So began the Houses of the Children of Vothan, for boys and girls up to the age of ten who'd been orphaned in the wars. There were plenty of those, enough to fill many more than the seven Houses everyone knew about.
In those seven Houses orphans were fed, clothed, sheltered, and taught trades. Some learned to be midwives, seamstresses, carpenters, shepherds, smiths. Some learned new skills, such as wire-making or distilling. In one house the boys were destined to become acolytes of Yatar, the girls to serve the hearth goddess Hestia. There was a house near Rick's precious University.
And there was an eighth House. Six boys and five girls, from six to nine, picked for quick wits, strong muscles, and keen eyes and ears, brought here to learn one thing and one thing only-how to kill. Some of them had good reasons to learn, others just had talent. All had been doing well at their lessons, the last time she visited them, six ten-days before her confinement.
Bartolf led her through the door from the antechamber into the main room of the house. As she stepped into the room she heard a thump, a squeal like a piglet's, and the rasp of a knife blade.
"Aiiii, lass!" shouted a wheezing male voice. "Have ye learned nothing about holding a knife? That one-it'ud stick between his ribs, even the rope round his neck canna save ye then! Fast in, faster out, that's the way it must be."
Tylara stepped out into the room. In one corner a man-sized dummy lay on the floor. One boy lay under its head and upper body, gripping a rope drawn tightly around its neck. On top of it lay the girl Monira, her knife thrust up to the hilt in its chest. As Tylara approached, Monira sprang up, bowed quickly, then helped her companion crawl out from under the dummy.
"Are you hurt, Haddo?"
"No, Monira. Only my breath knocked out." He also bowed to Tylara, then walked off with Monira as if both Tylara and their teachers had become invisible.
"My regrets, lady," said the teacher with a shrug. "Sometimes she gets taken so that she forgets everything. Mostly, though, she's a joy to watch. Ah, if I'd had a girl like her when I-" He broke off abruptly as he remembered to whom he was talking.
The teacher's name was Chai, and he had reason to be cautious in talking about his past. He was a former thief who'd taken advantage of the wars to practice his skills, and in due time came before the Eqetassa's justice. Unlike most common thieves, he had real skills. He could even read and write. And he'd once been a priest of Yatar. A spoiled priest, but admitted to the mysteries…
That was the morning that Tylara decided to establish the Houses; and Chai, his name and appearance changed, became one of the Masters…
Tylara watched Monira and Haddo sit down cross-legged in a corner and wipe each other's faces with damp clothes. Monira was beginning to have a woman's body, but she would never be beautiful even with her thick fair hair. A troop of Sarakos's cavalry had taken care of that. At least nothing showed when she was dressed, except her broken nose and the scars on her chin and one ear.
Tylara had been through a similar ordeal, at Sarakos's own hands, and she also would bear scars both inside and out for the rest of her life. Compared with what Monira had survived, though, Tylara knew her own experience was a child's game. No great wonder that Monira sometimes saw one of those men instead of the training dummy.
In another corner of the room stood the third teacher, Rathiemay, wearing a knight's armor. He was showing three of the Children how to attack an armored man.
"-get him to bow his head, if he's wearing a helmet like this. That will leave a patch exposed at the back of the neck. Yes, that's it," he added, as one of the Children prodded it with a blunted dagger. "A good hard thrust right there. If he's not dead at once he's easy to finish off." He saw Tylara and straightened up. "Good day, my lady."
"Good day, Lord Rathiemay. How are they doing?"
"No one could wish for better pupils, my lady. They seem to have been born with steel in their hands." His face was bright with his smile, reminding Tylara oddly of her husband's expression when he spoke of the University or some other great scheme for bringing hope and life to Tran. She remembered how he'd looked the first time she came, sour and grumbling over being a knight sent to teach commoner children how to strike down his brothers in arms. To be sure, he was grateful that the Eqetassa had given him this chance to restore his fortunes, but still… Now he looked almost like a father teaching the children of his own body the family trade.
"Where are the other Children?"
"Out in the woods, learning tree-climbing," said Chai.
"Without a teacher?"
"Na, na, lady. They're learning from Alanis. His father was a woodsman, there's no sort of tree he can't climb. It's a mizzling gray sort of day, so no one's likely to be seeing them."
Tylara pulled eleven silver coins out of her purse and handed them to Bartolf. "For the Children. I hear they want some new bows."
"Aye, but they've also spoken about some sand-fish buskins for the tree-climbing. We'll have to let them decide."
"You let them choose what they'll buy?"
"Oh, not everything, lady. Only the things likely to be life or death for them. Why not? Does a carpenter let a butcher choose his mallets for him?"
Tylara thanked the man, drew the hood of her cloak over her head, and was outside in the rain without remembering quite how she got there. What had she done? The Children of Vothan were no weapon to lie quietly in a scabbard until she choose to draw it. They were a sword with a life and a will of its own, which might choose its own moment to be drawn and drink blood.
Whose?
A dangerous experiment. Was it best ended now, while she had control? Or Or might there be uses for this weapon? Used well, used now, before the sky-folk came.
Tylara grew more hopeful as she walked back to her horse. By the time she was in the saddle and returning to where she'd left her escort, she knew the Children of Vothan would not be a weapon only for a single battle. The sky-folk were not the only enemies to her and her house.
PART TWO
6
Corgarff knew that he was out of favor with Dughuilas when his clan chief did not invite him to sit or offer him a drink. He stood in front of the table facing Dughuilas and another man he didn't know, until he felt like a small boy waiting to be whipped by his father. The only light in the cellar came from two candles on the table, throwing strange twisted shadows on the cobweb-shrouded brick of the walls.
"That was not well done, what you said at the Grand Council," said Dughuilas.
"I thought it the best thing to say at the time. And indeed, is it not possible that the Lord of Chelm thinks too much of his countrymen still?"
"Whether he does or not is no concern of yours," said Dughuilas. "You thought poorly, and spoke worse. If you wish to sit longer on the Council with me, you will need to think better or speak less."
"I will do neither unless I know why you are so tender toward the Lord Rick so suddenly," said Corgarff. "Was it not he who spoke harshly to you and did all but smite you with the open hand the day we fought the Romans? Was it not he who made fighting men out of plowboys and swineherds? Is it not he-?"
"He has done all this and more," said the second man. He wore a hooded cloak, and kept the hood drawn over his head so that his face stayed shadowed.
But his accent was not that of the Tamaerthan upper classes. Nor yet that of the Drantos nobility. Who, then? Corgarff thought it would be dangerous to ask-and probably death to know.
"And speak more softly," the man continued. "We cannot trust the tavern keeper if he thinks he has anything worth selling." Dughuilas put a hand on his dagger but the other shook his head. "In time, perhaps, but not now on the mere chance that he might have heard something useful. If we kill too many rats, the wolves will escape."