For a week, Kevin had known Hokanu, now heir to the Rulership of his House, would be visiting. Mara had been cryptic about the reasons, but gossip around the estate said plainly that the Shinzawai son came to pay court to Mara, seeking an alliance bonded by ties of marriage.
Kevin snapped a switch off a tree branch and angrily whacked the heads off a few flowers. The motion pulled at the scars on his back and shoulder; irrationally, he longed for a practice sword and a few hours of hard physical workout. Yet despite his heroic defence on Mara’s behalf, after the night of the bloody swords the members of the household behaved as though the incident had never happened. His status remained unchanged, in that he was not trusted to handle even a kitchen knife. Despite his years of association with Mara and her councillors, the Tsurani mind adhered to tradition against logic, against feeling, and against even healthy growth.
Patrick’s obsession with escape held a certain commoner’s wisdom, Kevin allowed. He smacked the bud off another flower, then another, and scowled at the row of razed stems that swayed unprotesting at his abuse. He had not checked up on his countrymen in far too long. His self-disgust deepened further when he realized he did not know the work roster. He would have to ask an overseer to find out which field they were assigned to.
The stick remained clenched in white fingers as Kevin left the pleasant shade of Mara’s gardens and marched through open sunlight in the meadows beyond. He heard the bright trill of her laughter at his back, and then imagined the sound over again as he walked to the distant acres of the needra field he had fenced with his companions so many years before.
There Patrick and the sun-browned crew of Midkemians crouched on their knees in the heat, pulling matasha weeds, which choked out the nutritious grass the needra required for fattening.
Kevin tossed away his stick, vaulted the split-rail fence, and jogged across the pasture to where Patrick hunkered down, twisting spiny stalks around his palm, then uprooting them with a jerk from the stubborn earth. The broad-shouldered former fighter had weathered to the colour of old leather under the hotter Tsurani sky. His eyes had developed a permanent squint. Without looking up, he said, ‘Thought you might pay us a visit.’
Kevin knelt down at Patrick’s side and companionably hauled up a weed. ‘And why is that?’
‘You’ll slit the skin on your fingers, doing it that way,’ Patrick observed. ‘Got to break the fibres of the stalks first, like this.’ He demonstrated with hands welted with brown callus, then picked up his former train of thought. ‘You usually tend to remember us when you’ve had a row with your lady friend.’
‘And what makes you think I’ve had a row?’ Unamused, Kevin tugged at another weed.
‘Well, for one thing, you’re here, old son.’ The older fighter sat back a moment and wiped sweat from his temple on his bare shoulder. ‘For another, she’s got a gentleman caller, from the talk going around.’
At a shout from the other side of the field, Patrick bunched his shoulders. ‘Slave master’s expecting us to work, old son.’ He shuffled forward on his knees and grasped another stalk. ‘Have you noticed how the plants here never stop looking wrong?’
Kevin ripped out a large matasha weed and inspected it. ‘Nothing like this at home.’ The broad leaves flared out from willowy stalks, orange-tinged at the edges, and veined in faint lavender.
Patrick jerked his thumb at the pasture. ‘But this grass -just like ours in Midkemia, well, most of it, anyway. Timothy, rye, alfalfa, though the runts have odd names for them.’ He peered at Kevin. ‘Do you find it strange, old son? Have you ever wondered how things could be so much alike, yet so different?’
Kevin paused and ruefully inspected a cut on the heel of his hand. ‘It makes my head hurt sometimes. These people —’
‘Yes, there’s more of a puzzle,’ Patrick interrupted. ‘Sometimes the Tsurani are cruel, and others, tender as babes. They’ve got natures as tangled as a goblin’s.’
Kevin blotted blood on his trousers and reached for another weed.
‘Wreck your hands, doing that. You’re not used to work,’ Patrick chided. Then in a lowered voice, he added, ‘We’ve been laying about for a year since you got back, Kevin. Some of the boys are thinking it’s better to leave you behind.’
Discomforted by runnels of sweat that soaked his shirt, Kevin sighed. ‘You still thinking about escape?’
Patrick looked hard at his countryman. ‘I’m a soldier, boy, I’m not sure I’d rather die than grub around in the dirt, but I know I’d rather fight.’
Kevin tugged at his collar laces, exasperated. ‘Fight whom?’
‘Whoever comes after us.’ Patrick hauled another weed. ‘Anybody who tries to stop us.’
Kevin shrugged his shirt off over his shoulders. The hot sun burned on his back. ‘I’ve talked to a few of the boys around here who were grey warriors before swearing loyalty to Mara. Those mountains aren’t so friendly. The poor sods already living up there aren’t eating well.’