War Maid's choice wg-4

by David Weber

  Gayrfressa tossed her head in agreement, and Bahzell found himself nodding back to her. Leeana looked down at the big mare’s single ear, then leaned forward to Gayrfressa’s neck.

  “I feel the same,” she said. “And yet I can’t help worrying about Boots.”

  ‹ Worrying?› Gayrfressa repeated.

  “He’s not just my horse, Sister,” Leeana said slowly. “He’s my friend, too, and he has been for a long time.”

  ‹ And?›

  “And I saw him watching from the paddock as we rode away,” Leeana said even more slowly. “Don’t misunderstand me, please, but he deserves better than for me simply to ride out of his life, even on you.”

  ‹ Of course he does,› Gayrfressa said, turning her head to the left until she could see her rider. ‹ Did you think I wanted you to do anything of the sort?› She shook her mane, her ear half-flattened. ‹ The lesser cousins aren’t as intelligent as we are, Sister, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t wise. And it doesn’t mean we don’t love them as much as you two-foots do, or that their hearts aren’t just as deep as ours. A courser needs less looking after than one of the lesser cousins, but I would be very angry with you if you didn’t give Boots stable space right along with me. Besides,› her tone lightened and Leeana heard a silent laugh, ‹ it will do you good to spend a little time on one of the lesser cousins on a regular basis. In fact, it’s a pity Bahzell can’t do the same. It would make him appreciate Walsharno more.›

  ‹ True, too true,› Walsharno agreed. ‹ Of course, it would crush the poor lesser cousin. Oh, the burdens I bear!›

  “Thank you, dearheart,” Leeana said softly, patting Gayrfressa’s shoulder. “I don’t know for certain about his heart, but it would’ve broken mine to simply walk away from him.”

  “Then I’m thinking it’s-”

  Bahzell’s voice broke off in midsentence, and the coursers stopped in perfect unison, as someone else joined the discussion. Two someone elses, in fact.

  Tomanak Orfro, God of War and Judge of Princes, appeared before them with the tall, wind-blown grass stirring about his boots. Ten feet tall, he stood-tall enough to put even coursers into perspective-with his sword across his back and his mace at his belt, but Bahzell had become accustomed to that on those occasions when he met his deity face-to-face. It was the midnight-haired woman at his side, who’d appeared as silently and effortlessly as Tomanak himself, who managed to take even Bahzell Bahnakson aback.

  She was taller than any mortal woman, although still rather shorter than Tomanak, with a regal, womanly beauty, and she regarded Bahzell, Leeana, and the coursers with sapphire eyes deeper than the sea. Her gown glowed and flowed, gleaming somehow with a deep, cool silver luminance even in the bright sunlight, and a beautifully carved ivory moon hung between her rich breasts from a chain of wrought silver set with plaques of opal.

  “Bahzell,” Tomanak said that in that earthquake voice that seemed to take the Wind Plain by the scruff of the neck and shake it with gentle power. Bahzell nodded back to him, and Tomanak smiled. But then the god’s smile faded.

  “This is a day long awaited, my Sword,” he said.

  “Is it now?” Bahzell inquired politely when Tomanak paused.

  “It is. Although, like so much about you mortals, it isn’t quite what we’d expected.” The god cocked his head at Gayrfressa, who simply looked back at him, meeting his gaze with her single eye. “An interesting development, Wind Daughter,” Tomanak said to her. “But great heart knows great heart.”

  “Yes, it does,” another voice agreed. It was as powerful as Tomanak’s own, that voice, but as different as wind from earth, and it sang, for it wasn’t a single voice. It was three, combined, flowing together in perfect a cappella harmony, and Bahzell suddenly wished Brandark could have been there. One of those voices was a high, sweet soprano, sparkling with youth and the joy of beginnings, yet almost cool and deeply focused. The second was deeper and richer, blurring the line between mezzo soprano and contralto, confident and strong, reaching out as if to embrace and strengthen everyone within its reach. And the third…the third was softer-sadder perhaps, or perhaps more weary. There was a hardness in that third voice, a coldness, and yet it, too, reached out as if to offer solace and comfort and acceptance at the end of day.

  “Great heart always knows great heart when they meet,” those voices sang now, and those sapphire eyes moved from Gayrfressa to Leeana. “Yet not all hearts, for all their greatness, have the courage to reach beyond themselves as yours has, Daughter.”

  “My heart had good teachers, Mother,” Leeana replied, meeting that bottomless blue gaze as fearlessly as ever Bahzell had met Tomanak’s.

  “Yes, it did,” Lillinara Orfressa acknowledged. “Would that all of my daughters had mothers fit to give their wings such strength.”

  “It wasn’t only Mother, Milady,” Leeana said. “I love her dearly, but anything I am today isn’t her work alone.”

  “No. No, it isn’t. And despite what even many of my followers believe, it isn’t true that men find no favor in my eyes, Daughter. Not even in the full dark of the moon, when the taste of justice burns hottest on my tongue. Man and woman were always meant for one another, and my heart is filled with joy when they find one another-when they know one another as your mother has known your father through all the years of joy and pain…and as you know Bahzell.”

  Those deep, dark eyes moved to Bahzell as she spoke, and the hradani felt their weight. He felt them measuring and evaluating, weighing and trying, testing strengths and weaknesses not even Tomanak had touched so directly. He met them steadily, shoulders squared, and slowly, slowly she nodded.

  “You are all my brother has said, Bahzell, son of Arthanal. I see why he thinks so highly of you…and so do I.”

  “I’m naught but what you see before you, Lady,” he replied.

  “Perhaps not, but what I see before me is quite enough.” She smiled. “Many men can die obedient to their sworn word, or for justice, or to defend the weak, but not all of them do it out of love.”

  “And not all of them are called upon to give up so much for love,” Tomanak rumbled. Bahzell and Leeana both looked at him, and he smiled at them. That smile was warm, yet there were shadows in it, and in his eyes.

  “Grief awaits you, children,” he told them softly. “Love is mortal kind’s greatest and most painful treasure. When another’s happiness is more important to you than your own, the time must always come when darkness shadows the light and the joy you’ve taken from and given to one another. It will be so with you.”

  “Grief is part of life, Milord,” Leeana said, reaching out to reclaim Bahzell’s hand. “That’s why you gave us love, so we could cope with the grief.”

  “An interesting theory,” Tomanak told her with a smile. “Yet the truth is that love surpasses us in ways no mortal can fully understand. You are full of surprises, you mortals-so weak in so many ways, and yet so strong because of your weaknesses. So easily drawn to the shadow, so many of you…and such blazing torches against the Dark.” He shook his head. “The courage you show in facing every day of your mortal lives puts the courage of any god or goddess to shame, Leeana Hanathafressa. Did you know that?”

  “No.” It was her turn to shake her head. “We only do our best, Milord.”

  “Which is the most anyone, god or mortal, could ask of you,” he agreed. “And which is also the only thing you and Bahzell-or Walsharno and Gayrfressa-know how to give.”

  None of the mortals knew how to respond to that. They only looked back at him, and he smiled. Then his smile faded, and he reached out one enormous hand to touch first Bahzell’s head, and then Leeana’s. They felt the power to shatter worlds singing in his fingers, yet that mighty hand was as gentle as a bird’s wing, and his eyes were gentler yet.

  “I have no desire to embarrass any of you, my children, and great hearts that you are, it does embarrass you when anyone sings your praises. That’s why you’re so much more comfortable
turning deep emotion aside with jokes and insults. But what you give to all about you is the reason Lillinara and I have come to you today.”

  “The reason?” Bahzell repeated in an unwontedly humble voice.

  “The war maids’ charter denies you something both you and Leeana long for, my Sword, whether you would admit it even to yourselves or not. Your parents, your friends, will recognize that the ‘freemating’ to which the law restricts a war maid is a true marriage, one of heart and soul and not simply of the flesh. Yet both of you know not everyone will share or accept that truth. Not even a god can change the heart of someone who hates or denigrates with blind, unreasoning bigotry. But we know, Lillinara and I, and whatever the law of mortals may say, we are not bound by charters or legal codes or custom.”

  “Great heart knows great heart, I said,” Lillinara sang, “and so do we. So tell us, my children, do you truly take one another as man and wife? Will you cleave to one another through times of joy and times of sorrow? Will you love, protect, care for one another? Will you share your lives in the face of all this world’s tempests and bring one another at the end of everything into the still, sweet calm of your love?”

  “Aye, that I will, Lady,” Bahzell replied, raising Leeana’s hand to his lips.

  “And I,” Leeana replied, equally firmly, turning to smile not at the goddess but into Bahzell’s eyes.

  “Then hold out your left hands,” Tomanak said.

  Bahzell released Leeana’s hand and they both extended their left arms.

  “Blood of blood,” Tomanak rumbled.

  “Bone of bone,” Lillinara sang.

  “Flesh of flesh,” Tomanak pronounced.

  “Heart of heart,” his sister said.

  “And soul of soul,” their voices mingled in a duet fit to set the heavens trembling or send mountains dancing, a song that echoed from the stars themselves. “Be two who are one. Give, share, love, and know the joy such love deserves.”

  Light gathered about the extended wrists-a cloud of blue touched with the argent of moonlight and burnished with gold. It enveloped Bahzell’s and Leeana’s arms, flashing higher and brighter, and then, with a silent explosion, it vanished and they gazed at the bracelets upon their wrists. The traditional cuff-style marriage bracelets of a Sothoii wife and husband, but different. They gleamed not with the gold of which such bracelets were made, at least among the wealthy, nor with the rubies with which such bracelets were set. No, these were of silver and set with opals in a gleaming circle about the full moon of the Mother between the crossed sword and mace of Tomanak. More than that, they were broader and made in a single, unbroken piece, without any opening, as if they had been forged about their wearers’ wrists, and even in the bright daylight of the Wind Plain, they gleamed faintly in blue and silver.

  Bahzell and Leeana stared down at them, then raised their eyes to Tomanak and Lillinara once more, and Tomanak smiled at them.

  “We promise they won’t glow when you don’t want them to,” he said. “When you’re creeping around in the shrubbery, for example.” His smile grew broader, then faded into an expression of sober pleasure. “And I know the two of you needed no outward symbol of your love for one another. But when we find ourselves as proud of someone as we are of you, we reserve the right to give them that outward symbol, whether they need it or not. Wear them with joy, my children.”

  Bahzell and Leeana nodded, unable for once to speak, and Lillinara cocked her head.

  “And now, Leeana, I have a gift to celebrate your wedding.”

  “Lady?” Leeana looked puzzled.

  “I think it will bring you joy, Leeana, but it isn’t really for you. Or not directly at least,” Lillinara continued. “Not even a goddess can make things as if they’d never happened. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take steps…Gayrfressa.”

  The mare twitched, her surprise obvious, and her ear pricked forward as she gazed up at the deity.

  ‹ Yes, Lady?› Even her mental voice seemed less brash than usual, and Lillinara smiled at her.

  “You are as worthy a daughter as Leeana,” the goddess said. “And, like her, you would never ask any special favor for yourself. And that is why I give both of you this gift on the day of her wedding and to celebrate the day of your bonding with her.”

  She reached out, touching Gayrfressa’s forehead, and silver light blazed up, blindingly bright in the daylight. The courser’s head tossed-in surprise, not fear or hurt-and then the light flashed once and was gone.

  Bahzell’s ears flattened as Gayrfressa turned her head, looking at him, and her incredulous joy flooded into him through his herd sense. The mutilated socket of her right eye had been filled once again-not with an eye, but with a glittering blue and silver star. It glowed, almost like Wencit of Rum’s wildfire eyes but without the shifting rainbow hue of Wencit’s gaze, and delight roared through Gayrfressa’s heart like the proud, joyous strength of the wind for which she was named as the vision which had been ripped from her was restored.

  “You’ve always seen more than most, Daughter,” Lillinara told her gently. “Now you’ll be able to see what others see, as well. And perhaps,” the goddess smiled almost impishly, and delight chuckled and rippled through the glorious harmony of her voices, “you’ll see just a little more clearly than they while you’re about it.”

  She stepped back, beside Tomanak, and the two deities gazed at the four mortals before them for a long, silent moment. Then, in unison, they bent their heads in a bow of farewell and vanished.

  Human, hradani, and coursers looked at one another, bemused, shaken, joyous, and somehow deeply rested and refreshed, and the voices of god and goddess whispered in the backs of their brains.

  “Love each other, children. Love each other always as much as you do now, for yours is a song this world will long remember, and love is what will take you there, and give you strength, and bring you home to us in the end.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Now that’s impressive,” Leeana observed the next morning as Gayrfressa and Walsharno rounded a last bend and emerged in a clearing in the middle of a forest of towering pines.

  “Aye, that it is,” Bahzell replied, and it wasn’t the simple agreement it might have been. Unlike his wife-and, oh, but that word tasted good in his thoughts! — he’d seen the plans, although the last time he’d actually been here, there’d been nothing to see but trees. He’d known exactly what to expect…and his expectations had fallen well short of the reality anyway.

  The pine forest about them covered a stretch of gently rolling hills on either side of the Balthar River. Anywhere except atop the Wind Plain, they probably wouldn’t have been dignified with the name of “hills” at all. But they were high enough to be noticeable, heaved up by whatever long-ago cataclysm had diverted the Balthar from the Gullet, and they sloped steadily downhill to the southeast until they met the Bogs that diversion had created. The trees themselves were enormous, rising out of a gauzy layer of early mist the sun had yet to burn away, but they’d been cleared and the stumps had been rooted out from an area at least five hundred yards across.

  That clearing wasn’t what had evoked Leeana’s comment, however. No, what she was looking at was the gaping hole at its center. That hole was a rectangle, sixty-five feet by thirty feet, sloping gently but inevitably downward into the lantern-lit depths at a three-degree angle. The last few yards, where it passed through clay and soil, were lined with brick and concrete, but beyond that it was bored out of smoothly polished stone, and a constant, gentle pressure blew out of it to greet them as they approached it.

  “Why is there so much breeze coming out of it?” she asked.

  “You’ll have to ask that of Serman, if it’s a complete answer you want,” Bahzell said wryly. “It’s often enough he’s tried to explain it to me, but I’ll not pretend I actually understand it. As nearly as I’ve been able to lay hands on it, even air is after having its own weight, and the thicker it is, the more it’s after weighing. A
nd the air at the foot of the Escarpment is just a mite thicker than it is up here where you Sothoii are after living. So the weight as presses down on all that air down below is after squeezing it up through the tunnel.”

  Leeana looked at him as if she suspected him of making sport of her, and Walsharno snorted.

  ‹ I was there when Serman explained it to him. All the times Serman explained it to him,› the courser told her. ‹ He got it pretty much straight. Of course, Serman is one of those two-foots who can’t seem to explain anything without numbers. Lots of numbers.›

  ‹ Which must have been dreadfully confusing for someone who can’t even read,› Gayrfressa observed to no one in particular. Walsharno ignored her rather pointedly, and the mare tossed her head in the equine equivalent of a laugh.

  They’d continued towards the opening while they spoke, and now they halted as the score or so of hradani and dwarves laboring to build the brick housing which would protect the upper end of the tunnel from wind and weather-and especially from ice and snow, given Wind Plain winters-when it was finished looked up and saw them.

  “Prince Bahzell!” one of the hradani called, laying aside his trowel and walking across to greet them. He wiped his powerful, calloused hands on his canvas work apron, then reached up far enough-it was a stretch, even for a Horse Stealer hradani-to clasp forearms with Bahzell. “Sure, and you might have warned us as you were coming,” he said with the informality of a member of Bahzell’s own clan.

  “So I might, if I’d been minded to,” Bahzell agreed cheerfully. “But it was in my mind as how I might surprise you and your lads lazing around up here if it so happened you weren’t expecting me, Harshan!”

  “Lazing around, is it?” Harshan grinned up at him. “Not so likely with Serman cracking the whip!”

  “And a true terror he is.” Bahzell’s foxlike ears twitched with amusement. “Given the choice, I’d sooner face dog brothers than a dwarf with a schedule to meet!”