“Well spoken,” Rimer said quietly.
“And now,” Lengyll said, “we’ll toast your arrival proper. And ye’ve had to wait too long already for a dip of punch. It’s dry as dust ye must be.”
He turned to the punchbowls and reached for the ladle in the larger and more ornate of the two, waving off the attendant, clearly wanting to honor them by serving them himself.
“Mr. Lengyll,” Roland said quietly. Yet there was a force of command in that voice; Fran Lengyll heard it and turned.
“The smaller bowl is soft punch, is it not?”
Lengyll considered this, at first not understanding. Then his eyebrow went up. For the first time he seemed to consider Roland and the others not as living symbols of the Affiliation and the Inner Baronies, but as actual human beings. Young ones.
Only boys, when you got right down to it.
“Aye?”
“Draw ours from that, if you’d be so kind.” He felt all eyes upon them now. Her eyes particularly. He kept his own firmly fixed on the rancher, but his peripheral vision was good, and he was very aware that Jonas’s thin smile had resurfaced.
Jonas knew what this was about already. Roland supposed Thorin and Rimer did, as well. These country mice knew a lot. More than they should, and he would need to think about that carefully later. It was the least of his concerns at the current moment, however.
“We have forgotten the faces of our fathers in a matter that has some bearing on our posting to Hambry.” Roland was uncomfortably aware that he was now making a speech, like it or not. It wasn’t the whole room he was
addressing—thank the gods for little blessings—but the circle of listeners had grown well beyond the original group. Yet there was nothing for it but to finish;
the boat was launched. “I needn’t go into details—nor would you expect them, I know—but I should say that we promised not to indulge in spirits during our time here. As penance, you see.”
Her gaze. He could still feel it on his skin, it seemed.
For a moment there was complete quiet in the little group around the punchbowls, and then Lengyll said: “Your father would be proud to hear ye speak so frank, Will Dearborn—aye, so he would. And what boy worth his salt didn’t get up to a little noise ‘n wind from time to time?” He clapped Roland on the shoulder, and although the grip of his hand was firm and his smile looked genuine, his eyes were hard to read, only gleams of speculation deep in those beds of wrinkles. “In his place, may I be proud for him?”
“Yes,” Roland said, smiling in return. “And with my thanks.”
“And mine,” Cuthbert said.
“Mine as well,” Alain said quietly, taking the offered cup of soft punch and bowing to Lengyll.
Lengyll filled more cups and handed them rapidly around. Those already holding cups found them plucked away and replaced with fresh cups of the soft punch.
When each of the immediate group had one, Lengyll turned, apparently intending to offer the toast himself. Rimer tapped him on the shoulder, shook his head slightly, and cut his eyes toward the Mayor. That worthy was looking at them with his eyes rather popped and his jaw slightly dropped. To Roland he looked like an enthralled playgoer in a penny seat; all he needed was a lapful of orange-peel.
Lengyll followed the Chancellor’s glance and then nodded.
Rimer next caught the eye of the guitar player standing at the center of the musicians. He stopped playing; so did the others. The guests looked that way, then back to the center of the room when Thorin began speaking. There was nothing ridiculous about his voice when he put it to use as he now did—it was carrying and pleasant.
“Ladies and gentlemen, my friends,” he said. “I would ask you to help me in welcoming three new friends—young men from the Inner Baronies, fine young men who have dared great distances and many perils on behalf of the Affiliation, and in the service of order and peace.”
Susan Delgado set her punch-cup aside, retrieved her hand (with some difficulty) from her uncle’s grip, and began to clap. Others joined in. The applause which
swept the room was brief but warm. Eldred Jonas did not, Roland noticed, put his cup aside to join in.
Thorin turned to Roland, smiling. He raised his cup. “May I set you on with a word, Will Dearborn?”
“Aye, so you may, and with thanks,” Roland said. There was laughter and fresh applause at his usage.
Thorin raised his cup even higher. Everyone else in the room followed suit; crystal gleamed like starpoints in the light of the chandelier.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you William Dearborn of Hemphill, Richard Stockworth of Pennilton, and Arthur Heath of Gilead.”
Gasps and murmurs at that last, as if their Mayor had announced Arthur Heath of Heaven.
“Take of them well, give to them well, make their days in Mejis sweet, and their memories sweeter. Help them in their work and to advance the causes which are so dear to all of us. May their days be long upon the earth. So says your Mayor.”
“SO SAY WE ALL!” they thundered back.
Thorin drank; the rest followed his example. There was fresh applause. Roland turned, helpless to stop himself, and found Susan’s eyes again at once. For a moment she looked at him fully, and in her frank gaze he saw that she was nearly as shaken by his presence as he was by hers. Then the older woman who looked like her bent and murmured something into her ear. Susan turned away, her face a composed mask . . . but he had seen her regard in her eyes. And thought again that what was done might be undone, and what was spoken might be unspoken.
8
As they passed into the dining hall, which had tonight been set with four long trestle tables (so close there was barely room to move between them), Cordelia tugged her niece’s hand, pulling her back from the Mayor and Jonas, who had fallen into conversation with Fran Lengyll.
“Why looked you at him so, miss?” Cordelia whispered furiously. The vertical line had appeared on her forehead. Tonight it looked as deep as a trench. “What ails thy pretty, stupid head?” Thy. Just that was enough to tell Susan that her aunt was in a fine rage.
“Looked at who? And how?” Her tone sounded right, she thought, but oh, her heart—
The hand over hers clamped down, hurting. “Play no fiddle with me, Miss Oh So Young and Pretty! Have ye ever seen that fine-turned row of pins before? Tell me the truth!”
“No, how could I? Aunt, you’re hurting me.”
Aunt Cord smiled balefully and clamped down harder. “Better a small hurt now than a large one later. Curb your impudence. And curb your flirtatious eyes.”
“Aunt, I don’t know what you—”
“I think you do,” Cordelia said grimly, pressing her niece close to the wood panelling to allow the guests to stream past them. When the rancher who owned the boathouse next to theirs said hello, Aunt Cord smiled pleasantly at him and wished him goodeven before turning back to Susan.
“Mind me, miss—mind me well. If I saw yer cow’s eyes, ye may be sure that half the company saw. Well, what’s done is done, but it stops now. Your time for such child-maid games is over. Do you understand?”
Susan was silent, her face setting in those stubborn lines Cordelia hated most of all; it was an expression that always made her feel like slapping her headstrong niece until her nose bled and her great gray doe’s eyes gushed tears.
“Ye’ve made a vow and a contract. Papers have been passed, the weird-woman has been consulted, money has changed hands. And ye’ve given your promise. If that means nothing to such as yerself, girl, remember what it’d mean to yer father.”
Tears rose in Susan’s eyes again, and Cordelia was glad to see them. Her brother had been an improvident irritation, capable of producing only this far too pretty womanchild … but he had his uses, even dead.
“Now promise ye’ll keep yer eyes to yourself, and that if ye see that boy coming, ye’ll swing wide—aye, wide’s you can—to stay out of his way.”
“I promise. Aunt,” Susan whispered. “I do.”
Cordelia smiled. She was really quite pretty when she smiled. “It’s well, then. Let’s go in. We’re being looked at. Hold my arm, child!”
Susan clasped her aunt’s powdered arm. They entered the room side by side, their dresses rustling, the sapphire pendant on the swell of Susan’s breast flashing, and many there were who remarked upon how alike they looked, and how well pleased poor old Pat Delgado would have been with them.
9
Roland was seated near the head of the center table, between Hash Renfrew (a rancher even bigger and blockier than Lengyll) and Thorin’s rather morose sister, Coral. Renfrew had been handy with the punch; now, as the soup was brought to table, he set about proving himself equally adept with the ale.