David Weber - War Maid's choice

Sharlassa hung her head, hearing the serious note under his humor and blushing more darkly than before.

“It’s not as if you were the first person to ever sneak out for a little time of her-or his-own, you know.” She wiggled at the note of amused but genuine sympathy in his tone. “ I’ve been known to sneak away on occasion-generally from my tutors, not the arms master,” he confessed. “In fact, I’d do the same thing today, and I’m the next best thing to ten years older than you are.”

“I know,” she sighed, “but I really shouldn’t do it. Especially not when Baroness Hanatha is being so kind to me.”

“Aunt Hanatha is kind to everyone — even me,” Sir Trianal told her firmly. “It’s the way she is. Although I will confess that she seems especially taken with you.” He considered her thoughtfully. “Sometimes I think it’s because you remind her of Leanna, but mostly I think it’s because she simply likes the person you are. And even if she didn’t, she knows how hard this all is for you.”

“Milord?” She looked up quickly, startled, and he chuckled.

“You’re not the only one who found out his life was going places he hadn’t planned on, Milady. I never expected to be Uncle Tellian’s heir-adoptive, you know. I knew he and Aunt Hanatha had a kindness for me, and I knew I’d always have a place here at Hill Guard if I needed it, but I always expected that to be as of vassal of whoever Leeana married. Of course, that changed.”

His tone was much drier with the last sentence, but he also smiled and shook his head. Sir Trianal, Sharlassa had realized long ago, was not one of those who believed Leeana had disgraced her family or herself. Sharlassa was reasonably certain he was less than fond of war maids in general, but at least he seemed to respect them. She supposed a cynical person would say that was because Leeana’s desertion to the war maids had worked out quite well for him, but Sharlassa knew that wasn’t the reason for his attitude. She could feel the genuine affection, the love, for his cousin whenever he spoke about her. In fact Stop that, she told herself again.

“I do feel a little bit like a duckling trying to become a swan, Milord,” she confessed after a moment.

“I know.” He smiled again. “And, trust me, it does get better…eventually. Although-”

A much stronger wind gust blew through the orchard behind a vanguard of rain, drenching Sharlassa’s spine, and Sir Trianal broke off.

“A duckling-or a swan-is what you’re going to have to be if we’re going to get you back to the house unsoaked!” he said, looking up at the clouds. He considered them for a moment, then whipped off his doublet and draped it over her shoulders and head.

“Milord, you can’t-!” she began.

“Nonsense!” He laughed at her while the strengthening breeze plucked at his fine linen shirt with damp fingers. “I’m sure one of those lessons I evaded when I was younger said that any gentleman was required to give up his cloak or poncho-if he had one-to prevent a fair maid from getting drenched. Unfortunately, I seem to have left the house without either of those, so this will have to do.”

“But you’ll get soaked, and-”

“In that case, you really should stop arguing with me and get moving so we can get me under a roof before I become soaked to the bone and expire with pneumonia,” he said sternly.

She looked at him helplessly for a moment, then laughed.

“Whatever you say, Milord! Whatever you say.”

Rain pattered down on the roofs of Hill Guard castle. It was a little late in the year for the persistent, day-long, soaking rains of spring’s first blush, and not quite early enough for the short-lived, torrential afternoon thunderstorms of midsummer, but there was enough water in the air to go around, Bahzell reflected, standing under the overhanging roof which projected over the central keep’s massively timbered front door. And probably enough to fill the Bogs knee-deep and send the overflow gushing down the old riverbed to join the water from Chanharsa’s tunnel culverts, he thought, regarding the waterfalls streaming like finely beaded curtains from the eaves of that protecting roof. That would be one explanation for the condition in which Baron Tellian’s latest guest had arrived at his ancestral keep above the city of Balthar.

Bahzell’s lips twitched in amusement as the muddy, soaked-to-the-skin, plainly dressed warrior climbed down from his saddle in Hill Guard’s courtyard, for the newcomer bore precious little resemblance to the dandified, arrogant Sir Vaijon of Almerhas he’d first met the better part of ten years ago in Belhadan. The changes were much for the better, in Bahzell’s opinion, although he hated to think about how Vaijon’s father must have reacted the first time his wandering son returned for a visit. The beautiful, jeweled sword at Vaijon’s side was about all that was left of his onetime sartorial splendor, and that sword had been even more profoundly changed than Vaijon himself.

“And aren’t you just the drowned rat?” the massive hradani inquired genially as Vaijon climbed the steps towards him while one of Tellian’s grooms led his horse towards the stable at a brisk pace.

“Drowned, certainly,” Vaijon agreed wryly, reaching out to clasp forearms with him. “The Gullet’s hock deep in a lot of places, and cold, too-somebody forgot to tell Chemalka it’s spring, I think-but surely you can find something better than a rat to compare me to!”

“Oh, I’m sure I could, if it happened I was so minded,” Bahzell replied, returning his clasp firmly.

“Which you aren’t. I see.” Vaijon nodded, then turned to Brandark, and extended his hand to the Bloody Sword in turn. “You could come to my assistance here, you know.”

“I could…if it happened I was so minded,” Brandark said with a grin, and Vaijon heaved a vast sigh.

“Not bad enough that I’m doomed to spend my life among barbarian hradani, but they have to insult me at every opportunity, as well.”

“Aye, it’s a hard lot you’ve drawn, and no mistake,” Bahzell’s tone was commiserating, but his eyes twinkled and his ears twitched in amusement.

“Yes, it is.” Vaijon pushed back the hood of his poncho, showing golden hair which had once been elegantly coiffed but which he now wore in a plain warrior’s braid very much like Bahzell’s own. The Sothoii-style leather sweatband he’d adopted made him look older and tougher, somehow (not that he wasn’t quite tough enough without it, as Bahzell knew even better than most), and the past six years had put laugh lines around his eyes and weathered his complexion to a dark, burnished bronze. At six and a half feet in height, Vaijon was “short” only in comparison to a Horse Stealer like Bahzell, and with his thirty-second birthday just past, he was settling into the prime of his life.

“The bit from Hurgrum to the Gullet wasn’t so bad, now that they’ve got the locks open all the way,” he continued. “A lot faster and easier than the first time I made that particular trip, at least! But I, for one, will be delighted once the tunnel finally breaks through and my poor horse doesn’t have to swim all the way to the top of the damned Escarpment whenever there’s a little sprinkle! I said as much to Chanharsa when I passed through, too. I even took her a basket of your mother’s cookies as a bribe, Bahzell. I was sure that would inspire her to greater efforts! But she only laughed at me.” He heaved a vast sigh. “I never would’ve guessed dwarves were just as disrespectful of birth and position as hradani.”

“Well, I suppose the least we can be doing is to get you out of the rain now you’re here,” Bahzell told him. “Tellian was all set to come out and greet you his own self, but I told him as how he should be staying right where he was.” The hradani’s expression darkened slightly. “I’m not liking that cough of his one bit, and the man’s too stubborn to be calling in a healer. Or letting me deal with it, come to that.”