the Sothoii warriors in the world as would be hunting my ears. And after that, she’s after being Tellian and Hanatha’s daughter. A fine thing it would be if such as me-and twice her age and more, come to that-was to be breaking their trust that way! Aye, and her the daughter of the Lord Warden of the West Riding! Wouldn’t that just make such as Cassan and Yeraghor sit up and start sharpening those daggers all over again.”
‹ I thought the war maids made up their own minds about things like this,› Walsharno said. There was no irony in the stallion’s tone, only simple thoughtfulness. ‹ And doesn’t their charter absolve them of any relationship to their birth families? I never really understood exactly how that bit is supposed to work-it has to be a two-foot thing-but how could anyone be offended or upset because of her relationship to Tellian and Hanatha if she doesn’t have one anymore? Legally, I mean?›
“There’s matters of law, and then there’s matters of custom, and finally there’s matters of the heart.” Bahzell’s voice was softer than it had been. “Whatever the law might be saying, there’s those as would use custom against Tellian quicker than spit, if such as me was to be wedding such as she. And I’ve no interest at all, at all, in what the law might be saying, either, Walsharno. Charter or no, that lass will be the daughter of their hearts until Isvaria takes them both, and I’ll not break those hearts. There’s better for her than me, and safer, too.”
He shook his head, ears flattened.
“I doubt the thought’s ever so much as brushed her mind-and if it did, it was never aught but a young lass’s imaginings when she’d grief and worry enough for a dozen lasses twice her age! Aye, and when she’d done no more than turn to an older and a wiser head for counsel.” His lips tightened, remembering a conversation atop another tower of this very castle. “I’d no business thinking what I was thinking then, and a fine fellow I’d be to be taking advantage of a lass so young who’d done naught but cry on my shoulder, so to speak. And that was all it was after being, Walsharno. Naught but a lass in pain and a foolish hradani thinking things he’d no business thinking, with her so young. Aye, and I knew she was too young for me to be thinking any such! And for all it’s true my skull’s a bit thicker than most, it’s not so thick as to think she’d any deeper thought of me than that…and well she shouldn’t have. No.” He shook his head again. “No, there’s things as can be and things as can’t, and all the wishes in the world can’t turn the one into the other, Brother.”
‹ I think you’re wrong, › Walsharno told him gently, ‹ but coursers don’t think the same way two-foots do. Perhaps this is simply one of those things we don’t understand very well. But whether you’re willing to admit it even to yourself or not, this choice of yours is heavy on your heart, Brother.›
“Oh, aye,” Bahzell half-whispered. “It is that. Yet it is what it is, and I’ll not shame her by trying to make it something it isn’t.”
Walsharno made no reply to that-not in words-but his loving support poured through Bahzell, and the hradani leaned against it as he might have leaned physically against the stallion’s tall, warm side, taking comfort from it. He stood there for several more minutes, unmoving, then shook himself and continued up the stair.
“Welcome home, Milord!” Tala Varlonsdaughter had obviously been awaiting his arrival, and she greeted him with an enormous smile as she opened the tower door. “We’ve missed you!”
“Ah, and I you!” Bahzell replied, smiling almost naturally at her and sweeping her into a warm embrace. He picked her up and bussed her firmly on the cheek, and she laughed and swatted him.
“None of that, now!” she told him. “I’m a respectable old woman, I’ll have you know!”
“Aye,” he sighed in deep, mock regret, shaking his head as he set her back on her feet. “And a sad disappointment that’s been to me over the years!”
She laughed again, smiling up at him fondly, and he remembered the terrified Navahkan “housekeeper” who’d helped him smuggle Farmah to safety despite her awareness of what would have happened to her had Churnazh caught the brutalized young maid trying to escape. Her own son was long dead, but as the head of his household here in Hill Guard, she’d become almost a second mother to him, and clearly a foster mother to every single member of the Hurgrum Chapter of the Order of Tomanak when they came to call. She took far better care of him- and Brandark-than they deserved, he thought fondly, and that didn’t even consider her cooking!
“And did Lady Hanatha feed you, Milord?” she asked now, eyeing him shrewdly.
“That she did,” he admitted, choosing not to mention the fact that he’d eaten rather less than usual. The food had been excellent, as always, but the redhaired young woman sitting across the table from him had tightened his stomach and turned the tasty meal into something very like sawdust in his mouth.
“I’m thinking it’s time and past time I was in bed,” he continued, smiling down at her, and she smiled back, ears half-cocked.
“No doubt you’re right, Milord,” she agreed and tilted her head to one side. “Now that you mention it, you do look tired-and why shouldn’t you, after riding all day to get here?” She made shooing motions towards the internal stair to his bedchamber, waving both hands. “Go! I’m sure you’ll feel better in the morning.”
“No doubt you’ve the right of it,” he said, nodding to her, and headed for the stairs.
Brandark had excused himself after dinner and taken himself off to Balthar, where, no doubt, he was even then making the rounds of his favorite inns and taverns with his balalaika. It was unlikely he’d be back much before dawn-if then-and Bahzell’s lips twitched with amusement at the thought while he climbed the stairs. With his luck, Brandark would have composed a new verse to “The Lay of Bahzell Bloody Hand” by morning to “suitably” chronicle Tellian’s attempted assassination. He hadn’t added anything new to that accursed ditty in almost a year, after all, and nothing that good could last forever.
He chuckled to himself as he reached the landing, opened the door, stepped through it…and froze.
“Hello, Bahzell,” Leeana Hanathafressa said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Bahzell stood in the open doorway, head bent slightly-as it had to be to clear doorframes even in a Sothoii castle-and stared at her. She sat crosslegged on the foot of his bed in the leather breeches and doublet that couldn’t make her look even remotely masculine, however hard they tried, and cocked her own head slightly.
“Are you going to just stand there all night?” she asked gently, and he shook himself, stepped very slowly into the room, and closed the door behind him.
“Better,” she said with a small smile. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
She pointed at one of the chairs Baron Tellian had had manufactured to a hradani’s stature, and Bahzell sank into it, his eyes still fixed upon her. She looked back at him, one elegant eyebrow raised, and he shook himself.
“Lass-” he began, then corrected himself. “Mistress Leeana, I’m thinking as how you shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“No?” She considered him with a thoughtful eye, then shrugged. “Why not?” she asked simply.
“Why not?!” He stared at her for a moment. “Because-”
He broke off, and her smile grew a bit broader. Amusement danced in her green eyes, and yet that smile had an edge of tenderness that sang in his heart. It was a song he had no business listening to, however. He told himself that firmly, and his nostrils flared as he drew a deep breath of resolution. But she spoke before he could.
“Bahzell,” she said, “I’ll be twenty-one in two days. That’s legal age even for a Sothoii noblewoman, far less a war maid! In case it’s escaped your attention, that means I’m old enough to make my own mind up about where I ought or ought not to be.”
“Then I’m thinking you’ve gone daft,” Bahzell said with a certain asperity. “Or it might be as how what I’m really looking for is run clean mad!”
It came out sternly, rumbling up out of his massive chest, and he furrowed his brow, frowning at her with the ferocious sort of look which had turned strong men’s knees to water more times than he could count.
She laughed.
“Oh, no, Bahzell!” she shook her head. “I promise you, I’ve never been less daft in my entire life!”
“But-”
“No.” She said the single word gently, cutting him off, and shook her head again. “No. I’m not going anywhere, Milord Champion. Not from something I’ve waited for this long. And not unless you tell me-on a champion’s oath-that that’s what you truly want. Not what you think you should want, but what you do want.”
He opened his mouth…and froze.
He sat that way for several moments, then drew a deep breath, and his ears half-flattened as he looked at her.
“It’s not about wants, lass,” he said then, very softly. “It’s about right and about wrong. And it’s ashamed of myself I should be-and am-for what it is I’m thinking now.”
“Why?” she asked quietly. His eyebrows rose, but she went on in that same quiet tone. “I asked Dame
