It was amazing how fast the Clan had grown, once the children that had elected to take Clan membership were of an age to claim it. They'd had as many young adults join them as they could provide tents for. Part of it had to be the glamour, the mystique of the “Clan that could not die”âcertainly orphans and “extra” children had flocked to the Taleâsedrin banner once it was raised again.
But part of it, no doubt, had to do with my cousins' sheer good looks. They're all damned attractive, and with Grandmother's green eyes and Grandfather's blond hair, they must have been as exotic and fascinating to the Shinâa'in suitors as the Shinâa'in are to us.
None of them had lacked for potential partners, and in the end, all but one had taken up multiple marriages.
Like queen bees with entourages, or stags with harems. No, I don't think I'll tell Kraâheera about the dreams of Eldan. He'll only give me a hard time about it, and ask me why I didn't just knock the man in the head and carry him off with me like a sack of loot. Besides, he's young enough to be my own child; I just can't confess something like that to a person who looks like he's waiting for me to tell him a story. Gods, they make me feel ancient.
Though still small, the Taleâsedrin Clan was as thriving as any on the Plains, boasting no less than three shaman, a Healer, and even a Kal'enedralâ
The last was Swordsworn by choice, rather than because of the kind of circumstances that forced Tarma to her vow. Kero liked him the best of all of them. He never turned her away when she asked for lessons, and his sense of humor was a little less mordant than the rest of her cousins.
Her thought of them might have summoned them; they made no noise on the stairs with their soft boots, but she heard their distinctive chatter echoing up the shaft of the staircase long before she saw them.
“Heyla, cousin!” Istren, one of the two horse-trainers along this year and the only one of the three who was actually related to her by blood, sprang into the room as if he were taking it by storm. He was followed at a more sedate pace by the other trainer, Saâdassan, and the shaman-in-training, Kra'heera. Where Istren boasted the dusky-gold skin of his Shinâa'in father, and his father's black hair, his mother's startling green eyes flashed at Kero with excitement.
“Second cousin, to be precise,” Saâdassan said mildly, her Shin'aâin blue eyes as tranquil as a cloudless sky. “And both a Captain of the Company and your elder. A little more respect, youngling.”
Istren ignored her; when a normally reserved Shinâa'in became excited, it was pretty hard to get them calmed down. “Have you heard, Cousin Kero? Have you seen? What do you know about these North men, these Valdemar men?”
For one startled moment, Kero thought he was talking about her dream and Eldan, and her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth. But Kraâheera solved her dilemma for her, by snorting, “What, do you think she is a mage, like our uncle? She can't possibly know anythingâthese Valdemar men have only just arrived.”
She shook herself out of her paralysis. “What Valdemar men?” she asked.
“We have
heard,
heard only, that there are men from the North come to buy all that we will sell them,” Saâdassan said, with a fine precision of speech. “We wish you to come and look at these men. You can speak their tongue and say the things that will call the thoughts that we wish to read to the surface of their minds like little fish to crumbs on the stream. Kra'heera can then judge of their thoughts. And, perhaps, you also, for you had converse with one of their kind before, not so?”
“I did,” she said, slowly. “The man that I knew, if he is a good representative of his people, was a good and honest man, and one who would treat your
jelâsutho'edrin
as children of his own heart and hearth. But he was only one man.”
“Exactly so,” Saâdassan replied. “Will you come with us, cousin?”
“I think I had better,” Kero replied, catching up her weapons-belt from the back of her chair, and buckling it on. “There's a saying among the meres, you knowââWhen the wind blows folk out of Valdemar, prepare for heavy weather.' They tend not to stray too far from their borders.”
Whatever brought them here, it's going to affect us all,
she thought, with a shiver of premonition.
And the sooner prepared we are, the better off we'll be....
Nineteen
“Captain!” One of the recruits came pelting up to her and skidded to a halt. He was all out of breath, but that didn't stop him from saluting crisply. “Message, Captain!” he gasped, as a trickle of sweat ran down his cheek.
He must be first year; he hasn't learned to pace himself yet.
She nodded, he gasped it out, trying not to seem as if he was winded.
Definitely new; second year on, they'd get their breath before reciting a message.
“People at the North Gate, Captain. From Valdemar. Official papers in order, Scratcher says. Want to see you. Shallan sent âem to the guest house. Says to tell you that makin' em go to the inn didn't seem right, even if the inn wasn't already full.”
“Good. Thank you. Is Shallan still with them?”
The youngster shook his head. “Put Laker on them; he knows Valdemaran pretty well.”
She nodded.
I always thought Shallan had good sense. If they have anything to say, Laker will overhear it.
“Fine, tell Laker I'll be there shortly, and that he should go ahead and tell these people that. Tell him to use trade-tongue; no use letting them know we're multilingual. Have you seen them?”
He shook his head.
Pity. Oh, well.
“Go run that message to Laker,” she said. “Then go on up to the North Gate and let Shallan know where I'll be.” The young man saluted again, turned, and ran off like a rabbit. Kero envied him his energy, but not the way he was going to feel in a moment after running that much in this heat.
I'd give a lot to know if these are Heralds or not in advance of seeing them.
She turned her steps toward the guest house inside the fortress walls, followed silently by the three Shinâa'in.
“Have any of
you
seen these people?” she asked. “Can you tell me what they're wearing?”
“They are not Heralds, cousin,” Saâdassan said, surprising her with her easy use of the term in its correct context. “Not even Heralds in disguise. Such a one would not be able to conceal his nature from Kra'heera, even without his Companion to betray him for what he was. Had a Herald ridden into this place, Kraâheera would know without seeing him with the Outer eyes.”
“Oh, really?” That was news to her.
Kraâheera had the grace to blush. “It is only what I was born with,” he said disparagingly. “It is no great virtue, or ability earned by study.”
“It may not be a virtue, but it's nothing to be discounted, either,” she replied.
Thank you for once again pulling an egg out of your ear, cousin. Or rather, Kraâheera's ear.
“So what do they look like? Do you know?”
Istren spoke up as they turned the comer of the barracks and came into view of the guest house. “I had heard they were all in dark blue and silver, sober, like a kind of Kalâenedral. That there are two with much silver who speak with authority, two with a little who speak only to the first, and four with none who speak not at all.”
Dark blue and silver. That would be the Royal Army. What in the gods' names are Royal Valdemaran Guards doing down here?
“Just on that alone, I'd say you were safe to sell to them,” she said, as in the distance, the noise of the fair carried over the walls. “But I think we ought to check them out, anyway. If there's something going on up north that sends them down here, we had all better know about it.”
Kraâheera nodded. “It is said that war respects no one's boundaries that are not guarded, and I can think of nothing that would bring those secret folk to us except war. ”
Pot calling kettle
blackâa
Shinâa'in calling someone else secretive!
She hid her amusement, as they reached the door of the guest house, and the sentry (posted there any time there were guests) saluted her and opened it for them.
The guest house included a small common room, and there they found the first four of their visitors, seated at the table there. Somehow they had managed the seating so that no one had his back to the door. All four were sitting with military stiffness that they couldn't seem to drop, even over four flagons of chilled ale.
They rose slowly to their feet, looking from her to the Shinâa'in and back with uncertainty; obviously, since she had no uniform or insignia they'd recognize, they had no idea who or what she was nor how to treat her. And the Shinâa'in, in their brightly embroidered vests and trappings of barbaric splendor had them severely puzzled. She ended their suspense, though not after a struggle with temptation. “I'm Captain Kerowyn,” she said in their own tongue, and accepted their belated attention and salutes with a nod. “These are my Shinâa'in cousins; I am the agent for their horses. What can we do for you?”
She watched them work that throughâa mercenary Captain, who knew their language,
related
to the purportedly unfriendly Shinâa'in, who was also acting as a
merchant-agent
for those same unfriendly Shinâa'in, who were standing beside her with undisguised curiosity eating them alive. That was at least two outright contradictions and three real surprises.
“We're here on behalf of Queen Selenay,” said the one with the most silver braid on his sleeves, a man about a decade older than the other three, and “military” from his teeth to his toenails. “We need cavalry mounts, good ones, horses we can depend on with very little training; while we normally wouldn't seek this far for them, word has come as far as Valdemar of this fair. Everyone knows about the quality of the beasts the Shinâa'in breed, and it seemed more than worth our time to come here. While we ordinarily might not trust that these horses for sale were full Shinâa'in-bloods, the Hâour information is that you are very honest and that the fair and the beasts are what rumor claims them. Our query with the Mercenary Guild supported that. ”
She hadn't missed his slipâhe'd been about to say “the Heralds,” or even “the Herald Eldan.” She translated quickly for her cousins, trying to ignore the little thrill of elation that Eldan at least still thought well enough of her to call her “honest and fair.”
“Ask them how many they want,” Saâdassan said, coming straight to the point.
“All you have,” one of the younger Guards said eagerly, when she repeated the question. “We saw them as we were coming inâthe mounts your people were training with. Wonderful! We'll take everything!”
The older man looked at him oddly, but didn't contradict or reprimand him for speaking out of turn.
So that's the one who holds the purse strings. The older one is in nominal command, but this is the important one. Hmm. Noble, younger son would be my guess. the other two are probably breeders or trainers, brought along as consultants. Right, now I know who's what.
She explained her observations to her cousins, then turned back to the visitors. “This is where I put on my merchant hat,” she said, “Only it's an odd sort of merchant hat, because I am
not
going to urge you to buy everything with legs in sight. First of all, only about half the horses here are Shinâa'in-blood, and of those, not all of them are going to be suitable for cavalry mounts. Yes, they've all been broken and given some training that involves fighting, but it may not be what you want. The Shinâa'in feel very strongly about their beasts; the name they call them means âyounger sibs.' If they think you're going to put
one
horse to a task for which it isn't suited, they won't sell you
any.
”
Purse-holder opened and shut his mouth twice, without saying anything. The One In Charge blinked, as if he was so surprised by her response that he wasn't certain he'd heard it right.
“And in any event, these are light beasts; good for skirmishers, horse-archers and light cavalry. So, has Valdemar ever run any troops like that before so that you know what to look for?” She waited for a response; the One In Charge gave it.
“Not in the standing army, no,” he admitted. “Some of the nobles on the Border have private troops like that; no one else. That's why we came here for the mounts.”
She nodded, and translated. Kraâheera put in his own discoveries. “I have been watching their minds, cousin. The one who speaks out of turn is a wealthy man of highborn, who breeds the Ashkevron hunters and heavy horses. The ones who do not speak are trainers of skirmishers. The one who speaks much is a warleader. It is as he has saidâand these are fighters they wish now to have. He has not told you why. There is to be fighting upon their eastern border, and soon, he thinks. Very, very serious fighting.”
Kero nodded; there had been rumors about conflict between Valdemar and Hardorn, but since Karse was between Hardorn and any potential client, and Valdemar never hired mercenaries, she hadn't paid much attention to the rumors.
This might involve more for us than just selling horses. If Hardorn is starting a major war and wins, they'll be on
Rethwellan's
border, and that means we get involved.
Another thought occurred to her.
Just because Valdemar hasn't hired mercs in the past, that doesn't mean they won't start.
“Troops like that aren't trained in a day,” she warned. “It took us ten years to get where we are. Most standing armies don't botherâbut if you're sure of the needâ?”