David Drake - Master of the Cauldron

"We're on good terms with the jungle here in Ronn," Mab said. She smiled at him, but not in the coolly amused fashion he'd seen most often on her face. This was a warmer expression, like a mother gives a sleeping baby. "It creeps into the palace here on the east side. Some of the lianas stretch a hundred feet down the corridors, and when they bloom their flowers perfume the rooms even farther in."

She turned, drawing Cashel's eyes with her, and added, "But I see the Sons have arrived. Come, I'll introduce you."

The exercise field was an enormous thing; everything in Ronn was on a grand scale. There was an oval track around the whole terrace, and inside it straight tracks of a furlong and two furlongs. Ball courts stood at one end, and arrangements of poles for climbing and swinging were at the other. Down the middle ran long rows of dressing rooms, which men and women both came in and out of with the irregular busyness you see at the mouth of a beehive.

Ronn towered to the west, but because of the way it was stepped back, it didn't feel oppressive the way a wall straight up and down would've done. Cashel had seen mountains since he'd left the borough, real ones that hadn't been hollowed out into cities, and he'd learned that they never looked as big as they really were except when you were at a distance from them. Close up, the nearby bits got in the way of you feeling the size of the whole thing.

Six young men wearing helmets and breastplates walked from the dressing rooms toward the stretch of sod in a corner where Mab and Cashel waited. They carried shields with designs on the facings but they didn't have spears. Instead of real swords they held awkward-looking wooden affairs. Herron was in the middle.

They looked uncomfortable. Cashel gave them a friendly smile. Duzi knew he'd spent much of his life feeling uncomfortable around other people.

"Mistress?" Herron said to Mab. "You told us to meet you here?"

"Yes, to give Cashel a demonstration of your abilities," Mab said briskly. "And to introduce him to the rest of you."

She gestured toward the youths with her palm turned upward and continued, "Cashel, these are the Sons of the Heroes. They take the name of their group from the six Heroes who in past centuries defended Ronn from the Made Men. The real Heroes now live in the Shrine of the Heroes, a cave beneath the city's foundations. Only their semblances walk the walls of Ronn at night."

"That's all a myth," said a dark, studious-looking youth, dropping his eyes as he spoke. "Nobody lives for centuries in a cave. The Heroes died and maybe their bones are buried there, that's all."

"That's Master Orly, Cashel," Mab said coolly. "Herron you've met, and their four companions are Manza, Athan, Enfero and-"

"I'm Stasslin, Master Cashel," said the sixth man, red-haired and the shortest of the group but built very solidly. He transferred his wooden sword to the hand gripping his shield, a little buckler with a wolf's head device, and stepped forward to clasp arms with Cashel.

Stasslin squeezed a trifle harder than he needed to. Cashel didn't squeeze back, but he tensed his biceps to convince the shorter man that he was all muscle under the tanned skin. Stasslin backed away, pursing his lips.

"Glad to meet you," Cashel said. "Ah, all of you, masters."

"And as for you, Orly," Mab said in a voice that cut like the winter wind. "You've been down to the Shrine of the Heroes, have you?"

The dark young man flushed. "I haven't been there, of course not," he said. "I'm just not a fool. I've read books, I've studiedall the legends."

"And the people who wrote the books?" Mab continued in the same tone. "Had they been to the Shrine?"

"Mistress," said Herron, edging forward a little to partly shield his embarrassed friend from the woman's glare. "Nobody's been to the shrine in, well, a hundred years. It's not safe, not now with the way things are, with the King threatening."

"So, Master Orly…," Mab said. "You believe things you've never seen because you've been told them by other people who've never seen them. Isn't that how you'd define 'superstition', Master Orly? Or would you prefer to call it childish prattling?"

Cashel wouldn't have treated a beaten enemy that way-and Orly surely was beaten, for all he was too young to admit it out loud-but he knew Ilna would do just the same to the boy as Mab was doing. He'd seen Ilna flay people with her tongue more than once, but only once per victim.

"All right!" Orly blazed. He tried to meet her eyes but blushed and ducked away again. "Have you been into the shrine yourself, then?"

"Would you believe me if I told you I had?" Mab said. "Well?"

Orly didn't speak. Herron said, "Mistress, we're sorry if we offended you. But this isn't why you wanted us here, is it?"

"Of course," agreed Mab mildly. "Let's draw a curtain over it, shall we?"

She slashed her right hand through the air, her fingernails trailing a cloud of sapphire glitter that drifted toward the ground and vanished. The Sons gaped at her. She smiled.

"A trick," she said. "A trivial illusion. Now, Master Herron-I wanted Cashel to watch you at your practice. That's what you'd usually be doing at this hour of the afternoon, wouldn't you?"

Several of the Sons looked at one another. They were Cashel's age or maybe a little older, but they all seemedboys. Herron not as much as the others, but…

Cashel had seen Garric at age sixteen quiet a pair of drunk bodyguards in the tap room during the Sheep Fair. He hadn't hit them nor called for help, though he'd have had help if he'd needed it; he'd just grabbed both men by the shoulder and shouted for them to belt up as he hustled them to the door.

None of the Sons had Garric's presence. All of them together couldn't have done what Garric had that night.

"Well, yeah," Herron said. "When the sun's hot, there's not so many people here to, you know, watch us."

He looked over his shoulder. Given the size of the field, it wasn't anything like crowded by the number of people present. A double handful were kicking balls against a wall in some kind of competition, and maybe twice that many were running around the track. There was only a scatter of people swinging on the bars, throwing weights, or jumping for distance.

"Does it bother you to be laughed at?" Mab said. She wasn't asking from curiosity: she was really prodding the youth, though in a teaching way instead of just trying to hurt him."You think you're right, don't you?"

"Mistress," said Orly fiercely, "weknow the King is threatening Ronn again. At night the Made Men are all around us on the plain, and the lower levels keep getting darker. I've gone far enough down to see that. Somebody has to be ready to defend the city!"

"Yes," said Mab. "I quite agree. Now, why don't you show Cashel your exercises."

The words were a question but the tone was an order. The Sons looked at each other again. "All right," said Herron. "Usual opponents. Let's go."

The Sons spread out into three pairs. Cashel backed away but Mab tugged him farther yet, till they were standing with their backs against the parapet. "Be ready to move toward the corner," she murmured.

Cashel thought she was worrying too much. He'd given the nearest pair, Herron and Stasslin, as much space as he'd have done for a quarterstaff bout. The Sons' sword-shaped clubs weren't but a third the length of his staff. Mab was a woman, so she probably didn't understand how these things were done.

Some of the people who'd been exercising drifted closer, while others stopped what they were doing and turned to watch. A man-he was with one of the few women, which probably had something to do with him showing off-called, "Hey, boys! You're a hundred years late for that stuff, you know?"

"Just ignore them," Herron growled. "Get set."