She shook her head. “I can’t—”
He growled, and sneezed, as if he had smelled something he didn’t like. :Must you be so dense? I’m offering to train you myself. No one else will ever know, not even my mind-mate.:
“You are?” She could hardly believe it. “But why?”
He put his head down on his paws, and sighed. :Self-defense, child. Self-defense. I am increasingly weary of trying to shut you out, and you have at times awakened me out of my rest. Now, in the interest of peaceful sleeping, shall we work on that so-called shield of yours? You’re going about it all wrong :
And I thought I was overworked before, Kero thought with a little groan, as she opened bleary eyes two weeks later on a morning that had arrived much too soon. She’d trained herself to wake as soon as the first light of sunrise came through her eastern window. It seemed to hit her closed eyelids candlemarks earlier every morning.
The worst part of it is, if Tarma knew Warrl was keeping me up half the night, she’d probably let me sleep later. But if I tell her—no, I can’t. I don’t know what she’d think about this, and I know she’d tell Grandmother.
Kero rubbed her eyes with her knuckles, and sat up slowly. By the look of the clear, pink-tinged sky, this was going to be another perfect day—which meant Tarma would be feeling pretty frisky. Kero was beginning to look forward to rainy days; even more to days of cold and damp, with a heavy morning fog. Both conditions made Tarma’s joints ache—she would stay in bed until late morning, and confine Kero’s workouts to sessions in the practice ring against the pells or other targets. It wasn’t particularly nice to be pleased when her teacher wasn’t feeling well—but Kero had found that guilt in this case was easily outweighed by the pleasure of sleeping in.
For the past week, she’d been freed from the chopping and wood-carrying; now she practiced against the pells and in sword-dances in the morning, had an hour or two of book-training directly after lunch, and practiced against Tarma in the afternoon. She no longer wondered what she was going to do with herself—she was going to become a mercenary, like Tarma, and like some of those women Kethry had hired to protect Lordan and the Keep. The only question in her mind now was—what kind of mercenary? The books that Tarma was teaching her from were studies in strategy and tactics—the ways to move and fight with whole armies. At this point, Kero couldn’t see why she’d need anything of the sort.
But maybe Tarma had some kind of plan. Kero was perfectly content to learn whatever Tarma wished to teach her, and let the future take care of itself. Tarma was always saying that “no learning, no knowledge is ever wasted.” If nothing else, it probably wouldn’t be a bad thing for an ordinary fighter to know how whole armies moved, so she could anticipate her orders.
She stretched and arched her back, then wormed her way back down under the warm blankets. I’ll just relax a little longer, she thought, and reveled in the “silence” in her mind. She hadn’t realized just how much she’d been “overhearing” until after Warrl showed her the right way to protect herself; ground, center, and shield. For years there had been a kind of buzzing in back of all her thoughts, as if she was hearing a tourney crowd from several furlongs away. Now it was gone, and the relief was incredible.
She hadn’t quite realized how useful this particular ability could be to a fighter, either, until Warrl showed her. He’d proved she could use it to get a tactical advantage in many situations; from doing as she had during the rescue and “reading” the area for enemy minds, to reading her opponent during a combat and countering his moves before he even made them.
But she wasn’t entirely happy about using it that way.
She caught herself falling asleep again, and jerked herself back up into wakefulness. She threw back the covers and swung her legs out of bed before she succumbed a second time. A brief trip to the bathing chamber and a splash of cold water solved the problem; the water was cold enough to make her gasp, but she was certainly awake now.
I don’t like the idea of reading someone’s thoughts without them knowing, she decided, while climbing into her breeches and tunic. It doesn’t seem fair. Maybe if the circumstances were really extraordinary, like going after Dierna alone, it would be all right. I mean, with odds like that, you have to use every advantage you’ve got. But if I was just one-on-one—no, it’s not right.
She tightened the laces on her tunic, and reached for stockings and boots. Besides, if I used it a lot, pretty soon I wouldn’t be able to hide its existence. Then what? People would hate me, or they’d be afraid of me. It wouldn’t be an advantage anymore, it’d be a handicap. No, I don’t want that; I’ve had my fill of being different.
That led to the same problem that had been troubling her since she came here.
What’s wrong with me? she asked herself unhappily, as she laced her boots tight to her legs. Why is it that I don’t want what everyone else does? Every other girl seems to want a husband and a house full of babies. Even Grandmother and Tarma had families, and if Tarma hadn’t been Swordsworn, she’d have raised her own children instead of helping with Grandmother’s. She shook her head, her earlier cheer gone. I don’t like children, and if anyone else knew that, they’d think I was some kind of monster. I hate being cooped up inside, and I don’t want to have to spend my life taking care of everybody except myself! But all the priests have to say about it is how women should rejoice that they can sacrifice themselves for their families. Blessed Trine, am I the one who’s crazy, or is it everybody else?
But since there was no possible way to answer that question, she jerked the laces of her boots tight with a snarl of frustration, and went out to take out her ill-humor and uncertainty on the pells.
Tarma’s private practice ring was indoors rather than outside; a second hollowed-out cave beside the stables, this one with the walls left rough and convoluted. She’d long ago tired of practicing in the cold and wet—and the mere thought of practicing in the snow was enough to make her shiver. Besides, back when she and Keth had held the Keep, she’d gotten used to having an indoor practice ground. This one was much smaller, but she didn’t need room for twenty pupils anymore.
Kero was going through her paces; one of the Shin’a’in sword-dances. And as Tarma watched her, the Swordsworn’s heart sang with pride. Granted it was one of the simplest of the exercises, but Kerowyn performed it so flawlessly that it looked as effortless as breathing.
The girl’s a natural, she thought with a kind of astonished pleasure. Years and years of training younglings, and never a natural in the lot—and now, at the end of my days, I not only get to teach one, but she’s an adoptee. My Clan.
She’d been waiting for Kethry to get up the nerve to ask about the girl for weeks. Keth had been vaguely disappointed that Kerowyn proved out null so far as mage-craft went, though she’d admitted to her partner that the girl seemed more relieved than anything else.
Now, at last, she’d come down to watch Kero work out; and Tarma sensed that she was ready to ask the question.
“Well,” Kethry said, as Kerowyn moved into the next exercise in the cycle, this one a little harder than the last. “She looks like she’s doing all right. That isn’t Need, is it?”
“No, it’s a painted wooden practice blade,” Tarma told her. “I made it the same size, heft and shape, so she could get used to the weight and balance. Need’s up on her wall—her decision, and she says the damn thing stays there until she’s sure of her own abilities and she knows that what she does is due to her skill, not the sword working through her.”
“So?” Keth replied.
“So, what?” Tarma countered, teasingly.
“So how is she?” the mage snarled in annoyance. “Is she any good, or not?”
To Tarma’s utter amazement, her throat closed, and her eyes filled with tears. She couldn’t speak for a moment, and Kethry bit her lip in dismay.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. “When she didn’t have any mage-talents, I was sure—what are we going to do with her?�
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Tarma wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, and coughed to get her voice working again. “Keth, she’enedra, you’ve got it backward. The girl’s good. Hellfrost, she’s better than good. One year, just one year of teaching, and Companies are going to stand in line to have her.” She pulled Kethry into one of the alcoves formed by the irregular walls of the cave, so that Kero wouldn’t notice them watching her from the shadows. “Look at her; look at her move. She’s a natural, Keth, the kind of pupil that comes along once in a teacher’s lifetime if she’s lucky. She’s never had anything other than some indifferent training in knife-fighting, but she’s taken to the sword as if she was born with one in her hand. She’s doing things now that most of my old students couldn’t have done after two years of teaching. She could probably earn a living right now, if all somebody wanted was a basic recruit.”
“And in that year?” Kethry watched her granddaughter rather than Tarma.
“In that year she’ll be able to go to the best Companies and they’ll take her for officer training. They won’t tell her that, of course, but she’ll be an officer a lot faster than you or I made it. She’s not only a natural with a weapon, she’s a natural on the field.” She poked Kethry with her elbow to regain her attention. “By the way, Warrl said to tell you that you were right; she’s a Mindspeaker. He also said to tell you that he’s taking care of the training.”
Kethry relaxed. “Good, and I appreciate his delicate sense of what to promise. You know, I was afraid you were unhappy because she was awful, and you didn’t know how to tell me.”
Tarma chuckled. “Hardly. And hardly unhappy. To get a student like her is amazing enough—but that it turns out to be one of ours—well, the only thing that would make me happier would be if Jadrek were here to see her.”
Keth smiled a little. “He probably knew before we did. And thank Warrl for me; I was afraid she was a Mindspeaker, but since I’m not, I had no way to tell. I thought she was shielded, but that could just have been the fact that she was concentrating. She’s better off in Warrl’s hands—paws—than mine.”
“I think he has his paws full,” Tarma said, recalling what Warrl had told her this morning. :As stubborn as ever you were, mind-mate, and as taciturn. She won’t tell me anything, I have to pry it out of her. Thank the gods there’s only one of her, and I don’t have to teach her combative mind-magic. She refuses to learn the offensive techniques.: He had snorted his opinion of her attitude. :She has all the morals and compunctions as one of those half-crazed Heralds!:
“In that case, I have a proposition to make you.” Kethry took a deep breath before she continued. Tarma restrained a sigh; Keth only did that when she was going to ask something she didn’t think her partner would like. “Would you be up to teaching two? Your second pupil will already have had several years of good instruction, so he’ll be about at Kero’s level, I’d guess.”
Tarma considered that for a moment. I’d like to devote all my attention to her—but she needs some competition. “Depends,” she replied after a moment. “Depends on who the pupil is, and how much free rein I have with him. It is easier to teach two, and having someone else around will keep her on her toes. Competition will be damned good for her, especially if she thinks she’s having to compete for my attention. But I can’t have a brat taking my concentration away from her, and frankly, I won’t put up with a brat anymore.”
“I got a ‘begging’ letter from Megrarthon,” Kethry replied, watching Kero, and picking absently at a shiny bit of quartz embedded in the rock wall. “It arrived a couple of days ago, but I had to get up the nerve to ask you about Kero first.”
“So what’s the King of Rethwellan want with us?” Tarma asked, a little surprised. “Was it from ‘His Majesty the King, Megrarthon Jadrevalyn’ or my old student Jad? And did he mention his overhand?”
“From your old student, and he said the gout in that broken shoulder is just too bad; he’s never going to get the overhand swing back. Hopefully, he’ll never need it.” Kethry sighed; and Tarma knew why. The King’s letters had always been very open with both of them, and lately they’d been profoundly unhappy. Rethwellan politics were torturous at the best of times, and he was regretting that his father’s sword had ever spoken for him. Three state marriages, two of them loveless, had given him a surfeit of sons and daughters, and one of the sons was making life difficult for him. Tarma and Kethry were two of a scant handful of people he could be that open with; Tarma had changed his diapers more than once and had tutored him in the way of the sword, Keth had nursed him through his first love and subsequent broken heart.
Together they had helped put his father on the throne before he was a year old, which made them very old friends of the family.
“That middle son of his is being a—”
“Grek’ka’shen,” Tarma said in disgust, said carrion eater combining the worst aspects and habits of every scavenger known to the Shin’a’in. It ate things even vultures wouldn’t touch, it slept in a bed of rotting detritus from its foraging, and both sexes were known to eat their own young on a whim.
Kethry nodded. “So he’s written to you?”
“Not lately, but yes, I got a letter while I was down on the Plains. I just didn’t see any reason to depress you with it.” Tarma grimaced. “You know, sometimes I wonder if the reason the Rethwellan royal line has so much trouble is because of the wretched things they name their children.”
“That’s as good a theory as any,” Kethry replied, managing not to smile. The names Jad had given his boys were bad enough, but the eight girls’ names were worse, all full of historical significance and all as unpronounceable as kyree howls. Those awful names were an ongoing joke between the two of them. “Faramentha’s as bright and trustworthy a young man as you’d ever hope to see, and Karathanelan is making up for him by causing Jad three times the grief his older brother gave. His latest antic is to torment the youngest boy verbally until the youngster explodes and attacks him. Now the poor lad is getting a reputation for being a hothead and a bully, because Thanel is—”
“A handsome, languid vicious little fop, playing on the fact that he’s shorter and lighter than the other boy,” Tarma interrupted. “Remember, I’ve seen him, when I went back up with Faram to deliver him to Jad and see him made heir. That’s why I told Jad I wouldn’t have him here. At thirteen he’d already made up his mind that since he wasn’t the heir, he was going to sleep and charm his way to a crown. He probably will, too. Some little fool of a princess with a senile old father is going to fall for his pretty face, clever wit and graceful manners, and spend the rest of her life pregnant while he plays bed games with her ladies, torments her lap dogs, and spends her treasury dry.”
Kethry shook her head. “From everything Jad says, you’re right. I told him it was a mistake to let Irenia raise Thanel instead of fostering him out, and now the mistake is irreversible. Well, the long and the short is that he hopes he can find some place to send Thanel that will keep him out of mischief—but until he does, he needs to get the youngest out of Thanel’s reach.”
“Otherwise there’s going to be fratricide.” Tarma nodded. It was a logical solution, and rather elegant. Especially since it would get the hot-headed boy some much-needed discipline and training. “So he wants us to take the youngest. That’d be Darenthallis, right? Absolute baby of the bunch?”
“Right. He’s not mage-talented, so he’ll be yours.” Kethry tilted her head to one side. “Are you up to this?”
Tarma stretched, feeling every joint creak. “For Jad’s sake—and for the boy’s. From what Jad’s said, the youngster is a lot like Faram, which means he won’t be at all hard to teach. I understand that the boy does have a quick temper, which makes him an easy target for Thanel. I wouldn’t see any lad have to put up with that if I can help it. I don’t like bullies, and Thanel’s the worst kind of bully—a clever one. Although I must say, a lot of this is Jad’s own fault. He wouldn’t have gotten into this mess if he hadn�
�t been trying to compete with you in the number of offspring he could produce.”
Kethry smiled, the tension draining out of her. “I was hoping you’d say that. Now, just one other possible problem. My granddaughter is not what I would call ‘unattractive,’ and she’s very probably not only a virgin, she has no idea of—”
Tarma grinned evilly; she knew what was coming, and she had no intention of letting Keth slough this job off on her. Especially not when she’d agreed to teach a second youngster all by herself. “Then you’d better tell her, hadn’t you? After all, you’re her grandmother. And you know very well when I start to make the two youngsters work together what’s going to happen.”
“But—” Kethry said, faintly.
Tarma kept right on going. “I think the experience will be good for both of them, actually. The boy has probably been playing a poor third to Faram-the-heir and Thanel-the-beauty. It’ll be nice for him to have a young lady paying attention to him.”
“But—” Kethry repeated.
“And you have to admit, I’m hardly the one to give Kero the basics of nature. I’m celibate, remember?” Tarma was enjoying her partner’s discomfort. Keth had landed her with the job of explaining those basics to every boy that ever passed through their schools, and since there were usually twice as many lads as girls passing through their hands, Tarma found herself with that uncomfortable duty far oftener than Keth. Now the shoe was on the other foot, and Tarma intended to enjoy the fact.
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