by Sharon Green
Well, I was one daughter who intended fighting those chains! I dropped my arm and sat up on the bed, blinking back the multi-colored circles in my vision. I hadn't pledged myself to my father's demands, and no matter how tightly he thought he had me caught up, I wasn't about to. If he forced me to it I would refuse the vows, breaking both Law and tradition where everyone could see it. Sooner than have that happen he'd let me go, to return to the life I never should have left. As a Blade I'd been happy, and no one had tried forcing me into anything I wanted no part of. That's the life I'd go back to, and then I'd be happy again.
I lay back on my pillows, calmed by the decision I'd made, and tried to imagine what Rull and the others were doing right now. . . .
* * *
Traixe knocked and entered the study, but Duke Rilfe didn't look up immediately. The lord of the castle was seated in a chair staring into the middle of nothingness, and a full minute went by before he sighed deeply and stirred.
"She isn't in the feasting hall, and she isn't here," Traixe observed, a reluctance of sorts to his words. "Does that mean it went badly?"
"Badly would be too understated a word," the duke returned, looking up wearily. "She offered to be my heir, Traixe, and I had to laugh at her."
"Had to, my lord?" the big man ventured, suddenly less sure of himself. "The Law's rather plain on the point, isn't it? Why would - "
"Hang the Law!" Duke Rilfe snapped, clearly in no mood to be disagreed with or questioned. "Has a duchess never been widowed, and then found to be a more competent ruler than her lord was? The Law might have been fought, and win or lose I would have been honored to make the attempt for a daughter like no other man has ever had. But not when the effort would have meant the signing of her death warrant. I had to hurt her, Traixe, and manipulate her, but once the marriage is consummated and we can drop the pretense, she'll know I did it all for her sake. Her life is more precious to me than my own, and this is the only way I can be sure of preserving it."
"She agreed to the marriage, then?" the big Fighter asked, his voice gentle out of concern for his lord. "She made no attempt to refuse to obey you?"
"She invited me to call in King's Fighters to place her under arrest for breaking the Law," the duke returned with a snort, not entirely in amusement. "She is still a hellion, and young Kylin will have his hands full with her, but she's also filled with that sense of duty all my children have been blessed with. She may fight and scream and rage and threaten, but she'll never go so far as to put her point to a priest of Evon's throat in refusal."
"If that's so, I'll be sure to thank Evon," Traixe answered, unable to keep his tone from going dry. "Since I'm the priest of Evon who will be uniting them, I find the assurance of more than passing interest."
"Traixe, you must stop worrying," the duke said with a grin as he stood, the dark mood having passed from him. "You and I both know she'll be far happier once she's wed, just like any other woman, even above the safety it will bring to her. Right now I need your help in apologizing to my guests for the absence of the object of the feasting. Shall we say she's weary from her long journey, or shall we find another, more likely, excuse?"
"I think, my lord, we would do best using a padding of the truth they all certainly know by now," Traixe answered, returned to sobriety. "Your enemies were so desperate to reach the girl they actually attacked her here in the castle, and although she had no difficulty in defending herself, you've insisted she keep to her apartments until a thorough search might be made for signs of any further skullduggery. Your refusal to allow her to expose herself to another attempt would be perfectly understandable."
"Yes, you're right as usual, Traixe," the duke agreed with a nod, rising from the chair. "And if it should happen that one of them had a hand in this, it may well cause the son of a night house crawler to squirm and worry about what the investigation will turn up. Watch them closely during the feasting, my friend, and we may learn a thing or two."
"I mean to be more watchful than ever, my lord, till the girl is past all danger," Traixe agreed, beginning to lead the way from the room. "May Evon grant that the wait for the young lord be as short as possible."
"May Evon indeed grant that," the duke agreed in turn, and then clearly set his thoughts to the matter of dealing with his guests.
Chapter 5
Lord Kylin of Arthil, son of Duke Trame of Arthil, also known as Kylin Difres, King's Fighter, sat his horse as it moved along the road, wondering if his nerve would hold. Just then they circled the city of Gensea on their way to the castle of Duke Rilfe, and the nearer they got the more Kylin wished he could simply turn around and ride away.
"Only a coward runs, but what's really wrong with being a coward?" he muttered, keeping his eyes on the ever-shortening road. "Cowards live long, happy lives, I'm told, and never find themselves in danger of dying of mortification."
"Mortification don't hurt more'n a short while, Lord," Strangis said from behind and to his left, the chuckling clear in his voice. "Ain't many who die from it, neither, 'cept maybe a King's Fighter'r two."
"An' mebbe a duke's son'r three," Frask added from the same position to Kylin's right, also enjoying himself immensely. "You know you ain't gonna run, Lord, so why you been sayin' it for th' last half day?"
"It's possible I made a mistake leaving Jestrion back at that inn," Kylin said, still in a mutter, still not looking at the two Fighters who rode somewhat behind him leading the pack horses. "For some reason I feel naked without him, and maybe even worse than naked."
"You was right leavin' 'im at the inn, Lord," Strangis assured Kylin, now clearly working on getting rid of his amusement. "You got 'im down so good it's like seein' two of 'im, an' that could set folks to wonderin'. Them like Jestrion ain't many, an' they don't take t'each other's company."
"They don't like the competition," Kylin muttered, then fell to brooding. Jestrion's sort was rare and unexplained, but everyone seemed to know at least one like him: too delicately horrified to enmesh themselves in anything that involved sweat or strength or war skills, more flamboyant than any female ever to have lived, ridiculously graceful and overly talkative - and almost completely uninterested in the pastimes indulged in by most human beings. It wasn't that Jestrion and the others liked something better than women; they tended to dislike everything with an equal intensity. Women were too flighty and men too sweaty, and their own kind appealed to them even less. It was Evon's way of making sure the mistake was self-correcting, Kylin thought, but that didn't explain why the mistake had to be made in the first place.
A mistake which he now had to mimic.
Kylin sighed deeply, trying to keep firmly in mind the fact that he was protecting the life of the girl who would soon be his wife. She would probably faint when she first laid eyes on him, and not only because of the flouncing he would do. His father had known how difficult - if not impossible - it would be to disguise his size, so he had taken the road leading in the opposite direction. Kylin's clothing emphasized his build, but with so many flairs and folds and drapes that he seemed fat rather than large. Fat and soft and flouncing, covered in yellow and orange and pink and pale green, with red boots and - Evon help us - a red swordbelt and new-seeming sword. The sword, with hilt silvered and rewrapped in new red leather, was really his own in disguise. But it looked so out-of-place on him that no one would believe it was anything more than decoration.
"And I've got to remember not to swear by Evon," he muttered again, this time to himself. Jestrion rarely swore, and then only by all the gods. It would be left to those around Kylin to swear by Evon, and then the Fighter brightened with a thought he hadn't had before: if any of Duke Rilfe's people got upset enough to try attacking him, why, he'd just have to defend himself, now wouldn't he? After that he could protect the girl personally until they went through the ceremony; betrothal allowed him that and more, if he wanted it, and everything would work out just the way it was supposed to. Why his father and Duke Rilfe hadn't thought of tha
t he didn't know, but since he'd already agreed to do it their way he'd have to see if he could push matters over into more pleasant territory. Simply acting like Jestrion ought to be enough, but just in case . . .
By the time the road Kylin and his "escort" rode joined another coming out of the city and began to wind uphill, the disguised King's Fighter was struggling not to chuckle. Using his pose to shorten the length of time he needed to keep up that pose appealed to his sense of humor, and if just a few minutes earlier he'd been reluctant to reach the castle, now he was just short of being eager. He could see the castle easily from where he rode, a gray and comfortable pile of stone very much like the one he'd grown up in, so much like it, in fact, that he wondered about its secret exits. And what number of the duke's household knew about those exits.
Being reminded about the problem into which he rode sobered Kylin, and his eyes narrowed against the afternoon sun as he looked all the way up to the castle's battlements. Getting into a fortification like that was either a matter of being allowed through the entrance tunnel or throwing an army against its walls, but it had been decided by one of the very first dukes that leaving it shouldn't always have to be a matter of record. Although most people didn't know it, the castles of the four dukes each had their own private exits, accessible from inside the castle but not from without. Normally the arrangement was private enough and safe enough, but these days were far from normal. Once he'd been named heir he'd have to speak to Duke Rilfe about it, to be sure Arthil's safeguards were duplicated in Gensea.
Riding up to the castle's main gate was an experience in itself, and Kylin realized it was a good thing he'd unconsciously braced himself. The House Guard unit manning the gate had started to lower their pikes in challenge, and then most of them had stopped to stare and then to laugh and point. Kylin ignored them with the sort of dismissiveness that most people found extremely insulting, and when the unit leader stepped forward, scowling rather than laughing, he made very sure to continue the attitude.
"What'n hell is this, a Celebration Day dress-up parade?" the sergeant barked, mostly to the object of his ire. "What you doin' knockin' at our gates, boy? You sellin' somethin' you think we're hard up enough to buy?"
"Watch y'r mouth, Sergeant, " Frask said from Kylin's right, moving up to sit his horse beside the very obviously bored young gentleman. The men behind the sergeant were snickering, and Frask was coldly unamused by their reaction. "This here's Lord Kylin, son o' Duke Trame of Arthil, come to marry up with Duke Rilfe's girl. You wanna show us th' way in?"
Kylin was prepared for almost any reaction - yells of rage, snarls of disbelief, growls of insult and refusal, even gales of laughter - but what actually did come surprised and confused him. To a man the unit froze and stood staring, even the crusty unit leader, and then the man closed his eyes and covered them with a hand.
"I ain't gonna do it," the sergeant muttered, apparently to himself, his voice faint but determined. "This time I ain't gonna have nothin' t'do with it. Bithit - you take 'em to the hall, then get y'r carcass back here. Move it!"
One man from the unit detached himself as the others moved back and to the side, and then the man was trotting through the entrance tunnel, left hand holding his scabbard still, possibly trying to outdistance those who were supposed to be following. Frask sent Kylin a startled glance, showing that the Fighter didn't understand what was happening any more than his lord did, and then he moved ahead into the tunnel first, leaving Kylin to follow with Strangis behind as third. That Frask was uneasy was obvious, but the men of the gate unit seemed too deep in their own thoughts to notice.
Frask's suspicions turned out to be groundless; the three riders drew rein in front of large metal-bound doors without anything untoward happening. Granted there had been plenty of stares and goggling, and the Guardsman who had beaten them there was still talking softly but animatedly to a serving man just inside the doors, but there hadn't been anything in the way of attack. Kylin couldn't help feeling the least bit disappointed, but had to admit it was really too soon for his plan to work.
Frask, having left the pack horses to Strangis, dismounted as soon as they'd stopped and came to hold Kylin's bridle so that his lord might also dismount. Kylin made a production out of it, brushing his cloak aside and then swinging down with careless grace - only to lose the grace at the last moment and be left with nothing but the careless. Frantic footwork kept him from going flat on his back, but in the process his swordbelt went askew and the scabbard nearly ended up unmanning him. He grabbed for the stirrup leather and managed to steady himself, at the same time silently thanking Evon that it wasn't a war horse he rode. If he'd tried that nonsense with his favorite mount Thunder Shadow, he would have been lucky to get away without teeth marks in his hide.
With both feet firmly if somewhat heavily on the ground, Kylin smoothed his clothing and swordbelt straight with short, gentle movements, then turned toward the open doors as if nothing had happened. Frask was looking down at the ground with his jaw clamped tight, obviously having enjoyed Kylin's effort and trying not to show it, but the Fighter hadn't been the only witness to the affair. Inside the doors were more people than had been there the last time Kylin had looked, and every one of them stared in frozen speechlessness.
"Is this duchy so barbaric I need to ask for something to soothe the dust from my throat?" Kylin plunged in at once before he decided to think better of it, his normally deep voice whiny and petulant. "I knew it would be like this, I just knew it, but would Father listen? He certainly would not, and now I've come all this way just to watch them pretend to be statues, as though they'd never in their lives seen a gentleman before. . . ."
"Lord Kylin, please forgive us!" one of the statues said as it came to life, a statue that hadn't yet reached the doors before stopping. The man was obviously an upper servant of some sort to judge by his clothing, and he spoke from a place behind all the others who had magically appeared. Closest to the threshold were the guardsman and the door servant, with another servant and three boys who were probably there for the horses behind those two. Directly behind the boys were two maid servants with trays, pretty enough to make Kylin groan inwardly at their expressions, and behind the girls was the man who had spoken.
"Lord Kylin, your road cup and an assortment of tidbits are right here," the upper servant went on in an instantly soothing way, pushing the girls forward ahead of him. "Please step into the hall in full welcome from Duke Rilfe, who will be here personally to greet you in a moment. I am Sir Fonid, and would consider it an honor to have fetched whatever you require."
The others in Kylin's path melted away to either side, probably afraid of being run down as the important new arrival sniffed disdainfully then lumbered forward through the doors. There was an attempt at grace in the heavy gait, but the results of the attempt were not pleasant to the eye. Kylin's pretty red boots had small strips of wood in them, to keep him from reverting to his natural walk. When he reached the trays the girls held he took a goblet from one and a handful of tiny sandwiches from the second, swallowed the sandwiches fast before tasting the wine, then turned to the man who had named himself Sir Fonid.
"A pity the duke's master cook has taken ill," Kylin remarked, dabbing delicately at his lips with a pale green kerchief from his wide sleeve. "And do be sure to let me know when your better wines have been brought up from the cellars. I tend to enjoy unusual occasions such as those."
Sir Fonid's expression was a strictly held neutrality as he bowed, but the shuffling and muttering to be heard elsewhere in the hall gave Kylin a good deal of hope. There had to be Fighters somewhere in the house, and the sooner they got there to hear what he had to say, the better it would be.
"You must be exhausted after your journey, Lord Kylin," Sir Fonid said when he'd straightened from his bow, still wearing the neutral expression. "If you'll excuse me for a moment I'll have a chair brought, and also make certain that the duke knows of your arrival."
He bowed again
then escaped as fast as he could, something that would ordinarily have made Kylin laugh out loud. He, himself, was the sort who would have preferred staying to bait the unpleasant new arrival, but even a high servant wasn't really in a position to do that. The man was retreating in good order to await the arrival of stronger reinforcements, and it wasn't possible to fault him for using such sound tactics. The delicate new arrival therefore turned away from the departing servant with a flick of his kerchief and a put-upon sigh, then returned his attention to the tray of "inferior" sandwich snacks. He hadn't eaten much when they'd stopped at noon that day, but with his appetite back he was ready to make up for it.
* * *
Duke Rilfe knew he'd been difficult to keep up with on the way to the main entrance hall, but Traixe's stride had matched his every step of the way, the two of them ignoring the Fighters straggling behind. He couldn't credit the luck they'd had so far, with Kylin showing up only a day behind Sofaltis, but he knew it couldn't last. Tradition forced a three-day celebration period on him before the ceremony could be held, and those three days could well seem like three hundred if there was trouble. If only he could lay hands on the one in his household who was in Nimram's pay! There was no doubt there was such a one, everything pointed that way, but they'd all been with him for so many years! How could he let Traixe ask questions the way he wanted to, with instruments of persuasion that would -
