Masters of Fantasy Part 50

"Humor me," Kaeritha said dryly. "Oh, I think I can figure out your basic strategy. I don't flatter myself that you followed me just to place yourself under my protection, champion of Tomanak or not. So I suspect that what you're really doing is heading for Kalatha with some scatterbrained, romantic notion of becoming a war maid in order to avoid your unwelcome suitor. Is that about right?"

"Yes, it is," Leeana said just a touch defensively."And have you really considered all you'll be giving up?" Kaeritha countered. "I've been a peasant, Lady Leeana. I doubt very much that your lot would be quite that hard among the war maids, but it would be very, very different from anything you've ever experienced before. And there won't be any going back.

Your birth and family won't protect you any longer-in fact, for all intents and purposes, you'll be dead

as far as your family is concerned.""I know," Leeana said very, very softly, staring into the fire once more. "I know." She raised her eyes to Kaeritha again. "I know," she repeated for a third time, jade eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears. "But I also know Mother and Father will always love me, whether I'm still legally their daughter or not. Nothing will ever change that. And if I go to the war maids, I take the decision out of Father's hands. No one can possibly blame him for refusing to allow Blackhill to marry me if I'm no longer his daughter. And," she managed a crooked smile, "the disgrace of what I'm doing should put me so far beyond the pale that not even someone as ambitious as Rulth Blackhill would consider offering me honorable marriage."

"But you're not yet fifteen years old," Kaeritha said. She shook her head sadly. "That's too young to make this sort of decision, girl. I haven't known your father as long as you have, but I know he'd agree about that. You may be doing this for him, but do you really think he'd want you to?"

"I'm fairly certain he wouldn't," Leeana admitted with a sort of forlorn pride. "He'll understand it, but that isn't the same as wanting me to do it. In fact, I'm pretty sure he and his armsmen aren't too far behind me by now. If he catches up, he'll figure that he doesn't have any choice but to take me home again, whether I want to go or not. Because he loves me, and because, like you, he's going to argue that I'm too young to make this decision.

"But I'm not too young according to the war maids' charter. I have the legal right to make that decision myself if I can reach one of their free-towns before Father catches up, and once it's made, he can't make me go home again, no matter how much he loves me or I love him. And if he can't make me go home, Blackhill and Ca.s.san can't use me against him anymore, ever."

A tear broke free at last, spilling down her cheek, and Kaeritha drew a deep breath. Then she let it out

again.

"Then I suppose we'd better turn in," she said. "I'm sure we can both use the sleep . . . and we'll have to make an early start if we're going to see to it that he doesn't catch up with us."

* * * At least the rain had stopped when they broke camp in the morning. That was something, Kaeritha told herself as she swung lightly up into Cloudy's saddle and settled the b.u.t.t of the quarterstaff she carried instead of a more traditional lance into the holder on her right stirrup. In fact-she sucked in a deep, lung-filling draft of clear, cool morning air-it was quite a bit.

She'd watched Leeana as un.o.btrusively as possible as they went about preparing to take the road once more. The girl had been almost painfully ready to undertake any task, although it was obvious that she'd never been faced with many of those tasks before in her life.

Like any Sothoii n.o.ble, male or female, she'd been thrown into a saddle about the same time she learned to stand up una.s.sisted, and her horsemanship skills were beyond reproach. Her gelding, who rejoiced in a name even more highfaluting than "Dark War Cloud Rising," answered perfectly amiably to "Boots," and Kaeritha wondered if any Sothoii warhorse actually had to put up with its formal given name. However that might be, Boots (a bay brown who took his name from his black legs and the white stockings on his forelegs) was immaculately groomed, and his tack and saddle furniture were spotless, despite the wet and mud. Unfortunately, his rider was considerably less adept at others of the homey little ch.o.r.es involved in wilderness travel. At least she was willing, though, as Kaeritha had noted, and she took direction amazingly well for one of her exalted birth. All in all, Kaeritha was inclined to believe there was some sound mettle in the girl.

And there had better be, the champion thought more grimly as she watched Leeana swing nimbly up into Boots' saddle. Kaeritha found herself unable to do anything but respect Leeana's motives, but the plain fact was that the girl couldn't possibly have any realistic notion of how drastically her life was about to change. It was entirely possible that, a.s.suming she survived the shock, she would find her new life more satisfying and fulfilling. Kaeritha hoped she would, but the gulf which yawned between the daughter of one of the four most powerful feudal magnates in the entire kingdom and one more anonymous war maid, despised by virtually everyone in the only world she had ever known, was far deeper than a fall from the Wind Plain's mighty ramparts might have been. Surviving that plunge would be a shattering

experience-one fit to destroy any normal sheltered flower of n.o.ble femininity-however a.s.siduously Leeana had tried to prepare herself for it ahead of time.

Of course, Kaeritha had never had all that much use for sheltered flowers of n.o.ble femininity. Was that

the real reason she'd agreed to help the girl flee from the situation fate had trapped her into? A part of her wanted to think it was. And another part wanted to think that she was doing this because it was the duty of any champion of Tomanak to rescue the helpless from persecution. Given Leeana's scathing description of Rulth Blackhill it was impossible for Kaeritha to think of a marriage between him and the girl as anything but the rankest form of persecution, after all, and Tomanak, as the G.o.d of Justice, disapproved of persecution. Besides, Leeana was right; she did have a legal right to make this decision if she could reach Kalatha.

Both of those reasons were real enough, she thought. But she also knew that at the heart of things was another, still deeper reason. The memory of a thirteen-year-old orphan who had found herself trapped into another, even grimmer life . . . until she refused to accept that sentence.

For a moment, Dame Kaeritha's sapphire-blue eyes were darker and deeper-and colder-than the waters of Belhadan Bay. Then the mood pa.s.sed, and she shook herself like a dog, shaking off the water of memory, and gazed out through the cool, misty morning. The sun hovered just above the horizon directly in front of them in a molten ball of gold, with the morning mists rising to enfold it like steam from a forge, and the last of the previous day's clouds were high-piled ramparts in the south, their peaks touched with the same golden glow, as the brisk northerly wind continued to sweep them away. The road was just as muddy as it had been, but the day was going to be truly glorious, and she felt an eagerness stirring within her. The eagerness to be off and doing once again.

"Are you ready, Lady Leeana?" she asked.

"Yes," Leeana replied, urging Boots up beside Cloudy. Then she chuckled. Kaeritha c.o.c.ked her head at the younger woman, and Leeana grinned. "I was just thinking that somehow it sounds more natural

when you call me 'girl' than when you call me 'Lady Leeana,' " she explained in answer to Kaeritha's unspoken question.

"Does it?" Kaeritha snorted. "Maybe it's the peasant girl in me coming back to the surface. On the other

hand, it might not be such a bad thing if you started getting used to a certain absence of honorifics."

She touched Cloudy very gently with a heel, and the mare started obediently forward. Leeana murmured

something softly to Boots, and the gelding moved up at Cloudy's shoulder and fell into step with the mare, as if the two horses were harnessed together.

"I know," the girl said after several silent minutes. "That I should started getting used to it, I mean.

Actually, I don't think I'll miss that anywhere near as much as I'll miss having someone else to draw my

bath and brush my hair." She held up a dirty hand and grimaced. "I've already discovered that there's quite a gap between reality and bard's tales. Or, at least, the bards seem to leave out some of the more unpleasant little details involved in 'adventures.' And the difference between properly chaperoned hunting trips, with appropriate armsmen and servants along to look after my needs, and traveling light by myself has become rather painfully clear to me."

"A few nights camping out by yourself in the rain will generally start to make that evident," Kaeritha agreed. "And I notice you didn't bring along a tent." "No," Leeana said with another, more heartfelt grimace. "I had enough trouble getting a few days' worth of trail rations smuggled into the stable and stowed away in Boots' saddle bags without trying to bring along proper travel gear." She shivered. "That first night was really unpleasant," she admitted. "I never did get a fire started."

"Hard to do without dry wood," Kaeritha observed, carefully hiding the deep pang of sympathy she felt as she pictured Leeana-a pampered young n.o.blewoman, however much she may have wanted and striven to be something else-all alone in a cold, rainy night without a tent or as much as a fire. It must have been the most wretched night of the girl's entire existence.

"Yes, I found that out." Leeana's grin was remarkably free of self-pity, and she actually chuckled. "By the next morning, I'd figured out what I'd done wrong, so I spent about an hour finding myself a nice, dead log and hacking half a saddlebag or so of dry heartwood out of it with my dagger." She held up her right palm, examining the fresh blisters which crossed it with a rueful chuckle. "At least the exercise got me warmed up! And the next night, I had something dry to start the fire with. Heaven!"

She rolled her eyes so drolly Kaeritha had no choice but to laugh. Then she shook her head severely, returned her attention to the road, and asked Cloudy for a trot. The mare obliged, with the smooth gait which was steadily becoming addictive, and they moved off in a brisk, steady splatter of mud.

Yes, Kaeritha thought, treasuring green eyes that could laugh at their owner's own wet, cold, undoubtedly frightened misery. Yes, there is some sound mettle in this one, thank Tomanak.

* * * "Father isn't far behind now." Kaeritha looked up from the breakfast fire. Leeana was standing beside the road, her raised arm hooked up across Boots' withers while she stared back the way they'd come the day before. Her expression was tense, and she stood very still, only the fingers of her right hand moving as they caressed the gelding's soft, warm coat.

"What makes you so certain?" Kaeritha asked, for there had been no question at all in the sober

p.r.o.nouncement."I could say it's because I know he had to have missed me by the second morning and that it's easy to guess he's been pushing hard after me ever since," the girl said. "But the truth is, I just know." She turned and looked at Kaeritha. "I always know where he and Mother are," she said simply.

Kaeritha chewed on that for a few moments, while she busied herself turning strips of bacon in her blackened camp skillet. Then she whipped the bacon out of the popping grease and spread it over their last slabs of slightly stale bread. She dumped the grease into the flames and watched the fire sputter eagerly, then looked back up at Leeana.

The girl's face was drawn, and Boots and Cloudy were both beginning to show the effects of the stiff pace they had set. Of course, Leeana and Boots had covered the same distance in twenty-four hours less

than she and Cloudy had, but she'd been pushing hard herself ever since the girl caught up with her. The baron and his wind brother Hathan were both wind riders. However furious and worried he might be, Tellian was too levelheaded to risk riding in pursuit with only Hathan-the Lord Warden of the West Riding would be too juicy a target for the ill-intentioned to pa.s.s up-but he and his wind brother would be setting a crushing pace for the rest of his armsmen, and Kaeritha knew it.

"What do you mean, you know where they are?" she asked after a moment.

"I just do." Leeana gave Boots one more caress, then stepped closer to Kaeritha and the fire and accepted her share of the bread and bacon. She took an appreciative bite of the humble repast and shrugged.

"I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be mysterious about it-I just don't know a good way to explain it. Mother

says the sight has always run in her family, all the way back to the Fall." She shrugged again. "I don't really know about that. It's not as if there have been dozens of magi in our family, or anything like that.

But I always know where they are, or if they're unhappy . . . or hurt." She shivered, her face suddenly drawn and old beyond its years. "Just like I knew when Moonshine went down and rolled across Mother."

She stared at something only she could see for several seconds, then shook herself. She looked down at the bread and bacon in her hand, as if seeing them for the first time, and gave Kaeritha a smile that was somehow shy, almost embarra.s.sed, as she raised the food and bit into it again.

"Do they always 'know' where you are?" Kaeritha asked after moment."No." Leeana shook her head. Then she paused. "Well, actually, I don't know for certain about Mother. I know that when I was a very little girl, she always seemed to know just when I was about to get into mischief, but I always just put that down to 'mommy magic.' I do know Father doesn't have any trace of whatever it is, though. If he did, I'd have gotten into trouble so many times in the last few years that I doubt I'd be able to sit in a saddle at all! I'd never have gotten away with running away in the first place, either. And I can tell from how unhappy and worried he feels right now that he doesn't realize they're no more than a few hours behind us."

Her eyes darkened with the last sentence, and her voice was low. The thought of her father's unhappiness

and worry clearly distressed her.

"It's not too late to change your mind, Leeana," Kaeritha said quietly. The girl looked at her quickly, and the knight shrugged. "If he's that close, all we have to do is sit here for a few hours. Or we can go on.

From the map and directions your father's steward gave me, Kalatha can't be more than another two or three hours down the road. But the decision is yours."

"Not anymore," Leeana half-whispered. Her nostrils flared, and then she shook her head firmly. "It's a

decision I've already made, Dame Kaeritha. I can't-won't-change it now. Besides," she managed a crooked smile, "he may be unhappy and worried, but those aren't the only things he's feeling. He knows where I'm going, and why."

"He does? You're certain of that?""Oh, I wasn't foolish enough to leave any tear-spotted notes that might come to light sooner than I wanted," Leeana said dryly. "In fact, I left right after breakfast, and I sent both of my personal maids off to visit their parents the night before. I didn't tell either of them the other one had the evening off, either, so no one was likely to miss me until sometime after breakfast the next day. Father is a wind rider, you know. If I hadn't managed to buy at least a full day's head start, he'd have forgotten about waiting for his personal bodyguard and he and Hathan would have come after me alone. And in that case, he'd have been certain to catch up with me, even on Boots.

"Since he didn't, I have to a.s.sume I did manage to keep anyone from realizing I'd left long enough to get the start I needed. But Father isn't an idiot, and he knows I'm not one, either. He must have figured out

where I was going the instant someone finally realized I was missing, and he's been coming after me ever since. But, you know, there's a part of him that doesn't want to catch me."

She finished the last bite of her bread and bacon, then stood, looking across at Kaeritha, and this time

her smile was gentle, almost tender."Like you, he's afraid I'm making a terrible mistake, and he's determined to keep me from doing it, if he can. But he knows why I'm doing it, too. And that's why a part of him doesn't want to catch me. Actually wants me to beat him to Kalatha, because he knows as well as I do that the war maids are the only way I'll avoid eventually being forced to become a pedigreed broodmare dropping foals for Blackhill . . . or someone. Mother was never that for him, and he knows I'll never be that for anyone. He taught me to feel that way-to value myself that much-himself, and he knows that, too.""Which won't prevent him from stopping you if he can," Kaeritha said."No." Leeana shook her head. "Silly, isn't it? Here we both are-me, running away from him; him, chasing after me to bring me back, whether I want to come or not-and all of it because of how much

we love each other."

A tear glittered for an instant, but she wiped it briskly away and turned to busy herself tightening the girth on Boots' saddle.

"Yes," Kaeritha said softly, emptying the teapot over the fire's embers and beginning to cover the ashes with dirt. "Yes, Leeana. Very silly indeed."

"You have to be out of your b.l.o.o.d.y mind!"

The gray-haired woman on the other side of the desk stared at Kaeritha and Leeana in disbelief. The bronze key of her office hung on a chain about her neck, and her brown eyes were hard, almost angry.

"I a.s.sure you, Mayor Yalith, that I am not out of my mind," Leeana replied sharply. She and Kaeritha were tired, mud-spattered, and worn to the bone from long days in the saddle, but she was obviously fighting hard to hang on to her temper. Equally obviously, her life as the daughter of the Baron of Balthar had not exactly suited her to dealing with att.i.tudes like Yalith's.

"Madwomen seldom think they're out of their minds," the mayor shot back. "And whatever you may think, and however much you may believe that the war maids are a way out of some social inconvenience, there are aspects of this situation which could only lead to disaster."

"With all due respect, Mayor," Kaeritha put in, intervening for the first time, "this girl is not talking about 'some social inconvenience.' She is talking, unless I was very much mistaken when I read King Gartha's original proclamation granting the war maids the right to exist, about the exact thing you and your people are supposed to guarantee to any woman."

"Don't you go quoting the charter to me, thank you, Dame Kaeritha!" Yalith shot back. "You may be a champion of Tomanak, but Tomanak's never done anything for the war maids that I ever heard about! And the war maids are scarcely a convenient bolthole for some pampered n.o.blewoman-the daughter of a baron, no less!-to use just to avoid an engagement when her family hasn't even accepted it yet!"

Kaeritha started to speak again, quickly, despite her awareness that her own anger would only guarantee