Dirk didn’t bother answering—he kissed her instead.
When they parted and he caught his breath, he explained, “I knew that I couldn’t possibly be worthy of you.”
Magda nodded, with a self-satisfied smile. “Yes,” she said. “I think that is an excellent way for you to feel. But do not let it grow too strong, sir.” And she kissed him again. Somewhere in the midst of it, as his breathing grew heavier, he began to believe that he might have a chance of courting her, after all.
When they parted, Magda said, “Worthy or not, you should have at least a bit of audacity.”
“So much audacity as to ask for your hand in marriage?” Dirk asked.
Magda tilted her head to the side, considering the question. Then she nodded. “Yes. Perhaps even so much audacity as that.”
Slowly, Dirk knelt, still holding her hands. He hid the wince at the pain of his wound and asked, “Most beautiful Magda, I’m only a poor wanderer, but I’m a genuine knight, and I’ll work as hard at staying as I have at wandering. Will you marry me? ”
“Yes,” she breathed, then helped him stand again so that he could wrap her in his arms for a very long kiss indeed.
Within the Fair Folk encampment, there was some revelry, but it was far more subdued, as though they weren’t sure they had won a victory. Gar had no difficulty hearing the duke’s words as they sat in satin camp chairs under a silken canopy at the door of the duke’s pavilion, with old wine between them on an intricately carved table of dark wood made three hundred years before.
The duke looked up sharply at Gar’s last statement. “Surely you do not believe that the Milesians could ever match our weapons!”
“Not easily or quickly,” Gar agreed. “You and your beam projectors will be a deterrent for a while, able to keep the peace, perhaps long enough for the bosses to begin to like the taste of the prosperity they gain when they don’t have to spend three-quarters of their income on their armies. But there will be some fighting, my lord. Many of the bosses will take your interference in their affairs as a challenge, and will start attacking you. If even one of the Fair Folk is killed in battle, they’ll realize that you are as human as they.”
“So! I had wondered why you felt we must abolish war for them!” the duke said. “I know why I wish it—since we have once come forth in force to judge between armies, they will expect us to do so again. It could become quite tedious, hearing every grievance of neighbor against neighbor, and knowing always that the truth of it is simply that one boss wanted another’s land and people. Far easier to bring forth our beam cannon and blast them all to atoms if they dare to fight one another again!”
“That will do for a while,” Gar agreed. “Do it too often, though, and they will learn that your only strength is your ‘magical’ weaponry. Then the bosses will start trying to develop their own.”
“They cannot!” the duke spat. “They lack the knowledge, they lack even the tools to make the tools!”
“Oh, it might take a hundred years or more,” Gar agreed, “but the knowledge that it could be done would be an amazingly sharp spur, and they’d develop defenses as impregnable as your domes first, then go on to making their own laser weapons. Some of them might even have the old science books squirreled away.”
The duke’s eyes flashed, and he hissed, “I wish I had never listened to your poisoned advice!”
“But you did,” Gar countered, “and it’s too late for you to retreat into your Hills now.”
The duke replied with a spate of curses that Gar either had to admire, or savagely return. Under the circumstances, he chose admiration, and listened to the steady stream of invective, marveling at the duke’s originality and gift for metaphor. When His Grace ran down, Gar said mildly, “I can see that you must be a student of literature, my lord, for it has given you great skill in your use of language. Still, I think you have very little to regret, or to fear. Look at those two couples out there, strolling arm in arm in the moonlight.” He nodded toward the young folk in question.
The duke turned and looked, seeing Cort and Desiree in earnest conversation that ended in a very long kiss, while not too far away, a tall man of the Fair Folk walked with a woman from Quilichen. “She is not so young as all that,” the duke said sourly.
“Nor is your man,” Gar returned. “Of course, this woman is still single, despite her maturity, because she is too tall to attract a husband, despite her beauty—and your warrior is single because Fair Folk seldom wed. Nonetheless, both are taking pleasure in one another’s company.”
“What of it?” the duke snapped. “The Fair Folk have always taken pleasure of the Milesians when it suited them—most particularly of the Milesian women!”
“Then the Fair Folk have always been open to the Milesians in one way at least,” Gar said, “and are the Fair Men completely indifferent to the children they sire outside the Hill?”
“Of course not! If the child is fair enough, mother and babe are brought within the Hill until the child is grown. Then the woman is sent on her way with a gift of gold.”
Gar felt sorry indeed for the Milesian women thus transformed into glorified wet nurses and nannies for their own babies, and probably scorned by their Fair Folk lovers after the first year or so, then cast off without a thought. “What if the baby isn’t so beautiful as to be brought into the Hill?”
“Then the father gives the woman a gift of gold, and now and again goes by night to be sure his child is well treated. Usually, with Fair Folk gold in her pocket, the woman has no difficulty in attracting suitors.”
Again, Gar felt a pang for the women who had probably fallen in love with the tall and charismatic men, only to be virtually deserted even before their babies were born, then condemned to marry men who didn’t love them, but wanted their dowries. “Either way, my lord, and even more in the second, the Fair Folk have concerned themselves with the fates of Milesians for many generations.” Again, he nodded at the tall townswoman. “Can you be sure she is not of the Fair Folk?”
“That one? We know she is,” the duke said. “She is the granddaughter of a Fair Man who is now dead—Geiroln, his name was.”
“Then you even keep track of their genealogy,” Gar said, “yet you tell me you’re indifferent to the fates of the Milesians.”
The duke flushed. “It is one thing to stay aware of the life-progress of individuals, and quite another to take a hand in their governance.”
“There’s really no other way to be sure of their well-being,” Gar said quietly, “and with the Fair Folk openly abroad in the land, I think you’ll find that such bondings occur far more frequently. The Fair Folk can increase as much as they wish now—they no longer need to limit their reproduction according to the capacities of their Hollow Hills.”
“Yes,” the duke said bitterly, “and we will dilute our blood in doing so! You have condemned me to having ugly descendants!”
“Those mortals don’t look particularly ugly,” Gar observed.
The duke looked again and nodded, frowning. “Perhaps … after all, Fair Folk would be attracted to only the best and most beautiful of Milesians…”
“And will find themselves far more concerned with the fates of their offspring,” Gar concluded. “In fact, some Fair Folk might even wish to stay with their Milesian mates for life.”
“Unnatural!” the duke scoffed.
“Only to Fair Folk,” Gar said, unperturbed. “But with so many of your people outside the Hollow Hills, you will have to take a hand in governing the Milesians simply to protect your own—and to make sure no soldier kills a Fair Man.”
“I knew you should have frozen the instant I saw you!”
“So did some of your women,” Gar returned. “But you will have to involve yourselves with the Milesians most carefully, for the bosses will band together against you, and will form their own council to coordinate them in their opposition. If you lead all the free towns in leaguing together, you can outnumber them and outweigh them.”