by David Weber
Bahzell’s ears flattened and he turned his head far enough to meet Walsharno’s eye, remembering a cold, windy night in the Empire of the Spear when Tomanāk had explained to him why the gods dared not contend openly with one another, strength to strength, lest their unleashed power destroy the very reality for which they fought.
It was evident Tomanāk was seeking the best way to describe something in terms a mortal might grasp.
Bahzell gave a slow mental nod and sensed Walsharno’s understanding along with his own.
Neither hradani nor courser said anything. They simply reached back to their deity, feeling the bonds between them, the interweaving of their very essences with Tomanāk’s, and that was enough.
Bahzell never knew exactly how long the entire conversation had lasted, although he was confident the interval had been far briefer for Brandark than it had for him and for Walsharno. He inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring, as Tomanāk withdrew once more, and then he turned to look at his friend.
“Well, I’m thinking we’ve splashed about mud enough for one day,” he said.
“Really?” Brandark cocked his ears. “Odd, I didn’t think it was my idea to go out and squelch around all day.”
“No more it was,” Bahzell agreed. “Still and all, I’m thinking that was because it’s so very rare for you to be having an idea at all.”
“Given the handicap under which you labor, that actually wasn’t such a bad effort,” Brandark said judiciously. “Not very subtle, a little heavy-handed, but overall, and bearing in mind it had to work its way through a Horse Stealer’s so-called sense of humor...”
He shrugged, and Bahzell chuckled and swung back up into Walsharno’s saddle.
“Such a small, nasty attitude,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ll not be making any comments about lack of size and the smallness of brains that might be coming along with it. But I will mention as how I’ve just this morning taken delivery of a brand-new bottle of thirty-year whiskey—the Silver Cavern Granservan Grand Reserve, as it happens—courtesy of old Kilthan. If it should so happen you could be minding that silver tongue of yours—aye, and leaving that curst ‘banjo’ of yours in its case!—it’s pleased I’d be to share it with you while I’ve the writing of a letter to Leeana.”
“Granservan Grand Reserve?” Brandark’s ears perked up instantly, and he squared his shoulders and gathered up his reins. “Well, if that’s the case, why are we still standing here?”
* * *
“It’s good to see you home, Brayahs,” Baroness Myacha said, smiling as her husband’s nephew entered the sunny breakfast chamber. “It does Borandas’ heart good whenever you can find time—and whenever the King lets you go long enough—to visit us.”
“Well, it’s kind of you to say so, at any rate,” Brayahs Daggeraxe said, crossing to the table to kiss the back of the hand she held out to him. The sunlight spilling in through the windows lit a dancing sparkle in her amethyst eyes, and he smiled back at her as he straightened. “Still, I remember the occasional conversation he and I had when I was only a lad. There’s not so very much difference between forty-seven and fifty-eight, but there was a world of difference between eight and nineteen!” He shook his head. “Frankly, I’m amazed sometimes that I got to grow up after all.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say!”
There was an extra edge of something like gratitude in Myacha’s laugh, for Brayahs was one of the very few people who could remind her of the difference between her own age and her husband’s without ever making her wonder if there was a buried edge of malice in it. Of course, it was tactful of him not to mention that she was eighteen years younger than he was, as well, she supposed.
On the other hand, she thought, her humor fading, he was one of the even fewer people—especially male people—who’d never been tempted to dismiss her intelligence because of her youth. Even her “son” Thorandas seemed to want to pat her on the head sometimes, as if even he couldn’t quite get past the notion that her primary function was simply to warm his father’s bed and adorn the baron’s arm suitably on social occasions. To be fair, she believed Thorandas honestly tried not to think of her in those terms, but he didn’t always succeed. And if her opinion happened to differ from his, he was far more likely to fall back into the thought patterns of a traditional Sothōii nobleman rather than considering the possibility that she might actually be right and he might actually be wrong.
Stop that, she told herself sternly. You know how hard it must be on him to have a stepmother two years younger than he is! Under the circumstances, he does remarkably well. Even if he is being especially stupid at the moment.
Brayahs cocked an eyebrow at her, his expression speculative, but she only shook her head and waved him into his chair across the table from her. His breakfast materialized before him with the silent, smiling efficiency of Star Tower Castle’s servants, and he began spreading butter onto a scone while he regarded her through the faint wisp of steam rising from his cup of hot tea.
“And where is my esteemed cousin, if I might ask?” he inquired.
“He finished breakfast early and asked me to wait and keep you company,” Myacha replied, sipping from her own cup of hot chocolate. “He had an appointment with Sir Dahlnar this morning. They’re still catching up on the reports Thorandas brought ho
me from Sothōfalas.”
“I see.” Brayahs finished buttering, took a bite of the scone, and rolled his eyes in bliss. “Semkirk, I miss Mistress Shahlana’s baking! I tried to get her to run away and live in sin with me in Sothōfalas, you know.”
Myacha choked on a sip of chocolate. She set the cup down hastily, mopping her lips and glaring at him, and he smiled unrepentantly. Trelsan Partisan had been Star Tower’s butler for better than thirty years, and his wife had been the castle’s housekeeper almost as long. She was a woman of immense dignity and ability as a manager and organizer, but she’d started as a cook, and she still loved to bake. Of course, she was also at least fifteen years older than Brayahs, and she and her husband—who doted upon her—both tended to regard House Daggeraxe’s mage as the rapscallion teenager they remembered entirely too well.
“If you did manage to get Shahlana to leave Star Tower, I’m sure Borandas would put a price on your head!” Myacha said severely. “And rightly so, too. If that didn’t constitute an act of high treason, I can’t think of anything that would!”
“Oh, come now! Surely that’s being at least a little too severe. Remember, I’ve just spent the last three months in Sothōfalas, Milady!” Brayahs grimaced only half-humorously. “I’ve had a chance to see real treason being contemplated there.”
“Oh?” Myacha cocked her head, amethyst eyes narrowing, and Brayahs kicked himself mentally. He did know how sharp a blade she was. He should have known she’d pick up on that.
In fact, I wonder if I actually wanted her to? Not exactly the most subtle possible way to ask her about Thorandas, I suppose, but then, I’m a Sothōii. We’re not supposed to be subtle.
“Sorry,” he said out loud and bought a moment by taking another bite of scone, chewing, and swallowing. He washed the mouthful down with another sip of tea and smiled a bit crookedly at her. “It’s just that the summer session of the Council was a lot worse than usual this year.”
“Tellian and his canal, I suppose?” Myacha shook her head, her eyes darkening despite the sunlight.
“And Cassan and Yeraghor’s plans for strangling it in its cradle,” Brayahs agreed. He shrugged. “I suppose I understand their position—I’d certainly be worried if I were a baron and one of the other barons was about to gain such a decisive advantage. Especially if I’d gone as far out of my way to piss him off as Cassan has where Tellian is concerned. I mean, it may be unreasonable of me, but I’d think trying to have someone murdered might constitute a legitimate reason for him to be less than fond of the fellow who did it.”
It was a mark of his comfort with Myacha—and of his respect for her—that he permitted himself to speak to her so frankly, and she rewarded him with a faint—very faint—smile. It was brief-lived, though.
“Borandas says Thorandas’ reports suggest the King is going to grant Tellian his charter,” she said, her tone making the statement a question, and he nodded.
“That was the rumor running around court,” he confirmed. “And my own reading of the situation suggests it was probably accurate. It makes too much sense from the perspective of the Kingdom as a whole for Markhos not to approve it, frankly. And, for that matter, there isn’t any way he could stop the canal portions of it even if he wanted to, since they run across hradani lands and then down the Hangnysti without ever going near the Wind Plain. Bahnak of Hurgrum is going to drive this project through, one way or the other, so it only makes sense for the King to give it his blessings and participate in it. If nothing else, that should put him in the best position to have at least some influence on how the whole thing operates. Not to mention providing a very nice addition to the Crown’s revenues!”
“I can see where that would make sense,” Myacha said after a moment. “Thorandas seems less convinced it will be good for the North Riding, though.” Brayahs looked a question at her, and she shrugged. “You know he’s never been happy about Tellian’s dealings with the hradani in the first place, Brayahs! Part of that’s hardheaded pragmatism and the memory of how much blood we’ve shed on hradani swords over the centuries, but another part of it—and a bigger one, to be honest—is plain old-fashioned bigotry.” The baroness smiled with an edge of unhappy humor. “He’s been fairly careful about how he’s allowed himself to phrase it in front of me, but these rumors about Leeana Bowmaster and Prince Bahzell haven’t exactly made him deliriously happy, you know.”
“No, I can believe that.”
Brayahs grimaced and reached for his fork. He cut a neat forkful from the omelette before him and chewed slowly, remembering his conversation with Bahzell Bahnakson and Brandark Brandarkson in Sothōfalas. A mage learned to trust his instincts where another’s character was concerned, and even if he hadn’t, he was talking about a champion of Tomanāk, after all.
“That’s not the only reason he’s worried about Tellian, though,” Myacha continued. “And from a logical perspective, I have to admit he’s got a point. Tellian’s already the most powerful and influential member of the Great Council. If he succeeds in getting his charter, his ascendancy’s only going to become greater. And as the West Riding becomes more dominant—”
“—all the other ridings lose ground, whether they’ve done anything specifically to piss him off like Cassan or not,” Brayahs concluded for her.
“Exactly.” Myacha picked up a jeweled butter knife and toyed with it, the cut gems sparkling in the sunlight. “As I say, he has a point. But I’m still—”
She cut herself off abruptly, and Brayahs looked at her speculatively. He didn’t need his mage talents to sense her unhappiness. Nor was he unaware of the reason she’d stopped so suddenly, and he felt a surge of sympathy for her position. Much as she had to know Borandas loved her, there was still an inevitable awkwardness whenever she might find herself in disagreement with her husband’s son.
“The North Riding’s policy is for Borandas to determine,” he said, after a moment, “and Thorandas is his logical advisor, not to mention his heir. For that matter, I’m officially in the King’s service now, and that means I have a tendency to look at these things from the Crown’s perspective. Borandas would have to take that into consideration when the time came to think about any advice I might have for him. Having said that, however,” he looked directly into her eyes, “I can’t escape the feeling that having Cassan in a position of ascendancy would be far worse for the Kingdom—and the North Riding—than having someone like Tellian there.”
“I know. I know.” Myacha put down the butter knife and reached for her chocolate cup again, but she didn’t drink from it. She only held it cradled between her palms, as if for warmth, and her expression was worried. “And I think Borandas feels the same way. In fact, up until a few weeks ago, I was certain he did. To be honest, I’m still certain he felt that way...then.”
“Oh?”
Brayahs wanted desperately to push for more information, but he wasn’t about to ask her to violate her husband’s confidence, so he kept his voice as close to merely politely interested as he could. Unfortunately, Myacha knew him as well as he knew her, and she laughed harshly.
“Borandas has asked my opinion, and I’ve given it to him,” she said. “In most ways, that’s that, as far as I’m concerned. But...but he doesn’t seem truly at ease in his own mind over this, Brayahs. I think...I think his instincts and his reason aren’t in full agreement. And I think this betrothal between Thorandas and Shairnayith Axehammer worries him more than he’s prepared to admit even to himself.”
“I haven’t spoken to him about any of this myself, yet,” Brayahs said slowly. “I know he’s going to want my impressions of the summer session, and I’ll give them to him, of course. But he is Baron Halthan. When it comes down to it, the decision’s his, and in fairness, I don’t remember the last time I saw him make a hasty judgment when it was something this important. I may not always have agreed with his logic, or even the decision he ultimately reached, but he’s a good man, your husband, Myacha. He takes his responsibilities
seriously.”
“I know.” Myacha blinked, her amethyst eyes bright with unshed tears, and inhaled deeply. “I know. But...there’s something odd going on, Brayahs. Something that...worries me.”
“Odd?” Brayahs repeated. That wasn’t a word he was accustomed to hearing from Myacha. Nor was the youthful baroness in the habit of jumping at shadows or seeing “odd” things that weren’t actually there. “What do you mean, ‘odd’?”
“It’s just...”
Myacha stared down into her cup for several seconds. Brayahs could almost physically feel her tension across the table, although he couldn’t begin to put his mental finger on its cause. It was certainly more than any simple concern over her husband’s peace of mind, however; that much was obvious.
“I’m worried about Sir Dahlnar,” she said finally.
“About Dahlnar?”
Sheer surprise at the sudden shift in direction startled the question out of Brayahs, and her eyes lifted from the inside of her cup to his face. He looked back at her for a second or two, then shook himself.
“I’m sorry. You just...surprised me.” He smiled wryly. “Dahlnar Bronzehelm has to be one of the most levelheaded men I’ve ever known.”
“I agree,” she said softly. “But something’s...changed, Brayahs. Last winter, even earlier this spring, he was consistently urging Borandas to be wary of Cassan. And Yeraghor, of course, but mostly of Cassan. In fact, I remember Borandas saying to me that Sir Dahlnar had told him Cassan had to be growing desperate over Tellian’s growing successes, and that desperate men made dangerous allies.”
“I can believe that,” Brayahs said. In fact, he could almost hear Bronzehelm saying those very words, just as he’d given similarly astute advice so often in the past.
