Tracato: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Three (31 page)

Suddenly, Jaryd thought he understood. The seclusion of these quarters in Sherdaine. Armed men in the courtyard. A gathering of friendly supporters.

“Do you feel yourself threatened?” he asked.

“I do not choose this out of cowardice,” Damon said warningly, and Jaryd held up a hand, shaking his head. Damon seemed placated. He smacked his leg in profound frustration. “Damn him! Koenyg thinks me a worrier, but I fear for my neck every night I sleep in castle quarters without my personal guard from the road. There are many discontents, Jaryd, and if something happened to me, they would have no one to speak for them.”

Jaryd nodded slowly but he had no idea what to say.

“I would not choose to abandon Sofy so close to her wedding, but…” Damon grimaced, and glanced over his shoulder at the courtyard beyond the window. “This army may split, Jaryd, truly I fear it. Oh, the provinces are spoiling for a fight at the moment: Lenayin is a land of warriors and has never fought a united battle as a kingdom…hot-headed men think it’s about damn time, and think nothing for the rightness of it. But when the Goeren-yai are tired of being used as fodder for foreign Verenthanes who care not a jot for them, and see all the rewards heaped upon northern fanatics who hate them worse than those we fight…”

He shook his head, despairingly. “I chided Sasha, once, for thinking to champion the cause of the Goeren-yai. Now I find myself realising as she did, that if we lose the Goeren-yai, we lose Lenayin.”

“Ever think,” said Jaryd, “that if we lost the nobility, we’d lose nothing at all?” Damon was silent. “Lenayin needs nobility like a bull needs tits.”

“Now
you
sound like Sasha,” Damon muttered. He gave Jaryd a dark look. “My sister. Did you fuck her?”

Jaryd coughed and managed, somewhat suicidally, a roguish grin. “Which one?”

“Surely not Sasha?” said Damon. Jaryd shrugged. Then shook his head, reluctantly, beneath that hard stare.

“Not Sasha,” he admitted. “Though she did make very friendly with one of those serrin who came to help in the rebellion. Errollyn, that was his name.”

“Sasha can fuck who she likes,” Damon snorted, “it makes naught of an issue for anyone. Sofy is another matter.”

“Why do you ask?”

“She was very different after she returned from her little adventure to Baerlyn. Only she didn’t just travel to Baerlyn, did she? Or she tells me she didn’t.”

Jaryd blinked. “She told you?”

“I’m her friend, Jaryd. Not merely her brother. We tell each other things. It makes us a formidable pairing, one that some would love to see broken. I know she rode with you to Algery. What she would
not
tell me was if anything happened between the two of you. But I suspect. I may not have women’s intuition, but I know my sister.”

Jaryd felt a surge of anger. “Look, either state your accusation or don’t!” he snapped. “Good gods, what do you want from me, an admission to something that should by law cost me my head?”

“‘Good spirits,’” Damon corrected. Jaryd stared, not understanding. “You are supposed to be Goeren-yai now, you say ‘Good spirits,’ else someone take you for a fraud.” Pointedly. Jaryd felt his face redden with anger. “Furthermore, I do not wish you to lose either honour or head. I merely wish to ask if you’d like to see Sofy once more. Before she weds, in private. I can make that happen.”

“For the last time, I am not wearing that dress!” Princess Sofy Lenayin was not happy. She stood in the middle of a grand Larosan hall already decked out for the wedding, with great banners lining its walls. About her were Larosan priests, women of the Merciful Sisters, palace officials, numerous servants and an awful lot of dresses. The servants stood in a circle about her, each holding a dress, and struggling beneath their weight.

“Well then perhaps Your Highness could indicate precisely which wedding dress she
would
choose?” asked Master Hern, a portly, white-bearded man in an official’s cloak and hat.

“None of them!” Sofy said angrily. “There must be
something
in this wedding that shall be Lenay!”

“There shall be yourself, my dear,” the Princess Elora remarked, examining her nails on her seat nearby. “Surely that is adequate?”

Sofy struggled to control her temper. Princess Elora was soon to be her sister-in-law. She was a lean girl in her early twenties, and wore several times the jewellery that Sofy considered decent for a person of any station. Sofy thought she looked a little horsey. Perhaps she was overcompensating.

The
Maris Tere
, or “First Matron” of the Merciful Sisters was no longer
present. On the first day, she had insisted that Sofy wear the white of Larosan maidenhood and that she cover her hair in the
torhes foud
, the pious shroud, of a girl to be wed. She had demanded that Sofy spend the next two days in the Sherdaine Temple “cleansing” herself in ritual prayer, presumably to remove the stain of a lifetime of barbarian practices.

When Sofy had refused, the First Matron had become angry, and slapped her. Yasmyn had struck her back, hard enough to drop the old woman to the ground, and drew her darak on the others who sought to retaliate. Blood had nearly been spilt, and Yasmyn plus Sofy’s four-strong contingent of elite Royal Guards had escorted the bride-to-be to a deserted chambers and kept her there under guard until Koenyg, Princess Elora, and numerous lords and other importances had settled the misunderstanding.

Many of the Larosan court still demanded that Yasmyn be executed for her impudence, but were no longer demanding it so loudly after Koenyg had explained that executing the daughter of Isfayen’s Great Lord Faras would be taken by the Isfayen as declaration of war, upon which event there was nothing any man of Lenayin could say to hold them. Now, Sofy caught Yasmyn staring at her. Her dark, slanted eyes beheld more knowledge of her princess than any other in the room.

“Your Highness is a nice girl,” Yasmyn had said when they were alone, in the sarcastic tone of an Isfayen delivering a calculated insult. “She does not like to fight. People who do like to fight will see this, and challenge her with their blades until they back her up against a wall and there is nowhere left to run. Your Highness must realise that she cannot win a sword fight with a pretty smile and a silver tongue.”

Sofy looked about at the dresses and took a deep breath. “None of these will do,” she announced. “I shall decide my own attire for the wedding. I shall dress according to Lenay marital custom. I shall keep my own council only. Now thank you,” and she made a dismissive gesture to the dress-wielding servants, “we have other matters to attend to.”

Master Hern licked his lips nervously. “Your Highness, I do not think that it is wise—”

“Not wise?” Princess Elora challenged, rising to her feet in indignation. “It’s improper! A wedding of Larosan royalty is not a matter of highland dresses and flower decorations, there is a grand tradition of many centuries—”

“As there is a grand tradition of millennia in Lenayin,” Sofy said firmly. “I am
not
a Larosan, Princess Elora, I am a Lenay, and this marriage is a marriage
between
two peoples, not a subjugation of one to the other.”

“There is no question of a Larosan bride attending such a wedding in improper attire!” Elora insisted as though she had not heard her. “The offence
to the gods and the Larosan peoples, and indeed all the peoples of the free Bacosh, would be incalculable!”

“Then perhaps we could change these decorations?” Sofy suggested, indicating the feudal heraldry draping the surrounding walls. “To announce the rights of feudal nobility so loudly as this is surely offensive to many in Lenayin; I think some Rayen tapestries, and some flower garlands in the western style, would make a notable improvement…”

“Surely not!” said the Princess Elora.

“Your Highness,” Master Hern attempted to intervene, “to remove the feudal heraldry would be a grave insult to the lords of Larosa and beyond….”

“Then perhaps the timing of the ceremony,” Sofy suggested reasonably, “according to the Lenay star charts instead of the Larosan tradition—”

“Impossible!”

“Thus I must again insist,” said Sofy, her tone hardening, “that since so much of this wedding has been arranged without
prior consultation
, that those few remaining choices to be made must be resolved in favour of Lenayin!”

Master Hern glanced at Princess Elora. Elora sighed, and dismissed the servants with a wave of her hand.

“What does Your Highness request?” Master Hern asked.

“Dress,” said Sofy, ticking a finger. “Music.” Another finger.

“Not at the ceremony!” Elora protested.

Sofy smiled thinly. “We have no music at the ceremony,” she said. “No pagan drumming to drown out the recitals, have no fear. But at the feast.” Master Hern bit his lip. “Food,” said Sofy, ticking a third finger.

“Dear sister,” said Elora, “now would be a good time to ask…exactly what do Lenays like to eat?”

“Roasts,” said Sofy, with a brightening smile. She could picture it now, the elements coming together in her head. “We’ll build a great firepit in the centre hall, and roast steer or sheep or whatever you prefer. Great heat and cooking food, it should be quite a sight.”

Elora and Hern looked at each other. “That does not sound impossible,” Master Hern admitted. “But we should have Larosan dishes too from the kitchens.”

“Of course!” said Sofy, unable to contain her building enthusiasm. She’d always loved to arrange such events. Now, she could build something of symbolic value. “We should seek to combine the best of Larosan and Lenay cultures together! Think of it as a mutual education in each other’s lands and ways.”

They made further progress, Sofy giving Master Hern the names of several Lenays whom she thought could help with food and music. Dresses, however, she would have to think on for herself. A servant arrived to inform them
of lunch, and Sofy left the hall with Elora, Yasmyn, her Royal Guards, Elora’s four sworn knights, and Elora’s handmaidens. Dear lords, Sofy thought—it was a procession. Would her entire life be like this from now on? Could she never be alone?

“Dear Sofy,” said Elora as they walked the hall, “it would be most appreciated if you could persuade your father the king to have audience with more of our lords. I hear he rarely stirs from the Sherdaine Temple since his arrival.”

“Oh you must forgive him,” Sofy sighed. “He’s been like that a while, yet lately he grows worse.” Elora waited, expecting more, but Sofy did not continue. She would not enumerate her suspicions of her father’s doubts about the war, and the alliance with Larosa. She would not let slip her own, dawning frustration of a man who should have been leading his people in this trial, yet instead wallowed in self-indulgent prayer and moral uncertainty. Did he think he was the only one who doubted, or required reassurance? All that he achieved was to give the impression of a poor and uncertain leader. Thank the gods for Koenyg. “But I will speak with him,” she added.

“He seems a vastly devout man,” said Elora airily. “Such qualities are to be admired in a king.” Sofy was not fooled. “I hear that you have a brother, too, who thinks to wear the black?”

“Wylfred,” said Sofy with a nod. “He studies with our Archbishop Dalryn, with father’s blessing.”

“And he would forfeit his chance at the throne?”

“It is said that to be second behind Koenyg is like being last of a hundred siblings. The people do rather fancy him indestructible.”

Elora laughed. “I can see from where they might gain the impression. Although one wonders if they ever thought the same of Prince Krystoff?”

“No,” Sofy sighed. “I was young, but from what I gather, no one was particularly surprised that Prince Krystoff died young.”

“Save for your father,” Elora said shrewdly.

Sofy nodded. She was becoming accustomed to this probing by Larosan royalty. Such matters of family and succession were an obsession here. In Lenayin, the royal family was mostly unchallenged…though considering it had only held power for a hundred years, that was perhaps no great achievement. But Sofy had always thought nobility a vast and self-important thing in Lenayin. Gods knew, Sasha certainly did. Sasha would hate this place, Sofy thought glumly. Barely in Sherdaine for three days, and Sofy had been astonished at the utter self-possession of so many she had met. They lived their lives in palaces and castles, and knew barely a thing of what lay outside their walls, let alone beyond the borders of their lands. Sasha had occasionally made Sofy feel guilty that she obsessed on trivial royal matters more than
they deserved. Here in Sherdaine, that guilt had vanished. The other evening, she’d been cornered by a noble girl who’d talked about her family’s lineage for a full hour. If Yasmyn hadn’t rescued her, she might have expired.

Now, the likes of Princess Elora were intrigued to know that Prince Wylfred, second in the line to the throne by birth, was effectively the ruler of Lenayin in the king’s absence. The speculation, Sofy had gathered in mild shock, was that Wylfred was building a base of support in his father’s absence, and would claim the kingdom for himself whether or not his father and Koenyg survived the war. Any protestations to the contrary were met with the pitying smile of an adult to a naive child. Sofy wondered what it said of a people that they did not understand even the simplest Lenay concept of family honour. In the Bacosh, there were many wars of succession. That meant brothers against brothers, sons against fathers, and sometimes even against mothers. It boggled the mind.

The Palace of Sherdaine was in truth a castle that had been rebuilt to a palatial standard once the newest city walls had risen, and saved the castle from its need for defensive intent. The dining hall was truly grand. Tall, narrow windows opened to let in the sun, overlooking palace courtyards and the tightly packed roofs of Sherdaine beyond. The hall’s high walls were a many coloured profusion of coats of arms on shields, the mounted heads of animals and city pennants that Sofy had been told were battle trophies from past wars. There was room enough upon the polished flagstones for many tables and hundreds of nobles, but today there was but one table, set for lunch and aswarm with servants.