War Maid's Choice Read online

  Personally, Cassan had never trusted the magi, anyway. Oh, he knew all about their precious Oath of Semkirk and how it bound all of them to use their powers only within the law...and as far as he was concerned, that and a silver kormak would get him a cup of hot chocolate. No one with the unnatural powers the magi claimed could be trusted. If for no other reason, how could anyone but the magi themselves verify that they were telling the truth about what they did—or didn’t—do with those powers of theirs? And the last thing he wanted was anyone peering around inside his head, which was why he always wore the amulet that blocked any mage from doing just that. Fortunately, at least some people had naturally strong blocks which made them all but impossible to read without a major—and obvious—effort (assuming the magi were telling the truth about their abilities, at least), and since his amulet simply duplicated that natural block, its protection hadn’t triggered any alarms in and of itself.

  That had prevented the magi from denouncing him as part of the “plot” against Tellian. But it hadn’t prevented them from uncovering almost all of the minor lords warden who’d been involved, and one of them—Saratic Redhelm of Golden Vale—had been Cassan’s own vassal and distant kinsman. That had almost proved disastrous, but Cassan had installed enough layers of insulation between him and Saratic to at least confuse the issue. The danger that Saratic might have chosen to trade his testimony against Cassan for some sort of clemency, or even outright immunity, from the Crown had presented itself...but only until Darnas Warshoe, that useful armsman, saw to it that Saratic suffered an accident.

  And given what Saratic had been up to, at least a sizable minority of the Kingdom’s nobles strongly suspected Tellian had been behind that “accident,” not Cassan. It wasn’t the sort of thing Tellian normally did, but mercenaries hired by another Sothōii noble didn’t normally try to kill Tellian’s nephew and heir-adoptive, either. There were some provocations no one could allow to pass unanswered.

  Cassan doubted anyone in the entire Kingdom believed he hadn’t been behind the raids, yet with Saratic’s death, there’d been no proof, and not even an irate monarch proceeded against one of the four most powerful nobles of his realm without incontrovertible proof. Not openly, at any rate. Still, whatever anyone else might think, King Markhos obviously knew who’d instigated it all, and he’d made his displeasure clear by stripping Golden Vale from the South Riding and incorporating it into Tellian’s West Riding...officially as a form of reparations for Saratic’s actions, although everyone knew whose wrist he’d actually been smacking. Nor had he stopped there.

  He’d summarily dismissed Garthmahn Ironhelm, Lord Warden of Chersa, who’d been his Prime Councilor—and Cassan’s firm ally—for over ten years. And he’d also informed Cassan in a cold, painful personal interview that he himself would be unwelcome in Sothōfalas for the next year or two. The King had stopped short of expelling Cassan formally from the Great Council, yet Ironhelm’s dismissal and his own banishment from Sothōfalas, however temporary it might be, had reduced his web of alliances and influence to tatters. He’d only recently begun putting those alliances back together, and they remained a ghost of what they had been.

  Which was, after all, one of the reasons Yeraghor had become even more vital to all of his future plans.

  “You’re right, of course, Yeraghor,” he said finally. “And it’s not just the revenues Tellian’s looking at, either. There’s the correspondence from Macebearer, as well. This isn’t just about money. Tellian’s climbing deeper and deeper into bed with the Axemen and that bastard Bahnak. He’s not only going to drag the entire Kingdom into actually endorsing Bahnak’s rule, but he’s going to get our foreign policy tied directly to Dwarvenhame! And when the dust settles, he’s going to be the real power broker here on the Wind Plain. Don’t think for a minute that that isn’t exactly what he has in mind in the long run, and when he gets it, don’t think he’s going to forget anyone who’s ever done him an injury, either.”

  He looked across the table into Yeraghor’s eyes, and his own were grim.

  “He can rhapsodize about how much good this is going to do our economy, but Shaftmaster and Macebearer are blind, drooling idiots if they can’t see the downside! And even if they don’t think it’s a downside for the rest of the Kingdom, it’s damned well going to be one for us. Assuming, of course”—he smiled thinly—“that we were so foolish as to let Tellian and Bahnak get away with it.”

  Chapter Five

  The clouds looked less than promising Lady Sharlassa Dragonclaw thought, looking unhappily at the overcast settling lower about the shoulders of Hill Guard Castle.

  Lady Sharlassa sat under the branches of the castle’s apple orchard, but they were barely beginning to bud, and it was far too early in the year to expect them to offer her any protection if Chemalka decided to go ahead and release the rain hovering in those clouds. The breeze was strengthening, too, blowing through the apple branches and lifting stray locks of auburn hair on puffs of blossom-scented perfume, and her nostrils flared as she drew the green, living incense of the world deep into her lungs. She felt alive at moments like this in a way she’d never really been able to explain even to herself, far less to anyone else. It was as if her nerves were connected directly to the trunks of the apple trees, as if she could feel them yearning towards fruit, tossing their branches like widespread fingers to the caress of the wind.

  Her mother had only smiled fondly and mentioned things like active imaginations when a much younger Sharlassa tried to describe moments like this, and Sharlassa knew she was right. Yet imagination or not, she did feel the life moving with the breeze, tantalizing her with that damp kiss of rain to come. Personally, Sharlassa had no desire to find herself soaked to the skin, but that sense of oneness with the apple trees whispered to her that they were looking forward to it.

  Well, it was nice that someone was looking forward to something, she thought, and heaved a deep, mournful sigh as the reflection returned her to the reason she was sitting here on a rather damp wall of rough, unmortared stone in an apple orchard almost two hundred leagues from her home. Or, rather, from her new home, since she’d been born and raised less than six miles from where she sat at that very moment. That was another reason she found this apple orchard so restful; she’d spent enough hours sitting here as a little girl for the trees to be old friends. Or gleaning windfallen fruit between meals. Or clambering around in their branches like a squirrel during harvest. In fact, one of those trees, not so very far from where she sat at this very moment, had her initials carved into its bark. She could still remember the thrashing she’d gotten from her mother for “defacing” one of the Baron’s trees!

  A smile flickered across her face at the memory and she put her palms flat on the top of the wall, leaning back slightly to rest her weight on them while she arched her spine and looked up at those clouds. Life had been so much simpler then, without as many opportunities, perhaps, but without as many prices, either. And no one—except her parents, of course—had really been that concerned if a hoyden teenager wandered off to sit in an apple orchard somewhere once her chores were done. Now, of course, everyone cared, and the nature of her “chores” had changed rather drastically.

  She looked back at the castle whose walls had loomed protectively over her parents’ modest stone house when she was a girl. Somewhere inside those walls, at this very moment, Tahlmah Bronzebow, her harassed maid, was undoubtedly searching for her. On the basis of past Sharlassa hunts, she estimated that Tahlmah wouldn’t quite be ready to call out Duke Tellian’s armsmen yet. That would take, oh...another hour and a half. Possibly two. Unless, of course, it occurred to Tahlmah to come check the orchard again. Sharlassa was certain her maid had looked here first, but the initial phase of Sharlassa’s current truancy had taken her to the stables, instead, to spend fifteen or twenty minutes communing with the one being in all the world who always commiserated with her. Muddy—known on official occasions as Summer Rain Falling—might not understan
d the reasons for his mistress’ moodiness and occasional aspirations to rebellion, but he never stinted on his sympathy.

  Which, she sometimes reflected, probably had something to do with the lumps of sugar that were customarily nestled in her pocket when she went to call upon him.

  She smiled at the thought and took her right hand off the wall long enough to pull one of the dark green ribbons out of her hair. She held it up between thumb and forefinger, listening to it snap gently as the breeze played with it, then opened her hand and let it fly. It swooped up into the branches of one of the trees, wrapped itself around a limb, and flew bravely, like a banner against the steadily darkening charcoal of the sky.

  You’re being silly, she told herself...again. Every single one of the girls you grew up with would give her eyeteeth for your life, and you know it! Well, all but one of them, maybe. Of course, her life went the opposite direction from yours, didn’t it?

  She laughed at the thought, but that didn’t make it untrue. Yet what all those other girls she’d grown up with probably wouldn’t believe for a moment was that she’d never wanted to be a lord warden’s daughter. She’d been perfectly happy—well, almost perfectly happy—as the daughter of a simple armsman. Oh, she’d been proud of her father and the officer’s rank he’d gained. And being a wind rider’s daughter had made her even prouder. She could still remember the first time Kengayr, her father’s courser companion, had presented his huge, soft nose to a grubby five-year-old’s hand, towering over her like a vast gray mountain. A single one of his forehooves had been as big as she was, and his head had been bigger—she could have used one of his horseshoes for the seat of a swing, and he could have squashed her with a thought—but all she’d felt was the wonder of him, and she’d known even then that Kengayr meant her father really was as wonderful as she’d always thought he was.

  But Sir Jahsak Dragonclaw could have stopped at Major Dragonclaw in Baron Tellian’s service, as far as Sharlassa was concerned. In fact, she wished he had!

  If wishes were fishes, we’d never want food, she told herself tartly, quoting one of her mother’s favorite maxims. Yet there were times she suspected Lady Sharmatha wasn’t a lot happier about the “Lady” in front of her name than Sharlassa was about the one in front of hers. In fact, she was certain there were, although Lady Sharmatha would no more ever admit that than her father might admit that he, too, must cherish occasional second thoughts about the consequences of the honor Baron Tellian had bestowed upon him.

  And it is an honor, you twit, Sharlassa told herself sternly. From a common armsman to a knight and a wind rider and a major all the way to lord warden?! It’s the kind of honor other people only dream of, and you should spend your time being happy for him—and proud of him—instead of worrying about all the problems it’s made for you!

  Unfortunately, it was easier for Sir Jahsak—and for her brothers—than it was for Sharlassa...or her mother. The rules were so hard for a girl who’d been raised as a tomboy until she was thirteen years old. She was still trying to figure them out, six years later, and she dreaded the even greater number of rules—the endless number of rules—she’d have to worry about in years to come. She knew her mother found her new role as Lady Golden Vale an uncomfortable fit, and not just because so many of “their” retainers and tenants hated and resented them as interlopers and usurpers. It would take someone much braver than Sharlassa to show Lady Sharmatha disrespect to her face, yet Sharmatha had to be aware of the way all those hostile eyes scrutinized her, watching for any miscue or misstep they could pounce upon as fresh proof of how uncouth and unworthy of his lord wardenship Sir Jahsak was.

  Sharlassa was only too well aware of it, at any rate.

  Yet she could have handled that hostility if it had been the only problem. Or she thought she could have. She might have been wrong about that, the way she’d been wrong about so many other things in her life.

  She sighed again and leaned forward, picking at a bit of moss on the stone wall, feeling the unseen, damp pressure of the rain growing slowly more omnipresent. A patch of the moss came loose and she held it up, studying it, feeling the velvety softness of it against the ball of her thumb. The back, where it had kissed against the stone, was rougher grained, papery, so different from its front, and she wondered if that was some sort of metaphor for her life...or if she was only being maudlin again.

  She snorted softly, with bittersweet regret for what might have happened. It was strange, and it made her feel guilty sometimes, but she could hardly remember what Sathek had truly looked like. They’d been supposed to have his miniature painted for her before he’d ridden off with Sir Trianal to deal with the mystery attacks being launched on Lord Warden Glanharrow’s herds and fields. She ought to remember anyway, painting or no painting—she’d been madly in love with him, hadn’t she?—but she didn’t. Not truly. She remembered how she’d felt about him, how she’d looked forward to the marriage as soon as she was old enough, sometimes she even remembered the feel of his arms around her, but his face was slipping away from her. In an odd way, and one which frequently made her feel almost unbearably guilty, she had a far clearer memory of Sir Trianal’s face on the day he’d personally ridden up to her father’s house to tell her that Sathek Smallsword had died in his baron’s service and under Sir Trianal’s command.

  Well, of course you remember Sir Trianal’s face better! Her inner voice was tart this time. Sathek is gone, and you never got that miniature painted, and they say the mind forgets what the heart remembers. Besides, Sir Trianal isn’t dead, now is he? It’s been—what? All of three hours since you saw him at breakfast? That probably tends to keep him a little fresher in your memory, don’t you think?

  True enough. That was true enough. And it still didn’t keep her from feeling guilty when she couldn’t remember. Just as the fact that life was what it was, and Lillinara knew Sharlassa couldn’t change it just by wishing it was different, didn’t make her any happier about it.

  At least Mother knows you need all the help you can get, she reminded herself. No matter how much you wish she’d stop beating herself up for “not having done right by you” when you were a girl! She didn’t know where we were going to wind up any more than Father did. Or than you did, for that matter! And when it comes down to it, teaching you to think of yourself as a fine lady would have been the cruelest thing she could have done before Father became a lord warden.

  So, yes, she was deeply grateful to Lady Sharmatha for sending her where she could get the schooling she needed as a proper Sothōii noblewoman, even if it did seem like one of Hirahim’s worse jokes to find herself in that position. And no one could possibly have been more understanding or kinder or a better teacher than Baroness Hanatha. Yet sending Sharlassa here—sending her to the place she still thought of deep in her bones as “home”—had its own sharp, jagged edges. She was no longer the person she’d been when she’d lived here in one of the neat little houses maintained for the garrison’s officers. The girls she’d grown up with—those that weren’t married, at any rate—had no better idea of how to act around her now than she had of how to act around them. Even her closest friends felt awkward and uncomfortable, divided by that invisible armor of rank which lay between them, afraid someone—possibly even Sharlassa herself—would think they were being overly familiar if they dared to treat their old friend as a friend.

  She sighed yet again—she was getting a lot of practice at that this afternoon—and tossed the moss up into the air. Unlike the ribbon, it plummeted to the ground, disappearing into the orchard’s grass, and she found herself wishing she could do the same.

  It was a potentially dangerous thought, especially here in Balthar, and she knew her mother was concerned about that, however careful she’d been to never discuss it with her daughter in so many words. But there wasn’t any point pretending the idea hadn’t crossed Sharlassa’s mind more than once.

  Lady Leeana Bowmaster had been just as much a tomboy as ever Sharlassa Drag
onclaw had been, and she’d gone through life with a fearlessness Sharlassa deeply envied. She’d wondered sometimes if that was because Leeana was not simply one of the most nobly born young women in the entire Kingdom but also an only child, treated more like a son than even she’d realized at the time. Now, with her own closer acquaintance with Baron Tellian and Baroness Hanatha, Sharlassa knew it wasn’t that Leeana’s parents had treated her like a son but that they’d treated her as a unique person in her own right. Baroness Hanatha treated Sharlassa the same way, and she’d seen the easy affection and love—the trust—in the way they treated Sir Trianal, as well.

  Yet there was no denying that Sharlassa had deeply admired and respected Leeana. Of course, Leanna had been not simply the daughter of her liege lord but also over two years older than Sharlassa. They’d never been anything someone might have described as friends, for they’d lived in different worlds which simply happened to overlap from time to time. But those worlds had overlapped—sometimes in one of the paddocks or the stables, sometimes right here in this orchard when both of them had helped gather apples—and whenever they had, Leeana had been unfailingly friendly and kind. More than that, she’d...radiated something, something Sharlassa had seemed to sense the way she sensed the apple trees around her now. There’d been a sparkle, a strength, a sense of vibrant, flickering energy. No doubt that was as much her imagination as sometimes dreaming she was a tree, but that hadn’t made the sensation feel any less real, and she couldn’t quite convince herself that it had all been imagination.

  She frowned moodily, with the expression her father had always called “scratching a mental itch” when she’d been younger, just before he chucked her under the chin or snatched her up onto his shoulder or tickled her unmercifully. She wished he was here to do that now and distract her from her brown, unreasonably moody mood, although it would, of course, be unspeakably improper for Lord Jahsak to do such a thing with Lady Sharlassa.