Sasha atobas-1

by Joel Shepherd

  After one particularly hysterical tantrum, Kessligh had dragged her from her room where she'd flung herself on her bed, and sat her down before the fireplace. He'd explained to her, in a very serious way, that if she no longer wished to be his uma, she could always return to Baen-Tar and become a proper princess again. She'd wear dresses, learn manners and etiquette, and practise needlework instead of svaalverd. There'd be no more pain, no more exercises and stretches, no more bruises, strains and blisters. But there'd also be no more horses, no more wide open spaces, no more hiding on the forest ledge along the hillside to spy on the wolfcubs playing before their den. No more spear fishing in the little stream at the bottom of the hill, or swimming in the waterhole beneath the little falls on a warm summer's day. No more crackling log fires in the evenings, and the cabin filled with the sweet smell of burning old pine, a book of serrin poetry on her lap as she slowly unravelled the beautiful triple-and-quadruple meanings of the Saalsi tongue.

  That had been her last great tantrum. Oh, she'd had more minor ones since-far too many to count, in fact. But she'd stretched, and run, and done push-ups and sit-ups until her arms, legs and stomach ached all over, and she would stagger about the stables like a cripple.

  Then, one day in mid-winter, with the snows piled high on the ground and the trees all gleaming with icicles, Kessligh had taken her down to Baerlyn for a special occasion. It had been Mid-Winter's Day, her very first in Baerlyn. The locals had gathered for a great feast outdoors, as the weather had been chilled but fine. There had been fires for warmth, and music, dancing and laughter. Everyone was there, men, women and children, and Sasha had been amazed to see that they paid no greater respect or homage to the village councilmen than they did to a poor pig farmer, or to Denys the simpleton, who spoke funny, and laughed far too much, but was never teased for it. Some had even dared jokes at Kessligh's expense-they'd only gotten a smile from him, but a smile was as good as a belly-laugh from Kessligh Cronenverdt.

  There'd followed contests of swordwork, including limited-contact contests for the children. Sasha had swung her child's stanch through those same old boring, predictable strokes Kessligh had spent so much time drilling her on… and to her amazement, the boys contesting her would meet no firm contact with their wooden blades, and lose their balance, or expose their defences, or fall flat on their backsides as their footing entangled. Not always, of course-often it hadn't worked, and she'd get a belting for her faults. But if she did it just right, and concentrated as hard as she could… well, the boys had protested, fumed and sulked, but they could not deny her ability. Some of them had simply shown respect, including some of the older men who'd ruffled her hair and told her she was good. It had given her a feeling she'd never known she'd craved so badly until that moment. Pride, and belonging. In that moment, it had truly dawned on her that she could never go back to the life she'd once had. She was no longer a princess of Lenayin. She was Sashandra Lenayin, uma to Kessligh Cronenverdt, of the Nasi-Keth.

  She'd never complained of Kessligh's training techniques since. Slowly the exercises had become less painful, the runs less exhausting, and the blisters had grown over with hard callouses. Lynette had become a permanent feature at the stables, and then Andreyis. She'd begun to know the townsfolk and their children better. She had had fights and made friends, had played seek-and-chase along the dusty lanes and been scolded by the women for riding one horse or another too fast through the town. She'd been born in Baen-Tar, in the great royal palace of Lenayin, but this, Baerlyn, village of Valhanan province, was her home.

  Jaegar dragged a chair across to sit opposite, his back to the fire and a plate of roast meat and vegetable raal on his lap. "Greetings all," he said, "sorry I missed the tale. Upwyld filled me in. Most impressive."

  "And where were you?" Teriyan challenged his village headman and good friend. "When our girl was standing on the table, pouring out her latest great glory to we mere mortals?"

  "Rony has a light fever," Jaegar explained, utterly unruffled, taking a big mouthful. "Took her to see Cranyk. He gave her some foul-smelling serrin stuff. Rony wouldn't eat it. From there, it became a grand battle."

  Sasha and Teriyan grinned. Rony was Jaegar's youngest daughter, now four years old. Jaegar had four girls, no boys, and contempt for anyone who thought that made him unlucky.

  "Who won?" Sasha asked.

  "Well I'd like to claim a great victory over the forces of darkness," Jaegar admitted, taking his cup from the floor to wash down a mouthful, "but in truth, it was a brutal, bloody draw. Rony suffered a spanking, but Sharyn now has to devise a way to bake a flatbread with the damn stuff inside it, so Rony can eat it without noticing the taste."

  "Sweet spirits," Teriyan groaned, a hand to his face with the agonised expression of a father who sympathised.

  "The most devious and stubborn of adversaries, little girls," Sasha said knowingly.

  Jaegar nodded, eating hungrily. "The very worst."

  Sasha rode back to the house with a lit torch in one hand. Chersey did not mind the flame, nor the ghostly shadows that it cast across trail and trees. Sasha rode at a fast canter, partly because the distance was short and Chersey knew the road well, and partly because she'd learned to be cautious of possible ambush, even here so close to town. One did not become uma to Kessligh of the Nasi-Keth without learning to be careful.

  She was greeted upon the open lower slope by a raucous barking of dogs from the verandah. Light glowed in the house's windows, spilling across the verandah where it raised on stilts above the gentle slope. She rounded the huge vertyn tree, and the chicken run and wide vegetable garden that it sheltered, and continued upslope to the stables. Once in her stall, she gave Chersey a rub in case of sweat that might chill, made certain she had feed and drink for the night, and fastened the heavy blanket over the mare's broad back and about the sides.

  Then she checked on each of the sixteen long faces that peered over their respective stall doors at her, having no doubt of Kessligh, Andreyis and Lynette's care, but always wishing to check for herself. Her horses were her life, at least as much as her swordwork. She fussed over them for a while by the light of an oil lamp, more for the pleasure of their company than because they required the attention. Then she made her way down the long, dark slope toward the dim light of the house ahead, with nothing to guide her steps in the pitch, silent blackness than memory of the grassy ground.

  Kaif and Keef greeted her on the rear verandah, taking time from crunching a huge bone to sniff at her with wagging, shaggy tails. The open kitchen was warm, with evidence of a recently prepared meal on the bench. Beyond the partition, Kessligh sat with his Nasi-Keth guest, Alden, before the open fire of the main room, sipping tea.

  "Evening!" said Aiden brightly, rising from his chair. "Did you have a good time?" He had a round, cheerful face and a flat mop of black hair. His build seemed verging on fat, yet there was a poise to him, and a balance, that perhaps only a fellow swordsman would notice.

  "A wonderful time, thank you," said Sasha, kneeling by the fire to warm the kettle on the stand above the flames. "Please sit, we Lenays aren't much on formality."

  Aiden sat, with a beaming smile. His accent was very broad and his manners very Torovan, Sasha thought.

  "I was telling Kessligh," said Aiden, as Sasha walked to close the main room shutters that Kessligh had left open to give her some light to ride home to, "that in Petrodor, there are few inns with women. Petrodor is very conservative place, yes? Very Verenthane. No women drinking, no women dancing…"

  Sasha finished the second shutter's latch, and noted the several large books lying beside Kessligh's comfortable chair. Serrin books, she recognised them. She wondered what he and Aiden had been discussing all evening.

  "Very few women here either," Sasha replied, standing before the fire. Kessligh's expression remained distant, barely listening. Something about it made her uncomfortable. "Mostly the women are stuck at home, cooking and caring for the children. I have to admit,
I don't know many of them half as well as I should. And have precious little to discuss with them when I do get a chance to talk. Our lives are just so different. At least with the men, I can talk horses and swordwork."

  "Very few women in the Nasi-Keth too," Aiden added, watching her curiously. "Yuan Kessligh is great visionary. No Petrodor women achieve your success. Not all serrin teachings taken so seriously by humans, yes?"

  Sasha snorted. "He's a great visionary?" Half-serious, half-joking. "What about me? I did it, not him."

  Aiden laughed. "True, true," he conceded, cheerfully.

  "Besides, how much vision does it take to tell the difference between a woman and a lump of coal?" With a sideways glance at Kessligh.

  Aiden shrugged, broadly. "In Petrodor, I think maybe a lot," he said.

  Kessligh usually rose to that bait. Tonight, he barely noticed. Sasha looked at him, uneasily. "So what did you two spend all evening talking about?"

  Aiden's good cheer faded. He looked at Kessligh, waiting for him to speak. Sasha had often wondered what Kessligh was to those Nasi-Keth in Petrodor with whom he corresponded. What was he to Aiden? A leader? An inspiration? A "great visionary"? His achievements in Lenayin had certainly made him a significant figure for Nasi-Keth everywhere. But he'd been gone for thirty years, and lived so far away

  …

  "Aiden brings news from Petrodor," Kessligh said. "Saalshen's representative there, Rhillian, is making waves. I've spoken to you of her before."

  Sasha frowned. "I remember. Isn't she Saalshen's second-in-command in Petrodor?"

  "Serrin concepts of rank are not easily translated," Kessligh replied. "There is no rank, only ra'shi. Respect. One earns ra'shi through deeds and experience, so it's not always easy to tell who's truly in charge. Rhillian's ra'shi grows powerful across all Saalshen, not just Petrodor."

  The kettle began to boil. Sasha knelt and put two teaspoons of ground tea-leaves into the teapot where it sat beside the fireplace. "So what did Rhillian do?" she asked, taking the tea cloth so that the kettle's handle did not burn her fingers, and pouring. "She's been agitating for Saalshen to get tough, hasn't she?"

  Kessligh looked at Aiden, inviting him to speak. "The holy brotherhood are saying she attacked the archbishop and tried to steal the Shereldin Star," said Aiden.

  Sasha stared at him. "The Archbishop of Petrodor?" she asked.

  Aiden nodded. "It is nonsense of course-if she attacked the archbishop, he would be dead. Everyone knows this, yet no one likes to say it. No one will admit the true power of Saalshen in Petrodor, and that no one is safe from the serrin, if the serrin don't want you safe, yes?"

  "But… the Shereldin Star?" Sasha remembered the kettle in her hand, and put it down before the fireplace. "Isn't that that stupid artefact all the Verenthanes rave about?"

  "The holiest relic of Verenthanes," Aiden said solemnly. And Sasha realised in a flash that Aiden, like most of the Petrodor Nasi-Keth, was most likely Verenthane. She'd probably offended him, she thought, and chided herself for not minding her tongue. Kessligh had renounced all other faiths in the pursuit of serrin teachings. But for most lowlanders, faith was not so easily cast aside. "I have spoken with serrin, they say Rhillian did not want the star. I think they tell truth, here. We think Rhillian only means to warn the archbishop. Some things the serrin will not take lying down."

  "And what was the archbishop doing with the Shereldin Star? Isn't that…" and she paused, and something cold and worrisome occurred to her. "Isn't that in the possession of the Larosa?"

  Again, Aiden nodded, sombrely. "It was. The Larosa have had many wars against the Saalshen Bacosh. They want the Verenthane holy lands back. They want to unite the Bacosh under a single king and throw the serrin out. They swore, two centuries ago, that the Shereldin Star would one day be returned to the holy lands, but only when the serrin are gone.

  "The Larosa give the archbishop the star so that all Torovan will unite beneath him and fight with the Larosa."

  "And now the Larosa are here!" Sasha exclaimed. Her heart thumped unpleasantly in her chest. "Someone at the inn said a large group just arrived in Baen-Tar!"

  "The last piece in the puzzle," Kessligh said tiredly. "The armies of the Saalshen Bacosh are formidable. All the remaining Bacosh provinces are uniting under the Larosa. But it's not enough. A Torovan army is useful for numbers, but Torovans have never been noted fighters. What the Larosa want from the archbishop is the loyalty of the Petrodor families, and all their money. Petrodor might not be much in a fight, but they can pay for a huge army, Sasha, of far more than just Torovans. The archbishop will convince them to pay, for the sake of their souls.

  "Still, even Torovan and Larosan armies together are insufficient. They need Lenayin. And by the looks of things, they're going to get Lenayin."

  "And I've just been sitting in a large room filled with Goeren-yai warriors who have always insisted that they'll never fight against the serrin!" Sasha replied. "Not even should the king command it!"

  She could feel the pieces of the puzzle clicking together. Suddenly, it was all making sense… and what she saw frightened her. All because some stupid Verenthanes couldn't stand the serrin living on what had once been human lands. Now, their intolerance threatened Lenayin with civil uprising and disaster.

  "Now you see the scale of it," said Kessligh, with tired exasperation. "Now you see what I've been telling you all these years. These foreign matters, these things you dismiss as unimportant, can rise up and destroy your world, Sasha. It is all connected. Your father now seeks to align Lenayin with what he sees as the destiny of the Verenthanes. That means supporting their war."

  "Well then we have to stop him!" Sasha exclaimed. "You… you still have influence left with father, you were his Commander of Armies for eighteen years, for heavens' sake! He listened to you! This Rathynal, we must ride to Baen-Tar and convince him not to join the Larosa!"

  "I'm not riding to Baen-Tar," said Kessligh. "I'll be riding to Petrodor." Sasha simply stared at him. She could not think of anything to say. "The game has changed, Sasha. Lenayin will march to war, it can't be stopped. What can be saved is the Nasi-Keth. Alden brings news that the factions have split. Some favour Rhillian; others disagree and seek a path separate from Rhillian's influence.

  "Petrodor is the key to stopping this war, Sasha. Without Petrodor's wealth, the war will not happen. And the Nasi-Keth are the key to Petrodor-united, they are the only power in Petrodor capable of restraining the families. I cannot allow them to become divided. They need me now. I cannot wait, or things will be worse."

  Sasha continued staring. She felt as if the very ground had disappeared from under her. Her ears could not believe what they were hearing. "And what about Lenayin?" she breathed, incredulously. "Do all your loyalties to Lenayin just… disappear?"

  Kessligh frowned, his jaw tightening. "I have given thirty years of my life to Lenayin. I swore allegiance to your father, yet I never claimed to be anything other than what I am-Nasi-Keth. I cannot ignore that calling any more than your father can ignore the callings of the Verenthane holy fathers from Petrodor. And I won't."

  Tears sprang to Sasha's eyes. Kessligh was Lenay. Of foreign origin, surely… but in many ways, he was Lenayin. The greatest Lenay warrior. And she, his uma. Now, he was casting it all aside, as one might throw aside a peel once the fruit was eaten. She couldn't believe it.

  Kessligh sat forward on his chair, his expression intense. "Sasha, think!" he demanded. "Of all the serrin teachings I've told you, of all the things you know! Broaden your vision, Sasha! The important thing is to stop this damned war from happening! I can do that! In Petrodor!"

  "If civil war takes Lenayin," Sasha said with difficulty, "countless lives will be lost. Towns like Baerlyn will be destroyed, perhaps Baerlyn itself, and all its people killed. I know enough Lenay history to know what our civil wars look like. You would just abandon them to this fate?"

  "Damn fool, you're not listening to me…"

&
nbsp; "It'll be too late!" Sasha yelled at him, coming abruptly to her feet. "You go off to play your power games in the alleys of Petrodor

  … there's trouble brewing here now! You may save the serrin, and you may save the Nasi-Keth, but Lenayin shall be ashes! What were your last thirty years here for, if you just run away when Lenayin needs you most? What were your last twelve years with nae for?"

  "You are my uma," Kessligh said simply. The firelight cast his features into rumpled, hard-edged shadow, an animation they could never acquire on their own. "You must come with me to Petrodor."

  Sasha felt something snap. This betrayal was too much. She could have struck him. "Damned if I will!" she yelled. "I promised Krayliss I'd be at Rathynal, and I won't give him free rein in Baen-Tar to cause trouble without me! You go to Petrodor! You go there, and you rot there, with your beloved Nasi-Keth! Me, I'm Lenay, and I'll never abandon my people! Never!"

  Eight

  "But Daryd!" Rysha complained. "Mama said we're not allowed beyond the trees!"

  Daryd ignored her, as was an elder brother's right, his eyes searching through the forest. Essey's breath plumed in white clouds, brilliant in the golden sunshine that fell through the treetops. Sunlight gleamed on wet trunks and undergrowth, low and bright in the early morning. To the right through the trees rose the Aralya Range-Hadryn lands, and a barrier before the lands of Valhanan. Essey found her way easily enough, nimble hooves picking through the bracken.

  "Daryd!" Rysha protested from her seat at his back. "We'll get in trouble!"

  "We've picked all the good stuff from the treeline," Daryd replied. "There'll be more growing along the river."

  "But we'll get lost!"

  "How can we get lost?" Daryd asked in exasperation. "The river's just over on the left, the mountains are on the right, how can anyone get lost?"