At last here was the jumble of massive, pale boulders, glimmering in the dark. Among them, he came suddenly on the White Lady seated on a rock by the stream. With a flash of white limbs, she leaped to her feet, all four of them, a human cry turning half way through into a mare's frightened whinny.
"Now, now . . ." he said, to soothe her, but from behind came a hasty step.
The master turned, swinging his heavy bag, clouting the rathorn on the nose.
"Behave, you," he told the colt as it retreated with an outraged snort, shaking its head. "Sorry, lady. I didn't mean to frighten you."
Then it was his turn to start. With a splash and a gasp, the Knorth Jameth sat up in the stream and clawed wet hair out of her eyes.
"If you're trying to drown yourself," he told her, "the water is too shallow."
"I have a headache. Or maybe a hangover."
"You aren't sure?"
"I've only been drunk once before."
She rose, wobbling in the swift current as smooth river stones shifted underfoot. Long, black hair clung to her like a sleek pelt, leaving slim, white arms and legs incongruously bare except for rising goose-bumps.
"Cold water helped, the last time. At least now I don't feel like turning my stomach inside out."
He handed her a cloth as she waded ashore. "Here. Rub yourself down."
While she wrung out her hair and then hastily dressed to a chill clatter of teeth, he unwrapped the mare's leg and felt it. No heat. The tendon had settled firmly back into place and the swelling had at last subsided.
"Good as new," he said, pleased. "Still, we'll keep it bandaged for a few days more to be sure."
"Master, what's that smell? You reek like a pyre."
He paused, remembering. "Well, now, that was a strange thing. We'd put the Tempter's body in an empty stall, hoping that the Commandant would change his mind about exposing it outside the walls. After all, the woman was a randon. Then I heard horses cry out and smelt that greasy smoke. No mistaking it. Her body had burst into flames as if someone had spoken the pyric rune over her, but nobody was there. It burned down to ash, all but the hands, feet, and skull, which split open in the heat. The straw beneath was scorched, but nothing else. Very strange indeed."
"Yes," said the Knorth. "Very strange."
From her tone, he might almost have thought that she knew more about it than he did, but that was silly.
"Randi . . . ."
He stopped himself. Best not to say that name in the open. Such were the days in which they lived, where the innocent suffered rather than the guilty and the past threatened to overshadow the present. Without thinking, he slid his hand up the Whinno-hir's leg to pat her shoulder. Greshan had paid for what he had done to her but, in the master's opinion, not enough.
"That's to say, Mer-kanti is saddling Mirah. H'uh. Actually, he was in the stable with her all night, keeping watch and playing artist. If you're traveling with him and that cadet as far as Gothregor, you should go."
"I take it that Gari passed the cull."
"Yes." He had heard that much, at least, before the fire. "On the first round, without a challenge."
"Good."
She was standing over him now, absently braiding the mare's silky white forelock and mane to cover the marred half of her face. The Whinno-hir leaned into her with a sigh, cheek to cheek, scar to scar. Sisters of the brand.
"Master, you've been at the college a long time, haven't you?"
So long that he had almost forgotten his own name, his own house. So long that all the family he cared to claim ran on four legs.
"Were you here when my father was a cadet?"
"Yes." What next?
"He never really had a chance, did he?"
"No."
"I didn't think so. Still, in the end, he found his strength and fought back. For that, if nothing else, I accept the consequences." She gave a strange little laugh, with a catch in it. "I once called Tori 'daddy's boy,' but in this I am truly my father's daughter, and my uncle's niece. Who would have thought that I had so much in common with either of them? Nonetheless, Tentir gave me my chance. Thank you, master."
For what? he wondered, hearing her turn to depart, wishing there was something he could do or say. He knew where he was with horses. With people, though, especially Highborn fillies . . . .
When in doubt, groom.
He picked up a brush, but the mare stepped away from him. She was following the Knorth.
Jameth turned, frowning. Behind her, the eastern sky blushed with dawn.
"Bel, are you sure?" Her eyes sought his. "Master, are you sure that she's sound?"
He scooped up his tools and thrust them back into the sack. An idea had sparked in his mind. "She can bear your weight, if that's what you mean, assuming you take it easy. Nine days to reach Gothregor at eight or nine miles per day. Yes. The exercise would do her good."
Still she hesitated. "Well, if you think so . . ."
"I do."
"All right. Thank you, Bel-tairi. I would be honored."
The colt followed them anxiously. At the gate, as clear as speech, the mare told him to wait. Then they entered the training square.
The master dropped his sack. "Finish grooming her here," he said briskly. "I'll find suitable tack and bring it up."
She cast an uneasy glance around the surrounding barracks, then up at the Map Room's balcony. "This is awfully public. You said once that Bel's return might raise all sorts of ancient stink."
"None worse than what we've already smelt tonight. Carry on."
With that, he left at a trot for Old Tentir and the stable. We'll see, he thought, grinning as he went. Oh yes, we'll just see!
II
The Commandant stood by the balcony, watching the western peaks above the college slowly emerge as the eastern sky lightened. It had been a long night. His shoulder throbbed in time to the beat of his heart, but he thought little of that. A randon's life was full of such minor pains. Worse was his sense of failure. He had hoped that fulfilling their duty would restore the Council's sense of confidence and honor, but how could it when even he felt compelled to compromise?
Oh, I knew you were trouble, he thought wryly of the last cadet whose fate remained undecided. From the moment you rode into Tentir and tumbled off your horse practically at my feet. You test us, more than we test you. Your house always has. Against you words ring hollow, the form but not the substance of honor. Black stone, white stone, touchstone.
Behind him, except for the Knorth, the Council was drifting toward the circle. Even those such as the Ardeth who had shown no hesitation before now seemed strangely reluctant. No doubt they told themselves that this was a small matter, easily decided—foolish, even. Trivial. However, it wasn't.
What were you thinking, Torisen Black Lord, when you handed us this dilemma? Did you even know yourself? You are not one of us, but this girl will be—if she survives Tentir's judgment.
Meanwhile, Harn had literally backed himself into a corner and stood there twisting the slashed scarf in his thick hands as if trying to figure out how to hang himself with it. The Commandant almost smiled. It had been an interesting challenge, over the years, keeping his old classmate alive and more or less sane. He knew how deeply flawed Harn believed himself to be, but he also understood the man's value. In his own rough way, Harn was also a touchstone, and a test. One reason the Commandant had suspended judgment on Torisen as highlord was that he had seen, from the start, how the boy had helped Harn keep his mental balance.
So too, unexpectedly, had the girl Jameth.
The Ardeth seemed to think that her very presence at the college would ultimately destroy it.
The Commandant considered this. She might, if sufficiently annoyed. Then too, as she had once said to him with that odd, almost embarrassed air of defiance, "Some things need to be broken."
Indeed.
We have been playing with fire, he thought. Fire destroys, but it also purifies, and we are in desperate
need of that too. Over the years, too many secrets have festered here. Yet now Harn and I are about to compromise our judgment, because we have seen too many Knorth die. Because we are sick of death. The others won't let her survive Tentir. They dare not. The last Knorth lady, her brother the last Knorth Highlord. Change is coming, one way or another. Will it strengthen or destroy us? Where does one stand in such a time, if not on honor, but what if honor means the death of another innocent?
Hoofbeats sounded below. The horse-master had entered the square from the north gate, followed by the Knorth Lordan and a small, cream-colored mare with white mane, tail, and stockings, dappled with more white across the rump. No, not just a mare. A Whinno-hir. And not just any one at that.
The master dropped his bag of tools and darted away. The Knorth looked around again, nervous, not seeing the watcher above. Then, puzzled but obedient, she draw a brush from the bag and began to ply it against the mare's already shining coat.
Sheth slowly straightened.
"Well?" said the Ardeth behind him, impatient. "Let's be done."
"I think," said the Commandant, "that you should see this first."
Cadets began to emerge from the barracks in a trickle, then in a tide as word spread. Some stumbled, half-asleep; others didn't understand the excitement.
"So?" grumbled one of Gorbel's Highborn ten-command, kneading his eyes and yawning. "It's the Knorth freak and a white pony."
"Shut up," said Gorbel, his frog-face scrunched into a hard stare.
The horse-master returned with the tack. He placed a pad on the mare's back, then tossed a saddle over it. Meanwhile, Jame slid the bridle over Bel's head, noting as she did so that the bit had been removed. Rue ran out of the Knorth barracks with a packed saddle bag, Jorin trotting on her heels. Jame spotted Timmon at the rail. Seeing that she had seen him, he advanced with a sulky air to meet her.
"Are you all right?" she asked, voice pitched low in the presence of so many interested witnesses.
He rubbed his stomach and grimaced. "I've got a dirty, big bruise, if that's what you mean."
"Sorry. Somehow, I ended up on top of three different people last night, and none of it was any fun."
The corner of his mouth twitched despite him. "Then you weren't doing it right."
There was a stir on the balcony and a groan from its wooden supports as Council members crowded forward, staring down: "Is that. . .?"
"It can't be. She's dead."
"I tell you, it is."
"Bel-tairi!"
The mare regarded them askance, ears flickering nervously, one hoof pawing the ground. She seemed on the verge of flight. Laying a hand on her shoulder, Jame glared up at the swarm of gaping faces. Her uncle might have committed the original sin against Bel, but damn them all for trying to consummate his evil against a true innocent.
Cowards, she thought. Lack-faiths, toadies. Cursed be . . . no, not that. Harn's father, Hallik Hard-hand, had paid the price . . . but for what, exactly?
Quivering muscles stilled under her touch. With ears pinned and teeth bared, the Whinno-hir gave a defiant cry that rang off the stones of Old Tentir like a bugle blast fit to wake the dead from their ashes.
Yes. Me, it seemed to say. I'm back.
From inside the Map Room came what seemed to be an answering shout of alarm. Like a released spring, the Randir's black "stone" had uncoiled into a host of frantic, fleeing snakelets. Awl pinned one under her boot by the head as its whip-thin body frantically lashed her. She considered for a moment, then, deliberately, brought her weight down on it with a muffled crunch.
A band of tension seemed to snap in the room.
Sergeants pursued the rest as they slithered for cover. The senior Edirr and Danior gleefully joined in the hunt, the Brandan and Coman more sedately, while the Jaran tried without success to capture one alive for study. Meanwhile, with an air of supreme distain, the Ardeth stepped up onto the table, as if the better to look down his nose at such unseemly proceedings.
In the confusion, by chance or design, a white stone rolled into the circle, then another and another.
The Commandant sighed. To no one in particular, he said, "I give up. Come what may, who dares to vote against the cadet who has redeemed the Shame of Tentir?"
And he cast his two white markers into the circle, to join nine others. Only Harn hadn't remembered to vote: he was too busy jumping up and down on a bloody smear that had been a Randir snake, in imminent danger of smashing both it and himself through the floor.
The Commandant began to clap softly in time to his colleague's stomping feet. He stepped out onto the balcony and looked down, still striking sound hand against injured, ignoring the jarring pain to his shoulder. The Knorth cadets took it up, led by Rue, then the Jaran, the Brandan, the Danior, and the Edirr. Reluctantly, the Ardeth joined in, then the Caineron, following their lordan's slow, heavy lead. A few Randir cadets clapped, but then self-consciously fell as silent as their officers. Standing to the front with Addy a golden loop around her neck, Shade tapped the rail with a fingertip.
All of this commotion reminded the mare where she was, surrounded by those who had once been her enemies. Jame swung up into the saddle, half to reassure Bel, half because she didn't trust her ability to mount if the Whinno-hir spooked again. Trinity, how little control one had without a bit. Moreover, there had been no time to tighten the girth or adjust the stirrup leathers. The whole world seemed to reel. Above, shadows lurched across the Map Room curtains as if the Council has spontaneously broken into a wild, noisy dance.
"What's going on?" she asked Timmon, clutching Bel's mane.
He grinned up at her, his bruise forgotten. "Congratulations. You've survived the cull. Travel safe and return soon."
With that, he slapped Bel on the rump and she sprang forward with Jame nearly out of the saddle. They careened through the great hall of Old Tentir, joined at the stable ramp by Gari on a raw-boned bay and a golden-green mare with rider. Luckily, the outer doors were open. Out they burst into the morning sun, down to the New Road, then south toward Gothregor. An ounce streaked at their heels, and above among the trees a pale, horned shadow kept pace.
Jame managed to hang on to the bolting mare until Tentir was out of sight around the road's curve. Then she fell off.
Glossary
ADIRAINA
blind Matriarch of the Ardeth, beloved of Kinzi; a Shanir who can determine bloodlines by touch
ADRIC
Lord Ardeth of Omiroth, Torisen's former mentor
AERULAN
female cousin to Torisen, beloved of Brenwyr, slain in the Massacre of the Knorth women
ANAR
a scrollsman who taught Torisen and Jame in the Haunted Lands keep when they were children
ANARCHIES
a forest on the western slopes of the Ebonbane mountain range, where the Builders disturbed Rathillien's native powers and were destroyed by them
ARON
an Ardeth sargent at Tentir
ARRIN-KEN
huge, immortal, cat-like creatures; third of the three people who make up the Kencyrath along with the Highborn and the Kendar judges
ARRIN-THAR
a rare form of armed combat using clawed gantlets ASHE
a haunt singer
AWL
a senior Randir officer
BANE
guards The Book Bound in Pale Leather and the Ivory Knife; half-brother to Jame; may be alive or dead
BARRIER, THE
a wall of mist between Rathillien and Perimal Darkling
BASHTI
an ancient kingdom paired with Hathir on either side of the River Silver
BEAR
a randon who was brain-damaged by an axe during the battle of the White Hills; Commandant Sheth's older brother
BEL-TA1RI
Kinzi's Whinno-hir mare, sister to Brithany, also called the White Lady and the Shame of Tentir
BENDER
brother of Tirandys
BLOOD-BINDER
a Shanir able to control anyone who tastes his or her blood
BONE-KIN
distant kin, as opposed to blood-kin
BOOK BOUND IN PALE LEATHER, THE
a compendium of runes; one of the three objects of power lost during the Fall
To Ride a Rathorn Page 51