P. Hodgell - Honor's Paradox

He looked around at the dead horses and at Obidin’s, which was staggering to its feet with what appeared to be a broken jaw, at the shattered rail and at the Caineron quarters which still rang with shouts and frantic hooves. The piebald had apparently achieved the second floor and was refusing to come down.

“The college reduced to rubble . . .” murmured the Commandant.

“And me standing in the middle of it, looking apologetic. I know. Sorry, Ran.”

He brushed this off. “It could be worse. At least the buildings are intact. Mostly. Ah, quite a day it’s been. I have something for you, Lordan.”

He dipped long fingers into a leather sack and drew out a white pebble.

“This is for Bear.”

And another. “This is for the Winter War.”

And another. “This is for not utterly destroying Tentir, although you did try your best.”

Jame stared at the three white stones in her cupped hands. That made it five to four. She had passed the college.

“Commandant, senethari, are you sure?”

“If you mean, how will my lord like it, let me worry about that. Now, wave to your friends like a good child.”

Jame gave a whoop of laughter and brandished the pebbles in her fist over her head. The Knorth cadets realized first what they were and what they meant. In the front row, Rue bounced up and down cheering. Timmon started off the Ardeth, Obidin the Caineron, followed by the other houses one by one including even a weak chorus from the Randir until the square rang with jubilant cries.

While the square was being cleared, cleaned, and prepared for the evening’s feast, the Commandant visited the infirmary to make sure that his lord’s heir would recover.

“Yes,” the surgeon reported, “although only thanks to the quick action of bystanders.”

Then he retired to his quarters.

Someone stood in the shadows by the balcony of the Map Room, looking down. A white shape at his feet raised its head and greeted the Commandant with the brief wave of a tail.

“You saw, my lord?”

“The whole bloody shambles.”

“Granted, it got messy, but at eight to one the lordan needed an edge.”

The other gave a sharp laugh. “How many edges does a rathorn have? Where did she get that creature and why wasn’t I told about it?”

“No one knew, or perhaps only a few. I see that I must speak to my horse-master. Gorbel also didn’t seem surprised.”

“She would tell a Caineron but not me?”

“They have the Tentir bond, which is not a bad thing. I am pleased with most of my cadets this season. You should be too.”

The Highlord moved out of the shadows. “I still mean to do it, Sheth. For my own peace of mind. Do you advise me not to?”

“I would say that it is unnecessary for her, but perhaps vital for you. She is your heir. You must learn to trust her.”

“This, from a Caineron?”

“This, from the Commandant of Tentir.”

He watched Torisen pace restlessly. Truly, he had the dark, Knorth glamour that made him a presence even in the room’s growing dusk. Sometimes it was hard to remember that, despite the white in his hair, he was still a very young man—for the long-lived Highborn, not much older than the cadets setting up tables in the square below. Ah, if only Tentir had had his training, not that the randon of the Southern Host had done badly with him. But there was no bond.

“As far as the randon are concerned, she has proved herself. If you challenge her again, openly, it will seem that you trust neither her nor us.”

Torisen ran a scarred hand through his hair. “It isn’t that, exactly. Before today, I had only seen her fight once, at the High Council presentation, and that was as odd a combat in its way as this one. Kothifir is dangerous, especially now. Should I risk half of my surviving blood-kin there?”

The Commandant frowned. Half?

“Very well,” he said, after a pause. “Test her you shall. Before dinner. Give her at least until then to enjoy her victory.”

The Knorth barracks were chaos. Only now did Jame realize how much her absence the previous day had disconcerted everyone. Some really must have thought that her nerve had failed and that she had run away.

“You see?” crowed Dar. “You see? ”

Jame met Brier Iron-thorn’s jade green eyes over the throng. The Kendar gave her a small, stiff nod. Perhaps, finally, she had proved herself to the critic whose opinion she valued the most, short of the Commandant’s.

Short even of Torisen’s?

How would her brother react to this success for which he had never planned?

Ah, but it was sweet to accept the congratulations of her peers, to know that they accepted her at last. She had never before had a real home. Now they were welcoming her into one bound not by walls but by fellowship. However, it was still hers to lose. Next came Kothifir the Cruel, an unknown entity, but she shoved aside this doubt. Whatever happened, they would face it together, united in their strength as much as in their ignorance.

She saw Damson standing quietly nearby with a little smirk on her round face.

“You were going to make the gray stumble,” Jame said, in sudden enlightenment.

Damson shrugged. “I couldn’t get into the Caineron’s mind for some reason, but his horse . . . Was that wrong?”

How could Jame say “No” when that moment off balance had probably saved her life? Still, “In the hills, the Dark Judge mentioned you by name. He knows what you did to Vant and will be watching you now. Be careful.”

“Oh,” said Damson, for the first time looking alarmed.

“I should hope so,” said Jame.

Rue pushed through the crowd carrying something. White cloth shimmered in her arms, every inch of it patterned with swirls of cream-colored embroidery. It was a coat, a beautiful coat.

“See?” said Rue. “Treasure from the Wastes it may be, but I figured that enough stitches would anchor it in this world. Everyone added their own with silk thread unraveled from one of your uncle’s shirts. Trust me: we washed it half to pieces first. It’s like our house banner, but special to our class.”

Jame hesitated to don it; her clothes were splashed with the blood of both Gorbel and his charger.

“Take ’em off,” Rue urged impatiently.

She stripped off her jacket and shirt. The coat slid over her bare skin like cool water and molded itself to her body.

“Oh . . . !” breathed the cadets.

“To the Lordan of Ivory!” someone called from the back of the crowd, and all cried, “Hurrah, hurrah!”

It was too much.

Jame broke free and fled to her quarters where Jorin flopped over to greet her with sleepy affection.

“Look, just look!”

She ran her hands over the glimmering sleeves, feeling the texture of silken stitches under her fingertips. Did the Kendar also use knot codes? She felt instinctively that they did, and that they had worked their own subtle magic into this cloth. So much work, done by so many, all on the sly. She hadn’t even thought about the fabric that Rue had bought from the Southron traders since the day of the egging. Memory rose of the previous Lordan’s Coat, so gorgeous but so foul, infused with Greshan’s black soul. This was the heirloom now, and she the last lordan, bearing the record of her school days on her back for all to read who could.

Nothing could have pleased her more.

Calmer now, she slipped out of the precious coat and carefully folded it on her pallet. Rue had laid out clean clothes. She put them on, crept down the stair and, avoiding the still-packed common room, made for the infirmary in Old Tentir.

Gorbel lay on one of the cots, his leg heavily bandaged and splinted. He was very pale with a dark bristle of beard and black strands of hair straggling over his bulbous forehead. Jame remembered that he had waited for her all day in the hot square. Now he waited still, moving restlessly, his chapped lips parting with an audible smack. She offered him water in a ceramic cup. He drank avidly.