Hunting (10 page)

"Well, Visel, in a way it is. Back when
that one was only a few weeks old, we had her in a paddock with a
big old lean-over tree." Bendress held an arm up to demonstrate the
angle. "One day we went down and there she was up the wrong end of
it! Caused a great set-to, with us trying to figure how to get to
her without spooking her into a fall, and the mother fussing around
the base of the trunk and going all leery-eyed. But, after watching
us arguing it out long enough to get hot-tempered, down the foal
trots, sweet as you please. She'd never manage it now, of
course."

"Really?" Ash was delighted with the
tale. Ignoring the animals selected for her, she leaned across the
fence and held out a hand in invitation. The mare was a smoked
grey, a tall animal with black socks, tail and mane, and a coat the
colour of a thunder-cloud elsewhere. Cloud Cat looked at her
intently, snorted, and trotted up to Ash to lip delicately at her
fingers.

"You've not shown me this one before,
Bendress," Thornaster said, behind her.

"Ah, we've not bred her yet, and we'd
want to see if she dropped clean before we wasted your Arth on
her."

"She's trained to the saddle?"

"Oh, yes. A very nice piece all round,
but high-spirited and strong."

"Too much for you, Ash?"

"Of course not," Ash replied,
scornfully. Except in price, no doubt. This was definitely not a
gutter seruilis' horse.

"Saddle her," Thornaster ordered.
"We'll see if my seruilis is more of a rider than he looks, or
merely boastful."

"As you say, Ser Visel," the stable
master replied. A swift order, and Cloud Cat was saddled. The
cushioning blanket was dark blue and Ash smiled at Thornaster as
she climbed up onto the fence.

"No choice at all," she said. "In your
colours and everything. You can't not want her."

"Perhaps. But if you split your skull
reaching beyond your abilities, you won't find me sympathetic."

Ash transferred herself from fence to
horse, and felt the mare tremble with anticipation beneath her.
Cloud Cat, hmm? A horse on which to
fly
.

She waited as they adjusted the height
of the stirrups, then touched the grey's neck, and nodded at the
boy holding the bridle. "Let her go."

There was no dramatic take-off. Reins
held lightly, she sent the mare around the holding pen for a single
circuit. Cloud Cat had the sweetest gait imaginable, and responded
to the slightest touch. She tossed her head and sidled a little,
wanting to
run
, but obeyed readily when called to hand.
Finding herself grinning, Ash looked over at her audience, and
considered the height of the outer fence. Nothing spectacular – it
was sized for easy viewing of the display ring.

"You're a jumper, aren't you?" she
whispered to the horse. "You'd better be, or I'm going to make an
utter fool of myself."

Making another circuit, she judged the
distance, then set the mare at the fence, heard a belated cry from
the stable manager, but was concentrating on encouraging Cloud Cat
with every fibre of her being. And there was no balk. Ears firmly
forward, the mare cleared the fence easily, landing without a
stumble. Ash brought her around in a neat circle, watching the
other horses straining and shifting in response. Arth called, a
deep stallion's cry.

"She's a bit fresh!" Ash said. "I'll
just take her for a run!" And off she went, down the drive towards
the gap in the morrion fence. Cloud Cat flowed like water. What a
beauty! What an absolute beauty!

Chapter Ten

The exultant gallop took Ash south,
away from Luinhall and murderers, irritating seruilisi, and the
prospect of Genevieve's funeral. On her return she found Thornaster
and Arth waiting patiently by the morrion hedge. His expression was
benign, so she didn't rein back her enthusiasm as she brought Cloud
Cat dancing up to him. The mare was scarcely winded, a fine sheen
of sweat slicking her coat.

"She's perfect!" Ash said, glowing.
"Smooth as silk. I've never ridden better."

"A good choice," he allowed. "Bendress
even threw the tack in with the price, so, all colours correct, we
may head back to the city."

They started off without another word,
the two horses exchanging greetings. "She's really too fine for a
seruilis," Ash said, eventually, and the corner of his mouth
lifted.

"Some might see it that way. She is
certainly more impressive than most of the horseflesh I've seen in
these parts. I will, I think, put Arth to her when she is in season
and present the foal to my sister."

High spirits damped by the recollection
that Cloud Cat wasn't hers to keep, Ash seized the chance to change
the subject. "You have a sister?"

"A brother also," the Visel replied.
"And you?"

"No," Ash said, wiping a hand over her
hair and turning the conversation a second time. "Does being
descended from Luin and Astenar allow you to do anything special?
Other than feel when magic's been used recently?"

"Do? It varies on the time of the
year."

"What can you do now then? You can heat
water, right?"

"You noticed that did you?"

Ash shrugged. The water he'd used to
shave that first morning had been warm when she cleared it away,
though he'd taken it from the jug of cold water. So she'd watched
closely the second time and seen that he'd stared at the bowl for a
moment of intense concentration before he'd wet and lathered his
face. "How much water can you heat at a time?"

"It depends on how much of a headache I
want to give myself. At this time of year, a few barrels full in
exchange for a mild migraine."

"You get a headache every time you do
that? Sun, I'll bring you heated water if you want it so very
much!"

The Visel laughed. "A bowl of water
won't tax me. I'm at my strongest at Midsummer, and can manage, oh,
dozens of barrels without much pain."

"Midsummer? It would make more sense to
be able to heat things in winter."

"Most thoughtless of the gods not to
have considered that," Thornaster agreed, eyes dancing.

Ash nodded absently, thinking over the
various things she'd heard about Aremish rulers and their
bloodline. "Can the Rhoi of Aremal really call lightning from the
sky?"

"No. Though it does seem so to any
watchers. What the Rhoi does is the same as what I do, but many
times magnified by the Rhoi's formal bindings to Luin and Astenar.
I can make things burst into flame, with effort. He can make them
so hot they explode."

"That's what Parclivvy meant about only
attacking Aremal in winter," Ash said, in tones of revelation. She
had never understood that brief chapter in one of the history
texts.

"Yes. Once it was a great secret, this
fluctuation of the power. Then Aremal's weakness was discovered,
became well-known, and is now just a factor to be taken into
account."

"Do your Rhoi's eyes really glow? Is
his immediate family much more powerful than you? Could you make
things explode if you were Rhoi?"

Laughing, Thornaster held up a hand.
"Slow down. I'm not sure I'll dare let you out riding again if this
is how you respond to it."

Resisting an immediate recommendation
that he speed up, Ash held her tongue, only wrinkling her nose at
him.

"Rhoi Vorlan's eyes don't glow,"
Thornaster went on. "All Rhois have a certain intensity about their
gaze, which is a product of the bond to both Sun and World. The
combination of the Estarrel blood and that bond produces a
particularly strong effect, and it can be difficult to meet his
eyes, but there's no actual radiance. As for comparative strength –
the Estarrel blood tends to weaken away from the Rhoi's immediate
family. My mother is the Rhoi's second cousin, still close enough
that there's no significant variation in strength. I've never sat
down with Aremal's Veirhoi and tried to compare exact strength, but
I should say we are similar."

"So could you make things explode if
you were Rhoi?" Ash asked.

"I expect so. Does that satisfy your
bloodthirsty heart, stripling? The thought that I could boil a lake
or blast towns to rubble, if only I were Rhoi? I assure you that
it's not an event I anticipate occurring. My Rhoi expects a long
life and I would not be offered first chance to stand before the
gods, even if we lost him."

"I don't imagine it would be much
fun."

"Being Rhoi? A lot of hard work, from
my observation."

"No, being able to burn things just by
glaring at them. I mean, I suppose it would be handy, being able to
crisp your enemies and things like that, but I bet every time there
was a fire, when lightning burnt down a house or something,
everybody'd be whispering about how whoever owned the house had
offended the Rhoi. And just imagine how the Landsmeet must act
around him. Does he have a temper?"

"A well-controlled one," Thornaster
replied, face more solemn now.

"And the ambassadors and probably other
people as well, knowing of his power, all flinch when he says
something even slightly grumpy." Like Ash had done with Carlyon,
just because he was related to someone who frightened her. "That on
top of all the horrible things about being Rhoi. I feel sorry for
him. Unless, of course, he likes it. Does he?"

"I don't think so," the Visel said,
slowly. "I don't believe I've ever asked him. He can be very
autocratic at times, and the strengthened link with the gods is, I
am told, a great joy. But like it?" He shook his head. "What
damnable things you say, boy. I quite dread the thought of bringing
you in contact with Arun in case you should ask him to describe
'all the horrible things about being Rhoi'."

"I've better manners," Ash said,
wondering if he truly thought her such a numb-wit.

"Not that I've seen."

"If the Rhoi gave me leave to speak to
him plainly, I might ask him something like that, unless I thought
him likely to get offended. But I'm obliged to be polite to him.
Too many people about who'd make a point of protecting his
dignity."

"There's a very practical
interpretation of 'better manners'." As they rounded Westgard's
curve and rejoined the Milk, Thornaster frowned and shifted in his
saddle. "Is Arun well-regarded by those in the Commons? By those
less, ah, full of manners than you?"

"Right now people are impatient for him
to marry. But there's a lot of talk about his review of the laws,
and all the Aremish ways he's picked up. A few say that you and the
other foreign Luinsel have some sort of power over the Rhoi, that
it's your will that's law in the land, not his."

Thornaster sighed. "Unsurprising, I
suppose. He is not certain of his ground, yet, and that might seem
to people to be weakness. And it's true enough that he wishes to
follow Aremal's lead, not least because he, too, feels Montmoth is
out of Balance in some way."

"Does he plan to make a lot of
changes?"

"From what I've seen, Montmoth's laws
aren't precisely the problem, though he will do what he can to
strengthen them. It's like that teaching text you had – the
interpretation is the problem. For instance, that house you and
your guardian lived in – the land there isn't bonded. It's only
covered by the Rhoi's wider protections."

"Landhold Dunn hasn't enough property
yet to become a Visel."

"But that's no reason to leave the land
unbound. Luin spoke a great deal on the responsibility of Visel,
Setsel and Decsel because large tracts of land require more
management, but Montmoth ignores the clear implication in Luin's
words that all land should be bound and kept so far as possible in
Balance. It's so bad here that an entire district of the city is
clearly direly under managed." He nodded in the direction of
Mockhold Valley and the Shambles. "It's all smallholdings, without
a single Luinsel bound over even the public paths and roads. That
needs to be corrected as soon as possible."

"The Rhoi's going to make all the
Smallholders be judged?" The idea of Charity Dunn being tested by
Luin made Ash giddy. "What if they all fail?"

"Luin rarely judges Smallholders
harshly, especially since the holding is often only house, without
garden or well. The important step is the binding, in giving them
an awareness of the state of the land they occupy."

"Still going to cause an almighty
flap," Ash said appreciatively.

"Another glaring issue is Luinhall's
Mern," Thornaster continued. "Luin requires that an understanding
of the Balance is taught. Montmoth has piecemeal teaching in all
quarters, but the Mern is the only place that undertakes formal,
in-depth instruction. No promising students from outside the Kinsel
attend, and even among the Kinsel there's an obvious and complete
absence of half of those with heir's right to be first judged."

"Girls?"

"A situation certainly not as Luin
intended. And again there is no express law which requires or
forbids, just an interpretation which no other Rhoimarch has taken.
And the reasoning is so..." He shook his head. "The question Arun
is debating there is whether to merely permit girls to attend the
Mern, or if he needs to require them to, given the limited number
whose parents will voluntarily send them."

"Because they'd be shamed by their
daughters acting manly?"

"Exactly the problem. What is 'manly'
about the Balance? Even Arun, who wants very much to improve the
situation, keeps finding himself using words like 'unseemly' and
'indelicate'. I can't say whether this strange...binding with
impropriety is part of the reason Montmoth is out of Balance, but
it's certainly unlikely to help."

"You sound like Genevieve," Ash said,
hoping strongly that the Rhoi introduced girls to the Mern while
she was there to watch. And help. "My aunt was always scathing
about what she called Montmoth's culture of incompetence. Though
it's not nearly so bad outside the Kinsel. Is this something that
really matters to the Rhoi? Because the fuss over binding
Smallholders will be minor in comparison, and it wouldn't be fair
to try half-heartedly."