The Writing on the Wall CH9

Once we hit the main road, everyone's moods improved.  The skies were clear, as if the rain of the previous day had been a fluke rather than a sign of summer.  I had already given up on my idea of imparting wisdom to Soterios.  His life in Zurhykeh had been more useful and well-spent than mine had been.  It was embarrassing to realise that for all the time I had spent out of it, I had nothing valid to offer.

He'd tried asking me questions about the city and what was expected of the people who lived there, but I didn't actually know.  Not in finite terms that would have meant anything.

It didn't help that he asked absurdly practical things, such as what jobs were generally available or what the cost of living was.  Rather than turn to Demetrius or even Noni for help, I slumped my shoulders and said, "I guess I have been a bit spoiled.  I attend university."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that her life is paid for by someone else.  She doesn't even choose her own food at market."

I made a face at Demetrius, hoping it was ugly and fierce.  He didn't so much as flinch.  "Students in my department are not allowed to go to market.  It isn't my fault."

"Does it really matter?"  Perhaps trying to make peace, or still trying to make a match, Noni stood between Demetrius and me, her arms folded over her chest.  "I've been to market dozens of times.  There's nothing important goes on there that you can't guess at if you really tried."  She said this with an encouraging glance at me.

Maybe I would have appreciated it more if I had not felt it was rather a blow to my imagination that I had not just come up with something like that.  "In any case," I said, desperate to steer the topic away, "the one who really has control over your destiny is--"

"Me, I know."  Soterios folded his arms behind his head and walked facing the sky.  He was smiling gormlessly.  "My dad was always big on saying that sort of thing."

"Not to step on your dad's toes," I said, unable to quite squash a smile of my own, "but that wasn't what I was going to say."

"Wasn't it?"

Unfortunately, I did not deter myself from my original thought.  It would have gone better for us all, in the end.  At least, it would have reflected better on my judgement and attitude.  "Sorry, no.  You do have plenty of say, to be sure, but this one here is more than a little in charge of you."

Thankfully, I stopped myself from adding any remarks about puppies, eager, sad-eyed, or otherwise.  Demetrius sped up to bring his pace even with ours.  After Noni had succeeded in getting him to let me travel without restraint, he had insisted with silent, piggish stubbornness that he stay a step or two behind.  Keeping an eye on me.  Lout.

He grunted a reluctant affirmation.  "There's plenty of work to be had everywhere," he said.  "My father might give you a government posting if you ask for it.  It wouldn't be terribly important, but I can promise that the pay would be nice."

This sort of talk was all well and good for Soterios, but somehow he didn't seem terribly interested in it.  "I would be grateful,"  he said, his head still tilted skyward.

I nudged him with my elbow.  "What's up there that's so fascinating?"

"Possibilities," he said, quickly, like a reflex.  "I'm sorry, I'm being rude."  He turned his head back down and offered me a blinding smile that made me feel awkward and hot.

Noni and her foolish notions could not possibly be that infectious.  There was no security anywhere to be seen, unless I managed to slip away.  Marrying anyone meant paperwork, now we were out of the village.  Paperwork meant government, no matter how you cut it up and tried to serve it as chips.

Still.  Once the thought had entered, I couldn't stop seeing an unskilled light of hope or dreadful flirtation whenever I met Soterios's eye.  I looked away, mimicking his gaze at the bright blue of the sky.  It was lying worse than I ever did, still pretending at spring when the calendar would have us preparing for the rage of summer.

My foot caught on a stone.  The painful reminder that I had no shoes also brought with it irrefutable evidence that we were on a patch that I did not know.  When I had left Zurhykeh, I'd met a carriage at the road.  We had well and truly passed the road now.

"This all brings up rather an interesting point though, you must admit," I said.  Twisting to glance meaningfully at Demetrius, I wagged my eyebrows, just enough that he could miss it in the natural bounce of my uneven bare footsteps.  "What is it you plan to do with any of us?"

He sidestepped over to me like a crab.  I began walking backwards.  "There's a fine question," he grumbled.  "You've no call to--"

"I have every right to ask."  My temper threatened to light, but I held it in check.  No one had been saying anything, but I couldn't hold my tongue any longer.  He had no great age, authority, nor even a bushy beard.  As whelpish as any of us travelling across this road, and he was completely in charge of each of our destinies.

More than unfair, it was stupid.

Mine at least made sense.  I was a fugitive and he was playing at hound dog.  "If you take me back, your father will have me killed."

"He would never!  My father--"

"Is bound by law, like any other of his title."

We had stopped, though Noni and Soterios had realised it a bit late.  They did not turn back and close the distance, however.  "If it was so simple, then I could have just executed you myself and have done with you and your obstinate idiocy."  Being cross did not help Demetrius to look any more capable.  Without the veneer of a stoic ranger, he could have been any argumentative university student.

Perhaps it was not right of me, but I did my best to capitalise on this.  "Why don't you?  You have your big manly knife there.  Cut out my heart and deliver it."  More to antagonise him than anything, I thrust my chest out and pointed.  I knew I looked like a petulant child, but fear of death pinned at a close but unknowable distance did funny things to the mind.

To my abject horror and astonishment, he snatched my wrist and drew the dagger.  Its edge, smooth and shining in the sun, sent my mind plummeting back to my initial meeting with Demetrius.  His face was drawn and tired, not angry, but still free of mercy.  "Is that what you want?  Such an easy way out.  Cowardice would suit you, all the running away you do."

"Running isn't cowardice.  It's survival."

"Cowards refuse to fight.  You were given a way out."

I started to insist again that I had been tricked, but I already knew that that particular argument would hold water like a cloth bag.  Fairness from a king's man was like seeds in a pomegranate.  Readily accessible if you could get to it and the only desirable part, but no less easy to digest for all that.

The fire in my chest guttered and died.  If I could only go back and lie better, or if I had refused to go back into the study...  Useless, idle thoughts.

A rumbling and shouting rose out of the south.  We all turned to see a cloud of dust and horses approach.  The horses were only an illusion, of course.  Carriages and hansoms had been briefly in style a year ago, I remembered seeing them from the university balconies, but that nonsense had passed by last winter.

Demetrius's attention did not waver from me.  He spared less than a moment for the illusory coach before turning back to me, his mouth already open to say something more.  Probably patronise me, or maybe to ask a question.

He didn't get the chance.  With a sound almost exactly like real horses, the illusory coach screeched to a halt, and a burly man exited the vehicle.  The illusion dropped before he had even opened the door, revealing a luxurious automobile built for speed.  The burly man wore a uniform decorated with medals and military paraphernalia.

My legs reacted immediately, as if I had spent my entire life running rather than a sizeable portion of the last few days.  Of course, Demetrius responded in kind.  To any casual observer, the two of us had been at this game of chase for many years.  Neither his scent nor mine had improved.  Nor had Noni's temper upon seeing the two of us standing far too close.

But before she could start in on another lecture about propriety or my reputation, the burly man had run up to us.  He bowed to Demetrius, tipped his hat to Noni, and after a brief registration of surprise, nodded to Soterios.  For me, he had only a contemptuous glower.

"Young Trevino," he said, bowing again.  Didn't people ever get tired of all this bobbing about?  "It is well I have found you first."

Though a smile ghosted across Demetrius's dirty face, it vanished at these words.  "Why is that, general?"

In spite of the fact that he had been riding in an automobile, the apparent general seemed out of breath.  His face was even red.  "After your disappearance from the manor grounds, there was some... confusion.  I'm afraid it moved up the ranks, and--"

"If you would rush straight to the point, I'd be much obliged."

This came from me.  It shocked the poor general, but I didn't care.  Whatever my dreadful fate, I was going to have a last hurrah upsetting everyone in a uniform.  Especially the ones who looked at me as though I had just slapped his granny.

Another dirty look, but this only lasted a millisecond or two.  "There is a warrant for your arrest as well, Trevino."

Demetrius ought to have exploded.  It would have been far more interesting than what he actually did.  For a moment, he stood there, dumbfounded.  Then he laughed.  "Don't be absurd," he said.  But I could feel the uncertainty in him.  He was too close for me to miss it, the fool.

"Ludicrous, I know, but Dr Cordet has convinced several council members that you aided this... young lady... in her escape."  He eyeballed me so that I felt quite compelled to curtsey sweetly, and did so in a very courtly manner.  Although, I would not have been surprised if he had really been attempting to point out the fact that Demetrius looked less like a police officer restraining a fugitive and more like a friend protecting a dear one.  Couldn't he have just stepped back?  His was the reputation being examined, not mine.

Of course he didn't.  "I did no such thing."  He stood as still as as statue, unaware of the picture he made.  Fool, idiot, dunderhead.  No wonder his father had matched him to Noni without his consent, he needed her good sense to protect and correct the image he conveyed.  If he'd been my son, I would have made him a ranger in the backyard as well.

The general removed his silly hat and wrung it in his hands.  Like Grandmaster Trevino, he was a large man covered in hair, but his was trimmed more.  Nervous energy appeared to course through him, though it was plain to see that it was not on his account in the slightest.  His eyes darted from each of us back to his car, primarily making the journey from car to Demetrius and looping.  I almost wanted to help him, he looked so like a kindly father.

Not like mine, obviously, but a kindly father all the same.  That was something to be said for someone, wasn't it?

"No, indeed you would not," he said, chuckling a little.  The sound died soon after it began.  "But come now, I've too many subordinates running about my tail like eager dogs.  You know how popular Dr Cordet is among my men, they'll believe her over you in a heartbeat."

For a second, I thought that Demetrius was going to go on being stupid and insist on having this conversation out in the open.  That might have worked out well for me.  I shifted my feet, taking the step away from him that he had so far refused or forgotten to take on his own.

Sadly, this had the opposite effect that I wanted.  He drew a shaky breath and jerked at my arm, propelling me towards the general.  I passed hands like a tossed coin, landing tail-side up as the general lifted me into the air.  He carried me like a sack of potatoes.  The only recession of the indignity was that he rested a hand on my back and pinned my ankles together.  As far as holding positions go, there were worse.

Not that this was a good one in and of itself.  I traced a sigil on his back, something that should have made a fire start, but it didn't work.  There was no reason that it should have, but hope was a funny old thing.

My face was turned the right way round that I could see Demetrius organise Noni and Soterios into following after him.  He lead them like a small hunting party that was bringing back a buck.  Noni argued bitterly, gesturing to me often and violently, while Soterios, the dear little thing, dashed up to speak to me.

He trembled, possibly from a sort of passion, or just because being close to the general was intimidating as speaking to a priest.  "Are you all right?"  Then he gave himself a light smack on the forehead with the heel of his hand.  "Sorry, that was stupid."

"Less stupid than I feel," I said.  "But I'm not injured any more than I was this morning."  I tapped the general's shoulder and said in my higher, rather tinny voice--he really was a very, very tall, broad man--"See here, you are a decent sort, are you not?"

"Miss," he said, through his nose, "I am a general in the king's army.  It is outlined in my duties that I follow a strict code of chivalry at all times."

"Thank you, that's all I wanted to know."  It wasn't, but it made Soterios relax.  That much was all I could do at this point.  I didn't want Noni to relax, holding out for some assistance on her part was my only chance at this juncture.  Hampered even from trying to run.

I was placed into the backseat of the car with care that belied my sack-of-tubers treatment and incidentally surprised me out of an attempt to run back out.  In the end, it didn't make a difference.  Soterios was shuffled in after me, followed by Noni and then Demetrius soon enough.

At first, no one spoke.  The general had yet to climb into the front seat, and the driver was busy firing up the contained magic to draw up the illusion of horse and carriage again.  Such a silly thing, but all marks of status had their moments.

Once the general was inside though, the entire crowd of us erupted into speech.  The only one who remained silent was me.  I was beyond saving, I felt.

But Noni leapt to my defence at once, while the general tried to calm her and simultaneously answer Demetrius's questions about his own accusations and his bloody father.  Soterios tried to defend me, picking up from what Noni said, apparently.  Even the driver started shouting at everyone to shut up or he would drive off the road quite on purpose.

I sat in the middle of this chaos, slouching, arms crossed.  The door, which I had already tried, was locked with mechanics and magic both, and when I had tried very hard, it had stung and burned my fingers.  With that avenue very clearly closed to me, I forced myself to sit still and lean on Soterios to avoid touching the door again.  Just in case it was temperamental.

This interrupted his ire-filled and ignorant defence of me, but it was just as well that it did.  A moment later, the driver succeeded in putting an end to the shouting by swerving to the shoulder, then back onto the road.

He mumbled an apology to the general, then resumed his earlier calm.  If I looked carefully, I could see that his ears changed colour much the way that Demetrius's did.  It made me want to like him.

The general forgave him with a magnanimous air, then twisted in his seat to talk to Demetrius.  "It is no affair of mine what happened," he said firmly.  "As far as I am concerned, you are above reproach, whatever you did."

"Thank you, General Thornbehr, but that isn't necessary.  I pursued this young lady after she ran, as your men did, and she--"

"She ran away because she has a right to live like anyone!" Noni snapped.  "No, don't try to shush me, Demetrius Trevino.  Nor you, General Thornbehr.  Let me speak or I shall--I shall tickle your driver with poison ivy!"

The way she said it, I did not doubt that she could either summon it out of nothing or that she carried some about in her pocket for just such an occasion.  Even the general shut up, if only to appease his driver, he of the now quite red ears.

"Dr Cordet wants Athena to do something for her, right?  Then she ought to have precise terms and an agreement that does not end with, 'oh and if you don't do this for me, I get to kill you."  Hands on her hips, Noni took up more space and filled the automobile with her chirpy, birdlike voice.  "If she can't condescend to be that civil, then my father will have his say."

Quiet overtook us again.  Soterios saved me having to look the ignorant one by asking, "Is he important?"

"He's a judge," she said, pride evident from her round nose to her stubby neck.  "No one knows the law better than my father."

Demetrius sighed and turned to look out the window.  "I supposed that'll be the best of it," he said.  "Not even Dr Cordet would argue with a baron."

My estimation of Noni sky-rocketed.  Not because she was a baron's daughter, but because she placed his position as judge in the superior light.  And she was still on my side, even with General Thornbehr staring her down as if she were a rabbit that would not clear the road.