by Jane Baskin
Darleigh: “So your peasants are totally free? They can come and go as they please?”
Nayan, nodding. “We call them People. They can come and go, and often do. Some go to the cities, or send their children to be educated. Some go to the other provinces. Some of the People from other provinces come to Cha-Ning.”
“And how does all this movement allow you to keep functioning?”
A shrug. “It doesn’t make much of a difference, I don’t think. There are always enough People to get the work done. Many of the children come back after education; not all of them like city life. We have a very modern medical clinic in the old cellars of Cha-Ning. And a number of research laboratories there and in the other provinces. Several of them are involved in genetic research; they’ve discovered cells that actually determine how we look and how we behave.”
Darleigh, nearly on the floor when he realized the peasants were paid. “Not true! That can’t be true!”
“Well, everyone gets paid for working.”
“Even your household staff?!”
Another nod. “The castle has been broken into apartments, lots of them. Most, made up of a small anteroom, kitchen, bedroom and bath. Some bigger, for families with young children. When the children grow up, they can rent apartments of their own.”
“Rent!?”
“We all pay rent. It pays for the maids, the groundskeepers, and the heat.”
“You’re not going to tell me your Lord and Lady pay rent.”
“If you don’t want me to tell you, I won’t.”
“No. I can’t believe it.”
“Sorry.”
“But it’s their castle!”
Nayan, becoming uncomfortable. “Not really, anymore. The place is huge. A mausoleum. Much too big for one family. Especially a family that isn’t that big. We tend to have small families in the North. So we broke it up, and now it’s like a village unto itself. We left the great hall intact, that’s where we all eat. And some public rooms, like libraries, small gathering rooms and such. There are a few shops, on the first floor. A tailor, and a washing house where we get our clothes cleaned. Rhymney has a saloon on its first floor. A lively place, I hear. But the rest … it’s all private apartments.”
Darleigh, needing a drink.
After a shot of brandy, followed by another. Darleigh: “Tell me now, young Lord. How in all the hells do you get anything done? How do you make your decisions?”
Nayan, shifting his feet. Looking at them. Then: “We vote.”
“Pardon me?”
Vel: “You heard him, Darleigh. They vote on major things. Majority rule.”
Darleigh, retiring to his quarters, drunk.
The next day, conferring alone with Vel. “You’re going to allow your daughter to marry this imbecile?”
“I am.”
“Why? Have you lost all sense and reason?”
“Oh come now, Darleigh. It’s not as bad as all that. She’s in love with him.”
“So what? She’s a child. Besides, what’s love got to do with it? She’ll marry whomever you say she’ll marry.”
A look from Vel. Not the terrible stare he gave to Gwildan, but a little of that. Darleigh, looking away. “You indulge your children, Vel. Especially your daughters. Especially that one.”
Silence for a few moments. Vel, thinking of his dead sons. “My children … I wish I had indulged them more, not less. Look here, Darleigh. I’ve lost both my sons. Two of my daughters are spoiled bitches who side with their mother in everything. All I have left is Zoren-te.”
“You let her lie in the arms of a peasant.”
“He died for it.”
“Now you let her lie in northern arms.”
“He’s a good man.”
“She’s always had crazy ideas. And you indulged her. You can’t say you’re surprised.”
“I’m not. And I’m not disappointed, either.”
Nayan and Zoren-te, of course keeping to separate rooms. So that Zoren-te’s mother did not have a complete collapse. So that her haughty sisters could spy on Nayan, coming and going.
This, an ever-increasing practice, making Nayan all the more uncomfortable. The sisters, now joining them for dinner at the Lords’ table. Looking at Nayan and whispering. Causing him to spill his ale.
One afternoon, cornering him in the castle library. Where he had gone to take comfort in books. To be alone.
The older sister, Zalina-te: “There you are, future brother-in-law. Creeping around.”
The younger sister, Zilla-ye: “I think he likes books.”
Zalina-te: “Is that so, brother-in-law? Do you like to read?”
Despite the obvious idiocy of the question, Nayan, flushing slightly. “I do. Um … you have a nice library.”
Both sisters, tittering. “He likes to read.”
As if it were peculiar. So Nayan, offended, suddenly looking directly at them. His stare, boring into them, deliberately; rudely. Studying them, as he would a book. Deciding: both were attractive young women. Reddish brown hair, not as blazing as Zoren-te’s copper. Green eyes like her, but duller. Fine figures, lavish dresses, longer than the calf-length styles of Sauran City. Swaying slightly on their feet, to swirl their skirts.
How soft they are.
And they: talking about him, right in front of him, as if he weren’t there.
Zalina-te: “Honestly, I can’t understand what she sees in him.”
“Well, he’s quite handsome, if a little pale.”
“Maybe so. And I hear he’s good in the practice yard, and knows how to ride a gantha. But … really.”
More tittering.
“Well, at least he’s tall.”
“Yes, that.”
A swirl of skirts, a turn, then both of them: gone.
Nayan, a sigh of relief. This may be harder than I thought. Thank all the gods Zoren likes the North. No way I could live here. It’ll be a miracle if I make it through the two weeks.
Realizing that the sisters: what he had assumed Zoren-te to be, when she first arrived. No wonder she and her family did not get along. She: no more like them than a fish was like the water in which it lived. How lonely she must have been. No wonder she cares so much what people think of her.
Returned to his book. Returned to dinners with Lords and Ladies. Returned to being waited upon, to the point of annoyance. Reminding him of the exaggerated attentions of Seren-ye, before she returned to her parents. Feeling smothered.
Returned to discussions with Vel and Darleigh. Returned to the discomfort of being asked to help convince an intellectually stunted man to appreciate everything he found foreign. Everything he found implausible. Everything he had been raised to detest.
“Vel, you can’t fight the way of things.”
“Darleigh, the way of things is change.”
Darleigh, exasperated: “What do you think, young man?”
“I don’t have an opinion.”
“I find that hard to believe. You live in a land where peasants are free and Lords have no more say than the barnyard dog. And you have no opinion on that?”
A shrug. “I guess I’m used to it.”
Nayan, feeling like this trip: a waste. Still had not met his bride’s mother. Still ridiculed by her sisters, no doubt reporting on him to the mother. Still had not managed to argue a southern Lord out of beliefs that would open this damnable war to negotiations. That was another reason for his visit, was it not? Worried that soon, northern People would start crossing the border. Would come south. With guns. How long would they stay quiet?
Understanding: young men love a good fight.
Knowing – dreading – seeing Che and Colwen, come riding over that border.
18.Oh, Treachery
But: another had already ridden over that border.
Gwildan, surviving the equatorial crossing once again. Quietly returning to his troops, his scattered haunts. Telling people only that he had stayed hidden in the North. Nothing of the hospitality
of the Lord of Cha-ning. Nothing of the life of the ordinary People. Less, of northern ways.
All that, he kept to himself.
What he did tell: how he almost died. How the gods themselves healed him while he hid in a frozen cave. How he ate small animals he caught in snares, fish in traps from mountain streams.
One other thing: the North was manufacturing guns.
The inference: to slaughter their own peasants. Why else?
Gwildan, a bitter man. Bitter over many things, most justifiable. But lately: bitter at being sent home without the guns he had been hoping for. Very bitter at this. Enraged. Now believing northerners to be nothing more than miserable hypocrites. This, the only explanation that made sense to him.
So: Lord Vel, trying to get lords and peasants alike to sit down at a table. While Gwildan: rallying his troops, whipping them into fury. The peasant sorties: more vicious than ever.
So Lord Vel’s peace negotiations: sparsely attended.
Sansea and Darleigh, agreeing to listen. A few other Lords. But the great hall at Vel, thinly populated at best. A few peasant leaders, all positioning themselves against the walls, avoiding windows. Looking so constantly over their shoulders, could not focus on speakers. Wide eyed, mildly frantic. Barely listening.
Gwildan – if he were alive, as the rumors held – would not come.
Little to talk about, really. No one with the authority to speak for the peasants. Or even to unite them.
Nevertheless … the lion of Vel, getting several prominent Lords to put down their arms in a temporary ceasefire. Among these: Sansea – who had already left the war – and Darleigh.
Both of which were attacked by different regiments of Gwildan’s armies not a week after the peace conference.
Oh. The destruction: terrible.
This time, the Lord of Sansea, cut to ribbons in his own courtyard. Not a meter from where his Lady had been shot dead, months before. His peasants, those who had stayed loyal, cut down or shot wherever they were found. Women, maids and highborns alike: raped in the bedrooms where they hid, terrified. Then shot. Some stabbed. Some beheaded.
At Darleigh, a monstrous fight. Darleigh, a ferocious keep, second only to Vel. Their house staff, most trained in the use of arms. And his soldiers, back from the field.
Defenders bursting out of every corner. A wall of shooters on the high turrets, the roof of the castle. Laying down a spray of lead in every direction. Mounted peasant soldiers, soldiers on foot: falling in such numbers they made piles too high for those who followed to scale.
Yet, still they followed. The numbers of them! Groups of peasant soldiers, clearing away the dead. Cutting passages through the piles.
Some, positioning themselves in surrounding trees. Trying to shoot the shooters. Slowly, working their way through the defenders.
Pouring over the moat bridges in waves like an advancing sea.
And look: there. Riding up behind the first waves: a thin, wiry man mad with fury. Screaming so fiercely that drool poured down his chin. None other.
Gwildan.
Darleigh: spitting out the bedroom window where he had positioned himself with a long rifle. Muttering to himself. “So it’s true. The bastard lives.”
Firing steadily from his window. Hitting many peasant soldiers, but not the one he wanted to bring down. Gwildan, over the moat bridge. Into the courtyard. His courtyard.
Darleigh, feeling as though someone had pushed an iron pike into his rectum.
Continuing to spit and curse, all the way from his bedroom window, down the stairs, through the kitchens, down the hidden back stairs to the old dungeon where his family hid. Spitting and cursing as he dragged them out through a dank hidden passageway, along a tunnel through dirt, lit only with torches. Still cursing as he made his way through another, stone lined tunnel, this one rising slowly upward. Meeting his wife’s tears with curses, his daughters’ trembling with slaps and orders to keep moving.
Finally emerging from behind a door of brush, into a meadow where his four sons and a party of elite soldiers waited with saddled ganthas. Onto their backs; away.
Darleigh, one glance over his shoulder at his keep. One ear cocked for the distant screams. No smoke; good. The place would be raided; his peasanats abused. But like Sansea, it would still stand.
His soldiers: among the best on the planet. They would prevail.
Then setting his jaw; setting his eye. Forward. “To Vel!” Did not look back again.
“What have you done, Vel?!” This, a roar like none other.
Bursting from Darleigh’s throat, his substantial chest. Carrying a wash of rage that would have brought any normal man to his knees.
Vel, just bearing it.
Let Darleigh sputter and curse. While the Lady of Vel finally emerged from her quarters to tend to Lady Darleigh and the daughters. Clucking and fussing, calling for maids to bring fresh dresses for the ladies, whose garb had been soiled by their journey. Calling for warm baths to be run, brandy to be brought as medicine. The ladies of Darleigh, succumbing to their trials. Weeping nonstop, swooning.
Watched by Zoren-te and Nayan, from a balcony over the great hall. Zoren-te, shaking her head slowly. Turning away, as if the sight disgusted her.
Nayan: What?
A sigh. They’re so … delicate. And it’s all contrived.
A sidelong smile from Nayan. I’m guessing you didn’t embrace the lifestyle of a great lady.
No. As you know.
What in all heavens made your father train you as a warrior?
I asked him to.
And he agreed.
Now a smile from Zoren-te. I think he was pleased. He finds Mother – and even my sisters – boring.
So you decided to swim against the current.
I’m not sorry.
I’m not, either. Pulled her into an embrace, quickly stolen behind a balcony door. Sighed into her neck, her hair. This is difficult.
Pushed him away, knowing her mother and sisters would soon pass by that very door. I wish we could too. I miss you. But this is Vel. My mother would have a fit that‘d rival this damned war in scope.
One passionate kiss … then footfalls in the hall. The sound of women’s voices, clucking and carrying on. Coming closer, now.
Nayan and Zoren-te, flattening themselves against the corridor – not that such a maneuver were necessary, the hallways were huge – but the level of agitation in the approaching group required space. A parade of weeping women now passing by. A quick glance from the sisters, a titter; then a look of recognition from … yes. The mother.
Eyes like poison darts, suddenly fixed on Nayan’s own. A look that fully understood what had been interrupted. That warned against its repetition. That warned Nayan against … everything.
He, meeting her harpy’s stare. Just looking … back at her. For one mad moment, knowing he could make her fall. Just look … think it …
Then: all over. The mother and the entourage passing by on their way to guest quarters. A small cloud of ire hanging in the air for a moment; then gone.
She hates me.
Of course she does.
Will that – get in the way?
No. My father likes you, even though you tried to kill me. And he’s all that matters. Honestly, Nayan. When someone like my mother hates you, you should feel flattered.
Fluffed her hair, smiled. Put his arm around her, despite what felt like danger. Wanting so badly to pull her down the hall, around the corner to his own guest room … but no. Not here.
Maybe you should go help your mother.
I’d rather not.
Do it, Zoren. Be part of your family. Or at least, try to look like it.
A heavy sigh. But she, turning. Heading off after the gaggle of women. You know, I’m not dressed for it. A smile.
Nayan, noticing (again) how lovely she looked in her light summer tunic, loose pants. Feminine, yes. And graceful. But – so different from her sisters.
You look beautifu
l. Go.
When she turned a corner, he: down to the great hall. Where Vel endured the blistering rage of Darleigh, looking, if anything, a bit bored. Where lords young and old began trickling in from other keeps. Nayan, entering the room quietly. Hoping not to be noticed by Darleigh.
No such luck. Darleigh, roaring at the sight of him: “And there! The young northern lord, who thinks we should free our peasants!”
Nayan, suddenly the object of more than one angry stare. Vel, standing in front of him. “Come now, Darleigh. Things are different in the North. You know that. You can’t fault the young lord for his upbringing.”
Darleigh, ignoring Vel. Addressing himself directly to Nayan, pushing Vel aside. “Yes, so different in the North! Do you see? Do you see, young lord, what happens here, when peasants are free? Do you see the death? Do you see my home desecrated, my peasants abused?”
Nayan, staying silent.
A lot of people talking at once. Household staff, cowering against the walls. Finally, the old lion taking the scene:
“Listen to me!” Like a sudden thunderstorm.
A sudden hush in the hall. Even from Darleigh.
“What has happened is tragic. Unpardonable.”
Darleigh: “It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t gotten us to agree to your absurd ceasefire. Sansea would have been prepared. I would have been prepared! They wouldn’t have been able to strike like thieves in the night! All your ridiculous talks accomplished … you let them know that our pants were around our ankles!”
More voices. Vel, just waiting for them to calm down.
Finally. Then: “Brothers. What Darleigh says is the truth. It is also true that I acted in good faith. I was – I am – sick of the death and misery of this damnable war. I will bring it to an end any way I can. And for a start, I will capture Gwildan and bring him here. I will cut off the head of the beast.”
Vel, riding out alone.
His army, on high alert. The castle: defended fiercely. Even some of the women, armed with rifles, defending the bedrooms like forts.