The Fire Duke Read online

  The Fire Duke

  Keepers of the Hidden Ways

  Book I

  Joel Rosenberg

  Content

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Part One Hardwood, North Dakota

  Chapter One The Fencing Team

  Chapter Two Thorian and Hosea

  Chapter Three Wolves

  Chapter Four Hidden Ways

  Part Two The New World

  Chapter Five The Sons of the Wolf

  Chapter Six Tir Na Nog

  Chapter Seven In the House of the Fire Duke

  Chapter Eight Captives

  Chapter Nine Town Council

  Chapter Ten Mount Aeskja and a Bergenisse

  Chapter Eleven The Middle Dominion

  Chapter Twelve Harbard and Frida

  Chapter Thirteen To the House of Flame

  Chapter Fourteen Silvertop

  Chapter Fifteen The Fire Duke

  Chapter Sixteen Escape

  Chapter Seventeen Hunters

  Chapter Eighteen Hidden Ways

  Chapter Nineteen Falias

  Chapter Twenty Breakfast and a Challenge

  Chapter Twenty-One Tunnels

  Chapter Twenty-Two The Duelist

  Chapter Twenty-Three The Fencer

  Chapter Twenty-Four Profession

  Epilogue Neighbors

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  I’m grateful to the Usual Suspects—Peg Kerr Ihinger, Bruce Bethke, and Pat Wrede—for helping to point the way; to Harry Leonard, Victor Raymond, David Dyer-Bennet, Sharon Rosenberg, Dale Rosenberg, and Elise Matthesen for additional advice and encouragement en route; to Eleanor Wood, for making the trip pay for itself; and to Chris Miller, John Douglas, and Bob Mecoy for faith, patience, and enthusiasm at the beginning and through to the end. I’m also thankful for the copyediting of Carol Kennedy and the proofreading of Beth Friedman. Special thanks to Jerry Pournelle for giving me the key to Arnie Selmo, and for his consultation on the philosophy and practice of epée and foil fencing.

  Much right is thanks to all of them; any mistakes belong entirely to me.

  I’m particularly grateful to the people who lived in Northwood, North Dakota, in the late fifties and early sixties—every last one of them.

  As always, I’m grateful to my wife, Felicia Herman, and my daughters, Judy and Rachel, for things that have both much and little to do with the work at hand.

  Prologue

  In the House of Flame

  Flame Melts Ice, Wind Snuffs Flame, Stone Blocks Wind, Ice Cracks Stone, (repeat four times, then:) Sky Rules All, Sky Rules All, Sky Rules All, Sky Rules All.

  —Middle Dominion children’s song, sung in time to the bouncing of a ball

  “Stasis,” the Fire Duke said, pronouncing the word like a curse. “I have had my fill of stasis, and then some.”

  “Almost as much as you’ve had your fill of His Solidity, perhaps?” Rodic del Renald inclined his head. It wouldn’t have been politic to observe that having his fill and then more was clearly a habit of the fat duke. A smattering of presumption went well with Rodic’s profession and position, but only a smattering.

  Besides, to be fair, the Fire Duke, Lord of Falias, wore his fat well. Maneuvering his vast bulk with a grace that still surprised the son of Renald, even after all the years of occasional service to His Warmth, the fat man rose to his feet and walked to the broad expanse of window, his hands clasped at his waist, as though he could hold any problem to him and crush it.

  Which is perhaps true for any problem His Warmth can wrap his hands about, Rodic del Renald thought. Not that it would do any good here and now. Back before he had become duke, back when the future His Warmth was merely Anegir del Denegir, back when he was only the second son of the late His Warmth, he had been thought rather straightforward, for someone of his lineage.

  That had changed, but perhaps not as much as His Warmth would have wished. There’s only so much about yourself you can change.

  “Not just the Stone Duke,” the Fire Duke said, “but the Wind and the Ice, as well. And if the truth be known—”

  As it is, in the long run, Rodic thought.

  “—I’m less than fond of the Sky,” he murmured. He smiled thinly, as though daring Rodic to acknowledge the treason.

  “Then, my Duke,” Rodic said, “by all means, complain endlessly about it. Tell me more, please, about how neither you nor any other of the Houses dare move too openly, too boldly against each other, for fear of bringing the wrath of the remaining ones down against the aggressor.”

  As though that was the only worry. Off to the east of the Dominion, Vandescard lay, perhaps waiting, perhaps not. One could never tell about humans who styled themselves the proper descendants of the Vanir. And one could never tell about the Old Ones in the North, or the younger, more vigorous cultures in the South.

  We live, huddled among the bones of giants, Rodic decided, like a bunch of aging men, waiting to become old enough to lay down their tools and die gracefully.

  And, yet, compared to the youngest of the Old Ones, the Dominion was still young and fresh.

  There had once been more than a dozen Houses, and not merely the five remaining, inhabiting the ancient keeps of Falias, Gorias, Finias, and Murias, and the one so old it was known only as the Old Keep. One House had become powerful enough to take the Old Keep, and the title of the House of the Sky; only four others survived.

  The rest were long gone, conquered and subsumed like the House of Trees, shattered and destroyed like the House Without A Name.

  “Even the Sky,” the Fire Duke said.

  “If the Sky bothers you so badly, summon your son and heir back, and let him lead your soldiers against it.”

  As though that could happen. Venidir del Anegir and his Lady Mother were more or less a permanent fixture in the Old Keep, which apparently suited both of them and the Fire Duke well. Back when his elder brother died, even before he succeeded his father, His Warmth had seemed to have little use for his wife and his heir, and had long had them live as his emissaries to the Sky, returning to Falias but rarely.

  It might bode well for the House of Flame to have its next duke so well connected with the Sky, or it might not; it was possible that too close a connection could trigger a revolt by the other three houses, fearful that they would be shattered or subsumed, too.

  “You speak perhaps a trifle boldly,” the Fire Duke said.

  “I speak, perhaps, a trifle truthfully.” Wondering if he had gone too far, Rodic sipped at a cold spun-glass flute of icy Prime Ingarian autumn wine. The berries, grown high on the surprisingly cool slopes of Flame Ingaria, were picked, shriveled, just before the first frost, and only the first pressing went into the Prime. After fifty years in a hidden wine cellar that could have been next to the duke’s quarters or leagues of corridors away, the wine was sweet as wildflower honey, but with a rich berry taste that lingered on the tongue.

  When the fat duke started fighting for control of his expression, Rodic knew that he had won, he had survived, yet again. The Art was not only his way of life, it was the key to life: someone as devious as the Fire Duke would not deal so straightforwardly with Rodic as to have him killed. No matter that, practically, it would be a matter of great simplicity for the duke to have Rodic killed here and now.

  While there were undoubtedly abditories and adits and passages in the keep that the Duke of the House of Flame didn’t know—the keeps had been built for the Old Ones, after all, and they hardly left behind a map!—His Warmth would hardly have picked as his private office a room without several secret entries under his control. Quite likely, a brace of soldiers hid behind the tapestry or perhaps in the ceiling, waiting and listening until
a raised voice called for them. But probably only one such hiding place was available to His Warmth’s servants. Knowledge of the Hidden Ways wasn’t merely a convenience to the rulers of the Houses, at times it was a matter of life and death.

  Politically, it would be the simplest thing in the world for the Flamebearer to order Rodic’s death. After all, Rodic’s use-name was his fullname: Rodic was only a second-generation noble. His two brothers were long dead in duels, and his sister married off to a Caprician knight minor.

  There was no one to carry out a vendetta against nobility of any House, and certainly not against the Fire Duke.

  But Rodic’s father had long ago taught him that the Old Families respected impertinence at a level that cut below conscious thought, and that the only way to keep from having to constantly grovel before them was to refuse to, to constantly show an acceptable trace of disdain—but only an acceptable one.

  Rodic didn’t want to die the way his father had, not now. Another fifteen years, perhaps, and young Rodic del Rodic—with, by the Dominion, a true use-name!—would be established, perhaps even accepted as a cadet into the House of Flame. Or of Ice, if it came to that.

  But he would not spend his life in what the true houses mockingly called the House of Steel, doing the dirty work of the nobility. That was for Rodic del Renald.

  “You sent for me to complain about stasis, Your Warmth?” Rodic asked, then took another sip.

  “No,” the Fire Duke said, “I sent for you for two reasons. There’s a small dispute with the Stone—I’d like you to represent me in it.”

  “A matter of honor?”

  “No,” the duke said. “Territory. A smallish part of a smallish holding. We have the records to prove it ours.”

  “I am, of course, honored.” Rodic bowed his head. Not particularly. Money matters were of no interest to him; that’s what he had a wife for, after all. “I’ll have to examine the documents before I commit myself—”

  “My word is not good enough?”

  “Of course it is,” Rodic said. “If you wish to face the House of Stone’s representative yourself, Your Warmth. If you wish to steep yourself in the rightness of your cause, and then reinforce the strength and cunning of your arm with the appropriate rituals and herbs, why, then of course your word is good enough for me, and I’ll proudly stand as your second, to bind up your wounds, if received, and help carry you from the field, dead or alive, should you fall.”

  He raised a finger. “But since I happen to know that Stanar del Brunden is representing the Stone Duke, and since I’ve received more cuts from his blade than I can count, I’ll see your proof before I commit myself and my too, too tender flesh to your cause.”

  Perhaps he had gone too far. The Fire Duke’s nostrils flared. “Have it as you will, this time. But don’t think yourself essential, Rodic-of-the-second-generation. It’s possible you could be replaced.”

  Rodic had to smile. There were few blades as good as he, and most of those were heavily tied to the Sky, not available to the lesser houses. “With whom would you replace me, Your Warmth? Thorian del Thorian, perhaps?”

  It was intended as a jape, only. But the Fire Duke’s face was too still, too emotionless, too suddenly. “That would hardly be possible, would it?” he said, the question clearly intended to sound rhetorical only. “There may come a time,” the Fire Duke said, then stopped himself. “There will come a time, I hope, when I shall find you expendable, when I will represent my house myself.”

  No. The attempt to cover himself would not work. The Fire Duke knew something, and he had let it slip. But old nobility always tended to assume they were wiser than the new, and for once Rodic didn’t resent it.

  Thorian, he thought, as an attendant in fiery livery let him out of His Warmth’s office, and down the unreasonably high-ceilinged corridor.

  Thorian the Traitor.

  Was it possible that Thorian was alive? And if so, where could he possibly be? Certainly not within the Dominion.

  The duelmaster would have to be told.

  Part One

  Hardwood, North Dakota

  Chapter One

  The Fencing Team

  Torrie had long since shut off the tape player by the time they turned off I-29 at Thompson; there was only so much Van Halen he could stand. The floor of the car was littered—with McDonald’s burger wrappers, still sticky and greasy in places; with empty Coke cans, drained and crumpled; and even with the Baggies that had contained the crudités that Maggie had insisted on buying at the SuperValu outside Minneapolis.

  Being a veggie didn’t make her a neat freak, Torrie Thorsen had decided. Or maybe it was just that Ian’s bad habits were rubbing off on the two of them. Ian Silverstein wasn’t really unclean, just messy; Ian would never hang up a damp towel on a rack or over a sink if a chair or a floor was handy.

  “Hmmm … there’s a gas station—hell, it’s a real service station—in Hatton,” Torrie said, winding down the window of the old Rambler so that he could hang his left elbow out. “We could stop off there and clean up a bit. Dump the trash out of the car, at least.”

  Maryanne Christensen partly hid a smile behind her hand, but Ian chuckled out loud.

  “Mommie doesn’t like a messy car?” Ian gave out a few more chortles.

  “Give me a break,” Torrie said, not that he really expected Ian to stop.

  He was pleased to be wrong. “Peace,” Ian said. “No offense intended.”

  Torrie looked into the rearview mirror, to see Ian holding up a hand. “But I tell you,” Ian said, “you’re all the same way. You, too, Maggie. You live your own life at school, but the moment you point your car—”

  “I don’t have a car,” Maggie said.

  “—the moment you point your nose homeward, you turn into Buck and Martha’s baby girl—”

  “My parents are Albert and Rachel.”

  “—Albert and Rachel’s baby girl again. You stand up straight, you make a special effort to wash around the neck …” Ian scratched at where his sketchy beard met his collar. “Hell, I bet you even make your bed.”

  Maggie arched an eyebrow. “You don’t?”

  No, he didn’t. The times that Maggie stayed over in Torrie’s room, and Ian was kicked out to sleep on the St. Rock brothers’ floor, Torrie had made Ian’s bed. It looked nicer and somehow a bit less calculated that way.

  Ian shrugged. “Well, to tell the truth, no—the way I figure it, if I’m going to be back in bed in sixteen hours, what’s the point?”

  “Well?”

  “What is the point, Maryanne?”

  “None,” she said coldly, frowning. For some reason, Maggie hated her real name, and didn’t like any of the reasonable shortened versions of it. Whenever Ian was irritated with her, he would seem to forget that. Which would only anger her.

  None of that bothered Torrie, particularly. Things between him and Maggie were tentative these days; he didn’t need Ian interfering. Not that Ian would interfere deliberately, probably. A steady girlfriend would be too much of a distraction from work and school, and while Torrie doubted that Ian really cared about school a whole lot, he went at it with even more energy and drive than he spent on the fencing strips.

  Ian finally got around to apologizing. “Sorry, I meant to say, “What’s the point, Maggie?”—that better?”

  “Sure.” The frown melted into a real smile. “I still meant to say none. No point at all. None beyond, oh, a smidgen of neatness, a desire to make things look nice. So I still make my bed.”

  Giving a scornful toss of her head that flicked her short coal black hair from side to side, she folded her arms across her beige pullover sweater and leaned back against the pillow she had propped up against the door. She was into her short cycle these days, and would likely stay that way until the summer—Maggie didn’t mind tying her hair back in a ponytail when fencing, but said she despised wearing a headband.

  Torrie couldn’t decide whether he liked her better in short hair
or long. He had always preferred long hair, but something about Maggie’s present almost boyish cut set off her button nose and stubborn chin particularly well.

  Not that it would matter what Torrie wanted. Maggie might deign to share a bed every now and then, but she was hardly about to ask his permission before cutting her hair or picking out her clothes.

  Which was really okay with Torrie. He wouldn’t have thought the combination of an oversized beige chain-knit sweater and black tights to be sexy, but somehow or other it was. Tights? No, he had called them tights, but that was wrong. Leggings, Maggie had said. Leggings or stretch-pants or just pants, not tights. That was the trouble with women’s clothes—funny names. A shirt was either a top or a blouse, but never a shirt. Tights were leggings. Ignorance was strength, maybe.

  “What are you smiling about?” Maggie asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” Torrie said.

  Maybe it was that the leggings showed off her legs well while the sweater announced that it concealed the rest of her. Or just maybe, Torrie thought, it was that it had been a full three weeks since he and Maggie had celebrated his Class A epée win with a couple of icy bottles of Columbia Crest chardonnay—nobody said good wine couldn’t be 86.95 a bottle—a quart of fresh strawberries, and a surprising quartet of condoms. It was getting pretty damn irritating, and Torrie was finding himself snapping at people without having any cause.

  “Ian,” Torrie said, “maybe you ought to think about taking up bed making.”

  “There a lot of money in it?”

  “No, but maybe it’ll hide the fact that you think sheets need to be changed every other semester or so.”

  “Well, there is that. Itches if you don’t.” Theatrically, Ian scratched at his crotch. “But I do make the time to change my underwear almost weekly, honest. And, hey, don’t you think you’re driving a bit fast?”

  “If I thought I was driving too fast,” Torrie said, “I’d slow down.”

  It was Maggie’s turn to chuckle. After a moment, Ian joined in.