Rhetan’s men wore leather armor studded with steel rings sewn onto the surface, making it durable without adding weight or bulk: an efficient choice—perhaps less grand than the plate worn by the Knights, but better suited to the dangers of fighting aboard ship. More importantly, each man’s cuirass was properly sized to his chest and torso. Rhetan clearly took care of his people, and they, in turn, looked upon him without the disdain that soldiers so often held for their Lords.
It was the soldiers’ obvious respect for Rhetan that transformed his appearance in my eyes.
The wrinkles that might otherwise have suggested a doddering old man now looked to me as the mark of keen intellect and long study. His slightly stooped posture wasn’t the sign of failing muscles exhausted by a long voyage; it was evidence of a man fully at ease in the world. The lack of notice he gave to potential threats all around him didn’t signify a deficit of observation but rather served to illustrate a single, incontestable fact: Rhetan was in control.
“Breathe, everyone,” he said. “You’ll live longer.”
The entire company—wedding guests, Knights, guards, and even Margrave Evidalle—watched as Rhetan wandered over to the cooking spits. He picked up a dinner knife from a nearby table and cut a piece of pork off the carcass. “The meat’s overdone, I’m afraid.”
“Try the chicken,” Brasti suggested. I elbowed him in the ribs.
From behind the spits I could hear the quavering sound of the cook’s voice. “Forgive me, your Lordship . . . I . . . there was so much—”
“Relax,” Rhetan said, still chewing on his piece of pork, “if I killed everyone who overcooked my dinner there wouldn’t be a man left in Tristia who knew how to light a fire.” A smattering of nervous laughter rose up, but Rhetan cut it off simply by ignoring it. He turned to survey the crowd. “You’re scared. That’s fine. Use it to make yourselves smart. Keep your mouths shut until you have something useful to say and you might just survive the afternoon.”
Such a bold statement would normally have elicited a blistering response from the noble guests, several of whom were Viscounts and Viscountesses of large condates and thus of equal rank to the Margrave. These men and women, who normally took poorly to being told to shut up, kept remarkably silent.
In fact, no one moved so much as a muscle—except for one of Rhetan’s own soldiers, a black-haired, broad-shouldered man in his late twenties, who came forward to kneel before Rhetan. “Margrave? The men await your orders.”
“The men can relax, too, Pheras.” He wagged a finger in mock reprimand. “Patience. You can’t have too much patience.”
“Patience ruined the meat,” Brasti said.
I whispered in his ear, “It’s rather important that you stop talking now.”
“Better overdone and a little chewy than so raw it makes you sick,” Rhetan said as he grabbed a silk napkin from the nearby table and began cleaning his dinner knife. “Patience is always the wiser course. I had four older brothers. The eldest two were twins, though there was some dispute as to which of them emerged first from our mother’s womb—they killed each other when they were twelve, before either was even of age to take the title. The third, determined to prove he was too strong to be challenged by the fourth, died from heat and exhaustion practicing with his sword one particularly hot summer’s day. Weak heart.” The corners of his lips turned down. “I always liked Pieten best. I miss him still.”
I generally dislike listening to noblemen wax nostalgic about themselves, but since he had an army and I had yet to figure some way out of this mess, I kept quiet.
“What about the fourth brother?” Kest asked. I didn’t bother to elbow him; it wouldn’t have done any good: Kest’s obsessive need to know the answer to completely pointless things vastly outweighs his survival instincts.
Rhetan didn’t seem to mind. “Astaniel? Ah, he did in fact become Margrave after my father died. He took the seat of Val Iramont at the age of fourteen and held it for nearly five years, every day of which he spent fearing that I was secretly planning to have him killed. He used to wake me up in the night, after our mother had retired for the evening. ‘I can see how you hunger for what is rightfully mine, little Rhetan,’ he would say, and hold a knife to my throat.” He frowned. “He could have killed me at any time, but he was so convinced that I had some devious plot against him that he feared my death would trigger his own.”
“And you killed him?” Kest asked.
“Good Gods, no. After a few years his constant paranoia made him so stressed that he too suffered a heart attack, in the middle of the night. They found him dead, his body lying across a table strewn with sheets of paper upon which he had listed his enemies, real and imagined. That’s when I became the Margrave. I was never a particularly bold warrior, nor even very clever, but I’ve always been patient. Patience is what gets you ahead in life.” He turned to Pheras, who was still waiting for his orders. “Take two dozen of ours below to man the oars and steer us back to shore. Have the galleon follow. Once we’re all back on dry land, have our doctor look to the injured. Afterward you and the others find something to eat at the palace—I’m sure my nephew won’t mind if you raid his stores.”
Evidalle looked as if he did mind, very much, but he was wise enough to let it pass. “The hospitality of Barsat awaits you, Uncle,” he managed sulkily.
Pheras nodded and ran back up to relay the orders, and during the hustle and bustle, Kest whispered, “Falcio, if we’re going to make a move, it has to be now, while Rhetan’s men are busy dealing with the boats.”
“What can we do?”
“If we get into position, we can jump over the side just before the barge reaches the dock. Evidalle’s wedding carriage is waiting there—you, Chalmers and I can unhitch the horses while Brasti provides covering fire. The odds aren’t great, but the four of us might—”
“What about her?” I asked, looking down at Lady Cestina’s barely conscious sister, leaning against Chalmers for support. The Lady Mareina shared her sister’s coloring and features, but her beauty was marred by extensive cuts and bruising and the effects of being half-starved. She was in no shape to be leaping over the side and running through the shallows, and even if she could, she’d never be fast enough to escape enemy fire.
Kest shook his head. “This comes down to moving between the ticks of a clock, Falcio. You know that. If we let anything slow us down, we’ll be dead before we reach the carriage.”
“You’d leave an innocent victim behind?” Chalmers whispered furiously.
“We won’t do her much good if we’re dead.”
“Keep silent a moment,” I said, surveying the scene aboard both the galleon and the wedding barge, searching for some opportunity that Kest might have missed. But he was right: Rhetan’s soldiers were disciplined and efficient, and far too numerous for any of our usual tricks. Even with some form of distraction, it would be all we could do to escape without hauling the half-conscious Lady Mareina with us. The young woman’s eyes caught mine; her fear was justified—and contagious. For a moment I worried she might try to make her own desperate run for it, even though she must have known she’d be dead before she hit the water. Perhaps that was preferable to being held captive by her sister and Margrave Evidalle.