Tracato: A Trial of Blood and Steel, Book 3

by Joel Shepherd

  A horse and cart trundled down the column, its tray holding some of the last remaining firewood. A man in the back tossed down an armful to men from each campsite in passing. Two Baerlyn men rose as the cart approached, as men from neighbouring camps also rose, but now the man on the back of the cart stopped throwing down the wood, and the driver accelerated, whipping at the horse’s reins. Men shouted at them to stop, and were met with laughter and rude words in a northern tongue.

  “Wonderful,” Byorn exclaimed. “Which shitwit gave northerners the firewood cart?”

  “Kumaryn,” Teriyan said darkly. Great Lord Kumaryn, that was. The great lord of the province of Valhanan. All the nobility were united in their hatred for the ex-heir of Tyree, who had refused to die, submit or be captured, and had converted to the ancient ways to escape the laws of Verenthanes. In Lenayin, most commonfolk agreed, the two faiths would get along fine if it weren’t for the arrogant, god-spouting superiority of the nobles.

  The cart thundered past, leaving angry Valhanans pondering the prospect of another cold dinner. The hard men of Lenayin were in some ways a pampered lot, Jaryd reflected with a sigh. Food in Lenayin was good and plentiful, and bad seasons rare. Already the column ranks were filled with complaints from men accustomed to going their own way, providing for themselves, and unfamiliar with orders and discipline. Figure that into any long, lowlands campaign. He wondered if the king and Prince Koenyg truly had.

  Then he heard more hooves thundering and raised his head. Here along the column came a small figure on a galloping dussieh, skirts flying. Skirts. He got up, staring. Behind her came another girl in a loose red dress over slim, brown legs, black hair streaming like a banner. About them (and largely behind, to the apparent chagrin of a corporal whose expression Jaryd could observe) raced a contingent of eight Royal Guards.

  A great cheer rose from the ranks, following the Princess Sofy and her entourage down the line. Jaryd stared in disbelief, as his Baerlyn comrades stood and roared with the rest. What happened next was obscured from view, but after a time of impatient waiting, trying to see over the heads of the risen column, the firewood cart reappeared, this time with a Royal Guard escort. Princess Sofy and her Isfayen companion (handmaiden smed an inappropriate term, for a daughter of bloodwarriors) rode ahead, grinning and waving to the men along the way. The men on the cart unloaded firewood to those who wanted it, with dark expressions. Some of Jaryd’s friends seemed to think it the funniest thing they’d seen in months, and had difficulty cheering through tears of laughter. Northern Verenthanes humiliated by a horse-riding girl. Again. Spirits be good.

  As she came close, Jaryd fancied that the princess’s wave faltered a little, her eyes seeking someone in the crowd. She knew this was the Valhanan contingent, surely. And probably she knew that Baerlyn, being eastern Valhanan, marched in the middle of the last third of the Valhanan column. Jaryd’s heart began thumping, to see her come near. Then, somehow, her eyes met his despite the distance and commotion. And locked.

  A pretty girl. “Beautiful,” perhaps, was a word best suited to the likes of her elder sister Alythia, of full breasts and ruby lips. The Princess Sofy had now nineteen summers, and was slim and delicate to behold…although not quite as much as in Jaryd’s memory. She wore a plain yet well-made dress over riding pants and boots, her long dark hair fell loose down her back, and her features were fine. Like a little girl, perhaps, all save for her eyes, which were large, dark and lovely. They fixed upon him now, wide and intent, her waving hand frozen in midair. Jaryd’s heart seemed to stop, and his knees weakened.

  And then she was past, smiling and waving to other men in the column. Had she just been staring at him? Had it been his imagination? Or had she merely imagined she’d seen him, in the spot in the column where she’d been told he would be?

  Teriyan slapped him on the arm, grinning broadly as he watched her go. “She’s got Sasha’s blood in her, for sure. She’s a good girl, that one.”

  “Aye,” Jaryd agreed, faintly. Recalling a wild escape on horseback, her slim body pressed to his as they rode close on the saddle. Recalling warm lips against his own, and slim, clutching hands and hungry eyes. A night’s camp all alone on a deserted trail somewhere on the border of Tyree and Valhanan, a blanket on a bed of pine needles. Bare white skin, and red nipples, and smooth, lovely hips. Intoxication, and desperate arousal, her cries and gasps in his ear.

  “Aye,” he murmured, watching her leave to the cheers of adoring men. “She’s a good girl, for sure.”

  Andreyis was one reason to march to war. So was honour. But neither was the only reason he’d come.

  I N HER CORNER OF THE TRAINING COURTYARD, Sasha had attracted a crowd. Tol’rhen students clustered about her as she faced a country lad named Daish, who was fancied one of the better swordsman trainees of the institution. Wooden blades flashed and cracked, and Sasha caught him on the arm guard. Exclamations came from those surrounding. Daish shook his arm, grinning, and circled about, his feet dancing. He was only a little taller than Sasha, and had a boyish, freckled face.

  He attacked again, in clever combination, which Sasha deflected, and refrained from the high overhead that would have split his head, dancing back.

  “She just took your head off!” Reynold Hein called out, greatly impressed.

  “She did not!” Daish retorted.

  “Did too!” called several others. Sasha was pleased they’d noticed. The Tol’rhen bred good swordsmen—from the sidelines they could see even the openings she rejected.

  “Watch your brace step,” she advised Daish. “You put too much weight on your second step; you shouldn’t anchor your balance on one leg.”

  Daish tried again. A few times he came close, but never quite did he lay a blade on her. Each time, save one where she again refused to swing at his head, Sasha gave him a thump on his pads or guards.

  The session bell clanged and, across the courtyard, sparring ceased. Sasha shook hands with Daish—he was somewhat more sweaty and tired than she. From the onlookers, there was enthusiastic applause for both their efforts. Sasha began taking off her padded banda as students gathered around and fired questions at her.

  She was finding their enthusiasm infectious. All through the Tol’rhen, there was a love of learning, whether the martial arts, or languages, or the many disciplines that Sasha could barely get her head around. She was disappointed that, as in Petrodor, there were so few women interested in the svaalverd, but pleased that the lads all treated her as one of their own. Of the hundred or so students in the courtyard this early morning, Sasha could only count three young women.

  Walking back to the main building, Reynold Hein joined her and put his arm about her shoulders. Sasha did not mind—it was nothing that the young men would not do with each other, in the spirit of comradeship. Reynold was simply indicating that he considered her one of the lads.

  “Sasha, we have a Civid Sein meeting in the forecourt,” he said. “It would be grand if you could attend, maybe say a few words.”

  “I was going to go and see Errollyn at the Mahl’rhen,” Sasha said apologetically. Not that she felt particularly apologetic, but it was a good excuse all the same.

  Reynold just smiled. “Oh well, I don’t suppose even the Civid Sein can compete with Errollyn.”

  Viewed from the courtyard, the Tol’rhen looked magnificent. It was the largest building Sasha had ever seen, as high as a grand temple, and far longer and wider. It had beautiful arching doors and windows, and columns that fanned out from the sides like an animal’s ribs. Its great dome towered above surrounding rooftops. Sasha had been told that it had taken nearly twenty years to build, even after the rest of the Tol’rhen had been completed, engaging the best human and serrin minds of the time.

  Ulenshaal Sevarien cornered her at breakfast.

  “Ah, Sashandra!” he boomed, as he heaved his wide, black-robed bulk onto the bench. “I hope you’re beating some manners into these little rascals!”

  “Some
of those bruises are mine,” Sasha admitted, indicating the young men. “I don’t know that bruises make for better manners though, it never worked on me.”

  “A worthy experiment all the s” Sevarien exclaimed.

  “Ulenshaal Sevarien would administer beatings himself,” said Daish from Sasha’s side, “but the last time he broke a sweat was in the year 850.” The other boys laughed.

  “Quiet boy!” Sevarien barked, but his eyes sparkled. Sevarien was as large as his voice, and had no discernible chin. He had been a butcher in his younger years, self-educated on books lent to him by a wealthy customer. That knowledge had impressed a visiting Tol’rhen recruiter enough to gain him a place as a student, from where he had risen to become one of the institution’s most accomplished scholars.

  “Dear girl,” said Sevarien now, past a mouthful of porridge. “You have been here nearly a week. What do you think?”

  “Of the Tol’rhen? It’s amazing.”

  “Well, obviously,” said Sevarien, impatiently. “Do you think it could be replicated in your homeland?”

  Sasha blinked at him. That was quite a thought. “Who would pay for it?”

  Sevarien waved his hand. “Details, girl! No one shall pay for it if they are first not sold on the idea! Could it be done?”

  Sasha chewed a mouthful, thinking it over. “I think only as a part of a noble education in Baen-Tar.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the provincial lords all think the Nasi-Keth teach blasphemy. The poor folk aren’t interested in any education that won’t make them extra coin; you’d do better teaching them to improve irrigation or cropping than philosophy or languages….”

  “Bah.” Sevarien waved his hand again. “We had the same issue here. The poor stopped their nonsense when they realised what higher status they could attain with a Tol’rhen education.”

  Sasha smiled. “There is no higher status in Lenayin,” she said. “If you’re poor, you work with your hands and attain status with hard work and skill with a blade. The only men of letters and law are nobles, and nobility is a matter of birthright, not education.”

  “A travesty!” proclaimed Sevarien. “One of the greatest travesties that continues today across Rhodia. If there is one institution that we should all bend our backs to see destroyed, it is nobility. Fancy declaring that any of these lads, however bright and hard working, cannot rise to the same level as some soft-handed lackwit, simply because he had the good fortune to be born into a blue-blooded family.”

  “I agree.”

  “You know,” said Sevarien, jabbing a spoon at her, “you should attend a Civid Sein gathering.” Sasha repressed a sigh. “Being of noble birth yourself…or no, not noble. Royal! And yet you dress without fancy, and sport calluses on your hands, and ask no favour for the fortune of your birth. You rejected such favour, indeed!”

  “She has to go and see Errollyn today,” Daish explained.

  “Tomorrow then!” Sevarien declared. “More of the movement enter the city briy day; it would be quite something to have someone who has rejected royal heritage address them! Quite something indeed!”

  “You don’t really want to have much to do with the Civid Sein, do you?” Daish observed as they walked a paved hallway after breakfast.

  “I didn’t reject royal heritage for the reasons they suppose,” Sasha told him.

  It was all a big debate, here in Tracato. Two centuries ago, the serrin had innocently supposed that human society might work better on merit. In Enora their vision had worked well, because Enora had slaughtered all its nobility. In Rhodaan, nobility survived, and now regrouped. The Civid Sein were the anti-nobility, formed largely of poor people and farmers, though not entirely. It had a strong leadership core here in the Tol’rhen, and with fears that the Tracatan nobility would rather negotiate with Rhodaan’s feudal enemies than fight, more and more were moving to the city each day. To keep the lords nervous, it seemed.

  When she reached the great classroom, it was full to overflowing. All chairs taken, Sasha joined the crowd standing along the walls, and found a place near the front of the chamber, where Kessligh sat with three Ulenshaals, and recounted the history of the Great War. The Rhodaanis knew it only as “The Cherrovan–Lenay War of 827,” which to Sasha’s ear seemed insultingly minor for so grand a conflict.

  Kessligh had been telling this history the last two days, having finished his previous lectures on the nature of Lenay society and feudal power. Those had been opinions, but these were events, experienced by Kessligh himself as a young man. The Ulenshaals, and most of the Tol’rhen students, were intrigued to have the man who had made much of that history in their midst, having paid far too little attention, they admitted, to the study of Lenay and other highland histories.

  It fascinated Sasha to listen to Kessligh speak. She had heard these stories many times, but in her youthful impatience, she’d always neglected to ask about the details, wanting instead to hear the grand conclusion. Now the Ulenshaals interrupted continuously, probing on this or that point of strategy, or the actions of minor players. Kessligh spoke incisively, without the troubled frown that Sasha recalled from her own discussions with him. Perhaps he found this audience more receptive. Sasha heard details of that time that astonished her—things Kessligh had done, relationships with other warriors that she’d not suspected, incidents of humour she’d never heard. As she listened, she marvelled at her own stupidity, that she’d had such a treasure beneath her own roof for so long, yet had taken it so completely for granted.

  The thoroughness of the Tol’rhen’s love of knowledge astonished and delighted her. Knowledge in Lenayin meant stories, told over an ale after a good meal, or crafts passed through families for generations. Here, knowledge was precious, to be treasured, stored and shared around. And to be given across classes, to poor and rich alike, and across races. Such a place could change the world, Sasha realised. And Ulenshaal Sevarien had asked her if such an institution could be replicated in Lenayin. Not a bad idea at all, she reckoned, and began thinking on it more seriously.

  What amazed Sasha most about Tracato was that she felt relatively safe walking the stres. They were teeming, like Petrodor had been, with carts and handwagons, mules hauling loads, and cityfolk walking. There were tradesmen of all description, and many whose trade Sasha could not begin to guess at. There were rich folk in palanquins and carriages, patrolling Blackboots, red-coat city administrators, fellow Nasi-Keth and, of course, plenty of serrin.

  Most astonishing were the buildings, rising for several storeys to either side of the road. The avenues of Tracato were like little canyons through which rushed rivers of people and commerce. Frequently these avenues opened into courtyards. There were buildings in garish colours, with ornamental designs, turrets and crenelations, grand archways and louvred balconies. The courtyards were also popular with performers and orators, who stood on platforms and denounced the workings of council, or the Justiciary, or indeed the Tol’rhen. Others warned of impending doom and rising oceans, or announced the latest news of the war in Elisse. Elsewhere, beggars lining walls crouched with outstretched hands.

  “You have beggars too,” Sasha observed sadly.

  “Oh, lots,” replied Daish, who had come with her. “Too many.” He’d wanted to see the Mahl’rhen again…as had six of his friends. Sasha hadn’t intended on leading such a large group to see Errollyn, but the Tol’rhen was like that; its students hung together and loved new experiences.

  “It’s just sad to see the wealthiest city in Rhodia has beggars,” she said.

  “Ulenshaal Sevarien blames the nobility,” said Daish, pulling a coin from his pocket. “He says they hoard all the wealth and make others work for them. He says they create beggary, and there’d be less if we got rid of them.”

  “So there’re no beggars in Enora then?” Sasha said warily.

  Daish shrugged. “So Sevarien’s theories aren’t perfect.” He flipped a coin to a beggar, who grasped it with dirty hands. />
  Soon they turned down a back road away from the avenues, and another world opened up. Household backyards opened onto further courtyards, some homely, others messy, and occasionally squalid. These too bustled with activity: tradesmen hammering, firing, smoking, sawing or tanning. Smells and fumes from the yards assailed the nostrils, and sometimes the eyes, and walking was strictly single file past the bustle of men and women carrying their loads.

  “You know,” Sasha said to Daish above the roar and wheeze of a backyard bellows, “when I first heard about the wealth of Tracato, I had an image of everyone lazing around sunning themselves, as wealthy people might. Now that I get here, I find that Tracato is wealthy because everyone’s so busy!”

  “I think it’s a little sad,” Daish replied, edging past four men hauling a huge pig carcass. “Everyone is obsessed with money, they rush and rush and think of little else.”

  “If Rhodaan weren’t wealthy, it couldn’t have survived two centuries of being attacked by its neighbours,” Sasha reasoned. “Taxes from all this pay for the Steel.”

  “True. But I’d love to travel to Lenayin. As you describe it, life seems simpler there.” Sasha thought about that, and gazed around at every new thing.

  They all paused at another courtyard, to peer at the furnace beyond some guarded gates. Within, shirtless men in leather smocks fed wood and coal into a narrow mouth of flames, and the heat was so intense, Sasha could nearly feel her eyebrows singe from twenty paces away. About the other side of the furnace, men would be pouring steel, but she’d never seen it before. Very few had, for these were the great furnaces of serrin steel, or “the folding,” as the serrin called it. Serrin had perfected the art in Saalshen hundreds of years before, and now guarded their secret carefully.