Homage and Honour

by Candy Rae

  “Yes we are, early,” Jess whispered back and told her the route they intended to take to rejoin the Ryzck.

  With a shy smile and a nod, Tiffney left.

  Jon turned a quizzical look on Jess.

  : Jon suspects what we are up to : Mlei confided : he cannot condone it but he doesn’t want to stop it either. Dalya says that he is attracted to Tiffney :

  : Perhaps we should set out on a new career as matchmakers : joked Jess.

  Thus it was that when Jess and Mlei returned to Vada at the end of their attachment, they brought with them a young girl named Tiffney and a Lind named Qenei. The two, Tiffney and Qenei, had met outside Stewarton and their mind bonding had occurred a scant two bells later.

  Tiffney and Jess never became great friends such as the four members of the Quartet were but they liked each other and met up from time to time for kala and a chat.

  Tiffney always said that, without Jess’s help, she would never have found the life-happiness she now had.

  * * * * *

  Dunthed (First Month of Winter) – AL157

  Queen (1)

  Anne, Queen of Murdoch was resting in her private apartments. With her were her three children.

  It was the only place in the palace that she could really call her own. The Queen’s Sitting Room it was called and none could enter without the Queen’s express permission. It had been so for some decades.

  The second King Elliot’s wife and consort had begun the tradition during the early years of her marriage and it had become her haven, a place apart from the very public general court. Even the Queen’s ladies were not allowed to enter at will. Queen Celine had suffered long at the imposition of ladies not to her liking and by her husband and had taken what steps she could.

  The tradition was that the Queen Consort ‘owned’ this private place. Of course, Anne was a Queen Regnant but David had insisted that the tradition continue and the Dukes of Duchesne and Cocteau had backed him up much to the discomfiture of Sam Baker who had been of the opinion that Anne should be available to him and the other palace nobility at all times.

  Little Ruth was playing with her toys in one corner, Annette and Xavier sitting close by on the comfortable settee whilst their mother prepared to read them a letter she had received that very morning.

  “Now, remember that you mustn’t talk of this to anyone,” she reminded them as she re-scanned the first lines.

  “Is it really from Jess, Mother?” asked Princess Annette.

  “It’s certainly her writing,” she answered, showing her the untidy scrawl.

  “I wish she was here with us,” was Xavier’s plaintive comment, “I miss her.”

  “We all do,” agreed his mother, “but she can never come here as I’ve explained more than once. She cannot leave Mlei. He would not be welcome here.”

  “I don’t see why not,” he argued.

  Annette turned to him, “Mlei’s a Lind. The Lind and the Larg are at war, have been for years and years and years. Murdoch is an ally of the Larg. Stupid.”

  “Don’t call me stupid,” her brother flared. “I’m the Crown-Prince and much more important than you. You’re only a girl.”

  “Hush children,” remonstrated Anne. “Don’t you want to hear what your sister has to say? And Xavier, I don’t want to hear any more such talk. Annette is your older sister and deserves respect.”

  “Sorry Mother,” her son answered, abashed at this censure, “now can we hear the letter?”

  “Remember, it’s a secret,” Anne reminded them. “The Conclave doesn’t know exactly where Jess is and we need to keep it that way.”

  “I remember,” said Annette, “only the Dukes Cocteau and Duchesne, the Count Charles and the Lord Marshall know. It’s to keep Jess and Mlei safe.”

  “Indeed. Now, Jess is well and so is Mlei, she is enjoying the Vada and she misses us all. Granny Jessica is recovering too.”

  When David entered the sitting room later, a bright-eyed Anne was waiting for him.

  “You look cheerful enough,” he said as he lowered his lanky frame into the vacant chair by the fireplace.

  “I am,” she agreed, “The Lord Marshall is not long departed.” Her words were filled with meaning.

  “Is it?”

  “A letter from Jess, yes it is, at last.”

  “What does she say?” David was all eagerness. His fingers were twitching as he restrained himself from grabbing hold of the missive.

  “She asks after us all and wants to know what it’s like being a Queen!” Anne grimaced, “I don’t think I’ll tell her the truth when I write back. She writes about being a Princess in absentia and tells me that she is being teased unmercifully about it by Tana.”

  “Did Philip Ross say he could get a letter back?”

  Anne nodded. She was sitting holding the precious letter as if she was frightened to let it go, which, David was thinking, was probably exactly what she did think. Anne had taken the enforced separation from Jess much harder than he had. It was because she had so much free time on her hands. David had made little progress with his proposal that she should share the governmental load with him. The concept that women were second-class citizens and incapable of performing any tasks outside the home environment was well entrenched in the minds of the male. So Anne spent the candlemarks (it was hard to remember not to call them bells) in what was considered suitable feminine pursuits, despite being Queen Regnant.

  “May I see the letter?”

  Anne let it go with reluctance.

  “She appears well and happy,” he said, handing it back after he had read it twice over. “These three girlfriends of hers are a fine bunch.”

  “I’m still worried,” his wife said. “I’m afraid the children will talk and the other Dukes will find out about her. Ruth is too young to keep such a secret.”

  “It will come out eventually,” David answered her unspoken question, “they know there was an older daughter. You think they’ll go after her, bring her south to join us. They can’t.”

  “I’m not completely isolated here. Lady Cocteau was right. I do hear about things. Some of the Dukes are uneasy, even William Duchesne. Their previous royal family was wiped out in a flash. They want more heirs and Jess is of childbearing age and they wouldn’t need Mlei. It would destroy Jess if Mlei were to be killed.”

  “It won’t happen I swear to you,” said David, hoping that he could keep the promise. “Of course, we could always have another of our own. That should put an end to any grumblings.”

  “I am not a brood mare,” said Anne. She did however rise from her chair and nestle into David on his.

  Some tendays later Prince Consort David, Count Charles Cocteau and Lord Marshall Philip Ross went hunting.

  In a clearing, far from prying eyes and suspicious ears they stopped, dismounted and, having tethered their horses, sat down on some nearby tree trunks to have a talk. The subject under discussion was the Duke of Baker.

  “His grandson can have the throne,” grumbled David.

  “And could you, in all honesty, leave Murdoch to be governed by Sam Baker?”

  “At this moment,” declared David,” yes I bloody well could.”

  “And the Larg?” Philip Ross continued, “though my intelligence indicates that they don’t much care who rules here. I don’t understand it.”

  “Don’t tell that to the Duke of Baker,” advised Charles, “he’s accepted Anne. Let sleeping Larg lie.”

  “You think so? Oh, I agree he’s paying lip service; the Bakers have a chequered history. In the civil wars that family has always opposed the crown. They are ambitious to a man.”

  “What do you mean that the Larg do not care,” queried David.

  “They have other fish to fry,” answered Philip.

  “An attack? On us?” David felt himself pale.

  Philip frowned, “it is unclear. That is one possibility.”

  “There is no way they could attack Argyll or Vadath,” argued David, “t
he North has fortified the approach over the island chain. It’s an impregnable barrier.”

  “They attacked Vadath before.”

  “That was with our ancestor’s help,” said Charles, “without ships there is no other route north apart from the chain. Even the pirates don’t have enough ships to transport the entire Larg army, two kohorts at the most and why should they? No profit in it for them. We will have to increase the border guard I fear. Conscription even.”

  David groaned. The interminable debates in Conclave on increasing tax revenue to pay for more regiments was not one he wished to think about on his afternoon off thank you very much and conscription, he could just see Sam Baker’s apoplectic face when he suggested it.

  David wished he was back at home on his farm. That afternoon he was wishing for a return to those carefree days more than ever.

  * * * * *

  INTERREGNUM - YEARS 158 TO 166

  AL158

  Count Charles Cocteau married Miss Sandra Lambert, daughter of Thane Lambert of Crownholme.

  Prince David, younger brother of Jess, Annette, Xavier and Ruth was born.

  Duke Sam Baker’s plot to force Queen Anne to abdicate in favour of her son, Crown-Prince Xavier failed.

  AL159

  Beth’s sister Marcia gave birth to her first child. She was christened Marcia after her mother.

  The first signs of the illness that would eventually kill Prince Consort David became evident to those close to him.

  Contessa Sandra Cocteau (nee Lambert) gave birth to her only child. He was christened Charles after his father.

  AL160

  The price of Duke Sam Baker’s support for Anne’s claim had been that his granddaughter, the Contessa Michaela should be betrothed to Crown-Prince Xavier. Alas for his hopes Michaela, always a sickly child, died in 160 after a short illness.

  Before his own death a few months later, Duke Sam Baker insisted that, as a replacement for this match, his grandson and heir Richard should marry Princess Annette. With reluctance, David agreed. Prince Xavier was betrothed to Geraldine, the granddaughter of Duke Henri Cocteau.

  Tom Brentwood, thwarted again in his marriage plans, started to search for another potential bride. His gaze fell on one Kellessa Susan Ross, one of Princess Annette’s Companions.

  The Quartet completed their training.

  Graduation

  Three tendays before the Quartet’s year group was to graduate, the postings list was pinned on the noticeboard in the common room. As the last four years had not dampened (at least not by very much) Tana’s tendency to be up with the malinon, she was the first to see it, the first to learn in what Ryzck she and Tavei would be serving.

  She learnt that it was to be the Seventeenth, a fact that pleased her enormously as she already had friends serving in it. The icing on the cake was the fact that Jess and Mlei were also going there. Hannah and Kolyei were posted to the Fourth and, to her surprise, she found Beth and Xei’s names under the aegis of the Fifty-first!

  She looked again, the Fifty-first! She couldn’t remember any newly graduated being accepted by that Ryzck.

  The Fifty-first, the Susa’s Own was the Ryzck that came under the direct command of the Susa herself. They did not, as did the other fifty, patrol in the various duty sectors on the continent. The Ryzck was based at Vada and its vadeln-pairs performed whatever duties or actions the Susa ordered, whether it be delivering secret documents or taking any steps the Susa deemed necessary for the security of the North. Rumour had it that some of its members had performed the occasional assassination. Certainly the Fifty-first worked closely with the Avuzdel; the semi-secret spying rtath of the Lind.

  Only the best belonged to the Fifty-first. The other fifty Ryzcks wore their Ryzck badges on their chests with pride; the Fifty-first wore a small silver badge clipped on to their collars, also with pride.

  Tana ran back into the girl’s corridor to broadcast the news.

  The Seventeenth for her and Jess! This was wonderful! The two of them hadn’t wanted to be separated. How good of Weaponsmaster Rhian to suggest to Susa Lynsey that they should stay together.

  Vow

  A half-bell before their final parade muster as cadets the four young women were putting the finishing touches to their new uniforms making sure that the tunics were fitting just so, the trousers not bagging, their kepis sitting at the correct angle.

  “Remember that vow we took four years ago the night Hannah arrived, to be true to each other? I think we should do it again at this parting of the ways,” said Jess.

  “But it’s not farewell,” protested the practical Hannah.

  “We’re going out to serve,” explained Jess, “we need a vow that is more important, more definite and more binding.”

  “Blood Oath,” said Tana, “like in the story, you know the one, when the Children of the Wolves did it before the battle of the Alliance.”

  All four knew the story, when Tara Sullivan, the first human to bond with a Lind and the other original children had sworn to be true to each other until death and had cemented their oath with the mingling of their blood amongst the dalina flowers at their domta, little knowing that these flowers would soon be decorating four of their number’s grave mounds.

  “It’s only a story,” persisted the literally minded Hannah.

  “But it encapsulates what we four mean to each other,” said Tana at her most persuasive.

  “I’ll do it,” said Beth in a quiet and resolute voice.

  The four stood facing each other.

  “We swear, on our blood, to be true to each other, to the Vada, to Vadath, to all our allies,” began Hannah. Pricking her finger with a resigned face, she watched as the globule of blood emerged.

  “Until death,” continued Beth, pricking her own finger and placing it on Hannah’s.

  “And if one of us should die with a promise unfulfilled,” said Tana with a quick glance at Jess, “we vow to do everything in our power to complete that promise.” She added her own bloodied finger to Beth and Hannah’s.

  Jess threw Tana a thoughtful look, knowing full well what her friend was about. She had, years ago confided her dearest wish to Tana.

  “And I,” she agreed, “vow the same.” She pricked her thumb and added it to the others.

  The Quartet stood for one long moment then drew apart, embarrassed at the emotion the act had generated.

  : That was well done : telepathed Tavei to his Tana : but I hope that it will never be needful to finish Jess and Mlei’s quest for them :

  : We will if we have to :

  “You didn’t need to add that last bit you know,” whispered Jess to Tana as they prepared to depart the barracks for the passing-out parade.

  “I promised when you told me that me and Tavei would go with you,” whispered back Tana, “the vow just makes it more formal.”

  “It is my problem.”

  “A problem shared is a problem halved. It is our problem,” Tana corrected.

  Oath

  Jess, Tana, Beth and Hannah stood straight and tall beside their Lind, Mlei, Tavei, Xei and Kolyei as the eight of them, together with their year group declared the Vada Oath in proud and clear voices.

  “For and by the Honour of the Vada, we do solemnly swear that we will support and defend the rtathlians, lands and the inhabitants of Lind, Vadath and Argyll against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that we will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that we will obey the orders of the Susyc of the Armies of the North and the orders of the Susas, Ryzckas and Vadryzas appointed over us, according to regulations. So help me the Lai.

  AL161

  Hannah Knutson began her training as a doctor at the University of Stewarton in Argyll.

  Another conference was held at Settlement in south-eastern Argyll. The major topic under discussion was the re-emergence of the Larg. Again, Count Charles Cocteau was in attendance as leader of the delegation from Murdoch.

  AL162

  Alas for To
m Brentwood, he lost another betrothed. Kellessa Susan Ross died at the beginning of the year of the marsh fever, aged sixteen. Tom Brentwood tried again, this time for his cousin Margravessa Julie Brentwood. Her father was about to agree when Julie announced her intention of becoming a nun. Tom Brentwood turned his roving eye in Princess Ruth’s direction.

  Princess Annette married Duke Richard Baker.

  Princess Ruth was betrothed to the Duke of Brentwood’s heir Tom.

  Larg numbers along the Murdoch borders increased and Duke William Duchesne raised the number of his border guards for the fourth time.

  The Councillors of Argyll voted to increase the strength of the defences at the island chain at Settlement in the First Ward. The motion to increase the number of Garda infantrymen and women was defeated by a small majority.

  Beth’s sister Marcia gave birth to her second child. He was christened Brandon after his father.

  AL163

  Vadeln Tana and her Lind Tavei were transferred to the Fifth Ryzck from the Seventeenth.

  AL164

  Jessica Robson, mother of Queen Anne of Murdoch died. She was buried at Vada.

  Princess Annette gave birth to her first child. He was christened Richard after his father.

  Tana was appointed to the permanent training staff at Vada with the rank of Vadryza.

  AL165

  Hannah Knutson graduated as a doctor and returned to Vada.