Jerrold let out a breath as those faces started to ease.
“Ale,” Old Petro insisted, and others rose and mugs were passed.
“How does he do it?”Jerrold muttered.“Most of our elders lost family in the war.They should be spitting on the Blood of Xy.”
“I have no idea,” Roth replied.“Maybe because he is not what they expect?Maybe because he is more than his bloodline?Maybe because the bloodline rejected him?”Roth shrugged.
“He’s the first of the Blood not to come at us with a sword in his hands.”Jerrold nodded, taking an offered mug.
“Aye,” Roth sighed, taking one as well.“I try to train defense into him, but he is too trusting.I worry he would greet with open arms the man who would thrust a dagger in his heart.”
Jerrold grunted in understanding.
The musicians started up again, now playing a raucous, roundabout, pattern dance.The dancers all formed circles, then started swaying and twirling, clapping as the circles interwove with each other.Jerrold spotted Rosalind being pulled into the dance by other women, flushed and grinning, trying to follow the steps and laughing at her mistakes.
He listened with half an ear to the talk, watching her skirts swirl.
The circles spun until the music crashed to a halt, then the dancers broke ranks, laughing and calling for drink.
Rosalind, her hair in disarray and her color high, stopped in front of Jerrold and Roth, smiling.
“Better than your stuffy court dances?”Jerrold asked gruffly.
She frowned, happiness vanished like a snap of his fingers.“Better than sitting there like a rude lump,” she said shortly, then stalked away.
Jerrold shifted uncomfortably and caught the side glance Roth gave him.From across the square, he saw Bercie glaring at him.
Jerrold sighed.“Gonna get us some more ale.”
Roth nodded.
The crowd around Orval never got smaller, but people moved in and out.Jerrold relaxed his guard a bit.The lanterns would be lit soon; those with small kids tended to head home once it got dark.
The music stopped.“My throat’s dry,” one of the drummers called, and folks laughed and passed a mug of ale.
“Seems to me you aren’t working hard enough,” Old Petro bellowed.
The drummer set his drink down and wiped his mouth.“And what would you have me play, Old Petro?”
Old Petro levered himself up off the bench and walked to the platform as the crowd watched.Using his cane, he tapped out a rhythm on the boards.People began to cheer.
Jerrold put his mug down with a thud and rose.Love of the Lady, they’d said they weren’t going to do this; everyone had agreed.But it was too late, the young ones had already swarmed into the square, summoned by the code and the calls of the others.Not all the faces around them were happy, but Old Petro just repeated the code.
“Something?”Roth asked.
“Something.”Resigned, Jerrold sat back down and picked up his ale.Roth gave him a puzzled look, then the music caught his attention.
The pipes had started, brisk and in time with Old Petro’s cane.The young ones swirled in the middle of the dance area, gathering and grouping, and then the pipes went still.
The dancers froze.
Waiting.
The drummers raised their sticks, and as one, brought their mallets down, with a beat that matched that of a racing heart.The kids leapt up into the air and started the true dance, wild steps and high leaps, using each others’ shoulders to get even higher.As the music rose and the beat got louder and somehow faster, people began throwing some of the dancers into the air to be caught by others.
“What in the world?”Orval stood and limped forward, agog at the sight.Roth stood as well.
The drums crashed and the dance moved closer to the tavern.The crowd there parted, clearing the way, laughing and calling encouragement.
