War Maid's choice

Chapter Nineteen

“Good morning, Tala!” Brandark sang out, clattering down the stone steps to the second floor chamber which had been established as the tower’s inhabitants’ dining chamber. “I could smell that omlet all the way up-”

The Bloody Sword halted abruptly as he came through the arched stone doorway. Bahzell sat in his usual place at the head of the table, but seated at his right hand, red hair loose over her shoulders and shining like flame in the sunlight pouring in through the archer’s slit, sat Leeana Hanathafressa, nursing a steaming cup of tea in both hands.

She wore a loose linen shirt and soft trousers of a deep, grassy green, bloused and tucked into the tops of her riding boots. The hilt of a throwing knife showed above the sewn-in sheath in her right boot, and a pair of scabbarded short swords stood propped upright against the stone wall under the slit. Now she looked up at Brandark through the wisp of steam rising from her tea and arched one eyebrow. He stood frozen, even his facile brain obviously slithering in confusion, and she glanced at Bahzell.

“That’s odd,” she said with a lurking smile. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard him when he didn’t have something smart to say. In fact, now I come to think about it, up until this moment, I didn’t think it was possible for that to happen!”

“No?” Bahzell rumbled a deep-chested laugh, his brown eyes sparkling as they met hers. “I can’t say as how I’d ever hoped it might be possible. Mind you, I’m thinking it makes for a morning a sight more restful than most mornings are around here.”

Brandark gave himself a shake and stepped fully into the room. He looked back and forth between them for a moment, then smiled and swept them a deep, graceful bow not even one of Saramantha’s elven overlords could have bettered. When he straightened, the normal sardonic humor had vanished from his expression.

“I find myself…deeply happy for you both,” he said simply. “I see now what Gayrfressa’s secret was, I think…and why she was so pleased by it. May your lives be long, may your love be deep, and may every day bring you as much joy as I see in your eyes this day.”

Leeana’s eyes softened, and she blinked quickly. Then she set down her teacup, stood, walked around the table, and hugged him tight.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I’m sure there will be others who don’t see it quite that way, but I don’t care about them. I do care about about how you feel. A brother’s blessing is always a joy.”

“Aye, little man,” Bahzell agreed, smiling from his chair. “But don’t you be expecting me to come and hug such as you and get your fancy waistcoat all damp and teary!”

“It’s fortunate Leeana has enough poetry in her soul for both of you,” Brandark replied, standing back and resting his hands on Leeana’s shoulders while he looked into her eyes. He studied them for several seconds, then nodded and squeezed her shoulders once, firmly. “You’ve chosen an…interesting road, Leeana. I’m happy for Bahzell’s sake, but the bard in me is already itching to write the ballads this is going to inspire!”

“Bahzell tried to warn me about that, too.” Leeana smiled. “But we war maids are just natural troublemakers at heart. Surely you’ve heard that about us?”

“I believe I have heard something to that effect, yes,” he said dryly, and she chuckled.

“If you’ve got the name for it anyway, you might as well take advantage of it. Now come sit down! I hadn’t realized just how good a cook Tala really is, and it would be a crime to let that omelette get cold.”

“I agree entirely.” Brandark swept her another bow, this one less deep and touched with more of his usual insouciance, and followed her back to the table. He sat across from her and served himself a generous portion of the bacon, cheese, onion, and mushroom-stuffed omelette, then collected one of Tala’s patented sourdough rolls to keep it company.

“May I assume I’m the first to be informed-in a manner of speaking-about the, um, change in your status, as it were?” he asked as he spread butter across the roll and took a largish bite.

“Well,” Leeana said judiciously, leaning back in her chair and crossing one booted ankle elegantly over her knee, “aside from Gayrfressa, Walsharno, Tala-who saw me sneaking up to Bahzell’s room last night and kept her mouth shut about it, Lillinara bless her-and, of course, Mother. That makes you, let me see, sixth, I think.”

“I only make that fifth,” Brandark said, after counting carefully on his fingers, and cocked his ears inquisitively at her.

“Well, that’s because I had to fit Bahzell in there somewhere,” she told him demurely, and he chuckled.

“He can be a bit…obtuse sometimes, can’t he? Have I ever told you how hard he worked at never hearing Tomanak at all?”

“As to that, I’m thinking that ditty of yours has done damage enough without adding more to it,” Bahzell told him.

“I suppose that as a special observation of this day’s significance I could go ahead and exercise that exquisite sense of tact and discretion which is so much a part of my naturally sensitive nature.”

“Aye, and be keeping your ‘naturally sensitive’ arms unbroken, in the way of it,” Bahzell agreed, and Brandark chuckled. Then his expression sobered a bit.

“I’m truly happy for you both, happier than I know how to tell you, but I wonder if you’ve given any thought to exactly how you intend to go about letting other people know about this?”

“We plan on discussing it with Mother after breakfast,” Leeana said serenely. “Not that I’m particularly worried about how she’ll react.” She smiled faintly. “It’s certainly not going to come as a surprise to her, at any rate. And I’ve already written Father, telling him what I had in mind.” She cocked her head, gazing not at Brandark, but at Bahzell. “I sent it off two days ago, in fact.”

“And did you now?” Bahzell rumbled, twitching his ears in her direction. “Never thought as how you might be being just a mite premature?”

“Oh, I had confidence in my…powers of persuasion,” she murmured, and Brandark took a hasty swig from his tankard of ale.

“Well, as to that,” Bahzell replied judiciously, “it might be you had a point, after all.”

“I thought so, at any rate.” Her eyes laughed at him before she looked back at Brandark. “Aside from Mother and Father, there isn’t anyone we have to tell about it. Another of those advantages of being a shameless war maid. On the other hand, neither Bahzell nor I have any intention of hiding from anyone.” Her green eyes hardened ever so slightly. “I’m sure some bigots are going to have…strong opinions on the matter. If any of them care to bring his opinion to my attention, I’ll be delighted to discuss it with him.”

Brandark winced.

“You know,” he said after a moment, “you don’t really look very much like her, but you remind me a great deal of Kaeritha in some ways.”

“Why, thank you, Lord Brandark!” Leeana dimpled. “I’ve always greatly admired Dame Kaeritha. I think it’s that streak of what she calls ‘peasant practicality.’”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Brandark acknowledged. “In fact-”

He broke off as Tala bustled in with a fresh pot of tea for Leeana in one hand and a basket of fresh, hot rolls in the other.

“Out late again last night, I see, Lord Brandark,” the housekeeper said severely. “Drinking, no doubt!”

“When I wasn’t dicing, wenching, or slitting purses,” he agreed cheerfully, lifting his tankard in salute, and she set down the basket of rolls so she could swat him with her freed hand.

“Exactly what I would have expected!” she told him roundly, and he heaved a huge sigh.

“It’s so sad when everyone sees straight through my facade of respectability,” he mourned.

“Respectability, is it?” Bahzell snorted. “Not the very word I’d’ve chosen, I’m thinking!”

“But that’s because you’ve known me so long. I ought to at least be able to fool some totally unsuspecting, innocent stranger, don’t you think?”

Bahzell gave him a speaking glance, and Brandark tucked the rest of his original roll into his mouth so he could snag one of the newly arrived ones as a replacement and began spreading fresh butter with a lavish hand.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any of those fig preserves left, would you, Mistress Tala?” he asked wheedlingly.

“I’m down to just the two jars,” she said, waving an index finger under his prominent nose, “and the last time you asked that, it cost me a jar and a half!”

“Is it my fault you make such excellent preserves?” He looked at her innocently. “You should take it as the most sincere possible compliment!”

“Oh, should I, now?” The housekeeper planted her hands on her hips to give him her very best glower, but he only looked back at her with that same innocent expression.

“Oh, all right!” she told him finally. “But only the one jar, mind! I’m saving the other.”

“Whatever you say,” he agreed meekly, and she laughed.

“Promises are easy, Milord, but don’t think you can turn me up sweet enough for me to be taking my eye off of my pantry when you’re around!”

After breakfast, Leeana and Bahzell left the tower and walked along the curtain wall towards the keep. The keep’s early morning shadow lay deep and cool across the battlements, and Bahzell gazed down into the courtyard with a pensive expression.

“Second thoughts?” a gently teasing voice asked, and he turned quickly to smile at Leeana.

“Now, that I don’t have,” he told her. “Mind, I’ve no doubt I should, but it’s a rare, determined wench you are, Leeana Hanathafressa! And”-his voice softened-“it’s never happier I’ve been.”

“Good. See to it you stay that way.” She tucked her hand into his elbow and laid her head against his upper arm. It felt odd not to tower over a man, but it felt…good, too. Of course, that might have something to do with the man in question, she reflected warmly, storing up the memory of the night just past like the treasure it was. A gentle and considerate man, her Bahzell, in more ways than one.

Sentries manned Hill Guard’s walls at all times, and she saw the armsman at the angle between the curtain wall and the keep jerk upright as he glanced in their direction. The sentry’s eyes widened, and then he snapped to attention. It would have taken a very tall human-even for a Sothoii-to fix his eyes above Bahzell Bahnakson’s head without straining his neck, and so the armsman locked his gaze on the center of the Horse Stealer’s massive chest.

“Good…morning, Milord Champion,” he said.

“And a good morning to you, as well,” Bahzell rumbled back. It couldn’t have been a more pleasant response, yet there was a little something in its timbre. Something that snapped the sentry’s eyes to Leeana, as well. He colored, then cleared his throat and bobbed his head.

“Give you good morning, Mistress Leeana.”

It came out in a commendably normal voice, only a bit more gruff than it might have been, and she smiled at him.

“Thank you,” she said, then looked up into the cool morning sky, her hair flying like red silk on the breeze that laughed its way across the castle and danced with the banners. “And the same to you. It is a beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

“Aye…Mistress.” The armsman returned her smile. “It is that. And”-he let his eyes meet hers, then Bahzell’s-“more beautiful for some than for others, I’m thinking.”

“Why, yes, it is,” she told him with a fleeting dimple.

He bent his head respectfully and stepped back out of their way, and Leeana laughed softly as they passed on into the keep proper.

“There!” she told her towering lover. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“Now that it wasn’t,” he replied, looking down at her, “and it’s a fair start we’ve made, I suppose, in a manner of speaking. Your Da’s no more than another fifteen or twenty score armsmen here in Hill Guard and Balthar. Why, I’ve no doubt we’ll have dealt with all of them by lunch!”

“I’m sorry, Leeana.” Sharlassa looked back and forth between her and Bahzell, obviously afire with curiosity. “Baroness Hanatha isn’t here. She finished breakfast early and said she was going riding.” The younger woman grimaced. “She invited me to join her, but Master Tobis is expecting me this morning.”

“I see.” Leeana smiled at her resigned tone, remembering her own lessons with the dance master. “Do you think we could catch her at the stable, or is she already out and about?”

“I think you could probably catch her,” Sharlassa replied. “She hasn’t been gone long, and she said she had something to discuss with Master Greenslope before she left.”

“Well, love,” Leanna glanced up at Bahzell, “do we want to wait for her here, or go beard her in Doram’s den?”

“There’s a cowardly part of me says as how we ought best hide right here,” Bahzell admitted, “but I’ve not seen Walsharno at all, at all this morning, and I’m thinking Gayrfressa is after having a ‘told you so’ or three for me, as well.”

“My thinking, as well,” Leeana said, and chuckled at Sharlassa’s expression. It was obvious the younger woman was simply dying to ask the dozens of questions dancing through her mind, and Leeana shook her head at her.

“Wish me joy, Sharlassa,” she said. “Wish both of us joy.”

“Oh, I do. I do! ” Sharlassa clapped her hands in obvious delight. “I wondered if-that is, I mean-what I meant to say was-”

She paused, her expression flustered, and Leeana reached out to lay a hand briefly on her shoulder.

“I know what you meant to say. And thank you. Now I think we’d better go find Mother.”

“Oh. Oh! ” Sharlassa’s eyes widened suddenly. “Does she-I mean, had you-?”

“I believe I can safely say Mother is the one person in Hill Guard this news is least likely to surprise,” Leeana reassured her, and Sharlassa heaved a deep sigh of relief.

“Oh, good,” she said, and then blushed brightly as Leeana laughed and Bahzell rumbled a chuckle.

“I’m thinking we’d best be off to the stables before this poor lass is after catching fire and burns to the ground in front of us,” he said, and Sharlassa’s blush burned even hotter for a moment, before she shook her head and looked back up at him with a laugh of her own.

“Better,” he told her then, and extended his arm once again to Leeana.

“Milady?” he invited, and she snorted as she tucked her hand back into his elbow.

“Not anymore,” she reminded him.

“Ah, but there’s ladies, and then there’s ladies,” he told her, “and war maid or no, it’s my lady you are now, Leeana Hanathafressa.”

Her eyes softened. Then she nodded to Sharlassa, and the two of them were gone.

“-and after the farrier finishes with the two-year-olds, we’ll want him to see to Gayrfressa,” Baroness Hanatha said, her cane hanging by its lanyard from her wrist as she leaned back against the dark gray mare saddled and waiting for her. Despite her damaged right leg, she rode at least three times a week, and Mist Under the Moon (less formally known as “Misty”) was her favorite mount. Now Misty waited patiently while Hanatha and Doram Greenslope spoke.

“Aye, Milady,” Greenslope agreed. “Mistress Leeana pointed that out to me already, she did.”

“I’m sure she did.” Hanatha smiled warmly at the stablemaster. “And I’m sure you’d have seen to it without my saying a word. I do try to be a proper hostess, though, Doram!”

“Aye, so you do, Milady.” Greenslope smiled back at her, then stooped slightly, making a stirrup of his hands. She balanced on her weakened leg, lifting the toe of her left riding boot to his waiting hands. Her bad leg prevented her from getting her foot high enough for a regular stirrup, but the stablemaster’s strong boost as she straightened her good leg sent her more than high enough to settle into position on Misty’s back, and Greenslope shook his head as he gazed up at her.

“Always does my heart good to see you up there, Milady,” he said simply. “That it surely does!”

“I’m glad. It feels good, too,” she told him, and touched Misty with her heel, turning towards the stable yard’s gate and the pair of armsmen already mounted and waiting to escort her on her morning’s ride. But even as the mare moved forward, she saw the armsmen stiffen in their saddles, looking at something she couldn’t see yet. She drew rein, and then felt her eyebrows rise as Bahzell Bahnakson and her daughter stepped through the gate together.

Very together, she thought. She doubted she could have defined any single aspect of their body language-of the way they moved, their subtle awareness of one another in time and space-but it was more than enough, especially to a mother’s eye, and she felt her lips twitch as Bahzell caught sight of her and his shoulders straightened ever so slightly.

The two of them crossed the stable yard to her, Leeana looking up and Bahzell looking more or less across at her, and she shook her head.

“Why do I have the feeling the two of you have something to tell me?” she demanded, frowning ferociously.

“Well, as to that-” Bahzell began, but Leeana poked him none too gently in the ribs.

“Perhaps because of a certain discussion you and I had a few days ago, Mother,” she observed sweetly, and Hanatha laughed.

“If I get down from the saddle,” she told her daughter, “then this vast lummox of yours is going to have to help me get back into it. You do understand that, don’t you? I’m not as young and…nimble as you are, my love!”

“I feel confident he’d be happy to assist you,” Leeana assured her, and took Misty’s bridle as Bahzell stepped forward to help Hanatha down from the saddle she’d so recently climbed into. It was rather like what Hanatha imagined one of the dwarves’ “elevators” must feel like. Those huge hands lifted her effortlessly down from the saddle, and despite her weakened leg, she knew she was no featherweight.

Bahzell set her smoothly on her feet, and she clasped both hands on her cane, leaning on it as she considered the two of them. She couldn’t see them, but she felt certain at least a dozen pair of eyes must have been peeking out of the stable’s shadows behind her, watching her. And she knew her waiting armsmen were soaking up every detail from behind those disciplined faces of theirs. She hadn’t contemplated “discovering” what Leeana had been up to quite this publicly, but Hanatha Whitesaddle had never been a coward, and Hanatha Bowmaster hadn’t changed in that respect.

“Knowing you, Bahzell,” she said after a moment, aware of all those watching eyes and deliberately pitching her voice just loudly enough to be certain they could hear without being obvious about it, “I feel confident you’ve come to apologize to me for abusing Tellian’s and my hospitality.”

The hradani started to say something, but she raised her left hand and waved it in a shushing motion.

“Give me leave to finish, Milord Champion,” she said sternly, and waited until he’d subsided. “Good,” she said then. “As I say, I feel sure you’ve come to apologize. And before you do, I forbid it. Leeana is a war maid, and war maids make their own decisions and live their own lives. And even if that weren’t true, I know where her heart lies, and I have no qualms whatsoever about the man to whom she’s given it.” She looked directly into his eyes. “There may be some among the Sothoii-and possibly among your own people, as well-who will have qualms over this. None of them will be named ‘Bowmaster,’ however.”

She spoke clearly and calmly, although she felt her lips twitch again most inappropriately as Leeana arched one politely incredulous eyebrow and silently mouthed the words “Not even Aunt Gayala?” at her. Bahzell glanced down at the crown of his undutiful lover’s head as if he’d been able to read her mind, then looked back at Hanatha.

“It’s my best I’ll do to see as how you’ve never any cause to feel such,” he told her.

“I’m certain you will…and that I won’t,” she told him, reaching up to lay her hand on his chest as she sensed Walsharno and Gayrfressa moving into the yard behind her. “I know too much of what lives in here,” she said, pressing his chest lightly, “to worry about that, Bahzell. And since Leeana will always be my daughter, whatever the war maids’s charter may say, I trust you won’t mind if I find myself claiming you as a son, as well?”

“Oh, it’s in my mind that won’t be so very hard a thing to stand,” he replied, putting one of his hands over hers for a moment.

“And as far as that goes-” Leeana began, then broke off suddenly, and Bahzell looked down at her again, much more sharply this time, as his link with Gayrfressa tingled abruptly. Hanatha looked at her daughter, as well, but her expression was confused, wondering what had interrupted Leeana in midsentence.

‹ Well,› Walsharno said philosophically in the back of Bahzell’s mind, ‹ now we know why she came calling, don’t we?›

Bahzell nodded slowly, but his eyes never left Leeana as she stepped forward, reaching up towards Gayrfressa’s cheek. She looked no larger than a child beside the massive courser, but the chestnut mare’s remaining eye glowed as she gazed down at the human standing in front of her.

‹ I’d no notion courser mares ever bonded,› Bahzell replied silently to Walsharno, and the stallion tossed his head in a curious mixture of pride and resignation.

‹ As far as I know, they don’t, › he said dryly. ‹ No one’s ever said they couldn’t, you understand, but it just…doesn’t happen. Until now, of course.›

“Leeana?” Hanatha reached towards her daughter, but Bahzell intercepted her hand just before she touched Leeana. The baroness looked at him in surprise, and he gave her a wry smile.

“She’s a mite distracted, just now,” he said.

“Distracted?” Hanatha repeated, and he chuckled.

“Aye, that she is.” He shook his head again, watching Leeana reach up to Gayrfressa as the mare dropped her nose to blow gently against her hair. “It seems as how your daughter’s not the only young lady minded to set tradition on its ear this fine morning,” he told her.

Hanatha stared at him, and then, slowly, understanding dawned in those green eyes so much like Leeana’s and she drew a deep breath.

“Oh, my,” she said.

“Aye.” Bahzell flipped his ears at her. “You’re more like to know than I, being a Sothoii born and all, but it’s in my mind that there’s not been a wind sister before, has there now?”