Wind Rider's Oath wg-3

by David Weber

  Kaeritha knew, from brutal personal experience, the difference between vengeance and justice, and she knew what bitter tang she tasted in the low-voiced, vitriolic conversations she listened to about her.

  Unfortunately, all she had were suspicions. It was nothing she could really take to Yalith, and even if it had been, Yalith was angry enough herself that she might not have listened. Besides, there was something about the mayor’s own position that bothered Kaeritha. Yalith’s tenure as Mayor of Kalatha predated the beginnings of the current confrontation with Trisu. If, as Kaeritha had come to suspect, the original documents at Kalatha had been tampered with somehow, Yalith ought to have been aware of it. Which suggested, logically, that if something nefarious was going on in Kalatha, Yalith was a part of it. But Kaeritha didn’t think she was, and she’d done a little subtle probing of the mayor’s honesty—enough to be as certain as she could, without the same sort of examination she’d given Salthan, that Yalith honestly and sincerely believed she was in the right.

  Which suggested to Kaeritha that something more than mere documents might have been tampered with in Kalatha.

  * * *

  “I am so sorry about the delay, Dame Kaeritha,” Lanitha said as she ushered Kaeritha into the main Records Room. “I know your time is valuable, to Tomanak as well as to yourself, and I hate it that you sat around cooling your heels waiting for me for almost an entire week.”

  She shook her head, her expression simultaneously harassed, irritated, and apologetic.

  “It’s like there was some sort of curse on my week,” she continued, bustling around the Records Room to open the heavy curtains which normally protected its contents and let the daylight in. “Every time I thought I was going to get over here and pull the documents for you, some fresh disaster came rolling out of nowhere.”

  “That’s perfectly all right, Lanitha,” Kaeritha reassured her. “I imagine everyone’s had weeks like that, you know. I certainly have!”

  “Thank you.” Lanitha paused to smile gratefully at her. “I’m relieved that you’re so understanding. Not that your sympathy makes me look any more efficient and organized!”

  Kaeritha only returned her smile and waited, her expression pleasant, while the archivist finished drawing back the curtains and unlocked the large cabinet which contained the most important of Kalatha’s official documents.

  “Mayor Yalith—or, rather, Sharral—didn’t tell me exactly which sections you’re particularly interested in this time,” she said over her shoulder as she opened the heavy, iron-reinforced door.

  “I need to reexamine the section of Kellos’ grant where the boundary by the grist mill is established,” Kaeritha said casually.

  “I see,” Lanitha said. She found the proper document case, withdrew it from the cabinet, and set it carefully on the desk before the Records Room’s largest eastern window. Her tone was no more than absently courteous. But Kaeritha was watching her as carefully and unobtrusively as she’d ever watched anyone in her life, and something about the set of the archivist’s shoulders suggested Lanitha was less calm than she wanted to appear. It wasn’t that Kaeritha detected any indication that Lanitha was anything but the honest, hard-working young woman she seemed to be. Yet there was still that something … almost as if Lanitha had some inner sense that her own loyalties were at odds with one another.

  The archivist opened the document case and laid the original copy of Lord Kellos’ grant to the war maids of Kalatha on the desktop. Kaeritha had done enough research among fragile documents to stand patiently, hands clasped behind her, while Lanitha carefully opened the old-fashioned scroll and sought the section Kaeritha had described.

  “Here it is,” the archivist said finally, and stepped back out of the way so that Kaeritha could examine the document for herself.

  “Thank you,” Kaeritha said courteously. She moved closer to the desk and bent over the faded, crabbed handwriting. The document’s age was only too apparent, and its authenticity was obvious. But the authenticity of Trisu’s copy had been equally obvious, she reminded herself, and rested the heel of her hand lightly on the pommel of her left-hand sword.

  It was a natural enough pose, if rather more overly dramatic than Kaeritha preferred. The last time she’d been in this room, she’d taken both swords off and laid them to one side, and she hoped Lanitha wasn’t wondering why she hadn’t done the same thing this time. If the librarian asked, Kaeritha was prepared to point out that last time, she’d been sitting here for hours while she studied the documents and took notes. This time, she only wanted to make a quick recheck of a single section. And, as Lanitha’s own profuse apologies had underscored, she was behind schedule and running late.

  There it was. She leaned forward, studying the stilted phrases more intently, and ran the index finger of her right hand lightly along the relevant lines. Only a far more casual archivist than Lanitha could have avoided cringing when anyone, even someone who’d already demonstrated her respect for the fragility of the documents in her care, touched one of them that way. The other woman moved a half-step closer, watching Kaeritha’s right hand with anxious attentiveness … exactly as the knight had intended.

  Because she was so focused on Kaeritha’s right hand, she failed to notice the faint flicker of blue fire which danced around the left hand resting on the champion’s sword hilt. It wasn’t very bright, anyway—Tomanak knew how to be unobtrusive when it was necessary, too—but it was enough for Kaeritha’s purposes.

  “Thank you, Lanitha,” she said again, and stepped back. She took her hand from her sword as she did so, and the blue flicker disappeared entirely. “That was all I needed to see.”

  “Are you certain, Milady?” Lanitha’s tone and expression were earnest, and Kaeritha nodded.

  “I just wanted to check my memory of the words,” she assured the archivist.

  “Might I ask why, Milady?” Lanitha asked.

  “I’m still in the middle of an investigation, Lanitha,” Kaeritha reminded her, and the other woman bent her head in acknowledgment of the gentle rebuke. Kaeritha gazed at her for a moment, then shrugged. “On the other hand,” the knight continued, “it’s not as if it’s not going to come out in the end, anyway, I suppose.”

  “Not as if what isn’t going to come out?” Lanitha asked, emboldened by Kaeritha’s last sentence.

  “There’s a definite discrepancy between the original documents here and Trisu’s so-called copies,” Kaeritha told her. “I have to say that when I first saw his copy, I was astonished. It didn’t seem possible that anyone could have produced such a perfect-looking forgery. But, obviously, the only way his copies could be that different from the originals has to involve a deliberate substitution or forgery.”

  “Lillinara!” Lanitha said softly, signing the Mother’s full moon. “I knew Trisu hated all war maids, but I never imagined he’d try something like that, Milady! How could he possibly expect it to pass muster? He must know that sooner or later someone would do what you’ve just done and compare the forgery to the original!”

  “One thing I learned years ago, Lanitha,” Kaeritha said wearily as she watched the archivist carefully returning the land grant to its case, “is that criminals always think they can ’get away with it.’ If their minds didn’t work that way, they wouldn’t be criminals in the first place!”

  “I suppose not.” Lanitha sighed and shook her head. “It just seems so silly—and sad—when you come down to it.”

  “You’re wrong, you know,” Kaeritha said quietly, her voice so flat that Lanitha looked quickly back over her shoulder at her.

  “Wrong, Milady?”

  “It isn’t silly, or sad,” Kaeritha told her. “Whatever the original motivation may have been, this sort of conflict between the documents here and those at Thalar is going to play right into the hands of everyone else like Trisu. It isn’t the sort of minor discrepancy that can be explained away as clerical error. It’s a deliberate forgery, and there are altogether too many
people out there who are already prepared to think the worst about you war maids. It won’t matter to them that you have the originals, while he has only copies. What will matter is that they’ll assume you must have made the alterations.”

  “Then I suppose it’s a good thing a champion of Tomanak is on the spot, isn’t it, Milady? Even the most prejudiced person would have to take your word for it that Trisu or someone working for him is the forger.”

  “Yes, Lanitha,” Kaeritha said grimly. “They certainly would.”

  * * *

  The sentry’s report had assured that Tellian Bowmaster was waiting in the courtyard of Hill Guard Castle when Bahzell rode in on Walsharno. He didn’t look as if he believed what he was seeing.

  Bahzell smiled grimly at the baron’s expression as he listened to the sound of heavy hooves on the courtyard’s stone paving. The sound of came not simply from Walsharno but from the hooves of no less than twenty-one other coursers … only ten of them with riders.

  “Welcome back, Milord Champion,” Tellian said with an odd note of formality as Walsharno halted beside the wind rider’s mounting block.

  “Thank you.” Bahzell swung out of the saddle and stepped down onto the mounting block. He reached out to clasp Tellian’s forearm firmly, and the baron’s eyes searched his face intently, with more than a hint of anxiety.

  “Brandark?” he asked quietly, and Bahzell gave him a small, quick smile.

  “The little man’s after being well enough,” he said. “He was a mite nibbled upon about the edges, but hradani are tough, and there was naught wrong with him that couldn’t be healed. But however well, or willing, he might be, there was no way at all, at all, as how his warhorse could be after keeping up on the ride here.”

  “Is that why Gharnal and Hurthang aren’t with you?” Tellian asked, and Bahzell’s smile vanished.

  “No,” he said quietly. “Hurthang will be after arriving in a week or so, but not Gharnal. And not Farchach, nor Yourmak, nor Tharchanal or Shulharch.”

  “Dead, all of them?” Tellian asked softly, and Bahzell nodded.

  “Aye,” he said, his voice flat with pain. “We were after being the head of the spear. Not one of the Order’s lads but Hurthang survived, and him half-dead before I was after reaching him. They’re every one of them gone, Tellian … and five wind riders and eight more coursers, with them.”

  “Tomanak.” Tellian’s right hand moved in the sign of Tomanak’s Sword. “May Isvaria keep them as her own,” he added.

  “She will that,” Bahzell said, and drew a deep breath. “If there’s ever a soul she’ll be keeping, it’s theirs. It was Krahana’s get that was after attacking the coursers. And but for the lads as died watching my back, I’m thinking as how she’d have had us all.”

  “But she didn’t,” Tellian said firmly, reaching out to lay his hand on Bahzell’s forearm. “And you wouldn’t be back here if you hadn’t dealt with the situation.”

  “No, that I wouldn’t,” he agreed, and produced a crooked smile. “I’m not after being quite as certain positive of that as I might be wishful, so I left Hurthang and Brandark to keep an eye on things. Still and all, I’d not be here without I felt confident as I’d finished pissing on that particular grass fire. Not but what I’ve not got enough other problems to be going on with.”

  “Well, in that case, I suppose you’d best come inside and tell me how I can help.”

  * * *

  “ … so by the time we got to Glanharrow, Trianal, Yarran, and Lord Festian had already dealt with matters,” Tellian said, leaning back in his chair and quaffed deeply from his tankard of dark beer. His voice was light, but his eyes were intent as he watched Bahzell’s weary face. Hanatha sat with them, sipping more moderately from a delicate, silver-chased tankard of her own, and her eyes, too, were on Bahzell.

  “I suspect the matter is going to turn even uglier in the next few months,”Tellian continued, “but not because the raiding’s going to continue. We took enough prisoners to prove the entire force that attacked Trianal was in Saratic’s service, although by the strangest turn of fate, his field commander wound up dead with what appears to be a Horse Stealer quarrel in his back … fired from a Dwarvenhame arbalest we found lying about out there.”

  His acid smile could have been used to etch steel.

  “Still and all, we have enough other prisoners—with enough incentive to talk to us to avoid the rope or the block—that we should be able to prove whose colors they should have been wearing. And I think it’s only a matter of time before we demonstrate that Erathian was up to his eyebrows in it, as well. Once we do, I’ll take care of Erathian myself, and I take a certain amount of pleasure in contemplating what’s going through his head while he waits for the axe to fall.”

  He smiled again, even more nastily.

  “In the meantime, I’ve already dispatched a messenger to the King to petition for an investigation under Crown authority. Under the circumstances, I would’ve been justified in moving against Saratic myself, immediately, but I chose instead to appeal to the Crown, and I was very patient about it all in the petition, too. King Markhos and Prince Yurokhas should be very impressed by my forbearance—they’ll certainly play it up for all it’s worth when they have to deal with Cassan, at any rate. Whatever the King may think of my efforts to improve relations with your father, Prince Bahzell, he is not going to be amused by the discovery that one of his barons has been instigating open warfare against another one. We had enough of that during the Troubles, thank you. And however well Cassan may have covered his tracks, I don’t think there’s going to be any question in His Majesty’s mind that that’s exactly what’s happened here. So I expect Cassan is going to discover that he’s just incurred a certain degree of royal disfavor which is going to cost him dearly in the long run. Meanwhile, Trianal is doing just fine sitting there in Glanharrow as a pointed suggestion to Erathian and Saratic that this would be a very bad time to push the matter any further.”

  Bahzell nodded slowly, his eyes thoughtful, and took a long pull from the tankard in his own fist. Tellian drank a little more beer himself, then leaned forward and set his tankard down on the table.

  “And that’s enough about Festian and Trianal, Milord Champion,” he said firmly. Bahzell arched an eyebrow, and his ears cocked. Tellian saw it and snorted. “It was as plain as the nose on Brandark’s face when I clapped eyes on you that you were worn to the bone, hradani or not, Bahzell. And, if you’ll pardon my saying so, that more even than grief for the people you lost is weighing on you. So Hanatha and I have chattered away for the last half-hour, bringing you up-to-date on everything from Leeana to Trianal and the King’s approval of our petition to adopt him as our heir. Now that you’ve had a chance to settle down a bit, suppose you tell us what it is that brings the first hradani wind rider in history, ten other wind riders and their coursers, and eleven coursers with no riders at all here to Balthar.”

  “Well,” Bahzell said after a moment, “I’m thinking as how it’s going to take longer than we’re like to have if I’m to explain all that was after happening in Warm Springs. For now, let’s just be saying that Walsharno’s after having peculiar taste in riders. Oh, and while I’m speaking of Walsharno, that big filly out in your stable’s guest quarters is after being his sister and a special friend of mine, as you might be saying.”

  Tellian blinked, then looked at his wife before returning his attention to their guest.

  “I trust that you realize that all you’ve done is to suggest still more questions to us,” he observed.

  “Aye.” Bahzell smiled wearily. “But truth be told, I’ve no business at all, at all, sitting on my backside drinking your beer. Mind you, even a hradani can be getting just a mite tuckered, and I’ll not deny that all of us—riders and coursers alike—are after needing a breather. But I’ve no time to waste.”

  “That much we’d already guessed,” Tellian said with a slight edge of patience. “It’s obvious that you’ve ridden fr
om Warm Springs as if Fiendark’s Furies were on your heels. Why?” he finished bluntly.

  “Because Kerry’s after being in trouble,” Bahzell said, equally bluntly.

  “How?” Tellian leaned forward in his chair once more, resting his elbows on his knees, his expression intent.

  “As to that, I’ve no way of knowing for certain,” Bahzell admitted. He drank more beer, his eyes unhappy, then lowered the tankard again. “All in the world I have to be going on is fragments from a Servant of Krahana and this.” He tapped his temple with an index finger. “If it were only the Servant, then I’d do not be quite so worried. But this …”

  He shook his head, ears half-flattened, and his expression was bleak as his finger tapped again.

  “So you’re headed to help her, Bahzell,” Hanatha said, her tone making the statement half a question.

  “Aye.” His expression eased a bit, and he chuckled. “And not alone, either. I’ve no least idea how the rest of my folk would be reacting to the company I’m after keeping these days! But after we’d dealt with Krahana’s lot, not a single one of those wind riders as had ridden with us but was bound and determined as how he and his courser would be after riding along for this, too. And then Gayrfressa—Walsharno’s sister—was after insisting she and the Bear River stallions who’d lived would be doing the same.”

  “The wind riders I can understand, Bahzell,” Tellian said soberly. “Those of us who are wind borne seem to absorb some of our courser brothers’ herd sense. Whenever we see another wind brother with a trouble, we all get this itch we can’t quite scratch until we pitch in to help solve it.”