War Maid's Choice-ARC (33 page)

Bahzell managed not to glare at Brandark, but it was hard when the Bloody Sword pursed his lips, looked intently up into the branches of the tree under which they stood, and whistled tunelessly.

<
I
am
going to step on him this time,
> Walsharno said.

Aye, well, I’m not so minded as usual to be stopping you this time, and that’s a fact
, Bahzell replied.

“So they’ve decided as how if any Spearman’s likely to be encouraging the canal, Caswal would,” he said out loud, and Daggeraxe nodded.

“That’s the Duke’s conclusion, at any rate. And they were quite clear about their intentions, as well. Anyone who dares to trade directly with the Axemen courtesy of your canal will be embargoed in Bortalik. All traffic
upriver
to that noble will be cut off.”

“A bit of cutting off their own noses to spite their faces in that, don’t you think?” Brandark put in with a grin. “It seems to me that would be most likely to encourage the offender to switch
all
of his trade to the new route.”

“No doubt it would,” Daggeraxe acknowledged. “There were also some suggestions—less explicit ones, of course—that the new route was likely to find itself seriously beset with piracy and accidents of navigation, however. Which, as they pointed out to Caswal’s factor, would probably have an unfortunate effect on insurance rates. And, finally, there was a
very
explicit threat that they’ll seize any Spearman monies invested in Bortalik or any other Purple Lord trading venture if the investors take advantage of the new route. And, of course, at the same time, all debts of any Spearman foolish enough to do such a thing will be immediately called by their creditors.”

Brandark’s grin disappeared, and Daggeraxe nodded.

“Given how much a typical Spearman noble already owes the Purple Lords, that could turn into a very potent threat, indeed. And if I were someone like Duke Caswal, I wouldn’t much care for that business about piracy and ‘accidents,’ either,” Daggeraxe said. “As I say, Prince Bahzell, I understand why my cousin has no desire to mix in Baron Tellian’s quarrel with Baron Cassan, and I have no intention of doing anything which might drag him—or even
seem
to drag him—into it. But speaking purely for myself and on behalf of a very dear friend and her father, I think it might be wise for you to look very closely at any...connection between Cassan, the River Brigands, and the Purple Lords. And if I were you,” the mage’s expression was grim, “I wouldn’t be so very surprised to find a wizard or two buried somewhere in the mix, as well.”

Chapter Fifteen

Leeana Hanathafressa tried to analyze her feelings as she watched the familiar towers and turrets rising steadily against the horizon from Hill Guard Castle’s perch on the swell of granite overlooking Balthar. Boots moved sweetly and steadily under her, and she watched his mobile ears swiveling, pricking higher with anticipation. There wasn’t much doubt about
his
mood, she thought fondly, reaching down to rest one hand on his shoulder. This was the land where he’d been foaled and raised, gentled to saddle, lived half his life, and first become her horse, and he felt that homecoming in his bones just as surely as she did.

Yet there was a difference between them, and she felt it looming before her even as Hill Guard drew closer and closer, for Boots could be certain of his welcome. He might have had the ill fortune to belong to Hill Guard’s ne’er-do-well disgrace of a daughter, but that wasn’t
his
fault. No one would look askance at him, or find themselves feeling awkward and out of balance trying to deal with what that same daughter had become.

She felt it again, that yearning for the place where she too had been born and lived almost two thirds of her life. For the familiar fields, the familiar faces, the welcome which had once been hers without stint or limit. She supposed everyone experienced at least some of that sense of loss, of never being able to return to who and what they’d once been. But for any war maid, the old cliché about not being able to go home again had a special poignancy.

Oh, stop that!
she told herself.
No, it’s not like it used to be, and it never will be again. But think about someone like Raythas. The
last
thing she’d ever want is to “go home again”! Unless she took two or three of us along to geld that bastard brother of hers, at least
.

Her jaw clenched with remembered fury as she remembered the night Raythas Talafressa had gotten drunk enough to tell her seventy-five why
she’d
run away to the war maids, and there were hundreds of others who could have told the same tale—or worse. Not that those who lifted their noses at the war maids from the security of their own lives ever thought about the sorts of things that drove women into choosing that escape. After all, those weren’t the sorts of things nice people talked about, far less wanted to admit happened.

At least you
do
want to go home...and at least Mother and Father are glad to see you when you do, whatever the other citizens of your hometown may think. That’s something most of the others will never have, so why don’t you just take a deep breath and
deal
with it?

It was a conversation she’d had with herself every time she’d come home for one of her brief, infrequent visits, and that irritated her far more than she would ever have admitted to another soul. It wasn’t the sort of conversation a strong, competent person ought to have to have more than one time before she dealt with it once and for all, and she hadn’t. In fact, she might as well admit that she was nowhere near as strong and competent as she wanted to pretend, since there was a very simple reason her visits had been so few and so brief. And, no, whatever she might choose to tell herself, it
wasn’t
because her mother’s long and frequent (and her father’s shorter, but even more frequent) letters had let her keep up on events in Balthar and Hill Guard without making the long, wearisome ride between there and Kalatha.

It was because she was afraid of those visits. Because it hurt her to see what she saw all too often in the eyes of the people who’d once thought of themselves as hers. She might long to be here, and this might be the place she would always think of as home at the very center of her being, but it
wasn’t
her home any longer. She’d thrown that away, however good her reason for doing so might have been, and for all the calm demeanor she showed her father’s subjects when she visited, that deeply buried center of her being ached for all she’d lost. Not the power, not the wealth, but the
belonging
. That sense of knowing precisely who and what she was because her bone and blood were part of the soil on which Hill Guard stood, of the generation upon generation of Bowmasters who had been laid to rest in Bowmaster earth, stood guard over the people of Balthar and the West Riding, and died in their defense. She could stand the scorn of others, let the contempt of strangers roll off the unbowed shoulders of her soul without even a wince, but here it cut too deep, for these people had been
hers
. And so she’d visited no more than a dozen times in the years since she’d fled this place, and each of those visits had been brief and fleeting because, whether anyone else ever guessed it or not, she’d fled all over again at the end of each of them.

But not this time. No, this time she meant to stand her ground, and that was the reason she was having what she thought of as The Conversation with herself yet again. And the reason she’d
been
having it ever since she’d left Kalatha.

Of course, this time you’re having The Conversation as a distraction, too, aren’t you? Because you’ve finally found something—or gotten around to it, anyway—that makes you even more nervous than having run off to the war maids in the first place! Don’t want to think about
that,
do you?

Her mouth quirked, and she gave Boots’ shoulder another pat as she admitted that to herself, but it was true. She’d promised herself this day more than six years ago. That should have given her plenty of time to come to grips with all its implications, yet the butterflies dancing in her middle suggested that she hadn’t. There was excitement and anticipation in that dance, but there was also apprehension—possibly even fear, as difficult as she found it to admit that to herself—and she found herself wondering yet again how her parents were going to react to
this
decision.

Assuming it works out the way you plan for it to
, she told herself.
It may not, you know. And
then
how will you handle it?

She’d made a point of reminding herself of that possibility regularly, especially over the last couple of years, just in case. On the other hand, there had been those clues, however hard certain parties had labored to conceal them. There were times she’d been frustratingly certain it was all her own imagination...and other times she’d been absolutely positive it wasn’t. And then there’d been that peculiar, almost vibrating feeling that had tingled in her bones. She was prepared to admit at least some of that—possibly quite a lot of it, if she was going to be honest—had been no more than her own imagination and hope and desire speaking to her, yet not all of it had been. She was convinced of that. The problem of course was that what
she
was feeling might not have a great deal of bearing on anyone
else’s
feelings.

She snorted at the thought, but she also squared her shoulders and pressed with her heels, asking Boots for a little more speed. The gelding happily complied, and Leeana Hanathafressa reminded herself that whatever else might be true, she wasn’t accustomed to failing once she’d set her mind to something.

Especially not when it was something as important as this.

* * *

Sharlassa stood leaning on the battlements of Hill Guard’s main gate tower, shading her eyes as she peered down the long approach road. No one had asked her to take up her lookout post, and she supposed she should feel at least vaguely guilty about having done it, although no one had actually
told
her she was supposed to be in Sir Jahlahan’s office for another deadly dull session of etiquette lessons, instead. Fortunately, the seneschal’s schedule was erratic enough to make arranging lesson times too far in advance difficult, and so this particular block of
her
time had simply been left unassigned in hopes Sir Jahlahan would find the opportunity to give her a little extra polish. Was it her fault no one had informed her he’d been able to find that opportunity before she took herself unobtrusively off to her present position? Of course it wasn’t!

She told herself that very firmly, resolutely suppressing the small inner voice which tried to point out that
before
taking herself unobtrusively off to her present position she’d suggested to Tahlmah that she was going for a walk in the formal gardens, instead. She hadn’t quite come out and
said
so, of course; that would have been deceitful. Yet whenever that irritating inner voice reached a volume where she could no longer entirely ignore it, she was forced to concede that what she
had
said had certainly amounted to...misdirection.

On the other hand, it wasn’t exactly as if she were trying to hide her present location. Anyone looking out from one of the taller towers behind her could easily see her standing here in the sunlight if they happened to look in the right direction. Oh, Tahlmah would probably have gone to the gardens looking for her there
first
if Sir Jahlahan had found time to tutor Sharlassa, but her maid was an experienced Sharlassa-hunter. How long could it possibly take her to realize she was looking in the wrong spot and search elsewhere?

Besides, Sharlassa had a special reason for being here this afternoon, although the event she was waiting for was running behind schedule. That was scarcely a surprise. There were always delays on any journey. And while she was guiltily aware she was violating at least the spirit of the letter’s request, that request hadn’t actually been made to
her
, now had it? And even if it had—

Her thoughts broke off as she saw the handsome brown bay gelding with black legs and white stockings start up the approach road from Balthar. She watched it for a handful of seconds, then turned towards the stair and started down it at a pace just a bit too rapid to be called ladylike.

* * *

The main gate tower loomed above Leeana as Boots trotted up the last hundred yards of the approach road.

The trip through Balthar itself had been about as bad as it had every other time she’d come home to visit. She’d been tempted, actually, in a craven sort of way, to circle around the city completely this time and approach Hill Guard from behind, despite the hours it would have added to her travel time. She didn’t like admitting, even to herself, how much more the reaction she drew here in Balthar bothered her than did getting the same sort of reaction from anyone else, and she
refused
to admit it to anyone else. And so she’d ridden calmly and steadily through the very heart of the city where she’d grown up, erect and yet relaxed in the saddle, head high, looking about her with precisely the correct degree of interest for someone visiting home after yet another lengthy absence. It had been too much to hope she simply wouldn’t be recognized—she had to much of the Bowmaster look, and even those who’d never seen her with their own eyes had to have had the overgrown, disgraced war maid described to them in glowing detail—but at least a handful of people had actually looked happy to see her. There’d even been a few waves of welcome, and she’d acknowledged those with smiles and nods, even a few waves of her own, while resolutely ignoring the scowls and frowns coming back at her from far too many other faces.

At least the people of Balthar were too polite to actually throw things at war maids, she thought. They probably wouldn’t have thrown anything even at war maids who weren’t the daughters (whatever the law might say) of their baron. Knowing how Baron Tellian and Baroness Hanatha would have reacted to anyone who’d dared to publicly revile Leeana (however thoroughly she might deserve it) undoubtedly reinforced their restraint in her own case, but she was fairly certain they probably wouldn’t have done that to any other war maids, either.