by David Weber
Her thoughts broke off as a tall, red-haired young woman rounded the passageway corner with a hurried stride that was just short of a trot. The newcomer, who came to an abrupt halt as she caught sight of Kaeritha, was both young and quite tall, even for a Sothoii noblewoman. At fourteen, she was already at least six feet tall—taller than Kaeritha herself, who was considered a tall woman, by Axeman standards—and she was also beginning to show the curves of what promised to be an extraordinarily attractive womanhood.
Her expression was a curious blend of pleasure, half-guilt, and semi-rebellion … and her attire of the moment was better suited to a second under groom than an aristocratic young lady, Kaeritha thought wryly. She wore a worn pair of leather trousers (which, Kaeritha noted, were becoming more than a bit too tight in certain inappropriate places) under a faded smock which had been darned in half a dozen spots. It also showed several damp patches, and there were splashes of mud on the girl’s riding boots and the thoroughly soaked poncho hanging over her left arm.
“Excuse me, Dame Kaeritha,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to intrude on you. I was just taking a shortcut.”
“It’s not an intrusion,” Kaeritha assured her. “And even if it were, unless I’m mistaken, this is your family’s home, Lady Leeana. I imagine it’s appropriate for you to wander about in it from time to time if it takes your fancy.”
She smiled, and Leeana grinned back at her.
“Well, yes, I guess,” the girl said. “On the other hand, if I’m going to be honest about it, the real reason I’m taking a shortcut this time is to stay out of Father’s sight.”
“Oh?” Kaeritha said. “And just how have you managed to infuriate your father so badly that you find it necessary to avoid his wrath?”
“I haven’t infuriated him at all … yet. But I’d like to get back to my quarters and changed out of these clothes while that’s still true.” Kaeritha cocked her head, her expression questioning, and the girl shrugged. “I love Father, Dame Kaeritha, but he gets, well, fussy if I sneak out to go riding without half a dozen armsmen clattering around behind me.” She made a face. “And he and Mother are both beginning to insist that I ought to dress ’as befits my station.’ “ This time she rolled jade-green eyes with a martyred sigh, and Kaeritha was hard put not to chuckle.
“However annoying it may be,” she said instead, with commendable seriousness, “they probably have a point, you know.” Leeana looked at her skeptically, and Kaeritha shrugged. “You are the only child of one of the four most powerful nobles of the entire Kingdom,” she pointed out gently, “and men like your father always have enemies. You’d make a powerful weapon against him in the wrong hands, Leeana.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Leeana conceded after a moment. “I’m safe enough here in Balthar, though. Even Father’s willing to admit that, when he isn’t being stuffy just to make a point! And,” she added in a darker tone, “it’s not as if I’m not a weapon against him anyway.”
“I don’t think that’s exactly fair,” Kaeritha said with a quick frown. “And I’m certain that’s not how he thinks of it.”
“No?” Leeana gazed at her for several seconds, then gave her head a little toss that twitched her long, thick braid of damp golden-red hair. “Maybe he doesn’t, but that doesn’t really change anything, Dame Kaeritha. Do you have any idea how many people want him to produce a real heir?” She grimaced. “The entire King’s Council certainly goes on at him enough about it whenever he attends!”
“Not the entire Council, I’m sure,” Kaeritha objected, her eyes widening slightly as she sensed the true depth of bitterness Leeana’s normally cheerful demeanor concealed.
“Oh, no,” Leeana agreed. “Only the ones who don’t have sons they think are just the right age to marry off to the heir to Balthar and the West Riding. Or don’t think they’re still young enough for the job themselves—they can hardly wait to get their greasy little paws on me.” She grimaced in disgust. “All the rest of them, though, use it as an excuse to go on at him, gnawing away at his power base like a pack of mongrels snarling at a leashed wolfhound.”
“Is it really that bad?” Kaeritha asked, and Leeana looked surprised by the question. “I may be a champion of Tomanak, Leeana,” Kaeritha said wryly, “but I’m also an Axewoman, not a Sothoii. Tomanak!” She laughed. “As far as that goes, I’m only even an Axewoman by adoption. I was born a peasant in Moretz! So I may be intellectually familiar with the sorts of machinations that go on amongst great nobles, but I don’t have that much first-hand experience with them.”
Leeana appeared to have a little difficulty with the idea that a belted knight—and a champion of Tomanak, into the bargain—could be that ignorant of things which were so much a part of her own life. And she also seemed surprised that Kaeritha seemed genuinely interested in her opinion.
“Well,” she said slowly, in the voice of one manifestly attempting to be as fair-minded as possible, “it probably does seem even worse to me than it actually is, but it’s bad enough. You do know how Sothoii inheritance laws work, don’t you?”
“That much I have down, in general terms, at least,” Kaeritha assured her.
“Then you know that while I can’t legally inherit Father’s titles and lands myself, they’ll pass through me as heir conveyant to my own children? Assuming he doesn’t produce a son after all, of course.”
Kaeritha nodded, and Leeana shrugged.
“Since our enlightened customs and traditions won’t permit a woman to inherit in her own right, whatever fortunate man wins my hand in matrimony will become my ’regent.’ He’ll govern Balthar and hold the wardenship of the West Riding ’in my name,’ until our firstborn son inherits father’s titles and lands. And, of course, in the most unfortunate case that I might produce only daughters, he—or the husband of my eldest daughter—would continue to hold the wardenship until one of them produced a son.” The irony in her soprano voice was withering, especially coming from one so young, Kaeritha thought.
“Because of that,” Leeana continued, “two thirds of the Council want Father to go ahead and set Mother aside to produce a good, strong, male heir. Some of them say it’s his duty to the bloodline, and others argue that a matrimonial regency always creates the possibility of a succession crisis. Some of them may even be sincere, but most of them know perfectly well he won’t do it. They see it all as a sword to use against him, something he has to use up political capital fighting off. The last thing he needs, especially now, is to give his enemies any more weapons to use against him! But the ones who are sincere may be even worse, because the realreason they want him to produce a male heir is that none of them like to think about the possibility that such a plum might fall into the hands of one of their rivals. And the third of the Council who don’t want him to set Mother aside probably hope they’re the ones who will catch the plum.”
Kaeritha nodded slowly, gazing into the younger woman’s dark green eyes. Tellian Bowmaster’s marriage eighteen years before to Hanatha Whitesaddle had not simply united the Bowmasters of Balthar with the Whitesaddles of Windpeak. It had also been a love match, not just a political alliance between two powerful families. That had been obvious to anyone who’d ever laid eyes on them.
And if it hadn’t been, the fact that Tellian had furiously rejected any suggestion that he set Hanatha aside after the riding accident which had left the baroness with one crippled leg and cost her her fertility would have made it so. But that decision on his part did carry a heavy price for their only child.
“And how does the plum feel about being caught?” Kaeritha asked softly.
“The plum?” Leeana gazed back into Kaeritha’s midnight-blue eyes for several silent seconds, and her voice was even softer than Kaeritha’s when she finally replied. “The plum would sell her soul to be anywhere else in the world,” she said.
The two of them looked at each other, then Leeana shook herself, bobbed a quick half-bow, and turned abruptly away. She walked down the pa
ssage with quick, hard strides, her spine pikestaff-straight, and Kaeritha watched her go. She wondered if Leeana had actually intended to reveal the true depth of her feelings. And if the girl had ever revealed them that frankly to anyone else.
She frowned in troubled thought, then shook herself and turned back to the window as fresh thunder grumbled overhead. Her heart went out to the girl—and to her parents, for that matter—but that wasn’t what had brought her to the Wind Plain, and it was past time she got on with what had brought her here. She gazed out the window a few moments longer, inhaled one more deep breath of rain from her relatively dry perch, and then turned away and walked briskly towards the tower’s spiral stair.
* * *
The library was quiet, the silence broken only by the ticking of the grandfather clock in one corner and the soft, seething crackle of the fire on the hearth. There was no other sound, yet Bahzell looked up an instant before the library door opened. Baron Tellian, sitting across the gaming table from him looked up in turn, and then shook his head as the door swung wide and Kaeritha stepped through it.
“I wish you two would stop doing that,” he complained.
“And just what is it the two of us are after doing?” Bahzell inquired genially.
“You know perfectly well what,” Tellian replied, using the black pawn he’d just picked up from the chessboard to wave at Kaeritha, still standing in the doorway and smiling at him. “That.“ He shook his head and snorted. “You could at least pretend you have to wait until the other one knocks, like normal people!”
“With all due respect, Milord,” Brandark sat in a window seat to take advantage of the gray, rainy-afternoon light coming in through it and spoke without ever looking up from the book in his lap, “I don’t believe anyone’s ever been foolish enough to suggest that there was anything ’normal’ about either of them.”
“But they could at least try,” Tellian objected. “Damn it, it’s uncanny … and it worries my men. Phrobus! It worries me, sometimes!”
“I apologize, Milord,” Kaeritha said with a small smile. “It’s not really anything we do, you know. It just … happens.”
“Aye,” Bahzell agreed, and the smile he gave the baron was much broader than hers had been. “And come to that, I’ve not heard yet that champions of Tomanak weren’t supposed to be after being ’uncanny.’ “
“That’s because they are,” Brandark said in a slightly more serious tone, looking up from his book at last and cocking his foxlike ears. “Uncanny, that is. And the truth is, Milord,” he went on as Tellian turned his head to look at him, “that it’s so unusual to have two champions as houseguests at the same time that very few people have ever had the opportunity to watch them being uncanny together.”
Tellian considered that for a few seconds, then nodded.
“You have a point,” he conceded. “But then, everything about the current situation is on the unusual side, isn’t it?”
“It is that.” Heartfelt agreement rumbled in Bahzell’s deep voice as he leaned back in his chair—specially built by Tellian’s master woodworker to Bahzell’s size and weight—and gazed across the neat ranks of chessmen at the human host who was technically his prisoner. “And I hope you won’t be taking this wrongly, Baron, but it’s in my mind that those of your folk who’d sooner see my head on a pike are after getting a mite more … vocal about it.”
“You’re talking about those idiots Kaeritha trounced at the temple the other day?” Tellian asked, and Bahzell nodded.
“Those, and those like them who’re after being a bit more discreet, as you might be saying,” he agreed a trifle grimly. “And I’m not so easy in my mind about those problems biting Lord Festian’s backside, either.” Tellian raised an eyebrow, and Bahzell shrugged. “I’ve no doubt there’s always enough political infighting to be going around amongst you Sothoii—there certainly is amongst any other lot of noblemen I’ve ever heard aught about! But I’m thinking that there’s more than a few getting behind to push where concern over your taste in houseguests is concerned.”
“Of course there are,” Tellian agreed. “Surely you didn’t expect anything else to happen?”
“Of course not,” Bahzell said. “Not that that’s after making it any more pleasant—or keeping my shoulder blades from itching whenever daggers are about—now that it’s here.”
“On the other hand,” Kaeritha observed mildly, “nobody ever said being a champion of Tomanak would be an endless pleasure jaunt, either. Or, at least, no one ever said so to me, anyway.”
“Nor to me,” Bahzell admitted, and his ears twitched in wry amusement as he recalled the conversation in which the god of war had recruited one Bahzell Bahnakson as the first hradani champion of any god of Light in the past twelve millennia. “Pleasure jaunt” was one phrase which had never passed Tomanak’s lips.
“I can well believe that.” Tellian shook his head. “It’s bad enough being a simple baron without having a god looking over my shoulder all the time!”
“That’s as may be,” Bahzell said, “but I’m thinking it wasn’t all that ’simple’ for you, either, when we ran up against each other in the Gullet.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Tellian leaned back in his chair and smiled. “If nothing else, at least I’ve assured that I’ll go down in history. After all, how many men have ever managed to surrender to a force they out numbered twenty or thirty times over?”
“I have a feeling you’ll go down in history for more than just that, Milord,” Kaeritha said. “But Bahzell does have a point, you know. Those louts trying to goad Thalgahr into the Rage knew exactly what they were doing. And I don’t think they came up with the idea spontaneously all on their own. They weren’t bright enough for that! Which suggests that someone is orchestrating events a bit carefully this time. Is it possible you might actually have an enemy somewhere, Milord?” she asked in an elaborately innocent tone.
“Oh, I suppose anything is possible,” Tellian said wryly. “Do you think I should look into the matter?”
“If you don’t have anything better to do,” she agreed. “In the meantime, however, I’m afraid it’s past time I was off on one of those ’pleasure jaunts’ Bahzell and I were never promised.”
“Ah?” Bahzell cocked his head. “And has Himself been talking to you again, Kerry?”
“Not directly.” She shook her head. “On the other hand, He doesn’t speak directly to me as often as He seems to speak to you.”
“Perhaps,” Brandark murmured in the tone of one in whose mouth butter would adamantly refuse to melt, “that’s because it doesn’t require something quite that, um … direct to get through to you.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” Kaeritha said primly, and her blue eyes twinkled as Bahzell made a rude gesture at his friend. “But,” she went on, “He does have His own ways of getting messages through to me. And the one I’m getting now is that I’ve been sitting around your house too long, Milord.”
“My house has been honored by your presence, Dame Kaeritha,” Tellian said, and this time his voice was completely serious. “I would be most pleased for you to remain here however long you like. And while I know a champion’s duties take precedence over all other considerations, could you not wait at least until the rain stops?”
“Does the rain ever stop on the Wind Plain, Milord?” Kaeritha asked wryly.
“Not in the spring,” Bahzell replied before Tellian could. “It may be after pausing a bit, here and there, though.”
“Bahzell is right, I’m afraid,” Tellian confirmed. “Winter weather is worse, of course. They say Chemalka uses the Wind Plain to test Her foul weather before She sends it elsewhere, and I believe it. But spring is usually our rainiest season. Although, to be fair, this one’s been rainier than most, even for us.”
“Which I’m sure will be doing wonderful things for the grass and crops, assuming as how it doesn’t wash all of them away before ever they sprout. But that won’t be leaving you any dr
ier right this very moment, Kerry,” Bahzell observed.
“I’ve been wet before.” Kaeritha shrugged. “I haven’t melted or shrunk yet, and I probably won’t this time, either.”
“I see you’re serious about leaving,” Tellian said, and she nodded. “Well, I’m not foolish enough to try to tell a champion of Tomanak her business, Milady. But if He insists on sending you out in such weather, is there at least anything I can do to assist you on your way?”
“It might help if you could tell me where I’m going,” Kaeritha said ruefully.
“I beg your pardon?” Tellian looked at her as if he half suspected her of pulling his leg.
“One of the more frustrating consequences of the fact that He doesn’t talk to me as directly as He does to Bahzell here,” Kaeritha told him, “is that my directions are often a bit less precise.”
“Well, Bahzell does require as much clarity—not to say simplicity—as possible,” Brandark put in with a wicked grin.
“Just you be keeping it up, little man,” Bahzell told him. “I’m sure it’s an impressive splash you’ll make when someone kicks your hairy arse halfway across the moat.”
“This castle doesn’t have a moat,” Brandark pointed out.
“It will as soon as I’ve finished digging one for the occasion,” Bahzell shot back.
“As I was saying,” Kaeritha continued in the tone of a governess ignoring her charges’ obstreperousness, “I haven’t really received any specific instructions about exactly what I’m supposed to be doing here.”
“I should think that helping to destroy an entire temple of Sharna and to establish a brand-new chapter of your order amongst Bahzell’s people—not to mention playing some small part in preventing that idiot Redhelm from committing all of us to a disastrous war—constitutes a worthwhile effort already,” Tellian observed.