The next
day Buck’s hangover didn’t abate until well after noon; it had in fact been a fantastic
night. He wandered sleepily towards the palace in the mid afternoon sun, smiling
at some memories that filtered back into his groggy mind. There had been
singing, standing on tables, both at once. For some reason the baby had latched
onto Victane and snuggled up in his lap. This left Misene and Wailune to join
in with a game of cards that lasted the entire night.
One person’s turn could take forever in this
game though, so most of the time was spent with everyone else telling stories
and making jokes as they waited for the current player to switch cards around between
people’s hands. You could choose to end your turn at any time, but the more you
swapped cards, the better a hand you could make. But given you technically didn’t
know what cards you were choosing and were going by estimation of who had picked
up what and when, you were in danger of messing up your sets if you went on too
long.
Buck chuckled as he strolled onto the main
road to the palace, remembering Rydone’s pained groans as she surrendered her turn
without putting a single pair down in front of her. He hadn’t felt this relaxed
heading to the palace in quite some time. As he neared the courtyard, the slight
breeze blowing down the road was even livening up his brain. He yawned, shook
his head, and said a quick hello to the guard as he walked in through the gate.
“Hi, Buck,” the guard said. She pointed
around towards the side of the palace. “That ambassador person said to send you
around to the stables. I think that’s where they’re keeping her floating carriage
thingy. Prince Erson’s with her, just so you know.”
“Oh, thanks,” Buck said. He nodded once then
picked up speed a bit. He didn’t really want to stay and answer the types of
questions palace guards tended to ask him, not if Erson’s attitude towards him
was the current hot topic of gossip.
But the warmth of the sun on his brick red tunic
brought some calm quickly back to him, and he was able to shrug off the moment
with a literal shake of his head. Erson would probably be on his best behaviour
with the ambassador anyway – at least he had been so far. Buck did wonder if
that would continue, given that it was Erson and his family that Alkset was
interested in, rather than much of anything Pires had to offer. Still, maybe
Erson was worried any lack of professionalism would scare Alkset off. As Buck
rounded the corner into the stables and spotted Erson closely examining the mechanisms
of Alkset’s floating carriage, Buck reckoned that was the last thing Erson wanted.
Alkset was leaning over the carriage, having
what seemed like a very intense conversation with Erson. He looked up from what
he was doing to respond to her a lot, and her eyes widened as they saw Buck.
But she stood up straight and called out to him.
“Afternoon, Buttane! You picked out some interesting songs to teach me? Remember,
I need at least some of your most accurate histories, but I want to learn about
your culture too. Sing me some of your favourites.”
Buck was curious about what had been being discussed
before, but it didn’t take a master of diplomacy to know that he probably
shouldn’t ask. Instead he patted his bucket, which contained sheaves of papers
full of song lyrics and musical notation. “Don’t worry, I have more chronicles
jammed into my head than I care to relate. Are you ready?”
Alkset shook her head and gestured towards
Erson. “Not sure about leaving this one here alone with the carriage. A little
afraid he might figure out how to drive it and steal the thing.”
“It is fascinating,” Erson murmured.
He stood up stretched his arms out. “I don’t understand a thing though. Just
taking in what I can observe at the moment. I can’t wait for you to teach me
how it actually works.”
Alkset tilted her head back and forth, miming
weighing something up. “Well, it may take a long time to explain the actual physics,
but I can certainly get you proficient in driving it. That’s what I actually
meant when I offered this for the diplomatic exchange.”
“I’ll take that,” Erson said, “though I’d
love to learn the science some day.”
“That can certainly be arranged,” Alkset said,
glancing towards Buck.
“Uh… not by me,” Buck said, “I’m hopeless at
anything involving numbers. Music is the closest I get to science.”
Alkset winced. “Oops. I meant your father.
It’s one of his inventions.”
“Oh,” Buck said. “That’s cool. Why is that
an oops?”
Alkset glanced at Erson, whose face was a mask.
She said, “I’m not really meant to be so liberal with the details I give you of
your father, which I was telling Erson this afternoon. But it’s difficult,
because I spend a lot of my time arranging for his inventions to be traded with
other nations, so talking about him is pretty much my job. But the council…
they don’t want me to discuss him too much with you, as part of the deal struck
with Pires’s father was that Buck’s father would cut ties with his old life.
They think that discussion of him so far away from their domain is contradictory
to that.”
“Huh,” Buck said. He wasn’t sure that made
sense at all, but he wasn’t about to pick a fight. “Well, I guess that’s
understandable. It’s okay though. I’d love to hear more, but I’ve waited this
long – I can wait a little longer. How much longer do you think I’ll have
to wait?”
“Well, we’ve managed to settle on a goal that
will represent the royal family’s co-operation with us. Erson’s going to get us
a copy of the minutes of the meeting in which war was decided upon. No matter the
reason, I personally consider that adequate. It’s about openness – if that
means exposing your own parents for hawks, then that’s open enough for me,”
Alkset said. She looked at Erson, “Right, Erson?”
Erson cleared his throat. “Like I said, I think
it’s far from certain that the meanings will expose excess warmongering from my
parents. But if that is the outcome, then I am content with sharing this
information to further diplomatic policy in the next generation.”
That was a slogan and a half, Buck thought.
He decided not to voice that particular thought though. Erson had got awfully
stiff, and Buck wondered if maybe this was the discussion that had distracted
them from their carriage examinations.
“Actually, Alkset, I’m going to head off and
start letter writing. If I hurry I actually think I can get one sent away today,”
Erson said. Before Alkset could protest, he nodded once to each of them then
hurried off.
When he was gone, Alkset turned to Buck and
grimaced slightly. “Think I went a bit far there. He was talking about his
parents’ war as if it were a childish lark all day, but I should have thought
about how it would feel coming from an outside source.”
Buck nodded. He’d made the same mistake plenty
of times in his career as court jester. “He’ll be alright, just give him some
space. Come on, let’s go to the performance hall. I’ll show you how I would put
on a show around here.”
Walking around the side of the carriage, Buck
headed for the back of the stables, right up against the wall of the palace.
“Wait, where are you going?” Alkset asked as
she jogged up to him.
Buck pressed on a stone at about waist
height until a door handle popped out. He heaved open the door. “I figure openness
includes opening the doors of secret passages.” He leaned back and gestured
towards the entrance. “After you.”
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