Lord Harsha, I thought, would prove a formidable opponent against outlaws - or anyone else - with only his iron-bladed hoe to wield as a weapon. Despite a crippled leg and his numerous years, his thick body retained a bullish power. And even though he wore only a plain woolen tunic, he bore on his finger a silver ring showing the four brilliant diamonds of a Valari lord. A black eyepatch covered part of his face; twelve battle ribbons had been tied to his long, white hair, and in all of Mesh, there were few warriors of greater renown.
'Outlaws, is it?' I called back to him. 'Have our journeys really left us looking so mean?'
So saying, I threw back the hood of my cloak and rode forward a few more paces. I came to the low wall edging Lord Harsha's field. Once, I remembered, I had sat there with Maram, my brother Asaru and his squire, Joshu Kadar, as we had spoken with Lord Harsha about fighting the Red Dragon and ending war - and other impossible things.
'Who is it?' Lord Harsha called out again. His single eye squinted as the sun's slanting rays burned across my face. 'Announce yourself, I say!'
'I am,' I called back to him, 'the seventh son of Shavashar Elahad, whose father was King Eikamesh, who named me -'
'Valashu Elahad!' Lord Harsha shouted. 'It can't be! But surely it
must
be, even though I don't know how!'
I dismounted and climbed over the wall. Lord Harsha came limping up to me, and he embraced me, pounding my back with his hard, blunt hands. Then he pulled back to fix me with his single, bright eye.
'It
is
you,' he said, 'but you look different, forgive me. Older, of course, but not so much on the outside as within. And something else. Something has lit a fire in you, like that star you were named for. At last. When you skulked out of Mesh last year, you did seem half an outlaw. But now you stand here like a king.'
I bowed my head to him, and he returned this grace, indining his head an inch lower than mine. And he said to me, 'You have his look, you know.'
'Whose
look?' I asked him.
'King Elkamesh's,' he said. 'When he was a young knight. I never saw the resemblance until today.'
I smiled at him, and told him, 'It is good to be home. Lord Harsha.'
'It is good to
have
you home.' His gaze took in Maram and my other companions, who had nudged their horses up to the wall and dismounted as well. And Lord Harsha pointed at Alphanderry and said, 'I count eight of you, altogether, and eight it was who set out for Argattha. But here rides a stranger in Kane's place. Don't tell me such a great warrior has fallen!'
'He has
not
fallen,' I said, 'as far as I know. But circumstances called him to Galda. And as for Argattha, we did not journey there after all.'
'No - that is clear. If you had, we would not be gathered here having this discussion. But where then
did
you journey?'
I looked at Maram, who said, 'Ah,
that
is a long story, sir. Might we perhaps discuss it over dinner? For more miles than I can tell you, I've been hoping to sit down to some of Behira's roast beef and few glasses of your excellent beer.'
At the mention of his daughter's name, I felt something inside Lord Harsha tighten, and he said to Maram, 'It's been a bad year, as you will find out, and so you will have to settle on some chops of lamb or perhaps a roasted chicken. But beer we still have in abundance - surely Behira will be glad to pour you all you can drink.'
He motioned for us to follow him, and we led our horses around his field toward his house. Although I still felt a dark presence watching my every movement, Lord Harsha seemed completely unaware of the Ahrim or that we had fought a battle for our lives scarcely an hour before. As we passed the barn and drew up closer to the house, he called out in his gruff voice: 'Behira - come out and behold what the wind has blown our way!'
A few moments later, the thick wooden door of the house opened, and Lord Harsha's only remaining child stepped out to greet us. Like Lord Harsha, Behira was sturdy of frame and wore a rough woolen tunic gathered in with a belt of black leather. With her ample breasts and wide hips that Maram so appreciated, my mother had once feared that Behira might run to fat. But time had treated this young woman well, for she had lost most of her plumpness while retaining all that made her pretty, and more. Her long hair gleamed a glossy black like a sable's coat, and her large, lovely eyes regarded Maram boldly, and so with the rest of us. I might have expected that she would run out and fall into Maram's arms, but time had changed her in other ways, too. The rather demure and good-natured girl, it seemed, had become a proud and strong-willed woman.
'Lord Marshayk!' she called out to Maram with an uncomfortable formality. 'Lord Elahad! You've come back!'
So it went as she greeted all of us in turn, and then her gaze drew back to Maram. I sensed in her a churning sea of emotions: astonishment; shame; adoration; confusion. I felt hot blood burning up through her beautiful face as she said, 'Oh, but we've much to talk about, and you will all want a good hot bath before we do. I'll go and heat the water.'
And with that she bowed to us, and went back into the house. The explanations for her strange behavior, I thought, would have to wait until we cleaned ourselves. After Behira had filled the cedarwood tub in the bathing room, we went inside the house and took turns immersing our bodies in steaming hot water: first Atara, Liljana and Estrella took a rare pleasure in washing away their cares, and then Master Juwain, Maram, Daj and I. While Master Juwain and Daj were pulling on fresh tunics. Lord. Harsha came into the wood-paneled bathing room to inform us that dinner would soon be ready. He eyed the strange, round scars marring Maram's great hairy body, but did not remark upon them. He seemed to be waiting for a more appropriate moment to tell of things that he was loath to tell and to hear of things that he might not want to hear.
At last, when we were all well-scrubbed and attired in clean clothing, Lord Harsha called us to dinner at his long table just off his great room. As we were about to take our seats, the clopping of a horse's hooves against the dirt lane outside made me draw my sword and hurry over to the door. I said to Lord Harsha, 'We have enemies we haven't told you about, and we are not ready to make our presence known.'
'It's all right,' he said to me as he stood by the window and peered out into the twilight. 'It's only Joshu Kadar - in all the excitement, I forgot to tell you that we've invited him to dinner. Surely you can trust
him.'
Surely, I thought, I could. Joshu had been Asaru's squire, and he had stood by the horses that day when Salmelu had shot me with his poisoned arrow - and he had served my brother faithfully at the Culhadosh Commons as well.
'All right,' I said, sheathing my sword and leaning it against the side of the table. 'But please let me know if you are expecting anyone else.'
Lord Harsha opened the door and invited Joshu inside. The youth I remembered from the days when Asaru and I had taught him fighting skills had grown into a powerful man nearly as tall as I. He wore a single battle ribbon in his long hair. With his square face and strong features, he had a sort of overbearing handsomeness that reminded me of my brother, Yarashan. But in his manner Joshu seemed rather modest, respectful and even sweet. The moment he saw me, he nearly dropped the bouquet of flowers that he was holding and called out happily: 'Lord Valashu! Thank the stars you have returned! We all thought you were dead!'
He bowed his head to me, then greeted Master Juwain with the great affection that many of my people hold for the masters of the Brotherhood. With perfect politeness he likewise said hello to the rest of our company, but when he came to Maram, I felt the burn of embarrassment heating up his face, and he could hardly speak to him. He gave his flowers to Behira, who put them in a blue vase which she set on the table along with platters of food and pitchers of dark, frothy beer.
There came an awkward moment as Lord Harsha took his place at the head of the table and Joshu sat down in the chair to his
right. I had the place of honor at the opposite end of the table, with Maram to
my
right and Atara at my left. It seemed a strange thing for Alphanderry to join us, for he didn't so much sit upon his chair as occupy its space. He could of course eat no food nor imbibe no drink, and soon enough we would have to explain his strange existence as best we could. But as Behira seated herself across from Joshu, it came time for other explanations.
'Well here it is,' Lord Harsha said, looking at Maram. Lord Harsha was not a man of subterfuge or nuance, and he had put off this unpleasant task longer than he had liked. 'We
did
think you were dead, and too bad for that. And so I had to promise my daughter to another.'
As Behira looked across the table at Joshu, and Joshu lowered his eyes toward the empty plate in front of him, Maram's ruddy face flushed an even brighter red. And he called out, 'But you said that you'd wait for our return!'
Lord Harsha sighed as he rubbed at his eye, and then said, 'We
did
wait, for as long as seemed wise. Longer than a year it was. But you had told us that you were going to Argattha, and so what was there really to wait
for?'
As Maram fought back his rising choler, he fell strangely silent. And so I spoke for him, saying, 'We had indeed planned to go to Argattha, but in the end we set out on a different quest. My apologies if we misled you. It seemed the safest course, however, for then you could not betray our mission should any of our enemies come here and question you.'
Now Lord Harsha's face filled with a choler of its own. He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, which he too had leaned against the edge of the table. He said, 'I have taken steel, wood and iron through my body in service of your father and grandfather, and have never betrayed anyone!'
I said to Lord Harsha: 'My apologies, sir. But you know what the Red Dragon and the Prince of Ishka did to my mother and grandmother. Don't be so sure you would be able to keep your silence if he did the same to your daughter.'
Lord Harsha removed his hand from his sword and made a fist. He looked at it a moment, before saying to me 'No, my apologies. Lord Valashu. These are hard, bad times You did
what you had to do, as we have done. And it's good that we're gathered here together, for this is a family matter, and you and your friends are like family to Sar Maram. And so you should advise him on what our course should be.'
'What
can
our course be?' Maram said. 'Other than this: you promised Behira to me first! And promises must be kept!'
Lord Harsha pressed his hand against his eye patch as if he could still feel the piercing pain of the arrow that long ago had half-blinded him. And he said to Maram, 'On the field of the Raaswash more than two years ago, you promised to wed my daughter, and I still see no ring upon her finger.'
Now it was Behira's turn to make a fist as she set her right hand over her left.
'But I had duties!' Maram said to Lord Harsha. 'There were quests to be undertaken, journeys to be made, to Tria, across the Wendrush - and beyond. And the battles we fought were -'
'Excuses,' Lord Harsha snapped out. 'For three years, you've been making excuses and putting my daughter off. Well, now it's too late.'
'But I love Behira!' Maram half-shouted.
At this, Behira lifted up her head and turned to gaze down the table at Maram. Her face brightened with hope and longing. It was the first time, I thought, that either she or any of us had heard Maram announce his affection for her so openly.
'Love,' Lord Harsha said to Maram, 'is the fire that lights the stars, and we should all surrender up our deepest love to the One that created them. And a father loves his daughter, which is why I promised Behira to you in the first place, for every hour I had to bear my daughter's talk of loving
you.
But everyone knows that such love matches often end unhappily.
That
kind of love is only for the stars, not for men and women, for it quickly bums out.'
At this, I reached over and took hold of Atara's hand. The warmth of her fingers squeezing mine reminded me of that bright and beautiful star to which our souls would always return. I did not believe that it could ever die.
'Are you saying,' Maram asked Lord Harsha, 'that a man should not love his wife?'
On the wall above the table hung a bright tapestry that Lord Harsha's dead wife had once woven. He gazed at it with an obvious fondness, and he said, 'Of course a man should come to love his wife. But it is best if marriage comes first, and so then a man does not let love sweep away his reason so that he loses sight of the more important things.'
'But what could be more important than love?' Maram asked.
And Lord Harsha told him, 'Honor, above all else.'
'But I had to honor my duty to Val, didn't I?'
Lord Harsha nodded his head. 'Certainly you did. But before you went off with him, you might have married my daughter and given her your name.'
'But I -
'Too, you might have given her your estates, such as they are, and most important of all, a child.'
As the look of longing lighting up Behira's face grew even brighter, Maram closed his mouth, for he seemed to have run out of objections. And then he said, 'But our journeys were
dangerous!
You can't imagine! I didn't want to leave behind a fatherless child.' Lord Harsha sighed at this, then said, 'In our land, since the Great Battle, there are many fatherless children. And too few men to be husbands to all the widows and maidens.'
All my life, I had heard of the ancient Battle of the Sarburn referred to in this way, but it seemed strange for Lord Harsha to give the recent Battle of the Culhadosh Commons that name as well.
'Sar Joshu himself,' Lord Harsha continued, 'lost his father and both his brothers there.'
Joshu looked straight at me then, and I felt in him the pain of a loss that was scarcely less than my own. I remembered that his mother had died giving him birth, while his two older sisters had been married off. Joshu had inherited his family's rich farm lands only a few miles from here, and who could blame Lord Harsha for wanting to join estates and take this orphan into his own family?