In the Caves of Exile Read online

  'I know. Eya's words should have reassured you. And the Nasath had a hand to that blade. Perhaps they themselves gave it the power of her name. Would they put, a blade in your hands that would enslave you?’

  “I don't know.” Silence. “I know Eya believes otherwise.”

  'Then trust what she says. Do you think she lies to you?’

  Ylia shook her head reluctantly. “No. It's only that—”

  'Don't say it. You spoke with him, could he have done such a thing to you?’

  “You meet with Nesrevera once, and you know this for truth?”

  'Hush, silly thing. I've always known it. You know it, or would if your brains weren't mushed with fear.’ And, as Ylia pulled back indignantly onto one elbow, ‘You've already told me it frightens you. I've seen as much. Why deny it, what shame is there in admitted fear, if you deal with it?’

  “Cat, you just can't have seen what it did!”

  'Of course I saw. It slays with the Power—not the Baelfyr, though it's like. Do you fear the Baelfyr? Well?’ Ylia reluctantly shook her head. ‘Well, then.’ Silence. ‘You used it without the shield to dampen its strength. Was that anyone's fault but yours?’

  “How should I know to carry a shield, Nisana? No one said, there was nothing to tell me I must! I've never fought with a shield, even in practice with Marhan!”

  'Well, now you know,’ the cat replied shortly. ‘I would begin bearing them together, if I were you. At least you'll have no trouble keeping the sword away from the man, will you?’

  “Thank all the Mothers at once for that. With luck I'll never see him again.”

  The words lodged themselves somewhere deep in the cat's inner being, and stuck there uncomfortably. That's not so—gods grant me no foreseeing for this child! But it faded even as she could feel the least edge of a sense of some thing that would come to pass. Grief and exhaustion was all she could tell, and even that was gone as she tried to make sense of it. Use what is given to you, she urged herself tartly. ‘Sleep,’ she offered Ylia, ‘and try not to dream of your gallant hunter,’ she added dryly as she curled into Ylia's cloak. ‘Erken would not find him at all a suitable addition to his lists.’ Ylia levered onto an elbow again and sent her a scorching look, rolled back into the covers. Nisana's humor was a curious and seldom thing, and lead-heavy.

  The sun was warm on the courtyard before she came down the next morning. In the square, twenty-five young women were waiting, and the smiths had been busy, for fully half of them now had their own blades. It made a difference. Lisabetha, who had managed grimly with the heavier blade, made astonishing progress with her new one, enough that after a brief break for water, Ylia set her and Eveya to teaching the basic crossings to another group of girls while she explained more advanced maneuvers. Marhan and Golsat, on their way to the docks from the barracks, stopped as they broke a second time.

  “Damn me for a fool, they're good, boy,” the Swordmaster finally admitted.

  “Good enough that you'll finally help me?” Ylia inquired with a grin.

  “Why? You have ’em in hand!” The old man replied with obvious glee.

  “For now. There are three other groups, four times the number who want to learn, and only one of me.”

  “I'll aid,” Golsat offered. “I spoke for it in council. I'll back that, with action.”

  “Huh.” Marhan shook his head. “I've my hands full, anyway, and Golsat knows as much as I do.” Enough for women, anyway. That hung between them unspoken.

  “Probably more,” Ylia said sweetly. Thrust for thrust, you hidebound old man! “He's younger and can hold to his feet longer.”

  Marhan chuckled in appreciation. “In fact, unless you need him to get you down to the River, I can use him right now.”

  “I think I can find the docks alone, brain's all it ever was.” With a last dark look at the females gathered around the water buckets, he strode off. Golsat waited prudently until he passed the far end of the bridge before he laughed.

  “Gods and Mothers but he's an odd one!”

  “I know,” Ylia returned.

  “He speaks with pride of what you're doing. Don't trust what he says to your face.”

  “No, I never do. I know him. Thanks for your aid.”

  “Pleasure. Now, how do you want to divide them?”

  “I'll stay with the novices. You can take the more advanced. Lisabetha's among them.”

  “Good. That leaves you,” Golsat eyes them as they spread out again and began the practice sets, “Levren's delightful daughter. Better still!”

  “Now, whatever,” Ylia laughed, “could you have against sweet Lennett? She's hardly arrived from Yls. What could she have done?”

  “Sweet,” the dark man grunted. “Sweet, she says! I've ridden herd-guard with her three times already. Sweet, she says! She'll alienate half the valley before fall with that mouth and that attitude of hers!”

  “She's eager, that's all. She wants sword-training, always has, and she's over-anxious to make up what she sees as wasted years,”

  “Hah. Someone had better tell her to watch herself. Hard to believe she's Lev's child: the man's never said four rude words in his life, and he never takes offense.”

  “No.” He fears, poor Lev. But he could control the debilitating fear of foreigners, and when he couldn't control it, he carefully absented himself. Even so, he'd taught some of Tr'Harsen men bow. Only a few of them realized what it cost him, and the Narrans not at all. Golsat knew; he'd faced the brunt of the Bowmaster's xenophobia until close contact, chance and a Mathkkra sword had nearly separated them for good. And Levren had been there for him.

  Lennett—Dragon of a daughter, Lev had called her, and now Ylia could see that high-strung edge in the girl that had led him to compare her to Lisabetha. There was a passionate streak in both of them, a cutting edge sharper than most folk had. Ylia wasn't certain she liked the friendship that had sprang up between Lennett and the orphaned Danila, either: Danila had an edge of her own that Lennett would only encourage. Then again, because of Lennett, Dani had given over her determination to remain at all times with the herds and had accepted Levren's and his wife Ilderian's fostering. One more in Lev's lively brood was hardly noticed.

  “I see her mother's managed to keep her clad like a girl,” Golsat went on. “Lev says she's kept the household upset since her arrival. She wants breeches like yours.”

  “Poor Lev.”

  “No, poor Ilderian. She's no control over the girl.”

  “It's not likely anything Ilderian could have done would change that. Look at me, think of my poor mother.” Ylia glanced out across the novice swordswomen: Lennett there, tall and blade-slender, blade-tough. The shirt was loose, the sleeves modestly wrist-length, her riding skirt too full for proper freedom of motion. The girl wasn't letting it slow her at all, and her face was truly fierce with concentration. “If Lennett gets her breeches, she'll have earned them. All right, you first levels! Sets of two, four full patterns, move it!” Golsat shook his head and moved to join the waiting advanced girls.

  They finished just short of noon-hour. Golsat went back to the barracks for his meal, Ylia returned to the Tower. It was cool in the high-ceilinged hall, pleasant in the small dining chamber where Malaeth brought her a plate with cold meat and bread, with a handful of long-stemmed onions. A jug of wine and one of water stood at her elbow, together with a silver-handled Ylsan glass goblet that had been a gift from one of the Koderran survivors. She ate quickly, and stared out the open window across the river. As far as one could see, there was activity, despite the mid-day heat: Women knelt to weed or plant; others were handing bundles of grasses up to roofers. A steady hammering formed a background of noise, and as she watched, a high-sided, flat-bottomed barge slid by the window, two grey-bearded men poling it down to the Aresada while a third sat in the front with the tiller.

  She drained the cup, refilled it with plain water; and read the note Lisabetha had tucked under her knife that morning: Breakfast with
the Narrans. Discuss ale. Sword lessoning. Noon-meal. Weavers’ barn. Lossana had got the builders to put up a house near the barracks, past the market, and had installed the Aresada looms in it. It was an idea she'd taken from the Koderran crafters, who said it was common in Yslar to group crafters in such buildings. More efficient, perhaps; the grouping of spinners, weavers, dyers at Aresada had certainly made for pleasant work, with so many other women to talk to while the work went on.

  Meetings, then: Grewl. She worried about him; she hadn't had much chance to talk to him of late, and she heard all too many rumors about factioning among the Chosen. Even Tr'Harsen had said something, just before they left the Caves: “Watch that man, the pale-eyed one. He expected messages from Osnera, he was pestering me for any that might have come in for him or the old man. He's planning trouble.” She couldn't doubt that. Whether she could do anything about it, though—Grewl was reluctant to take control of those buildings out there north of town. Perhaps she should apply pressure, if she could, and see that he did. They couldn't afford upheaval; she couldn't afford Jers setting policy for the Chosen, not now.

  After Grewl, Council, which now included the men who had advised her father, newly arrived from Yslar. The table was getting crowded, these days. She'd have to break out a separate, sub-council, one to rapidly deal with things the Koderran councilers didn't yet understand: Marhan, Levren, Erken and Corlin. Those who knew the risks they faced, here deep in the Foessa.

  Another meeting just after, With Levren and Marhan—Queen's Bow and Swordmasters—to keep a finger on the pulse that was all Nedao's armed.

  She grimaced. A meeting with certain middle-aged village men: Eveya's father, and all too many like him, who disapproved of swordswomen but had not yet actively forbidden their daughters to learn They wouldn't dare, of course, not with their Queen as an example. But it made bad feeling all the same. And how I'm to deal with it, to reassure them and to make it so they don't leave full of resentment at having been manipulated by another young girl—no matter what her station. Ugh! She dismissed the thought. It was guaranteed to put her off lunch.

  After evening meal, yet another meeting: Erken, Corlin. With Midsummer Fest a matter of days away, and with the Narran embassy on its way, there was still planning to be done for both. Contestings: They'd decided, already, that the standard sword and bow crossings would go on as they always had; that was as much a matter of pride to her as to any of them. But they still needed to finalize what contests would be held, now many bouts, where each would be set, what times: things she'd always taken for granted, it amazed her the amount of planning and work that went into them.

  She'd decided on her own that the traditional prizes of silver coin and ribbon to the winners would be awarded as usual. The coins would come from the dowry, and she feared Erken would wrangle with her over it. But there wasn't much they could buy with such a small handful of silver, from Nar or anywhere else, nothing that would bring so much happiness. It seemed to her a tiny price to pay for the semblance of normalcy, and the Mothers knew they needed that.

  Grewl: She kept coming back to him. The old man still wouldn't take leadership of the Nedaoan Chosen, though it had been offered to him by an enclave of them. He held that he hadn't been yet confirmed as Nedaoan by Osnera. Osnera, in fact, was keeping all too quiet about the situation in Nedao, though Tevvro must have reached his people a time since.

  She didn't doubt they'd act. Grewl didn't. And he worried, she knew, that they'd try to bring the Nedaon house back to the narrow line held by the Heirocracy, something totally impractical in Nedao, considering the Osneran line against, witchery, and Nedao's Queen.

  In the meantime, he and Jers watched each other closely, the Chosen watched both.

  Was Vess in Osnera now? What, she wondered, would he do there? Was he hoping to come back to Nedao with the support of the Heirocracy and wrest the ruling from her that way? Stay there, cousin. Live longer. Her hands twitched-themselves into fists. Or don't stay, come back and this time you'll fight me. This time I won't let Brel and Marhan set aside common sense. Come back, and let me repay the debt I owe you. Blood-debt, but your blood.

  And then, a last matter: Erken and his maledictable list. But he wouldn't be put aside any longer. If he thinks I'll wed and produce offspring while we sit surrounded by danger, he's mad, and I'll tell him so flatly! How had such as Leffna dealt with such things? Set aside her sword when her body became awkward and only picked it up after the child no longer depended on her? Such few other swordswomen she knew of—Hrusetta, Adiadda, Shelagn—had died young and childless. I hope, she thought sourly, that's no omen, and warded herself with Golsat's luck gesture as she pushed back from the table.

  I shall spare you humans a recitation of what one cat finds attractive about another, or even what an AEldra cat finds to attract him or herself to another of cat-kind, AEldra or not. It certainly is little like human attraction, which seems so often based upon a gown, sight of a beaded slipper under the hem of that gown, loosened hair that has been seen for so long plaited. Fortunate indeed that that is the beginning of human attraction, and not the whole of it, but even as a beginning it is highly amusing to one who knows the proper things to look for in a mate, AND at first meeting.

  21

  It was with grave misgivings that she prepared for the formal reception of the Narran Embassy. This, more than anything else, brought upon her with unnerving force the fact that She ruled. There was no Brandt, no Scythia, this time, to take Obeisance from the Ambassador while she stood scarcely noted at her father's side. She had run over the ritual receiving words with Erken, again and again and was muttering them to herself one last time as the women installed her in a deep green dress that clung smoothly to shoulders and breast—she was acutely aware of them in such thin and close garb—and fell free to the tops of her soft beaded slippers. Her hair was shaken free of its usual plaits, brushed in a dark gold ripple down her back until it shone; half was drawn back over her ears to a high knot and the rest let hang. Two wild roses were twined in the knot, a ring of beaten silver and malachite set at her throat. The hair was topped; then, with the crown that had replaced the gold band Bos had fashioned for her when she arrived at Aresada. This was not large, a delicate tracery of wire and fine-work, its only show the three emeralds above her forehead.

  She worried, though she and Nisana both had searched, long and hard, before she changed. And she was angered by that worry. It made everyone happy to bare her clad properly for this reception. Truthfully, she felt better about receiving such an important man as Ber'Sordes at least looking royal. But—

  But. Even with no clear-cut cause for it, she worried. It hadn't helped that Marhan and Erken were both trying to force promises from her that she'd stop fighting. How could she? A Nedaoan ruler fought at the head of the army, not commanding from the rear or from a table safe within the Tower, spending lives while his own hide was safe. Her people knew that, so did she. Erken had been stiff with displeasure when she'd reminded him.

  They can't stop me. They should know better than to try. Because I'm Nedao's first Queen in five hundred years doesn't have to mean that everything changes. And it won't. She brought her full attention back to her women, who were exclaiming over their finished product.

  She turned, stood in surprise as Lisabetha held the mirror. Mothers, is that me? It had been long, seemed longer, since she had worn women's clothing, and the person who stared back at her was a stranger. I have lost weight. She eyed herself critically, turned a little. Hair swirled around her shoulders, settled to the small of her back. And my hair's grown, never trust Malaeth, plaiting's been good for it. Overall—well, She was clean, at least, and they'd done their best for her. I'll never look as Mother did, when she received Narrans. I'll do, though. The Narrans settled back into her stomach in an icy knot.

  Lisabetha stowed the precious mirror, came back to tuck a stray hair away and settle the neck ring straight. “I'd forgotten how wonderful you look in green.�
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  “My thanks. I'd forgotten how naked one feels in a dress like this, and without a sword.” She smiled. The dagger was cool against the inside of her leg; not even Lisabetha knew it was there, and Malaeth had fortunately not sensed it. “I suppose I don't need it for the Narrans.”

  “No,” Lisabetha agreed gravely. “If you're not warm enough, there's the short cloak for this.”

  “I'm warm enough and there'll be people and probably a fire in the dining hall. You're coming down with me, of course.”

  “Well, I—”

  “Malaeth should, too, but she doesn't care for formal dinners anymore. She says her appetite's not up to them. You can't think to let me go down unattended.”

  “Brelian and Erken are going to escort you, remember?”

  “Unattended,” Ylia interrupted dryly, “by another female, of course. You're as bad as I am, forgetting all the roles. It's custom and honor, of course, and you're protecting my virtue.” Lisabetha giggled, she laughed. “Let's go, before I lose my nerve.”

  They walked down the hall to the stairs in a companionable silence. Somewhere below, there was a muted ramble of speech, but in the main hall itself, only two of her door-warders, Erken, and Brelian. She halted briefly. Erken gazed up at her in unconcealed pride; Brelian stared in amazement, became aware he was staring and dropped his eyes. He was red to the ears. Is this how it happens, that friends and companions suddenly see the gap between my station and theirs, and become titles and stations of lesser placing than my own? It saddened her to think it, that Brel might see himself henceforth as Queen's Champion and picture a chasm between them. Not if I can prevent it, she decided firmly, and went down to meet them.

  The tall Anaselan bowed low over her fingers, and she winked across his back at Brelian, who managed one in response, and then, across her shoulder, sent another to his intended. “It's only me, Brel,” she said as Erken straightened. “As ever.”