A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 18

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"Your brother is a sportsman. When I said to my father would he be willing to countenance my offering for Sevianne el Jien van Iarve, he said straightaway that that would mean an alliance to Sietter and Lord Clair and that he would like it. Lord Clair has a reputation, of course, er, um, but my father says it is mostly gossip and nonsense. Lord Clair is a fine rider, and Lady el Jien too. She has been so kind to me."

"Mm," Tashka grunted.

Tashka, Volka and Pava had climbed up the central tower. Tashka was looking through her telescope at the surrounding countryside: the hills rolling softly down to the little town below the castle, the woodland on the lower slopes and the high hills to the West through which wound the long road to the Maier Pass, Arventa, the road North to court and South West to Port H'las.

Pava was leaning on the parapet, breathing the cool fresh air in to clear his head after a night's heavy card play. Volka had come along to ramble on about his forthcoming betrothal. Pava was not a good confidant, he was too likely to talk knowledgeably about the lace on Sevianne's petticoat, but Tashka was Volka's Captain. She had always been willing to listen patiently to his anxieties about the match and to offer him sound advice and good opinion on its chances.

The autumn wind blew fresh around the grey battlements, ruffling Pava's blond hair and making him gasp and laugh. The guards had been huddled in a corner with some dice when Tashka burst through the door onto the tower. Now they stood one to each corner, at stiff attention, staring miserably at the muddy autumn landscape with watering eyes.

Tashka suddenly said: "My Captain, I mean Pava, come here!" Pava's head snapped around at her appeal and he came over to her side. Tashka shoved her telescope in his hand and pointed away up the road through the hills.

Pava lifted the telescope to his eye. "Where? There is nothing ... Angels! what is that line of sparkles."

"It is a troop," Tashka answered. "It is Fifth Sietter. It must be them, they were deployed near here."

"Fifth Sietter?" Pava repeated in astonished tones.

Tashka took back her telescope and peered closely through it. "I can see Darien's banner," she said. She looked blankly at Pava, then turned and shot off down the stairs.

"What is it?" Volka asked nervously. "It is not unusual, is it? for a Sietter troop to come here?"

Pava did not answer. He was looking after Tashka, an expression of dread on his face.

Clair was in the armoury, inspecting the racks of weapons and drinking a large glass of water. Tashka shot in and waved her telescope at him. Her face was fierce with rage and suspicion.

"Fifth Sietter," she said abruptly. "Coming down the road here from where they have been mucking about in the hills round the Maier Pass."

"Fifth?" Clair repeated. His face froze over with terror, he looked back at her with his eyes wide. When she nodded, he dropped his glass on the floor, it broke into six pieces, scattering jagged glass and water all over the polished floor-boards. He ran with her to the castle gates.

When the troop came wheeling up the road to the castle, the gates were closed against them and the Guard falling into place around the cannon on the castle walls. The cavalry and footsoldiers were obliged to stop outside the gate and after some angry parlaying with the Guard Captain, the Commander and two of his Captains dismounted and came one by one through the wicket.

They found the two el Maiens waiting alone in the big castle courtyard, standing at the bottom of the steps. They looked startlingly alike in their breeches, jumpers and boots. Clair stood on the step behind Tashka with a hand on her shoulder, staring at the officers coming into the courtyard with an expression of terror on his face. Tashka glowered at them with an ice-cold suspicion and hatred.

Tashka stepped forward, Clair's hand dropped from her shoulder, she stamped her feet together and gave the nervous irritated Sietter officers the sharpest of Sietter salutes. She fell into a formal stance with her heels snapped together and her hands loose by her sides.

"Commander-Sir Lial Darien of Fifth Sietter," she said crisply.

He was a rangy tall blond man - a typical Sietter Knight; he hurriedly pulled a salute in return. "Lieutenant-Lord Tashka el Maien van Sietter of ... of, formerly of Fourth?" he hesitated, realising he did not know her current designation.

"It is Captain, actually," she drawled at him, suddenly separating her feet and clasping her hands loosely behind her back. "Captain-Lord el Maien of Sxith H'las, just so you know what kind of glove I will throw in your face for your family's next act of dishonour."

The Commander flushed with rage, his fingers flicked up as if in defence. He had a terrible livid scar which cut down his whole face, crossing his forehead, narrowly missing his left eye, across the bridge of his nose and his cheek. Tashka looked hard at him with a steely stare in her blue eyes. He looked aside at his two Captains, he could not meet her steely unwinking stare. Tashka looked at his Captains, they looked aside too.

"What ..." Clair took a step forward and put his hand on Tashka's shoulder again, not it seemed in order to hold her back but rather to protect himself. His hand was shaking.

"Commander-Lord Clair el Maien van Sietter, formerly of ..."

"Enough of this nonsense!" Clair screamed. "How dare you come to my castle? What are you doing here with the whole of your troop pulled up in military formation at my gate?!" His slanted grey eyes creased against tears as he glared at the Commander in front of him.

"M-my Lord," the Commander said stiffly, reluctant it seemed to acknowledge the man who would be his sworn Lord in time. "I have a letter from Lord van Sietter." He put his hand into the breast pocket of the red silk surcoat over his mailcoat to pull some packets of papers out.

Clair tore open the packet handed to him and skimmed his eyes quickly up and down the page inside. He went pale and lifted a pair of blazing eyes to the men in front of him.

"What is it?" Tashka asked.

He looked quickly at her lean tanned face. He looked back at the Fifth Sietter officers.

"Darien!" he said in a constricted voice. "Do you know what is written here?"

"My orders are explicit," Darien answered.

"Is even your honour so beyond soiling that you will practice what ... what this calls for?" Clair choked on the words, crumpling the packet in his fist and shaking it at Commander-Sir Darien.

"I ... I have my expressed orders," the Commander answered. "I have sworn to the fingers of the Generals' strategic staff, I am their honour, and they have sworn to the Lord of our region."

"What am I?" demanded Clair. "Am I not van Sietter?"

"No," Darien said. "Lord Pava is van Sietter."

"What is it?" Tashka demanded.

Clair swung round and glared at her. "Get in the castle!" he said fiercely. "Do it now! I have thought!"

She looked in bewilderment at him then turned and ran up the steps, frightened by the level of rage which stormed in his eyes. Behind her she heard Clair's voice raised in argument. Darien had the nerve to argue back! Tashka hovered just inside the solid wooden doors at the top of the steps, still clutching her telescope. She could hear them, their voices going to and fro, shouting out this, then that; her name, Vadya's. Finally she heard Darien and his officers jingling and stamping as they went back out through the wicket gate. Clair yelled to the Guard to secure the walls on full alert and came striding in through the doors, shaking with fear and rage.

He stopped when he saw her and they stared at each other, white-faced, burning-eyed.

"No!" she shouted, she flung her telescope to the ground where the expensive lenses shattered.

"Tashka!" he pleaded.

"No!" she shouted and ran back through the hall, fast as a deer, like a deer being hunted she fled back through the shadows, screaming: "No! No!"

She burst into the sitting-room and ran past a startled Arianna and Tarra, who were helping themselves to the food spread out for the family and their guests to break their fast. She was running so hard she could not stop. Clair heard Arianna scream and a window shatter. He arrived just in time to see her disappearing across the courtyard into Vadya's room. She had thrown herself through one of the long windows and he ran to stare at the shards of glass on the carpet and flagstones, crying: "Was he hurt? Angels, was he hurt?"

"By Heaven, I do not think he was badly hurt," Tarra spluttered, "but what is going on?"

Tashka flung back Vadya's door and he started out of a comfortable morning doze, grabbing at his sword hung on the bedpost beside him. He let the weaponry go when he saw it was her, staring sleepily at her, rubbing one hand over his dreamy brown eyes and into his tousled hair.

"Your face is cut," he was suddenly wide awake. "What is wrong?" he demanded.

She was milk-white with a bright red wound down one cheek. Her blue eyes burned in her strained face, her right fist was clenched, the other hand stretched wide.

"V-Vadya," she stammered.

"el Maien? For sweet Hell's sake! What is it?"

"M-my father. He has broke our betrothal."

"What?!"

"He ... This morning he declared war on H'las."

"Tashka, no, no!" He clutched at his hair, staring at her.

She walked across the room towards him, moving like a puppet, her limbs stiff, her eyes wide and staring. Blood was starting to drip from the cut on her cheek, a scarlet thread showing livid against her milk-white face. She scrambled onto the bed beside him, reaching out to seize the cotton cloth of his nightshirt.

"My Commander," she said. Her voice shook. It was thin with despair, with fear. "You are my life, my days, my fight." Her slanted blue eyes stared into his, ugly with terror.

"el Maien?" he reached out to grip her shoulder and her arm. "What are you saying, why repeat your vow to me?"

"I cannot live without you," she said. "I was a raw baby Lieutenant of sixteen when first I heard of you. It was my dream, to serve with you. When I came to Sixth H'las, I was so proud ...!" Her husky voice went high, she drew in a sharp breath and held it for a second, staring desperately into his eyes. "I am the best Captain in this land," she said quietly. "It is because I long to please you. I am a fool for your praise. My life is hung on your banner. I am van Sietter and have managed to stay with you; I am a woman; I am your betrothed and yet you have let me stay with you but now ... oh Vadya! I care not whom you marry but I prithou, on my knees I prithou, do not shake me from your fingers no longer your officer and send me away!"

Vadya stared at her. He frowned, he glared and then he began to cry. Tears squeezed from his screwed up eyes, he pulled on her shoulder so that she fell into his arms.

"For sweet Hell's sake!" he sobbed. "What, am I to let you go so easy? Who do you think I am, el Maien? I, who have lain in your arms, who owe my life to you! I love you! As my Captain, as my friend, as my lover, I will never, no never, shake you off my fingers to send you away."

She clung to his shoulders, she was still stiff with terror. He was crying into her short cropped hair, trying to soothe her, stroking her back and rubbing her arms and neck.

"Oh Vadya," she said, still in the same high dull voice. "My father will send me to V'ta."

"Shut it, shut it!" he was trying to cover her mouth with his hand, hugging her to him with his other arm and crying into her short short hair. "el Maien, for the Angels' sake! How could you doubt me? How could you think I would let you go so easy?"

"I am so scared to lose you," she said, suddenly relaxing her whole body to lie heavy in his arms. "el Gaiel, I love you so much. I care nothing for the marriage, you know I'll lie in your bed without the ring, I will even let you take someone-else if you will only let me stay by your side."

"Well I care for the marriage!" he flung his head up, pushed her back and glared at her. "What is this now? I am to take some simpering bitch into my bed, for politics' sake? I, who have known your love, who have taken your favours, stolen moments of such joy with you, I am to be cheated of my right to lie with you in a wedding bed now? Forget it, el Maien. I believe in the Angels and I want their blessing to my love for you and to our children. Stop whining about this nonsense. I will marry you. I have thought."

They looked into each others' eyes and then Tashka lifted her chin in a nod, the colour began to creep back into her cheeks.

"Besides, what would my father not say to it," Vadya pointed out, "if he does not get the chance to take you up to his strategic staff after all. I swear, he would rather have you than me! And what is this?" he demanded roughly, taking hold of her chin in gentle fingers. "What folly have you been at now, to cut your face like that?"

"I know not," she said, raising one hand to her face and looking at the blood that appeared on her fingers in surprise. "It ... hurts."

"Angels only know what you have done," Vadya grumbled, pulling the sleeve of his nightshirt down and pressing it to her cheek. "You are so impetuous, el Maien! Why can you not stop to think before running off."

"Oh what are we to do?" she said in a small desolate voice. "Fifth Sietter is come for us. They have orders to take the two of us prisoner and bring us back to van Sietter in Arventa. You will be held over Lord Esha's head and I will be sent back to V'ta."

"But you and Clair have been officers in the Sietter army," Vadya said. "Surely they will not be willing to take you a prisoner?"

"It is why my father has sent Fifth Sietter," she said thinly. "I knew there was something on the breeze when I found out they were deployed to the Maier Pass - at this time of year. I have been keeping half an eye out, just in case.

"I forced their Commander to call on the Angel of Mercy. If you see him you will see what I did to his face. It was he who challenged me. He should not have done it but he could not accept the stain to his family's honour. Sithou, I killed his brother, killed him deliberate with a cut to the throat. I had good cause, el Gaiel, it was within the code, but Darien will be glad to see me sent to whatever kind of death most pleases them in V'ta."

"Hell!" Vadya ran a desperate hand through his hair. "el Maien, I must get dressed. We must talk with the others and someone must see to your face. Wait on me a moment." He pressed a beautiful pure white silk scarf that he found dropped on the floor into her hand, obediently she put it to her wounded cheek where it was stained with blood and ruined. Vadya got distractedly out of his tumbled bedclothes and went to his clothes rail to grab some clothes, throwing his nightshirt carelessly off as he went.

There was a knock on his door, it opened and Clair strode in. He went straight to Tashka, saying: "Sweet Heaven and Hell! Are you still in one piece? Holy Angels, let me look at you." He seized her arms, looked at her hands, pushed her head about and made as if to cuff her head. Tashka ducked and looked back at him, still holding the silk scarf to her face. "To run straight through a window!" Clair growled. "For Heaven and Hell's sake, Tashka."

"Oh yes," Tashka said vaguely to Vadya. "I remember now. I was running too fast to stop and open the window."

"What?!" Vadya came over with only his underpants on and a doublet and hose in clashing colours in his hands. "el Maien!"

"Has he told you of Fifth Sietter and their orders?" Clair demanded, swinging suddenly round.

"Yes," Vadya answered. "We must talk."

"I have made them go back," Clair said. "Tarra came and threatened them with pitched battle against Tenth Athagine but there must be reinforcements on their way. Now that van Sietter has formally declared war there will be a lot of troop movement. Holy Hell! that scum, to send a troop take you prisoner before you had notice of war when you have come here in trust with no troop of your own. I beg you to believe, el Gaiel, that I will not be standing by him in this war."

Vadya smiled, coming over with his unbuttoned shirt hanging open to his chest, to take Clair's sword arm and press it. "My brother," he said. "I know I will never get any thing but friendship from you."

Clair gave him an unexpectedly shy and sweet smile, clasping his arm in return. His eyes drifted to Tashka, lolling on Vadya's bed with the scarf pressed to her face then he looked back at the half-dressed officer-aristocrat by his side. Tashka raised an eyebrow.

"Why do you not wait in the courtyard," Clair suggested.

Tashka laughed. "Because el Gaiel does not care if I see his tummy," she answered. "What does Tarra say of Tenth?"

"He has sent out to call them into the castle," Clair replied. "We are bringing up produce from the farm but we cannot sustain a long siege."

"Let us go," Vadya pulled on his boots and led the way out of the door.

He strode over the courtyard and into the sitting-room with Tashka at his shoulder. Tashka looked round. All around the sitting-room table, the faces lifted to her: Arianna el Jien van Sietter, golden-pink with those intelligent blue eyes staring warmly up at her; Hanya el Jien van Iarve, his golden face inexpressive with scars; Tarra el V'lair van Athagine and Pava el Jien van Vail, both experienced Commanders and the powerful heirs to rich lands; her Lieutenant, Volka el Darien van Trattai; Hartha el Farin van P'shan, her face like dark oak and her black eyes bright under the densely curled white hair cut into a fashionable high sculpted shape. When she turned her head there were the beautiful slanted grey eyes of her own brother, Clair, and the warm brown eyes of her Commander and lover, the man she had sworn her life to, who had promised her his gentle heart (and his well-endowed body too of course).

"el Darien," Tashka said crisply. "You must wait on us elsewhere. You are van Trattai and your father will not want you caught up in any H'las-Sietter quarrel."

Volka looked at her in sharp disappointment. "I could take the notes, sir?" he pleaded.

"I have thought," Tashka answered. She went over to him and pressed his arm, giving him an apologetic smile. "Go sit with Sevie," she said softly. She winked, he giggled and blushed, saluted the crisp flicking salute to Vadya that Tashka made them practice incessantly, did the ritual stamping steps of the H'las junior officer and went slowly out of the room.

Tashka went over to the table of breakfast food, to one side of which Clair was spreading out some maps. She chucked the silk scarf she had been holding to her face aside, collected a plate and gathered some food onto it, while at the same time she cast intent glances at the maps.

Arianna went to try and look at her cheek. Tashka lifted her head and gave her such an irritable glare that she sat back down again in silence.

Tashka took the plate of food to Vadya, saying, "my Commander," and went back to the maps, over which she began to trace her finger, reaching for a pencil with which she made notes on small pieces of paper she stuck to the map. The others gathered around her, casting puzzled glances at Clair and Vadya. Clair sat down by Pava, who draped an arm about his shoulders. Vadya started eating the food Tashka had brought him.

"el V'lair," Tashka stood back on one leg and looked into his sad dark eyes with her slanted blue eyes creased in thought, "to what extent can we count on your goodwill and your troop? el Jien will of course stand by us - he is our brother officer, but you may go freely with your honour unstained."