A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 18

Tarra leaned on the table and looked at her with an easy smile. He ran his eyes over her tall muscular figure in a way which made Vadya stop eating and put a hand to his belt but he had forgotten his gloves in his haste. Tarra said: "el Maien, I tried to send you ... a gift once but you returned it. Here is something you will value: take my troop. I cannot speak for my father's army, the Athagine council will have some political reason which side this war they want us to fight on, but Tenth Athagine follow my arm. You once pointed it out to me as a weakness! that the structure of the command in Athagine is such that I can do this. I am glad of it the day, since I can offer you my troop as your own."

"As my Commander's own," Tashka corrected him.

Tarra turned and looked into Vadya's angry brown eyes. "el Gaiel," he said, "do not mistake me. I offer this you in friendship."

Vadya jerked his head irritably.

"An' I recall, Tenth Athagine are particularly noted at this time for two of your scouting sections," Tashka was saying.

Tarra looked at her in surprise and nodded. "How do you know that?" he asked.

She shrugged. "It is so," she answered, standing back with her hands clasped behind her back and a cool frown on her face. "Pava, you will bring us Ninth Vail."

"Of course," Pava drawled. "You are my sweet brother officers; but knowest it well, I send half of the troop on leave when I want to do serious manoeuvres."

"Prianne Baraie will come," Tashka said in an abstracted tone of voice, "he knows cannon."

"Cannon?" Pava repeated. "What does Captain Baraie know of cannon?"

Tashka frowned at him. "Shut it, el Jien," she said. "He used to be one of the Castle Vail Guard and he still goes to check out the latest guns when he gets the chance."

"Does he so?" Pava said with a grin.

"What is in that scheming strategic mind of yours?" Clair asked, leaning affectionately back into Pava's arm.

Tashka looked at him and then deep into Vadya's eyes. "Hear me," she said.

"Captain, I will hear you," Vadya replied automatically, through a piece of bread and ham.

"The border will be closed to H'las troops," she said. "They will never break through to rescue the Commander ... Commander-Lord el Gaiel. Fifth, Eighth and Tenth will have us surrounded by the day after the morrow. It must be Eighth and Tenth, they are nearest."

"How do you know?" Clair asked in surprise. "Are they not in their winter quarters yet?"

Tashka shrugged. "I just know," she said. "Eighth will be against us, like most of the Sietter army, because van Sietter will have let them know Anna has been dealing with the merchants." Arianna looked up with a startled gasp. "The Generals have accepted that they will not have me to Lord General and pinned my former brother officer Commander-Sir Dar Vaie of Tenth Sietter for Major General. They think his ambition and his adherence to the code of honour will put him in their pockets although they know his love for myself and Clair will make this a sad choice for him. But I know something of Vaie and I can pull Tenth over onto our side."

"What can you know of Vaie?" Clair asked. "The sweet slut has slung his favours far and wide but he is an honourable man and has never done any thing anybody could keep in their pocket against him."

Tashka shrugged. "He is hung on your banner," she said. "That would not be enough in itself but you must trust me. The three troops will surround us. Vaie will be troubled in his heart but he will do it since he has the expressed orders of the Generals' strategic staff.

"We must use Tenth Athagine's two scouting sections: one to take a report to Lord van H'las, he must be told our situation and our intentions; the other to go with Pava's orders and fetch the two active Quarters of Ninth Vail. Ninth must go to Clathan's Hall on their way here. He has an arsenal the like you should never have allowed so near your castle, Clair. They must bring Clathan's cannon on wagons with them. It will take them four days from Tinian..."

"How does't know that Ninth are at Tinian?" Pava demanded.

"... and two days from Clathan's Hall. They must come up in the night, secretly. I will persuade Tenth Sietter to withdraw from around the castle that night. We will launch an attack on Fifth and Eighth using Tenth Athagine from within the castle, with the Castle Guard in defensive line, and from whichever side Tenth Sietter are supposed to be encamped on, using Ninth Vail and Clathan's cannon - Palair net and trident, sithou. If we can drive Fifth and Eighth Sietter back, we can send to Fourth Sietter in Luthian, who will always follow your arm, Clair, and push up through the Sietter Hills to meet the H'las troops coming up the river from Port Paviat. Sir," she said, turning abruptly to Vadya with a cold steely gleam in her blue eyes, "we will take the Maier Pass."

"Holy Angels!" Vadya breathed.

"What?" Clair cried in anguish. "H'las troops to take the Maier Pass!"

"Holy Heaven!" Tarra said with an easy laugh. "I wish I had taken you into my troop from the get-go, el Maien, instead of my bed!" Then he blushed scarlet.

Clair swung his head round and stared at Tarra then looked at Tashka. She looked nervously sideways back at him. He started to stand up, the colour rising in his lean cheek. He was pulling his glove out of his belt, Pava was grabbing him by the waist, Tashka leapt to his side and caught his arm, saying: "What business is it of yours!" in an anxious voice.

"I have trusted you as a friend," Clair hissed at Tarra. Tarra gave a deprecating shrug, his face still blushing with embarrassment.

"I would have waited if I had realised I would be the first," he said apologetically.

"What?!" Clair hissed.

"For Angels' sake!" Tashka cried, trying to push Clair back into Pava's arms. "You have not so many friends that you can risk the losing this one."

"el Maien," Vadya stood suddenly up. "If it is for any man to take offence at the stain on Tashka's honour, it is for me now. We have not time for this, sit down."

Clair looked into Vadya's intent brown eyes. Slowly he relaxed back in Pava's grip. He sat down, giving Tarra a highly unpromising glare.

"Why is it that van Sietter has suddenly called this war out of nowhere?" Lady el Farin's rasping voice spoke up for the first time, "and why is he willing to take prisoner not only his prospective son-by-marriage but his own son?"

Tashka glanced sideways at Clair. He shrugged one shoulder, he was still casting angry looks at Tarra el V'lair.

"I am not his son," Tashka replied with a sudden smile. "I am his daughter."

Lady el Farin started and stared incredulously at the muscular tall officer-aristocrat before her. "His ... daughter?" she repeated slowly then she laughed. "Of course you are! Anastelle el F'lara only had the one boy - and a girl. How can I have forgotten? And here was I courteously not asking to meet my grandson's betrothed because I thought his heart was tangled in her brother's fingers. I should never have suspected an el Gaiel of such interesting behaviour." Vadya had started choking on a piece of cheese. "My dear," she stood suddenly up and rustled over to her grandson in duty bound, laughing and holding her arms out. "Long love and happiness! I prithou pardon me that I have not been as hearty in my congratulations as I ought.

"So," she said, swinging back round from Vadya coughing and blushing in her embrace to Tashka, "that time you stood up in that card-playing hell where I was in difficulties," Vadya lifted his head, frowning, "and rescued my honour at the point of a rapier-sword, you were a woman too! Well, I wish I had half your spirit - besides your skill at the cards. My grandson is a most fortunate man." She looked into Vadya's eyes with her warmest smile. He attempted a smile back which came out twisted between embarrassment at the idea that he had been suspected of an affair with his own betrothed's brother and annoyance to hear that his grandmother in duty bound had gone off to a card-playing hell without adequate protection.

Tashka cleared her throat. "Hear me," she said. Vadya nodded his head impatiently. "van Sietter has signed a treaty with arms merchants," she said. "He engineers a war now and then and they supply him arms half price." There were exclamations of anger as those in the room thought about several recent regional conflicts which had not been expected to come to actual war. "van Sietter was negotiating with van H'las to reduce duties on trade from Port H'las through Sietter earlier this year," Tashka went on. "But he wants to crush the cloth merchants in Arventa because they have been growing too powerful. Meanwhile Arianna el Jien, his own daughter by marriage, has been scheming to ask the King to commission a Council for Trade and Employment. Run by merchants, this would ensure that trade is fairly distributed across Trossia and encourage full employment of all people to eliminate poverty. This is not to van Sietter's advantage. To prevent it he has taken us to war."

Arianna had raised her hands to her face. Her blue eyes looked in horror at Clair over her long pale fingers. "Not war!" she murmured. "How can I have caused a war, I do not believe in this vainglorious killing and death!"

"Listen to me!" Tashka said urgently. "For once it is not vainglorious, it is for the people and their right to work and eat and feed their families. van Sietter must have been fretting at this problem of yours and your brother's work with the merchants all the time he was in those negotiations with van H'las. And then van H'las asked for his daughter's hand for young van H'las. van Sietter knew very well I am Vadya's junior officer and that of all matches that could be proposed, this would be the only one Vadya could be expected not only to refuse but to be so insulted by that it might come to war. He expected Vadya to hang me for a spy, that would have been just cause for he himself to declare war. But the el Gaiels did not refuse the match, they were determined to get an agreement for the merchants. van Sietter tried to use the betrothal to drag Clair back to the castle, he hoped Clair and you would quarrel and you would go back to Iarve. All this has failed. The el Gaiels even liked the proposed match, after some early, er, difficulties with it," she cast a wicked glinting grin at Vadya who scowled at her.

"van Sietter has had to declare war himself. He hoped to take Vadya quickly. He knows van H'las will not be willing to take another bride, he thought he might wipe out the succession in H'las but even so, this is a strangely clumsy way to manage it - so many of the high nobility friendly to young van H'las here. Remember it: van Sietter is married to a Vilandian Princess. In his career as King's Minister for Foreign Affairs he has built up his influence in Vilandia. If he can pull other regions of Trossia into war by capturing young van H'las in a dirty enough trick, he can bring Vilandian troops into Trossia, apparently as an act of defence. There will be chaos! The threat of Vilandian armies conquering us from within will cause the King and his Ministers to turn to the man who has most influence in Vilandia, the man married to the sister of the Vilandian King: Pava el Maien van Sietter. Once van Sietter has that control, he will never let it go. He will rule the King, the Ministers and Trossia through the fear of Vilandian conquest which only he will apparently be holding at bay."

Distantly the noises in the castle could be heard around the edges of a horrid silence that had descended on the room.

"This is a fine basket of fruit!" Lady el Farin growled. "How are we to take out that old snake van Sietter when none of us can support you in case he brings Vilandia in on his side? What do you propose now, Captain-Lord el Maien?"

Tashka shrugged. She was suddenly a couple of shades paler, the red cut vivid in her grey-white cheek and still dripping blood. She put one hand to her head, she felt drained with the effort of putting together so much so quickly to tell it all to them and she felt a terrified horror that she had spilt so many of van Sietter's secrets. But he had pushed her too far, there was no worse that he could threaten her with than to divide her from the Commander she adored.

"Tashka," Vadya's voice sounded tinny in her ears, "take my seat." He stood up and put a hand under her arm, easing her into his chair. She obeyed him, black spots were dancing in front of her eyes.

"Pava, Tarra," Vadya said. "Get that scouting section on the road to Tinian. We Commanders should reconvene here, in one hour, with lunch on the table?" he looked at Clair who nodded. "Hanya, you could take notes of the discussion for us, is it not? We need a copy for my father and you know enough of military strategy to write the notes. Or do you mean to go back to your brother in Iarve?"

"No, Hanya cannot go," Tashka cut in. "Lady el Farin and Volka, also Tarra and Pava if they wish it, will be allowed safe passage but Hanya will be taken if he tries to go because he has been involved with the merchants. Anata is only a Dame, they will not look to hold her. Sevie can go, everyone knows Sevie has fluff for brains and would not be dealing with merchants! If she goes alone with el Darien to Trattai, it will compromise her honour and force van Iarve to agree to bestow her on Volka - who is mine and Vadya's junior officer."

"I will do whatever I can!" Hanya's ordinarily inexpressive scarred face was twisting with guilt. "I introduced the merchants to Anna's notice and have supported her in her work. At first I only thought we would make money but I came to believe in what she is doing and I will support you now any way I can."

Clair looked at Arianna. She was crying, her big blue eyes stared at him, flashing with tears. "I prithou pardon me," she sobbed. "Trieds't so hard to warn me!"

"My dear," he answered, his husky voice heavy with affection. "Tashka is wrong to say you have caused this war. It is van Sietter who has brought this war on us all. Even I did not imagine any thing quite so terrible as this. I am very sorry for it, to be the son of such a pale Angel who has caused you such difficulties in the noble-minded selfless strategy you devised. I would always have stood by you, right or wrong, but I can stand by you in this war with my hand on my heart and say I believe in your strategy for the people."

"And you'll come to the Generals' strategic staff headquarters in Port H'las," Tashka cut in.

Clair swung an astonished head round on her. "What for would I do that?" he asked. "Mine is not a strategic mind, you know it."

"What of Shier Bridge?" Vadya asked.

"Oh no," Clair said. "That was not my strategy, it was my Captain's ... my lover's. His strategy won us Shier Bridge, and lost me him. I cannot go back to war!" His voice was starting to go high.

Tashka started up in her chair, she glared at him, her voice a low growl. "You must come or else it will be just H'las against Sietter. Fourth and Tenth will not come unless you lift your banner; other Sietter troops may come to our side if you do. Caja Nain is still hung on your banner, although he has been deployed near Arventa. The General, his father, will probably lean on him too hard for him to cross his vow to the Generals' rings. You cannot hide out this war here with Anna, you must come down to Port H'las."

Clair stared at her with all the terrible tragedy of the war he had suffered etched in the lines of his lean face. The other Commanders in the room were sympathetically silent. They knew that Clair had put his arm up the signal to lead three quarters of his troop: one thousand four hundred and fifty-nine men, into their graves in one battle alone. It was not only for his lover's sake that Clair had never put up his banner again after Shier Bridge.

"It was Hanya's strategy, not yours," Tashka said in a low intense voice, staring into Clair's eyes. "I will swear that when he drew it up, you told them how it would be but the Angels will have pointed to the orders from the Generals' strategic staff: hold the Maier Pass at all cost. Tell it to me, did not their faces light up when they saw the beauty of Hanya's strategy? Mine did when I read of it.

"But you and I are van Sietter. You looked in your men's faces and wanted to take them home. Yet you were sworn to the hoop of the Generals' rings, sworn to take Hanya and the Angels as your victory. The structure of the command in Sietter is such that the lives of the ordinary men are as nothing, most especially in Fourth as it was then with three Angels and Hanya in charge and a clutch of tip-top rising stars for Lieutenants, not a single steady hand among them to side with you and point to the lack of care in such a strategy. You took them to their deaths for an idle selfish whim of van Sietter's but you used it to get us all peace: Sietter and H'las alike.

"I have heard van H'las himself, in the days before he knew us, speak highly of the great personal honour you showed, and brought to the lost Fourth Sietter officers and men, using what many would call a victory of high military honour to get us peace instead of pushing forward from it to attempt to conquer H'las. You are not being asked to go back to throw men away like broken potsherds now. You will be in the structure of the H'las command, where they take their vow to care for the men seriously. You will not be out in the field to act on the orders whether you believe them or no, you will be back in the offices and will be able to give the No to any strategy that costs too highly in the men of Fourth and Tenth Sietter. You will do it for the sake of the poor of our own region, not for that old snake in his nest of secrets."

Clair's face crumpled, he hid it in his hands. Arianna felt a terrible pity and guilt, to have brought this on him. She got up and went to him and pressed his shoulder.

"We all have our parts to play," she said to him softly. "I must put my pacifism in my pocket for the sake of our people."

He lifted his slanted grey eyes and looked into her eyes. "We were so happy making our marriage," he murmured through his tears. "Now must I put our marriage in my pocket and leave you again?"

"I will keep our marriage in my pocket with my pacifism," she said, gently pressing his shoulder. "You came back before. I will trust you to leave me only to come back to me again." She turned and said, "Tashka, you must come and have that cut seen to. Come with me to my room." She went to Tashka and took her arm. Tashka and Clair stared at each other. He gave a jerky nod with his chin and she let Arianna lead her out of the room.

"Hartha!" Arianna shouted to a maidservant. "Bring some salve and warm water to my room." She started up the stairs with Tashka just behind her.

When they were halfway up the stairs, Vadya caught them up and took Tashka's arm, hovering nervously on the step below her and casting agonised looks at Arianna. She smiled at him and said: "Well, I will wait for you in my room, Tashka, but do not be long," turning with a swish of skirts to go on up the stairs.

"T-Tashka," Vadya said urgently. "I want to say ... I was very angry this morning, that you have so little faith in me. I thought you must have realised by now that I will never renounce my vow to you. I tell you plain, el Maien, you are my care, my honour and my victory. You are my Captain and you'll be Commander soon and one day you will be a General - in H'las. You are the finest soldier I know and I will not let any thing stand in your way. I have thought."

Tashka's blue eyes lit up. "Vadya!" she said. "I hoped ... I never thought ...! I knew I could be Captain but I thought ... Vadya, I do pray one day I am worthy to be your General, I do pray it."