Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (61 page)

Marik, equally as exhausted, had Colbey’s stamina technique
to fall back on, making him the best qualified to act as Hilliard’s bodyguard. 
It hardly refreshed him the way a sound sleep would, yet he felt his weariness
fade when his aura redirected his excess energy back into his body.

He and his charge arrived early at Broughton’s
Matching Hall in the Inner Circle.  Few other contenders had arrived which left
most of the hall’s interior free for their use.  Broughton personally greeted
them, a sweaty glow gleaming on his bare skin.

Hilliard returned the greeting with enthusiasm. 
Broughton was an easy man to like, his good nature hindered by neither his
two-hundred pound mass of heavy muscle or his blunt countenance, altered by the
years spent fighting in his hall.

The Matching Hall might have boasted competitions from
fencing to wrestling for the capitol’s wealthy to enjoy, but Broughton’s love
centered on boxing.  Over ten years he had competed in Thoenar’s matches.  He’d
finally earned enough coin to buy and renovate this hall within the Inner
Circle.  That the upper classes in the city had welcomed this common citizen
testified either to how popular his fighting career had grown among them, or to
how much they enjoyed betting on his fights.

All the normally scheduled fights had been suspended
for the summer while Broughton threw his arms wide to welcome the contenders
for the Arm into his sanctorum.  With the tournament’s boxing match two days
away, Hilliard wanted to practice nonstop if he could manage it.

Broughton whistled for his two right-hand men, both of
whom broke off from their exercises to jog over.  Figg and Cribb, also longtime
fighters, seemed happy to lead Hilliard to the far corner across the open
hall.  Every piece of boxing equipment Broughton’s Hall owned had been brought
out from their storage rooms for use by the contenders who wished to train.

Marik sank into a chair against one wall under the
broad ‘Rules of Broughton’s Hall’ signboard while Hilliard began receiving
pointers from the two old hands.  Cribb held a padded cushion strapped to his
palms that Hilliard jabbed a multitude of times, pausing while Figg critiqued
his fighting style.  Marik dozed off at one point under the soothing sounds of
men training.

Hilliard shook his shoulder later that afternoon. 
Marik jerked upright.  “I think I should it call it enough for today.”

Marik glanced at the windows set high on the hall’s
walls.  “It can’t be past mid-afternoon.  Had enough already?”

The young noble smiled.  “So many other contenders
have arrived to practice that the hall has filled.  The equipment is all in
use, with a line of men waiting for them to become free.  I should not
monopolize them solely for my own use.”

Standing, Marik added with a closer study of his
charge, “Not to mention you look ready to fall over.”

Hilliard replied with an abashed smile.  “It…does take
quite a toll on you, training all the morning.”

“That’s life around Kingshome during the winter.  For
some of us anyway.  Let’s head back then.”

He glanced around on the way out, wondering if he
would see Balfourth.  Apparently the future baron Dornory had other pursuits to
occupy his time.  Figg and Cribb were busy with other young contenders, while
Broughton fought an exhibition bout against none other than Keegan Gardinnier. 
Marik searched the throng swelling the hall, seeing many other faces he knew
from the remaining contestants, yet no others from the one-eighty block.  Too
bad Ferdinand was elsewhere.  Watching him face off against Keegan would be
interesting.

But then he would see that match anyway in two days.

The others met them when they returned to the Swan’s
Down.  Walsh’s regulars forgot their lunches and instantly stood to demand the
latest news from Hilliard.  Kerwin and Landon kept them from mobbing the youth.

Dietrik moved aside along the booth’s bench to allow
Marik room enough to sit.  “We just finished up, mate, but Walsh will bring you
out a platter of his finest if we but snap our fingers.”  He snapped to
illustrate his point, then winced when the movement pained his wounded arm.

“You all right?”

“I will be.  It is nowhere near as bad as the other
arm, though it’s hardly a picnic outing.”

“Well, I think you’ll have plenty of time to heal
before you need its full use.  I don’t expect our contract will be overly
difficult any longer.”

“This is a city,” Dietrik reminded him, awkwardly
lifting a mug to his lips with his left hand.  “And not any city, either.  This
is
the
city of our fair kingdom.  There remain hazards aplenty for us to
guide our charge safely through.”

“We’ve managed so far.  I think we can relax.”  Marik
stood.  “Speaking of which, I think I’ll pass on lunch.  I’m exhausted, so I’ll
tender Hilliard to you three until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?  What about tonight?”

“Tonight I have a promise to keep.”  He smiled
privately at the thought.

*        *        *        *        *

“And the night watchmen let you walk around as you
pleased after all that?”

“They stuck to us like mud on a wagon wheel,” Marik
replied, and leaned back.  He sat on the edge of Ilona’s oversized bed.  “But
we sounded like we had justice on our side and we made it out that we followed
the criminals to a secret meeting after dark.  Once the cityguard arrests the
refinery owner and the watchmen are out of work, they might come to regret it.”

Ilona waggled her head, waves of crimped hair framing
her amused face.  She wore the pants with the cuffs tied shut as whenever they
walked the streets, though this time she matched it with an expensive silken
blouse.  No less captivating for her oddly matched attire, she gazed at him
from the stool sitting before the long mirror.  “The cityguard will be happy to
put the iron collar on the group who dared attack a noble, and inside the Inner
Circle no less.  I know they went to ‘question’ that slug of a shopkeeper while
you went after the gang’s hideout.”

“Oh?  How do you know that?”

She arched a delicate eyebrow, as if he should already
be aware of the answer.  “I told you I would inform them of the bracelet’s
origin to clear the Spell’s name.”

“I thought you were going to wait until after, so the
thieves wouldn’t be tipped off.  If Jenni were arrested, they might have
bolted!”

“How would they have learned so quickly, so far away
from the city?”  At his frown, she added in an acidic tone, “It was
my
decision to make.  The affairs of the Standing Spell are of no concern to you. 
Besides, the cityguard came back for another round of questioning yesterday
afternoon.  I had to set them a different path.”

“I didn’t know that,” Marik admitted.  Nearly
everything he said fouled her temper, and he wished it were otherwise.  She
watched him with the one eyebrow still arched, as if waiting to attack the next
comment he made, whatever it might be.  In an attempt to steer around the
moment, he broke eye contact with Ilona, laying back flat on the bed to stare
up at the plain, white ceiling.  “To tell the truth, I’m surprised the guard
came back so quickly.”

“They’re under pressure,” she replied from beyond his
knees.  “They answer to the city heads, who are all Inner Circle residents.  A
theft or a burglary is an entirely different matter than a murder attempt. 
With half the kingdom’s nobles in Thoenar for the tournament, and half the
apparent population, they need to be seen catching anyone so brash.”

“And have a body to hang, I suppose,” he added in a
musing tone.  “Make an example for anyone else with similar ideas.”  Marik
closed his eyes.  Her bed was a very comfortable resting place.  He luxuriated
in it.

“Exactly.  When you don’t have any leads, you have to
keep beating the bushes you can see and hope something pops out sooner or
later.  But one thing you told me still confuses me,” Ilona stated flatly,
returning the discussion to the offensive against the refinery.  Marik heard
her shifting and assumed she went to retrieve her wine goblet from the window
ledge where she had left it earlier.  It shocked him when her weight landed
atop him.  Knees to either side of his chest, she sat on his stomach, peering
down at him amidst a weeping-willow of dangling tresses.  Her full-weight
landing winded him.

“Oof,” he grunted, then peered up into an eternity of
crystalline brown.  “Uh…uh…”  He knew he needed to speak, to demand an
explanation, to say
anything
at all, damn it, but his mind felt as a
hinge gone rusty from years of disuse and rainfall.

“What confuses me,” Ilona queried, her voice emerging
in a lower register, “is
that
.”  She turned her head, the falling locks
tracing feather touches across his burning face.  With dazed thoughts, hardly
daring to breathe lest the closeness of her prove a dream, lest her slender
body’s weight be no more than a fabrication of his preoccupied mind, Marik
shifted his gaze to follow hers.

In that corner rested only, if one discounted the
messy piles cluttering the room, her standing wardrobe and his sword, which he
had relieved himself of once she offered him the privacy of her room for this
conversation.  “What?”  Comprehension eluded him.

“That,” she gestured with her chin, dancing her long
hair across his cheek.  “Why do you carry that sword around with you?  You
haven’t explained that at all yet, not from last night nor from the days
before.  You say you fought your enemies last night as a swordsman rather than
the magician you are.”

“Uh, mage, not a…magi—”

He lost track of his words when she returned her gaze
to him.  She leaned closer; he could feel her breath across his lips, see her
narrowed eyes as she searched his own.

“Call it what you want.  It amounts to magic all the
same.  You always shy away from it.  Why wield a chunk of lead when you have
the powers of magic at your command?”

Her closeness unsettled his rational mind…and he
suddenly realized she was perfectly aware of it.  No doubt she, for reasons of
her own, was intentionally using the power of her beauty to prevent him from
evading the answer.  An answer she strongly desired.

“Because I’m a swordsman,” he delivered, the truest
answer he could offer.

That did not satisfy Ilona.  “Why be a swordsman?” she
insisted.  “You were a fighter when you discovered your powers, weren’t you? 
That’s the way the story usually unfolds.  But why stay one with so much more
available to you?”

He needed to think, so he lightly pushed against her
shoulder.  She withdrew only a foot, maintaining the pin of her body against
his.  “Why?  Why?  Why not?  A swordsman is what I’ve always wanted to be. 
It’s who I am, all through me.  And who would
want
magic if they could
avoid it?  At any moment it could go horribly wrong in ways you probably
wouldn’t want to imagine, and no sane person in all the kingdom could trust a
magic user who
wants
power.  Everyone I meet these days looks sideways
at me when they find out about my talent.  I wish I’d never been born with it!”

“But all the wonderful things you could do!  If
I
…”

She trailed off, her eyes filming over with dreamy
quality Marik had never seen in her before.  Memories swelled.  Of the times
she had forced him to demonstrate his powers.  Of her sudden change in attitude
toward him after their individual situations forced them to visit alchemy shops
together.

“I see.”  His voice dripped with implied knowledge.

Which apparently was the wrong tone to adopt.  Her
gaze flashed with that familiar fire and she refocused on her captive.  “You
see what?  You think you know me, do you?”  Ilona straightened so she no longer
leaned over him, sitting upright atop his stomach, arms folded under her bosom.

Marik advanced cautiously, sensing he’d claimed a
tenuous grip on understanding her, though he could scarcely credit it.  “You
actually
want
magic?  You
want
to be a mage?”

Ilona frowned down on him.  “What do you care?  And it
is forever beyond my reach, anyway.”

“Why would you ever want to be a mage?  You can’t
trust any of them!  They’re freaks who want to lord it over everyone else! 
They take what they want and don’t care how much it costs you!”

Her amusement returned.  “And yet you want me to trust
you.  Are you saying you’re a power-hungry tyrant out to enslave the rest of
us?”

“That’s…No, I—”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m not a mage!  I’m a swordsman!”

“So you think you’re the exception to the rule, eh?” 
Her humor increased as he grew flustered.  “How many mages can you name who act
like that?”

“How many?  Listen to all the tales!”

“Old tales from a dead past.  Go on and tell me how
many of the mages you’ve ever met live up to what you just said about them.”

Marik considered mentioning Celerity, about that old
hardened matron who expected what she demanded and held no brief for excuses. 
After a moment in thought, he admitted she had only acted so in service to the
crown.  Ten heartbeats of non-response passed before Ilona harrumphed in
triumph.