[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Maggie toyed with the spicer before opening one compartment Torrie couldn't
see which, but he would have guessed the cayenne and sprinkling some powder
over the last of her soup.
Dad had long since finished. He seemed to have three modes for eating. On
Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or Midsummer, when the Thorsen house was usually
filled with guests for a celebratory meal, he would take hours at the table,
pacing himself so that he would always have room for the next course, no
matter how many there were, enjoying each dish slowly, carefully, decidedly,
whether it was something as simple as boiled potatoes or as complicated as
that boned-turkey-stuffed-with-a-boned-duck-stuffed-with-a-boned chicken thing
that made Ingrid Orjasaeter, who had found it in some Cajun cookbook,
Hardwood's favorite invitee for a potluck supper.
For family suppers, he would only nibble at appetizers, and later at dessert,
filling up with neither haste nor leisure on the main course and whatever
green vegetable was put in front of him, as though he was eating for two
patient people. Which, since he tended to expend enough energy for three, left
him in awfully good shape for a man of his many years Dad would be fifty
pretty soon, hard as that was to believe.
For informal, catch-as-catch-can meals, a third mode came into play: he would
simply wolf down whatever he could get his hands on until he was full, and
then he would get back to whatever he was doing. When Dad was busy with a
project of any sort, food was just a distraction.
For whatever reason, this meal seemed to have fallen into that third
category; Dad had mechanically gobbled down his bowl of stew or soup along
Page 101
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
with a hunk of bread, then washed it down with about a quart of water before
excusing himself from the table to unpack, sort, and repack their rucksacks.
Torrie could have told him that everything was okay the rubberized canvas
bags that had protected the rucksacks during the storm would have kept them
dry at the bottom of a lake but there was no point in arguing with Dad once he
set his mind to something. Stubbornness ran on both sides of the family.
"So," Hosea said, as he stacked the dirty dishes carefully, "you were not
happy with your mother's behavior in all of this."
"Understatement, Uncle Hosea," Torrie said, "is the least clever kind of
humor, somebody once told me."
"Oh?"
"I believe it was you."
"So it might have been, at that." Uncle Hosea picked up the stack of dishes
and carried it to the fireplace. Two cast-iron pots were already bubbling as
they hung from their pivots over the fire. Hosea simply swung the arm out,
carefully slipped the dirty dishes into one pot, and swung it back. Torrie
looked for the tongs that he would need in order to move the dishes from their
first bath to their second, but couldn't find it perhaps Harbard used the wood
tongs for that.
"But Ian, and Arnie, and Ivar del Hival "
"Will be well, I'm sure," Uncle Hosea said. "Harbard hardly sent them
empty-handed on their errand. I'm sure they will simply deliver his message
to... whoever runs things in Vandescard these days, and come right back." He
spread his hands. "You could go after them, I suppose, but I see little need."
Maggie's mouth twitched. "I think we know Ian a little better than you do,
Hosea. He can get into trouble drinking a beer in a bar."
Torrie shook his head. "Maggie, that's not "
"That's not your opinion," she said, a definite snap in her voice. "It's
mine. I'm entitled to it."
"Yes, you are, Maggie," Uncle Hosea said. "And it's certainly true. But I
think that this is not a time when you should worry."
"But "
Maggie's hand gripped Torrie's thigh hard enough to hurt, cutting him off.
But it wasn't fair. For one thing, Ian didn't drink, at all. For another, he
wasn't the getting-into-trouble type. That probably went with the
territory Ian had been self-supporting so long that he weighed any expense of
effort in the light of what reward it might bring, and picking a fight or even
responding to somebody else trying to make trouble didn't pay
Outside of thesalle d'armes.
Well, there, of course, it was different. If you wanted to make your food and
rent money tutoring novice and intermediate foil players and Ian pretty much
had to; the days when somebody could put himself through school on some sort
of minimum-wage job had vanished probably about the time that disco died you
Page 102
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
not only had to be a good and patient teacher, but you had to be able to beat
anybody short of a master fencer, just for the advertising benefit, and it
definitely paid to be aggressive not only on the fencing strip, but in getting
there. Not mean, not hostile, not cruel but it paid to show a presence.
"Still, though," Uncle Hosea said, "while I can assure you Ian and his
companions are safe, there is something you might want to do. It's just in a
different direction; that's all."
"Oh?"
"I think your grandfather, Thorian del Orvald, would like to know that...
Harbard is trying to keep the peace. He is, so it's said, very much in the
confidence of the Scion, and his counsel might help keep the Scion from
being... precipitous, perhaps, in his concern about developments along the
border." He looked over at Dad. "I am concerned that the Crimson and Ancient
Cerulean companies could be assembled, and that would be threatening. Even if
they might not be what they once were, they might give a decent account of
themselves in battle."
"A decent account?" Dad lifted his head from his work. "They might do that,
or more than that. Perhaps much more. It would be a mistake to underestimate
the Crimson and Ancient Cerulean companies, I think."
"Indeed." Uncle Hosea smiled. "I guess one who once trained many of them in
the rudiments of swordsmanship would know better than I."
Dad smiled. "Yes, he would, at that." He picked up a first-aid kit from the
pile of unchecked equipment, both looked and felt inside, then snapped it
closed, adding it to the second pile. "But it is more than that, as you should
know. We folk of Middle Dominions are perhaps not what we once were, but there
is something of the old spirit in us, at times." His eyes seemed focused on
something far away. "Men have underestimated that in the past, and some may
well do so in the future."
Hosea nodded soberly. "Yes, there is truth in that. So you agree that it
would be better to leave for the Cities than to follow Ian and his friends."
Dad was starting to nod, when Maggie leaned forward. "No," she said. "You
can't ask Mr. Thorsen to do that." She laid a hand on Dad's arm. "Hosea is an
old friend of yours. There's no need to take offense."
Dad raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"Yes," she said, gesturing at Hosea. "He meant no harm. But Ian left so
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]