A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 14

He raised his sword and they crossed their own swords over it.

"Captain-Lord Tashka el Maien van Sietter of Sixth H'las," he said. "Do you wish to step down?"

"No thanks," Tashka said in a sleepy dangerous voice, half-closing her glittering blue eyes.

"Captain-Sir Diodr Shanne of First P'shan, do you wish to step down?"

"No," he replied.

"Stand," Stevan said. "Hold. Go," and he leapt quickly out of their way.

Shanne sprang back as he said it but Tashka sprang forward and her rapier flicked at his arm.

"First blood," Hanya murmured as they looked at Shanne's torn right sleeve and the queer sudden splash of red on the white cloth.

Shanne's eyes showed a flicker of pain and anger as he jumped back again then narrowed back to cool green slits. He felt his way cautiously forward. Tashka waited for him, moving steadily from foot to foot, one arm out, seeming to invite an attack to her left side. Shanne sprang, she stepped aside, he whipped round as she did so, their rapiers flashed and clashed on their daggers.

The door opened and the voice of one of the Dames said: "What are you doing? Come and play ..." before Flava hustled her out but the two duellers never paid the slightest attention.

They were pressed close to each other now, staring into each others' eyes, dagger against rapier. They were pushing to catch each other off balance then Shanne gave an odd twist and Tashka started to fall! Vadya and Pava leapt up! but she had turned the fall into a step that tripped Shanne up. He was the one who fell and his rapier rolled clattering away on the floor.

Tashka pointed her rapier at the ground, letting him get up and fetch his weapon.

"Damn your courtesy!" Vadya whispered fiercely. "Kill him, fool! He would not do the same for you."

"Angels," Shanne said, smiling as he turned around. "You are even better than I had heard, el Maien."

It was only when his voice fell out in the huge space around them that they realised how quiet they were all being.

Tashka gave a curt nod, raising her sword and crouching her back to give herself a longer reach. Shanne strolled towards her, his walk became fighting steps as he got nearer and then they had engaged again in flashing lightning strokes of rapier-work. Shanne was forcing Tashka back, his rapier whipping and stabbing at her. She came back slowly; crouching, striking with a flurry of defensive moves, then suddenly she sprang forward and then back again, twisting to avoid Shanne's rapier. They stood and stared at each other.

Shanne's eyes opened wide and his dagger fell with a clatter to the floor. A queer uncertain look of dread appeared on his face. He sank slowly to his knees, letting his rapier roll away from him, he moved as if he could not stay upright but did not dare to fall. His second ran to support him. His face softened out and a trickle of blood suddenly ran down his chin from the corner of his mouth.

Tashka straightened up with a sigh and let her rapier hang the bloodied tip down, her face tilted up to stare at the roof. Suddenly Vadya could hear the rain drumming on the roof again, he ran forward to gently take her arm.

Tashka looked down, her face was blank. Her features twitched and she flung her weapons down with a crash.

"Holy bloody Angels," she said in a flat even voice. She walked over to kneel by Diodr Shanne.

She took his restless hands, listened to the breath sucking in his throat. He had been too good for her to kill cleanly; she had been obliged to stab him through the lung and not the heart. Diodr Shanne managed a horrible smile at her. The blood was dripping down from his chin to join a red patch spreading over his chest. She took the cuff of her shirt sleeve in her hand and wiped his mouth for him, he was clinging to her wrists as she did it, he pulled on them. She leant close to him, he gurgled something to her then his head fell back on his fellow Captain's arm, he began choking and coughing horrible gouts of blood from his mouth.

Vadya went over and grabbed Tashka by the arms and jerked her to her feet. He started dragging her out of the room. She was pulling feebly against him, starting to stutter out some words in such a chaotic jumble that he did not know what she was saying. He dragged her past Flava, past the Dame who had tried to come into the armoury, who took one look at them and fled back to the sitting-room. Pava and Stevan came running after him, he dragged Tashka into the dining-room and shoved her into a chair by the fire.

"Brandy, brandy!" he said fiercely to Pava and when Pava pushed the bottle into his hand, he pulled at Tashka's chin and slopped it straight into her mouth.

She took a helpless gulp, her eyes still glassy and her hands pulling feebly at his, then coughed and spluttered, pushed his hand away so that the brandy spilt over her shirt. She started to shiver and to make a horrible keening noise. Pava knelt down to wrap her doublet about her and put his arms around her, she pressed her head into his shoulder and continued to make that awful grieving noise, muffled by Pava's shoulder.

"Someone better go and tell them what happened," Vadya said.

"I will go," Stevan answered. "We need not say who killed him, yet, need we?"

"Laienne Piria saw us come out of the armoury," Vadya answered. "Get some blankets, will you?"

Stevan let Hanya el Jien limp in as he went. Hanya was pale but his face was still fierce and he looked glad.

"Get away!" Tashka gave Pava a sudden shove. "Give me a drink!" Vadya grabbed a bowl and sloshed brandy into it, flooding it over the sides. She was drinking it before the bowl was out of his hands, it went straight down and she held the bowl out to him again, hardly able to breathe against the fierce spirits burning down her throat. Then she dropped the bowl, the brandy he was pouring went in a flood over her knees, she clutched at her head and said: "No! Sweet Angels! What have I done?"

"Shut it!" Vadya snapped, stooping to pick up her bowl and shove it back into her barely controlled hands. "Get this down you. Captain Maien, drain that bowl!"

She gulped at it and coughed, he caught hold of her chair and dragged it nearer to the fire. Pava followed, putting out a questioning hand to Tashka, she did not thrust it away so he laid it gently on her arm. She jerked her arm without looking at him and he stepped back, picked up another chair and came to sit near her, not trying to touch her. Hanya was limping over but Vadya said: "Look to the door, el Jien. Let no one in but Stevan," and he went back.

Stevan came in with his arms full of blankets. Behind him was a hubbub of cries and exclamations. Vadya handed the brandy bottle to Pava.

"I will just go and tell them not to put lunch in here," he said in a firm loud voice. Tashka looked quickly at him and quickly away. Stevan and Pava started to wrap her trembling tall lean body in the blankets. Vadya went out into the corridor.

"We will all stay here!" he heard Madam Stanies' authoritative voice saying as she shut the sitting-room door.

They were carrying Diodr Shanne's body down the corridor, wrapped in a cotton sheet: Hanya el Farin, a pallid-faced Mada el Vaie and two Lieutenants Stevan had brought with him. Stevan's other fellow Captain was carrying Shanne's weapons behind them, he looked up into Vadya's face, his eyes were rolling with tears. He stopped, put out a hand and gripped Vadya's arm, shook his head and walked on. Vadya slipped down the corridor to the back door and met the housekeeper, Madam Jeraie, running across the courtyard through the rain with her skirts kilted up around her ankles and her husband - Tashka's former trooper Revel, hitching himself along on his crutches after her.

"Listen!" Vadya said urgently. "Lord Tashka has killed Captain-Sir Shanne in a duel. I do not ever want to hear anyone talk of it, not now nor at any future time - is that clear? Lord Tashka must never hear his name again. We have got Lord Tashka in the dining-room, can you put lunch elsewhere?"

"I will arrange for lunch to be served in the sitting-room," she said in a determined voice which trembled just a little. She turned back to the kitchens.

Revel said, "I will send someone to clean the armoury, sir." Vadya nodded miserably at him.

They were carrying Shanne up to his room, an awkward white bundle that was all that was left now of the dashing young officer with the insolent green eyes. An image flashed in Vadya's mind of the pulse beating in Shanne's temple and he winced.

'Shut it,' he said to himself. 'It could have been Tashka.'

She was still shivering in her bundle of blankets when he got back, one scarred hand sticking out of the folds of wool with the bowl of brandy in it. The cuff of her sleeve was filthy with blackening blood. She turned her head and stared at him as he came in, her blue eyes were desperate in her lean face. She made a movement with her head. Outside the rain fell insistently.

"... and remember that time Dar and you took all the pegs from Hanya's guy ropes?" Pava was saying in an even gentle voice. "And Clair caught you at it and made the pair of you wash up the whole troop's dishes for three days in a row."

Vadya squatted down beside her, confronting the naked terror in her eyes with a calm sweet look on his face. "What did he say to you?" he asked.

Tashka's eyes rolled, she looked blank for a second then her face screwed up. She made a convulsive movement with her hand and more brandy spilt over her blankets. She looked back at Vadya.

"What did he say?" Vadya repeated.

"H-h-h-he-e! Damn!" she cried then fetched a deep breath and said: "He blessed me!"

"There," he said gently. "He forgave you. Drink down that bowl."

"It is empty!" she shouted at him, glaring into his face. Pava leant over and she watched him pour more brandy into her bowl, a sullen look coming over her face. "I want no more!" she declared.

"Captain-Lord el Maien, you will drink down that bowl," Vadya said in a voice of steel. "I have thought."

"Y-y-y," she took a gulp at it, rolled her head restlessly on her shoulders, took another gulp. Her blue eyes creased at the corners, stared into his eyes. She made a noise and a jerky movement, as if she could feel Shanne's death scratching on her nerves. She gulped at the brandy again.

When the bowl fell out of her hand and broke in the fireplace, when her head nodded on her slender neck and then fell onto her chest and she slid down in her chair, he bent and scooped her over his shoulder, carried her and a fresh bottle of brandy up to her room.

She was in the roof, at one end of the 'L' of the red brick farmhouse, in his old play-room: a bare place. There were just a couple of old armchairs and her folding leather chair by the fireplace and her weapons-rack, box-desk and clothes-rail. She had spread out her trooper's bedding on the floor. He laid her body down softly in it, her limbs sprawled unconscious across the bedding. Vadya unbuttoned her shirt and pulled the bloodied garment stinking with brandy off her. Brandy had soaked into her bodice too. He looked up at Pava who had come into the room behind him, took his lip between his teeth and gently unhooked the plain white bodice. He lifted her heavy body about, pulling her arms through the armholes of the bodice and keeping his eyes off her breasts as much as he could. He fetched a cloth from a washing bowl of water in the corner and wiped her body clean of the brandy then went to her clothes-rail and found a clean shirt which he carefully dressed her in, lifting her heavy torso and pulling her limbs gently into the sleeves, buttoning it up with just her collar button undone. He was unsure if she slept in her bodice. Surely not, he thought. He was too embarrassed to ask Pava who sat quietly in an armchair by the fireplace with his head turned courteously away from Vadya clumsily dressing Tashka's pale muscular body. He knelt by her side, watching the breath rise and fall in her chest as if each breath were the most precious thing he owned.

He woke up the following morning feeling stiff and dirty. He was still in his clothes, in a bundle of trooper's bedding, on the floor of his old play-room. He sat hurriedly up as he remembered why and saw Pava's big blond frame sprawled asleep in an armchair by the fire. Beside him, Tashka's roll of bedding was empty. He looked desperately around him and she turned her head then turned it back without really looking at him.

She was standing in the big window at the end of the room, a black felt doublet hanging off one finger over her shoulder. Beyond her tall lean body in the white cotton shirt, the newly risen sun shone through the rain-splashed glass of the window. Vadya got stiffly out of his bedding, scratching at his back, and went over to her.

"Do not!" she said fiercely as he put out a gentle hand to caress her cheek. "Prithou, Vadya, touch me not and do not try to kiss me," she said.

"No," he said quietly. He sat down in the wooden window-seat, his head turned towards the view of the long terraced lawn and the weed-straggled flower-beds, drenched with rain, running down to the forest in the distance. He watched the faint pale reflection of Tashka's face in the glass.

"I went out there," she said, flicking nervously at the curtains drawn on either side of them. "I went out and ran down the lawns and breathed. I rolled in the grass and I sang and I laughed; I could not believe ... how good it is to be alive!"

He could see the dark marks in the dew, beyond her faint reflection: footmarks and big long patches. "Ay," he said, "I am glad you are alive."

"And then," she said, her voice soft and even, "as I came up the stairs, I saw Shanne's door was open so I went and sat by him. His face was like wax. I thought: 'He will never move the more. He will never laugh or make love or run down the lawns. I have let his life out of him.' Then I thought: 'He will never fight the more,' and I thought about all the men he must have killed, more even than I have, he has killed. Then I thought of him again and then ... I came back in here and looked on you sleeping and I loved you so much!" Her voice and her face lifted to him, her eyes shone brightly then she dropped back down again. "I wanted to make love with you. Here, now, even with Pava snoring there. But I did not do so," she drawled at him and strolled away to the ash and charred wood of her fire, to sit in her leather chair beside Pava in his armchair with her ankle set on her knee.

Vadya followed her, pulled up a stool and said: "Will you come hunting the day, look, the sun is out the clouds at last."

"No," she replied, staring into the cold dead fire. "I do not want to see blood, never again."

"What will you like to do?" he asked.

"Go riding," she answered.

"May I come?"

She looked impatiently into his gentle face. "Do as you please," she answered curtly.

~#~*~#~

General-Lord van H'las rose up from the table and walked to the muddy messenger standing in the doorway of the council chamber. The port councillors frowned for they wanted to make their points clearly to him but the man was in a Sixth H'las uniform - six silver crosses embroidered on the left hand shoulder of his rain-drenched black cloak. He held his hand out and van H'las took the thin package of sealed paper from his fingers.

"Give this man a bed, a bath, food, whatsoever he needs," he said to the footman who had shown the man in. "I pray you excuse me," he added to the councillors and walked out of the room into the stone-flagged corridor to break Vadya's yellow seal. 'What has happened?' he thought ruefully. 'Why did I let him keep her to Captain? I should not have let them persuade me to allow them the hunting together, I should have taken her out of his troop immediately. They were so happy together; I was so glad to see my boy honourably happy in love and I indulged them.'

My father, he read, the weather has been poor with much rain but we have had enough sunshine to please those of us who prefer hunting deer to hunting kisses. We have enjoyed the company of my cousin el T'fel. However I am sorry to say his choice of fellow Captains to bring was not a lucky one. Tashka and Captain-Sir Shanne disliked each other from the start of the party and two days ago that dislike got into a duel. "Holy Angels!" van H'las whispered. "I should have gone with them. Damn this nonsense about trade, I should have just gone." It is Tashka who prevailed. Stevan and his brother officers have left to take the body back to P'shan. Madam Stanies, the Dames and Pava and Hanya el Jien remain with us. We got Tashka ... Lord Esha peered at a crossed-out word and made out drunk with a grim smile ... to sleep at last. The next day and the one after Pava and I rode out with her. She went down to the tavern in the evenings and Pava brought her back. The day after that she slept much of the day. Yester day we went out hunting. We caught up with a bear but Tashka wanted it let go. It rained so some of us stayed in a cabin in the woods. We will break up the party soon and I will write to you again when we are back in Sixth H'las' winter quarters.

I am that man who is always glad in his heart to sign himself your loving son Vadya el Gaiel van H'las.

'Some of us stayed in a cabin?' Lord Esha raised his eyebrows. 'How many is 'some'? Another subject for a tactful father to avoid!'