With little more fuss, the soldiers began filing down the Star's cobbled side lane. Sasha finally completed her rough headcount, and arrived at perhaps eighty men and horses, their numbers clustering a good way up the road past the inn. The strength of standing companies varied from province to province-in the north, the great armoured cavalry companies numbered closer to a thousand each. The Falcon Guard company, by her reckoning, should have about five hundred at full strength. Perhaps this contingent had left in a hurry and the others were following.
She left Peg in the care of a farmer she knew well. Damon and the young Tyree lordling stood in continued conversation with Jaegar, now joined by another two Baerlyn councilmen, similarly tattooed and ringed as Jaegar. Sasha eyed that contrast as she approached unseen, slipping between soldier-led horses-the Baerlyn men rough and hardy Goeren-yai warriors. And Damon tall, clipped and elegantly attired, a Verenthane medallion-the eight-pointed star-prominently suspended on a chain about his neck.
Rural Goeren-yai and city Verenthanes. The old Lenayin, and the new. The Goeren-yai believed in the ancient spirits of Lenay hills, the Verenthane in the foreign, lowlands gods. Sasha was born Verenthane, but lived amongst Goeren-yai… and was raised by Kessligh as Nasi-Keth, the followers of the teachings of far-off Saalshen. She sometimes wondered if she'd done something to offend some gods or spirits in a previous life to have deserved such a complicated fate. She often thought things would be so much simpler if she could just choose one or the other… or the third. But no matter which she chose, her choice would offend countless powerful people.
Sasha thrust the doubts aside, cleared the gathering about the steps, and trotted briskly up. Damon saw her at the last moment and straightened stiffly. Nearby commotion abruptly slowed, and conversation paused, as people turned to look.
"Damon," said Sasha, managing a half-genuine smile as Jaegar quickly made way for her atop the steps.
"Sashandra," Damon replied, similarly ill-at-ease. And then, with meaningful emphasis, "Sister." And spread his arms to embrace her. Sasha returned the hug, the first time she had embraced her brother in nearly a year, by her immediate reckoning. From about the verandah, and upon the road, there was applause and some cheering. Beneath Damon's riding clothes, Sasha felt the hard weight of chainmail, which was sometimes decorative custom for a travelling prince, and sometimes not. This, she guessed from the size of the company, was not. They released each other, and Damon put both gloved hands upon her shoulders and looked at her.
"You're looking well," he remarked.
Liar, Sasha thought. Little though she'd seen him of late, she knew well his true opinion of her appearance these days. In Baen-Tar, the seat of Lenay kings, the ladies all wore dresses, and hair so long you could trip on it. Some of her wry amusement must have shown on her face, for Damon barely repressed a smile of his own.
"You too," Sasha replied, and meant it. "What brings you to my humble town?"
"Well," said the young prince with a hard sigh. "Therein lies the tale."
"We're still not clear exactly what happened," Damon said to the table, his voice raised to carry above the mealtime clamour. Changed into a clean shirt beneath a patterned leather vest, covered again by the riding cloak in regal purple and green, he looked to Sasha's eyes far more comfortable now than in the armour. His fingers toyed absently with the wine cup. "We only received word that Great Lord Rashyd Telgar is dead, and that Great Lord Krayliss is responsible."
Sasha stared sullenly at the open fire upon the centre of the Star's main floor. Flames blazed within the stone-lined pit as several kitchen hands hurried about and rotated the three sizzling spits. Men clustered at long tables between ceiling supports as Baerlyn youngsters served as waiters, hurrying back and forth with laden plates and mugs of ale.
Voices roared in conversation, and heat radiated from the fire, as music and the smell of good food filled the confined air beneath the Star's low ceiling.
"You're sure it was Krayliss that killed Rashyd?" Jaegar pressed from his seat alongside Captain Tyrun, commander of the Falcon Guard. Tyrun and Sasha were sitting on either side of Damon at the head of the table. On Sasha's left sat Teriyan, widely regarded as Jaegar's right-hand man in Baerlyn, due mostly to his swordsmanship and exploits in battle. The young Master Jaryd completed the group, ignoring the breathless stares that the serving girls sent his way. At the end of the table, a chair for Kessligh sat empty. If Damon were offended at his absence, he didn't show it. Probably he knew that Kessligh was Kessligh, and did as he pleased.
"I'm not sure of anything," Damon replied to Jaegar, somewhat testily, but recovered from his outburst no sooner than it had begun. Same old Damon indeed, Sasha noted sourly. Damon took a breath. "I only know what word reached us in Baen-Tar. The messenger said his lord was dead and that revenge must follow. Against Krayliss."
Damon took another bite of his roast, then cleaned up the remains of his vegetable raal with a piece of bread. The table exchanged sombre glances, an oasis of silence amongst the raucous din. Sasha met no one's gaze and simply stared at the central fire. Lord Rashyd was dead, and Hadryn province, the greatest of Lenayin's three northern provinces, was now without its leader. And now the Falcon Guard were riding from Baen-Tar to take revenge on Lord Krayliss of neighbouring Taneryn province. It seemed that the age-old conflict between Hadryn and Taneryn had flared once more, with all the ancient, treacherous history that entailed. Sasha did not trust herself to speak, lest some slip of caution unleash the seething in her gut.
Lenayin had ten provinces-eleven, if one counted the city lands of royal Baen-Tar. A century earlier the Liberation had permanently established longdisputed borders and created a class of nobility to rule over them. In all of the provinces save one, the nobility were Verenthane. The one exception, of course, was Taneryn. Lord Krayliss was the only Goeren-yai great lord in Lenayin. No surprise then that the Hadryn-Taneryn border remained the most troubled in Lenayin. To all the many causes for countless centuries of war between the Hadryn and Taneryn, the Liberation had added religion.
As grand as the Liberation had been, not all the Lenay peoples had shared in its benefits. For the Udalyn peoples, the Liberation had proven a disaster. Today, they lived trapped in their valley within the boundaries of Hadryn, holding fiercely to the old ways, despite the Hadryn's attempts to convert them or kill them. The Taneryn considered them heroes. The Hadryn, heretics. It remained perhaps the most emotive of unresolved conflicts in Lenayin. For Goeren-yai across Lenayin, the Udalyn represented antiquity, the old ways from before the Liberation, too strong to die, too proud to give up the fight. If the Udalyn were somehow involved in this latest calamity, Sasha reckoned, then matters could become very grim indeed.
"Rashyd's men were on manoeuvre, we heard," said Captain Tyrun, downing his mouthful with a gulp of wine. Tyrun had a lean, angular face, like the falcon from which his unit took its name. His nose was large, his moustache broad and drooping. Less well clipped, Sasha noted with reluctant curiosity, than most Verenthane officers, although his face bore no sign of the ink quill, nor his ears of rings or other, pagan decoration. Most likely he was no Goeren-yai, although if he wore a Verenthane medallion, it lay hidden beneath his tunic. "It seems he was killed within Taneryn borders. What he was doing there, if he was there, we don't know."
"Making nuisance, most likely," Teriyan remarked around a mouthful. "Hadryn's claimed the western parts of Taneryn for centuries, damn Rashyd's been angling for a war since his father died."
"Words were exchanged," Tyrun continued, ignoring the dark look that Damon fixed on Teriyan. "A fight ensued between Rashyd's men and Krayliss's. Some were killed on both sides. And Krayliss killed Rashyd personally, with clear intent. So the messenger said."