Wind Rider's Oath

'I can believe that,' Kaeritha said. She put some more wood on the fire, listening to the hiss as flames explored its damp surface. Then she looked back up at Leeana.

'So someone you don't like and certainly don't want to marry has asked your father for your hand, and you're afraid that when he refuses the offer, it will make serious problems for him. That's why you ran away?'

'Yes.' Something about that one-word reply made Kaeritha cock an eyebrow. It wasn't a lie-that much she was certain of. Yet somehow she was certain it wasn't the entire truth, either. She thought about pushing harder, then changed her mind.

'And how does running away solve any of those problems?' she asked instead.

'I'd have thought that was obvious, Dame Kaeritha,' Leeana said in a surprised tone.

'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 schoolgirl's 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 as hard among the war maids as mine was in Moretz, 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 a third time, jade eyes brimming 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 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 are on the road behind me by now, and if he catches up, he'll believe 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 Cassan 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 butt of her quarterstaff into the stirrup bucket in which a more traditional knight would have braced her lance. 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 unobtrusively 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 she'd never been faced with many of those tasks before in her life.

Like any Sothoii noble, male or female, she'd been thrown into a saddle about the same time she learned to stand up unassisted, 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 chores 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 metal 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, assuming 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 someone who was arguably the most powerful feudal magnate in an entire kingdom and one more anonymous war maid, despised by virtually everyone in the only world she'd 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 noble femininity-however assiduously Leeana had tried to prepare herself for it ahead of time.

On the other hand, Kaeritha had never had all that much use for sheltered flowers of noble 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 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 and his reputation, 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. 'Marriage' or no, it would be no better than a case of legally sanctioned rape, and Tomanak, as the God of Justice, disapproved of persecution and rape, however they were sanctioned. 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'd 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 passed, and she shook herself like a dog, shaking off the water of memory, and gazed out through the cool, misty morning. The new-risen sun hovered directly in front of them, a huge, molten ball of gold, bisected by the hard, sharp line of the horizon. The morning mists rose 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 cocked 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 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.