Homage and Honour

by Candy Rae

  “Is it a medal for bravery?” asked Philip Ross.

  “I believe so Lord Marshall,” said Charles, “but more than that. They take honour very seriously in the Vada, I think it’s for moral fortitude as well as physical courage.”

  “So the girl is a hero of some kind,” opined Henri Cocteau, “Jeremy will like that, once he’s got over the shock. Ah, here comes the Queen at last.”

  Charles stepped forward. “I’ll go first, make the introductions.”

  Anne made a decorous descent down to the pier. If the years hadn’t reconciled her to her new station, at least she had learnt how to behave as royalty in public.

  The Prince Consort and Princess Ruth were followed by Dukes Henri and Jeremy; Philip Ross fell into place behind them.

  The retinue followed with strict adherence to rank and with little fuss.

  In Murdoch you knew exactly where you stood in the grand scheme.

  The introductions passed in a pleasant fashion. The Argyll Councillors bowed to Anne. They did not bow to David or Ruth. Duke Jeremy Graham was outraged.

  Henri Cocteau and Philip Ross watched his discomfiture with inner amusement. Both men stayed close to him, neither willing to miss the meeting between father and estranged daughter.

  Anne agreed to review the guards with a smile tinged with anticipation. She was sure Jessica would be here. Jess would have engineered it somehow.

  She passed through the ranks of Garda, speaking a few words to man and woman. The cavalry too, in a carrying voice she admired their chargers, their smartness and poise.

  Now it was the Vada’s turn.

  Unlike the cavalry who had remained mounted, the vadeln stood beside their Lind as befitted their equal status.

  Anne had a few words for a great many of them, whether two-legged or four.

  Halfway down the second line she approached a tall woman who stood beside an eager-eyed Lind and her face broke into a delighted smile.

  It was Jess and her Mlei.

  David’s face was beaming as well.

  Charles watched and so intent was he on this meeting, he missed the cry of astonished indignation (he indignant about where she is and what she gave up to do this) from where his father stood with Jeremy Graham and the Lord Marshall.

  “Hello Father,” Beth was saying, “fancy seeing you here.”

  Henri Cocteau hid a smile of malicious delight behind his gloved hand and Philip Ross’s face was red with suppressed laughter.

  Jeremy Graham was struck dumb. He found his voice after a long moment and said, “Elisabeth?”

  In a confident and self-assured voice Beth answered, “on reflection you see, I decided that I wanted neither the marriage nor the cloister, which were the choices you offered so I took steps.”

  “I’ll say she did,” said Henri with a smile, “now come along Jeremy, you’re holding things up. You can get reacquainted later.”

  With a courteous nod and a wink at Beth he led a stunned Duke Jeremy away, passing Jess and Mlei (he noticed that she was very like her father) on the way.

  * * * * *

  Vadthed (Second Month of Winter) - AL166

  Weaponsmaster (2)

  The tactics class for the first year Vada Cadets was in progress and the lecture hall was full to overflowing with the youngsters and their Lind. Johan Williamson was delivering the lesson.

  Johan Williamson was an interesting lecturer, his points illustrated by events that had actually happened. Some he had experienced personally when he had been a Captain in the Garda of Argyll.

  Most cadets looked forward to these tenday classes. If nothing else it was a chance to sit in a nice warm classroom and a break from lessons in weaponswork that took up so much of their time winter and summer. To these warlike pursuits were added the mandatory schooling classes for all children up to the age of sixteen, first aid and all the myriad lessons they had to master. A cadet’s life was a busy one.

  During the previous weeks Johan had discussed the pirates who raided the coasts and islands. Today, he began to talk about the Larg; the eons-old enemy of the Lind and this was the reason why the lecture hall was so full. Not only the first years were in attendance, others, older, wanted to gain some insight into why and how the Larg attacked. There were many Lind in the hall, squeezed round the walls with some standing on the lecture podium itself. As ltsctas they had learned how to fight the Larg but they didn’t want to pass up on an opportunity to learn more.

  As the lecture drew to a close Johan indicated that he would take questions from the floor and one young lad put his hand up. Rhian went and stood beside Johan on the podium.

  “Weaponsmaster and Vadeln Johan,” the lad began, “why is it that the Larg always attack in the summer?”

  “Have you forgotten your geography lessons Trent?” Rhian teased, “the lands of the Larg are in the South, seasons reversed. Our summer is their winter. It is winter when hunger bites even the strongest and they come north to hunt.”

  “But it is not just to hunt that they come, is it Weaponsmaster?” ventured another.

  “No, that is very true Michal, the Larg want to fight, they enjoy killing.”

  “But there hasn’t been a battle with the Larg for over a century,” asserted Joachim, “my father says that it won’t happen again, that the Larg are too few to pose a threat.”

  “How little he knows them,” whispered Rhian’s Tadei as Rhian took a deep breath. It was time to say a little more. She nodded at Johan; the two of them had discussed the possibility earlier, she stepped back and Johan moved forward again.

  “All the indications are,” he began, “that Larg numbers are once again at a critical level. The Larg are a threat and fighting pirates is different to a battle with them.”

  The lecture hall was full of an electrified silence.

  “Now, we are going to study some battles in detail. In the one hundred and sixty years since we arrived we have fought two such battles, the Battle of the Alliance and that of Trumpet Keep. The Lind will teach you about previous battles, before we had a Vada; when only Lind and Larg fought.”

  Trent’s hand came up again.

  “Yes Cadet?”

  : This one asks many questions : telepathed Tadei to Rhian.

  : He wants to know : she answered.

  “Do you think we will have to fight them again Vadeln Johan?”

  “I do not think that you will be called away from your studies just yet Cadet,” he answered with a twinkle, “so you will have plenty of time to write the essay I will be giving you but yes, I do.”

  The cadets gasped. The Lind looked wise. They knew battle was looming.

  “Now don’t panic! We shall get plenty of warning. The Larg kohorts cannot sneak up on us unawares. Now, unless there are any more questions, I will begin with the Battle of the Alliance. Remember to take notes. You will be examined on this later.” The Vada trainers had learnt long ago that the cadets paid far more attention to lectures with the prospect of an exam ahead of them. There were various rustles as notebooks and pencils were got ready. “So, the Battle of the Alliance. I am going to read an account of it by Tara Sullivan and her Lind, Kolyei. During the next lecture we will study the battle in more detail and also look at the notes left by Susyc Jim Cranston and Susa Francis who led the first ever charge of the Vada.”

  Johan was a brilliant raconteur Rhian realised, his rendition of Tara and Kolyei’s account made for exciting listening. There were sighs of disappointment as the bell rang out signalling the end of the lesson. Johan dismissed them with the repeated promise that in the next lesson they would be examining the battle in detail.

  “All enthusiasm,” was his comment as the class departed.

  “Because they don’t fully realise what war is all about,” answered Rhian, “that lesson I will take with you and I won’t be glossing over the nastier parts. Susa Lynsey, by the way, isn’t completely convinced about teaching this to the first years, thinks they’re too young.”

&nb
sp; “At fourteen, fifteen?” Johan’s voice sounded surprised, “they are no longer babies. Not a few of their Lind have tackled gtran and wral, especially these last cold winters. Anyway, we always teach tactics in the Garda, whatever the student’s age.”

  “I did try to tell her.”

  “I’d leave be,” Johan advised, “Susa Lynsey has other things on her mind. She knows, deep inside, that the Larg are planning war. She hopes against hope that the cadets won’t be involved and is trying to protect them for as long as she can.”

  “Perhaps they’ll decide to take out Murdoch before they come after us.”

  “The Larg are not stupid. They know that they’ll have to meet us in battle eventually.”

  Susa Lynsey and Bernei had called a meeting for that afternoon. As Rhian and Tadei wandered over to her office that unusually balmy day and, despite what she had been discussing with Johan, war seemed far away. All the officers and trainers of the Vada who could attend were there. To Rhian’s surprise, she saw Laura and Grdnei making their way towards her. This duo was in charge of the complex that housed the younger members of the wider Vada community, those who, once vadeln-paired, were unable or unwilling, to stay with their families and were too young to begin training. Jadred and Maria who had run the complex were now retired.

  In the past, first year cadets had fought.

  During the last great Larg invasion, of Vadath in AL10, they had either taken part in the Battle of Trumpet Keep or had defended the non-combatants of the Vada Stronghold. Some had lost their lives.

  During the intervening decades with the Larg decimated by disease, cadets had not been expected to do any such thing. When Lynsey had become Susa she had stepped up the battle training.

  This meeting had been set up to formulate plans in the event of an attack over the island chain that met the south-easterly tip of Argyll.

  Rhian knew that there was likely to be many differences in opinion during the meeting. She was one of those who did not agree with the consensus that the Larg would use this traditional route. When they had invaded Vadath in AL10 they had persuaded the leaders in Murdoch to carry them over the Middle Sea by boat. However, for over a century Murdoch had largely ignored the existence of the Larg and had expanded its borders. In recent months more than one delegation of Larg had approached the rulers of Murdoch and, although no Vadathian or Argyllian operatives had been able to gain access to transcripts of the meetings, indications were that an accommodation was being hammered out.

  It was likely, Rhian was thinking, that these negotiations would finish with a mutual non-aggression pact that would leave the Larg free to concentrate their efforts on the North.

  When she and Tadei entered the office she saw a group of people and Lind bent over a gigantic map of the Northern and Southern Continents, discussions were already in progress. Little wooden counters dotted the expanses on the map. Rhian noticed that, not only were the Vada commanders present, three Susas of nearby Lindars were also there; Lynsey was indeed taking the threat seriously.

  “Our entire coastline is at risk,” she was saying, unconsciously echoing Susas and Susycs of the past, “we need detailed information about everywhere they could possibly land.”

  “That area,” said one Ryzcka, “is all cliffs, cliff faces and rocks.” She pointed to an area of coast some fifty miles west of the Lind-Vadath border, “to the west, that is possible.”

  “I disagree,” said another, “it’s the wrong way. Too far. They will attack over the island chain, it is the only possible route. That pirate base too, which the South used as a stepping stone at Trumpet Keep, it has been abandoned for years.”

  “The Larg have never attacked in our rtathlians,” opined one of the Lindar Susas, a pure white Lind of many seasons called Madrei.

  “They have no ships,” agreed Ryzcka Leon of the Fifteenth Ryzck, “I agree with Madrei; they will come over the Chain, unless of course, they have learned to fly!”

  There was subdued laughter from among the assembled.

  Lynsey sighed as the meeting adjourned : my gut feeling says that I am right. They will find a way to cross somewhere else. They know the fortifications at Settlement will not be easily overcome :

  Bernei tried to comfort her.

  : You have done what you are able to; you can do nothing more :

  : What news from the Avuzdel? :

  : Sketchy at best :

  : That in itself tells us that something is afoot :

  : Apaw : Bernei corrected her, wagging his tail.

  * * * * *

  Quartet (9)

  The Seventh Ryzck with which Jess and Mlei were serving was in the middle of its three-month duty stint in the mountains of north-western Argyll. This sector was not one of the favourites, especially during the super-cold winter months when blizzards and storms were the norm. This winter was running true to form, at least true to form for the last decade when the winters had been unusually bitter. Outside the stone-built living quarters it was cold, wet and miserable. The wind cut like a knife.

  For Jess, newly promoted Vadryza, these last months had been, not to put a finer point on it, an unsettling time. The promotion had come not long after Tana and Tavei had been transferred. These, her two greatest friends, had gone back to Vada where Tana had taken up a position of arms-trainer under Weaponsmaster Rhian.

  Jess sighed as she dragged her body from the warmth of the sleeping furs. As a Vadryza she and Mlei had a tiny space of their own at one end of the barracks, the members of her Vadryz shared the communal living and sleeping area. In these, the most northerly duty stations, the buildings were not split into the individual low-walled cubicles as those further south, the better for the heat from the woodstove to permeate the area. Jess and Mlei’s cubicle was heated by lagged pipes which drew the hot air in and through them. They usually kept her private area at a comfortable temperature but not today. One of the people on the permanent staff here had reported that he had found a crack in the boiler and had had to shut it down. The woodstoves were the only means of heating at the moment. Jess and Mlei’s cubicle was as cold as ice.

  I might just join the rest of them in the barracks tonight, thought Jess as she hurried into her uniform, watched by a still sleepy Mlei.

  : I wish we need not go out : he said.

  “You and me both,” she answered, struggling with her tunic fastenings. Even only a quarter-bell out of her bed, her fingers were growing numb, buttons refusing to slot themselves into buttonholes. How she was going to fasten the toggles on her leather outer-garments only the Lai knew. She managed the laces on her heavy wool-lined zarova leather boots with some difficulty.

  Standing up, she cast a wry grin at her life-mate, “and we wanted to join the Vada!”

  This was not the first time Jess and Mlei had suffered in the mountains and they both knew the winter would get worse before it got milder. This was only the first wind-blizzard; next month would come the big freeze when the going became treacherous. The Lind did not feel the cold in the same way as humans. They had thick fur to protect them but it still affected them nonetheless. Their paws were not fur-coated. There were protective leather paw-shaped boots in the stores for use in extremis but nolind liked wearing them.

  “Unfortunately Jess,” Mlei said in a resigned tone, “we have little choice in the matter.”

  A small pride of gtran had been reported as being in the vicinity of a nearby mining camp and Jess and Mlei were under orders to hunt them out and to drive them off. These creatures and the wral were a very real danger to the inhabitants of the mountains. Their summer prey migrated to the lower slopes in the winter months and the gtran either followed them or died of starvation. If hungry, they would attack human settlements. A few years ago an entire camp had been wiped out and Jenny, the Ryzcka of the Seventh, was in no mind for a recurrence so, out into the storm Jess, Mlei and her vadeln-pairs must go.

  Mlei stretched.

  The furs on his divan were as warm as toast (Mle
i was fond of buttered toast) and like Jess, he wished he could stay where he was.

  : Could you not put my harness on whilst I lie here? : he asked in a wistful whine.

  “Lazybones,” Jess teased.

  Mlei sighed and heaved his bulk out of the covers as Jess pulled the harness off its hook. He crouched down so that she could swing it on to his back and rose again as Jess fumbled with the girth straps.

  Harness arranged to his satisfaction, Jess began to clip his leather armour protectors into place. There was every likelihood that, during this patrol, they would find themselves in a fight. Hunger made the gtran brave and they had long sharp claws and even longer teeth.

  Breakfast that morning consisted of maize porridge and pastry wrapped fruit wedges (also a favourite of Mlei’s) washed down with hot kala. The patrol would take with them wrapped pastry packages to eat on the way as the mining camp was some distance away.

  Jess took her usual seat at the mess-table beside grizzled old Angus.

  “Tuck in,” he advised as she sat down. He was eating a huge bowl of sweetened milky porridge with evident enjoyment. Jess was not fond of it at the best of times. She decided to forgo the dubious pleasure and snaked a hand out to grab her first pastry wedge.

  “We set out at Fourth Bell,” Jess announced as she bit into it. The fruit dribbled down her chin.

  The door opened and Ryzcka Jenny entered. She was a small, gentle woman of middling years who ran her Ryzck with a calm discipline, a far cry from her predecessor who had been a loud-mouthed bombastic man whom Jess had never much liked. She had been very pleased when he had been recalled to Vada and Jenny promoted into the vacated command. He had shouted a lot. Jenny almost never raised her voice. She took the empty seat on the other side of Jess.

  “Ready for the off?”

  “Yes ma’am,” replied Jess between mouthfuls, “have there been any more sightings?”