War Maid's choice wg-4

by David Weber

  The good news was that she seemed to be determined to avoid even the appearance of “meddling” in his decisions. If Varnaythus had her analyzed properly, that determination sprang not from any lack of strong opinions but from an adamant resolve that no one was going to think of Borandas as some feeble-witted old man who could be manipulated through his marriage bed. She would give her advice, if it was asked for, but she was unlikely to press her views strongly unless they were asked for. That was all to the good, but it also meant that if she saw him about to do something she feared could seriously hurt him, she might very well abandon that restraint.

  That made Bronzehelm even more important, because Myacha respected him so deeply. She knew how long he’d served her husband, how devoted he was to Borandas, and she’d had ample evidence of his intelligence, as well. She also knew how deeply she herself disliked Cassan, and Yeraghor of Ersok was scarcely among her favorite people, either. So if Bronzehelm spoke strongly and positively in favor of the marriage, she was likely to remind herself of how easily emotions could overrule reason and decide she was too prejudiced to render the sort of objective judgment the seneschal was likely to provide.

  Unfortunately, things had moved so quickly Varnaythus hadn’t yet been able to prime Bronzehelm properly, which had required him to return to Halthan several weeks sooner than he’d intended. He’d been lucky to find a window when Borandas, Myacha, and Brayahs were all absent, but he wasn’t at all happy about sitting here in the seneschal’s office in the middle of the day with Bronzehelm staring fixedly at a ring while “Master Talthar” whispered in his ear. It was unlikely, to say the least, that any of the seneschal’s well-trained clerks were going to intrude upon them, but “unlikely” wasn’t remotely the same thing as “certain,” and while Varnaythus had prepared an escape strategy which would take him safely out of harm’s way, a teleportation spell wasn’t exactly unobtrusive.

  Disappearing in a blinding flash of light would draw all sorts of undesirable attention. Worse, it would absolutely confirm to Baron Cassan that his fellow conspirator was a wizard. To this point, Cassan could honestly say he didn’t know “Talthar” was a practitioner of the art, and not even a mage or a champion of Tomanak could prove he did. It was entirely possible, now that he’d finally agreed Markhos and Yurokhas had to die, that not even that discovery would have changed his mind. It was also possible it would, though, and if that happened, if the entire strategy came apart and They decided it was Varnaythus ’ fault…

  You’ve got better things to do than sit around worrying about other things you can’t change anyway, he told himself tartly. And the sooner you get started, the less likely you are to still be sitting here when someone does walk in.

  He sat back in his chair, cleared his throat, and spoke a single word in a language which hadn’t been openly spoken in Norfressa in over twelve centuries. Bronzehelm’s unseeing eyes lifted from the emerald, tracking obediently to Varnaythus’ face, and the wizard smiled.

  The best part was that there was no magic at all involved in what he was about to do. There couldn’t be, since any wizard would have been able to detect any command or compulsion which had been implanted by the art if he’d looked close enough. Varnaythus couldn’t be positive whether or not a mage like Brayahs could have done the same thing, yet it seemed likely. He would have preferred to be more certain about that, but although he’d learned more about the magi in his years here on the Wind Plain than any of his colleagues on the Council of Carnadosa ever had, he still couldn’t be sure about that particular point. He supposed he ought to get around to jotting down all the bits and pieces he’d picked up about the mage talent and make certain the information was available to the rest of the Council, as well. In fact, he’d been meaning to do that for some time now. Still, there were arguments against making it available, now weren’t there? One never knew when it might be…advantageous for one of one’s colleagues to suffer a mischief, and from what he’d already discovered, magi were quite likely to turn into mischiefs of a rather permanent variety under the wrong-or the right-set of circumstances.

  Especially if one had somehow failed-purely inadvertently, of course! — to warn one’s colleagues about what they were about to walk into.

  For the moment, though, what mattered was that Bronzehelm’s trance had nothing at all to do with the art except for the activating word Varnaythus had imprinted not on him, but on the ring in his hand. It was the drugs and the trance which had rendered his mind open and pliable, ready to accept whatever Varnaythus offered as his own thoughts and conclusions. Speaking of which “If it should happen that Cassan chooses to accept Thorandas’ offer for his daughter,” Varnaythus said quietly but clearly, “it would offer many significant advantages to the North Riding. First, it would create a strong political and family alliance in the center of the Kingdom. Second, it would serve notice to Tellian that he can no longer take the North Riding’s neutrality on the Council for granted-that he’d have to be more conciliatory, more open to accommodations with Borandas than he’s been in the past. Third, it would create a united bloc on the Council to serve as a counterweight for the power and wealth Tellian is bound to amass if this canal project of his actually succeeds. Let’s face it, Dahlnar, if it does succeed, he’ll inevitably become the dominant member of the Council. He doesn’t necessarily have to have any designs on tyranny or control of the Crown’s policies, either. In fact, it would be perfectly natural for him to try to shape them into something more acceptable to him, even if he has the best of motives and truly believes what he wants is the best policy for the Kingdom as a whole, and without that counterweight to hold him in check, he’d be bound to succeed. And, of course, if he does have designs on controlling the Crown for his own benefit, a counterweight would become absolutely necessary to protect the other ridings’ interests. Fourth, it’s likely Markhos himself will recognize the need for such a counterweight at some time in the future, once he realizes how Tellian’s success has skewed the traditional balance of political power in Sothofalas, at which point Borandas’ ability to play a moderating role on Cassan’s demands and ambitions would clearly be in the Crown’s-and the Kingdom’s-best interests. Fifth, given the growing closeness between Tellian, Dwarvenhame, and the hradani, a firm alliance of nobles who recognize that the Kingdom’s interests and those of the Axemen may not always be identical would best serve-”

  ***

  The better part of twenty minutes later, Varnaythus drew a deep breath of relief as he came to the end of his points.

  He paused for a moment, running back over them in his own mind. One of the things any wizard acquired early was a perfect memory, since no wizard who failed to acquire one was likely to survive long enough to master the art. It only took a moment for him to be certain he’d covered all of them, and he nodded in satisfaction. He could rely on Bronzehelm’s own intelligence to nurture the points he’d made, find all the reasons they made sense, and the fact that most of them did make sense in many ways would only help that process along.

  But he wasn’t quite finished yet. Bronzehelm was no fool, and it would be disastrous if he ever realized he couldn’t account for entire blocks of time during his visits with his good friend Master Talthar. It was tempting to simply direct him to dismiss the possibility out of hand, and if Varnaythus had been particularly stupid, he might have done just that. The entire purpose of suggesting things to him in this fashion, however, was to avoid exactly that sort of brute force approach. It wouldn’t have been difficult to direct him to manufacture memories of a lengthy, witty conversation before he was released from his trance, and he certainly had both the imagination and the intelligence to do just that, but there were drawbacks to that approach, as well. In particular, returning him to a similar trance-which Varnaythus’ research suggested quite a few magi ought to be able to do-would allow any reasonably adroit practitioner to peel away the false memories. And that could all too easily prompt a deeper, more aggressive probe which might well
reveal the way in which his judgment and opinions had been tampered with.

  Which was why Varnaythus had absolutely no intention of implanting false memories of any sort. There was a certain degree of risk in what he proposed to do instead, of course, but it was a very minor one. The working itself was relatively low-powered, and it was focused in an artifact-the ring in Bronzehelm’s hand-and not upon the seneschal himself at all. A very, very faint residue of the art would cling to him for the next several days, but even Varnaythus would have found it extraordinarily difficult to detect, and that assumed he’d have some reason to look for it in the first place.

  He drew another breath and very carefully shaped another single word in that long-forgotten language, and the ring’s emerald flared again. The flash was much brighter this time, and Bronzehelm’s eyes flickered. They never closed, yet they moved rapidly from side to side as a sleeper’s might have in the midst of some detailed dream. The ring’s brilliance endured for only a very few moments, but Varnaythus was more than content. The glamour he’d worked into that stone didn’t touch Bronzehelm’s mind at all; it simply projected an extraordinarily vivid reality through the seneschal’s eyes and ears. The images he saw, the sounds he heard, were manufactured, perhaps, but he truly did see and hear them, and so the memories of them were true memories, with none of the telltale tags of the art to betray them to any suspicious mage who might examine them.

  The emerald gave one last flicker of light, then went blank once again, and Dahlnar Bronzehelm’s sharp, alert eyes snapped back into focus on his guest’s face.

  ***

  “Well, Talthar, it’s been a pleasant visit, as always,” the seneschal said. “And I thank you for sharing your observations with me. I’m afraid I have several more appointments this afternoon, but would you be free to join Milady and me for supper this evening?”

  “I’d enjoy that very much, Milord,” Master Talthar said. “I’ll have to make an early evening of it, though, I’m afraid.” He smiled wryly. “Since I’ve missed my opportunity to seduce Baron Borandas out of more of those kormaks of his, I’m going to have to seek other prey-I mean, be on the road early tomorrow.”

  “Oh, of course.” The seneschal smiled, then flipped the ring he was still holding across to the merchant. “And I’m sorry you couldn’t convince me to buy this one to defray your expenses. I told you I’d be a hard sell, though, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did,” Master Talthar agreed with another smile, but then he cocked his head and regarded the seneschal shrewdly. “I knew you’d be a hard sell, of course, Milord. That’s one reason I accepted your supper invitation. After all,” his smile grew broader, “ Lady Bronzehelm is a much easier sell, now isn’t she?”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‹ You two-foots are an interesting breed,› Gayrfressa remarked as she moved steadily through the pine trees in the coursers’ ground-eating gait. The breeze blowing through the trees was cool, scented with the resinous, spicy smell of pine needles and just kissed with the damp breath of the Balthar River, and the road to Kalatha and Leeana’s return to duty lay before them. The head of the Gullet Tunnel, on the other hand, lay far enough behind for the voices and noise of the construction gangs to be lost in the distance, and the sound of bird song and the breeze sighing through the needles only made the vast silence of the world seen even greater and more perfect.

  “What do you mean, ‘interesting’?” Leeana asked, glad for the distraction from her inner thoughts.

  ‹ I mean the way each of you thinks you’re your very own isolated island,› the mare explained.

  She shifted smoothly to her right to skirt a particularly dense clump of trees, and Leeana could taste her quiet, ongoing delight at having had the vision of her right eye returned to her. Nor was that the only thing Leanna could sense, and the expansion of her own world was an unending thing of marvel and wonder…one she was coming to suspect would always be unending.

  Leeana Hanathafressa had spent a goodly part of her life in the saddle. She knew the union, the understanding and ability to anticipate, which grew between a rider and her horse, yet never had she and her mount fused the way she had with Gayrfressa. She shared the feel of the mare’s mighty muscles, the play and stretch of tendons, knew Gayrfressa shared her own sense of balance and supple strength in turn, and the tiniest shift, the most subtle movement, blended into a symphony of balanced grace and motion. She savored the sharper, stronger, and ever so much more informative scent of everything about them-not simply the sharp pungency of pine trees, but of moss, water, rock, and earth, as well-as they spoke constantly, almost unconsciously to the huge mare. Those things didn’t come to her through her own senses, and yet the bond between her and Gayrfressa carried their meaning, their import, and their ever shifting texture to her in a constantly flowing, ever-changing tapestry that moved with Gayrfressa through her world.

  “Well,” she said out loud, inhaling deeply and savoring the duality of her own, merely mortal sense of smell as it mingled with Gayrfressa’s while the courser carried her from shadow to dappled sunlight and back again, “we aren’t born with your herd sense, either. We can’t speak mind-to-mind with each other the way you can. I think it’s inevitable we feel isolated from one another in ways you don’t.”

  ‹ And that’s why you think no one could possibly understand why you’re so sad and worried about leaving him behind, is it?›

  Gayrfressa’s tone was suddenly much gentler, and Leeana felt an unexpected stinging in her eyes. The mare, she’d discovered, was fully capable of calling Bahzell by name, yet she seldom did. Leeana wasn’t certain yet why that was, but she suspected Gayrfressa truly did think of him as her herd stallion on some deep, inner level. Courser social dynamics were quite different from those of normal horses. Their herds tended to be larger-considerably larger-than the single-stallion-and-his-harem which was the norm for horses, for one thing. And, for another, coursers lived far longer, and most of them mated for life; the herd stallion was simply the lord of the herd, their baron, not the sire of all their offspring. The members of his herd thought of him that way, without the romantic or sexual overtones which would have colored their thoughts about their own mates, and that seemed to be the way Gayrfressa thought of Bahzell.

  At the same time, there was something else, as well, an additional bond between her and Bahzell. Of course, Gayrfressa had never taken a life mate. That was unusual (but not unheard of) among courser mares, although coursers who bonded with wind riders never life-mated, aside from a handful-like Walsharno, for example-who’d lost their life mates before they took a rider. No one-not even the coursers, so far as Leeana could tell-knew whether they never life-mated because on some deep, deep level they were waiting for their rider, or if they never life-mated because they had bonded with a rider. In Gayrfressa’s case, though, there was that “something else.” Was it because of the way Bahzell had healed her so long ago?

  And did it matter? Was Leeana worrying about it to keep from thinking about the question Gayrfressa had just asked her?

  “I…didn’t want to sound like I was crying on your shoulder,” she said after a moment. “Or maybe I mean I didn’t want to sound petulant and spoiled. It’s not as if I didn’t know he was a champion of Tomanak. And I was raised a Bowmaster-we’re supposed to understand about things like responsibility and duty. And we’re not supposed to whine when responsibility or duty require something from us.”

  ‹ I didn’t notice anyone doing any whining,› Gayrfressa pointed out a bit tartly.

  “No?” Leeana chuckled. To her dismay, the chuckle sounded a little watery, and she blinked her eyes quickly. “Well, maybe that’s because I was afraid that if I started whining I wouldn’t be able to stop!”

  Gayrfressa snorted and tossed her head, and Leeana felt the mare’s gently amused understanding almost as if a comforting arm had been laid around her shoulders. But then ‹ It’s not just being separated from him when you’re both still busy learning ab
out each other,› the courser pointed out. ‹ Not that you don’t both seem to enjoy the learning, of course!›

  Leeana felt her cheekbones heat. Coursers were even more devastatingly frank about certain matters than war maids, and she expected it was going to take her some time to grow accustomed to Gayrfressa’s amused perspective on her relationship with Bahzell.

  ‹ I don’t understand why you worry about that at all,› Gayrfressa said calmly. ‹ I mean, it’s not as if he didn’t understand how to-›

  “We’ll…talk about that later, all right?” Leeana interrupted a bit hastily. “That’s one of those areas where two-foots and coursers need to…take a little time deciding how-or if-to talk about it at all.”

  ‹ Well, if you say so, › Gayrfressa agreed equably, but not so serenely that Leeana didn’t taste the mare’s bubbling amusement. ‹ But it’s not as if he doesn’t understand how to, is it?› she continued, and Leeana laughed and shook her head.

  “Yes, he certainly does ‘understand how to,’” she admitted, and it was true. She was still growing accustomed to the notion that by Horse Stealer hradani standards she was a tiny, delicate little thing, and at first Bahzell had clearly been afraid he might inadvertently break her. Once she’d disabused him of that notion, however, it had turned out that he “understood how to” even more thoroughly than she’d ever allowed herself to hope he might. Which, she was forced to admit, was indeed one of the reasons she was so unhappy at riding steadily away from him on this beautiful, cool morning.

  ‹ And so it should be,› Gayrfressa told her. ‹ But it’s only one r eason. And the other reason is that you’re worried about him, not just unhappy about leaving him behind.›