“Entertaining,” Sasha remarked as they walked from beneath the gates of Halleryn. “Nothing like a bit of open hostility to develop the appetite.”
“I've had worse meals,” Damon muttered, tugging on his riding gloves for warmth.
“When?” Sasha asked, pulling her cloak more firmly about her.
“Anytime someone thinks it a grand idea to get me together with Maryd Banys of Ranash, and her mother.”
Sasha frowned at that. The sound of the wind above the vast, moonless dark of the lake held an eerie power. Yet, for all the frozen chill of the open night, it was a relief indeed to be free of that hall and the dark stares and muttered, suspicious conversation about the long table. “Maryd is the eldest daughter?” she asked.
Damon grunted in reply.
“I've made her acquaintance,” Jaryd remarked helpfully. He'd been attempting to appear untroubled all night but, to Sasha's eye, he looked unsettled. For a young man previously uninterested in the lordly affairs of Lenayin, such encounters were surely a lot to digest. “She's very pretty, think you not, Prince Damon?”
“Aye, she's pretty,” Damon muttered. “The wits of a chicken and the charm of a leech, but she's pretty. Dinner with Krayliss was a pleasant affair compared to that.” Sasha shot Kessligh a glance and could have sworn she saw him smile.
“So Father wishes you to marry a Ranash girl?” Sasha questioned further, with considerable distaste. “A northerner?”
“Koenyg's idea,” Damon said, gazing off across the dark lake as the road approached the shore.
“Two northern sisters-in-law,” Sasha said with displeasure. “I'm not sure I could stand it. Wyna Telgar is enough.”
“Poor girl,” Damon retorted. “You wouldn't have to share her bed for the rest of your life, you've nothing to complain about.”
“I think we must be talking of two different Maryd Banyses,” Jaryd said quizzically. “The girl I mean is sweet-faced, black-haired with blue eyes and a full bosom…”
“And what interesting topics have you discussed with her, Master Jaryd?” Damon asked. “Have you spent more than a heartbeat in her presence? Or merely admired her bosom from afar?”
“It's a very nice bosom, Your Highness.”
“Master Jaryd never met a bosom with which he couldn't hold a conversation,” said Sasha with a sideways glance.
Jaryd grinned. “Yours is disappointingly quiet.”
“You just haven't asked it the right questions.” Jaryd laughed. “These treaties of marriage are ludicrous,” Sasha continued. “Ranash will obey the throne simply because their lord's daughter shares a prince's bed? Hadryn's behaviour has barely changed since Koenyg married Wyna…and little Dany now gives them a Hadryn in the line of succession.”
“The other lords will not be happy if I marry another northern girl,” said Damon. Her brother's eyes were joyless in the wind-blown torchlight. Damon the petulant, he'd been called before. Lately, however, he'd been Damon the grim. “This line of princes was going to be a rich vein to be mined, but Krystoff died and Wylfred now thinks to take the holy vows, and suddenly, with Koenyg wedded, five available princes are only two. It's just me and Myklas left, and I fear the competition will be fierce.”
“It's the creeping feudalisation of Lenayin,” said Kessligh.
Jaryd frowned. “The what?”
“Before King Soros,” said Kessligh, “there were no lords and titles, just chieftains, clans and regional allegiances that split into warfare as often as they came together. But Soros didn't only bring the gods from the lowlands, he also brought nobility, land titles and all the rest. He thought he was bringing civilisation to the barbarians. Lowlands civilisation. Now, the lords see that their powers do not match those of their lowlands cousins and they push for more. In the name of civilisation, of course.”
“It'll never work,” Sasha said firmly. “Lord Aynsfar of Neysh tried it just a few years ago, brought a hundred hire-swords from the lowlands and declared himself ruler of his ‘ancestral lands’. But Goeren-yai came from near and far, killed his hire-swords and took his head. No man or woman of Lenayin will be anyone's serf—it might be the lowlands way, but not here.”
“You're talking of the murder of Lord Aynsfar!” Jaryd realised, suddenly aghast. “How can you…how can you approve of that barbarity? They tied him down and took his limbs one joint at a time until…”
“I heard it was a swift blow to the neck,” Sasha interrupted, turning to walk backward on the undulating grass, facing him. “I also heard that he was warned repeatedly, but gave only threats in return. Do the lowlands ways appeal to you, Jaryd? Would you like to inherit lands for your family? Allow minor lords to levy the royal tax instead of the king?”
Jaryd gave a protesting smile, but Damon's eyes were now on him as well, and curious. “I…I hadn't given it that much thought…but, I mean, what's the harm? Lowlands customs work very well and…”
“In the lowlands they work well,” said Damon.
“No harm?” Sasha added, incredulously. “Would you like to be ruled by a succession of lords, ladies and knights even before we get to Baen-Tar royalty? It was a great enough feat to get ordinary Lenays to swear allegiance to one king in Baen-Tar, you'd add all these other fools on top of that and expect them to accept it?”
“But…” Jaryd was flustered now. Sasha doubted he'd ever been challenged to justify his own privilege before in his life. “But the noble families already have authority over their regions…”
“Horse shit,” said Sasha. “The nobles derive their authority from the king and from each other, and that's only if they pray to the lowlands gods and have loads and loads of money to begin with. No one ever asked the rural folk, Jaryd. In their eyes, the nobility is just another strange little clan, all interbred and foreign, and nothing to do with their daily lives.
“They pay taxes to the king because he's the king, and the small tax to the provincial lords because they're the king's men, and because it occasionally does some good with roads and irrigation channels and bridges and the like. The rest of them are just dogs around the dinner table as far as the villagers are concerned, whining for scraps.”
“But a noble lord offers protection to his people with his forces!” Jaryd protested.
“In the Bacosh, they use armies paid for by the peasants’ coin to murder and terrorise them,” Sasha said firmly, still walking backward. “In the Bacosh, the ordinary folk have neither the weapons nor the skills to fight back. Lenayin is vastly different. They don't need your protection, Jaryd, and they certainly don't want it, and they'll fight you tooth and nail if you try to impose it upon them.”
She nearly spoiled her speech by tripping on uneven ground, stumbling to recover her balance. “Just…please,” she added, skipping sideways, “as a favour to me, look about you on this ride. Talk to your low-ranked men. Insist they be honest with you. It's not only sad that you should misunderstand your own people, it's dangerous.”
They crossed the wooden bridge once more, the Hadryn camp laid before them, a flickering line of campfires and shadowy activity.
“My Lords,” said one of the Royal Guards as they approached the main line of tents, drawing their attention forward. Rising from the light of a large campfire were a small cluster of well-dressed Hadryn men, buckles and clasps gleaming in the firelight. They strode forward, a wall of weaponry and self-importance.
“Did your negotiations go well, Prince Damon?” came the loud voice of Usyn Telgar. Some of his men laughed with ugly humour. “Negotiation,” in the northern tongues, had never been an honourable word. It reeked of compromise and cowardice. The Royal Guard stopped and parted, Damon coming forward to confront the young Telgar directly.
“Well enough,” Damon said. “Did you wish to raise some matter with me?”
“Your sister,” said another man, with great sarcasm, “appears to claim the title of saviour of the Goeren-yai!” The new speaker was dressed in the travelling finery of northern nobility, short-haired with a little, trimmed goatee. He'd been drinking, Sasha judged. They all had. “A message arrived from Perys just now, apparently she inflicted great carnage there in the name of pagan spirits! These claims are an insult and, in the name of the devout House of Varan, I demand an apology!”
“You'll get nothing,” Damon replied. “My sister is not responsible for the claims others make. I suggest, Master Farys Varan, that you do not raise your voice in her direction again.”
“Pah!” Farys spat, with a blaze of anger. “She ceased to be a Verenthane princess when she left Baen-Tar! You have no brotherly claim on her honour, Prince of Baen-Tar! These pagan lies dishonour the names of brave Hadryn warriors who die for the honour of their gods! Do not defend her, sir! She comes here upon our lands and she has the temerity to claim victories over Verenthane warriors after joining forces with barbarian scum to celebrate their deaths!”
“Your lands, Master Farys?” Damon replied, darkly furious. “We stand upon the lands of Taneryn. Do you claim them?”
Sasha's gaze ran along the line of Hadryn faces. All, clearly, were of noble Hadryn families. Their ages varied, from hot-headed youngsters, to cold-eyed, calculating elders. Sasha wondered, her heart assuming a familiar, unpleasant rhythm, if they'd put Master Farys up to it. There were an increasing number of armed men gathering behind to watch.
“We claim no lands,” Usyn Telgar said coldly, his face strained as though withholding some great outburst. “We claim only the satisfaction of avenging our lord…”
“I claim more!” shouted Master Farys, stepping forward to thrust an accusing finger past Damon's shoulder at Sasha…and Sasha noted the silver-haired man at Farys's side give a cold, satisfied smile at the outburst. Farys's eyes were blazing, his face flushed red. “I demand an apology from this false princess! The honour of Hadryn has been slighted! If it were not enough that the god-fearing men of Lenayin had to suffer the insult of a cowardly, woman-chasing, pagan-loving fool of an heir named Krystoff for so long, is it now our fate that we must suffer his sister's—”
Sasha snapped and abruptly strode forward with a hand moving to her shoulder. Kessligh grabbed her arm, but she smacked it away with her other hand, spinning clear to draw her blade as weapons rang clear in the night air all around. Before any could move to strike, Sasha drew back her arm and hurled the sword point-first into the turf before Master Farys's feet. All froze, staring at the quivering blade.
“This dawn, Master Farys,” Sasha said icily, “I challenge you to defend your honour.”
For a long moment, there was only the shuddering whistle of the wind and the flapping of banners. Then Farys laughed, high and slightly hysterical. “You challenge me to a duel?” Disbelievingly. “I cannot fight a woman!”
“Then you are a coward!” Sasha snarled.
Farys turned pure white, his newly drawn blade trembling within his hands. “I should strike you down where you stand, whore!”
“With your guards and friends to back your flanks?” Sasha said contemptuously. “Need you so much assistance to defeat a single girl?” Farys's mouth worked open and closed in soundless fury. “No answer? Will you not accept? Snivelling, whining, bed-wetting coward?”
Farys's clenched teeth parted and he let out a great, shuddering roar…yet did not advance. Sasha knew, from the darting eyes of the Hadryn before her, that Kessligh was close at her back, blade at the ready. That alone would make even the bravest, angriest, drunkest warrior think twice.
“I accept!” Farys bit out, hoarse with effort. “Tomorrow at dawn, the lies and myths of the Goeren-yai princess die!”
The silver-haired man at Farys's shoulder placed a hand upon the younger man's arm, lowering his weapon with a final look of cold satisfaction. Farys's trembling hand lowered and he thrust past his companions toward the campfire. All about, there came the sound of sliding steel as blades retreated into sheaths, the line of Hadryn nobility fading back, their departing expressions both angry and smug.
“Sasha?” Damon said cautiously, stepping forward to stand at her side as she retrieved her sword from the turf, and wiped dirt from the end. “Sasha, what did you just do?”
“I defended Krystoff's honour,” Sasha said shortly. Her heart was beating hard, but not with the fevered thumping of fear or excitement. This was colder, more calculating. Damon just stared at her, greatly pained. And it occurred to Sasha then, with only a mild surprise, that he feared for her life.
“Sasha, that was Farys Varan, son of Udys Varan! He's…he's known by all to be one of Hadryn's finest swordsmen…”
“Forget it,” Kessligh said grimly, taking a place at Sasha's side, eyeing the retreating Hadryn with calculation. “Farys's a corpse. It's what happens after he's dead that worries me.”
Sasha could hear the hard displeasure in his voice. She didn't care. When the fury caught her like this, she rarely did.