Book 0: FIELDS OF FIRE Chapter x

Gareth just connected the last few wires for the latest monitor he designed when he heard a muffled voice and felt a boot toe poke him in the ribs. He was already bent uncomfortably over into a small claustrophobia-inducing space next to a holding tank on the Freen, with a precarious grip on some wiring. It would be a scramble to pull up and out of the space without undoing his handiwork. He felt the toe in his ribs again, and he flinched. It must be Her Nibs or that idiotic Brent, Gareth thought. Only they were associated enough with him to hail him with a boot and not a word.

"Keep your tunic on," he growled, his voice almost swallowed up in the narrow compartment as he finished his work. "I am coming, I am coming." He backed out slowly and carefully.

"Hurry up," he heard a feminine voice say.

"Name of All, Your Nibs, what is so blasted, all-fired important, that you have to keep drilling my ribcage?" he thundered as he came closer to being free of the enclosed space. His face was sweaty, as it had been hard upside-down work, and his already tested temper was ready to overflow. He popped out of the service tunnel, expecting to see Carrol Shanaugh de Phillipi. Instead, he had to look further up to see the stern yet quizzical look on the face of King Lycasis Phillipi. Gareth felt the blood rush from his face.

Carrol stood next to her father, as pale as her mechanic friend. "Um... my father wanted to speak to you, Gareth."

Gareth swallowed hard and bowed. "I beg your pardon, Your Majesty," he managed to say. "I thought it was your daughter."

"It was. And you make a habit of it, do you, to address my daughter as 'Your Nibs'?" Lycasis asked without inflection.

"Only when she kicks me," Gareth acknowledged. He knew it was not an answer to give a king about his daughter but was at his usual loss to say anything well.

"And how often does she kick you?" Lycasis asked in the same noncommittal voice.

"Well, every time she decides to speak to me with her foot instead of simply saying my name," Gareth answered.

For a moment Lycasis eyed him, and a barely perceptible twitch occurred at a corner of his mouth. He turned his head to address his daughter.

"Perhaps Her Highness should learn to address people properly. Yes, Carrol?"

"Yes Father," Carrol agreed.

"I am at your service, Your Majesty," Gareth said, which prompted his ruler to return to the original subject.

"Princess Carrol tells me you are experimenting with the Freen's mechanisms. Why and what are you doing?"

"Well, I thought we would install underwater monitors to keep a watch on some of the pressure points in the tanks that are most likely to give way or crack," Gareth said.

"We already have monitors."

"Yes sir, but they are just visual monitors. These – here, let me show you.” He led the king and his entourage to a temporary monitor station and a screen with different colors over the same view as the regular monitor. "These sensors will warn us where a weakness may be. Let me turn it a little... ah, there! See that little orange line, there?"

"Yes?"

"It indicates stress on that particular joint. Now, it is faded back a little. You see, in time that joint will weaken with every bit of stress until the time comes when it will give way."

"And what will happen then, do you suppose?"

"Perhaps not for a while, but surely before we get to the estimated halfway point of our journey, the tank will leak. Water could find its way into the engines or the other air chambers and fill them up and drain the tanks and kill the water life. Or if the leak is on the hull, it will blow a hole in the side of the Freen and we will lose the whole ship and everything and everyone in her. That is the most likely scenario, I believe."

"Well, anytime you want to crawl out on the outside the Freen with a patch, you could be the first to volunteer," said a caustic voice to the left. Gareth did not have to look to know it was Tomas Hellick.

"The Freen is of major concern. I was only trying to help solve her problems," Gareth explained.

"Well, who asked you?" Tomas asked.

"I did," Carrol interjected. "I asked Gareth to come up with some ideas for the Freen."

"What ideas do you have?" Lycasis asked. Tomas Hellick crossed his arms to listen but said nothing. Carrol nodded at Gareth encouragingly.

"I thought of a design quite like a – well, like a cage around her to keep her sides from popping out, to stop those stresses. It may be just a fantastic dream, but we might be able to do with necessary modifications."

"What sort of modifications?"

"If we can get word to Pleoni, I was thought we could try to build a sort of cage out of bands of Pleonian steel."

"How do you propose that we reimburse the Pleonian baron?" Tomas asked pleasantly. Too pleasantly.

"Well, I do not know. I am a mechanic, not a merchant," Gareth squawked indignantly.

Lycasis gave a cough to hide a snort of amusement. It was the sort of impertinent reply that he or his old friends might have made in their younger days. "It will not hurt to continue with your experiments and designs. Let Us know when you have something finalized." Lycasis nodded as a farewell salute and continued on to the next area. His advisors gave Gareth a curious glance before they followed.

"I thought you would be finished by now," Carrol told Gareth. "I am sorry. I did call your name, but you could not hear me down there and I had to get your attention some way."

"No, I could not hear you, you are right. I have got to stop calling you 'Your Nibs'. It is going to get me blasted."

"Do not dare stop! I like it, it is less pompous." Carrol smiled and Gareth thought that when it came to smiles, Carrol Shanaugh de Phillipi had a sparkler. She looked so fresh today in a colorful outfit that fit her figure very appealingly, topped with a jaunty rust-colored scarf loosely tied around her neck.

"You are a lucky man to be in so close with the royal family," Tomas Hellick told Gareth in a low voice as he turned to follow the king, "Not many men get away with insulting royalty with undignified names."

Gareth could barely hold his temper until Tomas was gone. "What does that istay want from me? Why is he always looking to fault me? Does he want me to crawl off in a hole and stay there? To apologize for having the temerity to court a woman before he took her from me? Well, he has her, now; I hope he is satisfied."

Carrol removed her scarf to gently wipe the sweat from his face. "From what I hear he has her all right, but I think she is the one who is not satisfied."

"Oh, and how is it you know this little tidbit?" Gareth asked with a grin.

"Well... word has it around the Standard that they rushed into marriage without..." She lowered her voice to a whisper, knowing her words would not be seemly coming from a Royal Daughter, and feared any echo might carry them to someone in addition to Gareth. "...without him knowing more than the basic idea, and her realizing how good she had it before."

Gareth's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Really, now."

"Really," Carrol assured him, as she dried his neck slowly and carefully. "In fact," she whispered, "Berryl Renaugh was well into her glass but she swears that Lia Hellick de Neo told her you were the better man for the duty." Gareth grinned and looked down, beyond pleased. "No need to be so modest," Carrol chuckled, and wound her scarf around his neck. "You must surely know that you are garnering a reputation as a bedroom demon."

"No, I do not, and am not!" Gareth protested, honestly shocked. "How can I when I have not the opportunity lately to be the least bit demonic with anyone?"

They both laughed and she tugged on the ends of the scarf with both hands. It drew him a little closer to her, and although it was not her intention it was not objectionable either.

"Gareth, just because we both know that Lia is a status climber does not mean she has no regrets. And just because you have not been a demon of late, does not mean you cannot stroll into the Standard sometime and let me introduce you to a few women who might not mind being... demonized." He held her forearms lightly in the grasp of his hands and they laughed together, low and deliciously.

"You have a deal," Gareth told her, "with a demon." Their laughter rang out louder this time.

Gareth glanced up to see the king approach again, with two members of his staff and Tomas Hellick. Hellick wore the smile of a man who won an unexpected bet. Gareth quickly but casually released Carrol's arms. Carrol, equally casual, brought her hands back down to her sides to a natural position.

"We will return to the Quantid," Lycasis told Carrol, and as he glanced at Gareth, his jaw tightened when he saw Carrol's scarf around his neck. "Duncan," he dismissed gruffly. Carrol could not take back her scarf without further implication to the staff, so she simply fell in step beside her father.

Gareth could not remove it for the same reason and stood respectfully until the entourage left. Well, let them think what they want, he thought, and turned back to his monitors and tools. Carrol once enjoyed a grand love affair with a Warrior General, and that broke the course of an old-fashioned tradition of Thuringa. A little scarf on a sweaty mechanic was pale in comparison. It ought to not be regarded as shameful or unseemly, just eccentric.

And if he was seen as interesting to a princess, perhaps one of her friends might find him interesting, too.

"How very curious; this is not the first time I have seen your daughter in the company of that man," Asa Mennar mentioned on the flight back to the Quantid. "It is said they seek each other out frequently. Your Majesty did not tell us that your daughter has emerged from her mourning. Oh, but that much is good; too much mourning is unhealthy. However …"

"However, what?" Lycasis asked calmly. It was not like Asa to speak so kindly, so overly considerate. It put the king on alert.

Asa heaved a sigh. "Ah, trust my sister Orchis to give me all the unwritten, untested chat. It has been noted by the nobility that a deepening relationship between their fair princess and a common mechanic is most unseemly. She is a lovely girl, a credit to the crown, but such obvious attention is bound to feed gossip." Orchis did not even know about Gareth, but Asa left that out.

Lycasis replied, "Gossip is an ugly creature that attacks even those who pet it most." Asa nodded and said no more. He made his point and that was the main thing.

Lycasis said nothing of the incident on the Freen until much later, as he and Carrol and Queen Oriel dined in the privacy of the royal quarters that evening. "So, now your eyes turn to a mechanic," Lycasis introduced the subject with no fanfare and a great deal of sarcasm.

"Gareth is a friend of mine," Carrol said. "Nothing more."

"A friend who wears a personal item of yours around his neck?" Lycasis asked sharply. "Just how friendly is he?"

"What?" Oriel asked. "May I be included in the conversation, please?"

"Gareth Duncan. He was one of Maranta's favorite mechanics," Carrol explained. She still marveled that Maranta's name did not spear her with pain anymore. "He and I became friends because we both understand the hurt of losing loved ones," she explained to her parents. "Father, he was sweating and hot and I dried his face with what I had handy, which was my scarf. We chatted and somehow the scarf ended up around his neck."

"You do know, do you, that in the old days tokens of wearing apparel had significant meaning when worn by our intended?" Oriel asked quietly.

"He is not my intended," Carrol protested.

"A pin or a piece of jewelry meant a man was interested in you, or you in him. A scarf or glove or hair ribbon meant you hold hands and exchange kisses. A vest or shirt, well – that meant you were next to his skin," Oriel recited from memory

"Oriel," Lycasis objected uneasily.

"Lycasis," Oriel returned, and addressed Carrol. "Daughter, have you been exchanging kisses with your engineer friend?"

Carrol opened her mouth to reply a sharp no, and suddenly remembered the kisses Gareth gave her in a drunken stupor. Remembered perhaps too well in the intervening time between then and now, how his warm mouth stressed his demands for compliance. Despite her shock and fear of his unexpected attack, his sheer authority and intensity thrilled her. But how could it count; he was drunk. "No," she said, and it was her pause that made her father slam his fist on the table.

"No, hey? Perhaps it has been more than just kisses you have exchanged with your new partner, as with your old! Well, I will not have my daughter dance around with a lover under my very nose, again. It is not seemly and it is not right, and do not say it does not matter, Oriel, because it does!" he thundered. "I will not have my staff giggle about my wayward daughter behind my back! Maranta was one thing, it could be seen as a time-tested love and I respect it for that. But this! Hah! Daughter, if you are going to behave like a Chassiren, then do not waste my time."

"How dare you!" Carrol said as she blushed furiously. "Gareth is not my 'lover'. He is a man I have befriended, that is all! If you choose to believe the idle giggles of your staff instead of your own flesh and blood, then Father," she declared as she stood to throw her table napkin on her plate, "do not waste my time." She pushed her chair back so hard it fell over with a tremendous bang. She headed for the door and went out without a backward glance.

Lycasis found himself under the disapproving gaze of his wife. “What?” he asked her. “You heard for yourself how she carries on. You cannot tell me that pause was not filled with a memory my question recalled!”

“And what of it, Lycasis?” Oriel came back, her voice mild but her look reproving. “After the horror of seeing Maranta die in her arms, I am glad she has someone to interest her again. She has suffered enough. And you have said yourself how nice it is to see her in such high spirits. What do you suppose is the reason? Could it be – oh my! – she has a friend who amuses her, who gives her a smile? And if she happens to care for this friend, would you berate her for lifted spirits?”

“But it is unseemly.”

“Oh Lycasis,” Oriel sighed sharply. “You dislike your advisors and yet here you are, heeding their counsel and not listening to Carrol at all! If you truly prefer to listen to them and not the crying heart of your daughter, then do not waste my time, either.” She folded her napkin across her plate and rolled her chair away from the table.

“Oriel!” Lycasis was wounded by her words. “Where are you going?”

“I am going to the bathroom, Lycasis; or should I wait to see if the advisors approve of it first?”

Lycasis jumped to his feet. “You need not scold me like this, Oriel. I am upset that our daughter is the subject of idle talk as any man would be. You need not bite off my head over a father’s concern.” He stepped behind her and pushed her chair toward the bathroom as he continued. “I simply do not want some star jockey, perhaps one of Hartin Medina’s Wild Factor, to presume that our daughter is some fast piece of baggage for them to pick up and carry as they choose. I will go speak to Carrol again and put this to rights, I promise. I am trying to be a good father and a good king, and it is an uneasy balance.”

She reached up and patted his hand affectionately. “All I ask is that you talk to her and listen to her. Lycasis, you are both a good father and king. Trust her choices for herself; after all, we raised her. It was our duty to impart our judgment as her guidelines for life. She is only journeying down the road we built for her.”

He leaned down to kiss her. “I will be back,” he promised, and went to Carrol’s apartment. Oriel went about her business and hoped Lycasis would balance his duties in Carrol’s favor.

Carrol went to her quarters and got out the fiber vest of Maranta's that she stashed away in a fragrant trunk. She put it on, lay down on her bed and cried. Her bed, my solitary bed, she thought ruefully, that would never have another man in it if Father had anything to say about it.

Not that she had any intention of bringing Gareth Duncan into it; at least, she certainly could not now. Gareth would be lucky if he did not clean and repair the friak cookers in the dining hall for the rest of his days, and it was all her fault. She became so used to being able to reach out and touch him whenever she needed contact with another person that she had forgotten her role as Upstanding Protector of Thuringi Morality, or whatever mantle it was Father tried to set on her shoulders. She cried in her miserable solitude.

Lycasis knocked on his daughter’s door, and then again. He began to pound when he got no reply, and nearly smacked Carrol in the forehead when she finally opened it.

“What is it?” Carrol asked wearily, her eyes still puffy. Lycasis was startled to see evidence of tears when she had been so angry the last he saw her.

“Carrol, I came to... I came to listen to you,” he said. “Tell me that to which I would not listen before.”

She ushered him inside, and they sat at her tea nook table. “What brought on this change of heart?” Carrol asked with a tinge of reproach.

“Your mother,” Lycasis admitted. “She pointed out that your smiling face of late is worth much more than an advisor’s slanted words. Just tell me this, Carrol: does this mechanic treat you with the respect you deserve?”

“Yes and no. He treats me with respect, yes, but he does not treat me as if I should be isolated from the rest of society simply because I am of royal blood. He is an amusing fellow to be around. In fact, I was trying to clean him up in case one of my friends happened by, and he would be presentable when I introduced them to each other. He is not of any grand station in life and he has no glorious military record. But he is funny and original, and he is very protective of me. I could not be in better company.”

“Well, very well then,” Lycasis said, kissing her forehead as he rose to leave. “I will be certain to dismiss my advisor’s opinions next time.” He paused for a moment before he added, “Carrol, I do want your happiness, but I also want you to be above the tawdry speculation of those who enjoy such activity.”

“Ask any warrior in the fleet and they will tell you, Gareth Duncan and I are good friends who enjoy a glass at the Standard every now and then, and that is all.” She smiled at him, and Lycasis felt secure once more.

“I find no wrong in a couple of friends laughing together,” the former Bishop of Fellensk told Lycasis later in the throne room, just before a curriculum plan meeting. The clergy and the school instructors recently discovered they repeated each other’s lessons, only with different emphasis and detail. The children were bewildered and confused during tests. The matter was brought to the king for his decision for correcting the situation, so Lycasis took the opportunity to touch bases with a clergyman he knew to be fair and solidly grounded in the teachings of the Thuringi church.

“She is high-spirited and does not intentionally draw controversy to the crown,” Lycasis explained. “She was only trying to make her friend more presentable to others.”

“I know of Gareth Duncan,” the bishop said as memory recalled the name. “Very bright fellow; General Shanaugh often turned to him for help when he needed any sort of repair or a cool head and steady hand. I recall that the major never attended Atest services. He sat outside while the rest of the platoon was inside. I invited him in, but he very politely told me no.”

“Why?”

“I cannot say I know. There is much pain inside him, but one can never tell from that lighthearted outer shell of his.” Before he could explain himself, others entered, and the meeting began. Lycasis was caught up in the school and clerical issues before him and thought no more about Gareth Duncan there. He did get the opinions on the subject later from his sons as they went on rounds through the fleet.

“Gareth? Oh, he is a capital fellow, Father,” Stuart declared when Lycasis brought up the subject. “We get along quite famously.”

“You always know what he is thinking, because he comes right out with it,” put in Darien.

“Is he a bad influence on your sister?”

“No,” the brothers chorused together.

“He is not a bad sort. He is very admirable in an offbeat sort of way,” Darien explained.

“With you, that could mean anything,” Lycasis said with a sigh.

Gareth went back to his usual workstation on the Quantid and put his tools in their snug holding clips. He glanced around slowly and casually and saw no one in sight. He slipped a finger under the stiff collar of his work tunic and fished out Carrol's rust-colored scarf. He pulled one end down a little to admire it. If she asked for it back, of course he would give it to her. It might be an article she liked very much, and he did not want to deprive her of it.

Then again, it might be something she would not miss. He knotted the ends of the scarf together, so it formed a comfortable circle of cloth, loose enough to easily lay flat along his collarbone but close enough to tuck unseen under the collar of his tunic. The scarf could be of little significance to her, but it meant so much to Gareth: a silent, secret embrace for a lonely soul.

Tomas Hellick got out of his fighter’s cockpit in a nasty mood. The ship did not respond as well as he wanted. He thought it sluggish at the controls and he was not a man willing to work around a problem. He glanced around the hanger and saw his target: Gareth Duncan at a console, inputting data in a computer. Nearby Keleigh, Ton, and Kyne Trapis sipped hot tea to ward off the chill from the cavernous space of the hanger and chatted about their just completed watch. Hellick strode to the mechanic and swatted Gareth’s shoulder hard with his gloves. The unexpected blow made Gareth whirl around in his chair.

“Oh, it is you,” Gareth said. “It is unwise to sneak up on someone and slap them, you know.”

“I ought to strike you down where you sit, you colossal miscreant,” Tomas fumed, and struck him on the ear, this time.

“What are you—what do you think you are doing? What is your problem?” Gareth demanded, and rose to his feet as he warded off Tomas’s gloves.

“Perhaps my ship would respond to my commands better if you actually worked on it instead of strolling around shining the princess’s buttons,” Tomas declared icily.

This comment not only lit an angry fire within Gareth’s eyes, but also a growl of objection from the three warriors nearby. “Shining (someone’s) buttons” was a harsh phrase of accusation: not only did it obviously mean brown-nosing, but it also held a sexual connotation akin to sleeping one’s way to the top.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” Gareth said slowly and deliberately, “You will not walk away without an apology both for my part and Her Highness’s.”

“And not a word about your responsibilities to my ship! Somehow, I should have expected this.”

“I am not responsible for your damned ship!” Gareth snapped, as his voice rose. “Your ship and the ships of your wing are under Tergin Beece’s jurisdiction on the Ellis.”

“I could not make it to the Ellis, I had to put in here,” Tomas said, his voice also rising. “But you are the wonder lad of all things mechanical, so you can check it out.”

Gareth brushed past, a loose term as the motion pushed Hellick backward into the desk. He was up and after Gareth, aboil with resentment as Gareth strode to the ship. Gareth crawled into the cockpit and opened the engine compartment access with a jerk. He wiped a small area of the compartment and uttered an oath at what he read scribbled there.

“You have not had this vehicle serviced in over eight ginta! What do you expect, excellence in perpetuity?” he asked with ill-concealed contempt as he climbed out of the cockpit.

“I expect the most rudimentary of service, when I am able to get it,” Hellick returned the contempt.

“Then why have not you gotten it, what has stopped you for the past two ginta from getting it on the Ellis?” Gareth asked. He pressed a button on his com. “Tergin Beece of the Ellis, this is Gareth Duncan of the Quantid, come in.”

After a moment, he got a reply. “Tergin Beece here. What can I do for you, Gareth?”

“Why has Tomas Hellick’s ship not been serviced lately?” Gareth asked, as he glared at Tomas.

“That turgid mound of gakki droppings?” Tergin Beece laughed spitefully. “Maybe it is because he is too busy trotting after the king’s boot heels to bother bringing it over here.” Tomas Hellick’s face flushed crimson, but he did not change his attitude of disdain.

“Thank you, Tergin, that is all I needed to know,” Gareth said to sign off, but Tergin’s reply was not to be missed.

“Yes and listen: if that pompous little istay squawks at you to take care of his bucket, tell him I said to follow the rules like everyone else. I can keep his ship in running order, but only if he is responsible enough to schedule it here on time.” Tergin signed off then.

“Well, that answers the ship service question,” Gareth told Tomas. “It does not excuse your comment about the princess.”

“Oh, we are touchy about Her Highness, are we? Are crude comments only to be made about my wife, an ordinary Thuringi with no royal blood?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know perfectly well what I mean. Evidently, it is all very well and good for Prince Darien and the brother-in-law to harass my wife Lia in a cantina no less, but Princess Carrol is off-limits to the same?”

“You were there. Why did you not call them on their words, yourself?” Gareth asked as he met his adversary literally nose to nose.

“What, me? A lowly warrior without a royal cocoon to protect me from my detractors?” Hellick said with derision. “I was never even blessed with the honor of being Maranta Shanaugh’s personal mechanic much less as it seems, his bedroom successor.”

At that, Gareth thrust both of his fists into the hollows of Tomas Hellick’s shoulders just beside the collarbones, and Tomas stumbled back into the waiting arms of one of the pilots. To Tomas’s ill luck, that pilot was Maranta’s kinsman, Keleigh Shanaugh. She pinned his arms back behind him.

“Never mind about simply insulting the princess, Tomas Hellick,” Keleigh warned with a smile that bore no amusement, “You seek to insult my cousin’s widow in addition to his erstwhile mechanic Gareth.”

“Let him go,” Gareth told her. “I will defend both Princess Carrol and me.” Keleigh nodded and released Tomas.

“I will readily admit to insulting you, Gareth Duncan,” he said, as he jerked his arms away from Keleigh Shanaugh, “but I did not aim the insult at the princess. She is not the one who is shining buttons.”

“I will not accept that lame attempt to backtrack.” Gareth removed his work gloves from his hands and struck Tomas across the face. “To accuse me of shining buttons is to accuse Her Royal Highness as accepting such conduct, and I deny both. Draw on, Tomas Hellick, at the proper time and place.”

Keleigh whistled and stepped back with the other two warriors, astonished. A challenge of a duel of honor had not been thrown down amongst Thuringi in years. It was the sort of thing that was considered old-fashioned and better left to history. A quarrel or brawl might be the result of a personal dust-up, but fists or reason usually ruled the day, unless the Naradi were called in and the matter brought to royal court.

“Is this how you strike back at a man for winning a woman away from you?” Tomas asked in an odious tone.

“This is not about Lia Neo. I do not care about losing her; it was her choice to make and I am long done with it. This is about making insinuations against me, who stands blameless of such a disgusting charge as you made, and insulting the princess of Thuringa, a woman who has done you no harm,” Gareth answered with increasing anger.

“I do not wish to represent insulting Her Highness,” Tomas said stubbornly. The weight of his earlier words sank in at last. Eventually the king would hear about the challenge of duel, or Massic Surrell, and would know about the charges that precipitated it. Tomas might not find himself in the king’s continued good graces with the claim that the princess willingly allowed a lowly mechanic to shine her buttons – and any other surface he may have rubbed against.

“I did not shine anyone’s buttons,” Gareth answered, and smacked Tomas hard on the other side of the face, a move that sealed the duel. “I await the time and place of challenge.” He called to another mechanic nearby. “Would you please see to the service of Colonel Hellick’s ship,” Gareth asked his co-worker. “I do not wish to be accused of anything untoward should he plow his ship into the side of a GPQ. If,” he said, emphasizing the word with a hard look at Tomas, “he can fly at all after the Massic Surrell.”

The other engineer’s eyebrows shot up and he nodded. He went over the ship in silence, but Tomas Hellick knew as well as any of the other four there, the network of chitchat would soon torch the Thuringi populace’s ears with word of the impending duel.

Hartin Medina summoned Gareth to come to his quarters on the Daven Bau, so the mechanic showed up with all-purpose tools in a portable kit. Gareth entered the Medina quarters and at Lady Melina’s bidding, put aside his toolkit and sat with her and Hartin in their tea nook. “And so, here is our worthy fighter, Gareth Duncan,” Hartin observed. “Have you any idea what you’ve done, major?”

“I am not concerned about it,” Gareth replied, and thanked Melina for pouring his tea. She set down the teapot and looked at him worriedly.

“When was the last time you drew a sword?” she asked.

“Do you want specifics, or will an estimate of the number of years suffice?” Gareth asked with a grim smile.

“You could die,” Hartin barked angrily at him, annoyed at his indifference. “Does that not concern you?”

“No,” Gareth answered coldly. “Who would miss me?”

“We would,” Lady Melina declared, “and so would your many other friends, to say nothing of a certain princess who you alone pulled from the abyss of despair. How dare you be so cavalier about your life? Think of what losing you would mean to her, if none else.”

Gareth regarded the question as he watched the steam rise from his cup of lina tea. “You think she would care?” he asked softly.

“She would care,” Hartin repeated with emphasis. “And here you are, callously throwing away your life under the sword of the likes of Tomas Hellick; and for what?”

“For her honor,” Gareth snapped at him. “He impugned Her Nibs and me. You would do the same for the Lady Melina. And I am not going to throw my life away. Dorra skaku, borra palla faleen.”

Hartin managed a smile. “‘If a man must fight, then may it be a worthy battle.’ Maranta always said that.”

“He was full of phrases that were the ultimate in appropriate,” Gareth said.

“And he loved her, too,” Lady Melina observed thoughtfully.

Gareth swallowed hard. “No need for you to get carried away,” he objected. “He loved her, yes; but I am just her friend.”

“You are willing to fight for her good name against a man with decades of experience in battle,” Hartin pointed out, wondering if Gareth was being deliberately obtuse, or if he really did not see it. “You are a damn good friend to her, Gareth Duncan.”

“I am no match for a princess,” Gareth told them. “I am a mechanic with a rough tongue and no future. Do not tell me things I have no right to believe. Why did you call me here?”

“I intend to offer help,” Hartin said. “Here in the privacy of our quarters, I will teach you whatever I can in whatever time we have. Court is in two days. Have you a weapon?”

“I have a proud assortment of spanners,” Gareth answered whimsically, “or I suppose I could smack him over the head with a hammer.”

“Do not be a wag,” Hartin said, not amused. “Be a student. Leave the humor to me.”

“As you wish, Wag,” Gareth said. “Do you have a suitable weapon I could use?”

“All my good weaponry was put away in cargo,” Hartin said ruefully.

“I told the moving crew not to take it, but everyone was in such a hurry to leave Thuringa,” Lady Melina said defensively, and obviously not for the first time.

“We have a pair of consue swords for Lyra’s cadet training,” Hartin said. “I would offer you my sword but there is bad blood between Hellick and me as it is. I suppose we can use the consues and just borrow a proper sword when the time comes.”

“If only I had a fairer way of speech, I would not have to use a sword to settle a dispute,” Gareth sighed.

Lady Melina brightened. “Win this Massic Surrell,” she told him, “and we will train a fairer tongue on you later.”

“Train a fairer tongue?” Gareth laughed.

“We?” Hartin asked.

“Yes,” she firmly replied to both.