In The Darkest Midnight Read online

  “I’ll need to steal Sodrin from you for a few hours, Radimar,” the nobleman said and turned to Sodrin. “His Majesty has invited us to a private dinner with three other families.”

  Sodrin’s shoulders slumped and his eyes rolled. “Let me guess. At least one of them has a daughter or two on the marriage market. I’ll get my things.” He slunk away, a sullen bow to his back as he crossed the lists to retrieve his armor and weaponry.

  Uhlfrida’s small smile was both amused and sympathetic. He returned his attention to Radimar. “You understand, Radimar, that these things are just a different kind of list or battlefield and the opponents are often softer and far more dangerous.”

  Radimar chuckled. “Understood, my lord. I’ll just work him harder tomorrow to make up for the lost time. Maybe his sister’s company can lighten the ordeal for him.”

  Uhlfrida’s smile melted away. “She won’t be there and will thank me for that favor.” His slumped shoulders and his disappointed sigh echoed those of his son. “I never really had much hope Jahna would marry. Sodrin will be the one to carry on our line. This scribe business is a good alternative for her, though I know her mother would be disappointed had she lived.”

  Radimar was saved from giving some noncommittal reply by Sodrin’s return and glum “I’m ready.” Radimar bid father and son farewell and good luck, reminding Sodrin that the evening’s upcoming celebrations were no excuse for arriving late to the lists the following morning.

  He watched them leave, seeing not them but Jahna, her eyes bright with anticipation and excitement at presenting her work to Dame Stalt. He tried to imagine her as a nobleman’s wife and couldn’t. She was sixteen, and while young, within the age range many considered acceptable for marriage. Radimar himself knew several couples who married while both were the same or close to the same age as Jahna and Sodrin.

  A mental cataloguing of those Beladine noblemen looking for a wife assured Radimar that Uhlfrida’s support of his daughter joining the Archives as an apprentice was the best of ideas. He couldn’t think of a single name on that list worthy of Jahna Uhlfrida.

  He spent the remainder of the short day and part of the evening with the royal guard after receiving invitations to drink, game and swap stories of the various fights and battles they had gotten into. It was an exercise in good-natured one-upmanship, brought to a pinnacle by one tipsy guard’s assurances he had faced down a dragon with a broomstick and won.

  Radimar left them to their revelry after that, eager to clear his ale-fogged senses with several gulps of cold night air. The snow-heavy clouds had rolled in again, promising a steady snowfall by morning. People eddied and flowed around him as he stood at one edge of the bailey, their laughter and conversation filling the air as they strolled or raced to the various dances in play throughout the palace grounds and on two of the upper loggias. The smells of roasting food and baked goods filled the air, and the numerous torches blazing throughout the palace grounds made one forget the sun had already set hours earlier.

  He spotted Jahna hovering on the far periphery of the circle which formed the Maiden Flower dance. She wore her favorite cloak, a sage-green garment with a generous hood in which to hide her face and wide cuffs so she could tuck her arms into the sleeves to warm her hands.

  Radimar purchased two goblets of wine from a nearby vintner’s temporary stall and navigated a path through the milling crowd toward her. She stiffened as he drew closer but immediately relaxed when she recognized her visitor.

  He stood next to her, offering one of the goblets. She took it with a thank you and a quick smile before turning her attention back to the dancers as more rushed to join the ring, creating a colorful pattern of a five-pointed star inside a circle. The gathering crowd settled into a waiting hush as the musicians nearby played quick notes, and those who participated adopted poses in anticipation of the dance’s start.

  The first notes sent the dancers into a slow twirl that gained speed and complexity as the song progressed. The dancers spun and arched, weaving in and out of the pattern in perfect synchrony, flowing skirts like flower petals blossoming to the rhythm of string and drum and flute.

  Radimar took his eye off the scene to glance at Jahna. A sick feeling settled in his gut at the yearning look on her face as she watched beside him, one foot tapping to the music’s quick beat. This bright spark of a girl hid her light in the depths of her hood and the dusty rooms of the Archives, longing to be part of the colorful ebb and flow of life around her but afraid of the cruelties it could so easily inflict.

  When the dance ended, the crowd roared its approval, clapping and laughing and calling for more from the musicians who took up another tune, one everyone could dance to if they desired.

  Jahna turned to Radimar, a wide smile curving her mouth. “The Maiden Flower dance is my very favorite of all the Delyalda dances,” she proclaimed. “I think I could watch it year after year and never grow tired of it.”

  He clinked goblets with her in a silent toast to the dance. “They do look like flowers in a garden.” He wondered if she wore similar colorful skirts under her cloak and if they fanned out in the same flower petal design in the spin and twirl of a dance.

  The dancing now was less ritualized and danced by both men and women in couples or small groups. They swung each other in their arms, the more adventurous men tossing their shrieking partners in the air only to catch them with a dramatic flourish before tipping them back to the ground.

  “Have you ever danced the Maiden Flower dance?”

  She gave him a brief, pained smile. “No. I’m not very good at it, and if you misstep, you throw off the entire pattern. Only the best dancers dance Maiden Flower.”

  The musicians segued from one tune to the next without stopping, this one only a touch more sedate than the last. The surge and fire of the dances coursed through Radimar’s blood.

  She gasped when he grabbed her free hand and began pulling her in the direction of a hidden place where the music could still be heard but the crowd seemed far away. “Come with me.”

  She jogged behind him, unresisting, as they wove through rivers of people and trekked between islands of vendor stalls set up for the festival. The light dimmed as the torches thinned, until they traveled through a heavier darkness clotted with shadows splintered in spots by moonlight.

  Radimar didn’t stop until they reached rusted gates entwined with the withered vines of dead or dying ivy. Beside him, Jahna clapped her hands, a delighted glitter in her eyes he could clearly see, even in the broken darkness.

  “I thought I was the only one to know of this garden.”

  Radimar had discovered this abandoned sanctuary the previous year in his exploration of the palace grounds.

  What had once been manicured landscaping had been left to run wild, and nature had obliterated the orderly footpaths and trimmed designs in favor of a chaotic profusion of plants, flowers and trees that had climbed pergolas, choked gazebos, and swallowed benches whole. Most of the garden was brown this time of year, the leaves shriveled to dust under a covering of snow, but here and there hints of color beckoned. Crimson roses masqueraded as black ones in the dark, with the occasional flicker of stray torchlight revealing their lie to the viewer.

  Radimar pushed the gates open with a squeak and led Jahna inside, his boots snapping twigs underfoot as they went. They stopped in an open space where a towering fir held court and cast a triangular darkness over the ground.

  Jahna’s hand slipped from his so she could draw patterns in a nearby snowdrift with a stick she picked up nearby. “I’ve always loved this garden more than the one the royal household enjoys now.”

  He joined her, watching as she drew a fair rendition of one of the roses in the drift. “There’s a wild beauty to it, as if being left to its own path has brought out something winsome a gardener’s hand can’t create.”

  Her eyes rounded. “Yes, that’s it exactly!”

  She was far more at ease here, away from the teeming cr
owds. Strains of a new tune drifted toward them, clear and sweet on the cold air. Radimar had brought her here for one reason.

  He held out a hand. “Shall we?”

  She dropped the stick in favor of eyeing first his hand and then him as if wondering what lay behind so ludicrous a request. “I don’t know.”

  Had no one ever asked her to dance? Not even her brother or father? She had attained a natural grace, enhanced by her training with him. He found it hard to believe she might be clumsy on her feet, even if she didn’t know the steps.

  “My lady, to be blunt, I’ve knocked you on your backside more than a few times during bouts in the past year. I certainly won’t judge you if you stumble or step on my feet. And we’re the only ones here to witness it if you do.”

  Jahna laughed, her body losing the tension that stiffened her shoulders. “I can’t argue such sound reasoning.” She took his outstretched hand. “But no complaining if I trample your toes.”

  They started off a little awkwardly, Radimar at first taking the steps at a snail’s pace until he realized Jahna knew how to dance them better than he did. Soon they danced together as if they’d done so for years.

  “You’ve kept a dire secret, Jahna.” He twirled her until she faced him again. “You dance these steps better than most.”

  She grinned, not at all repentant. “My father hired an instructor to teach Sodrin and me when we were younger. Sodrin found it dull. I liked it.”

  “Probably because he balked at taking instruction like he did with me at first.” Jahna had been accurate in her warning to him that his greatest challenge with Sodrin would be in making him listen.

  “Oh, he did,” she agreed with a fervent nod. Her hood had fallen back, revealing her hair, swept back in a simple bun at her nape.

  “Should I ever meet your teacher, I will thank him or her for lessons well taught. You haven’t crushed my toes yet.”

  He led her through another set of steps, twirling her in a slow rotation that stopped with the tune’s ending. The tireless musicians halted for no more than the space of a blink before starting another tune.

  Radimar bowed and spread his arm in invitation. “Again, my lady?” He’d brought her to give her the gift of a dance partner and discovered he enjoyed dancing with her as much as he hoped she liked dancing with him.

  She nodded and reached for his hand, only to snatch it back at the sound of voices passing close on the other side of the garden wall. Her joyful expression gave way to a wary one as they both stood silent until those who spoke moved on toward their destination. They were gone, but the magic of the garden was broken.

  Radimar sighed inwardly when Jahna pulled her hood up until he could barely make out her pale features in its concealing shadows. “I thank you, Sir Radimar,” she said, another smile—this one a ghost of its predecessor—flitted across her mouth and glittered in her eyes. “I enjoyed our dancing, but I have to go. Goodnight.” She left without waiting for his reply or offer to escort her back to where the crowd now sang with the newest song the musicians played.

  He hurried to catch up and keep her in sight, making certain she wasn’t accosted by some drunkard or the vindictive cats who had hunted her the previous year.

  Once she disappeared through the doors of the Archives, and he assured himself she was safe, he returned to the festivities. He didn’t stay. The celebrations seemed hollow somehow, the crowd a surging clot of humanity that lurched from one song to another. He returned to the guard house where others like him spurned the celebrants outside in favor of drinking, dicing, or whoring. It was a far different environment from the abandoned garden, but he preferred it to the hordes crowding the bailey.

  Radimar awoke the next morning well before the rest of Uhlfrida’s household, dressed quietly in the dark and tiptoed out in stocking feet. A few servants were about, casting him puzzled looks as they passed him in the corridor where he sat and laced up his boots.

  While the palace was relatively quiet, the lists were not. Men from across Belawat had traveled to the capital not only for Delyalda but to compete in the exhibition fights. Several were already on the training field, practicing their sword form.

  Radimar was on his third cup of tea, watching the combatants, when Sodrin arrived, sleepy-eyed and a little green.

  He reluctantly took the cup Radimar gave him. “I don’t know if I can hold it down,” he said in a thin voice.

  Unsympathetic to his plight, Radimar pushed the cup toward his face. “Drink it. If you vomit it up, I’ll pour you another one. I warned you not to sink too deep in your cups last night.”

  He didn’t admonish him beyond that. Radimar remembered his own anxiety prior to his first combat against someone other than one of his teachers. He’d made the same mistake as Sodrin—calmed his nerves with an overindulgence in spirits. Training while suffering from a pounding head and roiling stomach was its own punishment.

  They trained the entire morning and into the afternoon, a lighter lesson than Radimar normally taught. “I don’t want you tired out by the time you’re up to fight,” he explained to a relieved Sodrin.

  Radimar halted the training once to accept a missive stamped with the royal seal from a servant wearing King Rodan’s livery. He broke the seal and read while the servant waited for his reply. His gaze traveled the list, settling on a cluster of soldiers in various states of harness. A few fought in pairs, but most watched one man—the king’s champion—wield his sword against another opponent.

  As if the champion felt Radimar’s gaze, he held up a hand to halt the fight and turned, searching for his observer. He nodded once to Radimar before returning to the bout. Radimar handed the missive back to the servant. “Tell His Majesty I am honored and accept.”

  Sodrin approached him once the servant left. “Good news?”

  That depended on the outcome. Radimar gestured to their gear. “A challenge. I’ll tell you over a meal. We’re done for the day. You can take the time before the exhibition to clear your mind.”

  While the previous night had been devoted to the dances that celebrated the coming solstice and paid homage to the gods for a good harvest, this night was devoted to the Exhibition.

  Vendor stalls had been dismantled and erected outside the bailey to make room for a large, makeshift arena with seating for the royal family and the nobility. Another area that hugged the arena was reserved for the rest of the population who jostled for space to stand and gain a good view of the fighting.

  A temporary billet housed the competitors participating in the different combats that evening. Most concentrated on sword fighting, though there was also wrestling and displays of horsemanship scheduled as well.

  Inside the billet, Radimar checked his student’s armor for any defects or flaws such as broken straps or loose scale. Sodrin paced in front of him, pausing at times to practice footwork or map out the sequencing of attack and counterattack. He scraped his palm down the leg of his trousers before switching his grip on the sword to do the same with his other palm.

  Radimar tightened a knot in a pauldron strap, testing its give before setting it aside. “You’re letting your nerves get the best of you,” he warned Sodrin.

  The other man exhaled a harsh breath. “I can’t help it.” He paused in his pacing, his expression stricken. “What if I lose?”

  Radimar shrugged. “Then you lose. We take what you learn from the defeat and use it to train better and harder for next year. This is bouting, Sodrin, not battle. You might come away with a bruised ego, but you’ll survive the fight. Now go sit there, close your eyes, calm your breathing and recite in your mind all the maneuvers I taught you while I go speak to your father.”

  Sodrin’s eyes widened. “All the maneuvers?”

  “All of them.”

  He left Sodrin sitting on a bench, eyes closed, lips moving in soundless recitation of the many actions Radimar had taught him in the past year. While he didn’t tell Sodrin, the exercise was more of a way for him to calm himse
lf, find that center that allowed him to concentrate and not be distracted by the mayhem swirling around him.

  Uhlfrida and Jahna sat in a choice spot along the arena’s south side, close enough to get an uninterrupted view of the event but far enough so as not to be splattered by mud from the horses or ending up with a pair of fighters falling through the barriers and into their laps.

  Lord Uhlfrida waved Radimar over when he caught sight of him in the crowd. Jahna perched on the edge of her seat and huddled deep within her cloak. There were shadows under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept well the night before.

  Uhlfrida gestured to the billet where Sodrin waited. “What do you think? Will he do well for himself today or embarrass us both?”

  A disapproving frown darkened Jahna’s features as she stared at her father but held her tongue.

  Radimar shared her disapproval. Sodrin had worked hard the past year. Not always the model student but an enthusiastic one. “I have no doubts he’ll do well in the bouting even against the toughest opponent.”

  Lord Uhlfrida thrust his hand through his thinning hair. “But will he win?”

  That was an outcome Radimar couldn’t and wouldn’t guarantee. “No one can predict that, my lord. It’s why the wager pools exist.”

  He silently applauded Jahna when she tried to deflect her father’s focus on Sodrin’s chances at winning his combats. “Are you bouting today as well, Sir Radimar?”

  “Not originally, my lady.” His role during the Exhibition was supposed to be as Sodrin’s mentor and support before, during, and after the bouts. The missive he received earlier changed those plans. “A last minute request from His Majesty. The king’s newest champion is eager to cross swords with an Ilinfan swordmaster. We’ll bout after the competitions are over.”

  Uhlfrida’s eyes lit up like bonfires. “No doubt that wager pool is lively at the moment.”

  “No doubt, my lord.”