Clan and Crown

5

Tylara stared at the roughly whitewashed door of the farmhouse. The one-eyed image of Vothan stared back. She waited until she heard a faint click and saw movement behind the one eye.

"Who seeks entry to the House of the Wolf?" a voice demanded.

"Tylara do Tamaerthon, Eqetassa of Chelm."

"Enter, lady," said a rough voice, followed by the sound of a lock turning.

Tylara stepped into the house, stamped the mud off her riding boots, then glared at the man who'd let her in. "What are your orders about tending the door, Bartolf?"

The man turned the color of a winter sunset. He swallowed. "To recognize all who come, and let them enter with hands open and empty."

"Did you ask me to open my hands?"

"No, but-"

"But nothing. I might have been a spy disguised as the Lady Tylara. If I had been-" Her right hand darted into the full left sleeve of her riding tunic. Then she raised it. As the sleeve fell back, it exposed her husband's Gerber Mark II combat knife. She'd borrowed it for just this sort of demonstration.

"You'd have been dead from that mistake, Bartolf."

"Perhaps, Lady Tylara," he said. "But an enemy in your place wouldn't have lived enough longer to do hurt or learn much." He raised his voice. "Bennok! The berries are ripe."

The tapestry on the opposite wall of the antechamber rippled, then rose as a dark-haired, pimple-faced youth slipped through a waist-high opening it had concealed. He held a small crossbow, the sort noblewomen used for shooting birds and rabbits. Not enough, thought Tylara, then saw that the thin point of the quarrel was barbed and glistening with something green and sticky.

"Poison?" she asked. "And the point has been made small enough to enter ringmail."

Bartolf nodded. "That was Monira's idea. The rest was all his." He reached down to tousle the boy's hair.

The boy carefully sidestepped out of reach.

"That was a very good idea, Bennok," said Tylara. "Are there others who keep watch?"

"Oh yes, lady. With the poison on the quarrel, any of us can do the work. So we all take turns."

"Very good." She reached into her purse and pulled out a silver piece. "This is for your good work."

Bennok didn't reach for the silver. "Will there be one for all the others, lady? I can't take it unless there is."

Tylara tried not to sound as confused as she felt. "I think there will be silver for all of you."

"Oh thank you, lady. Now maybe we can buy those longbows ourselves if Bartolf goes on saying he won't give them to us." He darted back under the tapestry and vanished.

Bartolf was red-faced again. "I'm sorry, Lady Tylara. I should have told you. They've all eleven of them sworn an oath to be as brothers and sisters and have all their wealth in common. The only things they'll call their own are weapons and clothing."

"And Monira was the leader in this, I'll wager?" said Tylara, smiling to show that she wasn't offended.

Bartolf returned her smile uncertainly. "She spoke for them all when they told us. I don't know if that was her idea, though."

"And you don't think you ever will?"

"No. They are good at keeping even the secrets we don't want them to keep."

Someday that might make trouble. Now it proved to Tylara that her idea was succeeding beyond anything she'd expected.

Thoughts sometimes took on a life of their own. This one was born in bitter sleeplessness during the early days of pregnancy. She lay awake, unable to sleep, unable to stop torturing herself with restless thoughts. She was certain that Rick had not fathered Gwen's child, but her mind would not let go of the matter. Let her think of stars and star weapons, and it would end with that question. That night it began simply enough, when Rick musingly told her that the star-folk would come and it might be useful to capture one of their ships.

Tylara could scarcely conceive of a starship. She never expected to see one. Yet certainly something had brought Rick and the others to Tran. All the priesthoods agreed that mankind had not been created here. If humanity came from another world, then there must be ships to travel between the worlds.

And Rick wanted one. He wanted one badly.

If he had a ship, would he leave her?

Or would he first teach everyone on Tran the secrets of star weapons and starships, as he said he would do? It scarcely mattered. There was no way to capture a starship. Rick had laughed at his own idea. His star weapons would be useless.

And Tylara lay pondering stars and starships and weapons and children-There were no dangerous weapons. Only dangerous men-and women, and children. If the starmen were all like Rick, reluctant to kill, sentimental, fastidious to the point of squeamishness…

How would you take a ship of the sky-folk? You would certainly need to surprise them, so they would not be able to use their fire weapons.

But suppose, suppose half a dozen children could get aboard such a ship. Not ordinary children. Children well trained, dedicated, fanatic followers devoted to service… Then at a signal they pulled out knives and fell on the crew. That would be surprise indeed. No one thinks that an eight-year-old girl can be dangerous, unless she is a trained warrior, and maybe not even then. The Shalnuksis, according to both Rick and Gwen, would not be sending trained warriors. They would send merchants, easily surprised and once surprised easily killed.

But you would need to have the children trained and ready long before the sky-folk came. And they would have to be kept a secret from everyone until then. There were those on Tran who might warn the sky-folk if they could. Lady Gwen could be one of those. And Rick surely would not approve of this. Why should he know?

So began the Houses of the Children of Vothan, for boys and girls up to the age of ten who'd been orphaned in the wars. There were plenty of those, enough to fill many more than the seven Houses everyone knew about.

In those seven Houses orphans were fed, clothed, sheltered, and taught trades. Some learned to be midwives, seamstresses, carpenters, shepherds, smiths. Some learned new skills, such as wire-making or distilling. In one house the boys were destined to become acolytes of Yatar, the girls to serve the hearth goddess Hestia. There was a house near Rick's precious University.

And there was an eighth House. Six boys and five girls, from six to nine, picked for quick wits, strong muscles, and keen eyes and ears, brought here to learn one thing and one thing only-how to kill. Some of them had good reasons to learn, others just had talent. All had been doing well at their lessons, the last time she visited them, six ten-days before her confinement.

Bartolf led her through the door from the antechamber into the main room of the house. As she stepped into the room she heard a thump, a squeal like a piglet's, and the rasp of a knife blade.

"Aiiii, lass!" shouted a wheezing male voice. "Have ye learned nothing about holding a knife? That one-it'ud stick between his ribs, even the rope round his neck canna save ye then! Fast in, faster out, that's the way it must be."

Tylara stepped out into the room. In one corner a man-sized dummy lay on the floor. One boy lay under its head and upper body, gripping a rope drawn tightly around its neck. On top of it lay the girl Monira, her knife thrust up to the hilt in its chest. As Tylara approached, Monira sprang up, bowed quickly, then helped her companion crawl out from under the dummy.

"Are you hurt, Haddo?"

"No, Monira. Only my breath knocked out." He also bowed to Tylara, then walked off with Monira as if both Tylara and their teachers had become invisible.

"My regrets, lady," said the teacher with a shrug. "Sometimes she gets taken so that she forgets everything. Mostly, though, she's a joy to watch. Ah, if I'd had a girl like her when I-" He broke off abruptly as he remembered to whom he was talking.

The teacher's name was Chai, and he had reason to be cautious in talking about his past. He was a former thief who'd taken advantage of the wars to practice his skills, and in due time came before the Eqetassa's justice. Unlike most common thieves, he had real skills. He could even read and write. And he'd once been a priest of Yatar. A spoiled priest, but admitted to the mysteries…

That was the morning that Tylara decided to establish the Houses; and Chai, his name and appearance changed, became one of the Masters…

Tylara watched Monira and Haddo sit down cross-legged in a corner and wipe each other's faces with damp clothes. Monira was beginning to have a woman's body, but she would never be beautiful even with her thick fair hair. A troop of Sarakos's cavalry had taken care of that. At least nothing showed when she was dressed, except her broken nose and the scars on her chin and one ear.

Tylara had been through a similar ordeal, at Sarakos's own hands, and she also would bear scars both inside and out for the rest of her life. Compared with what Monira had survived, though, Tylara knew her own experience was a child's game. No great wonder that Monira sometimes saw one of those men instead of the training dummy.

In another corner of the room stood the third teacher, Rathiemay, wearing a knight's armor. He was showing three of the Children how to attack an armored man.

"— get him to bow his head, if he's wearing a helmet like this. That will leave a patch exposed at the back of the neck. Yes, that's it," he added, as one of the Children prodded it with a blunted dagger. "A good hard thrust right there. If he's not dead at once he's easy to finish off." He saw Tylara and straightened up. "Good day, my lady."

"Good day, Lord Rathiemay. How are they doing?"

"No one could wish for better pupils, my lady. They seem to have been born with steel in their hands." His face was bright with his smile, reminding Tylara oddly of her husband's expression when he spoke of the University or some other great scheme for bringing hope and life to Tran. She remembered how he'd looked the first time she came, sour and grumbling over being a knight sent to teach commoner children how to strike down his brothers in arms. To be sure, he was grateful that the Eqetassa had given him this chance to restore his fortunes, but still… Now he looked almost like a father teaching the children of his own body the family trade.

"Where are the other Children?"

"Out in the woods, learning tree-climbing," said Chai.

"Without a teacher?"

"Na, na, lady. They're learning from Alanis. His father was a woodsman, there's no sort of tree he can't climb. It's a mizzling gray sort of day, so no one's likely to be seeing them."

Tylara pulled eleven silver coins out of her purse and handed them to Bartolf. "For the Children. I hear they want some new bows."

"Aye, but they've also spoken about some sand-fish buskins for the tree-climbing. We'll have to let them decide."

"You let them choose what they'll buy?"

"Oh, not everything, lady. Only the things likely to be life or death for them. Why not? Does a carpenter let a butcher choose his mallets for him?"

Tylara thanked the man, drew the hood of her cloak over her head, and was outside in the rain without remembering quite how she got there. What had she done? The Children of Vothan were no weapon to lie quietly in a scabbard until she choose to draw it. They were a sword with a life and a will of its own, which might choose its own moment to be drawn and drink blood.

Whose?

A dangerous experiment. Was it best ended now, while she had control? Or Or might there be uses for this weapon? Used well, used now, before the sky-folk came.

Tylara grew more hopeful as she walked back to her horse. By the time she was in the saddle and returning to where she'd left her escort, she knew the Children of Vothan would not be a weapon only for a single battle. The sky-folk were not the only enemies to her and her house.