Tarja frowned, as if he could not conceive of anything so callous. “So take them back.”
“No, I think I’ll leave them right where they are for now. Another thing you may not understand about Fardohnyans and Hythrun, Tarja, is that for a noblewoman to be collared like a slave is the worst kind of insult. Her Serene Highness could well do with a little humiliation. Anyway, she thinks I need a key to open them. I can keep her collared for quite some time, while I’m waiting for the keys to arrive from Hythria.”
“Have you sent for them?”
“No need. There’s a concealed clasp. But the idea that her good behaviour will earn her release might keep her tractable for a time.”
“I could always offer to dismember her slave,” Tarja suggested with a grin. “It worked on the Karien boy.”
“Adrina would probably tell you to go right ahead and then ask if she could watch,” he predicted sourly. “Speaking of the boy, he is your responsibility. I don’t want him anywhere near her. He’d probably run one of us through if she asked him.”
Tarja nodded, his expression suddenly glum. “I miss R’shiel already. She seemed to be able to get through to the child. And I’d be happier if Mahina were here to deal with Adrina.”
“So would I,” Damin agreed. He poured a cup of wine then poured another for Tarja and pushed it across the table to him. “Here. If I’m going to get drunk, then you’d better join me. It has been a thoroughly unsatisfactory day. That battle was as glorious as a cattle cull.”
Tarja took the wine and sipped it as Damin downed his in a gulp. They were silent for a while, only the crackling fire and the hissing torches disturbing the silence. Damin filled his cup again.
Tarja glanced at him curiously. “You said it was common practice among Hythrun and Fardohnyan nobility to have their sons and daughters trained by court’esa. Does that mean you were?”
“Absolutely!” Damin could feel the wine making his head spin. It was a rough blend, too young to be drunk with such determination. He drank it anyway. “Her name was Reyna. I was fifteen when she came to Krakandar.”
“It beats fumbling around in the stables with a nervous Probate, I suppose.”
“Having never fumbled around in a stable with a nervous Probate, I’m not in a position to comment on the comparison, but I imagine you’re correct. Drink up, Captain. I’m getting very drunk here and you haven’t finished your first cup.”
“Perhaps you should get some sleep, Damin. It’s been a long day.”
“Yes, mother.”
“I only meant —”
“I know what you meant.” He studied the bottom of his cup for a moment. “You know, we call rough wine like this ‘Fardohnyan courage’ in Hythria.”
Tarja smiled. “We call it Hythrun courage.”
“I shall ignore such a heinous insult, Captain, because I like you.” Suddenly, he hurled the cup at the fireplace where it shattered into thousands of clay shards. “Dammit! Why couldn’t she stay on her own side of the border?”
“You really should get to bed, Damin. You’re drunk and you’re not thinking straight.”
“I’ll grant you that I’m drunk, Tarja,” he conceded. “But as for thinking straight, I’ve never been surer. Shall we pay her Highness a visit?”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“All the more reason to wake her up. Her Royal Sereneness tried to kill my uncle and she allied herself with the Kariens. She sent her men to be slaughtered and then fled the scene of her crime like a cur in the night. I intend to rattle that bitch until her teeth come loose.”
Ignoring Tarja’s pleas for reason, Damin took the crumbling stairs to the chambers so recently vacated by Joyhinia, two at a time. Voices filtered up to him, as someone entered the hall at a run. Damin ignored them, his eyes focused, (as much as they could focus in his present state), on the door at the end of the landing, guarded by two red-coated Defenders. He had no clear idea what he would say to Her Serene Highness, but he was going to say something, by the gods!
“Damin!”
Tarja’s voice held an edge of urgency that made him pause just before he reached the door. He leaned over the balustrade and looked down into the torchlit hall.
“Forget the princess! The Fardohnyans have surrendered!”
Sobriety returned quickly as the cold night air caught Damin unawares. The camp surrounding the Keep was surprisingly busy, considering the lateness of the hour. Men normally well abed by now were sitting in small groups discussing the battle, dissecting its every nuance with varying degrees of expertise, depending on how much ale they had consumed. Morale in the camp was high. Nobody had expected to weather the first attack with so few casualties. Laughter and the off-tune baritone of men singing victory songs filled the air. Fires blazed with little thought to the fuel they were consuming. Thunder rattled in the distance and a light rain had fallen while he was in the Keep, dampening the dusty ground. Soon enough, these men would be forced to take shelter. There would be no frost tonight with this cloud cover, but if it got much colder it would snow, which should slow the Kariens down somewhat.
This morning’s battle had been a desperate attempt to break the Medalonian defences before winter set in. Damin was rather proud of himself for working that out. Maybe he wasn’t as drunk as he thought.
The young man in command of the Fardohnyans was a Second Lanceman named Filip. He wore an expression of defeat along with his battle-stained uniform. His eyes were dull, and his exhaustion seemed to be warring with an emotion that it took Damin a little time to identify: self-loathing. The thirty or so Fardohnyans stood in a loose group, surrounded by Defenders, their torches hissing as the occasional tardy raindrop vanished into the flames.
“Lord Wolfblade.” The Fardohnyan bowed low, obviously relieved to see someone who might speak his language. The Defenders who had taken their surrender had disarmed the men behind him. A few were wounded and four lay on the wet ground, too seriously injured to stand. Tarja, who always seemed much better organised when it came to these things, ordered the wounded removed to the Infirmary Tent and the sleek Fardohnyan steeds moved to the corrals, leaving Damin to deal with the prisoners.
“I’ve seen many a strange sight in my time, Lanceman,” he said in the young man’s native tongue, “but Fardohnyans surrendering is not among them.”
The lad’s expression clouded. Surrender did not sit well with him. “We were ordered to surrender, my Lord.”
“What did he say?” Tarja asked, coming to stand beside him.
“He says they were ordered to surrender.”
“By whom?”
“Who ordered you to surrender?” he asked in Fardohnyan.
Filip hesitated, glancing over his shoulder at the men behind him before answering, rather reluctantly. “Princess Adrina, my Lord.”
Tarja did not need that translated. “Ask him why.”
Damin turned to Tarja impatiently. “You don’t think I might have thought to ask that by myself?”
“Sorry.”
“Did her Highness give a reason?”
The Fardohnyan shrugged. “She was beside herself with grief, my Lord. She said she did not want any more Fardohnyan blood shed for Karien.”
“Pity she didn’t decide that before she sent her men to be slaughtered,” he muttered as he turned to Tarja and translated the young soldier’s words.
“Grief for whom?” Tarja asked, his sobriety allowing more clarity of thought than Damin was capable of.