“We aren’t the only ones . . . in the Riverland . . . facing a hungry winter.”
“And a simple wall . . . will keep them out?”
“If Kendar build it, yes.”
“You see? They don’t need a mere Highborn . . . getting in the way.”
“They need all the hands . . . they can get.”
She was thinking not so much of the Merikit as of the hill tribes farther north, some of whom lived under the shadow of the great Barrier between Rathillien and Perimal Darkling. Chingetai’s failed attempt to claim the entire Riverland had left his own borders unsecured and the northern end of the valley wide open from all directions.
The music stopped.
Timmon struck with fire-leaping. She parried and countered.
“I wasn’t born to pile up stones,” he said, now barely keeping down his voice. “You weren’t to run with the common herd. Let Gorbel trot around and around like the donkey that he is. He’s a joke. You must know that.”
“He’s prepared to suffer for what he wants. So am I. Are you?”
Instinct made them leap apart as Dar staggered between them, bounced off the wall, and launched himself back at his Ardeth opponent.
“The walls are taking a beating today,” remarked Jame.
She slid past Timmon, her water-flowing defense to his fire-leaping offense. He followed, still trying to land a blow, she continuing to slip away. His face flushed, but not with exertion.
“Think how much I can offer you.” The words rushed out of him, low and urgent. “A position. Power. Think how little you will have when the Highlord calls you to heel. He can do anything he likes. Any bed he chooses, he can toss you into, including his own. To whom will you spread your legs, lady? Whom will you call ‘master’?”
Jame slapped him.
For a moment they stood frozen, staring at each other. Everyone else had stopped as if caught up in the shock of that moment.
Yes, thought Jame sadly, the delicate courtship was over.
He launched himself at her again, driving her diagonally across the room in a frenzy of kicks and blows.
Cadets scrambled out of their way. Highborn fighting in earnest was a serious matter, even if one of them only baited and dodged. Color flared on Timmon’s cheeks, leaving the rest of his face white and taut. Jame knew she should engage, if only to give the Ardeth an outlet, but she was too angry.
“I haven’t been giving myself enough credit,” he said, with a feint at her face, followed by a punch that connected, hard, with the ribs just below her left breast. She reeled away. He followed. “I should be more like my father, who took what he wanted and deserved it. For that matter, why should you act so high and mighty? We’re both lordan, but my grandfather is far more likely to support me than your brother is you. Everyone knows Torisen is only waiting for you to fail.”
True, but beside the point.
“We’re here, now, trying to accomplish something. What’s more important than that?”
For a moment, Timmon struggled with himself. “Sometimes,” he said, in a half-strangled voice, “I’d like to wring your silly little neck.”
Jame raised an eyebrow. “I’ll put you down on my list after . . . um, Higbert.”
“You actually like Gorbel, don’t you? Is that why you slipped into his quarters at lunchtime, to hold his hand?”
Reflected in the fragmentary mirrors, Jame saw the randon raise his flute but hesitate, either to draw breath or perhaps to listen. Timmon’s voice, gone suddenly shrill, had cut through half the classroom.
She also paused, turned from Timmon, anticipating the first note. They both needed the dance to regain their tempers. Still, she couldn’t resist a final shot.
“I think,” she said lightly, as the music began, “that you’re jealous of Gorbel.”
The back of her head seemed to explode. The wall, then the floor leaped up at her. People were shouting, the randon loudest of alclass="underline" “Damn you, I was playing!”
“Sorry.” That mutter was Timmon, farther away, withdrawing. “Sorry, sorry, sorry . . . ”
Someone behind the wall chuckled. Graykin. Watching her again through some chink or spy-hole.
“Oh, be quiet,” she told him.
Fingers probed her skull, making her wince and the light flicker.
“I’m all right,” she protested, and pushed Brier away. Her stomach churned. Suddenly, both lunch and what was left of breakfast, black lumps and all, spewed out onto the floor. “Well, sort of all right. The lordan made a mistake. And I’ve attacked another wall.”
“We saw. It was no mistake, and nearly a killing blow.”
“What, to the wall?”
Jame clawed her way upright, using Brier for support, remembering too late to sheathe her nails. For a moment the room darkened, then her eyes cleared. Trinity, but her head hurt. How often could one get hit before one’s brains fell out? Maybe they had, long ago.
“I didn’t see you coming to my rescue,” she said, gingerly fingering the rising lump.
“Twice in one day? If he lost his temper, lady, he had help, and you were careless.”
“All right. I’ve paid. Now forget it.”
But it would be a long time before anyone did.
The last class of that long, long day was held in the Knorth barracks, in the third-story common room overlooking the training square. Only for Knorth cadets, it was taught by Harn Grip-hard, Torisen’s war-leader and sometime commandant of Tentir.
He was waiting for Jame when she and her command arrived, his broad shape blotting out most of one window, back turned to them as he looked down on the busy square. Also waiting were Vant and his tail ten.
Jame sank down cross-legged on the floor, glad to be off her feet. Trinity, but her head hurt while her cheek felt hot and swollen under the ginger probe of her fingertips.
“Is my eye turning black?” she asked Brier.
“Yes.”
With autumn, the days were shortening. The sun had slipped behind the western peaks of the Snowthorns scarcely past midafternoon with a long, slow twilight to follow. Shadows already pooled in the corners of the common room. It would be hours yet, however, before anyone conceded to the growing dark and lit the first rush or wax candle.
When Harn turned, Jame thought at first that only the failing light gave his wide, bestubbled face such a gray cast. When he spoke, however, she heard the same leaden tinge in his voice. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days, and his arm was in a sling.
“What happened to him?”
Dar answered in a whisper. “He slipped on that tower stair of his. Claimed the stones were greased, but they were scrubbed clean by the time the servants got to them. Luckily, it’s a sprain, not a break. He also said that the walls laughed at him. Oh, lots of strange things have been going on, stupid practical jokes mostly.”
“It wasn’t so funny when the Commandant’s girth broke in the middle of a boar hunt,” said Quill. “Someone had notched it. He might have been killed if he weren’t such a good rider.”
“Then there were the pebbles in the porridge,” Rue muttered. “Go ahead: laugh. I nearly broke a tooth.”
Harn began to prowl among the cadets, causing some to scramble out of his way before he tripped over them.
I’ve forgotten something again, Jame thought. Something about jumping at shadows . . .
Harn stopped for a moment, staring down at her.
“What happened to your face?”
“I ran into a foot. Then a wall.”
“Huh.”
With that, the lesson began.
“You all know that the randon of each house have their own distinct battle speech. Songs tell us that the practice goes back to before the founding of the Kencyrath when the Nine Houses mostly fought each other.”
“And we still keep it up, Ran? Aren’t we supposed to be above house politics?”
That was Vant. It was a good question, but he wasn’t really interested in the answer, thought Jame, annoyed. He just wanted to put Harn off his stride, and he was succeeding.