Oathbreaker

by Cara Witter

  “Lord Osgoode is deemed the winner,” Daniella translated for the others, since this was all being done in Mortichean, “and will incur a one point penalty for his poor lance control in addition to a point loss for touching a pole and missing the first ring. Buras will lose a point for each of the four rings missed, and his time will stand. Lord Osgoode will continue and race the next set.” She shook her head in disbelief at the end. Further away, Jaeme shook his head as well, glaring alternately at the judges and Osgoode.

  “But that’s not fair!” Nikaenor said.

  “Poor lance control,” Sayvil snorted, rolling her eyes. “I guess this is why a peasant hasn’t won this tournament in a hundred years.”

  Kenton had no doubt that was the case.

  Buras seemed to have less of a reaction to the decision than anyone watching. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and dismounted, calmly walking his horse off the field. If what Stephan said was true, he still had a chance to get to the final duel, but this would keep him from a win at the chase, which put pressure on his other events.

  More than that, though, it was an insult. A reminder that the nobility of Mortiche still cared nothing for their people, even though it was those people who supported their useless lives.

  Osgoode trotted his horse off the course and accepted a jug of water from his squire, drinking some and pouring the rest over his head. On the far side of the yard, Jaeme mounted his horse and accepted his sword from a squire, who gave a final check to the saddle’s straps. Jaeme brought his horse around to the starting line and waited for Osgoode to join him. Jaeme leaned over and said something, which Osgoode pointedly ignored.

  The flag raised and the riders raced forward. Once again, they cleared the first leg of obstacles without incident. Kenton, who in all the time traveling with Jaeme hadn’t ever seen his real skill at riding, was impressed by Jaeme’s control and connection with his mount—though now that Kenton had seen the rigors of the bandit chase in person, he was a little more concerned that Sayvil might have been right about Jaeme’s shoulder.

  The riders rounded the first turn, and both were dusted by the poles, a cloud of white shimmering in the air behind them as they pulled through. Kenton felt Perchaya grip his arm and tried not to let that unnerve him. She was leaning forward, watching the race with such a focus that he doubted she realized she was holding onto him so tightly.

  The riders both grabbed at their lances at the same time and began hooking the rings. Osgoode didn’t show any sign of repeating his former tactic, and both Jaeme and Osgoode managed to hook all four rings before cutting around the second turn. Kenton heard a collective exhale from the rest of the group and realized that he, too, had been holding his breath.

  Both competitors dropped their lances as they headed down the stretch that held the new melons, replaced just before the race started. Osgoode unsheathed his sword.

  Jaeme didn’t. He slowed down just enough to lean over in his saddle and pick up the first melon. His horse charged forward just steps behind Osgoode. Jaeme righted himself, and in one smooth motion, threw the large melon. It pegged Osgoode on the shoulder just as he was leaning over to slice his third target. Deep pink juice exploded in all directions, and Osgoode let out a shout and toppled from his saddle to land heavily in the dirt, covered in broken melon fragments. The crowd gasped; Jaeme stopped and grinned down at his fallen opponent before wheeling his horse around and charging to cross the finish line, his sword remaining undrawn from its sheath. The crowd cheered wildly, and laughs rang out as Osgoode stood up, pink juice dripping from his tunic.

  Jaeme trotted back to stand in front of the judges. Osgoode joined him a few moments later, leading his horse by the reins. He shouted something at the judges, pointing at Jaeme, but Jaeme didn’t respond. In the judges’ tent, a duke wearing the same colors as Osgoode—likely his father—was yelling, his quivering face livid. The other judges said something that seemed to calm him down somewhat, then one of the judges said something to Jaeme. Kenton didn’t hear the question, but he did hear the answer, which Jaeme shouted loud enough to rise over the crowd.

  “Poor melon control,” he said in Mortichean, which Daniella translated with a wide grin.

  The others—and many in the crowd—laughed, and Kenton grinned with the rest of them as the judges deliberated.

  In less time than it had taken for the previous pronouncement, the middle judge stepped forward and Daniella translated as he spoke. “Lord Jaeme is hereby disqualified for his dishonorable actions. However, Lord Osgoode will not be allowed a replacement ride. His score will stand.”

  The crowd exploded boisterously in joyous applause and shouts. This might not allow Buras to continue, but it prevented Osgoode from continuing up through the ranks, and the time deductions from his fall would no doubt put him low enough in the final rankings as to receive no points for the event at all.

  Moreover, Jaeme had delivered a strong message as to how Grisham felt about visiting knights insulting his peasants. Kenton couldn’t help but be impressed that he would step out of line for Buras, even if it was in the most arrogant, flashy way possible.

  He hoped this wouldn’t prove too much of a distraction. From what Kenton understood, duels were often fought for lesser insults. Osgoode’s father looked ready to disembowel Jaeme where he stood, and Osgoode didn’t look much more pleased as he walked his horse off the race grounds. Jaeme unsheathed his sword and saluted Osgoode mockingly before turning toward the crowd and saluting them, which only raised the level of noise. Grinning fiercely and looking straight at the group, he kissed his balled-up fist and raised it high, opening it to reveal a lock of red hair pinched between his fingers. Daniella laughed and blushed simultaneously as Perchaya put her arm around her friend’s shoulders. Kenton shook his head but couldn’t keep a smile from his own face as Jaeme basked in the wild cheers of his devoted people.

  If Jaeme needed time to get used to the idea of looking for Kotali, Kenton supposed this was a reasonable use of it.

  Thirty-two

  When Jaeme arrived for the duke’s banquet that night with Daniella on his arm, the great hall was already packed. Dukes and earls, viscounts and marquis filled the long tables, all shouting over each other’s heads with both friendly greetings and less friendly jibes. They were already seated, but no one had dared touch the heaping platters of meats, fruits, and cheeses that poured forth from the kitchen. The feast was now ostensibly a welcome home event for Jaeme, but he very much doubted the menu and seating had changed, other than to squeeze him and Daniella in at his uncle’s table.

  Their serving staff—it still tickled Jaeme to refer to them that way, mostly because it irked Kenton—were not invited, but Perchaya had won an invitation, and Jaeme spotted her on the far side of the room, seated beside Hugh. Perchaya gave a tiny wave, and Daniella waved back as Jaeme pulled her toward the center of the room.

  Greghor had arrived just ahead of them and reached his seat at the head of the main table, near the center of the room. He motioned to his left, and Jaeme held out the seat closest to his uncle in keeping with the tradition that his paramour be given the opportunity to become further acquainted with the duke.

  Greghor extended his hand toward Jaeme in formal greeting, and everyone seated raised their goblets at this gesture. “Rethderi, Rethderi,” Jaeme said, thanking them all in Mortichean.

  “Please,” Greghor said in Sevairnese. “We don’t want the lady Daniella to feel out of place. For the remainder of the meal all will speak the common trade tongue.”

  Daniella heard several grumbles among the nobility and stood up to her full height. “Pardon me, your grace,” Daniella said in Mortichean. “But I am fluent in your beautiful language and would love an opportunity to speak it.”

  Greghor looked surprised, and Jaeme smiled. Sevairnese being the common language of commerce and diplomacy, no doubt his uncle had
assumed that Daniella would therefore have no reason to learn Mortichean.

  If he expected her to only know what was useful, he had a great deal to learn about Daniella.

  “Well, then,” Greghor said in Mortichean. “As you wish, my dear. What a pleasant surprise.”

  There were a few more grumbles from the nobility—who apparently couldn’t be pleased either way.

  Above the murmur of the room, Jaeme distinctly heard Lord Osgoode’s voice. “Oh good,” the man said. “He’s sent us an educated spy.” He was speaking in Old Mortichean—a language now used mostly ceremonially, though part of the knighthood training required them to study it. Osgoode had the verb tense wrong, but his message was clear.

  Jaeme and Daniella both turned. Osgoode was now dressed in a green and black tunic and matching olive-colored hose—a look that was nearly extinct in southern Mortiche, and Jaeme was glad for it, as he’d been told his calves weren’t shapely enough to fill them out. Osgoode, from the look of it, was lacking in the area of the more central package.

  Jaeme wished the melon had done more than knock him off his horse (and cause Jaeme’s shoulder wound to be sore from throwing—not that he would ever admit that to Sayvil). He was casting about for what food he should lob next—perhaps that large wheel of hard cheese—when Daniella spoke, loud enough for everyone at the surrounding tables to hear.

  “Educated enough to know a lout when she sees one,” she said in flawless—if accented—Old Mortichean. Jaeme wondered if Osgoode’s study had been enough for him to understand, but he appeared to have followed the gist, because his face turned red, and across the table from him, his father, Duke Osborne, tightened his grip on his glass.

  Jaeme laughed. Daniella might not have felt comfortable standing up to pompous nobility back in Drepaine or Peldenar, but she didn’t seem to have a problem doing so here. He wasn’t sure if that was because she was out from under her father’s thumb or if she’d grown more confident in herself.

  He had a feeling it was the latter and hoped he had at least something to do with that.

  His uncle also looked notably impressed, but wisely—as the host—chose not to engage. “Please,” he said to Jaeme. “Give us a few words before we eat.”

  Greghor sat, but Jaeme remained standing. After Osgoode’s remark, Jaeme was tempted to offer a toast to the military prowess of peasants, but while seated next to Daniella and for those who hadn’t heard of what happened at the bandit chase, that might sound dangerously close to treason. Jaeme had always been of his uncle’s opinion that they were fools if they didn’t match Sevairn’s improvements to their military, but he mostly kept quiet about that, both to avoid appearing to be a sympathizer, and in respect for his dead father, who had been a traditionalist through and through.

  Jaeme looked around the room, smiling congenially, but avoided turning to recognize Osgoode and his family. The duchy of Osmoor was on the opposite side of the country, bordering the mountains that separated them from Andronim, which made them less important than others as trading partners. Even their tight alliance with Yelden Var, the duchy that controlled the Jekti pass, mattered less to Grisham given that Bronleigh, Grisham’s direct neighbor, controlled access to the mouth of the river that ran the length of Mortiche, and, therefore, the main route for all of Grisham’s trade.

  Jaeme cleared his throat. “Thank you to all of my old friends as well as my new. But I shall not detain you long from this feast, since I can hear the growling of stomachs, most notably my own.” The group laughed politely at this. “Please,” he said. “Enjoy.”

  Jaeme sat down beside Daniella, and the room began to buzz with conversation, as well as the chink of glasses and the frequent laugh or giggle. Daniella glanced around in surprise, and Jaeme looked a question at her. “Is something wrong?”

  She shook her head. “It’s just so noisy. State dinners at home are much more reserved.”

  “Is that cultural?” Jaeme asked. “Or is everyone afraid of your father?”

  “I suspect it’s the second,” Daniella said. “Fear, perhaps, but also respect. No one talks over each other, so as to offer him free entrance into the conversation. Every once in a while, a guest will be a chatterer—one of those people who’s made nervous by empty spaces in conversation. Those guests are rarely invited back.”

  “That sounds uncomfortable,” Jaeme said.

  Daniella smiled wryly. “That could be said for most of the stories of my childhood, and a good number beyond as well.”

  Jaeme smiled and put a hand on her back. He took a bite of venison, then caught her staring at the next table over, at a petite blond woman who was giving her a condescending smile.

  Violette. Gods, Jaeme had all but forgotten about her.

  He watched Daniella as she also took notice. “Yes, she was interested in me,” Jaeme murmured to Daniella, answering the question on her face. “No, it wasn’t returned. Her father wanted me to marry her, and she was fond of the idea, I think.”

  Daniella’s eyes widened. “Did you have a contract?”

  “Nothing official. Her father, though, has always been a slave to the cards. The duke of Byrn won her in a game not long after she came out in society, so she had to marry him instead.”

  Daniella’s jaw dropped. “He bet his daughter in a game of cards?”

  Jaeme nodded. “See, your father’s not looking so bad after all.”

  Daniella laughed. “I suppose he hasn’t yet done that.” She lowered her voice. “But he did pay his general to seduce me, so I wouldn’t give him too much credit.”

  Jaeme winced. He hadn’t meant to return her thoughts to that, not while they were seated in a room with twelve people who had made Jaeme a similar offer. One he hadn’t been able to refuse.

  “Were you upset?” Daniella asked.

  He blinked at her.

  “About Violette marrying the duke of Byrn.”

  Oh. That. “Selfishly relieved, actually. Another arrangement successfully dodged. Though I felt bad for her, of course.”

  Daniella glanced at Violette and scooted her chair closer to Jaeme, and he smiled. He didn’t mind a little jealousy, as long as she didn’t think it was serious.

  Across the table, Duke Latimer was also smiling at them, rather knowingly, and Jaeme was tempted to kick him sharply in the shins to make him stop. In fact, around the banquet hall, several of the dukes were not-so-casually looking in their direction. Daniella didn’t seem to have noticed, or if she had, she didn’t seem to find it out of the ordinary. Perhaps this was also customary in Sevairn, especially if everyone in the room was eager to curry favor with Diamis. Here, with the balance of power spread throughout the room, alliances were important, but power less centralized.

  Across the room, Jaeme stared at the sight of Hugh eating a strawberry out of Perchaya’s gloved hand. Perchaya caught Jaeme watching, and gave him a look that was half excited, half terrified. Jaeme nudged Daniella. “She’s doing well, isn’t she? Good for her.”

  “The others at her table don’t seem to think so,” Daniella whispered. The other nobility were obviously irked that Hugh was doting on a commoner instead of one of their own. And while Perchaya was only a pretend lady-in-waiting, her real station in life was no higher, and somewhat more off-putting, what with Daniella’s father wanting her dead. Jaeme had been a child when the Scourge hit Sevairn, but even he remembered the series of murders of the few Drimmish refugees who’d made it over the Mortichean border.

  Maybe Kenton was right. Just because Diamis couldn’t march his army over the border didn’t mean they were completely safe in Grisham.

  “Good for Hugh, too,” Jaeme said. “He’d be happier with her than one of the brats who are after him for his station.”

  Daniella’s brow creased. “Do you think she’d be happy with him?”

  Jaeme looked over at them again. Perchaya was now
demonstrating how to fold her napkin into a swan, and Hugh was following along with his own with rapt attention. “That depends,” Jaeme said. “Is Kenton his competition?”

  “There is that,” Daniella said.

  Greghor cut in on their conversation, setting down his wine glass and turning toward Daniella. “How are you enjoying Grisham, my dear?”

  “It’s wonderful,” she said. “Though I haven’t heard nearly enough embarrassing stories about Jaeme. You must have a few. I imagine he was quite the troublemaker.”

  “Only where women are concerned,” Stephan said from a few seats down.

  “Hush,” Jaeme said. “You’ll ruin her good opinion of me.”

  Stephan rolled his eyes. “That was my intent.” He leaned over to speak to Daniella. “When you discover what a cad he is, I’ll be—”

  Jaeme flicked a blueberry at him. “As if you’re any better.” He looked over at Daniella, judging her reaction, but she only smiled and shook her head.

  Across the table, Duke Latimer raised his glass toward Jaeme. “I heard Lady Daniella is your paramour.” He cocked his head. “Not fiancée?”

  Good gods. Were they going to order him to marry her next? Jaeme had every intention of doing so when he could convince her. Ordinarily Jaeme would prefer orders that he intended to carry out anyway, but where Daniella was concerned, he wished they would stop it. He didn’t relish the idea of more instructions from the Council, more secrets, more things she might eventually hear and hate him for.

  Jaeme laughed—gods, did it sound as nervous as he felt?—and shook his head. “No, your grace. Not yet.” He reached for Daniella’s hand under the table and squeezed it.

  “Well, regardless,” Duke Latimer said to Daniella. “We were all quite pleased to hear you’ve decided to side with us against Lord Diamis. We can use all the help we can get. We hope you feel welcome here in Grisham.”

  Daniella smiled politely, and thanked him, but she, too, seemed unnerved, probably worried that there was some barbed insult to follow, given her reception by the Osmoors.