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 Sothoii 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 one thing she had never been able to do was cook. 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 the eye when she contemplated her own efforts.
She grimaced and sat back on her heels under the cover of her open-fronted tent. She"d positioned the tent and her fire with the careful 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 soddeness 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 unb.u.t.toned the straps across the quillons of her matched 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 surpa.s.sed her understanding. For a moment, she thought that perhaps Cloudy hadn"t heard anything, but then she saw the rider emerging ghostlike 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 Sothoii was, by and
large, peaceful and law-abiding . . . these days, at least. It hadn"t always been so, though, and there were still occasional brigands or outlaws, despite the ruthless justice n.o.bles 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 Tomanak"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.
That horse was almost as good as Cloudy, and no prudent horse thief would dare to keep such a readily recognizable and remarked animal for himself. Which didn"t bring her any closer to being able to guess what the newcomer was doing out here in the rain with night coming on.
"h.e.l.lo, 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."h.e.l.lo, 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 the fact that you look more like a half-starved, half-drowned, mud-spattered rat then the heir of one of the kingdom"s most powerful n.o.bles, 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 had the grace to blush 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 ever so slightly, 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 received a formal offer for my hand the night after you left Hill Guard," she said.
It was Kaeritha"s turn to sit back on her heels. She"d been afraid it might be 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 quite 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?" Leeana asked simply, and Kaeritha stared at her.
"Because he"s three times your age, that"s why!"
"He"s also incredibly 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 Ca.s.san," Leeana replied.
"But you said he"s almost fifty!"
"What difference does that make?" 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
children-preferably 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 a full pace from her own anger. Leeana"s tone was that of someone who knew that the world in which she had been raised would find what she was saying reasonable, not that 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 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. But I can"t be certain. And even if he did refuse, it would only make things worse."
She stared into Kaeritha"s eyes, her own pleading for something. Sympathy, Kaeritha thought, but that was only a part of it. Possibly even the smallest part. No. What Leeana wanted wasn"t sympathy-it was understanding.
"What do you mean, "worse"?" she asked.
"Rulth Blackhill is a greedy, powerful man," Leeana replied. "He"s ambitious, and he"s very closely allied with his cousin and brother-in-law, Baron Ca.s.san. And Baron Ca.s.san and Father . . . don"t get along. They don"t like each other, they don"t agree on most matters of policy, and Baron Ca.s.san is the leader of the faction at Court most opposed to anything resembling "appeas.e.m.e.nt" of the hradani. In fact, it was Ca.s.san who almost convinced the King to deny Father"s pet.i.tion 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 Ca.s.san"s allies."
Her young face was taut with distaste and anger, and Kaeritha nodded slowly. Of course, unless this Rulth Blackhill was unlike any other man she"d ever met, the thought of bedding someone as lovely as Leeana would probably figure in his thinking as well, the knight thought sardonically. But this might not be the best time in the world to be bringing that up.
"I"d think that Ca.s.san would realize that all of that would make your father even less likely to accept Blackhill"s offer," she said instead.
"He probably does," Leeana agreed. "In fact, he"s probably counting on it."
"Now you have me really confused," Kaeritha admitted."Ca.s.san hates Father. He also wants to discredit Father with the King and his Council 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. Given the fact that everyone knows Balthar and the entire West Riding is going to face a succession crisis when Father dies-unless he"s prepared to set Mother aside and marry someone else who can give him sons-there would be enormous pressure from several members of the Council for him to accept it. They"d argue that Balthar is too important for the succession to be left up in the air when such an appropriate marriage to a n.o.bleman of mature years who"s already demonstrated his own abilities-and potency-stands ready to resolve it. So if Father does refuse the offer, 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 the flames began exploring 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 if he refuses the offer it will make serious problems for him. That"s why you ran away?"
"Yes." There was something about that one-word reply that made Kaeritha c.o.c.k 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.