Trinity Rising: Book Two of the Wild Hunt (Wild Hunt Trilogy 2) (44 page)

‘But why not?’ Exasperation tinged her father’s voice. ‘You and Ailric were close once – surely you could kindle that closeness again.’

‘We are not a good match.’
Not any more
.

He folded his arms. ‘The Leahn. Yes?’

‘No.’

‘He is not for you, Tanith.’

‘He never was.’ Back and forth across the pale carpet, skirts whipping around her legs. ‘Gair has nothing to do with my decision.’

‘So why will you not consider Ailric for your husband? His enduring regard for you tells me he will be a loyal and steadfast consort, and he is close to you in age.’

‘And no other young men are likely to come forward for my hand, is that it?’

‘I did not say that,’ replied her father in a tone of voice that told her it was exactly what he had been thinking. ‘Our race is dwindling, Daughter, and with every year that passes we grow less fruitful. The time for a harvest is now.’

‘Harvest?’ She almost laughed. ‘Don’t be so coy about it, Papa. We are animals, no different from the horses and cattle in our fields. You want me to breed.’

At her choice of words Lord Elindorien’s nose wrinkled. ‘Must you be so crude?’

‘It is what you meant.’

He sighed. ‘We cannot allow our line to fail, Tanith. There must always be ten Houses.’ Her father, who so rarely allowed his emotions to rule him, sounded sharp, and tired, and even a little afraid. ‘If you enter the chamber with Ailric at your side, it will sway the Ten. It may even guarantee you High Seat Morwenna’s support in the vote – he was always her favourite grandson. But if you antagonise House Vairene it could make things very difficult for you when it comes your time to rule. You will need allies amongst the Ten, not enemies – especially now, with the Court so divided.’

‘I know. You gave me Barthalus’s
Essays on Government
when I turned ten years old.’ Even then she’d been expected to know what it meant to be a Daughter of the White Court.

He came around the table and took hold of her shoulders, turning her to face him. ‘You are the last Elindorien, my daughter. If your mother had lived and I could have given her more children, this burden would not have to fall to you, but ifs and could-haves are of no use to us now. We have only what lies before us. You must see your duty clearly.’

‘My duty,’ she said. ‘To my House and my people.’ Anger, unbidden and unstoppable, clawed at her stomach with fiery talons. ‘What about my duty to
myself
?’

‘Daughter—’

‘Ailric embodies the very worst qualities of nobility,’ she spat. Her father blinked, startled by her vehemence, but she couldn’t stop herself. ‘He’s an arrogant, entitled snob. Or would you see me tied to a man I despise simply to see me wed?’

‘Of course not, but—’

‘And what about you and
your
duty? Why did you never marry again, Papa?’

‘I could not!’ he snapped back, his face despairing. ‘Your mother was my only love. Once she was gone, I could not bring myself to join with another.’

‘Just as I cannot bring myself to join with Ailric.’ With a great effort Tanith gentled her tone and took his hands in hers. To her surprise, they were trembling. ‘I’m sorry, Papa, but I must choose my own husband and it will not be him.’

Lord Elindorien looked at her, his tawny eyes veiled with more layers of emotion than she could fathom. ‘You loved him once,’ he said quietly.

‘I loved a boy who played the lute so beautifully the birds themselves fell silent to listen to him. That boy doesn’t exist any more.’

‘He is the same boy, grown now into a man.’

The anger inside her dwindled to nothing as fast as it had risen. Tanith shook her head and smiled for what was gone. ‘Ailric the lutenist died a long time ago, Papa. I’m a good Healer, but I cannot bring a relationship back to life when it was not meant to live.’

Lord Elindorien looked down at their hands. ‘No, I suppose not.’ He sighed, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. ‘Do you still have it? The Barthalus?’

‘I do.’

A smile tweaked at the corner of his mouth. ‘You cried when I gave it to you because you really wanted some book about the adventures of a human prince.’

‘
Prince Corum and the Forty Knights
.’ Fat salty tears of disappointment rolling down her cheeks, and in those years after her mother died her father hadn’t known how to console her. But a few days later he’d brought her a copy, and she’d hung from his neck and cried even harder as he patted her back in baffled wonderment. ‘I remember.’

Across the Mere the Queen’s herald blew the summons on his silver-chased horn. The solemn double note shivered the air like thunder. In the silence afterwards, even the Mere itself was stilled.

‘It is time,’ said her father at last, releasing her hands.

Tanith nodded. ‘It is time.’

She smoothed her dress over her hips. After the simple gowns she had worn on the Isles the heavy white satin weighed her down, its pendant sleeves and trailing skirts dragging at her like sea-anchors. The inner sleeves with their pearl buttons from wrist to elbow clung to her as inescapably as her duty.

She blew out a long breath. ‘I’m ready.’

He offered her his arm. With one hand to lift her skirts and the other on her father’s bronze brocade cuff, she allowed him to lead her outside and across the mossy lawn to the many-tiered towers of the palace.

26

TO SERVE THE GODDESS

Ansel could hear the Elders arguing without even opening the side door of the Rede-hall. They hadn’t stopped since the tourney ended the day before, not for a minute, huddled in groups in corridors, strolling in the cloisters. Only in the silence of the refectory was there any relief from their endless bickering. There and during the Knighting ceremony that morning in the Sacristy, for twenty-two of the thirty-two novices who had competed in the lists, which had been conducted in an outraged silence that said more than words.

He eyed the liveried sentry beside the door.

What do you think? Does it matter, in the eyes of the Goddess, what lies beneath the mail and surcoat so long as there is an honest heart?

The sentry’s face remained impassive, his gaze fixed on some detail of the tapestry on the far wall at a height that avoided the Preceptor’s eye. For a moment Ansel contemplated asking him the question, then thought better of it. Any answer he received would be nothing more than what the man thought his superior wanted to hear.

More’s the pity
.

Hurrying footsteps sounded behind him and he turned, leaning on his staff. Danilar strode towards him in black formal robes, draping his crimson stole around his neck. His expression boiled with unasked questions.

‘Chaplain,’ Ansel said evenly, starting down the stone-flagged passage towards him. ‘Will you walk with me for a moment?’

Danilar fell into step with him and slowed his pace accordingly. When they had retraced his steps along the corridor to the corner and were out of the sentry’s earshot, Ansel turned to face him.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Spit it out.’

‘Did you know Selsen was a girl?’

‘I knew.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘There was too much at stake. I couldn’t tell anyone.’
There are some things I still cannot tell you. I pray you’ll be able to forgive me, in time
.

The Chaplain looked away to hide his hurt. ‘We’ve been friends for more than forty years, Ansel. You couldn’t trust me with this?’

‘I couldn’t trust anyone. Not even my oldest friend.’ He touched Danilar’s arm. ‘I’m sorry. It was better that no one knew, apart from me and the Superior at Caer Amon. That way if it all blew up in our faces, no one else would be hurt. I didn’t want to expose you to the risk of a scandal.’

A grunt was all he received by way of reply. Danilar refused to meet his gaze and fidgeted with his stole, straightening it repeatedly even though it didn’t need it. ‘So this was your plan all along? To bring women into the Order?’

‘My plan, if you recall, is to open admission to the Order to everyone who wants to join. Our numbers have never recovered from the desert wars. We need all the Knights we can train – now more than ever, with the news out of Gimrael.’

‘But
women
!’

‘
Everyone
, Danilar,’ Ansel reminded him. ‘And why not? Selsen’s desire to be a Knight gave me the idea, and she has more than proved that a woman can stand toe to toe with the best of our men.’

Even before he’d finished speaking, the Chaplain was shaking his head. ‘On the field, perhaps, but women and men living side by side in a House of the Goddess represents great temptation. A Knight cannot serve Eador with his whole heart when he is preoccupied by . . .’ Danilar hesitated, clearly flustered. ‘Worldly desires.’

Leaning on his staff, Ansel laughed. ‘My dear Chaplain, I do believe you are blushing.’

‘Ansel, please! This is serious.’ Now his old friend faced him and his eyes were pleading. He pointed towards the door beyond the waiting sentry. ‘They won’t support you. What you are asking them to do goes against everything they have been taught, everything they have believed since the novitiate.’

‘If all goes to plan, they won’t have a choice. I have the law and the Articles on my side – they’ll have to support me.’

‘When you go through that door you’ll have a fight on your hands that will make Samarak look like a border skirmish. You do realise that, don’t you?’

‘I think I’ve got one more scrap left in me.’

‘It might be your last!’

Ansel shrugged. ‘If it is, so be it. I’d rather die fighting for something I believe in than end my days as a mindless ruin in the infirmary, unable to wipe my own arse.’

Danilar stared at him. ‘Blunt, but apposite.’ Sighing gustily, he scrubbed his thick fingers through his hair. ‘Very well. Have it your way. Just don’t expect me to say a blessing over your bloodied corpse when the Rede is done with you.’

With a deep breath, Ansel straightened up and automatically checked that he had a bottle of poppy syrup tucked into his pocket. Chances were good he would need every drop of it before this day was done.

‘You knew it wouldn’t be easy, Danilar. I told you that.’

‘You did and I’ve been with you from the start. I cannot deny that I have reservations about the practicalities of what you’re advocating, but we can fight about them later. I am your friend, Ansel. You can count on me.’

Ansel eyed the Chaplain fondly, seeing not the grizzled bear of a man in front of him but a scab-kneed boy in a too-short novice robe, scrumping apples with him in a long-ago orchard. He’d hoped to delay this particular storm of words until after Selsen’s ordination, but hoping didn’t make it so. The battle had come, and the best he could do was fight with what weapons he had.

‘One last charge, old friend?’ he said softly. ‘For the Oak and the Goddess, to our last breath?’

Lips set into a determined line, Danilar squared his blacksmith’s shoulders and tucked his thumbs into his girdle.
If he had his sword on his hip
, Ansel thought,
he’d be loosening it in its scabbard right about now
.

‘One last charge.’ A decisive nod. ‘And may devils take the hindmost!’

‘Impossible!’ thundered Elder Festan.

‘It’s already done,’ Ansel said.

‘Overturn it! It’s within your power as Preceptor. A female cannot be a Knight and that’s the end of it.’

Expressions of support rumbled up from the benches.

‘Why not?’

‘It is not permitted!’

Another Elder surged to his feet without waiting for Festan to yield the floor. ‘Women have no place on a battlefield, Preceptor. You of all people should know that, after the desert wars.’

‘And why is that, Jago?’

‘They are physically . . . unsuited to the rigours of combat.’

‘What’s that you say?’ For comic effect, Ansel cupped a hand around his ear. ‘Speak up, man. Physically inferior?’ Someone snorted. ‘So when I watched Selsen take three strikes in the lists from an experienced Knight, I imagined it?’

Discomfited, Elder Jago launched a new argument. ‘The other novices were completely taken in. She’d been living amongst them in the dortoir for almost two months, pretending to be what she was not, deceiving her way into their confidences and their lives. If they were so taken in, how do we even know Hengfors was correct?’