Sethbert grinned, then raised his voice in false anger. “What! No peach wine? That is inexcusable, servitor.”
More whistling and a series of clicks. A gout of steam shot out of the exhaust grate. “Deepest apologies, Lord Sethbert-”
Sethbert clapped again. “Your answer is unacceptable. You will find me chilled peach wine even if you must walk all the way to Sadryl and back with it. Do you understand?”
Rudolfo watched. The Lady Jin Li Tam did not. She fidgeted and worked hard to hide the embarrassment in the redness of her cheeks, the spark of anger in her eyes.
The servitor set down the tray and carafe. “Yes, Lord Sethbert.” It moved toward the tent flap.
Sethbert chuckled and nudged the lady with his elbow. “You could take lessons there,” he said. She offered a weak smile as false as his earlier anger.
Then Sethbert clapped and whistled. “Servitor, I’ve changed my mind. The cherry wine will suffice.”
The metal man poured the wine and left for the kitchen tent to check on the first course.
“What a fabulous device,” Rudolfo said.
Sethbert beamed. “Splendid, isn’t it?”
“However did you come by it?”
“It was… a gift,” Sethbert said. “From the Androfrancines.”
The look on Jin Li Tam’s face said otherwise.
“I thought they were highly guarded regarding their magicks and machines.” Rudolfo said, raising his glass.
Sethbert raised his own. “Perhaps they are,” he said, “with some.”
Rudolfo ignored the unsubtle insult. The metal man returned with a tray of soup bowls full of steaming crab stew. He positioned the bowls in front of each of them. Rudolfo watched the careful precision. “Truly fabulous,” he said.
“And you can get them to do most anything… if you know how,” Sethbert said.
“Really?”
The Overseer clapped. “Servitor, run scroll seven three five.”
Something clicked and clanked. Suddenly, the metal man spread his arms and broke into song, his feet moving lightly in a bawdy dance step while he sang, “My father and my mother were both Androfrancine brothers or so my aunty Abbot likes to say…” The song went from raunchy to worse. When it finished, the metal man bowed deeply.
The Lady Jin Li Tam blushed. “Given the circumstances of our meeting,” she said, “I think that was in poor taste.”
Sethbert shot her a withering glare, then smiled at Rudolfo. “Forgive my consort. She lacks any appreciation for humor.”
Rudolfo watched her hands white-knuckling a napkin, his brain suddenly playing out potentials that were coming together. “It does seem odd that the Androfrancines would teach their servitors a song of such… color.”
She looked up at him. Her eyes held a plea for rescue. Her mouth drew tight.
“Oh, they didn’t teach it that song. I did. Well, my man did.”
“Your man can create scripts for this magnificent metal man?”
Sethbert spooned stew into his mouth, spilling it onto his shirt. He spoke with his mouth full. “Certainly. We’ve torn this toy of mine apart a dozen times over. We know it inside and out.”
Rudolfo took a bite of his own stew, nearly gagging on the strong sea flavor that flooded his mouth, and pushed the bowl aside. “Perhaps,” he said, “you’ll loan your man to me for a bit.”
Sethbert’s eyes narrowed. “Whatever for, Rudolfo?”
Rudolfo drained his wineglass, trying to rid his mouth of the briny taste. “Well, I seem to have inherited a metal man of my own. I should like to teach him new tricks.”
Sethbert’s face paled slightly, then went red. “Really? A metal man of your own?”
“Absolutely. The sole survivor of Windwir, I’m told.” Rudolfo clapped his hands and leaped to his feet. “But enough talk of toys. There is a beautiful woman here in need of a dance. And Rudolfo shall KRud leoffer her such if you’ll be so kind as to have your metal man sing something more apropos.”
She stood despite Sethbert’s glare. “In the interest of state relations,” she said, “I would be honored.”
They swirled and leaped around the tent as the metal man sang an upbeat number, banging on his metal chest like a drum. Rudolfo’s eyes carefully traveled his partner, stealing glances where he could. She had a slim neck and slim ankles. Her high breasts pushed against her silk shirt, jiggling just ever so slightly as she moved with practiced grace and utter confidence. She was living art and he knew he must have her.
As the song drew to a close, Rudolfo seized her wrist and tapped a quick message into it. A sunrise such as you belongs in the East with me; and I would never call you consort.
She blushed, cast down her eyes, and tapped back a response that did not surprise him at all. Sethbert destroyed the Androfrancines; he means you harm as well.
He nodded, smiled a tight smile, and released her. “Thank you, Lady.”
Sethbert looked at Rudolfo through narrow eyes, but Rudolfo made a point from that moment forward of looking at the Overseer’s Lady rather than his host. Dinner passed with excruciating slowness while banter fell like a city-dweller’s footfall on the hunt. Rudolfo noticed that at no point did Sethbert bring up the destruction of Windwir or the metal man his Gypsy Scouts had found.
Sethbert’s lack of words spoke loudest of all.
Rudolfo wondered if his own did the same.
Neb
Quiet voices woke Neb from his light sleep. He lay still in the wagon, trying hard not to even breathe. The night air was heavy with the smell of smoke mingled with Evergreen.
“I heard General O’Sirus say the Overseer is mad,” one voice said.
A snort. “As if that’s anything new.”
“Do you think it’s true?”
“Do I think what’s true?”
A pause. “Do you think he destroyed Windwir?”
Neb heard the sound of cloth rustling. “More likely they destroyed themselves. You know what they say about Androfrancine curiosity. Gods Kriof conly know what they found digging about in the Churning Wastes.” Neb heard the soldier draw phlegm down and spit. “Probably Old Magick… Blood Magick.”
For all their obstinacy toward unsanctified children, the Androfrancines did one thing for them very well. One thing that-apart from the wealthiest of the landed and lords-no one else did for their children: They gave them the best education the world could offer.
For as long as he could remember, Neb had spent most of his days in the Great Library, usually under the care of an acolyte assigned to a group of boys as a part of his own education. The Arch-Scholar Rydlis said it best: The path to learning lies in teaching. And the path to teaching lies in answering the questions of a child.
Neb knew this story very well. The Age of Laughing Madness was brought about by Blood Magick. And part of the charter of P’Andro Whym’s followers-codified hundreds of years after their venerated founder had died, nearly five hundred years since the onset of the Laughing Madness-was to keep both magick and science under a watchful eye. The Rites of Kin-Clave had sprung from that same dark time on the edge of histories, forming a labyrinth of ritual and social expectation that twisted and turned back on itself with all the mystery of the greatest Whymer Mazes. Blood Magick was expressly forbidden. Earth Magick was only tolerated during time of war, and never used by nobility. At least not with their own hands.
It made sense. Blood Magick had felled the only home he’d ever had. Such a kind that had not been seen in the Named Lands from the days the Homeseekers had migrated in from the dust storms of the deep south. Such a kind that had not been seen since Xhum Y’Zir, enraged at the murder of his seven sons by P’Andro Whym and his Scientist Scholars, had turned the Old World into the Churning Wastes.
Neb wondered if maybe he couldn’t speak now because he’d been driven mad. But then he wondered if the mad could contemplate their possible insanity.
The soldiers moved off and Neb sat up. There’d be no more sleep for him tonight. The stars overhead were swollen, hanging low and heavy in the hazy sky.