“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.
Three
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
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 same!” 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
“She has to go and see Errollyn today,” Daish explained.
“Tomorrow then!” Sevarien declared. “More of the movement enter the city every 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
