P. Hodgell - Bound in Blood

“All right. I’ve paid. Now forget it.”

But it would be a long time before anyone did.

The last class of that long, long day was held in the Knorth barracks, in the third-story common room overlooking the training square. Only for Knorth cadets, it was taught by Harn Grip-hard, Torisen’s war-leader and sometime commandant of Tentir.

He was waiting for Jame when she and her command arrived, his broad shape blotting out most of one window, back turned to them as he looked down on the busy square. Also waiting were Vant and his tail ten.

Jame sank down cross-legged on the floor, glad to be off her feet. Trinity, but her head hurt while her cheek felt hot and swollen under the ginger probe of her fingertips.

“Is my eye turning black?” she asked Brier.

“Yes.”

With autumn, the days were shortening. The sun had slipped behind the western peaks of the Snowthorns scarcely past midafternoon with a long, slow twilight to follow. Shadows already pooled in the corners of the common room. It would be hours yet, however, before anyone conceded to the growing dark and lit the first rush or wax candle.

When Harn turned, Jame thought at first that only the failing light gave his wide, bestubbled face such a gray cast. When he spoke, however, she heard the same leaden tinge in his voice. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days, and his arm was in a sling.

“What happened to him?”

Dar answered in a whisper. “He slipped on that tower stair of his. Claimed the stones were greased, but they were scrubbed clean by the time the servants got to them. Luckily, it’s a sprain, not a break. He also said that the walls laughed at him. Oh, lots of strange things have been going on, stupid practical jokes mostly.”

“It wasn’t so funny when the Commandant’s girth broke in the middle of a boar hunt,” said Quill. “Someone had notched it. He might have been killed if he weren’t such a good rider.”

“Then there were the pebbles in the porridge,” Rue muttered. “Go ahead: laugh. I nearly broke a tooth.”

Harn began to prowl among the cadets, causing some to scramble out of his way before he tripped over them.

I’ve forgotten something again , Jame thought. Something about jumping at shadows . . .

Harn stopped for a moment, staring down at her.

“What happened to your face?”

“I ran into a foot. Then a wall.”

“Huh.”

With that, the lesson began.

“You all know that the randon of each house have their own distinct battle speech. Songs tell us that the practice goes back to before the founding of the Kencyrath when the Nine Houses mostly fought each other.”

“And we still keep it up, Ran? Aren’t we supposed to be above house politics?”

That was Vant. It was a good question, but he wasn’t really interested in the answer, thought Jame, annoyed. He just wanted to put Harn off his stride, and he was succeeding.

“We should be.” The big Kendar rubbed red-rimmed eyes. “Above politics, I mean. As recent events show, sometimes we aren’t. Still, battle speech has its uses. Suppose your Caineron counterpart has made a bollix of a maneuver. D’you want to say as much to your commander in front of his?”

“Why not, if it’s true?”

“Randon to randon, yes, but if a Highborn should overhear . . . ”

Vant leaned forward, with a sidelong glance at Jame. He looked as if someone had just handed him an unexpected but welcome gift.

“So this is more about keeping things from our lords and masters than from each other, Ran? Now, that makes sense.”

“Why?” asked Erim, in complete, bewildered innocence. “How can we serve them if they don’t know how to use us properly?”

“ ‘Use’!” Vant snorted. “What an appropriate word.”

“Did you think,” he had once asked Jame, “that the Caineron are the only house whose Highborn make sport with their Kendar?”

According to Rue, Greshan had with Vant’s grandmother, and some unknown Ardeth Highborn had with his mother.

How must it feel to both prize and despise one’s own Highborn blood?

Well, perhaps she knew the answer to that, but in many ways Highborn and Kendar were both caught in the same trap of necessity and honor.

“How would you feel,” she asked, “if your lord decided not to use you, or if he just forgot that you existed at all? It has happened. It could again.”

Despite himself, Vant shivered. “Is that a threat, Lordan?”

Jame sighed. “No. It’s a paradox and, as things stand in the Kencyrath today, a statement of fact. My lord brother doesn’t like it any more than I do. But there it is. D’you want to tell our god that it’s unfair? Do. Please.”

“That’s the priests’ job. Ask your precious Knorth Bastard.”

“He’s not . . . qualified to answer, less even than I am, and I’ve waded through deeper cesspools of divinity than you can imagine.”

All the cadets were staring at her. They liked things straightforward, the way they had been taught. In the Kencyrath, walls were to keep things out, not to batter one’s brains against. Don’t ask questions, said the Women’s World, unless you were one of the eccentric and therefore somewhat disreputable Jaran.

Thinking hurts their little brains .

Jame wished that her own didn’t ache quite so much. At least she had the excuse of having just been kicked in the head by Timmon, which in turn made her long to rattle these others’ comfortable complacency.

“What does our three-faced god have to do with us? These days, precious little that I can see. Vant, I’m sorry, but we were all put here to be used, if only someone would tell us what we’re supposed to do. Like you, I really, really hate not knowing; and sometimes I’m afraid that not even our god remembers for what purpose we were bound together to begin with.”

For the first time, Harn looked almost amused. “Child, you’re frightening your playmates. For that matter, you’re starting to scare me.”

Vant gulped, gathered himself, and spoke, although his voice still shook. “Lady, I don’t know what you mean. Highborn may not lie, but they never talk straight either. It would be better if Tentir were restricted to the Kendar. There’s been a Highborn at the bottom of every mess we’ve gotten into here for generations. Look what happened the last time a Knorth lordan was in residence. If not for Greshan, Ran, your father would still be alive.”

Harn’s face went blotchy, red and white. “Hallick Hard-hand knew his duty. He chose the White Knife to fulfill it, thus redeeming the college’s honor. Do you speak ill of him or of his choice?”

Jame rose quickly and stepped between them. She didn’t speak nor did the big randon look down at her; however, after a moment Harn’s incipient berserker flare died and he turned away.

“What?” Jame said to Brier as she sank back into her place. “We Highborn have to be good for something.”

Quill had been thinking. “That’s as it may be, Ran, but isn’t it important for Highborn, especially lordan, to learn randon discipline? Look what happened to M’lord Greshan, who never even tried, and to Ganth Graylord, who did but failed. Sorry, lady.”

She waved this away. “Tentir tests those who presume to power. Ganth didn’t exactly fail, but he didn’t stay either. I wish he had, too.”

Harn glowered at her. In his bloodshot eyes was something almost like pain. “If so, Lordan, do you willingly submit to such testing?”

The Commandant had once said that by the end she would know if she belonged at the college, which was as much to say if she belonged anywhere. “I have. I do.”

The Kendar’s heavy shoulders slumped. “So be it.”