Mercedes Lackey - Kerowyn's Ride

But as she drifted away into sleep, she couldn’t help but wonder just how much of a fight the sword was going to give her. And who was going to come out the victor.

The next four weeks were a constant reminder that a potent Shin’a’in curse was, “May your life be interesting.”

The moment she fell asleep at night, she dreamed. Vivid, colorful dreams of women in peril, in which she rode up, and put their peril to rout. Dreams of a life on the move, in which all innkeepers were friendly, all companions amusing, all weather perfect—in short, a life right out of the ballads.

Finally, on Warrl’s advice, she took the sword down off the wall, and unsheathed it. With it held in both her hands, she thought directly at it, unshielded.

I’m not thirteen, and you’re not going to gull me with hero-tales, she told it firmly. Save them for minstrels and little children.

Was it her imagination, or did she hear a sigh of disappointment as she hung the blade back up on the wall?

In any event, the dreams ended, only to be replaced by darkly realistic ones. Night after night, she was witness to all the evil that could be inflicted on women by men. Abuse and misuse, emotional and physical; rape, murder, torture. Evil working in subtler fashion; marriages that proved to be no more than legalized slavery, and the careful manipulation of a bright and sensitive mind until its owner truly believed with all her heart in her own worthlessness. Betrayal, not once, but many times over. All the hurts that could be inflicted when one person loved someone who in turn loved no one but himself.

This was hardly restful.

And during the day, any time she was not completely shielded, the sword manipulated her emotional state, making her restless, inflaming her with the desire to be out and on the move.

But she wasn’t ready, and she knew it. Even if the blade didn’t.

Every day meant fighting the same battle—or rather, mental wrestling match—over and over; the sword saying “Go,” and Kero replying “No.”

And to add the proper final touch, Daren was all-too-obviously becoming more and more infatuated with her. And infatuation was all that it was, Kero was pretty certain of that. She had a long talk with her grandmother about the differences between love and lesser emotions, and to her mind, Daren did not evidence anything other than a blind groping after someone he thought was the answer to all his emotional needs.

Or as Tarma put it, much more bluntly, “He’s barely weaned, and you’re a mature doe. In you, he gets both mate and mama. I hate to put it that way, child, but emotionally you’re years ahead of him.... Young Daren isn’t in love with you, little hawk, he’s in love with love.”

Kero hadn’t said anything, but she’d privately felt Tarma had wrapped the entire situation up in one neat package. Daren would make someone a very good husband—when he grew up. She was fairly certain that when he did so, it would happen all at once—but he’d have to be forced into the situation.

Meanwhile, he wasn’t going to. Not with someone like her around.

He was making some hints that had her rather disturbed, hints she hadn’t confided to anyone.

Hints that he would be willing be actually marry her, if that was the only way he could keep her. As if he thought she could be kept! That was keeping her awake at night as much as the dreams were.

Then, one night, he did more than hint. He told her that he would talk to his father about ennobling her if she’d just come with him to the Court. And there was only one reason for him to make that offer that she knew of. He was serious about her.

And she didn’t love him. She liked him well enough, but her answer to the question “Could you live without him?” was most decidedly “yes.” If he left tomorrow and she never saw him again, she would miss him, but she’d go right back to her sword-practice without a second thought, and her sleep would hardly be plagued by dreams and longing.

She got up early the next morning, after a particularly bad night, to pace the cold floor and try to get herself sorted out.

It was at least a candlemark till dawn, but she just couldn’t lie there in bed anymore. She lit the candle and got dressed in the chill pre-morning air, and began walking the length of her room, pacing it out as carefully as if she was measuring it.

I like Daren, she thought, rubbing her arms to warm them. He’s clever, he’s intelligent, he’s flexible—he’s not bad in bed, either. He wouldn’t ever hurt me deliberately.

But the sword had filled her few sleeping hours with some fairly horrific scenes. And if she married Daren, there was no way she could do anything about problems like the ones the sword was showing her.

The prince’s wife just can’t go riding off whenever the mood takes her. In fact, I doubt very much that the prince’s wife would be able to enjoy half the freedom Kerowyn does.

That’s really what it came down to: privilege, or freedom? The relief of being “like every other girl,” or the excitement of being like no one else, of setting her own standards? Power and wealth, or the ability to, now and again, right a wrong?

If she married Daren, she would never again be able to totally be herself.

If she didn’t, she’d spend the rest of her life keeping her head above water, and wondering if the next sword thrust, the next arrow, was Death’s messenger.

Security, or liberty?

It was enough to give anyone a headache, and she had an incredible one, when, in the pearly-gray moment of pre-dawn, someone tapped lightly on her door.

She nearly tripped over her own feet in her haste to answer it; she was expecting Tarma, but it was Daren.

He was white and shaking, and from the tear streaks on his face and his reddened eyes, he’d been crying. He tried to compose himself, his upper lip still quivering as he tried to breathe more calmly.

Kero stood, frozen, with her hand still on the door latch. She couldn’t even begin to imagine why Daren would look this way; surely he hadn’t been upsetting himself that much over her, had he? But his next words told her everything she needed to know.

“Kero—” he said, hoarsely, as tears began to trickle down his face once again. “Kero, it’s—my father’s dead.”

For one long moment, she couldn’t seem to do anything but stand there stupidly, staring at him. Then his shoulders began to shake with silent sobs, and she reacted automatically, pulling him inside, taking him over to the bed and getting him to sit down on the side of it.

“What happened?” she asked, bewildered. Last she’d heard, the King was in excellent health, and Prince Thanel had been safely married off to the Queen of Valdemar. Dear heavens, that was over a year ago. Closer to two. Daren expected to be called home then, but it didn’t happen, and that was when he started making hints about getting me ennobled. Have we been here that long ?

She tallied up the seasons in her mind, and realized with a bit of shock that she had been Tarma’s pupil for over three years. She glanced reflexively at the mirror built into the wardrobe, and the Kerowyn that looked back at her, hard, lean, eyes wide with surprise, was nothing like the ill-trained girl that had arrived here.

Never mind that. Right now I have to get some sense out of Daren. She held Daren against her shoulder and let him cry himself out; that was the best thing she could do for him right now. As the pink light of dawn filled the room, he got a little better control over himself, and groped after a handkerchief. As usual, he’d forgotten one. She’d never been quite so conscious before of the fact that he was younger than she by at least a year. At this moment he felt more like her brother than her lover.