Wind Rider's Oath

myself,' he told her. 'I'm but thirty-nine, and that's no more than a warrior of eighteen or nineteen years-your cousin Trianal's age-amongst your folk.'

Leeana blinked, then cocked her head.

'Really?' she asked.

'Oh, aye.' He nodded, then chuckled. 'Or were you thinking a man as had come to what you might be calling mature judgment would be after flinging himself into all the harebrained, never-a-thought scrapes Brandark keeps putting into that curst song of his?'

The question surprised a giggle out of her even through her misery, and she shook her head.

'I . . . hadn't thought about it that way.'

'Aye, and my da would be saying as I hadn't, either-thought about it, I mean. Which, as he'd be pointing out, is by the way of explaining how I come to keep ending up in 'em.'

She giggled again, louder, and he nodded in approval.

'Better, lass,' he approved. 'And now that we've established, in a manner of speaking, as how we're both of us young and foolish, why don't you be after trotting out whatever it is about this offer for your hand as has you this upset? Should I be taking it that you're not so very fond of the proposed groom?'

'I don't even know him,' Leeana said. 'Not personally, at any rate. Not that that's so unusual in cases like this.' She paused, then continued in the voice of one determined to be as dispassionately accurate as possible. 'Actually, it is unusual. Normally, a man would at least want to meet his potential fiancee before he asks for her hand. And to be fair, most parents would at least insist that their daughter meet him before they even considered accepting the offer.'

'But you've not met this fellow?'

'No, I haven't.'

'Well, I'm naught but a poor, simple hradani, but it's in my mind that a man as hasn't even met a lass has no business proposing marriage to her.'

'Oh, I couldn't agree more!' she said forcefully. 'And neither, for that matter, could Father and Mother. Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple, Prince Bahzell.'

'And why not?' he asked.

'Oh, for dozens of reasons,' she sighed, sitting back on the bench across the table from him. 'The fact that Father has no male heir. The fact that Mother can't have more children. The fact that the entire Royal Council hates the thought that the succession hasn't yet been secured by a male heir . . . which would have to be a son of mine. And,' she looked at him very levelly, 'by the fact that this is one more weapon for his political enemies to use against him.'

'Aye?' It was his turn to lean back on the bench, his expression thoughtful, and she nodded.

'I . . . think I know who's really behind this offer,' she said, 'and he's no friend of Father's.'

'So you're thinking as how he's after pushing an offer as he knows your father won't accept so very happily as a way to be putting still more pressure on him before the Council?'

'That's exactly what I think, Prince Bahzell,' Leeana said flatly.

'Well,' he said after a moment, 'I can see where such as that might be in his mind. Mind you, I'd not like to have a mind like that, but that's not to say as how I can't be seeing how it works. But I've come to know your father pretty well, too, lass.' He shook his head. 'That's not a man as gives in under pressure, and especially not where those as hold his heart in their hands are concerned.'

Leeana blinked again on sudden tears, then gave him a misty smile.

'No, he isn't,' she agreed. 'But sometimes that's a dangerous quality in a nobleman. One enemies can use against him.'

'I can see as how those who're thinking as how this marriage would be a good thing could be pressing him to say aye to it,' Bahzell said. 'But surely the decision's after being his, not theirs, when all's said.'

'Normally,' she said, and her smile turned bitter. 'But you're forgetting whose daughter-whose only daughter-I am. As Father's liege lord, the King has the power to require him to secure the succession.' Bahzell stiffened, and she shrugged. 'I don't like it, but I have to admit I can understand why the law gives His Majesty that prerogative. The King literally can't afford to have the titles and lands of such a powerful noble fall into dispute.' She managed a chuckle that sounded almost genuine. 'It can be a bit hard on the occasional only daughter, I suppose. But in the final analysis, one or two unhappy marriages are a small price to pay for the stability of the Kingdom.'

'That I didn't know,' Bahzell admitted. He sat thinking for several seconds, then grimaced. 'I'd no notion the law gave your King such power as that. Still and all, I'm thinking as how Markhos wouldn't be so very happy to be pressuring your da on a matter such as this. There's naught I can think of as would be more likely to drive your father into things the King wouldn't care to see him driven to.'

'You're probably right,' Leeana said, although he had the distinct impression she was agreeing with him more to keep him from worrying than because she actually thought he was correct. 'At the same time, though, if Father resists an offer of marriage which so much of the Council will consider is a reasonable way to resolve the succession concerns, it will give his enemies one more club to beat him with. And you know as well as I do how many clubs are already beating on him.'

'That I do,' he conceded. 'Though I'm thinking he's unbowed yet, mind you.'

'So far, at least,' she agreed.

'So what's really upset you so, lass, isn't that you've any least fear your da will be after forcing you to marry this fellow, whoever he might be. It's that if he isn't forcing you to, he'll find himself losing allies on the Council.'

'Yes.'

'So he might,' Bahzell said. 'Yet I'm thinking as how your father's one of the most canny men I've yet to meet. It's in my mind that anyone wishful of getting on his bad side will be after finding himself bruised and bleeding in the gutter.' He shook his head. 'Don't you be panicking, lass. The Baron's more arrows in his quiver than most, and he'll be using all of them where you're concerned.'

'I know he will,' Leeana replied, and smiled tremulously, her eyes bright once more. 'I know he will.'

* * *

'Have you seen Leeana yet this morning, love?'

Baroness Hanatha looked up at her husband's question and gave him a small, sad smile.

'No, I haven't,' she said.

'She's not taking this well,' Tellian said fretfully, and Hanatha actually laughed.

' 'Taking this well'?' she repeated. 'My dear, that has to stand as the understatement of at least the last decade!'

'Well, I know that,' her husband said a bit irritably. 'But at least she understands I'd never constrain her to marry anyone-least of all someone like Blackhill!'

'What the heart knows isn't always what the mind knows, when you're fourteen,' Hanatha said gently. 'And much as I love you, and as good a man as you are, you're still a man, dear.'

'Which means what, aside from the obvious?' his tone was definitely testy this time.

'Which means that ultimately you can't really understand what it means to know every single important decision in your life lies in someone else's hands.'

Hanatha's voice was neither angry nor condemnatory, but it was flat, and Tellian looked at her sharply across the breakfast table.

'Leeana knows how much you love her, just as I know how much you love both of us,' his wife told him in a gentler tone. 'But the fact remains that we live our lives as we choose only on the sufferance of your love. She's constrained in ways no son of yours would be. In many ways that makes her love you even more, you know.'

The baron looked puzzled, and she shook her head sadly.

'Of course it does. She knows how much freedom she's been allowed. And she knows how fiercely you'd protect her. She knows how much you're prepared to sacrifice for her, and she loves you for that. Yet in the end, Tellian, she also knows how much it could cost you . . . and she can never forget that she can never truly hold those decisions in her own hands. That she has her freedom