Wind Rider's Oath

Chapter Fourteen

Steam rose gently from the stew pot.

More steam rose from the far from occasional drops of rain which found their way through the open side of the lean-to Kaeritha had erected to protect her cooking fire. Centuries of Sothōii had planted trees along the lines of their roads, mainly to provide windbreaks, but also for the purpose to which Kaeritha had put this thick patch of trees. Although it was still spring, the branches above her were densely clothed in fresh, green leaves, which offered at least some protection to her campsite. And, of course, there was firewood in plenty, even if it was a bit on the damp side.

The blanket-covered packhorse was picketed beside the brawling, rain-fed stream at the foot of the slight rise on which she had encamped. Cloudy wasn't picketed at all-the idea that she might require picketing would have been a mortal insult to any Sothōii warhorse-but she'd ambled over and parked herself on the up-wind side of the fire. Kaeritha wasn't sure whether that was a helpful attempt to shield the fire from the rainy wind or an effort to get close enough to soak up what warmth the crackling flames could provide. Not that she was about to object in either case.

She stirred the stew again, then lifted the spoon and sampled it. She sighed. It was hot, and she knew it was going to be filling, but she was going to miss Brandark's deft hand at the cook fire, and the mere thought of Tala's cooking was enough to bring a glum tear to her eye.

She grimaced and sat back on her heels under the cover of the open-fronted tent she'd positioned with the eye of hard-won experience. The lean-to she'd constructed, and a rising swell of ground, served as reflectors to bounce the fire's warmth back into her tent, and only a little of the smoke eddied in along with it. Given the general soddenness of the Wind Plain, she was as comfortable-and as close to dry-as she was likely to get.

Which wasn't saying a great deal.

She got up and began moving additional firewood under the crude lean-to, where it would be at least mostly out of the rain and the cook fire could begin drying it out. She was just about finished when Cloudy suddenly raised her head. The mare's ears came up, pointed forward, and she turned to face back towards the road.

Kaeritha reached up under her poncho and unbuttoned the straps across the quillons of her short swords, then turned casually in the same direction.

Cloudy's hearing was considerably more acute than Kaeritha's. Kaeritha knew that, yet how even the mare could have heard anything through the steady drip and patter of rain surpassed her understanding. For a moment, she thought perhaps Cloudy hadn't heard anything, but then she saw the rider emerging ghost-like from the rainy, misty evening gloom and knew the mare hadn't been imagining things after all.

Kaeritha stood silently, watching the newcomer and waiting. The Kingdom of the Sothōii was, by and large, peaceful and law-abiding . . . these days. It hadn't always been so, though, and there were still occasional brigands or outlaws, despite the ruthless justice nobles like Tellian dealt out to any they caught up with. Such predators would be likely to think of a lone traveler as easy prey, especially if they knew that traveler was a woman . . . and didn't know she was one of Tomanâk's champions. As far as Kaeritha could tell, there was only one rider out there, but there might be more, and she maintained a prudent watchfulness as the other slowly approached her fire.

The possibility that the stranger might be a brigand declined as Kaeritha got a better look at his mount's gait. It was too dim and rainy to make out color or markings, but from the way it moved, that horse was almost as good as Cloudy. No prudent horse thief would dare to keep such a readily recognizable and remarked animal for himself, which suggested this fellow wasn't one . . . but didn't bring her any closer to being able to guess what he was doing out here in the rain with night coming on.

"Hello, the fire!" a soprano voice called, and Kaeritha closed her eyes as she heard it.

"Why me?" she asked. "Why is it always me?"

The cloudy night vouchsafed no reply, and she sighed and opened her eyes again.

"Hello, yourself, Leeana," she called back. "I suppose you might as well come on in and make yourself comfortable."

The Lady Leeana Glorana Syliveste Bowmaster, heir conveyant of Balthar, the West Riding, and at least a dozen other major and minor fiefs, had mud on her face. Her red-gold braid was a thick, sodden serpent, hanging limp down her back, and every line of her body showed her weariness as she sat cross-legged across the fire from Kaeritha and mopped up the last bit of stew in her bowl with a crust of bread. She popped it into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed contentedly.

"You must have been hungry," Kaeritha observed. Leeana looked at her questioningly, and she shrugged. "I've eaten my own cooking too often to cherish any illusions about my culinary talent, Leeana."

"I thought it was quite good, actually, Dame Kaeritha," Leeana said politely, and Kaeritha snorted.

"Flattering the cook isn't going to do you any good, girl," she replied. "Given that you look more like a half-starved, half-drowned, mud-spattered rat then the heir of one of the kingdom's most powerful nobles, I was willing to let you wrap yourself around something hot before I began the interrogation. You've done that now."

Leeana winced at Kaeritha's pointed tone. But she didn't try to evade it. She put her spoon into the empty bowl and set it neatly aside, then faced Kaeritha squarely.

"I'm running away," she said.

"That much I'd already guessed," the knight told her dryly. "So why don't we just get on to the two whys?"

"The two whys?" Leeana repeated with a puzzled expression.

"Why number one: why you ran away. Why number two: why you don't expect me to march you straight home again."

"Oh." Leeana blushed slightly, and her green eyes dropped to the fire crackling between them. She gazed at the flames for several seconds, then looked back up at Kaeritha.

"I didn't just suddenly decide overnight to run away," she said. "There were lots of reasons. You know most of them, really."

"I suppose I do." Kaeritha studied the girl's face, and it was hard to prevent the sympathy she felt from softening her own uncompromising expression. "But I also know how worried and upset your parents must be right now. I'm sure you do, too." Leeana flinched, and Kaeritha nodded. "So why did you do this to them?" she finished coldly, and Leeana's eyes fell to the fire once more.

"I love my parents," the girl replied after a long, painful pause, her soft voice low enough that Kaeritha had some difficulty hearing her over the sound of the rain. "And you're right-they are going to be worried about me. I know that. It's just -"

She paused again, then drew a deep breath and raised her eyes to Kaeritha's once more.

"Father's received a formal offer for my hand," she said.

It was Kaeritha's turn to sit back on her heels. She'd been afraid it was something like that, but that didn't make having it confirmed any better. She thought of several things she might have said, and discarded each of them just as promptly as she recalled her earlier conversation with Leeana.

"Who was it from?" she asked instead after a moment.

"Rulth Blackhill," Leeana said in a flat voice. Kaeritha obviously looked blank, because the girl grimaced and continued. "He's Lord Warden of Transhar . . . and he'll be fifty years old this fall."

"Fifty?" Despite herself, Kaeritha couldn't keep the surprise out of her voice, and she frowned when Leeana nodded glumly. "Why in the world would a man that age believe even for a moment that your father might consider accepting an offer of marriage on your behalf from him?"

"Why shouldn't he believe it?" Leeana asked simply, and Kaeritha stared at her.

"Because he's almost four times your age, that's why!"

"He's also wealthy, a favorite of the King's chief minister, a member of the King's Council in his own right, and related by both blood and marriage to Baron Cassan," Leeana replied.

"But you said he's almost fifty!"

"What difference should that make to him-or the Council?" Leeana asked. "He's a recent widower with four children, two of them boys, by his first wife, and the youngest is less than a year old. So it's obvious he can still sire sons."

She said it so reasonably that Kaeritha had to bite her own tongue hard. For just a moment, she was furious with Leeana because she did sound so reasonable. But then she made herself step back from her own anger. Leeana's tone was that of someone who knew the world in which she had been raised would find what she was saying reasonable, not of someone who agreed with it.

"Do you really think," the knight asked quietly after another brief pause, "that your father would let someone that age-anyone, regardless of who he's related to!-have you?"

"I don't think he'd do it willingly," Leeana said in a very low voice. "In fact, I think he'd probably refuse to do it at all, and I know he won't accept this offer. But in a way, knowing that only makes things worse."

She stared into Kaeritha's eyes, her own pleading for something. Sympathy, of course, but even more than that, for understanding.

"What do you mean, 'worse'?" she asked.

"Rulth Blackhill is a greedy, powerful man," Leeana replied. "He also has a reputation I'm not supposed to know anything about as someone who's abused his position as lord warden whenever his eye falls on one of his holder's attractive daughter . . . or wife," she added with a grimace. "But what matters most is that he's both ambitious and closely allied with his cousin and brother-in-law, Baron Cassan. And Baron Cassan and Father . . . don't get along. They don't like each other, they don't agree on most matters of policy, and Baron Cassan heads the Court faction most opposed to anything resembling 'appeasement' of the hradani. In fact, he almost convinced the King to deny Father's petition to strip Mathian Redhelm of his wardenship, and Blackhill supported him. The two of them-and the ones who think like them-would love to see Father's heir married off to one of Cassan's allies."

Her young face was taut with distaste and anger, and Kaeritha nodded slowly. Of course, judging by what Leeana had said about this Rulth Blackhill's reputation, the thought of bedding someone as lovely as Leeana probably figured in his thinking as well, the knight thought sardonically. Indeed, if he'd abused his authority the way Leeana was suggesting, the knowledge that she'd been forced to wed him against her will would only give the thought of forcing himself upon his political enemy's lovely only child a certain added savor for him.

"I'd think Cassan would have realized all of that would have made your father even less likely to accept Blackhill's offer," she said.

"He did," Leeana agreed. "In fact, he was probably counting on it."

"Now you have me really confused," Kaeritha admitted.

"Cassan hates Father, and he wants to discredit him in any way he can. And however I might feel about marrying someone Blackhill's age, it's a perfectly appropriate match by most standards."

"Even given what you just said about his abuse of his holders?" Kaeritha asked, cocking one eyebrow, and Leeana shrugged.

"Most of the Councilors have probably heard the reports about him and the women in his bed, Dame Kaeritha, but he's a lord warden. No one's going to want to bring something like that up, because they won't want their own reputations put under a glass and thrown up to them. So Cassan could be certain there'd be enormous pressure from several Council members for Father to accept, and very little support for him to refuse the offer. And if Father does refuse it, Cassan's supporters will urge the King to overrule him and order him to accept it. I know some people think Father's too clever to be caught out that way, but managing to avoid it may cost him dearly in terms of political support. Especially when he's already upset so many people by his 'surrender' to Prince Bahzell."

Kaeritha shook her head.

"That's too complicated and devious for my poor peasant-born brain to wrap itself around," she said. Leeana looked at her, and she snorted. "Oh, I don't say I disbelieve you, girl. And intellectually, I suppose I can even understand the twisty sort of thinking that would go into something like that. I just can't understand it on any sort of personal level."

"I wish I didn't," Leeana told her. "Or that I didn't have to, at least."

"I can believe that," Kaeritha said. She put some more wood on the fire, listening to the hiss as flames explored its damp surface. Then she looked back up at Leeana.

"So someone you don't like and certainly don't want to marry has asked your father for your hand, and you're afraid that when he refuses the offer, it will make serious problems for him. That's why you ran away?"

"Yes." Something about that one-word reply made Kaeritha cock an eyebrow. It wasn't a lie-that much she was certain of. Yet somehow she was certain it wasn't the entire truth, either. She thought about pushing harder, then changed her mind.

"And how does running away solve any of those problems?" she asked instead.

"I'd have thought that was obvious, Dame Kaeritha," Leeana said in a surprised tone.

"Humor me," Kaeritha said dryly. "Oh, I think I can figure out your basic strategy. I don't flatter myself that you followed me just to place yourself under my protection, champion of Tomanâk or not. So I suspect that what you're really doing is heading for Kalatha with some scatterbrained, romantic schoolgirl's notion of becoming a war maid in order to avoid your unwelcome suitor. Is that about right?"

"Yes, it is," Leeana said just a touch defensively.

"And have you really considered all you'll be giving up?" Kaeritha countered. "I've been a peasant, Lady Leeana. I doubt very much that your lot would be quite as hard among the war maids as mine was in Moretz, but it would be very, very different from anything you've ever experienced before. And there won't be any going back. Your birth and family won't protect you any longer-in fact, for all intents and purposes, you'll be dead as far as your family is concerned."

"I know," Leeana said very, very softly, staring into the fire once more. "I know." She raised her eyes to Kaeritha again. "I know," she repeated a third time, jade eyes brimming with tears. "But I also know Mother and Father will always love me, whether I'm still legally their daughter or not. Nothing will ever change that. And if I go to the war maids, I take the decision out of Father's hands. No one can possibly blame him for refusing to allow Blackhill to marry me if I'm no longer his daughter. And," she managed a crooked smile, "the disgrace of what I'm doing should put me so far beyond the pale that not even someone as ambitious as Rulth Blackhill would consider offering me honorable marriage."

"But you're not yet fifteen years old," Kaeritha said. She shook her head sadly. "That's too young to make this sort of decision, girl. I haven't known your father as long as you have, but I know he'd agree about that. You may be doing this for him, but do you really think he'd want you to?"

"I'm certain he wouldn't," Leeana admitted with a sort of forlorn pride. "He'll understand it, but that isn't the same as wanting me to do it. In fact, I'm pretty sure he and his armsmen are on the road behind me by now, and if he catches up, he'll believe he doesn't have any choice but to take me home again, whether I want to go or not. Because he loves me, and because, like you, he's going to argue that I'm too young to make this decision.

"But I'm not too young, according to the war maids' charter. I have the legal right to make that decision myself if I can reach one of their free-towns before Father catches up, and once it's made, he can't make me go home again, no matter how much he loves me or I love him. And if he can't make me go home, Blackhill and Cassan can't use me against him anymore, ever."

A tear broke free at last, spilling down her cheek, and Kaeritha drew a deep breath. Then she let it out again.

"Then I suppose we'd better turn in," she said. "I'm sure we can both use the sleep . . . and we'll have to make an early start if we're going to see to it that he doesn't catch up with us."

At least the rain had stopped when they broke camp in the morning. That was something, Kaeritha told herself as she swung lightly up into Cloudy's saddle and settled the butt of her quarterstaff into the stirrup bucket in which a more traditional knight would have braced her lance. In fact-she sucked in a deep, lung-filling draft of clear, cool morning air-it was quite a bit.

She'd watched Leeana as unobtrusively as possible as they went about preparing to take the road once more. The girl had been almost painfully ready to undertake any task, although it was obvious she'd never been faced with many of those tasks before in her life.

Like any Sothōii noble, male or female, she'd been thrown into a saddle about the same time she learned to stand up unassisted, and her horsemanship skills were beyond reproach. Her gelding, who rejoiced in a name even more highfaluting than "Dark War Cloud Rising," answered perfectly amiably to "Boots," and Kaeritha wondered if any Sothōii warhorse actually had to put up with its formal given name. However that might be, Boots (a bay brown who took his name from his black legs and the white stockings on his forelegs) was immaculately groomed, and his tack and saddle furniture were spotless, despite the wet and mud. Unfortunately, his rider was considerably less adept at others of the homey little chores involved in wilderness travel. At least she was willing, though, as Kaeritha had noted, and she took direction amazingly well for one of her exalted birth. All in all, Kaeritha was inclined to believe there was some sound metal in the girl.

And there had better be, the champion thought more grimly as she watched Leeana swing nimbly up into Boots' saddle. Kaeritha found herself unable to do anything but respect Leeana's motives, but the plain fact was that the girl couldn't possibly have any realistic notion of how drastically her life was about to change. It was entirely possible that, assuming she survived the shock, she would find her new life more satisfying and fulfilling. Kaeritha hoped she would, but the gulf which yawned between the daughter of someone who was arguably the most powerful feudal magnate in an entire kingdom and one more anonymous war maid, despised by virtually everyone in the only world she'd ever known, was far deeper than a fall from the Wind Plain's mighty ramparts might have been. Surviving that plunge would be a shattering experience-one fit to destroy any normal sheltered flower of noble femininity-however assiduously Leeana had tried to prepare herself for it ahead of time.

On the other hand, Kaeritha had never had all that much use for sheltered flowers of noble femininity. Was that the real reason she'd agreed to help the girl flee from the situation fate had trapped her into? A part of her wanted to think it was. And another part wanted to think she was doing this because it was the duty of any champion of Tomanâk to rescue the helpless from persecution. Given Leeana's scathing description of Rulth Blackhill and his reputation, it was impossible for Kaeritha to think of a marriage between him and the girl as anything but the rankest form of persecution, after all. "Marriage" or no, it would be no better than a case of legally sanctioned rape, and Tomanâk, as the God of Justice, disapproved of persecution and rape, however they were sanctioned. Besides, Leeana was right; she did have a legal right to make this decision . . . if she could reach Kalatha.

Both of those reasons were real enough, she thought. But she also knew that at the heart of things was another, still deeper reason. The memory of a thirteen-year-old orphan who'd found herself trapped into another, even grimmer life . . . until she refused to accept that sentence.

For a moment, Dame Kaeritha's sapphire-blue eyes were darker and deeper-and colder-than the waters of Belhadan Bay. Then the mood passed, and she shook herself like a dog, shaking off the water of memory, and gazed out through the cool, misty morning. The new-risen sun hovered directly in front of them, a huge, molten ball of gold, bisected by the hard, sharp line of the horizon. The morning mists rose to enfold it like steam from a forge, and the last of the previous day's clouds were high-piled ramparts in the south, their peaks touched with the same golden glow, as the brisk northerly wind continued to sweep them away. The road was just as muddy as it had been, but the day was going to be truly glorious, and she felt an eagerness stirring within her. The eagerness to be off and doing once again.

"Are you ready, Lady Leeana?" she asked.

"Yes," Leeana replied, urging Boots up beside Cloudy. Then she chuckled. Kaeritha cocked her head at the younger woman, and Leeana grinned. "I was just thinking that somehow it sounds more natural when you call me 'girl' than when you call me 'Lady Leeana,' " she explained in answer to Kaeritha's unspoken question.

"Does it?" Kaeritha snorted. "Maybe it's the peasant in me coming back to the surface. On the other hand, it might not be such a bad thing if you started getting used to a certain absence of honorifics."

She touched Cloudy very gently with a heel, and the mare started obediently forward. Leeana murmured something softly to Boots, and the gelding moved up at Cloudy's shoulder and fell into step with the mare, as if the two horses were harnessed together.

"I know," the girl said after several silent minutes. "That I should start getting used to it, I mean. Actually, I don't think I'll miss that anywhere near as much as I'll miss having someone to draw my bath and brush my hair." She held up a dirty hand and grimaced. "I've already discovered that there's quite a gap between reality and bard's tales. Or, at least, the bards seem to leave out some of the more unpleasant little details involved in 'adventures.' And the difference between properly chaperoned hunting trips, with appropriate armsmen and servants along to look after my needs, and traveling light by myself has become rather painfully clear to me."

"A few nights camping out by yourself in the rain will generally start to make that evident," Kaeritha agreed. "And I notice you didn't bring along a tent."

"No," Leeana said with another, more heartfelt grimace. "I had enough trouble getting my hands on a few days worth of trail rations without trying to bring along proper travel gear." She shivered. "That first night was really unpleasant," she admitted. "I never did get a fire started, and Boots needed my poncho worse than I did. He'd worked hard, and I didn't have anything else to rug him with."

"Hard to build a fire without dry wood," Kaeritha observed, carefully hiding a deep pang of sympathy. She pictured Leeana-a pampered young noblewoman, however much she might have wanted and striven to be something else-all alone in a cold, rainy night without a tent or a fire, or even the protection of her poncho. The girl had been right to use it to protect her heated horse, instead, but it must have been the most wretched night of her entire existence.

"Yes, I found that out." Leeana's grin was remarkably free of self-pity. "By the next morning, I'd figured out what I'd done wrong, so I spent about an hour finding myself a nice, dead log and hacking half a saddlebag of dry heartwood out of it with my dagger." She held up her right palm with a rueful chuckle, examining the fresh blisters which crossed it. "At least the exercise got me warmed up! And the next night, I had something dry to start the fire with. Heaven!"

She rolled her eyes so drolly Kaeritha had no choice but to laugh. Then she shook her head severely, returned her attention to the road, and asked Cloudy for a trot. The mare obliged, with the smooth gait which was steadily becoming addictive, and they moved off in a brisk, steady splatter of mud.

Yes, Kaeritha thought, treasuring green eyes that could laugh at their owner's own wet, cold, undoubtedly frightened misery. Yes, there is sound metal in this one, thank Tomanâk.