Warrior (5 page)

“It was Damin,” Elezaar told her.

“
Damin
?”

“Damin the Wise,” he explained, unable to break the habit, even after all this time, of falling into the role of her tutor whenever the opportunity arose. “Or Damin the First, depending on who you ask.

The High Prince your son was named after. Apparently, he was concerned the Warlords spent too much time at court and not enough time seeing to their own estates, so he banned them from the capital over summer. It got them out of the city and back to their own provinces in time for the harvest; meant nobody could really move on anybody else politically for a few months of the year—although he wasn’t averse to the odd border skirmish to keep his Warlords on their toes, I gather; and it gave him a perfectly legitimate excuse to retreat to his own estates in the Naribra Valley and escape Greenharbour’s humidity during the rainy season.”

“A wise ruler, indeed,” Marla agreed.

“Let’s hope his namesake proves just as astute.”

“Well, he’s certainly proving inventive,” Marla reminded him with a frown. “According to Mahkas’s most recent letter, between Damin, the twins and the Tirstone boys, they managed to convince their last tutor the Krakandar Palace is haunted. He fled the palace a gibbering wreck, by all accounts.”

“A situation Lord Damaran apparently did nothing to prevent,” Elezaar pointed out disapprovingly. He distrusted Marla’s brother-in-law for no reason he could ever pin down. There was just something about him that hinted at dark secrets Elezaar would dearly like to discover.

Marla recognised his tone and shook her head. Over the years, they had arrived at a point where they now just agreed to disagree about Krakandar’s Regent. “Mahkas has never let me down, Elezaar.”

“Not yet.”

“I can’t understand why you don’t like him. He’s doing a fine job as Regent. The province has never been in better shape.”

“So he claims.”

She smiled at his scepticism. “I’m far too wily to merely accept Mahkas’s word for it that he’s doing a good job, Elezaar. I do have other sources, you know.”

“Did your other sources tell you about the raid into Medalon last year that almost cost us another war with the Defenders?”

She sighed. “If you mean the raid in which several of our men were ambushed, killed and then cremated in a deliberate act of provocation by a gang of Medalonian thugs, then yes, I heard about it.

Mahkas did what he had to in order to deter such foolishness in the future.”

“He crucified a whole family of farmsteaders, your highness, including the children.”

“He got his point across, Elezaar. Just because his methods are not those you or I would employ doesn’t make them any less effective.”

He shook his head, frowning. “I can’t believe you’re willing to defend such barbarity, your highness.”

“The Medalonians cremated our dead,” she reminded him. “They burned our men like rotten sides of beef. Surely you’re not suggesting such a sacrilege should have been let go unpunished?”

“Surely you’re not suggesting his punishment was just?”

Marla sighed wearily. They’d argued over this so many times. “I’m not trying to defend him, Elezaar, nor do I like what Mahkas did. I’m simply saying there’s nothing I can do about it. Mahkas is Regent of Krakandar and he protects my son and his inheritance as if he were Damin’s own father. I’m not going to jeopardise that arrangement because he does the odd thing I disapprove of.”

“If he’d done it ten years ago, when Palin Jenga was on the border in command of the Defenders, we’d never have got off so lightly,” Elezaar warned, wishing the princess could see past her brother-in-law’s devotion to her son and recognise some of his faults as well. “That we’re not at war with Medalon over that incident has more to do with their own internal problems than fear of Mahkas Damaran.”

“That may well be the case,” she conceded. “But we’re not at war with them, so I’m not going to make an issue of it. Anyway, you’ll have your chance to watch Mahkas closely for a while, seeing as how he concerns you so much. I’ve decided you’re going to be the next tutor I send to Krakandar.”

Elezaar stared at her in shock. “Have I done something to displease you, your highness?”

“On the contrary, you’ve done nothing
but
please me.”

“Then why are you sending me away?”

The princess smiled reassuringly, as if she’d only just realised the fright she had given him. “Dear gods, I’m not sending you away, Elezaar! I’m entrusting you with the most important job in the world. I want you to teach my sons the same things you taught me. I want you to teach them your damn Rules of Gaining and Wielding Power. Make them understand the responsibility that comes with their birthrights.

Narvell will rule Elasapine some day and Damin will be the next High Prince of Hythria. I intend to see he’s the best High Prince I can make him.”

“But you need me here.”

“I will miss your counsel, Elezaar,” the princess admitted. “But I have three of my own children and three stepchildren riding roughshod over the entire staff of the Krakandar Palace, apparently doing whatever they please. No matter how much I might enjoy your advice, I owe it to my country to ensure the next High Prince is not a spoiled brat.”

“But, your highness—”

Princess Marla smiled at him, shaking her head. “I might need you here, Dwarf, but Hythria needs you in Krakandar.”

It was hard sometimes, being the youngest. Even harder when you were the youngest and a girl.

You never got to go first at anything. You had to fight for every little thing. And you had to stand up for yourself or you’d be left behind playing girly games while the boys had all the fun.

Technically, Kalan Hawksword wasn’t the youngest child in the Krakandar nursery. Her twin brother, Narvell, was twenty minutes younger, but it seemed his gender gave him an edge that outweighed the scant few minutes’ head start she had on him.

There were two other girls in Krakandar Palace, but they just made things worse. The eldest was Kalan’s stepsister, Rielle Tirstone, a raven-haired beauty who had just turned sixteen, whose only interests in life seemed to be planning her wedding, wearing out her
court’esa
or flirting with the palace Raiders. The other girl was her cousin, Leila. She was eleven, a bit less than a year older than Kalan, with long golden hair and smoky dark eyes.

Unlike Kalan, Rielle and Leila actually liked being girls. They were much prettier than Kalan (it was rather irritating how everyone kept remarking on that) and they could make the boys do anything they wanted just by smiling at them. Kalan didn’t care about that. She wanted to be one of the boys and was annoyed that she wasn’t.

And things were about to change in a way Kalan couldn’t anticipate. There was another girl on the way, older than Kalan, Leila
and
Rielle.

Princess Marla had written to them about the newcomer several weeks ago. Aunt Bylinda had come into the nursery to tell them the latest news, the way she always did when a letter arrived from Princess Marla. She had read the announcement with a slight frown. Luciena, the daughter of Marla’s late husband, the shipping merchant Jarvan Mariner, was coming to Krakandar with Marla when she returned for the summer.

There were already more than half a dozen children in Bylinda’s care. Another one added to the mix was asking a great deal of the eternally patient young woman, particularly as she only had one child of her own and had never been able to carry another past the third month. But as usual, Aunt Bylinda had smiled and put on a jovial face and declared with entirely forced enthusiasm that it would be wonderful, having another sister in the palace.

The boys—Kalan’s twin, Narvell, and her stepbrothers, Rodja and Adham—didn’t seem to care one way or the other when they heard about it. Her stepsister, Rielle, was much too enchanted with the
court’esa
her father had given her for her birthday to care about anybody else at the moment. Kalan’s older brother, Damin, was at that age where girls were a nuisance, and Starros, the oldest in the group, would probably just ignore her. He was fifteen and had very little time for any of the girls these days.

Almodavar was too busy trying to make a warrior out of him.

Thinking of the boys, Kalan looked wistfully out of the window at the gardens, wondering how long it would be before they got back from the training yards. It was such a glorious day, too.

Much too nice to be cooped up inside doing boring, girly things
.

Damin, Starros, Narvell, Adham and Rodja were training with Almodavar and her cousin, Travin, which was how they usually spent the mornings, learning interesting things in life, like swordplay, and knife-fighting, and how to use a bow, and all the other stuff Kalan wasn’t allowed to learn because she was a girl. With a scowl at her needlework, she stabbed at the linen in annoyance.
Why didn’t boys have
to learn how to sew?

“It’s quite dead, Kalan.”

She looked up at Lirena, their long-suffering nurse. She had thought the old slave asleep in her armchair. “What?”

“The linen, dear. It’s quite dead. You don’t have to stab at it like that.”

Leila looked up from her own embroidery and smiled at the slave. “Kalan’s just mad because she’s in here and not outside with the boys.”

“It’s too hot outside,” Lirena informed the girls. “You’ll get all freckly and look like a peasant if you go outside in this heat.”

“Why don’t boys look like peasants if they have freckles?” Kalan asked.

“Don’t be silly, Kalan!” Leila laughed.

“I’m not being silly,” Kalan replied, a little put out. It seemed a perfectly reasonable question to her. “If freckles are what make you look like a peasant, then why doesn’t anybody care if the boys get them? I mean, it might be all right for Starros and Rodja and Adham, ’cause they’re not highborn, but Narvell is the heir to Elasapine. And Damin’s a prince. Don’t princes have to worry about things like that?”

“It’s different for boys,” Lirena informed her, as if that was all the explanation she needed.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why is it different for boys?”

“Because it is.”

“But why should it be?” Kalan insisted.

“Because women are supposed to look beautiful and have babies and men are supposed to do everything else,” the slave replied uncomfortably, ill equipped to argue the issue of female emancipation with a well-read ten-year-old.

“That can’t be right,” Kalan pointed out. “Mama rules Hythria, and she’s a girl.”

Leila rolled her eyes at her foolish young cousin. “Princess Marla does no such thing, Kalan. And you really shouldn’t say such things. Uncle Lernen is the High Prince. He’s the one who rules Hythria.”

“But Grandpa Charel called Uncle Lernen a perverted waste of time and space,” she announced, thinking of a conversation she’d heard between her grandfather and her Uncle Mahkas, a few months ago when Charel Hawksword had come to Krakandar to visit his grandchildren. “He said if it wasn’t for Mama’s level head, Hythria would be in ruins.”

“Leila’s right, lass,” Lirena said with a frown. “You really shouldn’t repeat such things. Anyway, you probably didn’t hear all of it. It can be confusing when you hear only half a conversation.”

As far as Kalan was concerned, she’d heard more than enough to glean the gist of the discussion between her grandfather and her uncle. And she knew her mother was involved in important business.

That was why Princess Marla lived in Greenharbour and Kalan lived at the other end of the country with her Uncle Mahkas and Aunt Bylinda. It was safe here in Krakandar. Marla had important work to do.

Every time her mother left Krakandar after a visit, Marla hugged her and told Kalan so.
I love you,
darling
, she always said as she was departing.
And I miss you desperately. But I have to go back to
Greenharbour. I have important work to do there
.

Kalan wanted to have important work to do, too. And she was fairly certain, even at the tender age of ten, that it didn’t involve embroidery.

“Mama’s very,
very
important,” Kalan insisted.

“Of course she is, dear,” Lirena agreed soothingly. “Now finish that row of knots and I’ll have some morning tea brought in, shall I? Some nice little tea cakes, perhaps? Or some nut bread? You like nut bread.”

I like not being treated like a three-year-old even more
, she grumbled silently, but knew better than to say it aloud. Kalan looked out of the window again, at that perfect sky, and sighed. She had to get out of here. Now. Otherwise, she’d go mad.

“I suppose if I eat enough nut bread I’ll get fat,” she declared, turning on the slave argumentatively. “And being fat means I won’t look like a starving peasant, either, I suppose?” Kalan pulled a face and added in a falsely high voice, “Oh, look at Lady Kalan Hawksword . . . we can tell she’s highborn . . . just look at how bloated and podgy she is . . .”

The old slave was not amused. “Just you watch that tone, little miss. I put your mother over my knee more than once. Don’t think I’m too old to do the same to you.”

“She could do with a good spanking, if you want my opinion,” Leila said.

Hugely offended, Kalan jumped to her feet. “Well, nobody asked you for your stupid opinion, Leila Damaran! You’re always picking on me! I hate you!”

Kalan threw down her embroidery and stormed from the nursery. Leila winked at her on the way past and then lowered her head over her embroidery to hide her smile, knowing full well her comment had given her cousin the excuse she needed to flounce from the room in high dudgeon. Leila was a pretty good sport when you needed to escape being cooped up doing embroidery lessons in the nursery on a perfect spring day. All Leila had to do was say something to which Kalan was sure to take offence and, for the sake of peace, the old slave would do nothing to stop Kalan storming off in a huff.

Once that happened, Kalan was free to storm all the way down to the yards where her brothers were training.

Slamming the door with a resounding thump, Kalan strode past the guards outside the nursery, who hurriedly stood to attention as she passed. Taking a shortcut through the glass-roofed solar, Kalan ran out into the gardens and headed for the gate that led down to the barracks. With luck, Almodavar wouldn’t be there. It might be Raek Harlen who had charge of the boys’ training today—after all, Damin had almost killed Almodavar last night. He might need a rest. Raek would usually let Kalan stay and watch. He might even be in a good mood and let her have a turn with one of the wooden practice swords.