Mercedes Lackey - Wintermoon

“Liar.”

“Cliro—what could it matter? We both love you. Do you—” she threw back her head, defiant “—grudge me a little pleasure?”

Always her way. Attack was defense to Araitha.

“I grudge you this.”

Thestus opened his locked lips and spoke to Araitha.

“Don’t try to reason with her. We both know what she can be like when she loses her self-control.”

Cliro turned and slapped him stingingly across the mouth.

He swung aside with a curse, was already reaching for the dagger lying in its sheath on the floor. Araitha made a noise. Cliro kicked Thestus’s hand away, then kicked Thestus full in the chest so he fell back bruisingly on his well-formed butt.

“No,” said Cliro. “Soon but not yet, sweetheart.”

“Cliro—” said Araitha.

Clirando no longer liked the sound of her name from her friend’s beautiful mouth. The mouth was very red and swollen from Thestus’s kisses tonight. Maybe that was why the name of Cliro sounded wrong.

“Be quiet, you bitch. Both of you. I’ll issue the challenge now, so you know. In seven days at first light, before the Maiden. First you, I think, Thestus, for the shorter time I’ve known you—if ever I knew you at all. A little later for you, Araitha, you filthy slut.”

“I am no—”

“ You are a slut . You are a traitor . To me. Him I hate. But you I hate the most. I called you friend.”

Araitha began to cry, like any soft merchant’s wife.

Clirando turned, her own eyes burning. She stalked out and across the court, where the others standing there, who had seen most and heard all of it, murmured together.

She knew that anyone, other perhaps than some great sage, would have felt shocked pain and anger. But aside from her personal hurt, this very publicly witnessed betrayal showed her own judgement up poorly. No one could fail to be aware she had been in ignorance until tonight. Clirando was a commander. In no respect could she be seen to have been stupid.

She thought now, in horror, that, blind to their antics, she might well have trusted them beside her in battle—and possibly been unwise in that, too. Had their desire proved so irresistible, honor demanded they should have told her to her face. But they had deceived her as if she were some silly woman reared only for the house.

Clirando did not go up to the lightning-blasted roof.

“Forgive me,” she said to the goddess, in the private shrine beside the main hall. Amber lamplight starred the goddess’s calm face. Polished marble etched and dressed with gold, her eyes were two green stones. Clirando also had green eyes—Thestus had said they were green as leaves of the bay tree. “I can’t help mend your roof, Maiden. I’m shaking like some fool before her first skirmish. Pardon me.”

The calm face looked down at hers.

“I will meet both Araitha and Thestus individually in the war-court. Before the whole town. I think you allowed me to see what those two had done to me, to find them out. I’ll punish them. Oh, not a fight to the death. But I’ll shame them both. They’ll lose their places in Amnos and go far away. Where I need never look at them again. Do you allow it, Lady?”

Above, there came a faint rushing—tiles dislodged—and then cries and a crash as they plummeted onto the terraces below.

“Is that disapproval, Lady?”

Parna did not answer. But Clirando had never known her to. It was a formality to ask. Clirando’s human course was already set.

She had long thought, though one must respect the gods, one could not expect understanding from them. They gave favors or hurts according to some indecipherable law of their own.

And I am hurt, she thought. Struck in the heart.

She would make them pay, her lover, her sister. There was no other road now to peace.

Arguments among the warrior-priests of Parna and the Father were often settled in the war-court, in public duel.

Generally it was two men who fought. Women tended to settle their disagreements with only their bands to witness. Rarely did a female warrior demand satisfaction of a male in the court, though there had been cases now and then. Clirando had known that aside from the officials and certain priests bound to attend, a lot of Amnos would crowd into the public seats to see.

It had occurred to her, many people had known about Thestus’s liaison with Araitha. Some even came to her, subsequent to her finding out, and confessed—among these was Erma from Clirando’s own band.

“I never knew if I should tell you, Cliro—”

“You should have.”

“I know. But—”

Clirando forgave Erma, who was holding back her tears. She was still young, only fifteen, five years younger that Clirando. Tuyamel, on the other hand, offered to skin Thestus for Clirando. “I wouldn’t want the skin, thanks, my friend,” Clirando said. Tuy had laughed. “Fair enough. I shall leave it to you then.”

The morning was fine, the sun just torching the east, when Clirando stood on the war-court and faced her former lover across the clean paving.

All around, the crowd sat in respectful silence. There was none of the shouting or merriment that went on when ritual games or war exercises took place here. This was a solemn, fraught occasion.

Clirando had to steel herself, too. She had fought beside Thestus only once in battle—against pirates last fall, blood raining among red leaves at the edges of Amnos’s forested shores. But often he and she had exercised together. They knew each other’s moves perhaps too well.

She had thought he would try to surprise her. She judged correctly.

The instant the signal came to begin, he dropped onto the ground and came rolling at her like a human hedgehog. As she leaped aside, his short sword whipped out. It cut one of her sandal thongs. Only her reflexes had saved her from much worse.

She tore off both sandals and he, having stood up again, watched her mockingly.

There was contempt in his face. Maybe that was only a mask. Or maybe his looks of love had been the mask.

She had tried very hard not to examine why he had used her as he had, and played her false. Now certainly was not the time for analysis.

Clirando wondered if he had other tricks, and he had. Having allowed her space to undo her shoes, he lounged idly, paring his nails, so a slight amusement rippled through some of the audience, only to be shushed as improper.

He would not move again to meet her.

She stood waiting.

He stood idling. He began to whistle a popular tune of the town.

“Come on,” she said. Her voice carried.

“I’m here if you want me. You come on.”

She knew it was another trick.

Clirando moved toward him slowly, then suddenly very fast, running as if straight into him—veering at the last second. A fine pinkish powder spurted from his left hand, clouding the air between them. He must have taken it out with the paring knife. It would have been in her face, her eyes, if she had dodged less effectively. Play dirty then. A bitter smile touched her mouth. He must be scared of her.

From veering, she swung and cut him across the left shoulder. Blood burst like a flower.

With a roar he turned on her.

To her he seemed heavy now, graceless. He had not bothered to prepare for this, only his tricks. She had been practicing every day.

He was a poor warrior. Brave and strong, cunning sometimes. But his skill was not so great. She had thought more highly of him when she loved him, seeing him through lover’s eyes, wanting him to shine.

Inside six minutes more, she had scored him lightly across arms and chest, thighs, and even his back as he went skidding down from a sidelong blow. She did not aim to cripple him. He would need his fighter’s trade where he was going, out into the wide world far from Amnos.