by Sharon Shinn
“Come down for dinner when you’ve had time to change,” Lauren said. “My uncle and cousins are here and they’re looking forward to meeting you.”
Lauren escorted Cammon to the room next door. Such was his charm that Senneth could hear Lauren laughing as she showed him around, though the sound was muted by the walls. Tayse was watching her with a little smile.
“Ashamed to claim a lowborn lover?” he asked.
Senneth came up and put her arms around him, resting her head briefly against his broad chest. As always, no matter what her struggles or preoccupations of the day, a moment in Tayse’s arms helped restore her to a sense of balance. And made her feel obscurely safe. Despite the fact she could protect herself very well on her own. “Hoping not to embarrass a gently bred young woman,” she replied.
Tayse threaded his fingers through her short hair and tugged her head backward. When she tipped her face up in response, he kissed her. “I’m not sure how much longer you will be able to lead a dual life,” he said. “Serramarra of Brassenthwaite who meets with lords and nobles. And consort to a King’s Rider, who does not.”
Senneth tightened her arms and kissed him back, hard. “Then I shall just be a consort to a King’s Rider.”
He smiled, but he seemed serious. “If my presence makes it more difficult for you to carry out such commissions for the king—”
“If ever I feel that is the case, I will consign you to the barracks for the duration of our stay. But don’t try to pretend you’re worried about my honor when what you really want is to hear me say I love you and would give up anything in the world for you.”
He was laughing now. “Can’t I be feeling both things at the same time?”
She kissed him again. “I love you and would give up anything in the world for you,” she whispered. “And you’re going to sleep next to me here tonight.”
SENNETH did not, however, bring Tayse with her to Heffel Coravann’s dinner table. Even she was not as abandoned to all sense of decorum as that, though it irked her. It irked her merely to have to play the role of noble ambassador, draw on her Brassenthwaite heritage so that she could be accepted in the dining hall of any marlord in the realm. She had renounced Brassenthwaite nearly eighteen years ago. It seemed mighty hard to have to claim it again when she didn’t want to.
But she would do anything she could to avert war. Or, if war came anyway, to win it.
There were about thirty people at the dinner table, and Lauren made sure Senneth was introduced to all of them. Some Senneth already knew, of course, particularly the large, affable, lumbering Heffel Coravann, who seemed so vague and was really so shrewd. Lauren and her brother were there, and a few of the Coravann vassals, who seemed pleased enough to meet a Brassenthwaite serramarra. They didn’t realize Senneth had been there earlier in the summer, escorting Princess Amalie on a tour of the southern Houses. But Senneth had tried to be very inconspicuous then. This time out, she was not going to be so lucky.
Also at the table were seven Lirrenfolk, clustered together around Lauren and her brother, and looking ill at ease and suspicious in this company. Senneth was not acquainted with the whole story, but understood that, more than twenty years ago, Heffel had eloped with a girl from the Lirrens. She knew very well how those tales tended to turn out, so she was convinced someone had died in the process. Yet, here were the bride’s brothers or cousins or uncles or other members of the sebahta, maintaining what for them was a friendly relationship with an outsider. Someday she would like to hear the details of that romance and marriage.
It was the Lirrenfolk Senneth had come to see.
She managed to get through the evening uttering the usual polite inanities, though Heffel’s vassals were interested in discussing the potential new charters for selected Thirteenth House lords and wanted to know what she thought of the regent. Senneth glanced at Heffel a few times to see how he liked such talk at his table, but he didn’t appear to mind. He was a man who seemed to value peace over almost anything and was probably willing to sacrifice some of his personal acreage if it meant staving off conflict.
On the other hand, she always had the sense that, if he ever were roused to action, Heffel could bring the Lireth Mountains down with his rage.
Once the meal was over, Lauren ushered them into a medium-sized drawing room, and, with great skill, managed to steer individuals into smaller groups. She had been hostess of this house since her mother died a few years ago; she was certainly better at the social niceties than Senneth would ever be.
Senneth found herself, as she had hoped, sitting in a small group that comprised the seven Lirrenfolk. Lauren listed all their names again—Wynlo, a compact, dark-haired, intense and watchful man; his sons, Torrin and Hayden, who looked exactly like him except twenty years younger; his brother; his brother’s son; and two men who appeared to be from the sebahta-ris. Senneth shook hands all around; smiled, though not too widely; and settled beside Torrin.
“We are kin,” she said. It was the formal greeting exchanged by individuals who had worked out a relationship, however torturous, with people they had met for the first time.
Wynlo looked interested, but Torrin wore a scornful expression. “We do not acknowledge clan networks among the Gillengaria Houses,” he said. “So even if you are sister to marlord Heffel, you are no kin to us.”
The others were all nodding agreement, but Wynlo gave Senneth a straight look. “How are you kin to us?”
“I am the adopted daughter of the Persal family, who claim the Domen as brothers. We are all Lahja.”
That changed everything. Even Torrin looked a little friendlier. “How did you come to be adopted by the Persals?” Wynlo asked. “Which family took you in?”
“I crossed the Lireth Mountains more than ten years ago and I wandered for some time among the sebahta,” she said, giving the tale a storylike rendering. As they would expect. “I was a stranger but not a despised one. The Persals allowed me to stay with them, but gave me no status, because I was a woman and unproved and alone. But one day I went hunting with Ammet Persal and his sons, and I was the one who brought down the boar that was charging in to trample Ammet. His family honored me for my skill and my courage, and allowed me to live with them for a year to test my honor and my heart. And by the end of that year, they were satisfied, and they adopted me. And now throughout the Lirrenlands I am known as Senneth Persal, of the Wafyn sebahta, of the Lahja sebahta-ris.”
“I have not seen Ammet Persal for a good five years,” said Wynlo.
His brother stirred. “I have. We met in my cousin’s house, three summers back.” He glanced at Senneth. “He told the tale of his adopted daughter when I inquired after his family. We are kin.”
So that was nicely settled. “I have not crossed the Lireth Mountains in many years,” Senneth said. “I would ask for news of my family and those they love.”
Wynlo’s brother got comfortable. This might take some telling. “Here are tales of the Persal family,” he said, his voice slipping into a sort of singsong. “Tabbet has died and his son, Meltis, taken over the land. Meltis has three sons of his own. . . .”
As she had expected, the recitation took more than an hour, though the others chimed in to add tales of their own friends, all bound together in complex kinship. Nothing particularly startling was revealed; most of the stories revolved around birth, death, marriage, property lost, property gained, alliances formed and broken. What she really wanted to know, and what she eventually learned, was that the Lahja sebahta-ris was even stronger than it had been when she had lived in the Lirrens, since it had absorbed the small but feisty Cohfen sebahta. Two key marriages had cemented that bond, followed by a new baby in each household, so now there were blood ties as well as ties of affection inextricably linking the families.
She was only guessing, but she estimated that, among its many farflung branches, the Lahja sebahta-ris boasted a couple thousand men of fighting age. A considerable army, should any of them be roused to w
ar.
If men from one family joined, men from all families in the sebahta-ris could very well follow suit.
But then Senneth would be responsible for every one of those deaths, if any of the Lirren men should fall in combat.
As was custom, her new kinsmen saved till last the details of their own recent lives. A marriage here, a failed crop there, a son born, an infant sadly dead from fever. “And my daughter and my niece have come to stay for a short time on your side of the Lireth Mountains,” Wynlo finished up.
Senneth allowed herself to look surprised. “That’s unusual,” she said. “Have you fostered them with kin in Gillengaria?” She glanced over her shoulder. “With marlord Heffel, perhaps?”
“No, but he is the one who suggested where we might place them,” Wynlo said. “My niece Rosurie—” He shook his head. From the undisturbed look on his brother’s face, Senneth inferred that this was not the man who’d had the pleasure of siring the wayward girl. “Too wild to tame.”
“She tried to run off with a Bramlis man,” Torrin interpolated.
“Not to be thought of!” Senneth murmured.
“But she was so devious. So clever,” Wynlo continued. “Impossible to keep her apart from him. Then Heffel suggested we send her to live in the house of the goddess under the supervision of one of your noble ladies. A place of both safety and sanctity. My brother-in-law made the arrangements.”
Rosurie was not the name Justin had pronounced with such pleasure. “You sent her to Lumanen Convent? With your daughter, you say?”
“Yes, and together they will find it easy to remember the ways of the sebahta.”
Senneth nodded. “That is good. No one should be without family. Are they children of Gillengaria now, or will they return across the Lireth Mountains someday?”
Wynlo smiled as if that was a silly question. “Of course they will return to us. Soon, I think. My wife misses Ellynor.”
Ahhh . . . “I did not realize that the Lestra of Lumanen Convent happily allowed her young women to come and go,” Senneth said, speaking carefully. “I thought perhaps once a novice joined, she stayed for life.”
“That might be as the Lestra prefers,” one of the other men said gravely, “but our women will return to us in time.”
“Do you know her?” Wynlo asked Senneth, watching her closely. “This Lestra? Heffel speaks of her very highly.”
Impossible to answer this question as she’d like. “I have met Coralinda Gisseltess many times,” Senneth said. “She is a most devout lady. Any young women under her protection will be closely watched, I’m certain. I believe marlord Heffel has long had a close relationship with her and she views him with great esteem.”
That seemed to satisfy them. “When they return to us, they will no longer have their heads full of men that their families cannot abide,” Wynlo said.
Senneth wished she could be more certain of that.
“It is good to hear we have chosen an excellent guardian for our women,” his brother added.
Senneth turned the conversation. “I am less fond of her brother, Halchon,” she said, and that was certainly the truth. “You might say I despise him.”
She had their attention now; they knew all about hatred and the feuds it could prompt. “Has he dishonored you or your kin?” Hayden asked.
She glanced at him, then let her gaze roam the entire circle. “He plots rebellion,” she said. “He wants to unseat the king.”
They responded with murmurs of surprise and excitement, but it was all a sort of remote interest. Gillengaria was not their concern; what they cared about lay across the Lireth Mountains. “Rebellion and war—very ugly,” Wynlo’s brother said. “Are you certain?”
“Entirely. He told me to my face. He believes the king is old and weak and his daughter not fit to rule after him.”
The men exchanged glances and offered a series of incomplete rejoinders. “Well—a woman on the throne—he might be pardoned for having some doubts—”
Their reaction was no less annoying for being wholly anticipated. Senneth cloaked her thoughts and said, “No doubt the king will see her married well and the mother of a promising son very soon. And doesn’t that boy deserve to hold on to the property that is his by blood heritage?”
Now they were all nodding in agreement, instantly throwing the weight of their opinion behind the unborn heir who should never be deprived of a birthright.
“Always wrong to try to usurp the position of a proven leader,” Wynlo’s brother said with finality. “Unless the man is evil or mad or incompetent, and even then, it is his family who steps in to move him aside. The family is there to keep the family strong.”
“What sort of sebahta-ris does this Baryn have?” Wynlo wanted to know.
The Bright Mother knew she would not be able to break down the bloodlines of the Twelve Houses for them in anythingunder a day. “Alliances are forming among the noble families of Gillengaria,” she said. “We don’t reckon kinship as you do—sometimes, with us, friendship matters more than blood. But when I tally the numbers, I see them close to equal. Which frightens me. We could be headed for a war that devastates the entire country.”
“We have not had true war in the Lirrens for a century,” Hayden said, his voice almost wistful.
Senneth looked straight at him. “Nor we,” she said. “But in past times, the men of the Lirrens fought side by side with men of Gillengaria.”
The younger men all looked intrigued at the thought, the older four disturbed. “Gillengaria’s troubles are not ours,” Wynlo said. “The mountains are between us for a reason.”
“If Halchon Gisseltess seizes the throne, I think he is the kind of man who will look around and see what else he might want to take,” Senneth said. “The Lirrens are the closest thing at hand.”
“I think he might find Lirrenfolk difficult to subdue,” Wynlo said.
“I hope he does not have the chance to try,” Senneth said. “I hope quarreling friends and brothers can find a way to mend their differences. I hope war never comes. But if it does, I hope the king’s forces can win against a rebel army.” She swept her gaze across all seven of them again. “I would hope that rebel army would not be swelled by Lirren swords.”
Wynlo’s brother shook his head. “We do not take up arms against our own leaders. If we had a reason to fight in this war of yours, we would fight on the side of your king. But we have no reason to fight.”
She glanced at the younger men again. “But if some of your sons and nephews wanted to join our war? Would you stop them?”
Wynlo and his brother exchanged troubled looks. “No one ever stopped a young man who wanted to fight,” his brother said shortly.
Hayden laughed. “It would be exciting to be in a war,” he said. “There is nothing to fight for across the mountains.”
“Maybe not for you, brother,” Torrin said, taunting a little. “I have fought for a woman’s honor or the slight to a cousin’s name.”
Senneth turned to survey him. “Did you actually duel the Bramlis rascal who courted your cousin Rosurie?”
He nodded, his dark face lighting with pleasure at the memory. “I did. And you may be sure I beat him so badly he will not come calling on her again, even once she is home among her family again.”
“That was a good fight,” Hayden said. “Too fast, though.”
Torrin looked contemptuous. “And at that I had to hold myself back so I didn’t defeat him too quickly. I wanted him to feel every blow, to remember for the rest of his life what the punishment would be for trying to seduce a Domen woman.”