Friends (2013) - Adams, Robert

The Red Horse Company had been given hire with the expectation that none of them would survive, and it had not been the duke’s lands they had been ordered to camp on.

Duke Steev, hungry for the lands held by Baron Rhich but unwilling to give warning to their other neighbors who would be victimized after the baron, had hatched a scheme which would make it appear that it was the baron attacking and the duke merely defending. The Red Horse Company had been placed not on the duke’s land but on the baron’s, and word of it had been sent to the baron in a roundabout manner, luring him forth in great anger with his host. The vale had been close enough to the duke’s lands so that afterward he might claim that it was on his lands that the attack had taken place, and the scheme called for the slaughtered bodies of the Red Horse Company for the duke to grow enraged over. Enraged enough to lead his own host against the murderers of a new, peaceful company that had just taken hire with him.

And, of course, for that reason could not ride out too soon to give support to those who were meant to be slaughtered. When the boy had made to return to his company and reveal the truth to them, he had been sworded and thrown to the side, where he might die and take the truth with him.

“1 have heard it said that Captain Fredrix attempted to reach the duke to give proper thanks for such a hire,” Dharrehn mused, his fingers pulling at his lower lip the while his eyes glittered. “It seems unfortunate that Baron Rhich, well aware of the duke’s intentions, had already done for him and his with companies taken on for another purpose, not to speak of his own levy and those of a number of neighbors. Hacking a corpse is not nearly so satisfying as causing one. For what reason has he not raised another company of his own?”

“At first he lacked the heart, and then he lacked the gold,” the girl replied, nodding agreement with the sentiments her brother had voiced. “Mother’s jewels have long been mine to do with as 1 saw fit, and what might be more fitting than to raise a company with them? 1 will merely be a member of that company, and not the only female among them. There will be three of us to begin with, and later there will certainly be more.”

“I believe she means to corrupt and recruit every female she comes across,” one of the four said with a sigh, sending the others a covert wink. “What, then, will we do for wives when we return at last to take up land and raise heirs?”

“Clearly, Fhill, we will each need to personally engage a company and carry one off,” Dharrehn responded with a matching sigh, the twinkle in his eyes belying his mock sadness. “Our own sister will have made such effort necessary, and she with none who bums to do the same with her.”

“Ah, but there is such a one,” the youngest of the five interrupted, a wicked grin helping him to break the silence he had held till then. “Due to this cursed thigh wound I have been home longer than you others, and recently the hidden truth has been revealed to me by one who shall remain nameless. ”

“There is no hidden truth, Jahk, and that you should know even though fighters gossip like the eldest of retired ladies,” the girl snapped, more annoyed than embarrassed that her other brothers immediately pricked up their ears like alerted herd stallions. “1 would wed a savage before I would so much as smile at the dandified oaf!”

“Baron Kalvehn Theros’ eldest son Lhestuh haunts our halls in preference to visiting what battles are about in leather and plate,” Jahk confided to his brothers, paying no mind to the wrath of a sister who would not, after all, raise weapon to a brother who continued to limp and therefore lacked his natural balance. “He yearns to take our sister to wife, and although our father has refused to allow it and his intended has sworn to alter him in such a way as to make the doing futile should he ever approach her again, he continues to sulk about glaring at all who are thoroughly male, hoping the presence of his hired bullies will frighten them away. He wishes them gone before they clap eyes to his beloved, you see, for he fears they will carry her off as he lacks the courage to do. Many wagers have been made as to whether his sword'has ever so much as scented blood.”

“I have come to the belief that he wishes me to tread on him in full armor and spurred boots,” the girl said sourly, now unmindfui of the chuckling her brothers indulged in. “When he dies he is most unlikely to be sent to Wind, for that would spread the inner stench of him too far. Thank Sun our father had long since given me leave to do as I would with my life, else would 1 surely have found it necessary to spill the blood of a guest—after Father had been petitioned to death by him.”

“Speaking of guests, by now the reception lacks only the presence of us five,” remarked Fhill, nodding toward the closed double doors across the wide hall. “All niceties aside, I find myself curious as to who our visitors are. They must have crept within the house like thieves for none to know who they might be.”

“It seems that Father alone knows them,” Dharrehn said with his own share of curiosity, also looking toward the doors. “As we all know full well that hanging back in the face of the unknown merely allows one’s enemies to creep up behind one, I believe we should now continue as we earlier began. Even proposed marriages should be faced with bravery rather than cowardice.”

The others laughed their agreement even as they again began their advance, and soon they reached the doors to the reception room. No house guards or servants stood before these doors, as they were used only by members of the family, therefore did Dharrehn and his next younger brother Bhen open them as they reached them, then allowed the servants within to see to them from there. In two lines did the five move forward into the surprisingly large gathering, making their way through the greetings of men and women who should surely have had other things than wine-swilling to occupy them at so early an hour of the day. So thought Lisah from her place between Fhill and Jahk, behind Dharrehn and Bhen, pleased to be in the company of her beloved brothers, yet not so pleased to have been called away from axe lessons. The pesky weapon had till then gotten much the better of her, and the summons had come just when she had begun to see a glimmer of hope of reversing that. In battle one occasionally needed to use what weapon came to hand rather than what weapon one preferred, and to fail to learn the use of them all was surely an excellent way to ask to go prematurely to Wind.

“Ah, there they are at last,” came their father’s deep, calm voice from a point beyond Dharrehn and Bhen, a place not easily seen by Lisah from where she walked. “Four of nine sons, my lords, and hidden in their midst my only daughter.”

At which words the two who walked before moved each to one side, and the girl was able to see her father and the three men who stood with him. The one nearest her sire and to his right was not quite of an age with him, the one to the stranger’s right seemed a bit older, and the third was a good deal younger than the others, perhaps Dharrehn’s age. Beside the third and youngest sat the reason the clustering guests failed to cluster too closely about the four, an extremely lovely reason that brought a smile of delight to Lisah. The prairie cat was full-grown although young, and her long-fanged, sharp-toothed grin of amusement was being misinterpreted by those who looked at her. Seated, her brownish-gray head rose easily above elbow level of the man despite his size, and Lisah thought again how good it would be once the new company was formed. Her company would have cat-brothers and -sisters as well as horse-brothers and -sisters, just as the wandering Clans had had all those years ago, unlike most Kindred of the present day.