and slashed it through the air. “You aren't going to strip? Do you really think you can defeat me so easily you won't even sweat?"

Ellie wasn't going to take her shirt off for this guy. Instead she bowed, then stepped into a long front stance, her katana still sheathed by her side.

Arnold looked at her curiously, then sketched a European-style salute through the air. “Are you ready?"

Obviously he wasn't used to facing someone who hadn't drawn. Which meant he might not be prepared for her style. “Of course."

He was quick. He lunged before she had closed her mouth, his bladed weapon extended like an epee. She drew, engaged, and then slid her heavier sword down his blade, forcing him to back up quickly when she disengaged and sliced at his arm.

"Ah. Wonderful. You do have some skill."

He shifted his stance. He'd rely more on his edge now, she thought. Perfect. Kendo masters certainly know the thrust, the
skee
, but their blade is fundamentally a cutting weapon. Now he was playing her game.

She shortened her stance, gripping her scabbard with her left hand. When Arnold tried an overhead attack, she used the scabbard to trap his blade while she whipped the Katanga toward his torso.

He stepped back quickly and she followed with a thrust kick to his solar plexus.

"They didn't teach you that in the salon,” Arnold told her. “But if we are going to...” he launched a third attack without any hesitation or telegraphing his move.

He wove a web of steel around her, his light blade flickering so fast she could barely stay ahead of it.

A samurai lives in the moment, but never concentrates all of his attention on the single enemy. Because in a battle, there can be more opponents. Which is probably why, despite Arnold's aggressive attack, Ellie was the first to notice the sound of running men closing in on them.

"We're in trouble.” She stepped away from Arnold.

"What? No more tricks?” But then he too noticed. “Bandits. Guards, ready your weapons."

Ellie knew that uniforms were a modern invention, but the disreputable and disrepaired clothing this group wore marked them as criminals rather than an army. But there were a lot of them. More than a hundred, she estimated, although most remained near the edge of the clearing, using the succulent trees for cover. And all of them had some kind of weapon.

Arnold's sisters surprised Ellie by pulling slender swords from their saddlebags and joining their guards. The guards hadn't brought pikes or heavy weapons but drew their own swords and, in a couple of cases, the main gauche. Even with the girls, though, they were outnumbered more than eight to one.

"Invaders?” Ellie asked Arnold as she stepped a bit closer to the group of guards. A katana is too long to be used as a close infantry weapon but she didn't want to be surrounded. Besides, compared to Arnold's fencing saber the katana was the height of practicality. His lighter weapon might be most suitable for dueling but she'd take the katana any day for melee.

Arnold cursed. “Not invaders but not simple bandits. There are a lot of them, though. Too many for just one single band. So they're probably allied with the Rissel. Auxiliaries. Traitors."

The bandits circled them, keeping away from their weapons but not bunching up to the point where they would interfere with each other either. Obviously they weren't new to the banditry business. And, as Arnold had pointed out, no neighborhood could support this large a gang. Either they had been looking for Ellie and her party or the Rissel were using bandits to block off access to the capital. Neither alternative sounded attractive.