War Maid's Choice

by David Weber

  The dandy brush stopped moving, and Leeana felt a mortified blush sweeping over her face as her throat closed and she literally could not speak. She stared into Greenslope’s eyes, and the stablemaster did something he hadn’t done since she was ten years old. He reached up one gnarled, work-hardened hand and laid it ever so gently against her cheek.

  “I’d not want my daughter to make that decision, lass,” he said quietly, “but my heart would fair bust with pride if she did. And I don’t think any lass as had the heart and courage and the love to make it is going to do anything with her life that could ever cause shame to those as love her.”

  Tears welled in Leeana’s eyes, and he smiled crookedly, then smacked her cheek lightly with his palm and turned away.

  “I’ll just go and see to the manger in Her Ladyship’s stall,” he said, and walked away whistling.

  * * *

  “You look...better,” Hanatha said, regarding her daughter across the table.

  Tahlmah Bronzebow had successfully corralled Sharlassa before she could escape at the end of lunch and hauled her off for a session with Sir Jahlahan, leaving Hanatha and Leeana to sit in companionable silence. Now Leeana swirled her glass of lemonade, listening to the gentle clink of a few precious pieces of ice from the spacious Hill Guard icehouse. It was a scandalous luxury, of course, and one she hadn’t sampled in at least six years.

  “I feel better,” she admitted, looking up from the glass to meet her mother’s gaze. “I hadn’t really talked with Doram in too long.”

  “Ah.” Hanatha smiled faintly. “I wondered if he might take the opportunity to offer you some sage advice.”

  “Sage advice?” Leeana tilted her head, looking at her mother quizzically, and Hanatha chuckled.

  “Doram Greenslope’s been a fixture of Hill Guard since before your father was born, my dear. And I don’t suppose any Sothōii with a working brain—which does describe your father...most of the time, at least—picks a fool to supervise his stables, do you? Over the years, Doram’s found a way to give quite a few bits and pieces of sage advice to various inhabitants of this castle. Including various inhabitants who happen to be sitting across the table from each other at this very moment.” Her green eyes warmed. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t hoped he might have a few gems to share with you, love.”

  “Well, he did,” Leeana acknowledged, feeling her eyes prickle afresh with memory. “And you might want to mention to Father that just because no one else can hear Dathgar when Dathgar talks to him, that doesn’t mean no one can hear him when he talks to Dathgar.”

  “So Doram knows the real reason you ran away?” If Hanatha felt any distress over the discovery, she hid it well, Leeana thought.

  “He didn’t come straight out and say ‘I know you ran away to avoid that proposed betrothal to Rulth Blackhill, well-known philanderer, lecher, and rapist,’” Leeana said dryly, “but I think he had most of it figured out.”

  “Including the bit about running away to prevent your father’s political enemies from using you as a weapon against him?” Hanatha asked softly.

  “Maybe.” Leeana looked back down into her lemonade again and inhaled deeply. “No, not maybe. He knows; I’m pretty certain of it.”

  “Good,” Hanatha said in that same soft voice, and Leeana looked back up quickly.

  “Mother—” she began, but Hanatha’s headshake cut her off.

  “Leeana, there’s no one in the entire Kingdom who can see lightning or hear thunder who hasn’t figured out by now that the dearest desire of Cassan Axehammer’s heart is to see your father ruined and—preferably—dead,” she said calmly. “The lines have been drawn for longer than you’ve been alive, and the political battlefield’s changed—changed pretty significantly—since you became a war maid. To be honest, part of that is because you became a war maid, which cleared the way for your father to formally adopt Trianal as his heir. I suppose it’s unfair, but removing you from the succession and settling it firmly on a male heir took the wind out of Cassan’s sails where that whole flank attack was concerned. And then Bahzell had the sheer effrontery to save the survivors of Gayrfressa’s herd from Krahana, after which he and Kaeritha—with the help of your father and a few other wind riders and coursers—settled that situation in Quaysar and Trianal and Lord Warden Festian settled Cassan’s hash in that little campaign of his to ruin Glanharrow. And as if that weren’t enough, there’s this whole new canal project and tunnel your father’s concocted with Kilthandahknarthas and Brandark!”

  She paused to take a sip of her own lemonade, then smiled crookedly.

  “Darling, if any of us had been able to read the future and know what was going to happen in Warm Springs and in Quaysar, and what Trianal and Sir Yarran were going to do to Lord Saratic’s armsmen, there would never have been any need for you to ‘run away’ to the war maids. I regret that more than I could ever tell you, in many ways. I regret what it’s cost you, and I regret the last seven years that it’s cost your father and me because it was so painful for you to come visit us here.”

  Leeana started to protest, but her mother shook her head and raised her hand.

  “Leeana, I’ve loved you more than life itself from the day your heart began to beat beneath mine, and so has your father,” Hanatha said quietly. “And, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you really can’t lie or pretend very well to me. Not when I can look in your eyes, hear what your voice is trying to hide. I know exactly why you’ve stayed away for so many years. Perhaps I should have said something about it at the time, but to be honest, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to let you do a little more growing up before you came home to deal with the kinds of looks and attitudes you’re likely to deal with here in Balthar. You were always strong, love, but sometimes it takes a while to grow the armor we need, and you needed the time away from here to grow yours.

  “Now I think you have, because when I look at you now all I see is the strength, not the pain. I don’t doubt there’s still hurt in there, because I don’t see how it could be any other way, but you’ve got the strength—and the armor—to watch it bounce off instead of cutting you to the quick. Enough that maybe you’ll realize Doram isn’t the only one of your old friends who’s missed you. And I’m not surprised Doram’s kept your father’s confidence and not broken a few tankards over loudmouthed heads down at the Crimson Arrow when they started talking about the barony’s ‘disgraced daughter.’ I’m sure he wanted to, but he’d never dream of revealing anything he learned in confidence...or by accident, especially if it might hurt the family, however badly his heart might have wanted to tell certain idiots what really happened. And, truth to tell, it was probably a good thing he did, at least for the first few years. But now?”

  She shook her head again.

  “Now I don’t think your father’s worst enemies could make any capital at all out of the fact that you ‘fled’ to the war maids to prevent Cassan and his cronies from using a forced betrothal to you as a weapon against him. And the fact that you’re a war maid, shocking and appalling as that must be to any decent-minded person”—Hanatha’s irony was withering—“doesn’t worry either of us a single solitary damn.” Leeana’s eyes widened, because Hanatha never swore even the mildest of oaths, but her mother only smiled. “Time and events have moved on, love, and hard as that decision was for you at the time, it simply doesn’t matter now. I don’t care who Doram might choose to share his interpretation of the truth with. In fact, I hope he shares it with everyone in Balthar!”

  It was a day for revelations, Leeana thought, feeling the glass of lemonade cold in her fingers. First Doram and now her mother.

  Should’ve known better than to think you could fool her, nitwit, she told herself. Your skull always was made out of glass where she was concerned. But I wonder if—?

  “I...I don’t think he has to,” she said out loud. “Oh, it matters to me that he knows, and it matters more than I could ever say that you understand why I stayed away. But you’re righ
t, I think—probably more right than I would’ve realized before this moment. I have grown the armor I need; I just hadn’t realized I have.” She smiled, and if it was a bit lopsided, that smile, it was also warm and loving. “I don’t need Doram to convince anyone else I did the right thing as long as I know I did and as long as I know you believe I did. We despicable war maids are used to standing up for ourselves, you know.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Hanatha said with a smile of her own. “But even the hardiest of warriors can occasionally use an ally, and Doram could be a very useful one. No one’s ever dared to denigrate you openly in front of your father or me, but I’m pretty sure quite a few people who might have done just that—your Aunt Gayarla comes to mind—have refrained only because they felt we would have defended you out of mushy-minded love, no matter what you’d done. Oh, admittedly becoming a war maid wasn’t a minor social faux pas like, say, murder,” her smile flashed suddenly into a grin, “but it was undoubtedly the same thing. Just a pair of parents unable to accept what a totally self-centered, spoiled ingrate of a child they’d raised. But Doram has a rather different perspective on you and the family, and anyone who knows him knows he’s about as stubborn and independent minded as they come. He could go a long way toward defanging some of the resentment and anger I know a great many in Balthar feel where you’re concerned. Of course, quite a few of those people are going to be extremely reluctant to admit they’ve been wrong for the last half dozen years or so, so they probably won’t. It’s much more comfortable to cling to your bigotry than it is to admit you’ve been wrong to feel it in the first place, you know.”

  “I do know. You only have to look at how some of them still feel about hradani,” Leeana agreed and snorted just a bit more harshly than she’d intended to.

  “True.”

  Hanatha sat back in her chair, regarding her daughter thoughtfully, then cocked her head.

  “Odd you should mention hradani, love,” she said.

  “Odd?” Leeana’s tone sounded a bit forced to her own ear. “Odd how, Mother?”

  “Well, it’s just that the only other person no one ever dared to denigrate you in front of—I mean, aside from your father and I, who love you, of course—was Prince Bahzell.”

  “Oh?” Leeana swore with silent, vicious venom as her voice cracked on the single syllable, and her mother smiled again, with an odd gentleness this time.

  “Yes. Well, I imagine that would only be to be expected, now that I think about it. He is a champion of Tomanāk, after all. He recognizes justice—and injustice—when he sees it, and he did know the true reason you’d run away. And on top of all that, there are those scandalous liberties the hradani allow their own womenfolk, so naturally he’d be more blind than a proper Sothōii to how the war maids violate every conceivable canon of respectable female behavior. No doubt that’s why he was always so quick to defend you.”

  “He was?” The question was forced out of Leeana against her will, and her mother’s smile grew broader.

  “Actually, now that I think about it, it wasn’t so much the way in which he sprang to your defense as the way he simply looked at whoever might have made the unfortunate comment. It’s most entertaining to see a strong man’s knees quiver under a mere glance, you know. No,” her tone turned thoughtful, “I don’t believe he ever actually had to say a single word.”

  “He...always seemed to understand,” Leeana said slowly. “Before I ran away, I mean. He...gave me some very good advice.” She smiled at her mother a bit mistily. “If I’d listened to him, I never would’ve run.”

  “No, you wouldn’t have,” Hanatha agreed. “And that would have been a very wonderful thing...from my perspective. But from yours?” She shook her head. “Your father is one Sothōii noble in a thousand, Leeana. You would have grown up freer, less confined, than any other young woman of your station in the Kingdom. And you would never have become all you can be, because there still would have been limits, barriers, not even he could have removed for you. And”—Hanatha Bowmaster’s eyes stabbed suddenly into her daughter’s—“you would never truly have been free to follow your heart wherever it leads you.”

  Silence hovered, so still the buzzing of a bee in the flowers of the open window’s planter box could be clearly heard. Then Leeana very carefully and precisely set down her glass and looked at her mother.

  “You’ve guessed?” Her tone made the question a statement, and Hanatha nodded gently.

  “I told you, you’ve never really been able to hide your feelings from me, sweetheart. I guessed long ago, before you ever fled to Kalatha, in fact. For that matter, I’ve always suspected it might have been one of the reasons you ran.”

  “I...” Leeana inhaled deeply. “I think, perhaps, it was. At least a little,” she admitted.

  “That made me very angry with him, for a while,” Hanatha said in the tone of someone making an admission in return. “I thought how silly it was—how stupid—for me to have lost my only daughter over a schoolroom miss’s infatuation. How ridiculous it was for you to have ruined your life at fourteen for something that could never happen. But I don’t know if he ever realized it at all.” She paused, frowning, then shook her head. “No, that’s not really quite right. I don’t know if he ever allowed himself to realize it at all. You’re very young, you know,” she smiled faintly, “and you were considerably younger then.”

  “Maybe I’m not as much of a war maid as I thought I was.” Leeana’s voice was a mixture of wry admission, frustration, and anxiety. “Somehow I never really envisioned us having this particular conversation, Mother. And...and I’m afraid.”

  “Afraid?” Hanatha asked gently. “My daughter, afraid? Ridiculous. A slight case of nerves I’ll allow, but not fear. Not in someone who will always be a daughter of the House of Bowmaster, whatever that silly war maid charter may say!”

  Leeana surprised herself with a gurgle of laughter, and her mother leaned forward, reaching across the table to stretch out an index finger and wipe away the single tear Leeana hadn’t realized had trickled down her cheek.

  “Better!” Hanatha said.

  “Maybe so, Mother, but it doesn’t get me any closer to a solution to my problem, now does it?”

  “Leeana Hanathafressa, are you going to sit there and tell me—as your father’s daughter, as well as mine—that you came all the way home to Hill Guard for your twenty-first birthday, without a plan of campaign? Please! I know you far better than that.”

  “But, you really wouldn’t...I mean, you and Father won’t...?”

  “Six and a half years ago, possibly I would have,” Hanatha admitted. “For that matter, four years ago I might have. But now? Today? Today you’ve earned the right in my heart, as well as under the law, to make this decision without deferring to anyone except your own heart. I’d love you and accept and respect any decision you might make, even if I felt it was a mistake which would bring you more heartache than you could possibly imagine. Fortunately, I don’t think you are making a mistake, and I’ve had every one of those years you were away to watch him any time your name was mentioned.”

  “Then you truly won’t be distressed?”

  “Have you become hard of hearing as a war maid, dear?”

  “No! No, I haven’t,” Leeana assured her with another, freer laugh.

  “Good, because I was beginning to think you must have!”

  The two of them sat in silence for the better part of two minutes, then Hanatha picked up her own glass of lemonade, sipped, and set it back down once more.

  “I trust you do have a plan of campaign,” she told her daughter with a composed expression, “because I’m quite sure he’s spent the last seven years going over every reason it would be totally unsuitable, unacceptable, wrong, and diplomatically disastrous. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised by now if he’s managed, with that excess of nobility I’ve noticed he tries very hard to hide, to decide he never actually felt any of those things in the first place. In fact, he’s probably
done almost as good a job of it—no, maybe even a better job of it—than Trianal’s done where Sharlassa is concerned.”

  “Trianal and Sharlassa?” Leeana’s eyes widened.

  “Of course, Leeana!” Hanatha shook her head. “She’s a dear, sweet child, but that isn’t the only reason I’ve been so happy to have her staying here at Hill Guard while we polish her education in all those things you managed to run away from. And she, of course, thinks she’s far too poorly born to be a suitable match for Trianal, while he thinks she’s too young—Lillinara, all of seven years younger than him!—for him to be thinking about ‘robbing the cradle’ or using his position as your father’s heir to ‘pressure’ her into accepting his advances.” The baroness rolled her eyes. “There are times I feel surrounded by nothing but noble, selfless, utterly frustrating blockheads.”

  “Oh, my!” Leeana laughed, leaning back in her own chair. “It really would be a perfect match, wouldn’t it? And it would take all of the traditional political alliance-building out of the equation when it comes time to find Trianal a wife. Even better, no one on the Council could possibly object if father and Sir Jahsak both approve of it. And you know Sir Jahsak would always support Trianal as his father-in-law!”

  “You see? You truly are your father’s daughter. Leaving aside the undoubted political and tactical advantages, however, I think it would be a good idea because whether they realize it yet or not, they’re both in love with each other. Which, oddly enough, brings me back to you, my dear.”

  “It does? How?” Leeana’s voice was wary, and her mother snorted.

  “You have been listening to me for the last, oh, half hour or so, haven’t you? Trianal and Sharlassa? You and...someone else? You wouldn’t happen to see any parallels emerging here, would you?”

  “Well, yes, actually,” Leeana admitted.

  “Well then. Do you want my advice or not?”

  “Of course I do,” Leeana said, mostly honestly, and Hanatha smiled.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to be direct, love,” she said. “Possibly very direct, because I think you can trust him to come up with at least a thousand perfectly plausible reasons why it would all be a dreadful mistake and somehow a betrayal of your father’s hospitality and friendship. Not to mention a political disaster.” She cocked her head thoughtfully for a moment, then shrugged. “Actually, the ‘political disaster’ idea is probably his best argument against it, so if I were you, I’d take steps to avoid or neutralize it as early as possible. I understand war maids can be shamelessly forward in matters like this. Is that true, my dear?”