Kedrin stepped back to allow Ra-khir into the main room again. “Did you enjoy your evening with Carlynn?”
“No,” Ra-khir admitted, returning to the bench. “I mostly found it boring. And I spent months with Béarn’s bard.”
Kedrin pulled leather soap, oil of cloves, and rags from beneath the bench, then sat. He left space for Ra-khir between himself and the tack. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Ra-khir shrugged. “One more life experience.” He forced a smile. “If I don’t suffer boredom, how can I appreciate fun?”
Kedrin nodded, passing a rag to Ra-khir and placing the cleaners between them. “Very profound for a seventeen-year-old.” He gestured for Ra-khir to pass him some tack.
Ra-khir took the rag and gave over the bridle, keeping the saddle for himself. He appreciated his father’s assistance but would never think to take advantage of it. “Thank you.” He did not direct the gratitude toward words or deed. He appreciated both. “I didn’t expect you for two more days.” He probed for information without forcing the issue with a question. Realizing he needed to say one thing more, he added. “I’m glad you’re back, of course. I just wondered why. I hope there’s nothing wrong in Béarn.”
“Wrong?” Kedrin grinned, coating his rag with soap and rubbing the bridle straps vigorously. “King Griff has handled court affairs as if born to rule Béarn.”
“Which he was,” Ra-khir could not help adding.
Kedrin’s laugh sounded richly deep, and Ra-khir knew a moment of pleasure at eliciting mirth from his usually stoic father. “True enough. He’s frighteningly naive, but that’s always been the case for Béarn’s kings. His judgments are sound, and the people love him already.”
Ra-khir grinned with such raw joy he could not speak for several moments. He scooped a dollop of soap onto his rag and dragged the saddle into his lap.
Kedrin continued, “Things are well under control in Béarn. I thought you needed me more.” He added, “Not that I didn’t trust you by yourself.”
Ra-khir sought phrases to tell his father how much he missed him without sounding desperately needy. “I lost a childhood with my father. I want as much time together as I can get, but I understand your responsibilities. In fact, I’ve taken them on myself.”
“How is your training going?” Kedrin asked casually, though Ra-khir knew the answer meant nearly as much to him as the proper rulership of Béarn.
“Reasonably well, I believe.” Modestly, Ra-khir did not mention his successes at the ring joust. “Sir Edwin would be a better judge.”
“And you know I’ll ask him.”
“Of course.” Ra-khir smiled, but he did not look up from his work on the saddle. Thoughts of his days on the field wilted the grin, and he asked a question plaguing him almost since his return to Erythane. “Father, when you did your training, did your fellows play tricks on one another?”
“Oh, yes.” Kedrin let the soap soak into the leather and switched to the other end of his rag to work on the buckles and fittings. “Especially Edwin.”
Ra-khir jerked, startled to incredulity. “Armsman Edwin?” He could imagine no one more sober and straightlaced than his teacher.
“Now Armsman Edwin,” Kedrin confirmed.
“You?”
Kedrin shrugged, though the hint of smile escaping his pursed lips told more. “Me, too. I had my moments.”
Ra-khir sat in silence, managing nothing more significant than blinking for several moments. Finally, he returned to his work.
Kedrin did not allow the matter to drop. “Are you asking because you’ve gotten into trouble for pranks or because you’re the butt of them?”
“Neither,” Ra-khir said. “I just don’t find them funny anymore.”
“That’s because you’ve gone to war.”
Ra-khir assumed Kedrin referred to the battles he had fought restoring Griff to his throne, but understanding proved insufficient. “What do you mean?”
“Once a boy has placed his life, and those of his friends, at risk, he becomes a man whether or not he’s come of age.” Kedrin swiped at a decoration on the bridle. “We consider barbaric the ancient Renshai custom of calling a man or woman adult immediately after his first kill, whether at two or fifty. Yet that feels much more natural to me than choosing an arbitrary age. No question, once a warrior participates in war, the day-to-day annoyances become impossibly petty.”
Ra-khir looked to his father with a warm pride nothing could dispel. He had captured the feeling exactly. “That’s it. That’s how I feel.”
“You’re not alone, Ra-khir.”
“I am among my peers.” Ra-khir glanced at his father, busily cleaning the bridle, then back at his own handiwork.
Kedrin made a wordless noise of concession, and Ra-khir appreciated that he did not make suggestions for how to cope with or change the situation. Ra-khir would have to discover the strategies that worked best for him.
They worked in quiet for several moments, the warmth of the fire and its changing pattern of intensity and color a welcome contrast to the streets. The night could have lasted an eternity with little complaint from Ra-khir. At length, however, he broke the silence. “How did you and Mother come together?”
Kedrin winced so slightly Ra-khir wondered if he imagined it. The knight-captain set aside the horse’s bridle, hanging it from the edge of the bench before addressing the question. “She used to come and watch me practice.”
Now Ra-khir flinched, struck by the similarity between Kedrin’s description and his evening with Carlynn. “Then what happened?”
Kedrin wiped soap and oil from his hands with the cloth. “The usual. We started doing things together. Fell in love. Married.” He turned Ra-khir a sidelong look clearly intended to remind his son that he did not feel comfortable with the topic.
Ra-khir stuck with the early details, before the separation that ruined three lives. “Why her? Was she the only one who watched you practice?”
Kedrin rocked back, eyes rolling upward as if to capture the memory directly. “Ra-khir, people waste a lot of time wishing they looked handsome or chasing those who do.” He drew in a breath and loosed it slowly, weighing words to make a point without vanity or false modesty. “I was as guilty of it as anyone. Your mother was a beautiful woman. Still is.” He returned to the point. “Looks are nice, if you have them, but they cause no end of trouble, too. An attractive man, like one with power or money, never knows people’s motives toward him. If he has more than one . . .” Kedrin shook his head, trailing off, mouth twisted into a grimace of frustration. “I’m not putting this well.”
Ra-khir understood. Like himself, his father had always been a handsome man. Their appearances would always draw more than their share of attention, and this could prove bad or good. “I understand.”
Kedrin seemed relieved by the chance to abandon a subject that made him uncomfortable. He had never spoken of his comeliness, or Ra-khir’s. “Getting back to your question, your mother was only one of many women who came to the practices. But she was the most persistent and, gods take me for caring, the most beautiful. We married too young and for the wrong reasons.”
Ra-khir nodded, pensive.
“Don’t let my mistake stop you from getting married,” Kedrin chimed back in swiftly. “Just be more careful. And wait till you’re ready.”
Ra-khir closed his eyes, preparing for the explanation that had to follow.
Kedrin picked up immediately on his son’s dismay. “What’s wrong?”
“When Kevral and I were prisoners of the elves and believed we would soon die . . .”
“Yes.”
“We didn’t want to die without . . .” Ra-khir flushed, cursing the stammering that suddenly plagued him. “Without . . . you know. Knowing what it was like. To do . . . what men and women do.”
“Oh,” Kedrin said.
Ra-khir dared to peek at his father, unable to gauge reaction from tone alone. “I have to marry her now.”
Kedrin’s features revealed nothing more than his voice had.
“Right?” Ra-khir needed a response.
“Of course.” Kedrin’s features creased with worry, and he set aside the cleaning supplies to move closer on the bench. “I’m sorry, Ra-khir. You made a mistake. We’ll have to make the best of it.”
Ra-khir felt it essential to correct the misconception. “Immoral, perhaps, Father, but no mistake. I proposed months before. I want to marry Kevral. I’ve never wanted anything more.”
Kedrin blinked, saying nothing. His brow furrowed. “Kevral?”
Ra-khir nodded vigorously.
“The Renshai?”
Another nod.
“The one who insulted your honor, who you believed deliberately and repeatedly undermined you in front of your friends?”
Ra-khir grinned. It seemed so long ago. “Who could have foreseen that?”
“You love her?”
Ra-khir did not hesitate. “Absolutely.”
“You want to spend your entire life with her? To share all that either of you are or will be?”
“Without reservation.”
Kedrin fell silent, rocking slightly in place. “You want to raise children together?”
Ra-khir’s cheeks warmed. “Eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“I’m seventeen,” Ra-khir reminded. “I’m not ready for fatherhood yet.” His own childhood flashed before him in an instant, wound through with the bitterness of his mother’s lies. When the time came, he would work at parenting with the same dedication as his honor. He would first master his father’s gentle patience, experience, and knowledge.
Kedrin placed an arm across his son’s shoulders. “Ra-khir, either Khirwith or I was remiss. Surely you know that if you do ‘the thing men and women do together,’ you will become a father.”
Ra-khir stiffened, shocked to discover he had never considered such a possibility. Denial, not stupidity or ignorance, had separated sex and conception in his mind. He had known the truth of Kedrin’s statement, yet his mind rejected the association until that moment. Terror formed a lump in his throat and his voice emerged thinly. “The first time?”
Kedrin shrugged. “Not likely, but it happens. And the chances increase the more times you get together. Healers pronounce families who couple for four months without creating a child unlikely to ever do so.”
Thoughts swirled through Ra-khir’s mind, all centered on the certainty that no infant would grow from their two unions. So many things made it unlikely: stress, their youth, Kevral’s physical immaturity. Kevral’s wild practices seemed hostile to a tiny, fragile life. A part of him felt certain that coupling without the intention of conceiving would prevent it from happening, magical thinking contradicted by fact. Tae and Matrinka had read the sage’s notes as they pertained to Griff’s parents. His father, Petrostan, Kohleran’s youngest, had impregnated a cousin before either turned fourteen. At an age when they understood nothing of making babies, they had done so and gotten themselves banished for the error.
Apparently reading his son’s agitation, Kedrin eased away from the topic. “If you love her and want to marry her, the only problem I see is Carlynn.”
Panic shattered Ra-khir’s composure. He found himself taking wild, gulping lungfuls of air and slowed his breathing to a deep, regular cycle. Gradually, he gained enough control to explain Kevral’s year away and his promise to see others in her absence.
Kedrin listened without comment throughout his son’s description, his attention rapt despite his silence.
Ra-khir finished and looked to his father for advice. “Carlynn bored me beyond belief. No one else is Kevral.”
Kedrin tousled Ra-khir’s hair, his touch sympathetic. “A bad situation, Ra-khir. You do have to marry her, but not against her will. You can’t force her to spend the rest of her life with you.”
Ra-khir looked at his feet and watched them blur to puddles as tears welled in his eyes. “I know that,” he whispered. “But she does love me. And I love her. Nothing else should matter.”
Kedrin said nothing. There was nothing to say.
“What if there is a baby?”
“It’s unlikely, Ra-khir.”
Twice as likely as you think. Ra-khir kept the thought to himself. When they believed themselves moments from execution, it had not mattered. He should not have allowed the second time.
“I’m sorry I mentioned it. I just want you to consider the consequences before you act. If you did such a thing with another woman, you would dishonor her, yourself, and your family.”
“I would never do that!” Ra-khir burst out, desperate for Kedrin’s understanding. “If not for imminent death, I would never have done it with Kevral before marriage. I swear on the honor of self and kingdom.” Guilt pounded at his skull. He could not explain away the second time so easily.
“I believe you,” Kedrin said with sincerity. “I’m not angry at you, just concerned. Whatever happens, I’ll weather it with you. You’re my son.”
“I don’t want to see other women.” Ra-khir wished nothing to do with the giggling lot of female children who came to ogle the knights-in-training. If Kevral refused his proposal, he would have to find another woman with her strength and self-confidence, an equal, not a trophy. “It’s torture.”
“Your word is your law,” Kedrin reminded.
Ra-khir groaned, dreading his forced social life far more than the grueling practices and tests Armsman Edwin inflicted on his students. “Why did I ever agree to such a thing?”
To this, Kedrin had no answer.
CHAPTER 22
The Price of Loyalty
Lessons from brutal teachers are learned fast and well.
—Weile Kahn
Dark, frigid, forest nights yielded regularly to balmy days, warm for autumn. As Kevral and her mount grew more accustomed to breaking trail, trapping themselves against copses, close-spaced trees, and deadfalls become less common. Twining branches with their interwoven leaves formed a mantle that protected them from the rain, and she noticed only its patter and gentle roll of droplets through irregular gaps. The damp, close odor of molding leaves and the sweeter scents of sap and seedlings became too familiar to register. An occasional whiff of musk or the stench of an ancient carcass broke the pattern at rare intervals.
Irritability no longer plagued Kevral, replaced by cautious anticipation. Though far different than training Renshai, her experiences in Pudar might grant her the basis for becoming a torke, the profession most respected by her people and one Colbey had considered the pinnacle of his life. She had grown to rely on Tae’s skill, believing he could steer silent armies past Weile’s men without their knowledge. His nightly fatigue bespoke an effort his successfulness belied. His warmth against her each night awakened a depth of love in a heart she had truly believed, less than two weeks earlier, belonged only to Ra-khir.
Kevral sighed. Reading her mood, the horse snorted, tossing its head up and down until she loosened her grip on the reins. This is too cruel. Kevral blamed herself for the hurt she inflicted on both men. She wished the situation easier on them all. For her indecision, she deserved to suffer, but the men remained innocent. It’s all my fault, yet I’m the only one who can’t lose. Whether she chose Ra-khir or Tae, she would spend her life happy; yet only one of them could have his heart’s desire. I must choose. The idea of doing so now rankled. Tae held the advantage of the last eleven days. Experience taught her that the one she was with seemed always the only one. A year without either, a year of distance and responsibility, should make things fair. Still, Kevral could not shake the guilty wish that chance would rescue her from the agony of selecting. One or the other, maybe both, would find another love. The idea of forfeiting either stabbed her chest like a sharp, hot brand. I deserve to lose both, and they deserve happiness.
Tae’s signal interrupted Kevral’s self-deprecating line of thought. He’s in danger! Battle rage slammed her, boiling her blood. She reined the
horse in a wild circle, kicking it viciously into a canter.
The horse responded sluggishly, hampered by sticks, narrow openings, and detritus. Kevral directed it toward the open road. Already discovered, she saw no reason to hide from enemies. Speed had to take precedence. The gelding scrambled through the brush, branches stinging Kevral’s cheeks and eyes. She thundered through the underbrush and onto the pathway, swinging the animal’s head toward Pudar.
Tae whistled again, the sound piercing brush as no voice-cry ever could. Accustomed to woodland acoustics, she followed it without difficulty, charging straight until the third call touched her ears, slightly behind and to the left. She hauled on the left rein, jerking her horse suddenly sideways.
The bay whipped around, stumbling into the too-sharp turn, then plunging obediently into the underbrush. The blood wrath buzzed through Kevral like an illness. Fire seemed to burn through her veins, and her heart hammered the slow cadence that always preceded war. The gelding dropped to a dancing trot, foam sprouting from its chest and nostrils. This time, Tae’s whistle came from just ahead. The horse wound between a cluster of packed trunks that required Kevral to hunch and lift her feet into the saddle.
Eight Eastern men ranged beneath craggy, tall-limbed evergreens, their feet tearing slashes in drifted brown-and-green needles. Two held bows, both nocked, one drawn and aimed upward. Four others clutched swords, while the remaining men had not yet readied weapons. Several glanced toward Kevral as her horse rattled through the brush.
Kevral did not bother to identify the Easterners’ target; Tae surely perched in the tree. Driving her heels into the horse’s flanks, she leaned forward in the saddle. Her swords left their sheaths as her war cry echoed through the forest.
As one, the men faced her. A sword slashed for her leg and the horse’s side. Her boot crashed into its wielder’s face, driving him under the unshod hooves. The horse rocked, floundering for solid ground. Kevral executed a frenzied loop that slashed a deadly line across another’s neck. Blood jetted, bright red, and its warmth on her face only spurred the riot of war lust within her. Unwilling to waste the seconds the horse needed to regain its balance, she sprang from its back, directly onto a bowman.
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