Steelhands - Jaida Jones [11]
“Well,” Diplomat Chanteur, a large man with a red nose who had once spat on me by accident while speaking of the troubles involving one of our Margraves and their own Crown Prince, “I am famished from all this talking. Despite what little your people have to offer by means of food, perhaps it is time for us all to lunch?”
“What a wonderful idea,” I said. “I commend you for your sharp thinking.”
Privately, I thought to myself that such sharp thinking would have been better appreciated almost two hours ago—about the point at which my stomach finally gave up growling.
In the Airman, one could have meals at any time one wished to, provided one was also prepared to share one’s meal at least three ways, depending on who was awake at the time. Then there were the boys complaining that there wasn’t enough, that it tasted like pig’s shit, that they’d chipped a tooth and how did I intend to pay for it? Despite all the talk, the bastion could also be silent on occasion; not so with the Airman. So it was not that I preferred providing breakfast and lunch and dinner for men just as picky about their food as the Arlemagne were—and the Arlemagne loathed Volstovic fare, especially Volstovic attempts to serve traditional Arlemagne dishes. Nostalgia hadn’t taken hold of me quite so badly, at least not yet.
“Don’t commend me,” Chanteur suggested. He stood in his chair; it creaked almost as loudly as his back. “Commend some better chefs, that’s what I say.”
“My lord,” I told Chanteur, bowing stiffly as he brushed past me on his way out. “It has been a pleasure, as always.”
What an excellent liar I was.
The diplomats all filed out after their leader. They were dressed fashionably, a few of them absolutely reeking of perfume. Those who didn’t smelled distressingly of other things—a sharp body odor that reminded me of myself after a particularly grueling flight, only with less oil and more human sweat. I cleared my throat, keeping my head down and my thoughts to myself. When they’d arrived in Thremedon, they’d been expecting a cold winter. What they hadn’t been expecting was a hot room in a bastion tower, and I didn’t envy them their brocade coats and stiff ruffles.
How I ever managed to be given this position, I had no idea. It was because I wasn’t as slippery as Luvander, who’d managed to wriggle free of all obligations, or as intimidating as Ghislain, who’d said he planned on heading out to sea, and no one, it seemed, felt like arguing with him. Adamo and I had unfortunately been caught up in some bizarre, terrible system of being rewarded as living heroes.
And as for Rook … I had been informed of his progress here and there by Thom, who seemed to be weathering those troubles with his usual distress and stubbornness.
“Lost in thought, I see?” a familiar voice said beside me. “Or is it simply that your stomach has digested itself? I’d personally eat a bale of oats right now, fine cooking aside.”
Now that Thom was gone for parts unknown, fighting his way through the desert and dealing with the discomfort of sand in his trousers, there were few people left in Thremedon I could consider my friends. The man standing in front of me was one of them, I supposed, partly because we’d known each other in school when we were younger, and partly because he’d managed to adopt me diplomatically on my first day of talks. In class, we’d always conducted a particular rivalry for top marks, but in the practice of diplomacy I was at last willing to concede my defeat; his years of experience in the field were more suited for this than my own.
Even if I sometimes wished I might have conducted the talks from atop Anastasia—then I surely would have had an advantage. At the very least, it might have hurried the pace along.
Still, in the absence of my dragon, I was glad to have a childhood companion at my side. We’d fallen out of touch when I’d moved to