When she reached the Isfayen place in the Lenay column, her first sight was of Yasmyn, riding at her father the Great Lord Faras’s side. The two of them talked and laughed, and Yasmyn’s eyes shone with happiness. Sofy wondered what it would be like, to share a relationship like that with her own father. Sasha rode at Yasmyn’s side, evidently expecting Sofy’s arrival. Upon seeing her, Sasha rode forward, and dismounted. Sofy did likewise, and embraced her tearfully. She could not hug hard, for her brothers had told her of Sasha’s injuries. She could not hug long, either, for the column marched on, oblivious to the concerns of sisters who had not seen each other in far too long, and wanted only a moment’s pause to catch up. It felt awkward, and not at all the heartfelt reunion Sofy had dreamed of. When they parted, Sasha seemed reluctant to meet her eyes.
“Sasha, what’s wrong?” Sofy asked, wiping tears from her cheeks. Sasha’s eyes were dry. Somehow, that disappointed her.
“Did they tell you?” Sasha asked quietly. “About Alythia?”
“No.” And with growing alarm, “Sasha, what about Alythia?”
Sasha made a muttered curse, and stared off across neighbouring woods. “She’s dead, Sofy. The great Tracatan enlightenment killed her.”
Sasha and Sofy rode and talked together at the Isfayen contingent’s head for a long time. Sasha insisted that Sofy tell of her adventures first, from her ride to Baerlyn to assist in the revenge of Jaryd Nyvar, to the assembly of the army, and the subsequent ride to Larosa, and the wedding to follow. Sofy found it difficult to talk, so soon after learning Alythia’s fate, yet she tried, and was not interrupted by floods of tears too frequently.
Sasha then told her own tale, and Sofy listened with mixed horror and concern to hear of Sasha’s trials in Petrodor, and the War of the King, and her most recent horrors in Tracato. Sasha’s tone was flat, lacking its usual expression. She skipped details, and did not embellish as she usually would. Sofy had always loved to hear Sasha’s tales before, as her eyes would come alive with boisterous enthusiasm and carry her listeners along with the tale. Now, the words seemed as dry as Sasha’s eyes, and her telling did not invite any response. Sofy tried interrupting, seeking further detail that might shed more light on what she suspected Sasha of hiding, but there was no joy in the discovery. When Sasha reached Alythia’s death, she skipped very quickly to the end, and waited for Sofy’s latest tears to end.
Sasha took Sofy’s hand, and her grip at least was firm. “How’s Balthaar?” she asked.
“Well,” said Sofy, and paused to find a stronger voice. “He’s hopelessly in love, Sasha.” She managed a weak smile at her sister. Sasha just studied her, curiously. “It’s rather sweet, actually. He’s such a model of Larosan nobility. He’s very refined, very educated, quite arrogant yet not at all mean… I had not thought that such a man could fall in love with a girl like me. And a Lenay savage at that. Although I think for him that is a part of the attraction, he’s fascinated that such a savage culture could produce someone like me.”
“Are you happy?”
“Happy?” Sofy stared at her. Something about the question, so bluntly put, made her anxious. “I’m not sure what happy has to do with anything.”
Sasha seemed as though more impressed with the answer than she’d expected. She rode very upright, Sofy noted, shoulders back, with none of her usual ease. Surely her wounds hurt her. “Do you love him?” Sasha asked.
Sofy shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Then you don’t love him.”
Sofy opened her mouth to protest, but realised that Sasha’s conclusion was obvious. “I barely know him,” she said instead.
“But he’s good in bed,” Sasha persisted. Sofy frowned at her. “And tall and handsome. I hear the talk.”
“He is very tall and handsome,” Sofy agreed, still frowning. “But I’m not a naive little girl any more, Sasha. Tall and handsome is not why I married him.”
“Do you hate him then?”
“Hate him? Why…” She shook her head, flustered. “Sasha, why are you saying these things? It sounds like you’re accusing me of something.”
“I hear you’ve been helpful,” Sasha said flatly. “Helping the lords with their squabbles. Diplomacy was always your strong point.”
“I am the princess regent now,” Sofy retorted. “Such things are my responsibility.”
“Your responsibility to help the Larosa murder half-caste serrin and invade Saalshen?”
Sofy stared at her, disbelievingly. Anger followed. “And you’re here too! What does that make you, that you now ride against the armies of the Saalshen Bacosh?”
“A fool,” Sasha said bitterly. “A fool, but not a traitor.”
“And I am?”
“No, Sofy. Just a fool, like me. We’re all fools.”
They rode together in silence, amidst the great creak and sway of saddles and hooves. Peasants gathered on the hillside near their village, in huddled brown cloth, and stared fearfully at the passing army. Sofy swallowed her emotion.
“I don’t know what you want of me, Sasha,” Sofy said quietly. “I do the best I can for my people, as you do. My new family is not evil, they are just people, neither more perfect nor more flawed than most. I feel that perhaps I can do some good here. I’m good at diplomacy, as you say. Perhaps I can…perhaps I can moderate, or attempt to talk some reason to those who would not otherwise…”
“If they win,” Sasha said bleakly, “they’ll slaughter everyone. Serrin and half-castes they’ll torture first. Artists, craftsmen, philosophers, all these people are dangerous because they have dangerous ideas, they’ll be killed first. You can’t reason with it, Sofy, because reason is not at issue. Reason is never at issue. In that, Rhillian was right. Only blood will stop it, one way or the other.”
It was too much. Sofy felt her composure slipping, the tears resuming once more. “What would you have me do?”
“There’s nothing any of us can do. Serve the path of honour: family, nation, faith. When all’s said and done, it’s all any of us have.”
“And what about right and wrong?”
“A luxury I once believed in.” Sasha’s eyes were distant. “A fool’s dream. No more.”
In the early afternoon, word spread down the column that the city of Nithele lay ahead, and there a council of war would be held between the Bacosh and Lenay armies. The Isfayen lords, Sasha, Sofy and Yasmyn all rode forward to arrive at the city in good time.
Nithele was a great walled city on the fork of land between two joining rivers. The Isfayen party halted along one riverbank, and now observed the high city walls. Many small boats sat on the bank, and cityfolk walked there, to gawp at the Army of Lenayin, or to throw nets, or to gather driftwood. Planks made a path on the bank to form a low wharf. Men, bare feet slipping, pants rolled to their knees, carried cargo from riverboats dragged bow-first onto the grass.
“How do men live in such places?” Great Lord Faras wondered darkly, observing the stark walls. The red cloth about his brow denoted him as a bloodwarrior, a sacred title in Isfayen, marked by many trials of manhood, and codes of conduct rigorous even by Lenay standards.
“The lowlanders like stone,” his daughter observed. “They live in stone cages, and fear the sky.”
“Do men live as this in the Saalshen Bacosh?” Faras asked Sasha.
“No,” she said. “Their cities are open. They have no internal enemies, and the Steel have not lost a battle in two hundred years, so they do not need these great walls.”
“Never trust a man with no enemies,” said Yasmyn, as they dismounted. Ahead, on the opposite side of the river from the looming Nithele walls, sat a small fishing village, with boats drawn up to the muddy riverbank. About it was a gathering of Lenay vanguard, with many banners and horses.
“The Saalshen Bacosh are surrounded by enemies,” Lord Faras countered his daughter. “Not only have they the mainland Bacosh, they had the Elissian Peninsula to their north, and made short work of them just no
w. The Steel have won so many glorious victories outnumbered and surrounded, I have no doubt we do not fight for the side of greater honour in this contest.”
The observation did not surprise Sasha. For the Isfayen, even more than in most of Lenayin, victory in battle brought honour, and honour was currency far richer than gold. When King Soros had liberated Lenayin from the Cherrovan a century before, the Isfayen had taken more convincing than most. Many Isfayen blood chiefs had challenged the new king to arms, and fought bloody battles against chieftains who converted to the new faith, be they Isfayen or from neighbouring Yethulyn or Neysh. Many Isfayen had never considered themselves to be Lenay at all, and had taken the liberation as an opportunity to fight for a separate kingdom…or indeed, for rulership of the greater Lenay kingdom. Thankfully, that prospect had so horrified the rest of Lenayin that they had banded together to ensure it never happened, and the resisting Isfayen chieftains had been crushed. That crushing had gained King Soros the respect of the rest, and Isfayen had submitted to rule from Baen-Tar, after the limited, uniquely Lenay fashion.
Yet the Isfayen had remained remote from the rest of Lenayin, their lands high, rugged and cold, their manners hostile, their justice crude. Even the Isfayen practice of the new faith was unique, a strange crossbreed of old traditions and new civilisation, their temples adorned with colours and flags, their holy stars inscribed with the spirit script of their ancient ways. And yet it was the faith, Kessligh had assured Sasha, that had brought the Isfayen into the Lenay fold to their current extent…which was not to say that they were brothers in the grand Lenay family, but merely that they did not kill the king’s taxmen on principle, or raid the neighbouring villages without at least a warning, or seek marriage with the daughter of prominent lords by galloping into town and throwing the girl over a saddlehorn. With the Isfayen, that was considered progress. Many in the priesthood had taken on the role of educators in wild Isfayen, and had thus attained an importance far beyond the worship of gods. Such men had brought the outside world to Isfayen, and given its inhabitants a reason to care about what lay beyond for the first time in their history.
The Great Lord Faras, Sasha well knew, was considered the best and brightest leader that Isfayen had ever had. Faras’s father had insisted he receive a Baen-Tar education, and now, the breeding showed. Faras had in turn insisted that his son Markan, and daughter Yasmyn, attend Baen-Tar, to learn the ways of the kulemran, or the “non-Isfayen.” That meant everyone from fellow Lenays to lowlanders to serrin. Now, Markan rode with the column, and was rumoured to have befriended Prince Damon, while Yasmyn had become the Princess Sofy’s closest confidante and protector. Many such ties were being forged on this ride, between leaders of lands with far longer history of mutual slaughter than friendship. Some of the credit for that lay with men like Lord Faras-a new kind of Lenay lord, educated and curious in a way that his predecessors had never been. And part of the credit, Sasha reluctantly conceded, lay with her big brother Koenyg. This had been his intention, to forge a nation on the road to war.
The hitch, of course, was that for it all to work, the army had to win.
Sasha stretched carefully as men dismounted. A galloping horse turned her head, knights moving to protect the dismounting princess regent as the new arrival came to a halt nearby. Jaryd Nyvar jumped from his horse and strode to Sasha, grinning ear to ear. He hugged her gently, having evidently heard to do that, and Sasha hugged him hard.
“The rabble have been giving you a hard time, huh?” Jaryd said affectionately.
“You’ve no idea,” said Sasha. She pulled back to look at him. “Is that a ring I see? Two rings?” She fingered the metal in his ear.
“What do you think?”
“I think your hair looks better longer.” Jaryd’s hair had grown long enough to have curls. “You’re nearly handsome now.”
Jaryd laughed. “No tattoos though. Not even for you, Sasha.”
“I’ve got one!” Sasha said brightly. “I got it in Petrodor, want to see?”
“Of course! I hope it’s somewhere exciting.”
“Just my arm, I’ll show you later. Still trying to get my clothes off, huh Jaryd?”
Jaryd put a hand to her face. “No offence, Sasha, but you look like you could use a good fuck.”
Sasha laughed outright, the first time she’d laughed since Tracato, and hugged him again. Spirits she was glad to see him. She hadn’t quite expected to be this glad. Seeing her siblings again was wonderful, but hard, too. She knew they did not blame her for Alythia’s death, but she felt responsible anyway. And Sofy was married, and Koenyg was on the warpath, and Damon was angry, and Myklas was…well, Myklas, and not someone with whom she could discuss anything important. Perhaps Jaryd had been the same once, but he’d changed. He knew loss and pain. He knew what it was to feel alone. And he was one of the few men in Rhodia who’d dare flirt with her so outrageously. She needed that.
“Well,” she said, “right now I’m covered in scabs and bruises.”
Jaryd made a face. “Some men are more easily deterred than others.”
“You mean some men will fuck anything.”
Jaryd grinned, and gave her a kiss on the forehead that was far more brotherly than his banter would suggest.
About them, a camp of sorts was unfolding, as men at the head of the Lenay column sought the sheltered places to lay their gear. Most made do with a simple patch of ground, and set about making camp. Given that the Army of Lenayin marched without tents and slept on the open ground, that was a relatively simple affair of dumping gear and making a fire. Soon the firewood carts would come clattering, their men having spent the day’s march foraging for wood. The bedding cart would follow, with extra blankets for the footsoldiers with no horses to carry such heavy, unwieldy things.
Sasha, Sofy, Jaryd and Yasmyn walked with Great Lord Faras and the Isfayen lords through the gathering commotion of camp toward the fishing village. Here at the vanguard, tents were being erected, for royalty and lords. Already boats were crossing the river from the walls of Nithele, loaded with produce, and men who shouted to the soldiers ashore of things for sale. Sasha saw chickens held aloft, and fish, and baskets of eggs. Soldiers and merchants alike clustered toward the river.
Sofy walked further from Sasha, and talked with Yasmyn and Great Lord Faras. Jaryd noticed.
“She’s not talking to you either?” he asked wryly.
“We’ve each been in very different places,” Sasha explained, flexing one shoulder. Her taka-dans were becoming more strenuous, and her underworked muscles were protesting. Then, in Torovan, which she knew the Isfayen spoke only a little, “Did you fuck her?” Jaryd scowled at her. “Damon told me. Don’t worry, I’m not about to take your head for it.” And she smiled. “She could use a good fuck too. Better you take her virginity than that Larosan ass.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Jaryd said shortly. Sasha watched him, with great curiosity. He wasn’t joking now.
“How was it like?”
“I’m not sure,” said Jaryd. “Perhaps you should ask her.”
“I love her dearly, Jaryd, but she is a breathless young girl at times. I’m sure you’ve made more difficult conquests…”
“I told you, it wasn’t like that.” Jaryd’s voice betrayed impatience now.
“I believe you. Do you love her?”
Jaryd sighed, and ran a hand through his lengthening hair. “Would it matter?”
“It would to you. And it would to her, I’m sure.”
“That’s the trouble,” said Jaryd. “Best drop it.”
He indicated ahead, to a gathering of flags by the village outskirts. Flags of the Larosan royalty, Sasha saw.
“Do they know?” Sasha asked.
“Probably. But rumour here is even worse than Baen-Tar. Sofy’s rumoured to have slept with half the army, so I’m lost in the crowd. Yasmyn’s been spreading the best rumours, she always rumours Sofy to be secretly in love with the best Lenay swordsmen, and makes
it known to the Larosans that those swordsmen will demand an honour duel if accused. And the Larosans don’t know Lenayin well enough to know which rumours are possible, and which are horse shit.”
“I’m sure the priesthood isn’t amused,” said Sasha, as they skirted preparations for a large tent to be erected.
“The Larosan priesthood is amused by nothing,” Jaryd agreed. “It’s a curious thing. Bawdy lords and even some ladies at the feasts and weddings, and some behaviour that would even make a Lenay blush. The priests don’t bother with that. They’re concerned about the serrin, and purity. You’d be in far greater danger with your bed partners, by the sound of it.”
Evidently he wanted to hear more of Errollyn, having heard the rumours. It was only fair, as she’d grilled him on his affair with Sofy. But she could not speak of Errollyn, and had to gaze toward the river to hold her composure. Jaryd saw her pain, and put a hand on her shoulder.
“He must be an impressive man,” he said quietly. “To have won the heart of Sashandra Lenayin.”
“The most impressive.”
It was Prince Balthaar Arosh himself who greeted them at the outskirts of the village. He made a great show of noble courtesy, shaking the hands of the Isfayen lords, complimenting them on their warrior reputation, and then kissing Sasha’s hand. He was not slimy like some lowlands nobility, Sasha conceded reluctantly. Tall and handsome, yes, with thick brows and a composed demeanour. Educated, with a straight bearing and an effortless grasp of comportment and manners. And he called her “sister,” and walked with her through the outskirts of the fishing village, as though he had arrived here with the intention of doing precisely that.
“Tell me,” he said in nicely accented Torovan, “how do the Isfayen regard you? I had heard that you’d had a confrontation with the Great Lord Faras before.” In the Udalyn Valley, when Faras had ridden with King Torvaal to help put an end to Sasha’s little rebellion. Balthaar had done some research.
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