by David Weber
In a way, that feeling that she could almost reach out and touch the innermost being of the orchard’s trees was to blame for much of her present mood, and she knew it. She treasured the feeling, took strength from it as if it helped to center her and remind her of who she was deep down inside, not simply who she had to learn to be as Lady Sharlassa. Yet she’d always secretly thought she would someday outgrow the absurd fancy that she could sense the trees at all, and she hadn’t. In fact, it was actually growing stronger, and she sometimes thought she was reaching deeper and further.
Was the problem that she wanted to be able to do that? That she was so unhappy, so uncertain, about who she must learn to be that she longed for escape into some warm, comforting dream? Or into something which could distract her from learning the lessons her life had set her? Or was she simply losing her mind in a pleasantly harmless sort of way?
Her lips twitched at that last thought, remembering Granny Marlys. All Balthar’s children had loved Granny growing up, although even the youngest of them had realized she was what some of the adults in their lives called “not quite right.” As she’d grown older, Sharlassa had realized that people who were “quite right” didn’t firmly believe they were the goddess Chemalka and could summon rain on a whim or make the sun shine whenever they wanted to. Yet aside from that minor foible, Granny Marlys had been the warmest, kindest person—and greatest storyteller—imaginable. Not a parent in Balthar would have hesitated for a moment to ask Granny to care for a child, and her kitchen had been a magic land where the scent of fresh cookies or gingerbread had a habit of ambushing a youthful visitor.
But, no, she wasn’t another Granny. Granny had simply ignored the fact that she couldn’t always make the sun shine whenever she wanted to...and that she frequently managed to get herself drenched working in her kitchen garden because that rain she’d forbidden to fall had fallen anyway. And she’d regarded all of the mortals around her with a benign sense that all of them were there to serve her whims but that she didn’t really need them to do anything for her just at the moment, so they might as well go ahead and get along with their own lives until she did need them.
Sharlassa didn’t live in that comfortable sort of imaginary world. That was the problem, after all! And that was why it...worried her, if that wasn’t putting it too strongly, that she seemed to be becoming more sensitive, not less, to at least portions of the world around her.
And if you’re going to become “more sensitive” to part of the world, why not all of it? she asked herself bitingly. But, no, you can’t do that, can you? It has to be just some of the world and just some of the people in it!
To be fair, she’d always thought she could sense Kengayr whenever the courser was around. And there’d been that feeling that she could tell thirty seconds ahead of time when her father or her mother was about to walk through a door or someone like Leeana had been about to come around a corner. She’d mentioned that to her mother once, and Lady Sharmatha (only, of course, she hadn’t been “Lady” Sharmatha at that point) had told her about something called “syn shai’hain.” Sharlassa had never heard of it, but her mother had explained that it meant “something seen before” or “something already seen” in ancient Kontovaran. Sometimes, Sharmatha had told her eleven-year-old daughter seriously as they’d peeled apples—apples from this very orchard, in fact—for one of Sharmatha’s peerless pies, someone had a flash, a feeling, that they’d already done or seen or experienced something. No one knew exactly why or exactly how it worked, but it happened to a lot of people, especially those—she looked up under her eyelashes with a smile—who had particularly active imaginations.
For a long time, Sharlassa had simply accepted that her awareness of the world about her was simply syn shai’hain, something she was imagining after the fact but so quickly it seemed to have come before the fact. Unfortunately, that had been easier when it happened less often. Because the truth was, whether she really wanted to admit it or not, that it was happening more and more often. Practically every time she saw Prince Bahzell, for example. Or Walsharno. Or, on a lesser scale, Dathgar or Gayrhalan. Or...one or two other people.
She grimaced and ran her hands over her wind-tousled hair, trying not to feel...trapped. That wasn’t the word for it, but it came so close. She was being hammered and squeezed into a shape that wasn’t hers, and the fact that the people who were doing the shaping had only her best interests at heart—that so many of them genuinely loved her—made it no more pleasant to be turned into someone she wasn’t.
Which was why her mother was concerned about her youthful admiration for Lady Leeana, she knew. Lady Sharmatha would never say so, but she had to worry that Sharlassa might decide to follow Leeana’s example and seek refuge among the war maids’ free-towns. And, truth to tell, there were times when Sharlassa had been tempted, especially now that she’d had the opportunity to meet Leeana Hanathafressa on her occasional, brief visits to Balthar. That sense of energy and focused purpose and sheer passion for living which she’d sensed—or thought she’d sensed—in Leeana when they’d both been so much younger was brighter and stronger than ever. She never had the sense that there weren’t things about Leeana’s life and the decisions she’d made which she regretted, some of them bitterly, but regret was part of life, wasn’t it? Sometimes there were no perfect solutions or choices, only better ones...or worse. And Sharlassa had never once sensed from Leeana any feeling that she’d made the wrong decisions, given the choices which had lain open to her.
Yet Sharlassa faced a life of very different choices, for much as she’d admired Leeana, Leeana Hanathafressa was larger-than-life. Like Prince Bahzell, she met the world head on, unflinchingly, making the choice that seemed best to her and accepting the consequences, whatever they might be. And she was braver than Sharlassa. Or perhaps not so much braver as more fearless, for there was a difference between those two things. And when it came down to it, as unhappy as Sharlassa might feel about who she was being forced to become, she wasn’t brave enough to give up the parents she loved so dearly. She’d seen Baron Tellian and Baroness Hanatha, and she knew they’d never stopped loving their daughter for a moment. She was confident Lord Jahsak and Lady Sharmatha would never have stopped loving her, even if she’d done something as outrageous as to run away to the war maids. But she also knew how deeply that separation would pain them—and her—and at least there was no prospect of her being forced into marriage with someone as disgusting as Rulth Blackhill! In fact—
She stopped that thought ruthlessly in its tracks. She wasn’t going to think about that again, even though it did seem bitterly unfair that she should be forced out of the world in which she’d grown up and yet not allowed into the world in which—
Stop that! she scolded herself. It’s not going to happen. Or at least the moon will fall and the sun will freeze before it does! And how much of all this doom and gloom and worrying about being able to “sense” trees is all about that kind of foolishness? A lot, I’ll bet. She gave herself a shake. Maybe it’s a pity you’re too old for Mother to put over her knee when you start being this foolish! Your brain always seemed to work better as a child when she stimulated your posterior, after all.
She startled herself with a giggle at the image that thought evoked, given that she was two inches taller than her mother these days. Not that Lady Sharmatha had become one bit less formidable, by any means! Besides—
Something struck the back of her left hand ever so lightly. She looked down, and her eyebrows rose as she saw the spot of dampness. Another appeared on her sleeve as she watched, and she felt more light impacts on her head.
Told you those clouds were going to rain, didn’t I? she told herself tartly. And you didn’t listen, did you? You never do. Honestly, I don’t know why I put up with me!
The rain was falling faster—well, more thickly, at any rate. It was still more mist than rain, and she sensed no thunder behind it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to thoroughly soak any
thing—or anyone—foolish enough to be caught out in it. Not to mention a specific young lady (of sorts, anyway) who’d managed to get herself caught in an apple orchard the better part of a mile from Hill Guard’s snug, tight roofs.
Well, you’re not going to get any dryer standing here than you’d get walking back to the castle through it, are you?
The prosaic thought made her chuckle, although she had a gloomily good idea of how Baroness Hanatha would react when she turned up wet, muddy, and bedraggled. Worse, she had a very clear appreciation of how Tahlmah was going to react to the same sight.
She started down the orchard’s central aisle, suppressing a useless urge to scurry like one of Hill Guard’s home farm’s chickens. Unless she thought she could somehow run between the raindrops—which seemed, on the face of it, rather unlikely—she was still going to be soaked by the time she got back to the castle. That being the case, there seemed little point in adding breathless and exhausted to the wet, muddy, and bedraggled she was already going to be. Besides, she was wearing those new shoes Tahlmah had insisted she put on this morning, and they’d already rubbed up a blister on her right heel.
The raindrops were thicker and somehow wetter feeling by the time she reached the gate in the orchard’s stone wall. She was just reaching for the latch when someone pulled it open from the other side and she slid to a halt in surprise.
“There you are!” Sir Trianal Bowmaster, heir-adoptive to Balthar, announced triumphantly. “I thought I might find you here! Hiding from the dance master again, were you?”
“I—” Sharlassa stopped, blushing rosily, and shook her head. “I was not hiding from the dance master, Milord!” she said then, a little spurt of laughter bubbling under the words. “Master Tobis is far too kind for me to be that rude to him.”
“Really?” Sir Trianal cocked his head, looking at her skeptically. “Are you going to tell me you actually like learning to dance? Don’t forget, I had to learn—from Master Tobis, as a matter of fact—and so did Leeana, and between the two of us, I don’t think either of us really enjoyed being taught.”
“Really,” she told him firmly, and, in fact, it was true. The blister on her heel had her feeling a little less than eager about her next lesson with Tobis Yellowshield, but she truly did enjoy them. Unlike altogether too many of the other things she was being forced to learn. “Besides, I’m not scheduled for another lesson with him until after lunch.”
“Oho! So you’re hiding from Sir Jahlahan and his etiquette lesson!”
“I am not!” she declared even more forcefully (and mendaciously) than before. “I just...went on a walk and lost track of time, Milord.”
“Since I am a belted knight, and no true knight would ever doubt a lady’s word, I won’t go into how...likely I find that explanation of your absence, Milady,” he told her with a twinkle. “However, I did run into Mistress Tahlmah. She was walking very purposefully along the Great Gallery at the time—heading, I think, to call on the master huntsman to borrow a couple of his bloodhounds.”
“Oh, dear!” Sharlassa shook her head, her contrition genuine. So, unfortunately, was the amusement she felt at Sir Trianal’s disrespectful but no doubt highly accurate description of her maid.
“Have no fear,” Sir Trianal said, touching one hand to his heart and bowing to her. “Being the noble and kindly soul that I am, I assured Mistress Tahlmah that I would take it upon myself to check the orchard just in case. She informed me that she’d already searched—I mean, checked—there for you, but I felt it was worth another look. And if we hurry,” he straightened, “I think we can probably sneak you back into the Castle before Mistress Tahlmah gathers up her nerve and informs Aunt Hanatha that the fairies have stolen you again.”
Sharlassa hung her head, hearing the serious note under his humor and blushing more darkly than before.
“It’s not as if you were the first person to ever sneak out for a little time of her—or his—own, you know.” She wiggled at the note of amused but genuine sympathy in his tone. “I’ve been known to sneak away on occasion—generally from my tutors, not the arms master,” he confessed. “In fact, I’d do the same thing today, and I’m the next best thing to ten years older than you are.”
“I know,” she sighed, “but I really shouldn’t do it. Especially not when Baroness Hanatha is being so kind to me.”
“Aunt Hanatha is kind to everyone—even me,” Sir Trianal told her firmly. “It’s the way she is. Although I will confess that she seems especially taken with you.” He considered her thoughtfully. “Sometimes I think it’s because you remind her of Leanna, but mostly I think it’s because she simply likes the person you are. And even if she didn’t, she knows how hard this all is for you.”
“Milord?” She looked up quickly, startled, and he chuckled.
“You’re not the only one who found out his life was going places he hadn’t planned on, Milady. I never expected to be Uncle Tellian’s heir-adoptive, you know. I knew he and Aunt Hanatha had a kindness for me, and I knew I’d always have a place here at Hill Guard if I needed it, but I always expected that to be as of vassal of whoever Leeana married. Of course, that changed.”
His tone was much drier with the last sentence, but he also smiled and shook his head. Sir Trianal, Sharlassa had realized long ago, was not one of those who believed Leeana had disgraced her family or herself. Sharlassa was reasonably certain he was less than fond of war maids in general, but at least he seemed to respect them. She supposed a cynical person would say that was because Leeana’s desertion to the war maids had worked out quite well for him, but Sharlassa knew that wasn’t the reason for his attitude. She could feel the genuine affection, the love, for his cousin whenever he spoke about her. In fact—
Stop that, she told herself again.
“I do feel a little bit like a duckling trying to become a swan, Milord,” she confessed after a moment.
“I know.” He smiled again. “And, trust me, it does get better...eventually. Although—”
A much stronger wind gust blew through the orchard behind a vanguard of rain, drenching Sharlassa’s spine, and Sir Trianal broke off.
“A duckling—or a swan—is what you’re going to have to be if we’re going to get you back to the house unsoaked!” he said, looking up at the clouds. He considered them for a moment, then whipped off his doublet and draped it over her shoulders and head.
“Milord, you can’t—!” she began.
“Nonsense!” He laughed at her while the strengthening breeze plucked at his fine linen shirt with damp fingers. “I’m sure one of those lessons I evaded when I was younger said that any gentleman was required to give up his cloak or poncho—if he had one—to prevent a fair maid from getting drenched. Unfortunately, I seem to have left the house without either of those, so this will have to do.”
“But you’ll get soaked, and—”
“In that case, you really should stop arguing with me and get moving so we can get me under a roof before I become soaked to the bone and expire with pneumonia,” he said sternly.
She looked at him helplessly for a moment, then laughed.
“Whatever you say, Milord! Whatever you say.”
Chapter Six
Rain pattered down on the roofs of Hill Guard castle. It was a little late in the year for the persistent, day-long, soaking rains of spring’s first blush, and not quite early enough for the short-lived, torrential afternoon thunderstorms of midsummer, but there was enough water in the air to go around, Bahzell reflected, standing under the overhanging roof which projected over the central keep’s massively timbered front door. And probably enough to fill the Bogs knee-deep and send the overflow gushing down the old riverbed to join the water from Chanharsa’s tunnel culverts, he thought, regarding the waterfalls streaming like finely beaded curtains from the eaves of that protecting roof. That would be one explanation for the condition in which Baron Tellian’s latest guest had arrived at his ancestral keep above the city of Balthar.
“And aren’t you just the drowned rat?” the massive hradani inquired genially as Vaijon climbed the steps towards him while one of Tellian’s grooms led his horse towards the stable at a brisk pace.
“Drowned, certainly,” Vaijon agreed wryly, reaching out to clasp forearms with him. “The Gullet’s hock deep in a lot of places, and cold, too—somebody forgot to tell Chemalka it’s spring, I think—but surely you can find something better than a rat to compare me to!”
“Oh, I’m sure I could, if it happened I was so minded,” Bahzell replied, returning his clasp firmly.
“Which you aren’t. I see.” Vaijon nodded, then turned to Brandark, and extended his hand to the Bloody Sword in turn. “You could come to my assistance here, you know.”
“I could...if it happened I was so minded,” Brandark said with a grin, and Vaijon heaved a vast sigh.
“Not bad enough that I’m doomed to spend my life among barbarian hradani, but they have to insult me at every opportunity, as well.”
“Aye, it’s a hard lot you’ve drawn, and no mistake,” Bahzell’s tone was commiserating, but his eyes twinkled and his ears twitched in amusement.
“Yes, it is.” Vaijon pushed back the hood of his poncho, showing golden hair which had once been elegantly coiffed but which he now wore in a plain warrior’s braid very much like Bahzell’s own. The Sothōii-style leather sweatband he’d adopted made him look older and tougher, somehow (not that he wasn’t quite tough enough without it, as Bahzell knew even better than most), and the past six years had put laugh lines around his eyes and weathered his complexion to a dark, burnished bronze. At six and a half feet in height, Vaijon was “short” only in comparison to a Horse Stealer like Bahzell, and with his thirty-second birthday just past, he was settling into the prime of his life.