Page 49 of Thief of Roses
“Were you a knight?”
“I was knighted, yes.”
“Ah,” she said, pulling her body away from his arm and drawing her legs under her as she quirked a brow.“You were knighted, but not a knight.So, you were greater than a knight.You mentioned a brother before.Was he younger?”
“I was the younger, or rather, the youngest.Our middle brother died before his second year.”
“You said that your brother was the favorite.”
“As my father’s successor, he received greater attention, raised for leadership since his first breath.My family expected me to lead my brother’s armies when he ascended, and I received a more restrictive military upbringing.”
Baró as a military man sounded absurd until she gave it serious thought.He killed expertly even if he did not have an inclination to kill gratuitously.He possessed a clever mind even if he did not have a wealth of opportunities to display it.He offered no hesitation in physical exertion, or hard labor, or facing danger.She adjusted her mental image of him.Perhaps some of those scars had been there before.
“And this fortress belonged to your father?”
“To me.My family’s estates in the capital made this look like a humble woodland cottage.This place,” he gestured around the great hall, “in comparison was an exile — too small for their entourages, too remote for any political purpose.It lost its defensive function centuries before it came to me.It was an exchange and it never felt like home.I received the land and my brother received my wife who had been his lover for a year by then.”
The words “my wife” caused a moment of confusion.Had she heard him correctly?Or had he misused the Rivanic term?Baró proved an exceptional pupil with his mastery over a language with which he had claimed little experience, far outstripping many native speakers, but like any student, he occasionally selected an odd word or chose a phrase that did not translate in a way he meant.
“A woman you married?”
“A strategic selection by my family, not of my own choice.All the benefits of marriage I should have received — property, wealth, heirs — were assumed by my brother.Just as well.I lacked sufficient ambition to make the most of the union.”
Rivani had not considered the possibility of Baró being married before.He never spoke of a wife.However, a political marriage such as he described furthered Rivani’s conviction that Baró far outranked anything she imagined for his prior life.Even if the acquisition of his property and land had been a trade, Baró had been important enough to get his own estate.Though he may have spoken of the fortress pejoratively, Rivani had never known anyone who owned such things as land.How could anyone of his import get enmeshed in such a massive magical undertaking without causing a major political event?The mysterious disappearance of a property owner from a wealthy titled family should have been a prominent feature in Varnasian history.
“Do you want to talk about her — about your wife?”
“No.She meant little to me and I even less to her.”Baró scratched behind his ear.“We were engaged when I was nine.We wed by proxy when I was fifteen, and in-person when I was seventeen.We had never met prior.There was no affection there.”He pried himself off the ground, ready to renew his assault on the fallen masonry.“And what of you, Rivani?My past bores me.Tell me of you.”
“I don’t know that I have much to say.I am Rivani.”She threw her hands up.“That tells all I could think to tell myself.”
“Your whole life consists of gazing into crystal balls and pick-pocketing?”Baró brows screwed up.
“You forgot the cheating and lying.”Rivani’s derisive snort accompanied an eye roll as she rose also.“It’s good to know that the racist stereotypes have not changed that much.”
“I do not believe that is in any way accurate,” assured Baró.“The ethnoreligious components of your culture have always been a fascination to me.In that, I am no different from any other non-Rivani.But as the pr— er, a person of high position, I was obliged to read the augers of sacrifices to the Great Holy, a practice I never saw as much different than cards or bones or glass gazing.And yet, no one would have ever dared think of me as a diviner or magician.”
Rivani arched her brow.“Were you accurate?”
“Let us put it this way — I have never relied upon my own abilities.”
“That good, huh?”Rivani grinned and twisted the end of her scarf in her hands.“Anyone who divines, it is through skill, not bloodborne ability.Some of us can indeed see things invisible to others, but I am no Seer.That kind of gift is no gift.”She reapplied herself to the removal of smaller debris.“Some of us can see magic and can see Rivan magic in people.Sometimes I can feel magic although I have not found consistency in its manifestation.Of course, anyone sensible, Rivani or not, would know this place is steeped in it.”
Baró paused his toils, deep furrows setting into his brows.“I have little practical knowledge of magic.Is there a way to strip it away or siphon it off?”He averted his face from her.“Could it be stripped from me?”
Baró sounded like a child asking about the possibility of regrowing a lost limb.Wanting to be sensitive did not negate the need for honesty.
“The Magic here has rooted itself to the forest, to the fortress, and to you with centuries to further entrench itself.Taking the Magic away would be less like removing the fallen masonry and more like removing the mortar from the structure that remains.If such a thing were possible, Baró, I think you would suffer for it.”
“As I suspected.”Baró hefted up an intimidating boulder as if, through physical exertion, he could suppress the stray momentary hope that crept into his usual feigned disinterest regarding his circumstances.“Since I disbelieve you conform to the inflammatory stereotypes, must I take up interrogation to learn of you?”
She laughed, feeling inadequate to the task at hand as she dislodged a piece less than a tenth the size he currently carried.“I don’t talk much about myself, Baró.The inhabitants of the villages I pass through wish me gone without a care to know me and the Rivani with whom I travel would not let me stop with them if they knew much.”
“Why would you not be welcome among your own people?”Contrary to Rivani’s intention, her statement roused his curiosity.He set the boulder down by the doorway, not wishing to distract from this line of inquiry.
“See?I’ve already said too much,” she grumbled.He glanced around the great hall, at the emptiness of it, and then back at her.
“I am sure the multitude of people who live in this fortress will be scandalized beyond recovery.”
