Mercedes Lackey - Oathbound

The mare lowered her head with grave dignity and snuffled the child's hand once, for politeness' sake, while the girl's eyes widened in delight. Then when Tarma put the reins in Laeka's hands, Kessira followed her with gentle docility, taking careful, dainty steps on the unfamiliar surface. Kethry handed her the reins to the mule as well; Rodi, of course, would follow anyone to food and stabling.

Hadell showed them their room; on the first floor, it was barely big enough to contain the bed. But it did have a window, and the walls were freshly whitewashed. There were plenty of blankets -- again, well-worn but scrupulously clean -- and a feather comforter. Tarma had stayed in far worse places, and said as much.

"So have I," Kethry replied, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling off her riding boots with a grimace of pain. "The place where I met you, for one. I think we've gotten a bargain, personally."

"Makes me wonder, but I may get the answer when I see the rest of the guests. Well, what's next?" Tarma handed her a pair of soft leather half-boots meant for indoor wear.

"Dinner and bed. It's far too late to go to the Hiring Hall; that'll be for first thing in the morning? I wonder if we could manage a bath out of Hadell? I do not like smelling like a mule!"

As if to answer that question, there came a gentle rap on the door. "Lady-guests?" a boy's soprano said carefully, "Would ye wish th' use o' the steamhouse? If ye be quick, Da says ye'll have it t' yerselves fer a candlemark or so."

Tarma opened the door to him; a sturdy, dark child, he looked very like his father. "And the charge, lad?" she asked, "Though if it's in line with the rest of the bill, I'm thinking we'll be taking you up on it."

"Copper for steamhouse and bath, copper for soap and towels," he said, holding out the last. "It's at the end of the hallway."

"Done and done, and point us the way." Kethry took possession of what he carried so fast he was left gaping. "Pay the lad, Tarma; if I don't get clean soon, I'm going to rot of my own stink."

Tarma laughed, and tossed the boy four coppers.

"And here I was thinking you were more trailhardened than me," she chuckled, following Kethry down the hall in the direction the boy pointed. "Now you turn out to be another soft sybarite."

"I didn't notice you saying no."

"We have a saying -- "

"Not another one!"

" 'An enemy's nose is always keener than your own.' "

"When I want a proverb, I'll consult a cleric. Here we are," Kethry opened the door to the bathhouse, which had been annexed to the very end of the inn. "Oh, heaven!"

This was, beyond a doubt, a well managed place. There were actually three rooms to the bathing area; the first held buckets and shallow tubs, and hot water bubbled from a wooden pipe in the floor into a channel running through it, while against the wall were pumps. This room was evidently for actual bathing; the bather mixed hot water from the channel with cold from the pumps, then poured the dirty water down the refuse channel. The hotwater channel ran into the room beside this one, which contained one enormous tub sunk into the floor, for soaking out aches and bruises. Beyond this room was what was obviously a steamroom. Although it was empty now, there were heated rocks in a pit in the center of the floor, buckets with dippers in them to pour water on the rocks, and benches around the pit. The walls were plain, varnished wood; the windows of something white and opaque that let light in without making a mockery of privacy.

"Heaven, in very deed," Tarma was losing no time in shedding her clothing. "I think I'm finally going to be warm again!"

One candlemark later, as they were blissfully soaking in hot mineral water -- "This is a hot spring," Kethry remarked after sniffing the faint tang of copper in the air. "That's why he can afford to give his baths away" -- a bright grin surmounted by a thatch of tousled brown hair appeared out of the steam and handed them their towels.

"Guard-shift's changin', miladies; men as stays here'll be lookin' fer their baths in a bit. You wants quiet, ye'd best come t' dinner. You wants a bit o' summat else -- you jest stays here, they'll gie' ye that!"

"No doubt," Tarma said wryly, taking the towel Laeka held out to her and emerging reluctantly from the hot tub, thinking that in some ways a child being raised in an inn grew up even faster than a child of the Clans. "We'll take the quiet, thanks. What's wrong?"

The child was staring at her torso with stricken eyes. "Lady -- you -- how did -- who did -- "

Tarma glanced down at her own hard, tawnygold body, that was liberally latticed with a network of paler scars and realized that the child had been startled and shocked by the evidence of so many old wounds on one so relatively young. She also thought about the adulation that had been in Laeka's eyes, and the concern in her father's when the man had seen it there. This might be a chance to do the man a good turn, maybe earn enough gratitude that he'd exert himself for them.

"A lot of people did that to me, child," she said quietly. "And if you've ever thought to go adventuring, think of these marks on me first. It isn't like the tales, where people go to battle one candlemark and go feast the next, with never a scratch on them. I was months healing from the last fight I had, and the best that those I fought for could give me was a mule, provisions, and a handful of coin as reward. The life of a mercenary is far from profitable most of the time."

Laeka gulped, and looked away. "I like horses," she ventured, finally. "I be good with 'em."

"Then by all means, become a horse-trainer," Tarma answered the unspoken question. "Train 'em well, and sell 'em to fools like me who earn their bread with swords instead of brains. Tell you what -- you decide to do that, you send word to the Clans in my name. I'll leave orders you're to get a better choice than we give most outlanders. Hmm?"

"Aye!" The girl's eyes lighted at the promise, and she relaxed a little as Tarma donned her closefitting breeches, shirt, and wrapped Shin'a'in jacket, covering the terrible scars. "Da says t' tell you supper be stew, bread 'n' honey, an' ale."

"Sounds fine -- Keth?"

"Wonderful."

"Tell him we'll be there right behind you."

The child scampered out, and Kethry lifted an eyebrow. "Rather overdoing it, weren't you?"

"Huh! You didn't see the hero-worship in the kid's eyes, earlier, or the worry in her Da's. Not too many female mercenaries ride through here, I'd guess; the kid's seen just enough to make it look glamorous. Well, now she knows better, and I'm thinking it's just as well."

"You knew better, but you took this road anyway."

"Aye, I did," Tarma laced her boots slowly, her harsh voice dropping down to a whisper. "And the only reason I left the Plains was to revenge my Clan. All Shin'a'in learn the sword, but that doesn't mean we plan to live by it. We -- we don't live to fight, we fight when we have to, to live. Sometimes we don't manage the last. As for me, I had no choice in taking up the blade, in becoming a mercenary; no more than did you."

Kethry winced, and touched Tarma's arm lightly. "Put my foot in it, didn't I? She'enedra, I'm sorry -- I meant no offense -- "

Tarma shook off her gloom with a shake of her head. "I know that. None taken. Let's get that food. I could eat this towel, I'm that hungry."

The whitewashed common room was quite empty, although the boy who brought them their supper (older than the other two children, darker, and quieter) told them it would be filling shortly. And so it proved; men of all ages and descriptions slowly trickling in to take their places at table and bench, being served promptly by Hadell's two sons. The room could easily hold at least fifty; the current crowd was less than half that number. Most of the men looked to be of early middle-age with a sprinkling of youngsters; all wore the unconsciously competent air of a good professional soldier. Tarma liked what she saw of them. None of these men would ever be officers, but the officers they did serve would be glad to have them.