"What do you mean? That man was not even born an innocent."
"I didn't say an innocent." Maleta felt her cheeks flush with shame. "I accused him of killing my parents, of being responsible for Kunigonde's destruction."
"You bound his sword-trial to a single act, instead of dispensing Her universal justice? You made it personal? You acted as Van Marete instead of Hedda's Own?" Mother Tam pursed her lips. "That's not how the sword's to be used. Even I know that much."
Maleta had almost forgotten her former name and title. It felt odd hearing it now. She stared Mother Tam down. "It was necessary. I now know who is responsible. I know the greater truth because of it."
"Tell Mother Kitta when she arrives."
Maleta's defiance crumpled. "Mother Kitta's coming... here?"
"I received word yesterday she's on her way with escort. You're to await her arrival."
Considering they could have arrived within the hour had they chosen, by way of the secret tunnel, Maleta thought it typical of Mother Kitta to leave her twist for the night. Facing Mother Kitta was almost worse than facing Hedda Herself. And if Sister Reva accompanied Mother Kitta, Maleta thought it might be quicker to fall on her sword now and save everyone – especially herself – the trouble. The waiting just made it worse.
Mother Tam sighed. "You've my understanding, and my sympathy. But I'm not the one you must convince."
Maleta's stomach cramped thinking about the long night ahead. "I'd better go clean up."
"Get some rest. She won't be here until morning."
Maleta doubted she'd sleep a wink. She went to the small cell in the guest quarters she occupied on her frequent but erratic visits. It held a helmet-sized iron brazier for heat, a cot and a peg on the wall where a clean nightdress and shawl awaited her. She headed to the guest women's bathing chamber and allowed herself the luxury of a hot bath.
Her head swam with conflicting thoughts. Mother Tam spoke the truth. Hedda's Sword and Mandates weren't for individual exploitation, but the universal good. Hedda wasn't about one family, but all. Then there was the temptation to exchange the foreigner for her brother. She'd seen the pure gold of the stranger's soul shining through in the Broken Blade. Yet for Jovan's freedom she'd considered selling out a true paladin for her own gain.
Still, how much had her brother suffered these past six years at the hands of Sunniva? They'd lost everything, she and Jovan – their parents, their home, their titles. Weren't they allowed the same justice under Hedda's protection? Were they to be the sole exclusion? Must she sacrifice everything of her own in Hedda's service?
On that unworthy thought Maleta closed her eyes and ducked under the now-tepid water to wet her hair. Hair she'd cut long afore she'd taken her actual vows. She recalled standing afore the mirror, hacking away at the long strands, watching them fall onto the table aside the basin. Trying to remove his grip along with her hair, as she vowed never again. Never again would she find herself in that position of utter helplessness. Scrubbing herself clean of the dirt proved easier than scrubbing away the memories. She rinsed and set the tub to draining. With butterflies the size of carthorses turning somersaults in her stomach, she dried and dressed. Back in her room, sleep out of the question, she grabbed the shawl to cover her gown.
She headed for the women's common room, where refugee women came together. They brought knitting, sewing, embroidery or a musical instrument and traded news, stories and advice. Maleta felt desperate for distraction. As she approached, an unfamiliar musical sound reached her ears. Breathy, like a flute, but more haunting. Multi-toned. She'd never heard anything like it, though she knew the tune itself well enough. "The Shepherd's Lament."
"Play more," a little girl's voice begged.
It was the same voice, the same little girl she'd rescued the night Sonja had been killed. She remembered her saying, "You saved us." The same little girl she'd rescued in that first fateful raid.
Maleta shuddered. Tonight ghosts surrounded her, penance for disobeying Hedda. What else did the Grey Lady have in store for Her wayward servant?
"What would you like to hear?" an altogether too familiar, lilting male voice asked.
Maleta froze in her tracks. Cold sweat broke out across her forehead.
"Something from your homeland," the little girl suggested.
"Mayhaps when our guest gets seated," he replied. "Go get her, Jana. She is out in the hall."
How had the paladin known she was there? The thought of the parchment notice in her room made Maleta's stomach roil. She turned to go.
A small hand on her sleeve stopped her. "Come on," the young Shamaru girl pleaded. "He won't play unless you come in and sit down."
It was her. Jana, one of the girls she'd rescued the night Sonja died. Maleta followed Jana through the doorway, and there he sat. The paladin. Cianan.
She should've fallen on her sword.
Chapter Seven
Maleta clutched her shawl to ward off the chill of apprehension. All conversation died as Jana dragged her into the room, a stone hall with a fire at each end, the floor cushioned by dried herbs and straw. There, afore the fire to her left, on a simple three-legged stool, sat the blue-eyed paladin from the Broken Blade. A wanted fugitive with a price on his head.
Her stomach lurched. Flight wasn't an option. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.
"Avoiding Sunniva's notice." He eyed her nightdress with an expression of disbelief and something else altogether different. Something darker, more aware. A lazy, shuttered look that raised the hair on her arms and the back of her neck. "Tzigana sent Jana and me here to lay low for a while. There is a price on my head, I am told. Tzigana feared greed might overcome someone's better judgment."
She frowned, skeptical of that expression, a not-quite-hungry-enough-to-move predator, but one starting to seriously consider the hunt. "Now why don't I believe you're the lay low type? Why aren't you with the men? This is the women's sanctuary. Are you lost? Anyone here could have told you where to go."
"We asked him to play for us," Jana defended him. "We've heard naught like it afore. 'Tis beautiful."
"Jana, could you give us a moment?" Cianan asked.
Jana grinned and retreated to the opposite end of the room. The other women paid them no further attention. Conversation resumed after the initial stares. It seemed the sanctuary rule held even for Cianan and Maleta. After all, what were two more strangers among all the rest?
Those piercing cobalt blue eyes stared at Maleta. Dressed in Shamaru garb, he looked more roguish than ever. All he lacked were the earrings. "Bet you never thought to see me again, Sonja."
She felt her cheeks cool. So he remembered her lie in the Broken Blade.
He rose and held out his hand. "Come, vertenya. Have a seat by the fire. You look cold."
Except her cold went soul-deep, and no fire could warm away that chill. She stared at his hand. The warrior's calluses were a direct contrast with the paladin's golden aura. She sidled around him to perch at the edge of the hearth. "Don't touch me," she whispered. But 'twas too late – those eyes already had. She felt exposed. Vulnerable. "I should go." She stood, poised to flee.
"Nay. Stay for a bit. No one should be alone tonight." His eyes were shadowed. "Bad dreams travel on the wind."
She got the sense of him relaxing, the hunter backing down. He looked weary. "Even for you?"
His mouth twisted – wry or cynical, she couldn't decide which. "Especially me, vertenya." He sat back down, blew through the musical instrument.
She heard that haunting, lyrical sound again and swallowed down the lump in her throat as she stared at the design. Bound reeds of differing lengths. She'd never seen the like. "What is that?"
"Just a flute." He shrugged.
"Nay." Maleta shook her head. "'Tis more than that. 'Tis a bit of home for you." Her gaze took in the unfamiliar design of the flute. "You're a long way from home."
He nodded acknowledgement. "I am. But that was by choice." He hesitated
. "You have dropped your earlier accent. You speak true now, as a lady. What of your home?"
The question grated on her raw nerves. Maleta turned away to stare into the flames. Tears burned her eyes. "Same's all here. I've none. Some six years back."
"And since?"
She shrugged off the ache. "Like you, my choice."
She felt his gaze on her. From the corner of her eye she saw him shake his head. "I think not. Choosing the one option offered is no choice at all."
That rankled. What did he know of it? "And was yours a true choice?" she challenged.
Cianan's grin transformed his whole face into the little-boy-that-was. "I volunteered."
"Your mistake. Go home. Naught but death and darkness dwell here." Heat and wood smoke curled around her, but still she shivered and clutched her shawl.
"I cannot. My task is not yet done."
"And what's that? Why are you here?"
"Same as you, I think."
"What do you know of my task?"
"To drive back the darkness and bring forth the Light."
She shook her head again. "We're not the same, stranger. Granted the darkness is too strong with the ascension of Sunniva and her minions, the night watch and dealers. But I work for balance. There's no Light without darkness, no good without evil. Too much good and people become complacent. They forget. To eradicate evil would eliminate choice. It would make people weak."
He frowned. "Goodness is not weakness."
Maleta leaned forward. "Strength comes from the struggle, from the fight. What would there be to fight against?"
"Their own greed, to put their own interests above the common good. There are still the rievers to worry about. But a people united in the Light would be stronger for the numbers." Cianan sighed. The hard planes of his face appeared to age afore her eyes. "My own people are united in the Light and fight against a dark foe on our own borders. We are all that stand betwixt them and you. Be glad you have not faced them, vertenya. "
His eyes looked a thousand years old, like they'd seen too much. Maleta knew that feeling all too well. She sat back, uncomfortable with his close proximity. "That's the third time you've called me that. What's it mean, this word vertenya?"
"It is an address or title in my own land," Cianan replied. "It means lady warrior. It is an ancient designation. It seems as appropriate as any, since you do not tell me your name, lady. You are but the third person I have addressed thus in my lifetime. The first is my new queen. The second is a student of mine, the first woman ever to enter our warrior academy."
She snorted. "Stay here tonight and you'll meet a whole lot more in the morning."
"What do you mean?"
"Mother Kitta and the senior sisters are coming here from Hedda's Tempest. You'll be up to here in vertenyas – " she held a hand up to her eyebrow " – and wish you weren't."
The alert predator returned. "Why are they coming here? Why now? For what?"
Maleta gulped and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. "For me."
He leaned forward, elbows on thighs. "From your expression, it is not a social call."
She leaned back against the fire-warmed stone and closed her eyes, exhausted. "Nay, it's not. I'm going to be punished." Why she shared this with a stranger she had no idea, but on this dark and dreadful night it felt comforting not to be a sword, not to be alone.
"What did you do they think so wrong?"
She sighed. "I went to punish a man for Hedda. Instead we talked and I let him live. The brother I thought dead is still alive. Sunniva holds him prisoner. If I'd killed this man, I never would have learned the greater truth, but I lost control. I did what I felt and not what I thought."
His long silence made her open her eyes. He stared at her with a dumbfounded look. "A terrible sin indeed."
"You've no idea."
"I hope I never do. To lose your heart, your feelings, is to risk that which makes you human – your soul." His gaze warmed. "What is your real name?"
Tonight she tired of the lies. "Maleta." She tucked her knees up under her chin, and wrapped her arms around them. "I don't want to think about tomorrow. Can you play for a bit?"
Cianan smiled. "All you have to do is ask, elingrena." His voice was gentle. He blew softly on the flute, an unfamiliar lullaby.
Now what in the world did that word mean?
* * * *
The next morning, Maleta stood ramrod straight in the guest chapel, afore Mother Kitta and Sister Reva, dressed in her full regalia as Hedda's Own, with her setting-sun breastplate buckled on and Hedda's Sword strapped across her back. The stained glass window above her shattered the sunlight into shards, like the fear that splintered her nerve. Her stomach knotted and her mouth dried to sand. Cold sweat trickled betwixt her breasts.
If Mother Kitta's eyes were pure ice, Sister Reva's looked to flay the skin from Maleta's back. She could already feel the welts.
"You violated your oath," Mother Kitta stated. "Your sacred blood oath, to restore the balance."
"Aren't I one of the victims? Don't I have equal rights to vengeance against those who wronged my family?" Her voice sounded less defiant than she'd hoped.
"Nay!" Sister Reva's eyes blazed. "You're to be above that, beyond that. Hedda's Sword isn't one person. She's a weapon, an instrument of death."
"Sunniva needs to go," Maleta argued.
Sister Reva pointed a long knife at her. "Aye, but not because of you and yours."
"She'll destroy this land and all who live here." Maleta refused to back down.
"Hedda accepted your oath," Mother Kitta stated. "Hedda alone must decide if you betrayed your vows. Only She can revoke your calling."
Sister Reva's grin was savage. "Kneel at the black altar and call Her forth."
A firm knock sounded on the door, but afore any of the women could move, it swung open and in strode Cianan. Maleta stared. His chain mail and armor were finer than any she'd seen, laid over shining white silk, but his breastplate and sword made her shiver with dread – a half-sun on the horizon, identical to hers, and a sword the same unique Goddess-metal as Hedda's.
"What blasphemy is this?" Sister Reva advanced, sword drawn and raised.
"Stand down!"
Maleta had never heard Mother Kitta raise her voice like that afore. That tone must've surprised Sister Reva as well, because she sheathed her weapon.
Mother Kitta turned to Sister Reva. "Leave us. Stand watch. Let none pass."
Sister Reva nodded and strode out, slamming the door.
"I know what you are, if not who," Mother Kitta addressed Cianan. "How dare you violate the sanctity of this chapel?"
Maleta found her voice. "What're you doing? You can't come barging in here!"
"It is necessary." Cianan glared at Mother Kitta. "I am Lady's champion and guardian of Light, and I have business with Sunniva. I would stand with Hedda's Own in this quest."
"I might not be Hedda's Own much longer," Maleta warned. "Go back. There's no place for you here."
Mother Kitta drew herself up and puffed out her chest, looking nothing less than an outraged goose about to attack a wayward cat. "We don't fight for the Light, nor do we call on the aid of foreign gods or those who follow them – "
Cianan held up his hand to stop her flow of words. "I heard that same diatribe last night, so spare me the repeat." He glared at her. "If you fight for balance, logic dictates should the Light ascend too high and tip the scales, you might one day in the future turn and fight on the side of the dark." His gaze locked with Maleta's.
Maleta blanched. What was he saying? That one day she'd fight for darkness, on behalf of chaos and fear?
Mother Kitta stole his glare from her young student, unflinching. "I would. I have."
Maleta's stomach roiled at that thought. "Nay... " She couldn't... she wouldn't. Not after everything they'd been through. The struggle was one thing, but...
Cianan turned back toward Maleta. For a moment she swore he read her mind.
His gaze softened. "Vertenya, I swear to you that so long as you fight for the Light, I shall fight with you, at your back and by your side."
"No man stands at my back. I don't need your help."
"You may not want my help, vertenya, but you need it. You can trust me. I am the rising sun to your setting sun."
"How do I know? I trust no one but myself."
"Draw Her sword. Test me."
Maleta froze. "Nay – " He didn't know what he asked. Hedda's trial was a fight for life.
He indicated his breastplate. "Rising sun to your setting sun – two sides of the same coin." His gaze held steady, unafraid. "Do it. Know once and for all time what manner of man would travel half the world's distance to aid you in your cause."
More afraid than she had ever felt in her life, Maleta took a deep breath. Drawing Hedda's Sword, she laid the burning point against his throat.
Chapter Eight
A rush of Light and hot wind engulfed Maleta. Mother Kitta and the chapel disappeared. In the Sword-vision, Maleta stood on a barren mountaintop, overlooking a multi-tiered city. She stared in growing wonder at white marble walls gleaming in the sun. "What is this place?"
"Poshnari-Unai," Cianan's now-familiar whiskey voice replied. "Home."
She caught the longing in his tone and turned to him. But upon seeing the creature aside her, her own words died in her throat. Still Cianan, yet not. Manlike, yet... more. Same height, same breadth, yet he glowed from within. Slanted cobalt eyes shone like jewels, pupiled like a cat's beneath slanted ebony brows. Pointed ears peeked out beneath his blue-black hair. She stared at him, thunderstruck and a little afraid. "Wh-what are you?"
"I told you, I am Cianan, Lady's champion for the Lady of Light. I was an elven ranger afore my predecessor Loren became high king and the Lady selected me to replace him."
"What's your charge?"
"To hold back the darkness from the world."
Visions swarmed her mind's eye, horrors that left her numb and shaking. Huge hulking brutes seemingly made of stone, small twisted demons with black skin and blacker hearts, a formless evil that rent mortal men into giant shambling pillars of destruction. Cianan fought them side by side with others like himself, glowing archers and swordsmen atop gleaming white horses. A white-haired elf fell afore them, his horse slain. Another old elven warrior defended him from the enemy. A redhaired woman flung fire from her fingertips, destroying the dark creatures. Maleta felt the genuine love and concern Cianan bore for these people.
Heddas Sword.jpg Page 7