By the Sword (19 page)

She'd been waiting for Kethry to get up the nerve to ask about the girl for weeks. Keth had been vaguely disappointed that Kerowyn proved out null so far as mage craft went, though she'd admitted to her partner that the girl seemed more relieved than anything else.

Now, at last, she'd come down to watch Kero work out; and Tarma sensed that she was ready to ask the question.

“Well,” Kethry said, as Kerowyn moved into the next exercise in the cycle, this one a little harder than the last. “She looks like she's doing all right. That isn't Need, is it?”

“No, it's a painted wooden practice blade,” Tarma told her. “I made it the same size, heft and shape, so she could get used to the weight and balance. Need's up on her wall—
her
decision, and she says the damn thing stays there until she's sure of her own abilities and she knows that what she does is due to her skill, not the sword working through her.”

“So?” Keth replied.

“So, what?” Tarma countered, teasingly.

“So how is
she?”
the mage snarled in annoyance. “Is she any good, or not?”

To Tarma's utter amazement, her throat closed, and her eyes filled with tears. She couldn't speak for a moment, and Kethry bit her lip in dismay.

“Oh, no,” she whispered. “When she didn't have any mage-talents, I was sure—what are we going to do with her?”

Tarma wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, and coughed to get her voice working again. “Keth,
she‘enedra,
you've got it backward. The girl's good. Hellfrost, she's
better
than good. One year, just
one
year of teaching, and Companies are going to stand in line to have her.” She pulled Kethry into one of the alcoves formed by the irregular walls of the cave, so that Kero wouldn't notice them watching her from the shadows. “Look at her; look at her move. She's a natural, Keth, the kind of pupil that comes along once in a teacher's lifetime if she's lucky. She's never had anything other than some indifferent training in knife-fighting, but she's taken to the sword as if she was born with one in her hand. She's doing things now that most of my old students couldn't have done after two years of teaching. She could probably earn a living right now, if all somebody wanted was a basic recruit.”

“And in that year?” Kethry watched her granddaughter rather than Tarma.

“In that year she'll be able to go to the best Companies and they'll take her for officer training. They won't
tell
her that, of course, but she'll be an officer a lot faster than you or I made it. She's not only a natural with a weapon, she's a natural on the field.” She poked Kethry with her elbow to regain her attention. “By the way, Warrl said to tell you that you were right; she's a Mindspeaker. He also said to tell you that he's taking care of the training.”

Kethry relaxed. “Good, and I appreciate his delicate sense of what to promise. You know, I was afraid you were unhappy because she was awful, and you didn't know how to tell me.”

Tarma chuckled. “Hardly. And hardly unhappy. To get a student like her is amazing enough—but that it turns out to be one of
ours—
well, the only thing that would make me happier would be if Jadrek were here to see her.”

Keth smiled a little. “He probably knew before we did. And thank Warrl for me; I was afraid she was a Mindspeaker, but since I'm
not
, I had no way to tell. I thought she was shielded, but that could just have been the fact that she was concentrating. She's better off in Warrl's hands—paws—than mine.”

“I think he has his paws full,” Tarma said, recalling what Warrl had told her this morning.
:As stubborn as ever you were, mind-mate, and as taciturn. She won't tell me anything, I have to pry it out of her. Thank the gods there's only one of her, and I don't have to teach her combative mind-magic. She refuses to learn the offensive
techniques.: He had snorted his opinion of her attitude.
:She
has all the morals and
compunctions as
one of those
half-crazed
Heralds!:

“In that case, I have a proposition to make you.” Kethry took a deep breath before she continued. Tarma restrained a sigh; Keth only did that when she was going to ask something she didn't think her partner would like. “Would you be up to teaching two? Your second pupil will already have had several years of good instruction, so he'll be about at Kero's level, I'd guess.”

Tarma considered that for a moment.
I'd like to devote all my attention to her—but she needs some competition.

“Depends,” she replied after a moment. “Depends on who the pupil is, and how much free rein I have with him. It is easier to teach two, and having someone else around will keep her on her toes. Competition will be damned good for her, especially if she thinks she's having to compete for my attention. But I can't have a brat taking my concentration away from her, and frankly, I won't put up with a brat anymore.”

“I got a ‘begging' letter from Megrarthon,” Kethry replied, watching Kero, and picking absently at a shiny bit of quartz embedded in the rock wall. “It arrived a couple of days ago, but I had to get up the nerve to ask you about Kero first.”

“So what's the King of Rethwellan want with us?” Tarma asked, a little surprised. “Was it from ‘His Majesty the King, Megrarthon Jadrevalyn' or my old student Jad? And did he mention his overhand?”

“From your old student, and he said the gout in that broken shoulder is just too bad; he's never going to get the overhand swing back. Hopefully, he'll never need it.” Kethry sighed; and Tarma knew why. The King's letters had always been very open with both of them, and lately they'd been profoundly unhappy. Rethwellan politics were torturous at the best of times, and he was regretting that his father's sword had ever spoken for
him.
Three state marriages, two of them loveless, had given him a surfeit of sons and daughters, and one of the sons was making life difficult for him. Tarma and Kethry were two of a scant handful of people he could be that open with; Tarma had changed his diapers more than once and had tutored him in the way of the sword, Keth had nursed him through his first love and subsequent broken heart.

Together they had helped put his father on the throne before he was a year old, which made them
very
old friends of the family.

“That middle son of his is being a—”

“Grek‘ka'shen, ”
Tarma said in disgust, said carrion eater combining the worst aspects and habits of every scavenger known to the Shin‘a'in. It ate things even vultures wouldn't touch, it slept in a bed of rotting detritus from its foraging, and both sexes were known to eat their own young on a whim.

Kethry nodded. “So he's written to you?”

“Not lately, but yes, I got a letter while I was down on the Plains. I just didn't see any reason to depress you with it.” Tarma grimaced. “You know, sometimes I wonder if the reason the Rethwellan royal line has so much trouble is because of the wretched things they name their children.”

“That's as good a theory as any,” Kethry replied, managing not to smile. The names Jad had given his boys were bad enough, but the eight girls' names were worse, all full of historical significance and all as unpronounceable as kyree howls. Those awful names were an ongoing joke between the two of them. “Faramentha's as bright and trustworthy a young man as you'd ever hope to see, and Karathanelan is making up for him by causing Jad three times the grief his older brother gave. His latest antic is to torment the youngest boy verbally until the youngster explodes and attacks him. Now the poor lad is getting a reputation for being a hothead and a bully, because Thanel is—”

“A handsome, languid vicious little fop, playing on the fact that he's shorter and lighter than the other boy,” Tarma interrupted. “Remember, I've seen him, when I went back up with Faram to deliver him to Jad and see him made heir. That's why I told Jad I wouldn't have him here. At thirteen he'd already made up his mind that since he wasn't the heir, he was going to sleep and charm his way to a crown. He probably will, too. Some little fool of a princess with a senile old father is going to fall for his pretty face, clever wit and graceful manners, and spend the rest of her life pregnant while
he
plays bed games with her ladies, torments her lap dogs, and spends her treasury dry.”

Kethry shook her head. “From everything Jad says, you're nght. I told him it was a mistake to let Irenia raise Thanel instead of fostering him out, and now the mistake is irreversible. Well, the long and the short is that he hopes he can find some place to send Thanel that will keep him out of mischief—but until he does, he needs to get the youngest out of Thanel's reach.”

“Otherwise there's going to be fratricide.” Tarma nodded. It was a logical solution, and rather elegant. Especially since it would get the hot-headed boy some much-needed discipline and training. “So he wants us to take the youngest. That'd be Darenthallis, right? Absolute baby of the bunch?”

“Right. He's not mage-talented, so he'll be yours.” Kethry tilted her head to one side. “Are you up to this?”

Tarma stretched, feeling every joint creak. “For Jad's sake—and for the boy's. From what Jad's said, the youngster is a lot like Faram, which means he won't be at all hard to teach. I understand that the boy does have a quick temper, which makes him an easy target for Thanel. I wouldn't see any lad have to put up with that if I can help it. I don't like bullies, and Thanel's the worst kind of bully—a clever one. Although I must say, a lot of this is Jad's own fault. He wouldn't have gotten into this mess if he hadn't been trying to compete with you in the number of offspring he could produce.”

Kethry smiled, the tension draining out of her. “I was hoping you'd say that. Now, just one other possible problem. My granddaughter is not what I would call ‘unattractive,' and she's very probably not only a virgin, she has no idea of—”

Tarma grinned evilly; she knew what was coming, and she had no intention of letting Keth slough this job off on her. Especially not when she'd agreed to teach a second youngster all by herself. “Then you'd better tell her, hadn't you? After all, you're her grandmother. And you know very well when I start to make the two youngsters work together what's going to happen.”

“But—” Kethry said, faintly.

Tarma kept right on going. “I think the experience will be good for both of them, actually. The boy has probably been playing a poor third to Faram-the-heir and Thanel-the-beauty. It'll be nice for him to have a young lady paying attention to
him.
”

“But—” Kethry repeated.

“And you have to admit,
I'm
hardly the one to give Kero the basics of nature. I'm celibate, remember?” Tarma was enjoying her partner's discomfort. Keth had landed her with the job of explaining those basics to every boy that ever passed through their schools, and since there were usually twice as many lads as girls passing through their hands, Tarma found herself with that uncomfortable duty far oftener than Keth. Now the shoe was on the other foot, and Tarma intended to enjoy the fact.

“Besides,” she finished, “if your own daughter was such a dunce as to leave her completely ignorant, it's up to you to rectify the situation.”

Kethry's mouth tightened in dismay. “You're right, of course. And if she's going to join a Company, she's going to have to know
all
of it.”

“Damn right she is,” Tarma replied, becoming serious. “From camp-hygiene to post-rape trauma. And since you worked with the Healers in the Sunhawks, you're better equipped for that than I am. Those aren't the kind of problems lads are going to face, and they aren't the kind of problems I
ever
had to deal with on my own. But you can take it slowly, I think. Give her the basics and pregnancy prevention, and take care of the rest later.” She grinned. “Think of it as my fee for agreeing to take Daren on.”

Kethry shook her head. “Still a mercenary.”

Tarma chuckled. “That's how you tell a merc is dead; he just stops collecting paychecks.”

 

Kero knew that there was something in the air; Tarma had been a little absentminded lately, with that slight frown she always wore when she was thinking. But once she'd satisfied herself that
she
wasn't the cause of the frown, she relaxed. Whatever it was that was bothering Tarma, it was not under
her
control.

So she kept a weather eye out, but concentrated on the things that
were
in her power to deal with. She had speculations, but nothing concrete to go on.

Finally all speculations came to an end, when she showed up at the practice ring with her arms full of equipment to find Tarma there already, fully armored (complete with full helm), working out. And Tarma wasn't alone.

There was a young man with her; that was surprise enough. He looked around Kero's age, and she stiffened reflexively as they both stopped what they were doing and turned at the sound of her footstep. He was rather handsome, in a lanky, not-quite-finished sort of way. His long hair was somewhere between brown and blond, his eyes between gray and hazel. He was taller than Tarma, and moved like a young colt that still isn't quite certain where his feet are going to go when he puts them down. His armor was good—
very
good, use on it, but well-maintained and in perfect condition. And there was a surcoat lying crumpled up with some other odds and ends in one of the little alcoves. A surcoat that was as well-made as the armor, and looked as if it was blazoned with some kind of familial device.