The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1) (14 page)

Kai turned to the other Drae.  They had been very helpful, standing there, breathing, and looking deadly.  Now, after a few quiet words, they
unpretentiously glided away.

A half hour later, Rodge was confessing his story to Melkin
while everyone else devoured their lunch, the morning’s activities having raised a splendid appetite.  Banion smacked his boulder-sized forehead when Kai added a few quiet words of explanation at the end.

“
Boiling blood!” he swore ferociously.

“
We’ve got to run,” Rodge tried again, less hopeful, more miserable.

Melkin gave him a look of thundering disapproval. 
“You’re not in your pampered little Northern bubble anymore.  You’re old enough to run your mouth to your elders and betters, you’ll pay the price.”  He let this sink in for a minute, then growled, “We’ll negotiate a different punishment.”

“
Hopefully,” Banion mumbled.

It was a subdued group that headed to the ominous-sounding Hanging Square later that afternoon, and a busy Banion, dexterously parrying a barrage of questions.  Yes, Merranics were basically good-natured; they were just sticky about their honor—a vague concept that Rodge and Cerise were having trouble pinning down.  No, no one had actually been
hung
in the Square, well, for decades.  Punishment was basically at the discretion of the offended party.  Jarl Grevken, unfortunately, was a bit touchier than most about his good name and was infamous for his penchant for dueling.  No excuse required.  His son was hopefully more understanding.

G
revken was a Jarl of the Stone, Banion continued patiently, that last being an affectionate term for the Fortress of the Sea, the King of Merrani’s humble little pile of rocks in Merrane.  Jarls were like Barons of the Empire, except noblemen in Merrani didn’t just sit around nobly and collect revenue like their Imperial version.  They were all warriors and leaders of warriors, some Knights, some Fleet Captains.  These Jarls of the Stone were the most elite of their rank, also serving as the King’s companions and personal guard. 

Banion, it turned out, was one of these.  Cerise
’s face was a study with that revelation.  The ‘bristling savage’ she’d spent the last couple weeks verbally denigrating outranked her by every standard in the Realms.  Worse, he didn’t seem to care.

A crowd was already gathering when they made the Square, akin to crowds everywhere—drawn by the smell of blood.  Jaegor stood proudly on one side of the open space, stripped to the waist, arms crossed across the graceless slabs of muscle that hung on his raw-boned frame.  Encouraging as it was to not actually see a gibbet…Jaegor himself was depressing enough.  Rodge seemed to wilt when the Merranic looked his way, throwing daggers with his eyes.

“He’s gigantic,” Rodge moaned.

“
It’s your own fault,” Cerise said briskly, and when everyone looked at her, relented slightly, “It’s not like they’re going to kill you or anything.”

“
I think he’s already pretty miserable, Cerise,” Ari discouraged dryly, and she surprised him by closing her mouth.

“
Be easy, Rodge,” Selah said into the tensing silence, her voice like a soothing poultice on everyone’s raw nerves.  “It’ll come out right in the end.”  He smiled weakly.

They had come right up opposite the offended party and Banion brought them to a halt.  He stepped out in front,
obviously representing the drooping Northerner trying to disappear behind him.

The Merranic that had done all the talking in the Post had come with Jaegor and was apparently his spokesman, because he stepped forward and said loudly,
“We are here to address the grievous insult paid to young Jaegor here, qualified for Wolfing just this morning—” the surrounding crowd oohed and aahed approvingly, “—as given by this ignorant Northerner.”  The crowd obligingly changed their tone to a dark mutter.  Quite a few people were gathering around and Rodge seemed to shrink with every body that joined the onlookers.

Jaegor stepped forward. 
“I demand a fight to the death.”  His voice was very clear and woefully unambiguous, sea-gray eyes roiling with anger.

With the exception of Melkin, the Northerners gasped.

“No,” Ari and Loren said, looking aghast at each other.  Rodge looked faint.

“
I am Banion, Jarl of Ransok,” Banion said, raising his voice so that all sound ceased.  Everyone’s eyes turned to him. “This young foreigner is a minor in his own land and our ways are not known to him.  He spoke hastily and on impulse at unintentionally rough handling.  I ask, as a personal favor, that his sentence might be lightened.”

There was an impressed pause.   Several approving cries of
“Jarl Banion!” floated through the air.

Jaegor
’s spokesperson looked torn.  He moved slowly back to the younger man’s side, talking to him in a low voice and glancing back at Banion as if to make sure he wasn’t imagining things.  Jaegor’s jaw jutted stubbornly.  The spokesman began to sound like he was pleading.

“
He probably sees the bigger political picture here,” Cerise mused quietly, eyes narrowed.  Ari had a feeling court intrigue was a specialty of hers.

“
It won’t do any good if all Jaegor sees is red,” Loren remarked worriedly.

With a final impatient shake of his lank blond hair, Jaegor stepped away from his counselor and repeated stubbornly,
“I request a fight to the death.”

The crowd murmured, sounding displeased, though Ari
’s perception may have been slanted.  Banion turned slowly to Kai and Melkin.  The Northerners all gathered in close.  “This is bad,” he rumbled.  “It’ll have to go to Kane if it’s to be stopped now.”

Jaegor
’s spokesman stepped up by his side and announced reluctantly, “Heard and witnessed.”

“
Who is he?” Melkin snapped, as if they could silence him then the day’s events would disappear.

“
The Jarl of Alene,” Banion said. 

Suddenly,
a woman’s strong voice broke into the waiting silence.  “I demand the right of substitution!” she cried, and as everyone turned, rubber-necking, she pushed her way to the edge of the crowd.

Ari felt a faint, inexplicable stab of
recognition, though he was sure he had never seen her before in his life.  She wasn’t the sort of girl you forgot.  A tall, big-boned Merranic, she had reddish-brown curls bobbing around her shoulders, a thick smattering of ginger freckles, and eyes that you could see dancing from across the square.  Voluminous skirts in serviceable dark brown flowed out from under her bright red corselet, and though a lot of Merranic women went barefoot, she was booted.  She was young, the boys’ age.  And pretty.

“
I’d forgotten about that,” Banion said, fingering his beard.  “Hasn’t been used in forever, but it’s perfectly valid by Merrani law.  Anyone can claim it and no one refuse it—came about during the Wars, so good fighting men didn’t end up getting wasted in things like this…”

The party turned anxiously to the Jarl of Alene, to the girl, to Jaegor, and back to the Jarl.  Alene
’s Jarl cleared his throat, looking several fathoms out of his comfort zone.  Jaegor looked mortified, obviously torn between appreciation for the comely female complicating his life and dismay for the implications of what she’d offered.  This time he listened closely to what the Jarl had to say, bending his head over on a neck the width of Cerise’s waist.

After a few minutes of rushed advice, he addressed the girl. 
“Agreed,” he said reluctantly, then added quickly, “The sentence has been changed to five lashes.”

“
Agreed,” she said promptly, in that same bold voice, and handed off her basket of flowers.  Completely composed, she marched across the Square like she was going to do the milking, entering one of the surrounding buildings.  Jaegor, swallowing audibly and looking like he was being dragged by his toenails, followed.

The crowd murmured in approval, a current of obvious and pleased satisfaction running through them.  No one seemed particularly distressed or alarmed at any of it.
  The same could not be said of the huddled Northerners, feeling deeply out of place and shocked to the core.

“
These people are mad!” Cerise hissed, pale eyes bulging out of her narrow face.  “Rodge pushed someone three times his size and called him a name and they want to
kill
him?!”  Rodge’s face was a conflicting palette of relief, shock, and consternation. 

“
I
could have taken five lashes,” he mumbled, which while factually correct, gave the misleading impression that he didn’t mind a little pain.  But it was a little shaming to have a girl take his punishment for him, undeserved or not.

Banion exchanged somber glances with Kai and Melkin, then without a word followed the
others across the square.

“
Back to the tavern,” Melkin growled.

“
Shouldn’t we wait…to talk to her…to thank her, or something?” Ari protested.  The North’s back country was still very old-fashioned.  Happy as he and Loren were about Rodge not having to get terminated, it was still almost unthinkable to them that a girl…a girl was…that anyone would…well, whipping?  A girl?  Even Archemounte, for all its talk of women’s equality, would never dream of doing anything so brutal.  Though, this entire spectacle was so foreign to Northern ways that it pushed the boundaries of believability.

“
Banion will take care of it.”

No one rolled their eyes at Cerise
’s ranting on the way back, and the first thing they all did at the tavern was order big mugs of ale.  Poor Banion almost got jumped when he finally came through the door.  He looked flummoxed as he told them what he knew, which wasn’t much.  She had no reason, she was no relation—everyone raised their eyebrows at that addition—she had no stake in the outcome of the proceedings at all.  But she’d agreed to meet them, there, tonight.  After she got cleaned up, Banion added, and took a quick swig out of his tankard.  No one really wanted to think about that.

The night passed
with tortuous slowness.  They ate more for something to do than to sate their appetites.  They paced.  They made uninteresting conversation.  They drank ale and then had to use the little house.  They paced some more.  It was late when they finally had to conclude that she wasn’t coming.  Rodge, probably feeling nibblings of humiliation, seemed almost cheerful, but Ari was strangely dejected.  There’d been something about her… something arresting about her brightness that had nothing to do with her pretty face or laughing eyes.

They headed up the stairs to their rooms, tromping after Melkin
and Kai, but were all brought to a domino-effect halt when the Dra stopped right in the middle of the hall.  Ari, at the end of the line, craned his neck around the gaggle of bodies—and saw a cloaked figure.  It was leaning quietly against the wall, hood drawn up, outside of Banion’s room.  As they watched, standing warily and in some cases stupidly, two white hands lifted the folds of cloth off the hidden face.

It was her
.  ‘She,’ to be grammatical. Without any appreciable sign of distress over her recent ordeal, her eyes sparkling with mischief, she laid a finger against her lips.  Kai moved quickly to Banion’s room, opening it, and she slipped inside with a curious, swift grace.  As if someone had poured water on them, the frozen conglomeration in the hallway moved in a rush to follow her, jamming up in the doorway and losing considerable dignity trying to get into the room.

She
doffed the hood completely once she was inside, lips curved up in the saucy Merranic smile as she watched all the jockeying.  They came and ranged around her, and for a split second no one said anything.  She had quite a presence, that sort of charisma that draws stares and makes people laugh and forms friendships on the spot…Not only that, but her eyes were a warm reddish-gold of a brown, full of laughter and secrets, like she knew something interesting and if you stayed quiet long enough you’d get to hear it.

She was the first one to speak, saying confidentially,
“I may not have too long—I was spotted on the way here.  I’m Adama.”

Another pang of familiarity shot through Ari.  Why was he
so thick-headed?  Where did he know her from?

“
We owe you a great gratitude, Lady,” Banion said respectfully, while most of the Northerners were musing over the suspicious suggestion that she was somewhere she shouldn’t be.

She dimpled at him, freckles leaping about on her milk-white skin.
  “’Tis only stripes… I’ve had worse.”  She winked at Rodge, shrugging.  Carefully.  Ari noticed she wasn’t wearing her corselet and the loose blouse hung outside her skirt waistband.

Cerise began to splutter, doubtless warming up, but
she faded right off after the girl’s next words:

“
Besides, I heard you were looking for me…and this was such a convenient way to meet.”  Everyone stared at her blankly and a puzzled silence settled in over the faint thumps and muted noise of the hall below.  Suddenly, it clicked in Ari’s mind, what he’d been trying to remember, why things about this bright-eyed stranger seemed so familiar.