by Tim Stead
The other man was called Fram, and was much younger, with brown eyes and a moderately pleasing face. Kane ignored her, but Fram walked beside her and tried from time to time to make conversation. Unfortunately he didn’t seem to be able to come up with anything that warranted more than a yes or no in reply. After a while he gave up and walked in a sort of solicitous silence.
In Gulltown they walked back towards the sea, and eventually stopped outside a house. It looked the same as all the other houses in the street – small, but well kept, and brightly painted in blues and yellows, the traditional colours of gaiety in Samara.
Kane looked at Ella.
“Stay here,” he said. He stepped up to the door and crashed his fist against it several times. The noise made Ella jump. She had no idea what it did to whoever was in the house.
“Open the door. In the King’s name, open,” he shouted.
Nothing happened. The street was deserted, and nobody opened the door of the house. Ella was certain that eyes were watching them from a dozen places, but nobody was going to come out of their house to speak to them. Fram grinned, and looking at his face Ella suddenly didn’t like him at all.
“Kick it, Kane,” he said. He sounded like a nasty child urging a school bully to some new excess, but Kane didn’t look like a bully. There was no swagger to him at all.
Kane lifted his foot and kicked the door, driving the heel of his boot into the wood near the catch. The door shattered. She’d never seen it done before, but Kane looked like he knew exactly how to get through doors. He went in with one hand drawing a dagger. Fram followed, and Ella went after him. She wanted to see what was going to happen, hoped that nobody was at home, and didn’t want to be left alone on the street to be blamed by all the watching eyes.
Inside, the house was tidy and well kept, apart from the trail left by Kane. The man appeared to move in straight lines, ignoring the furniture, and things were left broken in his wake. She caught up with him in the small back room which looked as though it was used for cooking and eating. Pots were scattered on the floor and Kane had a woman pinned on the small table that filled the centre of the small space.
“Where is he?” Kane demanded.
The woman seemed unable to answer. He was choking her. With a growing sense of horror, Ella realised that she recognised the woman. They had met very briefly, once, three years ago, and Ella had been only twelve, but his father had reminded her several times of her story. She stepped forward.
“Kane, let her go,” she said.
Kane ignored her. The woman’s face was red, and Ella could see her eyes looking sideways at her.
“Kane!” she shouted at him, but it was like shouting at the sea.
Fram grabbed her arm, but she kicked him in the shin hard enough to make him let go and curse. She grabbed Kane’s wrist with both hands and tried to pull his fingers from the woman’s neck.
The next thing she knew she was lying on the floor in the corner of the room, and her head was ringing like a bell. Kane had released the woman and was staring at her, his hand still raised from the backhand blow that had knocked her down. Fram was staring too. The woman who had been pinned to the table was doing the same. Nobody was moving or speaking. She put a hand to her face and it came away spotted with blood. She could see from Kane’s face that the implications of what he had just done were clear to him. She tried to stand up, but her legs felt weak and she slipped back again. Nobody moved to help her. On the second attempt she managed to stand. She looked at Kane.
“Get out and wait for me in the street,” she said. She was surprised at the authority in her own voice. She wasn’t angry or scared, but she knew that he would obey an order.
Kane turned and went, without a word of protest. Fram followed him, looking excited. She would have to watch Fram, she thought. There was something wrong with him.
“I know you, don’t I?”
Ella turned to the woman, who was in truth only six or so years older than her. “Yes,” she said. “I’m Ella san Tarlyn Saine. You are Amrista. You came to my father for help.”
“Yes.” The woman seemed grateful, scared, even a little puzzled. “What just happened?” she asked.
“Crandon is at Ocean’s Gate?” She ignored Amrista’s question because she was not sure of the answer.
“Yes.”
“Good. When we’ve gone you must go back to my father and tell him what happened here. He will help you again. Tell him that I’m all right. He’ll understand.”
“Are you all right?”
Ella tried to smile, but her face was stiffening from the blow she’d taken from Kane. “I must look terrible,” she said.
“It’ll be a champion of a bruise, for certain.” Amrista said. “Why did he obey you?”
“Shock, I think. He wasn’t supposed to hit me.”
“I think he would have killed me.”
“I don’t think so,” Ella said, but she wasn’t sure. Kane had looked almost possessed, and he was a powerful man. Amrista found a cloth and soaked it for a moment in cold water. She came over to Ella and pressed it to her face, soothing the cuts on her lip and wiping the blood away as best she could. Ella allowed this for a moment before taking the cloth off her.
“I should go. They’re still waiting, and I don’t know how long they will. Go out the back when I leave and go straight to my father.”
“Yes, my lady.”
She never understood that. You had wealth and privilege and you helped someone and they thought you were better than them. She wanted to tell Amrista that she was a fifteen year old girl; that she had done nothing, faced no great challenges, wasn’t in the least of noble blood, but there wasn’t time, so instead she hugged her and went back outside to where Kane was waiting.
“Take me back to Tarnell,” she said. Kane nodded and set off at a brisk pace. It seemed longer on the way back, and all the time she was aware that Fram was walking a few steps behind her and Kane. A distinct itch developed between her shoulder blades.
Nobody spoke until they were finally in front of Tarnell. The king got up from his chair and examined her face closely. She could feel that it was quite swollen, and her left eye was closing. Tarnell’s expression was a mixture of horror, anger and disbelief. The terms of the contract with Tarlyn Saine were quite specific; if anything happened to Ella the same indignity could be visited on the king’s daughter.
“What happened?” he asked.
Ella said nothing, but looked at Kane. Fram was trying to look as small as possible in the bigger man’s shadow.
“What happened?” Now he was shouting. Anger had won the battle on his face.
“I hit the girl, Regani,” Kane said.
“You? You hit the girl?” Disbelief was back. “Why?”
Kane struggled for words for a few moments, and then seemed to give up. He shrugged. “No adequate reason, Regani.”
“You were supposed to protect her, Kane, not beat her up. What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t thinking, Regani.”
“You,” he turned to Ella. “Tell me what happened.”
“He was choking a woman to death,” Ella said. “I tried to prevent it.”
“Did you succeed?”
“So it would seem.”
“Well, at least someone got something out of this. Who was this woman?”
“Collaborator, Regani,” Fram said from behind Kane. “Married to a guard from Ocean’s Gate.”
“If I may?” Ella said.
“Please,” Tarnell was still angry, but Ella could feel her own temper rising.
“The woman was Amrista. She grew up in Gulltown, lived with her family there. She was engaged to be married to a boy called Crandon, who was apprenticed to a tanner and leather worker whose workshop was in the next street to where both families lived. Four years ago a gang of thugs set fire to a house in the next street at night, probably because the owner wouldn’t come out and be beaten up. That fire burned down two streets and
killed thirty-eight people. Among those thirty-eight were both families, all of them, and the leather worker, and the workshop. Amrista and Crandon were walking together down by the river, and survived. They had nothing left, no skills, no family, no money, no food, no clothes.
“My father sent men over to Gulltown to investigate the fire and see if they could help at all. They found these two in despair. They were thinking of killing themselves. The men sent them to my father, who arranged for them to marry, found Amrista a house close to where she used to live, and got Crandon a job in Ocean’s Gate as a guard. He was an athletic boy, and with no other skills it was all he was fitted for.
“I think you know who set that fire.” The words had all come out in a rush. She had not wanted anyone to interrupt her before she finished.
“And that is why you tried to prevent Kane from doing his job?”
Ella was stunned. None of it meant anything to Tarnell. He was a monster.
“Yes. I believed that as you had murdered her entire family you might want to give her a little latitude.”
Tarnell sat down in his chair again. He looked suddenly tired.
“You have a point,” he said. “I’ll take her off the list.”
She was surprised again, and felt a little spark of triumph.
“Kane,” the king turned back to his man. “You know what the punishment for striking my daughter would be?”
“Yes, Regani.”
Tarnell pulled a dagger out of his belt and offered it to Ella. She looked at it.
“His life is yours,” Tarnell said.
He expected her to kill him? But he was cleverer than that. He knew that she would not use the knife, and that her soft trader ways would not permit her to kill a man in cold blood. I’ll play a different game, she thought, one from the laws of the king. She seized the knife from his hand, and was rewarded with a small change in his expression.
“Kane,” she said. “Give me your right hand.”
The man held out his hand and she gritted her teeth. Her hand shook, but she used the point of the dagger to cut his palm. He didn’t seem to notice. She turned the blade around and cut her own palm. It hurt a lot. Now she clasped his hand with hers.
“Kane,” she said. “Your life has been given to me, and I accept it. I bind your life to mine as our blood flows together. You are mine until death, and dead thereafter unless I release you. This is a true and binding act by the laws of the king. Henceforth you are my bondsman, charged to protect and obey me and no other.”
“What is this?” Tarnell demanded.
“You gave me his life, Regani,” she said, using his title for the first time. “I have accepted it as laid down in ancient law. It cannot be undone without entire loss of honour.”
He pointed a finger at her. “You tell your father that I want a copy of that book,” he said, and there was something in his voice that might have been respect.
* * * *
Corban was checking inventory in one of the store rooms when he heard a commotion in the courtyard and stepped out to see what was going on. A group of royalist soldiers were in the courtyard, being closely watched by his father’s militia. As he stepped out he saw one of them gesture to the others, dismissing them, and they all gave a sort of half bow and departed. Corban walked over to the remaining soldier, who was taking a moment to adjust one of the many straps that help armour stay in place.
The soldier turned and looked at him.
Corban’s mouth fell open, and he stood and stared like an idiot.
She was about his age, perhaps a little older. She wore a leather cap, and beneath that her face was tanned, symmetrical, and adorned with intelligent, grey blue eyes. Her mouth was generous, almost sensual. She was the most beautiful thing that Corban had ever seen.
“Boy,” she said. “Take me to Saine.”
It was a moment before he realised that she was talking to him. He bowed.
“I am Corban san Tarlyn Saine,” he said.
She looked a little less certain. “I apologise. I took you for a servant. I am Calaine san Regani Tarnell. It is your father that I must see. Can you direct me?”
The Princess Calaine. She was exactly what he had expected, and yet completely different at the same time. He was having difficulty not staring at her.
“I would be delighted to take you there myself,” he said. Apart from her face she was exactly what a royalist soldier should be. She wore plate armour that covered her torso, and beneath that a mail shirt which covered her arms to the wrist. Her legs were clad in leather trousers onto which hundred of pieces of steel had been sewn. They must be very heavy, but she moved easily beneath the weight. A sword was fastened to her left hip, and a single dagger to her right. There was a bow slung over her right shoulder, and a quiver thick with arrows hung from her back. She looked ready to start a war.
He led her up to his father’s study, not trusting himself to make small talk on the way. He was sure that he would only be capable of sounding like a fool. Tarlyn was sitting behind his desk, but stood when they entered. Corban could read the surprise on his face, though he hid it well.
“I am Tarlyn san Porwill Saine,” he said.
“I am Calaine,” she replied. “I am your hostage.”
“No,” Tarlyn said. “You are my foster daughter, and will be treated as a member of the family in all things.”
She looked uncertain again, and Corban had to look away. He guessed that she had expected a cool if not hostile reception. It was probably what her father would give to poor Ella, but the trading house of Saine was not a hostile place.
“I am grateful for your generosity,” she said.
“Have you eaten? We were going to take our lunch in about twenty minutes. Perhaps you’d like to change and join us in the dining room?”
Corban understood almost at once that most of what her father said sounded like the old tongue to Calaine. She was wearing her clothes. Probably all of them; and she had almost certainly never seen a dining room. This was going to be fun. He wished that Ella had been with them. She would have enjoyed this more than any of them.
“Father,” he said. “Might I suggest Bellamaria?”
“Quite so,” Tarlyn replied. “Why didn’t I think of that myself? Crise?” The servant materialised from behind a door jamb. “Crise, fetch Bellamaria. She will be the san Regani’s servant while she stays with us.”
In a minute Bellamaria was there, taking charge as she had done all of Ella’s life, whisking a reluctant Calaine away to a chamber to prepare her for lunch. When she was gone Tarlyn sat down in his chair as though he was winded.
“How did that ever come from Tarnell?” he said.
“She’s stunning, isn’t she father?”
“You be careful, Corban. Stunning she may be, but more important than that, she has no idea of it.”
“What? How can that be?”
“You look at the way she acts, and you’ll see it. In her eyes she’s a soldier, a daughter, a princess, nothing more.”
They waited in the dining room. Corban, for one, had no interest in continuing stock checking. The food was served, and about five minutes later Calaine appeared. The armour had gone, and her hair, freed from the leather cap was the colour of yellow sandstone in the sun. She had tied it back. She wore a loose fitting clean white shirt and a pair of dark brown trousers.
“Your servant is impertinent,” she complained. “She argued with me.”
“San Regani, she’s been impertinent to my daughter for fifteen years. I value the quality.”
“I do not,” Calaine snapped back. “I can do quite well without a servant.”
“I regret that I cannot allow a princess of the royal line to dwell in my house unattended. You will have to get used to it.”
Calaine was about to say something, but caught sight of the table. It was spread with a range of delicacies, as was the custom. Her eyes grew big staring at it.
“What’s that?” she asked.
>
“Lunch,” Corban said. “We trade with many far places, san Regani, and much of what is here may be unfamiliar to you. Please permit me to be of assistance.” He saw Tarlyn smile as the older man sat down and began to fill his plate. He sat next to Calaine and was delicate in his guidance, suggesting a spoonful of this, a slice of that, guiding her through a medley of tastes and textures. There was even something on the table touched with a Shan spice that burned like fire in the mouth, but he avoided that.
* * * *
Time passed easily in Tarlyn’s house, but Calaine quickly became bored. She missed the discipline and routine of her life. It was only a few days before she persuaded Tarlyn to let her join the militia when they practiced. She was adept with all weapons, and quickly earned their respect. It put some distance between her and Corban, which he regretted, but the militia provided the nearest thing to the atmosphere of her own home, and she was comfortable with them.
Corban came down late to breakfast, as was his habit, and found Calaine standing on the balcony looking down on the city.
“It is a marvellous view,” she said to him as he stepped out. “The whole city is laid out like a map.”
“I have never tired of it,” Corban replied.
They stood in silence for a while, absorbing the play of light on the river and the stone and the brick as the sun crept up above the peaks behind them. After a minute or so she turned to go.
“Training with the militia?” he asked.
“Yes.” She stopped.
“Do you learn anything there, Calaine?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you learn any new tricks, improve your skills?”
“Not really, I am better than most of your men at all skills, but it is a good exercise, and keeps me ready for battle.”