22
PROBLEMS MULTIPLY
Holt glanced over his shoulder. Mayfil stood among his men, shouting cleanup instructions.
“We must dispose of the bodies immediately,” barked the harbormaster. “They will putrefy within the hour.” He wrinkled his nose. “Already the stench is formidable. The fumes are poisonous. Take precautions against lengthy exposure. Shovel up the remains and transport them by wagon to an open space. Burn them, cart and all.”
The marione farmer’s son looked from the decaying quiss to the men who would have to dispose of the bodies and screwed his face into an expression of disgust. He turned his attention to Bardon.
“What’s so bad about being a halfling?”
Bardon forced himself to relax. “It opens the door for impolite people to ask prying questions.”
Holt laughed. “You’ve got no reason to take umbrage at my words, Squire. I’m a sort of halfling myself.”
N’Rae scowled at him. “How is that, Holt? Both your mother and father are mariones.”
He smiled at her, and Bardon saw her frown melt under the warmth of the young marione’s charming expression.
“My mother is a lady, and my father is a boor. Thus you have”—he used his hand to sweep down in front of him, indicating his own person—“a boor with beguiling manners.”
Keeping his face in the careful, noncommittal mask he found useful, Bardon waited. He felt certain that Holt would continue to press him. He was not mistaken.
“So, Squire, you are emerlindian and o’rant. Was your father the o’rant?”
Bardon’s jaw hurt. Underneath the calm expression, he raged. He’d been channeling the tension inward by grinding his teeth together. He relaxed and breathed, then answered in a level tone. “I have never been told.”
“Aha!” Holt smiled sympathetically at Bardon and then with charm at N’Rae. “You see, that is the problem. Not that uncouth fellows like me—rather half-uncouth, half-polished louts like me—ask questions, but that there are no answers to the questions. That would gall anyone. May I make an observation?” His eyes twinkled as he looked again at Bardon.
It would be such a pleasure to punch this young dorker in the nose. Bardon screwed the corner of his mouth down before countering, “Can I stop you?”
A good-natured laugh pealed from Holt’s throat. “I propose that you accept your mysterious background and build a persona around it. Use it to increase your appeal, your stature as a knight.”
It’s a wonder his nose is still straight. I think someone should have broken it for him years ago. Bardon cleaned his sword on a rag and sheathed it. “Holt, I don’t deliberately calculate actions to project an impression on the people I meet.”
“Of course you do.”
Bardon tightened his fists.
Holt chortled again. The sound grated on Bardon’s nerves.
“See?” said the marione. “You are doing it now. You are working to appear calm, when you really want to give me a sound thrashing and perhaps even toss me in the harbor.”
N’Rae’s head swiveled as she watched the two young men. Bardon saw her swallow and knew the prospect of a fight between two men she trusted frightened her.
He looked Holt in the eye. “Tossing you in the harbor is an extremely attractive idea. I hadn’t thought of it.” He let a small smile touch his lips. “But there is something fundamentally wrong with your analysis of my feelings. You see, I don’t endeavor to appear calm for those around to observe. I endeavor to be calm for my own benefit. You employ courtesy to make the way easier for yourself. I have been trained to employ courtesy to make the way easier for another.”
He offered his arm to N’Rae. “I have found Granny Kye. We still need to rescue your grandmother from the jail. Shall we approach Harbormaster Mayfil?”
She grabbed his arm and squeezed it. “I knew you would. At first I wanted to search the market. But Holt kept looking at things instead of people, and then it was so wet. I thought you might still be at the harbormaster’s office, so we came here.” She bounced on her toes. “Where is she? Is she all right?”
“She’s in the jail cell she’s supposed to be in. Earlier, she was in the prison laundry room—”
N’Rae held up a hand. “I can guess. Washing urchins and their clothes?”
Bardon laughed. “Exactly.”
They started toward a knot of men. Harbormaster Mayfil stood in the center.
“I still say,” Holt called after them, “that you should add your halfling status to your image of aspiring knight. Romance, glamour, mystique, all that. Take my advice, Squire. I’m a lot more familiar with the world than you are.”
Bardon stopped. He patted N’Rae’s hand resting on his arm. “Excuse me. This will only take a moment.”
He turned and walked back to Holt. The marione’s face took on a wary look. Without a word, the squire grabbed him by the front of his shirt and the back of his pants, lifted him into the air, and hurled him off the dock. The splash as he hit arced upward, and the water fell on the boards at Bardon’s feet. He put his hands on his hips and watched the churning water.
N’Rae ran to peer over the edge. “Oh, Bardon, what if there are still quiss swimming around down there?”
His head jerked up, and he looked at her.
Didn’t think of that. That’s what I get for acting on impulse.
Holt’s head broke the surface of the water. “Help! I can’t swim.” He sputtered.
“Bother!” exclaimed Bardon and picked up the bludgeon on a rope Holt had dropped. He slung the weapon over the edge of the dock. “Grab hold. I’m certainly not coming in after you.”
Up and down the wharf, men stopped what they were doing and came to watch. Holt latched on to the lifeline, and Bardon hauled him to the side. The marione climbed the rough pilings and cross timbers. Those above could hear him coughing and making guttural noises, snorting and cackling. Two men grabbed his arms and helped him over the edge. He lay on the wooden planks and laughed. He rolled and held his sides and roared. He wiped water out of his eyes, part from the sea and part his own tears.
Without knowing the source of his mirth, the men laughed as well. Bardon remembered one of Kale’s little dragons, Dibl. Dibl used humor to strengthen the questers. A shared joke brought men closer together. A laugh helped to heal both body and spirit. Seeing the funny side of a situation made the situation easier to bear. Bardon grinned at the memory.
“Coarse humor corrupts, but light laughter elevates.” Principle twenty-six.
He watched Holt try to control his laugher, and fail. N’Rae giggled beside him. Bardon laughed. He reached his hand down to Holt and helped the marione to his feet.
“We’re going to rescue Granny Kye,” he said. “Do you want to come with us?”
“Delighted to join you,” Holt answered with a bow. “I’m sorry I missed the hullabaloo this morning when she escaped their tidy little jail.”
“How did you know they have a tidy jail?”
“Oh, I’ve visited Ianna before.”
“And the jail?”
He nodded and winked. “And the jail.”
He offered N’Rae his arm at the same time Bardon did from the other side. She giggled, transferred the minneken’s basket to hang between Bardon and herself, and took both arms.
“I see now why Grandmother and Jue don’t trust you.”
“Jue?” Holt cocked his head at her.
“You,” she answered, coloring. “You as in Bardon. I see now why Grandmother and Bardon don’t trust you. But I still like you.”
“Thank you.”
“But now I don’t trust you either.”
He nodded his head. “Very wise of you, young lady. Never trust a scoundrel.”
Harbormaster Mayfil did not have time to go with them on their errand, but he assured them Magistrate Inkleen would still accommodate them. The magistrate’s secretary said he would not be available until after the day’s court session, which would be several hours.
“I want dry clothes,” said N’Rae after the clerk to the secretary showed them out the door. “And you two smell disgusting and look worse. We should have gone to the inn first.”
Bardon guided them past a group of businessmen crowded around a town crier reporting the attack of the quiss. “The idea was to get your grandmother and the children out of jail as quickly as possible.”
Holt chortled. “I somehow get the impression that Granny Kye is comfortable no matter where she is.”
N’Rae nodded. “She is, you know.”
Back at the inn, the mistress of the establishment firmly refused to launder the men’s blood-splattered clothes.
“I’ll have the stable hands burn them for you, but I won’t make my washermaids put their hands in a tub with the likes of that.”
Bardon felt better in a clean set of garments but decided he had better shop for something to replace the lost clothing before they boarded the Tobit Grander. Holt apparently had no problem producing something else to wear. N’Rae wore the second gown she had purchased in Norst.
She’ll need to go shopping as well. And Granny Kye will want new things for the children. Our purse is going to be depleted before we even set foot in the Northern Reach.
They arrived at the magistrate’s office at four and, therefore, had to sit politely through the afternoon ritual of umbering. Umbering was practiced all over Amara in different styles. In Wittoom, the small repast included fancy treats of small number. In Ordray, the break for nourishment looked more like a full meal. Here in Ianna, the slow, ceremonial serving emphasized the importance of relaxing rather than the food.
They drank heated juices and ate small daggarts and crisp, fresh vegetables cut and layered with a creamed cheese. Bardon’s appetite reflected a skipped noonmeal. The delicacies impressed N’Rae, and she asked many questions about the types of vegetables and the different ways they could be prepared.
“Goodness, girl,” said the magistrate with a laugh. “Where have you lived all your life?”
Bardon moved his foot under the table and managed to connect with her shin before she proclaimed she had lived with ropma. He was proud of her when she smoothly answered, “We lived deep in the country where there wasn’t a great variety of food, but still plenty to keep us healthy.”
Finally, they made their way through the busy streets to the jail. The office shone from its recent scrubbing. A new desk and chair replaced the battered table and stool. A decent young o’rant stood to give them assistance when they came through the door.
“Quite,” he answered stiffly when the magistrate asked him if he was aware of the mess of misunderstanding that the former jailers had managed to tangle around a simple matter.
“Good, then,” said Inkleen. “We will release the emerlindian woman and the children. She now understands the customs of our people and will not repeat her mistake.”
The young jailer didn’t know to whom he should offer the lone seat, the lady or the magistrate. Bardon saw the confusion on his face as he fingered the back of the chair. He caught the man’s eye and looked pointedly from the chair to N’Rae. The jailer’s face relaxed, and he nodded.
“Miss, would you like to sit while I go fetch your grandmother?”
Again, Bardon witnessed the training her mother must have given N’Rae even as they lived among the primitives.
N’Rae curtsied and turned to the elderly magistrate. “I do not wish to be seated. Magistrate Inkleen, would you like the chair?”
He nodded and sat in the humble wooden chair as if it were his elaborately carved seat behind his judge’s bench.
Bardon noted the jailer only had to go directly to the small room off to the side of the office to retrieve the key. After all the events of the day, the quiet interlude while they waited seemed too quiet and too long.
He heard laughing and giggling and the soft tread of bare feet. The six children seemed to be in high spirits. They made plenty of noise in the underground corridor. The jailer came first through the doorway from the stairs. The children poured in after him, and Granny Kye brought up the rear. In her arms, she held a baby. The children hushed and stared at the men.
“I thought you said six,” Holt said under his breath.
“I did,” answered Bardon.
“There are more than six.”
The squire nodded. “I counted. There are fifteen, not including the baby.”
“I can explain,” said Granny Kye.
“I’m sure you can.”
“Please do,” encouraged the magistrate, not bothering to keep the amused smile from his face.
“The six children had brothers, sisters, and friends.”
“I’m a cousin,” piped up a curly-headed moptop.
“And cousins,” added Granny Kye.
The same child tugged on the granny’s sleeve. “I think I am the only cousin.”
“And one cousin,” the old emerlindian corrected.
“And,” said the magistrate, “when torrents of rain made the day uncomfortable on the streets, they broke into jail.”
“You are so right.” Granny Kye beamed. “You must be the magistrate, since you are the one with such a clear way of thinking.”
Inkleen nodded his head wisely. “And the other two men who have come to your rescue are known to you, so they could not be the magistrate.”
“Yes, that too.”
“Granny Kye, I hereby bestow upon you the charge of these children.”
The emerlindian’s smile grew wider.
“But—,” said Bardon.
“You,” interrupted Magistrate Inkleen, “are a resourceful young man. You’ll manage.” He stood. “There now, that is settled. I wish you a pleasant journey.” The man left.
Bardon’s posture remained rigid as he recounted the children.
N’Rae picked up one of the smallest urchins.
Holt leaned against the wall and howled with laughter.