The Tales of the Wanderer Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 4) Garrett Robinson (poetry books to read TXT) 📖

“Sky save me if I expected this today!” he said, coming forwards and seizing us in a hug. “What are the two of you doing here? I thought you were both living in Selvan.”

That cast a shadow over our mood, and he saw it. His own smile faded a little as he watched ours die.

“We were,” said Mag. “Much has changed.”

He looked us both over, taking note of Dryleaf. I suspected he was looking for Sten. They had never met, but of course Mag would have mentioned him in her letters.

“I can see that,” said Victon at last. His smile returned now—still happy, but somewhat more weary. “Well, come in. We are about to eat. I shall fill you with food and flood you with wine, and we shall talk of what we must, and what we can, and what we wish.”

Rarely have I enjoyed a meal so much. The courses were a mixture of Calentin food and dishes from Victon’s homeland of Feldemar. First we ate sour flatbread and sweet potatoes, but dipped in a delicious sauce made from beef grease and filled with spices. Then the beef itself came, smoked with manuka wood and cooked with whitefish, soft and tender and soaking in still more sauce. With it came plates of greenshell oysters, dipped in pepper and garlic.

I remember every bite of that meal to this day. I can see Oku, who waited patiently at the side of the room until I offered him a morsel of food. He trotted forwards to eat it gently from my fingers. Mag fed him as well, but only when she thought I was not looking, which of course I was. Victon called Oku to him at one point, and the hound came obediently.

“A finer wolfhound I have never seen,” said Victon, holding Oku’s face between his weathered hands. “Who has ever seen such a well-mannered boy? Not I, no, not I.” Oku nuzzled his hands and licked his face, and Victon laughed and asked the kitchen to give him whatever bones they might have. Oku lay happily in the corner for the rest of the meal.

I remember, too, the wine, which was not only plentiful, but among the best I have ever tasted. It was just sweet enough for you to drink it in great swallows, and more than heady enough to send us into peals of laughter at even the slightest joke. It was dark and smoky, with the faintest hints of charcoal that mingled perfectly with the well-smoked meats we ate. I had a few glasses, and I am positive Mag had more than a bottle. Wine and ale had never had much effect on her.

The food I remember. The conversation, however, comes to me now in bits and snatches. We told Victon of Northwood, and what had happened to Sten. Then we told him of our journey through the Greatrocks, of the satyrs we found there, and of all that happened in Lan Shui. When we told them of the vampires, Victon’s face paled, and his wife reached over to clutch her son’s arm.

We finished our stories around the same time that the whole table finished their meal, and we all leaned back in our chairs, groaning pleasantly at the tight feeling in our guts. I looked to Victon.

“I cannot remember the last time I enjoyed myself so thoroughly, old friend. Barely half the day has passed, and yet I wish I could lie down.”

“But you can,” laughed Victon. “I have a room for just such a purpose. Walk with me a moment, and I will show you my land, and then we can rest.”

He walked us out of the back of the house and pointed at the different plots, telling us the different sorts of grapes he had, which I am sure are important to a vintner, but which I cannot remember at all. In the middle of the fields were built a series of houses, each seeming just as grand as Victon’s own. When we asked him who lived there, he smiled.

“Why, those who work the fields with us, of course.”

“They must be grateful to you, for building them such fine homes,” said Mag.

Victon cocked his head at her with a wry look. “Grateful to me? They built those homes on their own. I only helped a little.”

Mag seemed somewhat at a loss. “Forgive my mistake. I thought the field hands were your servants.”

Victon laughed at that, slapping one hand against his hip and the other against his crutch. “Servants? Giving and taking orders? Sky above, Mag, have we not had enough of that in our lives? We make the wine together. We sell the wine together. We live together. Some even bed together when they think their parents are not looking—is that not right, Nuru?” He took his son’s arm and gave it a little shake.

“Father, please,” said Nuru, blood rushing into his cheeks.

“The only trouble we have tending our fields,” Victon went on, “is when he and one of the Turei boys suddenly go missing. But we always find them before too long, and their cheeks are a little rosier when we do.”

“Father!” cried Nuru, aghast.

Victon laughed harder and led us all back into the house. He brought us to a room full of couches, each of which was laid with many tasseled pillows, and we lay down as we continued to talk. I learned that Nuru was an ander man, like me. He had come to realize he was ander much younger than I had—I was a bit of a special case, for it usually happens in childhood. The two of us spent a good deal of time speaking privately of our wendings, and all the other little details that only another ander person can truly understand.

Sometimes Dryleaf would be reminded of one of his stories, and then he would tell it. He was better at it than any of us. We listened attentively whether he spoke or sang, and he made Victon’s