A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 04

"Do not the el Maiens have a daughter?" Hanya el Farin asked.

Tashka had turned to look away from Vadya. Pava lay on the black and gold rug with his head also turned away and the smile uncurling on his full sweet mouth.

"What?!" Vadya exclaimed. "Why do you think that?"

"Mm, well, I know not," Hanya said vaguely. "Perhaps I have wrong, sir."

Vadya turned an irritated brown eye to Pava and demanded: "You must know if the el Maiens have a daughter; you trained in the Sietter army with the el Maiens."

"Were not you betrothed to the el Maien daughter?" Hanya el Farin added helpfully.

Pava sat up and looked sideways at Vadya and Hanya with a veiled expression in his green eyes. "Er yes," he said. "It is so."

"Angels of Hell!" Vadya cried. "It was bad enough thinking we would get the younger el Maien in the troop! but to be married to one!"

Pava risked a quick flick of the eyes at Tashka. The laughter had gone out of Tashka's face, he was staring impassively away, his face tilted up so that only Pava knew how angry his eyes must be. Pava had seen him kill over his family's honour. He wondered how often Tashka had to listen to the H'las soldiers he served with speaking like this and keep his eager fingers off his gloves.

"Shut it about the el Maiens," he said roughly. "They are my brother officers. I will never forswear my love for them. Well, for the younger. The younger el Maien is the finest friend it has ever been my privilege to love. An Angel. He was my baby Lieutenant and will always be the junior officer of my heart. Anyone who wishes to speak any word against him may have my glove!"

Vadya looked at him in surprise, he had never heard of Pava offering anyone a glove in earnest. "Is this the betrothal that you say was an impossible match?" he asked. "What for is the el Maien daughter an impossible match?"

"Do not trouble your pretty head about her," Pava's words were light but his voice was steely. "No one will ask you to marry the honourable Lady Anastelle el Maien."

"Pava, this is politics," Vadya protested. "Whatever she be like, they may want me to marry her."

"Not this woman," Pava said with finality.

"Why? What is wrong with her?" Vadya asked with a puzzled frown.

Pava shrugged. "Nothing," he said unhelpfully. "Sweet nothing," he grinned suddenly, his eyes lit up by a wicked sparkle. "The daughter of the el Maiens is a splendid dancer, a clipping rider, a splitting player at billiards and will give you an hand at cards if ar't willing to risk your wines and horses. She has the quickest brain and the warmest ... er, heart and the nicest taste in art and the sweetest singing voice and the sexiest eye and the loveliest leg in Trossia."

Tashka swung suddenly round on Pava and hissed: "Must you talk so of legs!" and then he blushed and ducked his head down.

Vadya looked at him in astonishment. Pava burst out laughing. "Does't not care to hear me praise Anastelle el Maien's legs to your Commander?" he teased, turning his head to peer into Tashka's face where Tashka was stooping over the food in his lap.

"Shut it," Tashka growled, chucking his plate to one side on the black and gold rug and turning his head away with the blush hot on his cheeks. His scarred right fist clenched up.

"Why is it impossible that I should marry the honourable Lady Anastelle, daughter to the el Maiens?" Vadya said in bewilderment. Pava's description of her was extraordinary, she was easily the most interesting of all the young Ladies he and Tashka had reviewed.

Tashka lifted his head and stared off into the distance at the grass waving in the breeze away to the horizon. Pava sat looking into his wine with an enigmatic smile on his wide red mouth. He had put one hand on Tashka's right arm above the clenched scarred fist. After a moment Hanya el Farin said: "I know of no reason, sir. If she is at all like her mother she will be a rare beauty; the mother was reputed to be an heartbreaker." He turned his dark face in polite query to Pava, the one among them who knew the el Maiens van Sietter well.

"Is the Lady Anastelle el Maien beautiful?" Vadya asked Pava. His heart had started to beat faster. Pava lifted his green eyes, in which laughter and some other indefinable emotion were lurking.

"The young el Maiens are all beautiful to die for," he said.

"I met Lord Clair once. He is the friend of my aunt, your grandmother in duty bound on your mother's side, sir, Lady Hartha. They say of Lord Clair that he is the most desirable man at court," Hanya el Farin put in helpfully. Tashka made some involuntary jerk with his right hand. Pava gripped it harder and held it down. "What is the name of the younger el Maien son, el Jien, your former junior officer? He is reputed to be as beautiful an heartbreaker as the mother but to be honour itself. Lord Clair is ... would you say he is an heartbreaker?" he enquired of Pava in dispassionate polite tones.

"Well he must have broken some hearts along the way," Pava replied with that enigmatic smile on his wide red mouth then he muttered: "His own hardest of all, probably." Tashka started to get up, pulling on the arm that Pava was still holding, Pava pulled him back down again, refusing to let go of his right, his fighting arm.

"And is the Lady Anastelle an heartbreaker?" Vadya asked. He felt an odd surge of emotion to think about this young Lady, perhaps it was she whom his father was putting to him for a bride but his father did not like to give him the name in writing because having fought in the war against Sietter, Vadya might take against her. Perhaps she was beautiful, that would be something.

He and Hanya both looked at Pava where he sat on the black and gold rug and embroidered cushions in the sunshine holding Tashka's sword arm.

Pava turned his blond head about uneasily, his green eyes shifting away from their gaze, then he gave a sudden gurgle of laughter. "Oh my dear," he said softly. "She can hardly move for the strewn bodies of those who are dying for her favours but her heart is set on other matters, it is not often that the honourable Lady Anastelle el Maien gives the eye." He pulled on Tashka's arm so that Tashka was obliged to lean in against him and put his arm around Tashka's shoulders, holding the young officer close against his chest. Tashka leant stiffly on him, not as if they had ever been lovers, more as if he wanted to get away and not have to talk about Lady Anastelle el Maien van Sietter's beauty or admirers or legs, although why should he care about the honour of a van Sietter Lady. He was still looking away into the distance with a cold expressionless look on his face, his eyes steely.

"Why did you ask for the knot to be slipped, Pava?" Vadya asked, his brown forehead creased in puzzlement. "If she is such a beauty, why would you not be willing for the el Maiens to bestow her on you? You trained with the brothers, surely you would be happy to take the sister in marriage?"

Pava tilted his wine in his bowl, unusually he seemed to be lost for words. He pressed Tashka's muscular tall frame closer in to his chest and leant his cheek on Tashka's close-cropped hair. "Um, mumble mumble inappropriate match," he said awkwardly. Then he suddenly lifted his head and looked round into Vadya's and Hanya's eyes over the top of Tashka's dark-haired head. There was for once no laugh in his green eyes, he said very clearly: "I am not worthy the hand of Lady Anastelle el Maien van Sietter. She is as far above me as the stars above the mud in a field of cows. She is an Angel and I will give any man who speaks idle words about her name the glove." He added: "I was wrong to talk about her just now so lightly. If her brother were here he would have me for it and I would not lift my sword against him, I would cry on the Angel of Mercy and beg him to pardon me. And I would beg her to pardon me too." Tashka moved against him, he gripped his arm and held the young Captain close. Vadya could still not see Tashka's face.

"Pava, this is ridiculous!" Vadya exclaimed. "Do you tell me that you persuaded your mother to refuse the offered hand of Lady el Maien on the grounds that she is too good for you? Why do you say you are not worthy her hand?"

"Because it is so," Pava said with finality, swinging his eyes away and taking a sip of his wine.

Tashka broke suddenly free of Pava's arm and turned to look at his Commander and at Hanya el Farin. Pava had grasped his right arm again and held it tightly while looking into his wine. Tashka's eyes were still cold, they had that killing look that came into them when he had given someone the glove. "Nobody will ask you to take the body of an el Maien in your bed, el Gaiel," he said roughly and crudely. "Talk about somebody-else's legs, for the Angels' sake."

"Maien, explain it to me," Vadya asked. "The political situation being as it is, I should have said it is inevitable that my father would seek the el Maien daughter's hand."

Tashka looked deep down into Vadya's eyes and his exquisitely lovely slanted blue eyes suddenly softened. He looked like he sometimes did when Vadya had put together a strategy for them that he thought highly of. A slow smile would come over his rose-petal mouth and he would lift his eyes to Vadya's with such warm admiration that it could not but make Vadya smile in return. Instead of a smile a kind of sorrowful yearning seemed to lie in his eyes. "el Gaiel," he said, "I cannot explain it to you."

Vadya looked back into Tashka's clear sad blue stare. His heart missed a beat and then began throbbing so insistently in his chest that he was scared he would blush.

"This talk of legs and betrothals is embarrassing," he said hurriedly, turning his gaze from Tashka's.

"Has't heard," Pava put in, "Second Thiel set up camp yester day only twenty miles West of here. Tashka and some of my scouts found them. I think the poor fools are plotting a surprise attack on Ninth Vail! Clair el Shosta only wants some of my wine, the greedy dog."

"They cannot yet have learned we are here," Tashka said, leaning back on the cushions next to Pava.

"This will please Fiotr," Vadya said, gratefully seizing on the change of subject.

"My dears," Pava drawled. "Will you take them out before they get to Ninth Vail? I will give you ten cases of Vail white and they are sure to have a good stock of V'ta, el Shosta likes his V'ta."

"Why not," Vadya said cheerfully. "I promised you one last manoeuvre before you go on leave, Maien. I have to take leave myself now, my father has called me home." He looked at Tashka but Tashka was staring away again.

"Shall't travel to Paviat and take ship there for Port H'las, is it not?" Pava enquired. "I will ride that long road with you, sweet officers. Yes, it is that season again when I am obliged to grace the ballrooms with my, er, particular kind of manoeuvres." He nudged Tashka and when Tashka sat up he smiled anxiously and appealingly.

"We will be well glad of your company on the road to Paviat," Vadya said with a smile.

"So I hear Revel broke his leg," Tashka said, looking into Vadya's face with a frown.

"Yes," Vadya looked regretfully at him. "It is a bad break, Maien, I do not think he will fully recover the use of it."

Tashka sighed and his shoulders slumped down. His lovely pink mouth pursed up and he ran tanned fingers over his short hair. "Damn the Angels," he cursed. "He was a good trooper and to lose it all over a silly prank."

"I know," Vadya said. "I have not dealt with those involved, I left it for you."

Tashka nodded. His blue eyes glanced away around his Quarter. Pava was leaning over to him but now Lieutenant-Lord Mada el Vaie van Soomara was coming up to talk to Pava. Pava had run a long-standing affair with Mada's oldest sister – they were both the oldest so there was no question of a match – but he had also written a letter recommending Mada's military potential to Vadya's notice so Mada was still fond of him. His sister called Pava the pinkest-fingered scum in Trossia. Tashka said she certainly had sufficient experience to make such a judgement – out of Mada's hearing. Tashka got up and went to sit between Hanya el Farin and Volka el Darien. He gave Pava's shoulder a shove as if to say: You are a slack-mouth fool but I forgive you. Pava swayed to his hand, his eyes shame-facedly turned down and that enigmatic smile on his lips.

Tashka sat down with Hanya and Volka and started telling them something in a low voice, probably so that either Vadya or Pava would not have to hear some scandalous story about a relative of theirs. He sniggered softly and they both leant close to him, their faces full of intrigued amusement. Pava was still watching Tashka, crouched on the black and gold rugs and the embroidered cushions in the sunshine, his blue eyes glinting as he spun another gossipy story to make the Lieutenants exclaim in disbelief. "Angels!" he cried. "I am glad to be rid of you! Vadya, woulds't not believe it, every woman in the camp ran at the little lamb's heels. Even my own particular chicken, Hartha, tried to win his favours!"

Tashka blushed and sniggered, coming back to Pava and leaning affectionately against his back with an arm over his shoulder. "She is not good enough for you to waste the jewellery on," he said carelessly. The sun sparkled in the earring Pava had given him.

"Look at it!" Pava said idly, catching Tashka's chin in his long pale fingers over his shoulder. "Look at those adorable blue eyes and that mouth like a rose-petal, soft and pink and curved with the kissable tuck in it. The most beautiful of my beautiful Angels. Ar't nothing but trouble, my Angel. It was always so!"

"Get off, el Jien," Tashka protested, casting an embarrassed look at the junior officers around them and pulling Pava's fingers off his chin. "Do you want my glove?"

"Not I," Pava said with a laugh. "It is an horrid army issue one if I know you." Tashka leant on his back, his arm still hanging over Pava's shoulder, and continued to chuck stories out to make the Lieutenants exclaim and giggle. Pava leant his golden-fair cheek on Tashka's arm with a loving smile.

Vadya watched them under his lashes.