Valdemar 05 - [Vows & Honor 02] - Oathbreakers (11 page)

And bringing Tale‘sedrin back to life would make Tarma happy enough that the smile she wore too seldom might become a permanent part of her expression.

“So—what's the other part?” Kethry asked, shaking herself out of her woolgathering when she nearly tripped on a clump of snow.

Tarma snickered, eyes narrowed against the snow-glare and the westering sunlight. Her tone and her expression were both malicious. “Leslac's cooling his heels in the jail as of last night.”

“Oh,
really?”
Kethry was delighted. “What happened?”

“Let's wait till we get inside; it's a long story.”

Since they were only a few steps from the entrance to their granite-walled barracks, Kethry was willing to wait. As officers, they
could
have taken more opulent quarters, but frankly, they didn't really want them. Tarma hardly had any need for privacy; Kethry had yet to find anyone in or out of the Hawks that she wanted to dally with on any regular basis. On the rare occasions where comradeship got physical, she was more than willing to rent a room in an inn overnight. So they shared the same kind of spartan quarters as the rest of the mercenaries; a plain double room on the first floor of the barracks. The walls were wood, paneled over the stone of the building, there were pegs for their weapons, and stands for their armor, a single wardrobe, two beds, one on each wall, and three chairs and a small table. That was about the extent of it. The only concession to their rank was a wood-fired stove: Tarma felt the winter cold too much otherwise. They had a few luxuries besides: thick fur coverlets and heavy wool blankets on the beds, some fine silver goblets, oil lamps and candles instead of rush-dips—but no few of the fighters had those, paid for out of their earnings. Both of them felt that since they worked as closely as they did with their underlings, there was no sense in having quarters that made subordinates uncomfortable. And, truth to tell, neither of them would truly have felt at ease in more opulent surroundings.

They pulled off their snow-caked garments and changed quickly, hanging the old on pegs by the stove to dry. Kethry noted as she pulled on a soft, comfortable brown robe and breeches, that Tarma had donned black, and frowned. It was true that Kal‘enedral only wore dark, muted colors—but black was for ritual combat or bloodfeud.

Tarma didn't miss the frown, faint as it was. “Don't get your hackles up; it's all I've got left—everything else is at the launderers or wet. I'm not planning on calling anybody out—not even that damned off-key songster. Much as he deserves it—and much as I'd like to.”

Warrl raised his head from the shadows of the corner he'd chosen for his own, with a contemptuous snort. The
kyree
liked the cold even less than Tarma, and spent much of his time in the warm corner by the stove curled up on a pad of old rugs.

Tarma answered with a snort of her own. “All right then,
you
go warm his bed. I'm sure he'd appreciate it.”

Warrl simply lowered his head back to his paws, and closed his glowing golden eyes with dignity.

“Tell, tell, tell!” Kethry urged, having as little love for the feckless Leslac as did her partner. She threw herself down into her own leather-padded hearthside chair, and leaned forward in her eagerness to hear.

“All right—here's what I was told—” Tarma lounged back in her chair, and put her feet up on the black iron footrest near the stove to warm them. “Evidently his Bardship was singing that song in the Falcon last night.”

That
song was the cause for Tarma's latest grievance with the Bard. It seemed that Leslac, apparently out of willfulness or true ignorance, had not the least notion of what being Kal‘enedral meant. He had decided that Tarma's celibacy was the result of her own will, not of the hand of her Goddess—

The fact was that, as Kal‘enedral, Tarma was celibate because she had become, effectively, neuter. Kal'enedral
had
no sexual desire, and little sexual identity. There was a perfectly logical reason for this. Kal‘enedral served first the Goddess of the South Wind, the Warrior, who was as sexless as the blade She bore—and they served next the Clans as a whole—and lastly they served their individual Clans. Being sexless allowed them to keep a certain cool perspective that kept them free of feuding and allowed them to act as interClan arbitrators and mediators. Every Shin'a‘in knew the cost of becoming Kal'enedral. Some in every generation felt the price was worth it. Tarma certainly had—since she had the deaths of her entire Clan to avenge, and only Kal‘enedral were permitted to swear to bloodfeud—and Kethry was mortally certain that having been gang-raped by the brigands that slaughtered her Clan had played no little part in the decision.

Leslac didn't believe this. He was certain—without bothering to check into Tarma's background or the customs of the Shin‘a'in, so far as Kethry had been able to ascertain—that Tarma's vows were as simple as those of most other celibate orders, and as easily broken. He was convinced that she had taken those vows for some girlishly romantic reason; he had just recently written a song, in fact, that hinted
—very
broadly—that the “right man” could thaw the icy Shin‘a'in.
That
was the gist of “that song. ”

And he evidently thought
he
was the right man.

He'd certainly plagued them enough before they'd joined up with Idra, following behind them like a puppy that couldn't be discouraged.

He'd lost track of them for two years after they'd joined the Sunhawks and that had been a profound relief. But much to their disappointment, he'd found them again and tracked them to Hawksnest. There he had remained, singing in taverns to earn his keep—and occasionally rendering Tarma's nights sleepless by singing under her window.

“That song” was new; the first time Tarma had heard it was when they'd gotten back from the Surshan campaign. Kethry had needed to practically tie her down to keep her from killing the musician.

“That's not a wise place to sing that particular ballad,” Kethry observed, “Seeing as that's where your scouts tend to spend their pay.”

“Hai—but it wasn't my scouts that got him,” Tarma chuckled, “which is why I'm surprised you hadn't heard. It was Tresti and Sewen.”

“It was lovely—or so I'm told. Tresti and Sewen sailed in just as he began the damned thing. Nobody's said—but it wouldn't amaze me much to find out that Sewen set the whole thing up, though according to my spies, Tresti's surprise looked real enough.
She
knows what Kal‘enedral means. Hellfire, we're technically equals, if I wanted to claim the priestly aspects that go with the Goddess-bond. She
also
knows how you and I feel about the little warbling bastard. So she decided to have a very public and
very
priestly fit about blasphemy and sacrilegious mockery.”

That was one of the few laws within Hawksnest; that
every
comrade's gods deserved respect. And to blaspheme
anyone's
gods, particularly those of a Sunhawk of notable standing, was an official offense, punishable by the town judge.

“She didn‘t!”

“She ruddy well did. That was
all
Sewen and my children had been waiting for. They called civil arrest on him and bundled him off to jail. And there he languishes for the next thirty days.”

Kethry applauded, beaming. “That's thirty whole days we
won't
have to put up with his singing under our window!”

“And thirty whole days I can stroll into town for a drink without hiding my face!” Tarma looked
very
pleased with herself.

Warrl heaved a gigantic sigh.

“Look, Furface, if you like him so much, why don't you go keep him company?”

Tarma's retort died unuttered, for at that moment there was a knock at their door.

“Come—” Kethry called, and the door opened to show one of the principals of Tarma's story. Sewen.

“Are you two busy?”

“Not particularly,” Tarma replied, as Kethry rose from her chair to usher him in. “I was just telling Keth about your part in gagging our songbird.”

“Can I have an hour or two?” Sewen was completely expressionless, which, to those that knew him, meant that something was worrying him, and badly.

“Sewen, you can have all of our time you need,” Kethry said immediately, closing the door behind him. “What's the problem? Not Tresti, I hope.”

“No, no—I—have to talk to somebody, and I figured it had better be you two. I haven't heard anything from Idra in over a month.”

“Bloody hell—” Tarma sat bolt upright, looking no little alarmed herself. “Pull up the spare chair, man, and give us the details.” She got up, and began lighting the oil lamps standing about the room, then returned to her seat. Kethry broke out a bottle of wine and poured three generous goblets full before resuming her perch. She left the bottle on the table within easy reach, for she judged that this talk had a possibility of going on for a while.

Sewen pulled the spare chair over to the stove and collapsed into it, sitting slumped over, with his elbows on his knees and his hands loosely clasped around the goblet. “It's been a lot more than a month, really, more like two. I was getting a message about every two weeks before then—most of ‘em bitching about one thing or another. Well, that was fine, that sounded like Idra. But then they started getting shorter, and—you know, how the Captain sounds when she's got her teeth on a secret?”

“
Hai
.” Tarma nodded. “Like every word had to wiggle around that secret to get out.”

“Eyah, that's it. Hints was all I got, that things were more complicated than she thought. Then a message saying she'd made a vote, and would be coming home—then, right after, another saying she
wouldn‘t,
that she'd learned something important and had to do something—then nothing.”

“Sheka!”
Tarma spat. Kethry seconded the curse; this sounded very bad.

“It's been nothing, like I said, for about two months. Damnit, Idra knows I'd be worried after a message like that, and no matter what had happened, she'd find some way to let me know she was all right.”

“If
she could,” Kethry said.

“So I'm figuring she can't. That she's either into something real deep, too deep to break cover for a message, or she's being prevented.”

Kethry felt a tug on her soul-self from across the room. Need was hung on her pegs over there—

She let her inner self reach out to the blade. Sure enough, she was “calling,” as she did when there were women in danger. It was very faint—but then, Idra was very far away.

“I don't dare let the rest of the Hawks know,” Sewen was saying.

Tarma coughed. “You sure as hell don't. We've got enough hotheads among us that you'd likely get about a hundred charging over there, cutting right across Rethwellan and stirring up the gods only know what trouble.
Then
luck would probably have it that they'd break right in on whatever the Captain's up to and blow it all to hell.”

“Sewen, she is in some sort of trouble. Need stirred up the moment you mentioned this; I don't think it's coincidence.” Kethry shook her head a little in resignation. “If Need calls—it's got to be more than just a little difficulty. Need's muted down since she nearly got us both killed; I hardly even feel her on a battlefield, with women fighting and dying all around. I don't talk about her, much, but I think she's been changing. I think she's managed to become a little more capable of distinguishing
real
troubles that only Tarma and I can take care of. So—I think Idra requires help, I agree with you. All right, what do you want us to do? Track her down and see what's wrong? Just remember though, if we go—” She forced a smile. “—Tresti loses her baby-tender and you lose your Masterclass mage.”

Sewen just looked relieved to the point of tears. “Look, I hate to roust you two out like this, and I know how Tarma feels about traveling in cold weather, but—you're the only two I'd feel safe about sending. Most of the kids are what you said, hotheads. The rest—‘cept for Jodi, they're mostly like me, commonborn. Keth, you're highborn, you can deal with highborns, get stuff out of 'em I couldn't. And Tarma can give you two a reason for hauling up there.”

“Which is what?”

“You know your people hauled in the fall lot of horses just before we got back from the last campaign. Well, since we weren't
here,
Ersala went ahead and bought the whole string, figuring she couldn't know how many mounts we'd lost, and figuring it would be no big job to resell the ones we didn't want. We've still got a nice string of about thirty nobody's bespoken, and I was going to go ahead and keep them here till spring,
then
sell ‘em. Rethwellan don't see Shin'a‘in-breds, much; those they do are crossbred to culls. I doubt they've seen purebloods, much less good purebloods.”

“We play merchant princes, hmm?” Kethry asked, seeing the outlines of his plan. “It could work. With rare beasts like that, we'd be welcome in the palace itself.”

“That's it. Once you
get
in, Keth, you can puff up your lineage and move around in the court, or something. You talk highborn, and you're sneaky, you could learn a lot—”

“While I see what the kitchen and stable talk is,” Tarma interrupted him.
“Hai.
Good plan, ‘specially if I make out like I don't know much of the lingo. I could pick up a lot that way.”