by R. Cooper
“I meant you as the knight you are now.” Prityal’s softness was its own particular danger. Delf was not going to survive this quest.
“Ah.” Delf shrugged. “It would probably go about the same.”
Prityal narrowed her eyes. “Even squires can defeat an experienced knight. It only takes one second’s hesitation, or unsteady step.” She stopped, her expression growing embarrassed. “Not that you are a squire. Sorry. I often misspeak. I intended no insult.”
Unoffended, Delf nodded. “I would still lose.” She could never strike at Prityal in earnest.
As if that had cut off whatever further apologies Prityal had been about to make, she huffed and turned her face away. “If I had not seen you in a fight, I would agree. I would not have you go easy on me, Delflenor, simply because you have seen me with tears in my eyes.”
The air left Delf’s lungs.
Before she was the Tyrant-slayer, when she was only Prityal, new to her knighthood, unable to ride with the others as she healed from Jareth’s harried, makeshift surgery, she had been huddled against a tree while attempting to change the dressing over her wound by herself. The pain had kept her from lifting her arm, sent streams of tears down her cheeks. She had clearly been trying to hide, as if her pain or perhaps the wound itself was shameful.
Delf had clenched her hands and strode forward to take the dressings from her. She had not spoken a word, not to call Prityal a fool for trying to do it herself, or for not asking for a healer’s help. She understood how Prityal might not want those same healers to touch her, but any of the knights would have hurried to assist one of their own.
All of that had caught in her throat, so she had said none of it. She only looked Prityal in the eye and waited for her small nod before she laid a hand on her, then she replaced the dressing as quickly and carefully as she could before wrapping bandages over and around Prityal’s chest.
Delf had bitten her lip hard so she would not whisper soft nonsense into Prityal’s ear or stroke the lines of pain from her brow, and then, when she was done, she had walked quickly away. Prityal’s face had been turned from her by then, a reminder that anything Delf might have said, or done, would have been unwelcome.
But she would have wiped the tears away and considered that an honor.
Delf had thought it only admiration, then.
“I assure you, I consider you stronger for having seen the tears in your eyes,” Delf whispered, as though they were knights of a previous era, the knights who had songs sung of them, who battled monsters at the urging of the Three, and who talked of duty and love with eloquence and faith.
One of them could have been. Delf was not the sort to seek out trouble, or monsters, or wear colors she had no right to wear.
“Early in our journey for such a conversation, is it not?” she added when the silence went on. “It is usually several nights into a mission before we begin to tell personal stories.”
She was not surprised when Prityal either ignored or did not notice her attempt at levity.
“You didn’t answer my question.” Prityal leaned forward slightly to pet Frire’s neck. If she was irritated, it did not show. Her voice was soft and even. “Why don’t you enter the contests?”
Straight to the heart of the matter, with little regard for feelings, or potential damage.
Delf smiled despite that; she would expect no less.
She shrugged. “Contests are a chance for the older and more experienced to show off, and for the eager youngsters to test their mettle. I’m not a youngster, and I’ve no need to show off.”
“And your mettle has already been tested,” Prityal responded, making Delf flinch with surprise, although Prityal didn’t look over and so likely did not see it. “You’ve seen your share of battles.”
“Skirmishes,” Delf dismissed them immediately. “Nothing we all haven’t seen.” She felt almost winded at the words, and the reminder of the years of unceasing conflict that past knights had not faced.
Prityal had no such reaction. “Til Din was no skirmish.”
Delf had not worn heavy enough armor for this talk of theirs. Perhaps this was how Prityal always spoke, blow after blow, relentless, in her voice like a cloud.
Til Din, where Prityal had taken that wound. The first major test for the remaining experienced Knights of the Seat, and all the younger knights hastily thrown into battle with them. Brennus had been gone for four years when one of the stronger cheves had no longer felt like waiting for a sign from the Three and had claimed Ainle for themselves with the aid of allies. The Tyrant, whose name was no longer spoken, had reached the Seat before the knights had stopped him, before Prityal, hardly able to lift her arm without agony, had nonetheless raised her sword and struck their head from their body.
But before that, there had been Til Din. Screams and clashing metal in echoing, tangled woods on a steep hillside.
Terrible place for a battle. If there was ever a good one.
Delf swallowed and wished for water. Then she wished for wine. “Waiting until you and your friends have plowed through whoever is foolish enough to get in your way, then darting out to dispatch whoever is left who still wants to fight.” On an icor with a lance, or, if she was unlucky, on foot, with a mace. She swallowed again, painfully this time, with the dryness in her throat. “Harrying stragglers. That is what I do. Nothing to brag about.”
Prityal cut her a look at last, a small frown doing nothing to make her expression less of a pout.
“All of us learn a little of many fighting forms. Most focus on one or two. The lance and the sword, or a sword and dagger. The pole-axe and the bow. You focus on three.”
“I…”
Prityal pushed out a noisy, frustrated breath. “The lance on horseback. The staff. The sword. And I think perhaps that mace you keep near your saddle would make four, though I have not witnessed your skill with it.” She listed Delf’s weapons of choice easily, as if she had known of them before this. “But even if you wanted to demonstrate your skill with merely one of them, the one without bruises or danger, there are contests for throwing lances, too.”
There were many things to say to that. Delf thought of them, opening and shutting her mouth like a fish while Prityal continued to pout-frown at her.
Most would not call it a pout. Delf recognized that. It did not change the fact that it was.
“The contests are fun for many,” she answered after too long of a pause. “I don’t begrudge them that. I watch with everyone else. But I’m not the type to seek out prizes or glory, in battles or in games with friends.”
Prityal gave her another look, the pout sharpening to a real frown before her expression smoothed out. They rode on, not far. Prityal glanced to her again. This time, she spoke even softer.
“You are right to think the situation bleak.”
“I voiced no such thought to you,” Delf protested weakly, then swore under her breath. “Did Ange say something?”
“Did she lie?” Prityal raised an eyebrow and waited. Delf, who had no rebuttal, dared to frown. Prityal took that for an answer and nodded gravely. “I wish more knights would disobey their cheves and their reckless plans. Outside of Ainle, old enemies are no doubt happy for us to destroy ourselves to save them the trouble.”
“Did you deliberately wait until we were far from the Seat before you brought this up?” Delf wondered in amazement. “Did Jareth suggest this?”
“Just because others do not want to think of what might happen, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.” Prityal continued to pet Frire. Delf didn’t know if she was being granted moments to recover, or if Prityal was simply unconcerned with how conversations usually went. “You’ve been thinking of it, too.”
“There is no chevetein,” Delf’s voice was only slightly raised. “There is no Hand of the Three. Of course, I’ve been thinking of it!”
“So, we start out from the same place.” Prityal’s lips softened and curled upward before she nodded to herself.
Delf resisted the urge to gape, and stared at Prityal instead, the careful pleasure in that one small smile leaving her weak.
She finally had to look away. That had been a test of a sort, a contest, though for what, Delf could not say. But she had passed, or won—or Prityal had. Delf could not say that for certain, either. But the Hope could not speak of Ainle’s potential ruin to just anyone. That Jareth had no doubt suggested this, and at this point in the journey, did not take the pleasure from Prityal’s expression.
They sought out help, allies, which now included Delf, although she did not have much to offer. But she had said she would carry Prityal’s shield, and so she would.
“Aye,” Delf agreed quietly at last. “We start from the same place.” Some of Prityal’s greatness must have reflected onto her and then stuck, she decided, and nervously tucked her hair behind her ear. “Have you ever been to this village?” she asked, if only to put the light back where it belonged.
“No.” Prityal hardly batted an eye at the abrupt change in topic. “All we learned in the short time we had, was that the woods around it are thick, approaching true wilderness now in some places, which has protected it thus far. The woods are part of why an older, and apparently injured, knight was sent to watch over it. There was never a call for more than that, and Rosset was likely not needed in the first place. It was an honorable retirement.”
“So the woods have kept any greedy cheves from gobbling up the territory,” Delf reasoned, breathing easier for this conversation. “That might be all this is, the old knight warning us of raiders, like in days of old.”
“Raiders.” Prityal flattened her voice on the word. “A group of them would be too much for a few knights to take on their own. He might have warned us of that, too.”
Delf rolled a shoulder. “If it’s some magical force, then a priest would have been better.”
“You have some knowledge of that, though, don’t you?”
Delf stared at Prityal until her eyes were dry, then looked straight ahead. She did not know who had given Prityal so many details about her, and could not blame it all on Ange. But someone clearly had. Delf was not interesting enough for a years-long study.
“My early training was for the priesthood.” Delf had spent time among the homes of various priests, eager and curious as any young thing. There were some schools which held that all the other spirits were merely aspects of the Three. If the other spirits minded being ranked below the Three Ladylords with their many faces, they did not say. And since spirits were capable of reacting to slights, there must be some truth to why the Three were beloved and feared above all others. Priests of the Three were the most revered—and the most rare. Most students of magic found it simpler and easier to focus devotion on one aspect than on all of them: whatever thing pleased them the most, sex or family or harvests, storms or baking or fiber work, or, in some places, a spirit of a local lake, or wood.
Prityal was probably going to ask Delf whose priesthood she had considered; most people did, perhaps unable to imagine Delf as especially devout. “For the Three,” Delf informed Prityal quickly. “Which, yes, is hilarious, but I was a mere child.”
“I didn’t laugh.” Prityal sounded offended at the idea that she might have.
Delf shot her a grin that faltered a little when she met Prityal’s eyes. She glanced away again but kept her tone light. “They said I lacked a serious demeanor, and did not know how to offer true devotion. Me. I was as shocked as you are,” she added, tongue-in-cheek.
She didn’t expect another frustrated huff and sulky frown. “You do not ever seem to be serious.” Prityal tightened her mouth. “Until you are drinking.” Her hand went still. Then she pulled it from Frire’s neck and put it in her lap, where she made a fist. “You do not jest. I don’t mean to say that. Only that your words have a hidden edge to them. I have often wished you would speak plain.”
Delf had no loose hair to shield her face. “I… did not know you wished me to speak at all,” she managed at last.
Prityal turned sharply toward her. “It’s a wonder that you tease me, if that is your image of me,” she answered, crisp and cutting. “Prit the war leader, the Tyrant-slayer. I am often thought distant, but I did not believe….”
Prityal abruptly shut her mouth, then urged Frire to a faster pace, moving quickly ahead.
Delf stared after her, her tongue heavy in her mouth.
To say she had not expected to be noticed now felt as if she were offering Prityal another insult. But she hadn’t expected it. If Prityal and the others wished to search for likeminded knights, and had considered adding Delf to their number, Delf did not object, exactly. She thought they could find better… or at least, under normal circumstances, they could have. Nothing in her time in the barracks should have made her stand out.
“I do not think you distant,” she told Prityal in a whisper that the other knight would not hear. Then she let out a little frustrated howl that made Kee flick her ears.
She stayed well behind Prityal for the next several hours.
PRITYAL DID NOT seem amenable to conversation, apologies, or explanations. Which may have been a blessing, since Delf had no explanations to offer that would not have offended her again.
I am a good knight, but not a great one, she thought of saying, while walking alongside Kee to give her icor a rest.
You are already a legend, she silently added to that, watching the sky grow darker.
Of course, I was surprised to have your attention. You are famous as well as great, she argued in her mind as Prityal lit a small campfire and laid out a simple roll for sleeping before she walked off into the night for moments of privacy.
Stop pouting, her argument ended there, once Prityal had returned and found that Delf had taken care of the icors and the goat, and had left some of their rations out for her.
Apparently, even this caused offense.
“You are not accompanying me as a begley,” Prityal said, her tone somewhere between stiff and embarrassed, or perhaps both.
Delf squinted at her in the firelight for several moments, then resumed shaking her bag of bones while she chewed some very hard cheese.
“Would you consider it an insult if I did not help you?” Delf wondered aloud once she was done chewing, and then tossed the contents of the bag into the dirt. She was not truly telling fortunes. She just liked to have something to occupy her hands. She scooped up the bones and put them back in the bag to shake it again. “I made the offer, as you recall. Freely, and, yes, with some wine in me, but freely, all the same. It’s my pleasure to help you.”
The bones were a jumble of wistful nonsense, but it might have been the dark playing tricks on her.
“Because I am the Just?” Prityal asked in return, but her tone was even again at last.
Delf looked up. “Yes. And also because I am happy to help anyone.”
It was a play of the shadows, or some of the tension left Prityal’s shoulders. “You can sleep first, if you like. I will keep watch.”
Delf had not been expecting an explanation, but knew a hand extended in peace when she saw one.
“I’ll not sleep for a while yet, but thank you.”
She threw the bones again, under Prityal’s curious eye, while Prityal gnawed on some dry bread. Prityal didn’t ask what they told her, or even what Delf wanted from them. Which was good, since Delf hardly knew, either.
After a while, Delf laid back to look up at the stars, and wondered distantly if Prityal thought she was asleep when she began to hum.
THE HUMMING continued to occur, at odd moments. Incomplete snatches of songs when Prityal forgot herself, although she never sang any of the words. Delf recognized parts of Saphar’s Struggle, and The Quest of Arta, as well as pieces of a different ballad about Arta—or a song about another Arta altogether, Delf had never been sure. Prityal also fell asleep in the saddle, still in her light armor, a feat that indicated true exhaustion. Delf believed it, since Prityal had not woken
Delf the night before to take her turn at watch. She had not slept much before starting out on their journey and now had stayed up all night.
Delf moved to take the lead and let Frire and his slumbering rider follow while she stewed on why Prityal had not woken her. It might have been some attempt at paying a debt that did not exist, or simply something foolishly sacrificial that Prityal did. She was endlessly mystifying for a woman who dressed and spoke plainly, and wished others, wished Delf, would do the same.
When Prit woke herself up mid-snore, Delf pretended not to hear it and did not look back. If there was an invisible tally of debts at play here, then she would pay her own. If not, then it cost her nothing to be courteous, and secretly, she hoped Prityal would go back to sleep. She had no doubt Prityal needed the rest.
But she was not surprised when there were no more snores.
Delf allowed the silence while she debated how to address the problem between them without making Prityal uncomfortable. The root seemed to be somewhere in their first conversation, so, despite her misgivings, Delf brought up the increasingly dire situation in Ainle while they both stood to allow the icors and the goat a chance to rest and feed.
Prityal was stretching her limbs.
Delf fiddled with her hair to keep her hands busy and her eyes in another direction.
“That cheve, the one whose posturing got Ranalaut and Jareth and the others injured,” she began, choosing her words with care, “what was her fate?”
She had heard already, but she wanted to know how it had come about. In the absence of a chevetein at the Seat, far too much had fallen onto Prityal, and Prityal relied heavily on her two closest friends to manage the burden. That either or both of them might have been lost there must have worried her.
Prityal straightened up from touching her toes. Delf got the sense of being observed intently and imagined that pout had returned. It was the sulky push of Prityal’s mouth, she decided, and likely accidental. She did not think Prityal would even understand how to use a pout when she could simply ask or make a demand.
