“Yes, yes, all right!” Rena retorted. “That's all well and good, but it's not right, these other things they ask! It's not natural!”
“Who are you to say what's natural? The families think it natural that we slave for them like dogs for no pay, and lose our heads to the sword should we dare to complain of it! The gods cursed you with a short memory, Rena-I remember my father's stories well.”
Sasha turned to the stairs as the argument continued at high volume, and found Yulia standing behind the younger girl. She looked pale, Sasha thought. Pale and drawn. Sasha walked to her, remembering her hat suddenly, and took it off as was the custom indoors.
“Hello,” she said to the younger girl. “Are you Yulia's cousin?” The girl nodded. Yulia's mother was sickly and her father dead, Sasha had learned some time ago. Yulia lived with her father's sister and, rather than burden the family with another girl, she'd chosen the Nasi-Keth. Yulia had never told Sasha how that decision had been received amongst her family. Somehow, this reception did not surprise her.
“She's Marli,” said Yulia, meaning the cousin. “What do you want?”
“To talk,” said Sasha. “Can we go upstairs?”
Yulia nodded mutely. They ascended and came into an untidy upper floor. There were a number of beds, and no privacy or separate rooms. A wooden trunk for clothes, some half-repaired linen, and washed clothes drying on racks. In one corner, the baby's cries came loud from its crib, a simple wooden box on a small table. She counted seven beds…eight, if one included the baby, and there was barely enough space between the clutter to walk.
She'd seen poverty in Lenayin, but never with this overcrowding. In Lenayin, there was plenty of space. If a family grew, one built a new room, or an entire new house.
Cousin Marli went to the baby and gathered it up. Yulia sat on a bed by a window.
“I haven't seen you at training,” Sasha remarked.
Yulia shrugged, cross-legged and fidgeting. “I haven't been.”
“You're giving up?” Sasha asked with a frown.
“Not on the Nasi-Keth, no.” More fidgeting. She wore a plain dress, such as ordinary Petrodor girls might wear. Even in the Nasi-Keth, some people frowned on girls in pants. “I just thought maybe I'd do better studying medicines. Like Fara.”
“You thought? Or your aunt thought?”
Yulia looked up, and there was desperation in her eyes. “I have nightmares. About Riverside. Do you have nightmares?”
Sasha wanted to tell her yes, that she understood. But that would be lying, and lying was dishonourable. She'd lied before, on occasion, when need had required it. But lately, her Lenay honour had seemed even more precious than usual. “No,” she said.
“Liam was right,” said Yulia. “You were born a warrior. I wasn't.”
“Liam,” Sasha said sharply, “now insists that I'm not a warrior either.”
Yulia shrugged and resumed fidgeting. “I heard. Liam is upset that Rodery died.”
“It's no excuse.” Sasha was still angry. She knew herself to be a basically good person, if a little hot-tempered and self-centred. She angered easily, but she did not hate easily and was always quick to forgive. But something about what Liam had done still made her fume. Such things, one expected of an enemy. But of a friend, or one who had called himself a friend…it was betrayal. Dishonour. A Lenay warrior did not go against his word or his friends. A Lenay warrior would rather die. Liam, it was clear, was no Lenay warrior. Even now, he did not appear to believe that he'd done anything wrong. Worse, many Nasi-Keth appeared to agree.
Honour, Rhillian had said, means different things to different people. My wise friend Rhillian, Sasha thought sourly. You may yet be proven right.
“I…I think maybe Liam's right in other things too,” Yulia said quietly. “I…I panicked. I lost my sword. Rodery and Liam had to protect me. If…If I hadn't lost my sword, maybe Rodery wouldn't be…”
“Or maybe he would,” said Sasha. “Or maybe Liam would be, or you would be. I don't claim to be the most hardened veteran of war, but I've seen my share of battles. There's just no predicting it, Yulia. Yes, Rodery and Liam had to protect you once you'd lost your blade…but then, they're supposed to. As you're supposed to protect them, should they lose theirs. Yes, you panicked. It happens to all kinds of warriors. Many survive and go on to become great regardless. They learn from their mistakes and improve. They don't just quit, Yulia.”
“Sasha, I'm not very good, all right!” There was temper in her tone now and tears in her eyes. Across the room, the baby's wails had lessened somewhat. Cousin Marli watched on, wide-eyed, rocking the baby. Privacy would be too much to expect, Sasha knew, and didn't bother to ask. “Even at training, I…I only started going that regularly because of you!”
“Don't you try and pin this on me,” Sasha said warningly. “Your actions and your choices are your own, that's the first thing your uman told you.”
“No, I…I didn't mean it like that.” Yulia shook her head. “I just meant that…gods, Sasha, look around.” Sasha did, reluctantly. Downstairs, she could hear the continuing argument through the floorboards. “Do you see why I wanted to be Nasi-Keth? I wanted more, Sasha. More than this. And no one ever rises to great prominence within the Nasi-Keth without some talent in the svaalverd. I wanted to work on it more, but the boys always teased me, and some of the girls too, but then you came along. A human girl, and Kessligh's uma, and you're good! Staggeringly good. Men here couldn't believe it-trust me, I heard what they said when you weren't around. They were shocked. But about half came to accept it, and that gave me hope. Half is enough, for some respect at least.
“So I went to training more regularly. I practised a lot even before, but always on my own…and it's not the same. I can look good in training, sometimes. Better than I actually am, I think. Maybe that's why I was picked to go on the mission to Riverside. Kessligh was short of fighters and people thought I was better than I am.”
“What does your uman say?”
“She…” Yulia sighed, hanging her head. “She didn't approve. I didn't see her as much after I started attending training more. It's not for girls, she said. I pointed to you and she just snorted. She'd rather I studied and learned to teach children. It's good work, but…”
“I know,” Sasha said sombrely. “I'll tell you this, Yulia-in all my life, nearly all of my greatest supporters, and greatest friends, have been men. Women don't wish to see other women doing something different because it makes them feel less of themselves. Women have too little pride because they are taught from the cradle to be weak.”
Yulia nearly smiled. “Maybe,” she said, reluctantly. “But then, look at Aunt Rena. She's very proud of what she is, that's why she's yelling at you.”
Sasha shook her head. “That's not pride. That's fear. Pride is being so certain in yourself that you're not intimidated by the strangeness of others. Pride is being so certain that you can look after yourself that you don't need to threaten or complain or make malicious whispers behind others’ backs. I see too little pride here in Petrodor, from men or women. Only fear and anxiety.”
“Pride has many meanings to many people.”
Sasha sighed. She'd been hearing that kind of thing a lot lately. “Yulia, I need you to help me with a job.”
“A Nasi-Keth job?” Sasha nodded. “You'd trust me? After…?”
“There shouldn't be any fighting.” Yulia looked a little panicked. “There won't be any fighting,” Sasha corrected. “I'm going to see my sister Marya. I need someone to help keep watch, and there's no one else available. Kessligh can't spare a more seasoned fighter when there are so many other threats to cover, and neither Alaine nor Gerrold's followers will be likely to help me.”
“Surely there's someone?” There was fear in Yulia's eyes. “I'm…I mean…I'm just not sure if I can…”
“It's your choice,” Sasha told her. “I'll go alone if I have to. I just need someone to watch my back, you can do that, right?” Yulia lo
oked at her lap, fidgeting furiously. “You're not a bad fighter Yulia. I've sparred against you, you're not that far behind Liam. You just froze up in battle. That's understandable, you've not the experience the others do. But you'll not need to fight anyway. Will you come?”
Sasha sat on the bow of Mari's boat and blinked wearily into the light of the rising sun. A breeze came from the south, filling the little boat's sails, pushing them northward across the harbour. Ahead loomed Besendi Promontory, its cliffs gleaming gold in the low light from across the sea.
“You look tired,” Mari observed from his seat beside the mast. Valenti was at the tiller, and handling the mainsail rope-no great affair in the light breeze. Opposite Mari sat Yulia, her slim arms bare, her back to the sun.
“I was never the earliest riser,” Sasha admitted, stifling a yawn. “Baerlyn farmers tease me about it, but they don't have to run up a mountain and back before breakfast. And now I'm rarely getting to bed before midnight.”
“Bah,” said Mari, waving a dismissive hand. “Try working for a living.”
“How many thoroughbred horses have you hand-reared and sold to Torovan and Lenay nobility?” Sasha retorted. “All you do is fish; I run a stable and train as a Nasi-Keth warrior.”
“You want I should hold her close off the shore for a while?” he asked her.
“It'll look suspicious. Just let us off at the steps, then go your own way. You've pots out beyond the bluff, by the time you fetch them we'll be finished.”
“Right confident are you,” said Mari dubiously as he gazed ahead at the Cliff of the Dead. Its terraces rose most of the way from the sea to the sky. “What if you strike trouble?”
“Look, there's no hiding places.” Sasha pointed across the terraces. “If we get attacked we can descend, there's shelter from archers and there's the rocky shoreline along here…”
“That's damn slippery,” said Mari, shaking his head. “You can't move far along that.”
“We won't need to, just long enough to find shelter. Let them come at us along those rocks-I could hold off thirty men on my own.” Mari looked at Yulia, presumably to judge if she was boasting. Yulia shrugged, to say she didn't think so. “Sure, if you see us in trouble, hold off and we'll swim to you. Or head back and get help. But for the men it'd take to catch us here, it'd be a silly waste of effort. Even Steiner don't have that many men. They're all guarding their properties, expecting violence.”
“Can you swim?” Mari asked Yulia.
“A little,” said Yulia, uncertainly. “Can you?” she asked Sasha.
Sasha nodded. “There was a nice big pond near the ranch in Baerlyn,” she said. “A waterfall fell into it. Ten strokes from side to side, and river trout at the bottom. The most crystal water you've ever seen.”
“I live right next to the ocean,” Yulia muttered, “but you even swim better than me.”
There was no movement along the gravestone terraces in the early morning, save for the gulls. Out further toward Porsada Temple, recent stonework marked where terraces were being extended along the cliff face. This was where the wealthiest families buried their dead. The temple priesthood owned the land, and a plot was said to be exorbitant. But there was so little free land in Petrodor, save for that on rises far too steep for dwellings. For Petrodor families, paying respects to the ancestors was a matter of importance, and it would not do for them to be buried too far away. Sasha wondered what they'd do when, in several more generations, the stoneworkers ran out of cliff.
Steps rose from the water, carved in stone and encrusted with barnacles. Mari let out the sail as Valenti steered them alongside, allowing Sasha and Yulia to jump easily to a step, then the boat regathered speed, steering out, away from the rocks.
Sasha and Yulia ascended the terraces, past rows and rows of little stone blocks.
It was a long climb up many flights to reach the undertaker's shed where she had met Marya previously. The cliff face curved here, hiding all view of the temple. On the terrace below the shed, Sasha sent Yulia past the end of the terrace, onto the narrow trail she remembered from the last time she'd been here. Yulia edged her way along with ease, and soon disappeared as the cliff face turned again.
After a while of watching and listening, Sasha edged her way up the narrow stairs to the next terrace, keeping close to the inner wall. Peering over the lip, she saw nothing but headstones, and the little wooden shed, just as it had been last time. Then the door opened and she ducked down a little. A young woman in a dress emerged, but not Marya. She appeared to be looking and waiting for an arrival, wringing her hands nervously. A maid, Sasha decided. Openly displayed, no threat intended.
Even so, she waited a while longer, peering occasionally over the terrace rim. Finally, when convinced it was safe, she moved. She'd seen the terraces from way out to sea, and there was no cover to hide an ambush. The shed itself was the only place where men could hide, and neither she, Yulia, Mari or Valenti had seen anyone. Besides which, the sheer gall of anyone, to make preparations for ambush in a cemetery was beyond imagining.
The maid stopped fidgeting when she saw Sasha walking toward her. When she arrived, the maid curtsied. “Lady Sashandra, I am Tesslyn. My mistress awaits inside.”
“You're Lenay?” Sasha asked in surprise. The accent was unmistakable.
Tesslyn smiled. She seemed perhaps the same age as Marya. “Aye, M'Lady,” she said in Lenay. “I came out with Princess Marya in her wedding train, fourteen years ago. I decided to stay.”
“Fourteen years,” said Sasha. “That's a long time.”
“Your sister's service is most rewarding,” said Tesslyn. “And I found myself a lovely husband and now have children of my own.”
“Where are the guards?” she thought to ask Tesslyn, turning to survey the terraces eastward. Always a good idea to take a final look at the surroundings before entering a building.
“There is an old Steiner cousin who is buried just there,” said Tesslyn, pointing to a gravestone not ten plots away. “Princess Marya made a great fuss when she discovered none of the present family had come to pay their respects for several years. She said it should be private for the deceased cousin's soul would surely be angry. The family soldiers are a little superstitious, they're waiting well beyond the curve in the cliff here.”
“Clever,” Sasha observed, smiling.
“Princess Marya is never anything but sincere,” said Tesslyn mildly.
“You're not superstitious?” Sasha asked.
“I'm quite certain Princess Marya's prayers have consoled her cousin's angry spirit.”
Sasha gave her a sideways look. “Right,” she said. She turned to open the cabin door and allowed it to swing, creaking, so she could observe the gloom within. Paused in the doorway, a hand on her knife, looking for ambush. There was nothing, just piled headstones, shovels and other work gear. And Marya, standing by the same little window with the view across the harbour. Sasha smiled at her. “Sorry,” she said. “I have to be careful. Kessligh would kill me.”
“Oh, Sasha,” said Marya with evident emotion. “It's so good to see you!” Sasha went to her and hugged her. And felt a sting on the back of her neck as they embraced.
“Ow!” She pulled back and looked at Marya in puzzlement. Marya looked pale, she realised. Suddenly frightened. Then the dizziness began. “Oh no,” Sasha exclaimed incredulously. “Oh no. You didn't!” She put a hand to the back of her neck and found blood on her fingers; grabbed Marya's wrist, twisted, and found a small needle protruding from a ring about her middle finger.
“Oh Sasha, I'm so sorry!” There were tears in Marya's eyes. “I'm so sorry, I didn't want to do it…” Sasha's knife came out fast and Marya's eyes widened. “It's not fatal, Sasha! Oh gods, I'd never…it'll just make you sleep!”
Sasha thumped her left hand against the wall, trying to hold her balance as her vision swam and faded. There was strength in her right arm yet. Marya's figure swam close, then far, hot then cold. One thrust. One…She h
urled the knife at the window instead, but her arm was weak and the glass cracked without breaking. No warning to Yulia. Yulia wouldn't know. “Family!” she gasped. “I'm…family!”
“It's been fourteen years since I came to Petrodor, Sasha,” Marya said sadly. “Steiner are my family now.”
Sasha awoke with a perfect recollection of what had happened. And cursed herself for the greatest fool in all the history of fooldom.
She was lying on her back. On a bed, by the feel of it. And it was hot. She tried to raise her head, and found that was possible, if awkward. She had a nasty headache, a stiff neck and the distant sensation of nausea. Distant, but ready to roll over her like a tide if she moved too suddenly. She lay in a small, stone room. Sunlight shone through a tall, slit window. Despite the discomfort, she was surprisingly clearheaded. The potion had been a serrin concoction, no doubt. The most effective ones always were.
She stretched and found herself thankfully free of other injuries or stiffness…except that her legs were bare. Where were her boots? Or come to that, her clothes? She slapped hands to her waist and found, to her alarm, that she was wearing…a dress! Damn. She'd spent most of the last twelve years avoiding the prospect of ever wearing one of these horrible things ever again. Now, her efforts had finally been foiled. It was nearly funny, and she fought back an exasperated laugh.
A new, unpleasant thought occurred to her and the laugh died on her lips. She pulled the dress up, and found to her relief that she was still wearing her old, thigh-length woollen underwear. Thank the spirits. She'd not have put it past some Steiner soldier to take liberties with an unconscious woman. Nor a dead one, came the uncharitable thought. She felt herself, but found no irritation, no soreness. Just as well. The serrin's white powder she always carried was with her clothes, and they were…
She rolled on the bed and looked around the room. It had three walls-one curved, the other two straight, with a door in one. There was no furniture but for her bed, and no sign of her clothes. Nor, obviously enough, her weapons. Beside the bed, a bucket of water stood on the flagstones with a clean cloth draped over the rim. She dipped a finger in the water and tasted it, suspiciously. Nothing happened, and it tasted good. She was thirsty as all hells. She lowered her upper body off the bed, not game to try squatting just now, and drank directly from the bucket. She wiped cool water on her face as she lay back.
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