David Weber - How firm a foundation

Of course, that intellectual ferment was the main reason he was sitting here on his grandfather’s Siddar City terrace feeding bread to greedy wyverns and squabbling seagulls. It wasn’t like “So, here you are!” a familiar voice said, and he looked over his shoulder, then rose with a smile of welcome for the silver-haired, plump but distinguished-looking woman who’d just stepped out of the mansion’s side door behind him.

“I wasn’t exactly hiding, Grandmother,” he pointed out. “In fact, if you’d opened a window and listened, I’m sure you could have tracked me down without any trouble at all.”

He pulled one of the chairs away from the table with one hand while the other gestured at the guitar lying in its open case on the bench beside him.

“For that matter, if you’d only looked out the window, the fleeing birds and the small creatures running for the shrubbery with their paws over their ears would have pinpointed me for you.”

“Oh, nonsense, Byrk!” She laughed, patting him on the cheek before she seated herself in the proffered chair. “Your playing’s not that bad.”

“Just not that bad?” he teased, raising one eyebrow at her. “Is that another way of saying it’s almost that bad?”

“No, that’s what your grandfather would call it if he were here,” Sahmantha Raimahn replied. “And he’d mean just as little of it as I would. Go ahead and play something for me now, Byrk.”

“Well, if you insist,” he said in a long-suffering tone.

She made a face at him, and he laughed as he picked the guitar back up. He thought for a moment, picking random notes as he considered, then struck the opening chord of “The Way of the Widow-Maker,” one of the very first ballads he’d learned to play sitting on Sahmantha’s lap. The sad, rich notes spilled across the terrace while the sunlight struck chestnut highlights in his brown hair and the wind ruffled that hair, sighed in the branches of the ornamental fruit trees, and sent the shrubbery’s sprays of blossoms flickering in light and shadow.

He bent his head, eyes half-closed, giving himself to the ballad, and his grandmother drew her steel thistle silk wrap closely about her shoulders. She knew he thought of his music as a rich young man’s hobby, but he was wrong. It was far more than that, and as she watched him play her own eyes lost some of their usual sparkle, darkening while the lament for lost sailors spilled up from his guitar strings to circle and curtsy around the terrace. It was a haunting melody, as lovely as it was sad, and she remembered how he’d insisted she teach it to him when he’d been barely seven years old.

The year before his parents’ deaths had sent him to her more as her youngest son than her oldest grandson.

“I don’t suppose you could’ve thought of anything more depressing, could you?” she teased gently when the final note had faded away, and he shrugged.

“I don’t really think of it as depressing,” he said, laying the guitar back in the case and running a fingertip gently down the bright strings. He looked back up at her. “It’s sad, yes, but not depressing, Grandmother. There’s too much love for the sea in it for that.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” she conceded.

“Of course I am- I’m the poet, remember?” He smiled infectiously. “Besides,” his smile turned warmer, gentler, “I love it because of who it was that taught it to me.”

“Flatterer.” She reached out and smacked him gently on the knee. “You got that from your father. And he got it from your grandfather!”

“Really?” He seemed astounded by the notion and gazed thoughtfully out across the gleaming blue water for several seconds, then nodded with the air of someone who’d just experienced a revelation. “So that’s how someone with the Raimahn nose got someone as good-looking as you to marry him! I’d always wondered about that, actually.”

“You, Byrk Raimahn, are what was known in my youth as a rapscallion.”

“Oh, no, Grandmother-you wrong me! I’m sure the term you’d really have applied to me would’ve been much ruder than that.”

She laughed and shook her head at him, and he offered her the bowl of grapes. She selected one and popped it into her mouth, and he set the bowl down in front of her.

“Somehow the hothouse grapes just aren’t as good,” he commented. “They make me miss our vineyards back home.”

He glanced back out across the bay as he spoke and missed the shadow that flitted through her eyes. Or he could pretend he had, at least.

“I think they have a lower sugar content,” she said out loud, no sign of that shadow touching her voice.

“That’s probably it,” he agreed, looking back at her with another smile.

She returned the smile, plucked another grape, and leaned back, cocking her head to one side.

“What’s this about you being off to Madam Pahrsahn’s again this evening?” she asked lightly. “I hear you have at least a dozen rivals for her affections, you know.”

“Alas, too true!” He pressed the back of his wrist to his forehead, his expression tragic. “That cretin Raif Ahlaixsyn offered her a sonnet last night, and he actually had the gall to make it a good one.” He shook his head. “Quickly, Grandmother! Tell me what to do to recover in her eyes!”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll come about.” She shook her head at him. “Although, at the rate she seems to attract fresh suitors, you may yet find yourself crowded out.”

“Grandmother,” he looked at her affectionately, “I enormously admire Madam Pahrsahn. I also think she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met, and bearing in mind my paternal grandmother’s youthful beauty that’s a pretty high bar for anyone to pass. Even more important, I’ve never met anyone more brilliant and cultured than she is. But she’s also somewhere around twice my age, and I think she regards me more in the light of a puppy who hasn’t yet grown into his ears and feet than anything remotely like a paramour. I promise I’m on my very best behavior at her soirees.”

“Of course you are. I know that,” she said, just that bit too quickly, and he laughed and shook a finger under her nose.

“Oh, no, you don’t know it!” he scolded. “What a fibber! You’re worried your darling grandson is going to be so enamored of the gorgeous, sophisticated older woman that he’s going to commit some indiscretion with her.” He shook his head, brown eyes glinting devilishly. “Trust me, Grandmother! When I commit youthful indiscretions, I’ll take great care to make certain you know nothing about them. That way you’ll be happy, and I’ll remain intact.”

“You’re right, ‘rapscallion’ is definitely too polite a term for you, young man!”

Her lips quivered as she fought to restrain a smile, and he laughed again.

“Which is why you’re afraid of those youthful indiscretions of mine,” he observed. “A charming, unprincipled rogue and general, all-round ne’er-do-well is far more likely to succeed in being indiscreet, I imagine.”

“That must be it,” she agreed. “But you are going to be out again this evening?” He looked a question at her, and she shrugged. “Your grandfather and I have invitations to the theater tonight-they’re presenting a new version of Yairdahn’s Flower Maiden -and I just wanted to know whether we should include you in the party.”

“It’s tempting,” he said. “That’s always been my favorite of Yairdahn’s plays, but I think I’ll pass, if you and Grandfather won’t be offended. I don’t think it’s going to be up to the Royal Company’s production. Remember the last time we saw it at the Round? I doubt they’ll be able to match that here in Siddar City.”

“Perhaps not.” She shrugged lightly. “It is an easy play to get wrong, I’ll admit,” she went on, deliberately not addressing his reference to the Round Theatre, the epicenter of the performing arts back home in Tellesberg. “And your grandfather and I won’t be at all offended by the thought that you prefer a younger, livelier set of companions for the evening. Go have a good time.”