A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 02

"They call me a shopkeeper!" Hanya burst out. He was still picking at his torn shirt to try to pull it over his big muscular chest.

"That man who called Lieutenant Lein a shopkeeper, let him step forth," Tashka said, looking round at the soldiers with piercing cold blue eyes.

There was a long pause, a rustling expectant dread passing though the troopers around Vadya.

Lieutenant-Lord Volka el Darien van Trattai stepped into the space in what was now a tight circle of men and stood stiffly to attention with his legs apart and his hands loosely clasped behind his back.

Tashka strode over to him and seized the cloth of his shirt, kicked him hard in the back of the legs. el Darien collapsed in his grip, hanging by his shirt from his Captain's fists. Vadya made an involuntary move towards them, thinking: 'Angels! what will van Trattai say of it if he hears an H'las Captain treated his son like this before the common troopers!' then he thought: 'I will give it him if he try to protest that we gave his son strict discipline, he can take Volka back.' He slunk partly behind a trooper so Volka could not see him and appeal to him above Tashka's fingers. Volka was clutching at Tashka's hard fists, scrabbling to get back to his feet, Tashka kicked him in the leg again and he hung still.

"You bloody arrogant fool!" Tashka's low husky voice hissed. Vadya had to strain forward to hear him but all the troopers were hushed, their bowls of food and drink held quite still in their hands. "Do you think your father sent you here from your family's castles and lands and Knights and monies to insult my Lieutenant, my junior officer who is my honour, by flinging his family in his face?" Volka was shaking his head, still trying to keep himself up by clinging to Tashka's fists. "Do you think it is proper for a van Trattai?" Tashka demanded, "to come here and ruin the career of my officer? You got it in your blood perhaps, to be the kind of fine-laced officer who can do as he pleases, who can throw away the career of his brother officer like a toy he does not care for." He suddenly chucked Volka aside, Volka fell in the grass and mud and lay there with his head turned into the ground, his thin shoulders hunched up.

Tashka walked back to stand behind Hanya, who had sunk down to kneel on one leg in the grass with his butter blond head bowed. One of Tashka's long lean legs in its knee-high black boot pressed into Hanya's big back, his hands were clasped behind his back. "This man is as my brother," he said in a voice like the first snow falling. "He is my Lieutenant and my soldier. He will die for my sword, an' I ask it. I am his life, his days, his fight. He is my care, my honour, my victory. If any man finds reason to hate him, he may hate me too."

He looked at Mada sobbing at Flava's feet and Volka lying on the ground. "Trait," he said. "Break these men up, send them back to eat." He stood quite still while Flava dispersed the crowd of troopers, staring at the sky with his hands clasped behind his back and his leg pressed into Hanya Lein's shaking back.

Vadya demanded: "How long has this been going on?"

Tashka turned his face down and raised an eyebrow over one would be innocent slanted eye. His blue eye was as clear in his tanned pretty face as if he were being asked about the weather. "Has what been going on?" he enquired. "Shut it, el Vaie," he added savagely to the still sobbing Mada.

"Maien," Vadya growled. "I cannot let pass a fight between two officers before the men."

Hanya Lein scrambled to his feet. He set his big strong shoulders and said: "Sir, I should have borne it in mind; they are younger, they come under my eye as much as under the Captain's."

Vadya said: "Lein, this will be a bar in the way of putting you up for your Captain's sword." Hanya looked stricken at Vadya, suddenly understanding that under the extraordinary control Tashka Maien exercised he might get equal treatment but that Commander-Lord el Gaiel van H'las would have to put the interests of two young aristocrats before his. Then Hanya gave a small shrug, his large soft mouth pouted out in an acquiescent smile that did not reach his tear-filled blue eyes.

Beyond them in the curve of Flava Trait's arm Mada el Vaie gave a sudden horrified gasp. Vadya turned and deliberately looked hard into Mada's puppy-soft guilt-stricken face. Volka was still lying on the ground with his face hidden. Tashka stared at Vadya expressionless.

"Maien, you may discuss this with me privily," Vadya said.

He turned on his heel and walked away between the slowly dispersing soldiers. Tashka watched him go from an immobile face before walking over to Volka and kicking him in the back but not very hard. He snarled: "Stop sulking and get up. Are you going home to Trattai, el Darien, back to be a fancy Lieutenant in First Trattai where you will learn to prance your pony on parade in front of the fine ladies or do you intend to stay here with me?" Volka got slowly to his feet, his head still bowed down. "I swear it!" Tashka put a hand under his chin and jerked it up so Volka had to look him in the eyes, "if you ever show me up before the Commander again, you may as well pack your parade silks up to make cushion covers for your sweet virgin sister to embroider!" Volka looked quickly at him at the mention of his sister. Tashka smiled a horrible wolfish smile in his face. Volka looked to one side, biting his lip. "Will you give me your glove, then, el Darien?" Tashka asked softly, his blue eyes staring intently into Volka's brown eyes, that wolf's smile still on his mouth. "Will you give me your glove over lovely little Lady Ria, sitting and keeping her honour as bright as her embroidery needles?" Volka shook his head violently.

"I'll see the Commander," Tashka said, standing back from Volka and dropping the wolfish smile abruptly. His slanted blue eyes looked coldly round at them all. "I will let you know what he has thought." He turned to go. Flava Trait tried to take his arm. Tashka paused at the grip of his hand then he turned back and put a lean scarred hand round the back of his Lieutenant's close-cropped head. He said softly: "Go to, my dear. I must go plead for the juniors with the Commander." He gripped his scarred right hand on the back of Flava's head before striding off.

Vadya was sitting waiting at the campaign table, a rapidly cooling dinner laid out at his elbow. His face was set straight in front of him to look at the troopers of the First Quarter who were getting on in an orderly fashion with their camp-fires and cooking, the cleaning of weaponry or tack. His brown hair curled softly around his ear, his eye was quiet and decisive, the expression on his face was calm and attentive, his smooth brown brow was clear. He turned his head as Tashka came striding up to him.

"Did I break that bowl?" Tashka asked, in a tone of voice as casual as if he had dropped it while going to check if the food was ready yet.

Vadya looked into his slanted blue eyes, he had raised one eyebrow in a habitual expression of courteous, slightly mocking, inquiry. He sat back down in his chair with his ankle on his knee as if the whole incident had never happened.

"How long has this been going on?" Vadya asked. His tone of voice was inflexible.

Tashka heaved a sigh and gave Vadya a rueful grimace. He stretched his hand out to where his bowl was. Batren had picked it up and refilled it, he looked at it closely as if inspecting it for chips and took a sip of his wine. "Oh, ever since el Darien came," he admitted.

"Did you honestly think it would escape my notice?" Vadya asked.

Tashka shrugged. An impish sparkle flashed in his eye, like a child caught stealing jam out of the larder. It knows it will get a scolding but considers it has got away with it so many times that a mere scolding will be worth it.

"Maien, I have thought," Vadya said (the senior officer's habitual way of introducing an order). "I will transfer Hanya Lein to another troop."

At this Tashka sat motionless and silent. Vadya looked at his face, it was as if it had frozen in the impish smile with Tashka's slanted blue eyes turned to look down at the ground where he had so recently flung his Athagine wine.

"It is not fair on Lein," Vadya went on although he knew that to justify his decision was a sign of weakness, "to ask him to put up with this nonsense. I cannot send el Darien back to Trattai. Hanya can go with a clean record and then he will have the chance to get his Captain's sword."

"He was almost an Angel," Tashka murmured in a strange dreamy voice as if he were just talking to himself. "I did so love to hear of Vaie from him." He lifted his head and said: "It is done, sir. I prithou tell it to Lein yourself." The quiet rueful smile stayed frozen on his rose-petal mouth.

Vadya signalled to his servant and told him to fetch Hanya. When Hanya came Tashka was sitting in his chair with his ankle on his knee and his face turned aside. Hanya stopped a few feet away, adopting the formal H'las stance with his legs apart and his hands loosely clasped behind his back. He had cleaned the blood from his face and from his butter blond hair cropped at the back and sides. He was still wearing a torn shirt, the muscles of his big smooth chest visible through the tear in the cloth.

"I have thought," Vadya said to him. "You will go to another troop with a clean record and have the chance to get your Captain's sword."

Hanya stared at him then looked at Tashka. Tashka made no move. The evening breeze riffled through Vadya's hair, it made Hanya's torn shirt flutter open to reveal his muscular chest again.

"I am for Captain Maien," Hanya said in a voice suddenly husky with tears. "He is my life, my days, my fight. I beg you ... not send me to any other Captain."

"Others vow and then change their Captain," Vadya said.

"Not I," Hanya answered, "not after V'ta."

"You will risk your Captain's sword to serve under this man?" Vadya persisted.

"I am for him through Hell and through life," Hanya said.

Tashka's blue eyes opened wide and he turned to stare into Hanya's blue eyes. It was an odd thing to say: the kind of silly vow baby Lieutenants make to each other, not something for a junior to say to a senior officer's face. Tashka and Hanya stared at each other. There was no expression on either of their faces. Nothing of the terror they had been through side by side in battle nor the pleasure of comrades who sit and talk for hours together. Then Tashka made a sudden intense smile, turned his head to Vadya and gave him a slantwise look that was more difficult to refuse because it managed not to be pleading.

Vadya refused to look into Tashka's eyes. "What of the trouble you are getting from el Darien and el Vaie?" he asked Hanya.

"What trouble?" Hanya said blandly.

Vadya glared at him. "Lein," he said in a soft voice. "I have been pushed hard the day! Be warned. Will you forswear your family's politics to serve with these two as brother officers?"

"I cannot help what I believe!" Hanya said tearfully. "The injustice ..."

"Keep it out of the troop can you not?" Tashka interrupted in a rough-edged voice. "Believe what the Commander and I believe. We only believe in each other."

Hanya looked at his Captain and said, "I believe in you and the Commander."

"And el Darien?" Vadya asked. "Can you believe in him enough to defend him if it comes to it?"

"Sir!" Tashka's voice rose in protest, he sat up straight in his chair putting both feet on the ground. "Lein has spent hours working with el Darien in our inspections and manoeuvres. You must not accuse him that he cannot set aside his private quarrels when it comes to the business of the troop."

"I have heard," Vadya said. "Lein, you may stay with us although I will be keeping you under my eye. To Quarter."

Hanya looked at Tashka again, Tashka flicked his head towards the Quarter. Hanya saluted crisply, did the little stamping steps of a H'las junior leaving his seniors and walked slowly away.

"So," Vadya said, looking closely at Tashka. "He loves you, does he?"

"Not in that way!" Tashka said fiercely, turning on Vadya with a look of insulted fury in his blue stare. "He is my junior officer!"

"Oh. Yes," Vadya said. "Your pardon, Maien." He had felt sick at the thought of Tashka taking the big broad blond body of the handsome merchant's son in his lean strong arms. He had of course only felt like this because of the disgusting idea of a senior crossing his vow in sexual relations with a junior, it was a great relief to remember that Maien was so renowned for his adherence to the code of honour that the soldiers said he had it engraved on his heart. He was the least likely person in the entire army to go and snatch a favour off some junior officer. Or senior officer.

"Lein already has a lover," Tashka said, with an odd smile.

"I did not know," Vadya said in surprise.

"Lein cannot see him very often," Tashka replied. Vadya looked a question but Tashka volunteered no more information. Not long after Lein had been commissioned, Tashka had submitted a privy report on him to his file back at the winter quarters but Vadya knew this could not be a matter that compromised Lein's honour in any way, Tashka would never have condoned it. "I had better withdraw my request for leave to see Pava," Tashka said with a rueful twist of his rose-petal mouth.

"Maien," Vadya said. "You are not the only senior officer to Second Quarter. I think I am capable of managing the juniors in your absence," his tone was dry but not unsympathetic. "It is el Darien is it, who stirs up trouble?"

Tashka turned those slanted blue eyes to him and they sat in silence for a moment then Tashka's face relaxed into an exasperated grimace. "You know already," he said with a sigh. "Hanya's family are among the most political of the Trossian merchants, they work to get influence in the King's Councils equal with the nobility. It was even a problem for Hanya that he wanted to be a soldier, at first they would not countenance it. This year trade has gone badly. They were used to give Hanya enough to keep matched horses but now he has to try to send money home. That makes it worse when el Darien teases him. el Darien is an arrogant fool and van Trattai has not just sent him here to make the tie with you. He knows that Volka was too much indulged by his mother and then in First Trattai. He hopes that being in an active campaigning troop will discipline the puppy. And sir, I swear it, I will discipline the puppy." His beautiful lip curled in a suddenly scornful snarl. "To be the future sworn Lord," he muttered, "and to behave in such a way to one who is a comrade in arms! How does he treat his servants and the poor of his region, do you suppose."

Vadya listened with lifted eyebrows to what was true but would be regarded as an extraordinary piece of insolence coming from a simple H'las Captain about the future Lord of the strategically important region of Trattai. "Um, is Volka willing to stay with you after what you have treated him to?" he enquired. Tashka lifted his head and offered Vadya that wolfish smile. He did not need to say any more. All his juniors were hung on his sword. Yet Tashka was exceptionally hard on them. It was no good placing solid reliable Lieutenants of the kind the other Captains sought with him, he had eased out the two who had been in his Quarter when he arrived in the troop; courteously and cleverly but pretty quickly. He kept an eye out for bright rising stars and trained them on brilliantly but in spite of their efforts to avoid it, they got promoted away from him before they gained the experience to be able to adequately support him in the management of each others' flighty ways.

"Sir, hear me," Tashka said in crisp decisive tones which belied the deference of his appeal. "I will make Lein and el Darien practice something together for at least an half hour each day. Not duelling! at first. el Darien will gain a better respect for Lein if he spend that time with him. You can give them the night-sentry duty for a week; together. You can give them a five mile run every day straight after if you wish but I do not recommend it." He spoke with an authority well beyond his position. "el Vaie had better be given some sort of punishment, make it a couple of runs out with the messengers -- he could do with the extra training. Maive will go sending him chocolate although Pava and I told her not to. Mind, Pava only has to tell Maive not to do whatever for her to go straight to it!" His blue eyes glinted in a sudden flash of humour.

As usual Vadya nodded his agreement to what was virtually an ultimatum from his young Captain. He suddenly said: "Maien, I think you are nearly the perfect Captain." Tashka lifted a puzzled head to him, Vadya knew he was asking about the 'nearly'. "There is one fault that you have," Vadya went on. Tashka's eyes were suddenly liquid with fear. Vadya said: "You will not ask for my help."

Tashka gave a curt laugh and looked down at the ground in silence. Around them, troopers called to the others of their Units as their dinners were prepared. The evening breeze wafted over Vadya's and Tashka's dinner, back towards Vadya's tent, where his servant was standing watching their food get cold with a scowl on his leathery face.

"Why do you stay in Sixth H'las?" Vadya asked. "My father offered you your Commander's banner and double pay to go and work with him in the Generals' strategic staff. Why do you stay out here in the field managing the silly quarrels of an arrogant horse like el Darien van Trattai?"

Tashka looked up and the corners of his mouth flicked up in a sudden intensely sweet smile. "My Commander," he said in a voice so soft and husky and tender that Vadya did not want anyone else to hear it, "I just like to be with you." He put both hands, the scarred and the unscarred, on Vadya's left hand, lifted it and, instead of brushing it on his forehead as a junior officer does when he swears allegiance, he pressed it to his cheek.

Vadya looked into Tashka's exquisite slanted blue eyes with the ridiculously lovely long lashes, his rose-petal mouth that was pouted in that intense smile, his head tilted towards Vadya as if for a kiss. Around them First Quarter clattered on with their horses, their food and their weapons. Vadya's fingers shook as he took them from his junior officer's hands.

Chapter 3

Unexpected meetings for Arianna el Jien van Sietter.

The big formal reception room at the front of the castle was furnished with an enormous patterned red carpet over which were collected armchairs and sofas upholstered in grey velvet --arranged to allow for groups to converse. The windows were small and irregularly spaced, bars of sunlight fell through casting their light through the room. Beautiful works of art hung on the grey painted walls. At one time Arianna thought she and Clair might make a friendly marriage by collecting art together but Clair only quarrelled with her about where to hang pieces they separately commissioned.

A couple of younger Knights and a Captain of First Sietter in red parade silks were coming in a cluster towards her with a softly predatory admiring look in their eyes. She was frowning because she was thinking about the scroll she had tried to look at while Lisette did her hair. The young men hesitated, seeing her stiff-backed, tall and elegant in a grey silk suit with diamonds flashing in the lace at her throat and a frown in her veiled blue eyes. She noticed them looking on her and her face relaxed into a surprised and flattered smile. They started to drift in her direction but she saw someone she actually was glad to see and brushed past them with a casual nod.