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"I was scared," Ruari sputtered, as if he had betrayed himself earlier in the Lion-King's audience chamber. "I was so scared I couldn't move, I couldn't think."
Pavek set his plate beside Ruari's. "You were face-to-face with the Lion of Urik. Of course you were scared. He could kill you ten different ways—all ten different ways."
That was not the reassurance Ruari needed.
"I stood there. I just stood there and watched his hand-that horrible hand with those claws—as it swiped my staff. And then I fell down. I fell down, and I stayed down while you argued with him!"
"Be grateful you were on the floor. Fear makes me stupid enough to argue with a god."
Ruari's laughter rang false. "I'd rather be your kind of stupid than on my hands and knees like a crass animal, too scared to stand up. Wind and fire! She was laughing at me." She. The only person to whom Ruari could be referring was Mahtra. But Mahtra hadn't laughed. She might have smiled; with that mask they didn't know what her face actually looked like, much less her expression. But she hadn't laughed aloud. Pavek was confused, wondering why, or how, the half-elf thought Mahtra had laughed at him; wondering why or how it mattered; confused until Zvain explained it all in a single, disgusted statement:
"Am not!" Ruari retorted with a vigor that convinced Pavek that Zvain knew exactly what he was talking about. "Wind and fire—she walked out of there with him." The long coppery hair whipped around to hide Ruari's face as he turned away from them. "How could she? Didn't she see anything?"
"Who knows what Mahtra sees, Ru?" Pavek said gently. "Except it's different. She's new and she's eleganta—"
"She walked off, arm-in-arm, with a monster—Hamanu's worse than Elabon Escrissar!"
"She walked off with him, too." Zvain pointed out, effectively pouring oil on Ruari's inflamed passions.
Ruari responded immediately by taking a swing at Zvain; Pavek caught the fist before it landed. If he'd had any doubts about what was eating at Ruari, they vanished the moment their eyes met. Pavek didn't want to argue, not over this. He certainly didn't want to defend the actions of either Mahtra or the Lion-King. What he wanted was to finish his meal, half-drown himself in the bathing pool, and then fall into a dreamless sleep.
But when Ruari roared a slur at him without hesitation, he roared right back, also without hesitation. Nothing they said made sense. It was tension and fear and exhaustion that neither of them could contain for another heartbeat. He couldn't stop it; didn't want to stop it because, like a two-day drunk, it felt good at the start.
They traded accusations and insults, backing each other across the balcony and to the brink of bloodshed. In any physical fight, Pavek would always have the advantage over a half-elf. Even if the half-elf struck first and struck low, Pavek's big fists and brawn could do more damage and do it quickly. Ruari tried to land a dirty punch, which Pavek expected. He seized the half-elf by the shirt, pinned him against the palace wall with one hand and took aim at a copper-skinned chin. But before he landed the punch, a shrieking annoyance leaped on his back.
"Stop it!" Zvain yelled, as frightened as he was angry. "Don't fight! Don't hurt each other."
Pavek caught his rage before it exploded at both youths. He looked from Ruari to his fist and willed his fingers straight. He could hurt Ruari—that's what he intended to do—but he'd kill a boy Zvain's size with one unlucky punch. Ruari's shirt came free and, wisely, Ruari retreated while Zvain slid slowly down Pavek's back until his feet touched the floor, his arms were around Pavek's ribs, and his face was pressed against Pavek's back.
"Don't fight," Zvain repeated. "Don't fight with each other. Please, don't make me take sides. Don't make me choose. I can't choose. Not between you."
Without a word, Pavek looped his arm back and urged the boy around. Ruari edged closer, keeping a wary eye on Pavek while he nudged Zvain above the elbow.
Still breathing heavily, Ruari said, "Nobody's asking you to choose," to the top of Zvain's head, but his eyes, when they met Pavek's, made the statement into a question.
It was one thing for Pavek to comfort a boy whose head didn't reach his armpit. It was another with Ruari who stood a head taller than him. Maybe that was the root of the problem between them, and the source of Ruari's unexpected attraction to Mahtra. The New Race woman was, perhaps, the only woman Ruari'd ever met who was tall enough to look him in the eye, and being neither elf nor half-elf, she touched none of Ruari's painful doubts about his heritage.
"Have you... talked to her?" Pavek asked, feeling awkward as Ruari's shrugged reply appeared. "She might—In the cavern, she felt something that made her control that power of hers. Hamanu's infinitesimal mercy, Ru, if she doesn't know how you feel..." He shrugged and stared into early twilight, unable to find the right words. This was more difficult than talking about Akashia.
"If she doesn't know," Zvain advised, fully recovered now and putting a manly distance between himself and Pavek again. "Then, don't tell her. Forget about it. Women are nothing but trouble, anyway."
He sounded so wise, so certain, so very young that Pavek had to struggle to keep from laughing.
Ruari lost the battle early, sputtering through lips that loosened into a grin. "Just wait a few years. Your time'll come."
"Never. No w
omen for me. Too messy."
By then Pavek was also laughing, and the day's tension was finally broken. The feast looked more appetizing and the bathing pool became irresistible—once Pavek persuaded the slaves to share both the food and the water. Even the musicians emerged from hiding and, whatever Lord Hamanu had intended, for one evening honest people enjoyed innocent pleasures in his palace.
With his pulse pounding, Pavek waited for the next sound, acutely conscious that he was half-naked and completely without a weapon. Last night he'd slipped so far into complacency that, although he could remember removing the sheath that held his prized metal knife along with his belt before he stepped into the bathing pool, he couldn't remember where he'd put it.
"Lord High Templar! Your presence is requested in the lower court."
Requested or required, Pavek didn't dawdle. He called the messenger into the room and ordered him to light all the lamps with the glowing taper he carried for that purpose. Slaves had cleared the remnants of the feast while he slept. Clean clothes in three sizes were piled on the table in place of food. A new staff, carved from Nibenese agafari wood and topped with a bronze lion-head, leaned against garments meant for a half-elf's slender frame. The gold medallion lay atop the pile intended for Pavek. Ruari pronounced himself satisfied with his gift, but once again Pavek left the medallion behind.
It was still pitch-dark when the messenger led them to the lower court, a cobblestone enclosure on the palace's perimeter. A maniple of twenty templars from the war bureau and their sergeant, a wiry red-haired human, were waiting. All twenty-one appeared to be veterans. Each wore piecemeal armor made from studded inix-leather. Vambraces covered their forearms and sturdy buskins, also studded, protected their feet, ankles, and calves. For weapons, they had obsidian-tipped spears and short composite swords that were edged with thin metal strips or knapped stone. Composite swords were common issue in the war bureau; like the templars who wielded them, they were tough and lethal.
