Sasha atobas-1

by Joel Shepherd

  "My place is with my men," Jaryd said flatly.

  "I doubt your father would agree," Sasha ventured.

  Jaryd snorted. "My father doubts I can make an adequate Great Lord of Tyree. He gave me command of the Falcon Guard so that I might learn better. Well, I'm certainly learning. I'm learning a great many things."

  "Such as?"

  "Who my friends are," Jaryd said angrily. "There are men my own age, whom I grew up with and learned to spar and ride with, all here for Rathynal and yet they've barely even said hello. They have no honour, any of them."

  Sasha took a deep breath. "Jaryd… I admire your conviction, but

  … isn't it a little foolhardy to be picking a fight with your own father? And with all the assorted nobility of Tyree? You're going to rule these people one day, you'll need their support…"

  "When I rule," Jaryd said stubbornly, "I'll rule in my own way, according to the values I've learned. Maybe they'll learn to like it-it can't be good having no honour in your life. Besides, you'd rather I lied, and said you'd killed that bastard Reynan?"

  "I can take care of myself," Sasha said shortly.

  "In a fair fight, I've no doubt," Jaryd agreed. "But you saw Pyter Pelyn on the lagand field. These people don't fight fair, M'Lady… I mean Sasha. That's what it means to have no honour. When I'm Great Lord, that's the first thing I'll teach them."

  It was nearing midday when she emerged from Jaryd's chambers. She had not walked ten strides around a corner when a man in a pale green, lordly shirt emerged from a doorway ahead, a sword swinging at his hip. Clearly a nobleman. She glanced over her shoulder and found another man of similar appearance walking behind her. Damn.

  More men emerged from the open doorway the first man had come from. One was tall with a gaunt, bony face and silver hair. He wore a cloak of red and gold-pure vanity, Sasha thought, for the air was not cool. That man had five companions all nobly attired, with swords at their sides.

  Sasha stopped, her heart beating faster. Her right hand flexed, unconsciously rehearsing the fast reach to the hilt above her left shoulder. "Lord Kumaryn," she said, attempting pleasantry. "Have you been waiting here for me all this time?" Some spy must have seen her heading to Jaryd's chambers. The Falcon Guard may have liked Jaryd, but they remained a company of Tyree and there were bound to be some spies reporting to the lords. But Kumaryn came himself?

  "Did you have a pleasant meeting with your new lover?" Kumaryn asked. His voice was hoarse and reedy. His blue eyes were hard with malice. There were great lords in Lenayin whom Sasha did not like, yet could not help but respect. Kumaryn was not one of them. The man was petty and vain.

  Sasha smiled. "You'd like to think so, wouldn't you? Scared I'll wed him and raise heirs of Tyree as Nasi-Keth?"

  Kumaryn scowled. "You'd never dare! The lords of Tyree would never stand for it!" He thought I was being serious, Sasha realised in disbelief.

  "Jaryd Nyvar would be foolish to do so, my Lord," said a smooth voice at Kumaryn's side. "With this one, he'd have to always wonder if the child was truly his. I hear she's had half the men in Baerlyn, and some of the women too."

  The speaker was a man of short stature. He had perhaps thirty summers, with a round face and short hair. The Verenthane star hanging from his neck was twice the size of his compatriots." That, plus his northern accent, made Sasha fairly certain of his origin.

  "Please, Master Stranger," she said reasonably, "it's impolite to insult someone without first offering your name. How else will I know whom I kill?"

  "If you wish to challenge," the northerner said with a smile, "then you may challenge Yuan Martyn Ansyn. I and my sword shall be waiting for you."

  "Martyn Ansyn." Sasha's eyes narrowed. "Heryd Ansyn's brother, yes?"

  "The very one."

  Family Ansyn were Family Telgar's oldest allies in Hadryn. There was much shared blood between them, and Lord Heryd was said to have been the old Great Lord Telgar's closest friend.

  "So the lords of Hadryn and Valhanan lock arms at last," said Sasha, surveying the group before her. There were two men behind her-seven in all, including Kumaryn and Martyn. More Hadryn than Valhanan, to judge from the cut of their hair and the prominence of Verenthane symbols. And too many, even for her. "What message do you have for me that it takes seven of you hiding outside the door like common cutthroats to deliver it?"

  "A reminder," Kumaryn said coldly. "There are more of us than of you."

  Sasha laughed. "My Great Lord, you've learned to count! Your wet nurse will be so proud!"

  "It's not our ability with numbers that was in question," Yuan Martyn replied before Kumaryn could bristle his outrage. "You don't have your pagan rabble to defend you here."

  "You threaten like a coward," Sasha retorted, her temper slipping. "If you were brave, you'd challenge. My family won't take kindly to my murder beneath their protection."

  "Oh aye," Martyn said with a cool smile, "Prince Koenyg loves you well, I hear. The king has not called you "daughter" for twelve years. The king no longer favours your pagan ways, nor your devil friends from Saalshen. You have few enough friends in Baen-Tar, girl."

  "I'm going to go and have a pleasant lunch with my sister," Sasha said impatiently. "For the last time, say what you will and begone."

  "The trial of Lord Krayliss," said Lord Kumaryn. "It will be soon."

  Sasha rolled her eyes. "You know, the last time we met, you were trying to arrest me for something you knew damn well I didn't do. Was this what that was about? You were trying to keep me from Lord Krayliss's trial and, since that didn't work, you now resort to threats?"

  "The king wants Lord Krayliss dead," Kumaryn continued, his bony cheeks reddening. "Prince Koenyg wants him dead. Every sane man and woman in Lenayin sees him for the rabble-rousing troublemaker he is, and…"

  "All the nobility, you mean," Sasha interrupted. "The only sane men and women in Lenayin." Mockingly. "What'll you do once he's gone? Have the king appoint some friendly Verenthane lord to the great lordship?"

  "Such would be a great boon to the people of Taneryn," Martyn said softly.

  "Did you ask them?" Sasha retorted. "I'm no friend of Lord Krayliss, but I'll not deny him a fair trial to help you fulfil your grand vision of a holy, Verenthane Lenayin with not a pagan lord in sight. You forget who the people of Lenayin truly are, so little you see of them in your Verenthane cities and castles. Best that you remember soon, or one day they'll walk into your cities and castles all together and remind you."

  Kumaryn's nostrils flared. "Now who would be making the threats, girl?"

  "Not a threat, Lord Kumaryn," Sasha said coldly. "Just seeing if you truly can count after all. They look so little from your castle towers, don't they? All the commonfolk? And so few. Like all the little streams in the hills after a winter's rain. It's only when you see them reach the valley bottom and come together that you realise what a flood looks like."

  "The little pretend princess thinks the Goeren-yai all love her," Yuan Martyn said softly. His manner was all light-tongued menace, beside Kumaryn's blunt bluster. Sasha had no doubts which man was the more dangerous of the two. This was Princess Wyna's man, and Princess Wyna shared not only Koenyg's attention, but also his bed. Lord Kumaryn had no such advantage. "There are thousands of Goeren-yai soldiers camped before the walls for Rathynal. I hear they could barely agree on where to pitch their tents. Upslope was more fortuitous, I hear, and downslope potentially an ill omen. It nearly came to blows. Such a rabble could no more unite against the true lords of Lenayin than they united against the Cherrovan Empire. It took a lowlands Verenthane to save Lenayin from its disgrace. There is no such hero to ride to your rescue this time, little pretend princess."

  "And it took a lowlands Nasi-Keth to come and rescue the Verenthanes when the Cherrovan came back seventy years later," Sasha retorted. Yuan Martyn's eyes flashed with anger. "Why go to such lengths to remove Lord Krayliss? If you're so unconcerned about the Goeren-yai?"

  Yuan Mart
yn smiled. "Someone must save Lenayin from herself. The gods' work is never easy, but it is rewarding. The gods are merciful, but their wrath is harsh upon all who would obstruct the righteous path. Remember, little pretend princess. Never forget."

  Sasha was almost surprised when the Verenthane Royal Guardsmen at Koenyg's door let her in with barely a query. Koenyg's chambers were large, with a main room here and a dining room beyond, half-hidden behind curtain drapes. Memories hit her with a rush, hard and unwelcome. These had been Krystoff's chambers. They'd seemed lighter then, somehow. The sun had always been shining through the far windows, in those memories, and gleaming golden upon the dining table. Now, the stone walls seemed darker, more foreboding.

  She passed the curtain drapes and found Koenyg seated with Archbishop Dalryn at the near end of the long dining table, each with a drink in hand. Both men rose upon her entry. "Sister," Koenyg said blandly. "What a lovely surprise. What can I…

  "Did you send your wife's Hadryn lapdog after me?" Sasha demanded angrily. "Or did she send him herself?"

  Koenyg gazed at her for a long moment, the flexing of his free hand the only sign of a reaction. "You should refer to your brother's wife as either Princess Wyna, or sister," said Archbishop Dalryn into that silence. "Your own title is no longer "princess", and such informality is unbecoming."

  "Was I talking to you?" Sasha snapped at the holiest Verenthane in Lenayin. The archbishop reddened. He was, in Sasha's opinion, an utterly unremarkable man. He had a longish face, with a pointy jaw, a bloated nose and loose skin sagging from his cheeks. His hair was dark streaked with grey, and curly-an unusual trait in Lenayin. It was usually hidden beneath his tall archbishop's hat, which now sat upon the dining table. Now it stuck up in fuzzy curls. Like an old feather duster, Sasha thought.

  "What happened?" Koenyg asked simply, sipping his wine. Or Sasha assumed it was wine, the archbishop's tastes were well known.

  "Martyn Ansyn told me not to support Lord Krayliss come his trial, or I'd suffer for it. When is Lord Krayliss's trial anyway, Koenyg? Have you decided? Or does it depend entirely on what I plan to say in his defence?"

  "Your brother should be addressed as Prince Koenyg," the archbishop persisted, "or as brother. From your mouth in particular, such informality is…

  "From my mouth in particular?" Sasha leaned on a chairback, and glared at him. "And how would you like me to address you, Dalryn? As the rural folk of Lenayin do? The Holy Brewery, perhaps? The Listing Bishop? Father Red Nose?"

  "You dare say such things in this place!" the archbishop fumed. His horrified stare fixed on Koenyg, but Koenyg only watched, wearily.

  "In this place more than any other!" Sasha retorted. "This is my brother, in the chambers that once belonged to my dearest friend, and I've far more claim to the sanctity of this place than you ever will. If you don't like it, get lost."

  "Sasha, this is my invited guest." Very little ever penetrated Koenyg's rock-like calm. He seemed no more alarmed by his sister's outburst than he might have been by a small, yapping dog about his ankles. "You are not."

  "Did you send that thug to try and scare me?" Sasha yelled at him. Koenyg was heir to the throne and renowned throughout Lenayin for cold, emotionless calculation. But he was still her brother, and Damon's brother, and Sofy's. She might not have expected any better of his actions toward herself, but if he was capable of this toward her, then he could do it to her other siblings just as easily.

  "You should apologise to His Holiness," Koenyg continued. "He is rightly unaccustomed to such indignities. He is also the spiritual leader of all the Verenthane faith in Lenayin. That includes you."

  Oh, and there it was. Koenyg the plotter. Dared she declare her true allegiances? Kessligh had warned her often enough that if she did, assorted northerners, nobles, bishops and fanatics would demand her head.

  Sasha glared at him. Koenyg met her gaze calmly. A face much unlike Krystoff's-solid, where Krystoff had been lean; trimmed and presentable, where Krystoff had often been wild. Occupying chambers that had once been Krystoff's. They should still be his, Sasha thought bitterly. They would still be his, had not Krystoff offended so many of those same northerners, nobles, bishops and fanatics. Krystoff had fought them, but Koenyg sat at his private dining table and had drinks with them.

  Would you wield the axe yourself, brother, she wondered bitterly. If the time came to dispose of me, like they once disposed of him?

  "Did you send Martyn Ansyn to try and scare me?" she demanded once more.

  "First, apologise to His Holiness."

  Sasha glared. "I'll do nothing of the sort."

  Koenyg shrugged. "Then we have nothing to talk about."

  To Sasha's right, the curtains to Koenyg's bedchambers were abruptly pulled back and there stood Princess Wyna. She wore white, the colours of northern mourning, her light hair pulled back severely from her face. She was pretty, perhaps, in the way that a simple sculpture might be pretty, or a painting. The beauty of form, with high cheekbones and pale green eyes. But there was no beauty of warmth, or happiness.

  "My children are saying their midday prayers," she informed them coldly. "Whatever this business of yours, it should not be so loud to disturb the mourning rituals beneath a woman's own roof."

  "My apologies, my sweet," said Koenyg. "I do try to keep a civil tone at all times. My sister is challenged in this regard."

  Wyna's pale eyes fixed on Sasha. Weeks it now was since Lord Rashyd Telgar had died, and still Wyna mourned for her father.

  "Sister," Wyna said to Sasha coolly. "How do you fare?"

  "Well enough today," Sasha said darkly. "It's tomorrow that concerns me."

  "Tomorrow concerns us all," said Wyna. She walked primly to her husband's side, her white dress swishing. "I could not help but overhear through the curtain. Has my loyal servant Yuan Martyn been causing you some concern, dear sister?"

  "Yuan Martyn has been causing the king's justice some concern," Sasha replied.

  Wyna slipped her hand around Koenyg's elbow. "You seem very concerned for justice toward that mindless barbarian," said Wyna with a slight frown. "Pray tell me, where is the justice for my dear departed father whom he murdered?"

  Sasha's eyes narrowed. You did send him, you ice-cold bitch. Wyna's gaze was as hard as glass. "If the king's justice does not extend to all Lenayin," Sasha replied, "even to mindless barbarians, then what possible use is that justice at all?"

  "Mama?" came a boy's voice from the curtains. Sasha looked, and saw four-year-old Dany Lenayin standing in the doorway by the drawn curtain. "I said my prayers, Mama."

  "Of course you did," said Koenyg, walking to the boy with arms outstretched. Dany went to him and Koenyg scooped up his son, holding him effortlessly seated in the crook of one arm. "Dany, say hello to your Auntie Sashandra."

  Dany had already said hello to his Auntie Sashandra upon her first arrival in Baen-Tar, but he turned and looked anyway. He was a pale boy, with dark hair like his father, but the features were mostly his mother's. Something about the pallid complexion, and the thin set of his lips, reminded Sasha abruptly of… Usyn, she realised. The boy looked like his Uncle Usyn. Gods and spirits forfend that he actually grew up to be like Usyn.

  "I saw you playing lagand yesterday," said Dany. His eyes and voice were too calm for a boy his age.

  "And I saw you in the stands," Sasha replied.

  "You play very well," said Dany. "Not as well as my papa, though."

  Sasha's lips twitched. "On the contrary, I thought I played somewhat better than your papa."

  Dany looked at his father. "She's not very ladylike, is she, Papa? Nor very polite."

  "Auntie Sashandra was very close to your late Uncle Krystoff," Koenyg explained to his son. "She's very much like Uncle Krystoff was."

  "Uncle Krystoff was a very strange man, wasn't he, Papa?"

  "No one truly knows what Uncle Krystoff was, Dany," said Koenyg. There was a darkness in his eyes as they met with his sister's. An old anger
, never entirely quenched. "He remains a mystery to many, even to this day. Some say he was not truly a Verenthane."

  "If he was not a Verenthane, Papa, then what was he?"

  Sasha stared at the boy. It scared her that he could so innocently ask such a question. What indeed? What was a Lenay, if not a Verenthane? It was almost as though the wild, ancient half of traditional Lenayin had been erased from these people's memory entirely.

  A memory struck her-leaping onto Krystoff's bed one morning to wake him. He'd wrestled her over, kicking and squealing, and tried to bite her on the neck. And over there, by the ornate wooden cabinets of glasses and plates, he'd shown her how a wondrous serrin invention-a looking glass-could burn a hole in an old piece of cloth when the sun fell through the open window just right. And back in the front room, he'd carried her in circles on his back, responding to her tugs on his ears, or her heels on his thighs, as a horse would to a rider's reins or stirrups. Once, she'd made a mistake, told him to go when she meant stop, and he'd careened straight into the wall. They'd fallen to the floor together, laughing.

  Now, Koenyg and his Hadryn wife slept in his bed, and entertained by his table, and hung gaudy pictures of Verenthane saints on his walls. And it hit her, suddenly-the great, terrible injustice of it all. If he'd lived, she might not have become what she was today. But if he'd lived… well, there would not burn this endless pain in her heart, that burned all the more terribly every time she set eyes upon Koenyg.

  "He may not have been a Verenthane," Sasha told Koenyg, coldly. "He may not have been always polite, and he may not have been always sensible. But he was my brother. Gods know what you are."

  She turned and strode out, leaving the stone and their memories in her wake.

  The foul mood stayed with her all the way down to the Great Hall, along gloomy hallways and flagstone floors. Memories of Krystoff. Her father, Koenyg, Kessligh, Damon, Sofy, herself… they all remembered a different Krystoff, a Krystoff shaped as much by their own personal needs and desires as by any truthful recollection. She'd needed Krystoff for her soulmate. Her father had needed an heir. Koenyg, a competitor to overcome. Kessligh, an uma. To Damon, he'd been yet another overbearing elder brother to measure up to. Perhaps only Sofy could claim any objectivity where Krystoff was concerned. Sofy, who was the most objective person on most things, it seemed.