Like father, like son, like daughter?
"Oh, Tori," she said, looking up at the Knorth banner with its double horned, rampant emblem. "We are truly riding the rathorn now."
II
Moments later, it seems, someone was shaking her awake.
Jame surged out of dwar sleep to find herself in the attic of the Knorth quarters. She noted, bemused, that someone had changed her mildewed blankets for clean bedding. Brier was bending over her. Then she came fully, horrifying awake.
"How did I get here?" she cried, struggling to rise. "What time is it? Have I missed the last test?"
"You walked in," said Brier, "it's early afternoon, and the only thing you've missed so far is the noon meal. Here." She indicated a slab of buttered bread and a jug of milk on a nearby tray. "Eat quickly. The rally will sound any minute now."
Jame gulped the milk and bolted the bread, all the time scrambling to collect her wits. She remembered now walking back into the barracks to find it full of both Knorth and Danior. The sudden silence that had greeted her entrance. The stairs. The nest of smelly blankets. And escape into dwar sleep.
That was an unusual reaction for her, even after such a morning. She suspected that the Randir had something to do with it. However, if that woman had said anything at the end in her soft, serpent's voice, Jame couldn't remember it.
She did, vaguely, remember something else from the depths of dwar sleep—another voice, other words: "What is love, Jamie? What is honor?"
Tirandys. Senethari.
But he was dead. She had stood beside his pyre, watched him burn. A darkling changer he may have been, but whatever good there was in her she owed to him. The rest of the dream was gone.
"Brier," she said abruptly, "I'm sorry about your demotion. That was the last thing I intended, coming here. And I'm sorry I showed off on the rope. I never meant to make light of the Kendars' fear of heights."
The big Southron regarded her, no expression at all on her sun-dark face. "You never intend, lady. That's the problem."
III
The last test took place in the training square of New Tentir, under the Commandant's balcony. Cadet candidates knelt in a circle around the place of combat, ten Ardeth and ten Knorth, Timmon smiling on one side, Jame intent on the other.
She meant to be very proper and restrained this time. Remembering Tirandys had also reminded her of the dignity inherent in the Senethar, that first and most unique of the Kencyrath's unarmed fighting skills.
As with the other trials judged by single combat, two out of three contests determined victory. The winner went on to face a new challenger; the loser waited to confront whoever lost the ensuing match. After two defeats, a cadet's score was established and he or she retired to watch the superior fighters continue. Thus, at the least one fought two opponents, at the most all twenty, up to the coveted first rank.
Jame's chance came early, against a large, slow Ardeth who could hardly bear to look her in the face, much less lay hands on her. She tricked him off-balance and threw him with a crisp earth-moving maneuver that used his own size against him. The instructor, who had turned his head to speak to someone, looked back at the thud and blinked.
"Again," he said.
The second time took perhaps ten seconds longer, but with the same result.
After that, at first, things went quickly. The cautious tended to use earth-moving; the timid, water-flowing; the aggressive, fire-leaping; the ambitious, wind-blowing (usually poorly), all to the same effect or lack thereof. Their opponent had been very well trained.
"That's pure, classic Tirandys," said one senior randon quietly to another. "I haven't seen a move yet less than three thousand years old. Who in Perimal's name was her teacher?"
"Tirandys developed his form specifically for Highborn women," said the other. "Some say it was a love gift to Jamethiel Dream-weaver, although she favored the Senetha version. What if they still teach it in the Women's Halls, and their lords none the wiser?"
"Now that," said the first, "is a truly frightening thought."
Jame was aware, as the trials continued, that more and more randon were coming up to watch, but she put them out of her mind. It was a long time since she had been in regular training and she felt the lack of it acutely. Moreover, few of her adversaries in recent years had been Kencyr. She needed all her wits about her now. As she met more and more skillful opponents, she began to lose the occasional fall, but still managed two out of three wins. The instructor called increasingly frequent rest breaks.
The sun set behind the Snowthorns and shadows rolled down into the valley. Torches were kindled around the square. By now, all the other contests had ended and Kendar were returning to quarters, some to settle in as cadets, others to pack and leave. As she knelt in a space of silence during a break, amidst a growing, chattering thong, Jame tried to add up her points but couldn't. At the moment, it didn't seem important. All that mattered now was that she do her best in the last two rounds.
The instructor clapped. Timmon rose and stepped into the ring to exchange salutes with her.
Not to Jame's surprise, he favored the showy aggression of fire-leaping. She countered with water-flowing which meets and turns aside attacks, all the time studying his technique. He could be made to lose patience, and soon did, over-extending in a kick that would have sent her flying if it had connected. Instead, she slid in under it and swept his foot out from under him.
"First win, Knorth," announced the instructor.
Timmon picked himself up, looking amazed. Then he grinned and came to attention, awaiting the second round.
This time he fought with more respect for his opponent, and finally caught her out with a slick, earth-moving wrist-lock.
"Second win, Ardeth."
By now, they had taken each other's measure and had found themselves well-matched. The third round moved smoothly from earth to fire to water, with a touch of wind-blowing, back and forth, give and take, though torchlight and shadow. Senethar flowed into Senetha. They no longer fought but moved together in the ancient patterns of the dance. All voices around them ceased as the glamour spread. Their movements mirrored each other. Hands moved, almost but not quite touching. Body slid by lithe body, each tracing the other's contours on the air, and the senses tinged as they passed.
Someone began softly to play a flute. It was a common exercise, by name the Sene, to alternate between fight and dance, changing instantly from the former to the latter when the music began, changing back when it stopped. The two dancers had shifted to wind blowing. They hardly touched the ground, almost weightless with balance and soaring poise. The Ardeth was good, but the Knorth . . .
Space seemed to open out around her. Instead of the practice square, she danced with golden-eyed shadows on a floor of cold marble shot with green. Darkness breathed around her:
"Ahhhh . . . ."
The instructor shook himself and clapped twice, loudly.
The flute fell silent. Later, no one would admit to having played it, and some would claim to have heard nothing.
Jame started, suddenly awake, aware, and shaken to the core. Sweet Trinity, she had nearly reaped that boy's soul.
Timmon's hand moved past her face. She caught it, turned, and twisted. He seemed to whirl past, a sleep-dancer waking in mid-flight, too startled to break his own fall.
"Third win and match, Knorth."
"So," said the first senior randon to the second as a shaken Timmon rose, brushing himself off with unsteady hands. "Senethar and Senetha. Tirandys and the Dream-weaver both have come to Tentir, in one, small person, and with her more than a touch of their darkling glamour. What next, I wonder."
Next and last came Briar Iron-thorn.
Highborn and Southron Kendar saluted and began to circle each other. Somehow, Jame had never believed that things would go this far, nor did she know what to do now that they had. Dancing was out of the question, but she didn't want to fight Brier either. Cadets began to clap softly in uni
son to urge them on. This was ridiculous, she told herself. After all, it was only a contest.
She feigned a blow to draw the Kendar out. Brier slapped aside her hand, nearly snaring it in a water-flowing lock.
It occurred to Jame that she had never before seen the other fight. For such a large woman, Brier's reflexes were very fast, and she was undoubtedly much stronger than Jame. Still, this was the sort of unequal contest for which Jame had been trained.
Right, she thought, and settled down to it.
The first match was cautious on both sides, with a stress on defensive, water-flowing moves. The cadets clapped louder, an insistent, impatient beat. They wanted to see what these two champions could do. Jame caught Brier out and threw her.
"First win, ah . . . Highborn."
The second match went faster. They were striking at each other now, fire-leaping countered by wind-blowing, earth-moving against water-flowing. Brier caught Jame mid-leap and slammed her down, hard.
"Second win, Kendar."
Some cadets cheered.
Jame rose gingerly, shaken in every bone. If she had held back before, so had Brier. Now, she knew she was in trouble. Did the other's hard, green eyes see her at all, or only one of the hated Highborn? Here and now, did it matter? She tried to disable her adversary with a strike to the transverse crease of the wrist between the tendons, which should at least have numbed her hand, at best have made her knees buckle. Instead, Brier caught her wrist, pivoted and struck at Jame's ribcage with her heel. Only a quick water-flowing turn caused her to miss. Trinity, that blow could have broken Jame's ribs, even collapsed a lung. Was the Kendar trying to kill her?
"Only a Kencyr can destroy a Tyr-ridan," Kirien had told the haunt singer Ashe; and she, Jame, might one day become Nemesis, the personification of That-Which-Destroys, the Third Face of God.
Ironic, that an ally could kill her more easily than an enemy.
She knew she was almost spent. This kind of light-headedness only improved with rest, and the instructor just sat there stony-faced, waiting for the end. She didn't mind losing. She could simply fall down and lie there until Brier's win was called. It wasn't in her nature, however, to give up.
Dumb, stupid pride, she thought muzzily.
Then Brier moved—in a blur, it seemed to Jame—and she was on the ground.
"Third win and match . . ." began the instructor, but was cut off by a general uproar.
Jame felt hands supporting her. She spat and stared dully at the resulting spatter of blood, a tooth glimmering in the midst of in it.
Brier stood back, watching her with as white a face as her deep tan allowed.
"Careful," said Jame, thickly. "I may be a blood-binder."
Why did you say that? one part of her mind demanded as some Kendar recoiled. Because they had to know, said the other.
Meanwhile, the argument raged on:
". . . a fair win. . ."
". . . an unorthodox move . . ."
". . . but effective . . ."
". . .Kothifir street fighting . . ."
". . . preserve the purity of our traditions . . ."
"All right, all right!" said the instructor, throwing up his hands. "Third win and match, Highborn."
"Now wait a minute," said Jame thickly, but was drowned out with cries of delight. The Kendar, cheering her? Nothing made sense.
Rue hoisted her to her feet.
"Oh no," Timmon was saying in the background. "I'm not going to fight that giantess. I'm happy with third place. Let her have second."
"I'm confused," said Jame, whistling slightly through the gap where one of her front teeth had been. "But then I usually am."
"Just take the win, lady," hissed Rue. "You need it."
While Jame tried to sort this out, someone began to clap. All other noises died. Cadets backed away. A newcomer stood at the edge of the circle, striking his hands together with slow, heavy emphasis. He was only a few years older than the cadets around him, but his rich riding coat already strained to conceal the beginnings of a pouch. And he had his father's heavy, hooded eyes.
"Well, well, well," said the Caineron Lordan. "First blood already. This is going to be more amusing than I thought."
Chapter VI: The Lordan's Coat
Summer 4-5
I
Supper that night was painful.
Throbbing head and aching muscle aside, it didn't help that cadets kept darting incredulous looks at Jame—except for Brier Iron-thorn, who wouldn't meet her eyes at all.
"What a farce!" Vant proclaimed from the next table, making no effort to lower his voice. "For two ten-commands to rig a contest like that . . . well, how else d'you explain the final ranking? I tell you, it's a shame upon us all."
Rue bristled. "If you mean the last test, Ten, I took a fall from the lordan that taught me more than a dozen Senethari could have, and no holding back, either."
Vant laughed. "With you, Shortie, I believe it."
"Well then, d'you think Five pulled any strikes? Trinity, man, isn't m'lady's blood on the ground to prove it, aye, and her front tooth as well?"
Jame gave up trying to chew the hunk of bread that she had wedged into the back of her mouth. It kept snagging on the raw gap in her teeth. She was too tired to eat anyway.
"Oh, yes, our esteemed Five, hot from the Southern Wastes. So that's how they fight in the back alleys of Kothifir, is it? Rough and dirty. I guess you showed us untaught cubs something, Iron-thorn, didn't you?"
Brier got up without a word and left the hall. Vant laughed again, echoed by several other cadets.
"Let her go," said Jame to Rue, who had half-risen in protest. "Was that why she lost the last set? She used Kothifir street-fighting?"
Just as I lost for my Tastigon knife style, she thought, as Rue nodded. Idiots. In a fight, what works, works.
"Seriously, lady, who taught you?" asked another of her ten, leaning forward and dropping his voice. "The randon are wild to know."
Jame didn't answer. Of course they were. Someone had broken their precious rule that highborn women should not know how to defend themselves, Tirandys be damned—as, of course, they believed him to be.
Ah, Senethari, she thought gingerly sipping cider, wincing at its sting. If the randon flinch at a few unorthodox moves, what would they make of me, your last pupil, who loved you?
"At any rate," Vant was saying, with a smug sidelong glance at her, "it doesn't matter."
And it didn't, any of it: Despite her first place in the Senethar, she had come in one hundred thirty two over all in the tests. She had failed Tentir.
Soon after, Jame went up to the attic to bed.
However, exhausted as she was, sleep wouldn't come, nor could she bear to make plans for the morrow. The moon had fallen into the dark, she noted, staring up through the hole in the roof. Wonderful. Perhaps, if she was lucky, the world would end before morning.
Jorin grumbled at her restless tossing and finally stalked off to find a more peaceful bed.
At some point Graykin slipped in. From the noise he made, clearing his throat, deliberately tripping over things or dropping them, she guessed that he wanted to rub in the news of her failure. Finally he subsided fretfully into his corner and soon began to snore.
At last Jame also fell into a fitful sleep. In her dreams, she was dancing the Senetha with Timmon. "I know a better dance than this," he murmured, brushing her face with his fingertips, sliding them through her hair. "Stay with me. Stay."
She leaned her cheek against his warm touch. Perhaps, after all, life as a woman wouldn't be so bad. No cares, no responsibility except to please one's lord, no more knocked out front teeth . . . .
A roughness in the texture of his hand made her pull back. She saw the white lacework of scars, and then her brother's face as he recoiled from her. They stared at each other, frozen in the figures of the dance.
Somewhere, nowhere, a tiny disgruntled voice was muttering, ". . . not the way it's supposed to be. This has ne
ver happened before."
But Jame was distracted by the ruddy faced Kendar tugging at her sleeve.
"I am the Highlord's man!" he cried, his face fading in patches with distress. Through the holes she glimpsed the shadowy death banner hall at Gothregor. "In the morning, he will send me away to guard his wolver friends, but if I go, what if he forgets me forever? Oh please, lady, I served your father in the White Hills and would have followed him into exile if he hadn't driven me back in the passes of the Ebonbane, as he did so many others. Forty long years and more I waited for his return, and then came his son. Now am I to be cast off again? Lady, for pity's sake, remember me!"
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