Skolian Empire - Skyfall Part 23

Roca laughed. "Ah, love, behave yourself."

He put one hand on her arm and one on Garlin's arm. "You are the two people I love most in this world.

It pleases me that you seem to get along after all."

Roca felt her face redden. "Were we that p.r.i.c.kly before?"

Garlin winced. "Perhaps so."

Eldri put an arm around each of their shoulders. "This is better, yes?"

Garlin managed a strained show of cheer. "Yes, I think so." But Roca felt his sadness. They both knew the truth.

Eldri was running out of time.

16.

A King's Supper.

Sulpher," Roca said, walking down an aisle between long, narrow tables in the kitchen. "The yellow powder for explosives."

"It smells like rotten eggs," Brad explained. "I need to find more of it."

Garlin sighed, ever patient. "What are eggs?"

Brad grinned at him. "Birds have them."

Garlin gave him a deadpan look. "Ah. Well, in that case, we can find them with your notorious 'pigeons.' "

Brad laughed, at ease with Garlin in a way Roca had never managed, even now when she and Garlin had stopped distrusting each other. She looked around the huge kitchen where the four of them were walking. "You need more charcoal, too, yes?"

"It would help," Brad said. "But at this point I'll experiment with anything."

"I do not understand," Garlin said. "You mix powders and they explode, just like that?"

"You need heat and pressure, too," Brad said.

"I still don't like this idea to destroy the bridge," Eldri grumbled. He motioned at the dried bubbles heaped on the tables, dark red, dusky yellow, and orange, or the cl.u.s.ters of blue or green bubbles hanging from the gla.s.swood rafters. "When this is all gone, we must be rescued or surrender. How, without our bridge?"

"We can build the drawbridge," Roca said.

"That did actually sound like a good idea," Eldri admitted.

"I also need to plan how we will use explosives inside the castle," Brad said. "In case we can't stop Avaril outside. We don't want detonations to weaken the foundations here."

Roca peered at the table on their left. Vials were scattered around, all filled with powder, some covered with translucent bubble skins, but most open to the air. She stopped to examine them and everyone gathered around her.

"Can you come up with solutions?" Garlin was asking Brad.

"Thinking up solutions is what I do for a living," Brad said. "My doctorate is in mechanical engineering."

When Garlin glared, Brad laughed. "Getting a doctorate is like learning a trade here."

Roca picked up a vial. "Anyone know what this is?"

Eldri peered at the white powder. "Salt."

"Oh." She set it down. "Can't do much with that."

"You most certainly can," Eldri said crossly. "You make food taste better." He gave the kitchen a sour look, including a cook several tables over who was preparing food. "I used to love coming to Windward because the meals were so good. Now, with all this rationing, these heartless cooks will use no salts.

They want it for preserving." He scowled. "Avaril has much to answer for."

Brad smiled. "I think you will survive without salting your food. Besides, it raises your blood pressure."

"Blood pressure," Garlin said smugly. "I can figure that one out."

Roca considered Eldri. "When we first came up here, were the cooks seasoning the food?"

"I think so. It certainly tasted better."

Brad gave her a dubious look. "Lady Roca, you are a most admirable woman with a most admirable intellect, but I don't think it is possible to demolish a bridge with table salt."

Her lips quirked upward. "You say that so nicely."

"You want to blow up our bridge with salt?" Eldri asked, incredulous.

Roca shook her head. "Garlin and I were talking earlier today about why your seizures improve up here."

Garlin took a vial and poured its white powder into his palm. "We use salt in Dalvador, too. That is no different from here."

A hope was stirring in Roca, one she hesitated to entertain, lest reality dash it to pieces. "These salts."

She motioned at the vials. "Are they all the same?"

"I can ask." Eldri called to one of the cooks.

A heavyset man with a blue ap.r.o.n and large stomach came over. He spoke in Trillian, his voice a melody of ba.s.s notes. "Pleased to see you, Bard Eldrinson."

"Thank you." Eldri indicated the vials. "We were wondering what these seasonings were."

The fellow seemed puzzled by the question, but he gamely studied the vials. He moved the two covered ones aside. "These two are challine. The rest are plain salt."

Roca picked up a challine vial. "It looks like salt."

"Well, it is, of a kind," the cook said. "We don't have much, though. It comes from the spas."

"Spas?" Roca asked.

"Mineral springs." Eldri motioned toward the north. "In the valley that Avaril's men have occupied. The water tastes good, and I love soaking in the spas." Sourly he added, "That is, when people aren't attacking my castle."

The cook crossed his beefy arms and frowned as if Eldri were a misbehaved boy. "It is bad for you to drink it."

"I like it," Eldri said. "It makes me sleepy."

"Ah, G.o.ds," Roca murmured. "I wish we had a chemist."

"What is it?" Brad asked.

She lifted the challine vial. "I think sodium bromide and pota.s.sium bromide can be used as anticonvulsants. I don't know what this is, but if something Eldri drinks or eats puts bromide in his system, it might help control his seizures."

"Bromide. Sodium. Pota.s.sium." Garlin looked frustrated. "These are real words?"

"They're names for salts," Roca said.

"Aren't bromides toxic?" Brad asked.

Roca hesitated. "Maybe it depends on the quant.i.ty or how it's made." She showed the vial to Eldri. "Do you have challine at your home in the plains?"

"I've no idea." He glanced at the cook. "Do you ever come to Dalvador?"

"I used to live there," the man said. "But I never worked in the kitchens of your home." He considered the vial Roca held. "This much is true; challine is an uncommon seasoning. If I had to guess, I would say your cooks in Dalvador don't use it."

Eldri nodded. "Thank you, Goodsir."

"My pleasure." The cook bowed to him.

After the cook returned to his work, Eldri picked up the other challine vial. "Could it be? Could something as simple as salt make my life bearable?"

Roca feared to offer too much hope. "Perhaps. But we can't be sure."

"We must find out, eh?" His face flashed with his old mischief, which had been absent all too much lately. "I shall tell the cooks they must salt my food again."

Roca set her vial on the table. "Did it ever make you sick?"

"Some," he admitted. "But if it controls my attacks, it is worth it." He thumped the table. "I am decided.

I will try."

Brad turned in a circle, surveying the kitchen. "Think we can find any pota.s.sium nitrate here?"

Garlin groaned. "Sometimes, Brad, I think you make up these words just to bedevil me."

Eldri strode into the bedroom just as Channil was finishing her exam of Roca. The midwife glared at him.

"Do you always explode into places uninvited?"

Eldri hesitated. "Uh-it's my room."

Channil shook her hands at him, shooing him away.

"It's all right." Roca sat up on the bed, pulling down her fur-lined shift.

Eldri approached the bed cautiously, with a wary glance at the midwife. "Is everything all right?"

Channil crossed her arms. "Your wife needs more sleep, young man."

Eldri turned red. "I, uh-yes, of course, ma'am."

Channil made a hmmmph noise. To Roca, she said, "More sleep. No more falling down." Then she bustled out of the room.

Roca watched fondly as Eldri flopped onto his stomach next to her. "And how are you today?"

"Wonderful." He grinned. "I've been watching Brad blow things up. It is very entertaining."

Roca laughed. "So his experiments are working?"

"Hardly. They never do what he wants." Eldri relented a bit. "Perhaps he makes progress. The bombs only fizzle half the time now."

Roca wasn't sure teaching Eldri's people to make bombs was progress, but it was better than letting Avaril slaughter them. "How are you feeling?"

He rolled onto his side, facing her. "Do you know that in the eleven days since I started the salt, I haven't had any big attacks and only a few of the small."

Every day he went without a seizure felt like a gift. "I am glad, love."

His face gentled. "Say it again."

"I am glad."

"No. The other."

She grinned. "The other."

Softly he said, "Roca."

She slid down next to him. "I am glad, my love."

"Do you truly love me?"

"Truly." She didn't think she had known what the word meant until she met Eldri.