Heir of Scars I: Parts 1-8 (11 page)

A lamb raised for slaughter,
Adria thought.
A daughter groomed for a decent marriage and little more
. Though her husband and his siblings were careful to rejoin her in conversation, she responded listlessly and merely out of duty.

As the evening went on, those at the table traded various news, jests, and traditional family tales. Peryna pleasantly and accurately explained to Adria anything she might be unlikely to understand. Peryna had a good voice and was every bit her parents’ mix — the Aeman good humor of her father and the age-old cultured grace of her mother. Most of the children seemed of similar cast.

By the time her shared plate lay half empty and a second bowl of soup was served, conversation had inevitably wended its way to Adria herself, but not without some reservation. The youngest children eyed her openly, with a child’s typical admixture of wariness and eager curiosity.

Although Adria expected the lady to readdress Adria and her novelty, it was Sir Marbury.

“Sister, I hope that the soup is adequate. This is unfortunately not the best season to impress a visitor with the fruit of our land.”

“I am no stranger to the seasons, Sir. And it is nevertheless quite good,” Adria smiled. “Though perhaps I can seek some pretense to return this way during the autumn harvest for a full regaling. With luck, the Sisterhood will have formed a council expressly for the inspection of soup.”

Adria hoped her good humor might disarm any lingering suspicion, and allow her less further untruths. But Lady Marbury had already refocused upon Adria as her husband spoke, with that strange ability of attention which Adria now sensed to be protectively suspicious.

“Of course, Sister,” the lady rejoined. “It is all the better with a taste of our manor’s prized wine.” She was drawing notice to Adria’s untouched cup, which Adria had hoped might go overlooked.

She is eager for me to lower my guard,
Adria thought.

Adselm hastily interceded on her behalf. “Mother, of course you know that many Sisters of the Temple choose not to drink anything of ferment.”

Adria answered them both with her own casual shrug. “Yes, but neither is it expressly forbidden, save on rare and…” she paused to choose carefully — or to seem to. “…particular occasions.”

Adselm remained silent, and the lady nodded politely.

“I was, however, hoping to make a rather early start,” Adria continued, idly, as if the words were unneeded, merely a pleasantry designed to show comfort with her status among them. “But knowing that your wine is specially cherished, I shall of course give it its due.” She raised her cup to her lips for a small taste.

Wouldn’t it be strange if, all this time, they knew who I was, and were merely trying to poison me?
She smiled at the joke. In truth, she was convinced she would leave long before morning, as soon as she was certain the family was asleep. She meant to put some distance between herself and this estate quickly, and wished to have nothing that might dull her attention while traveling through the night.

But the wine was pleasant, more refreshing than she would have guessed, neither overly sweet nor heady. It was, she sensed, an honest concession to an honored guest.
And Adselm pointed out a grape arbor to me as we rode.

Now she smiled with real appreciation.

“I confess,” and she immediately mourned her choice of word. “This is remarkable. You were right to insist, Lady Marbury.”

She knew she was probably being a bit too formal, playing too much the Sister, when she had already admitted a long separation, when her dress made obvious another story entirely, even if not in contradiction. She was being too cautious, and out of remorse for a lie, no less. But she had followed it too far to alter her act dramatically at this point. And this would all be good practice for when she returned to Windberth.

“We thank you,” the lady nodded.

“You make the wine here, then?” Adria asked before a second sip.

“We do,” Sir Marbury smiled. “We are just southerly enough to entertain a few vines, transported from her Ladyship’s ancestral lands.”

“A remembrance from my youth, now made distraction from less leisurely agricultural affairs,” Lady Marbury said, with begrudging whimsy.

“True enough,” her husband admitted, chuckling. “A task begun at leisure, continued at great effort, and completed to some small satisfaction and very little income.”

Adselm translated. “What we do not drink we mostly gift to our tenants or favored neighbors.”

“A policy of good will begets the like,” Adria offered, then added a loose translation of a Somanan adage. “Balance the friendship as you do the wine.”

Lady Marbury responded swiftly and in kind, but in the original Somanan, “
A sweet wine is for children better served by milk
.”

It was a clever retort, the near-equivalent of the Aeman, “throwing pearls to swine.” It could very well be taken as an insult, if Adria had not already complimented and offered her own adage. Nonetheless, it was bait, for the mother obviously knew that every Sister was taught Somanan early in her training. Adria’s, though long disused, was nonetheless automatic.

“Ah,” Adria nodded with a smile, daring a little more than she probably should. “
As the milk of a mother’s anger runs to venom in the child
.”
Then she hesitated, and gave a little smile. “Forgive me, but my Somanan suffers from long disuse.”

Such false modesty was a direct rebuke for the mother’s suspicion, and the lady acknowledged this with a polite nod, lapsing into silence.

Sir Marbury seemed oblivious to the exchange, though it was likely he understood its tone, even if not the words. Adselm, who had been trying to find the words to intercede, now merely tried to change the subject, clumsily and with little segue.

“There is rumor of war this season,” Adselm nodded. “With... forgive, me, Sister... with the Aesidhe, and perhaps even to claim some land lost to Somana in the south, perhaps even Aeland.”

He does not say “Wilding,”
Adria again noted.

“These rumors always persist. What has it to do with us?” Sir Marbury responded quickly. “Where His Majesty unleashes his soldiery is little of our affair, save for our extra toil for the scutage, and a tightening of belts.”

It seemed intended as just conversation by Adselm, but this was obviously something they had all been considering heavily.

“That means enough,” his son argued evenly. “And it will mean more if borders are redrawn and when Knights are quartered here. It means more recruitment.”

There was an air of repetition to this, of gossip too often heard, but that no one wanted to see the truth of, regardless.

“Must we speak of this now?” Lady Marbury asked wearily. Adria could not tell if her objections were for the sake of the dinner, the children, or the guest. She no longer watched Adria so closely. It was clear they spoke of the Knights of Darkfire, who now guarded nearly every border fort and strategic castle and were the vanguard of any action against the Aesidhe.

“No, Adselm is right.” Sir Marbury relented. “I mock, but there is much to consider, and soon.”

“Surely not tonight,” Lady Marbury reiterated.

Though encouraging the discussion might make her deceit more difficult, Adria’s curiosity was piqued. “Sir Marbury. I am a Sister, and by no means involved with the military arm of His Majesty’s kingdom. Moreover, I have been long separated from what little knowledge I once held. You seem to have reservations with the Knights of Darkfire, and I would understand why.”

She tried to keep her tone even, perhaps mildly curious. She had not realized there might be such resentment among the gentry, certainly enough that one would voice even as much as Marbury already had to a Sister.

Sir Marbury studied her for a moment, then nodded. “It is simple, and yet a cause of increasing concern that it is often ignored… His Majesty relies upon his Brotherhood of Knights at the expense of his vassals. Year after year, our scutage in gold or kind increases, and our duty in arms diminishes.”

“Would you have your sons at war, instead?” Lady Marbury frowned.

Ah, this dissent is merely a mother’s concern for a child’s welfare.
But then Adria chastised herself.
The love of a mother for her sons should not be so diminished
.

“I would not have war at all,” Sir Marbury rejoined. “The oaths of fealty have always worked because our knights were also those who ruled our manors, our fields and our mines, and our common soldiers those who worked the same. A lord will think twice before committing his troops to war when it will cost him planting time.”

Lady Marbury smiled a little.
She has been goading him into this
, Adria realized.
For my benefit? For the benefit of a Sister? That is… bold. Bold of them both.

“
When you maintain a standing army like His Majesty’s Knights, the lords must stay at home, must work off their debt to the crown even harder. The armies must be fed and paid regularly, even if they are not at war.” Sir Marbury shook his head. “So why hesitate to go to war at all, when you are paying your soldiers just the same merely to stand about? They may as well be used. They
must
be used, for the pillage they gain to pay for their upkeep, or even to thin their numbers during lean times. When it is not fathers who send their sons to war, what other need is there for hesitation?”

There was silence. Some looked to Sir Marbury, some to the lady, and some to Adria.

“Father, perhaps...” Adselm began.

“It is a fair point,” Adria interrupted, with welcome honesty. “In fact, it seems to bear some similarity to the difficulties Somana has had, many times in its history.”

“Yes, yes... exactly...” Marbury nodded, smacking his hand on the table. “To continue to exist, the Knights of Darkfire will have to maintain a perpetual state of war, and the nobility and their laborers become nothing more than an… elaborate baggage train.

“And when the Knights meet borders that they cannot cross, or armies they cannot defeat, either our economy will collapse under the weight of supporting them, or the Knights will turn upon us, their own people, to continue their existence. It is simple wisdom to understand that a man who does not work must take from those who do. Warlords without husbandry are nothing more than… brigands.”

The speech had obviously been welling in him for a long time, and his reasoned anger silenced the table. Lady Marbury seemed appeased and unwilling to argue, neither watching nor avoiding her husband, or Adria, or anyone in particular.

Adselm fidgeted. Adria thought at first that it marked his disagreement, but then he glanced twice quickly in her direction.
He does not disagree with his father’s words, but perhaps the fact that he voiced them in my presence.

He looked as if he might speak, so before he could make another objection on her behalf, Adria turned her head and smiled reassuringly. It was an honest one, which would hopefully put the boy at ease.
Boy? He’s more than a few seasons my senior
…

“It is clear Heiland would have your coin instead of your sons in seasons of war,” Adria said, considering the young men of the table. “And yet... will the Knights not come for your sons nonetheless? They may stand apart from the vassals of Heiland, but they must be born of someone. And why would they allow idle noble sons to stew in the words of their fathers, and continue to train in arms? Will this not prove an eventual threat to the Knights? Will it not be better for the Crown, the Knights, and the Sisterhood to appeal to the sons of Heiland to swell their own ranks?”

She did not leave it a question, and it left only more silence, as Lord and Lady and elders among them fully measured her meaning. The answers were obvious, because they were already in place across much of Heiland, though not yet so much on these borderlands. Adria did not allow an answer, but turned to her next point of interest.

“My good Sir Marbury,” Adria said as she turned slowly back to the head of the table. “These are heady matters, it is certain. I wonder if your lord baron shares such counsel as yours, or am I given the pleasure of some secret confidence?”

It held enough humor to show she bore no ill will. As a lay Sister, she might very well hold herself above such concerns, especially when spoken by someone of low enough rank to pose no real threat. Marbury was only a knight, after all. He was no great lord, and likely held little sway beyond the walls of his own demesne... or, at least beyond the borders where walls might have been.

Thankfully, Sir Marbury found the humor. “It is a vassal’s duty to advise his liege in all matters, and I am no exception,” he chuckled. He knew her to be belittling him a little, and he seemed to enjoy it in good grace. He was wise enough to know his place in this world. “That the liege does not choose to heed the counsel of his vassal is a privilege of his rank and fortune. It does not prevent me from his service, and neither does it lead me to insurrection. You are bound by no oath to keep my words secret. Take them to the Sisterhood or to the king himself, and with my good will.”

“My Lord,” Lady Marbury sighed, an exaggerated air of exasperation only half hiding a greater measure of appreciation. She had dropped her guard a little, and Adria could begin to see the gentleness beneath the gentility. “You would
be
baron, save for such talk.”

“I am thankful no such disservice was ever granted me,” He answered. From their looks, both the knight and his lady were thankful.

The irony,
Adria thought,
that those best able to lead are often those least willing.

Adselm finally managed a belated disclaimer. “My father intends no disrespect to His Majesty or to your High Matron, of course.”

Sir Marbury said nothing, having already accounted for himself, so it fell to Adria to answer them both, if she chose, and she directed her words at Adselm.

“Truth in counsel is a mark of respect in itself, whether or not it is welcome to the listener. Your father is right to give voice to his knowledge and experience, and right to assume that it is his duty and not simply an act of whim or matter of opinion. Those who choose their words out of fear for the response bear false witness to their lord, nothing less.”