P. Hodgell - Bound in Blood

And again Jame recalled that memory that she had inadvertently shared with her brother—the feeling, the sound of Pereden’s neck snapping under his hands.

If your father knew what you had done . . .

But Lord Ardeth didn’t know. Neither did Pereden’s son, nor Jame.

Never mind.

“Are you tired?” Timmon’s whisper in passing stirred loose strands of hair by her ear. His warm breath made her tingle. “All that unnecessary running around. So undignified.”

Jame almost giggled, remembering Higbert grimly flopping along behind Gorbel. At least he still had had his smelly boots, if precious little else.

The music stopped.

She caught Timmon’s arm and threw him over her hip. Simultaneously, he grabbed her wrist and twisted it as he fell. She somersaulted, landing on her feet and breaking free just as he smoothly rolled upright. They circled, each looking for a new grip in another round of earth-moving. He grabbed her jacket and swept her feet out from under her. Both fell, he on top.

Time stopped. His weight on her, their faces close enough to exchange breath for breath, lip to lip, his moving hands . . .

. . . were not the ones she loved.

The randon with the flute was watching them. He raised his instrument to his lips and a derisive note rang out. Jame broke free.

It had only been a moment, she thought. Perhaps no one else had noticed. Timmon was smirking. She could have hit him. While the music played, however, she must dance.

His hands were as soft and well tended as a cadet’s life permitted, unlike those others with their agile strength and elegant lacework of scars, dear-bought with much pain in distant lands. She had heard the other Ardeth of Timmon’s ten-command grumble about their previous “class” which their leader had shirked, the ongoing repair of Tentir’s outermost wall damaged by the spring’s earthquakes.

“You could have helped,” she muttered as they slipped past each other in water-flowing Senetha. In general, Sene partners changed with each new round, but no one dared to interrupt their commanders’ duet.

“With the wall?”

So their thoughts still matched.

“What a waste of time,” he said lightly.

Then again, perhaps not.

“After all, who would be fool enough to attack the randon college?”

Everyone kept saying that. Such arrogance seemed like an open challenge to fate.

“Cattle raids happen every autumn,” said Jame, turning with him, “farther north.”

She moved more quickly to take the lead, the flutist’s notes racing after her. Everyone moved faster. At this pace, soon no one would have breath for anything but the dance.

“We aren’t the only ones . . . in the Riverland . . . facing a hungry winter.”

“And a simple wall . . . will keep them out?”

“If Kendar build it, yes.”

“You see? They don’t need a mere Highborn . . . getting in the way.”

“They need all the hands . . . they can get.”

She was thinking not so much of the Merikit as of the hill tribes farther north, some of whom lived under the shadow of the great Barrier between Rathillien and Perimal Darkling. Chingetai’s failed attempt to claim the entire Riverland had left his own borders unsecured and the northern end of the valley wide open from all directions.

The music stopped.

Timmon struck with fire-leaping. She parried and countered.

“I wasn’t born to pile up stones,” he said, now barely keeping down his voice. “You weren’t to run with the common herd. Let Gorbel trot around and around like the donkey that he is. He’s a joke. You must know that.”

“He’s prepared to suffer for what he wants. So am I. Are you?”

Instinct made them leap apart as Dar staggered between them, bounced off the wall, and launched himself back at his Ardeth opponent.

“The walls are taking a beating today,” remarked Jame.

She slid past Timmon, her water-flowing defense to his fire-leaping offense. He followed, still trying to land a blow, she continuing to slip away. His face flushed, but not with exertion.

“Think how much I can offer you.” The words rushed out of him, low and urgent. “A position. Power. Think how little you will have when the Highlord calls you to heel. He can do anything he likes. Any bed he chooses, he can toss you into, including his own. To whom will you spread your legs, lady? Whom will you call ‘master’?”

Jame slapped him.

For a moment they stood frozen, staring at each other. Everyone else had stopped as if caught up in the shock of that moment.

Yes, thought Jame sadly, the delicate courtship was over.

He launched himself at her again, driving her diagonally across the room in a frenzy of kicks and blows.

Cadets scrambled out of their way. Highborn fighting in earnest was a serious matter, even if one of them only baited and dodged. Color flared on Timmon’s cheeks, leaving the rest of his face white and taut. Jame knew she should engage, if only to give the Ardeth an outlet, but she was too angry.

“I haven’t been giving myself enough credit,” he said, with a feint at her face, followed by a punch that connected, hard, with the ribs just below her left breast. She reeled away. He followed. “I should be more like my father, who took what he wanted and deserved it. For that matter, why should you act so high and mighty? We’re both lordan, but my grandfather is far more likely to support me than your brother is you. Everyone knows Torisen is only waiting for you to fail.”

True, but beside the point.

“We’re here, now, trying to accomplish something. What’s more important than that?”

For a moment, Timmon struggled with himself. “Sometimes,” he said, in a half-strangled voice, “I’d like to wring your silly little neck.”

Jame raised an eyebrow. “I’ll put you down on my list after . . . um, Higbert.”

“You actually like Gorbel, don’t you? Is that why you slipped into his quarters at lunchtime, to hold his hand?”

Reflected in the fragmentary mirrors, Jame saw the randon raise his flute but hesitate, either to draw breath or perhaps to listen. Timmon’s voice, gone suddenly shrill, had cut through half the classroom.

She also paused, turned from Timmon, anticipating the first note. They both needed the dance to regain their tempers. Still, she couldn’t resist a final shot.

“I think,” she said lightly, as the music began, “that you’re jealous of Gorbel.”

The back of her head seemed to explode. The wall, then the floor leaped up at her. People were shouting, the randon loudest of all: “Damn you, I was playing!”

“Sorry.” That mutter was Timmon, farther away, withdrawing. “Sorry, sorry, sorry . . . ”

Someone behind the wall chuckled. Graykin. Watching her again through some chink or spy-hole.

“Oh, be quiet,” she told him.

Fingers probed her skull, making her wince and the light flicker.

“I’m all right,” she protested, and pushed Brier away. Her stomach churned. Suddenly, both lunch and what was left of breakfast, black lumps and all, spewed out onto the floor. “Well, sort of all right. The lordan made a mistake. And I’ve attacked another wall.”

“We saw. It was no mistake, and nearly a killing blow.”

“What, to the wall?”

Jame clawed her way upright, using Brier for support, remembering too late to sheathe her nails. For a moment the room darkened, then her eyes cleared. Trinity, but her head hurt. How often could one get hit before one’s brains fell out? Maybe they had, long ago.

“I didn’t see you coming to my rescue,” she said, gingerly fingering the rising lump.

“Twice in one day? If he lost his temper, lady, he had help, and you were careless.”