Tracato: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Three (51 page)

The archbishop raised the star with a final pronouncement, and all across the courtyard, men dropped to one knee and bowed their heads. Sasha remained standing. So did Jaryd. Yasmyn half-dropped, then paused in confusion. Sasha put a hand on her head and pushed her down properly. She could not see anyone else standing, across the entire courtyard, which meant that Yasmyn’s father Lord Faras had knelt. Best that his daughter did not cause him trouble.

The archbishop did not notice the two still standing, and resumed his speech, but the priest at his elbow noticed, and put a hand on his arm. He pointed, straight at Sasha and Jaryd.

“How many do you think we could take?” Jaryd wondered aloud, eyeing the faces that were now turning their way.

“Hundreds,” said Sasha. Jaryd smiled, and flexed his sword hand.

The archbishop stopped speaking. There was confusion, some in the crowd looking about, instructions, pointing and hand waving among the Black Order. Then several men in black hoods came running along the cleared path the horses had taken. Sasha did not feel any alarm. She knew where she stood. The prospect of killing these men did not particularly trouble her…if they asked her to kneel.

Four of the black-robed and hooded men stopped before Sasha and Jaryd, and threw their robes back to reveal swords at their belts. Sasha smiled. She did not think the Black Order would be the best of the Bacosh’s warriors, and
those
were no match for Lenay swordsmen like Jaryd. She herself was better again. Perhaps these fools required a demonstration of the fact.

Yasmyn stood up. Sasha frowned at her, but Yasmyn ignored her, and put a hand to her darak. Perhaps twenty paces away, Great Lord Faras of Isfayen
also emerged from the sea of kneeling bodies, giving his daughter a long, displeased look. About him, the rest of the Isfayen contingent stood in solidarity with their lord. Several more Lenays followed. Then some more, like new shoots sprouting from a fertile soil. A priest came striding to them and stood before Sasha and Jaryd.

“Kneel!” he said in Torovan. “Kneel at once!”

“No,” said Sasha.

“We ride to war on a holy crusade!” snarled the priest. “If you will not kneel for this, what then do you fight for?”

“The warriors of Lenayin,” Sasha shouted in Torovan, “shall kneel to whom and what they choose! It is not for any man here to instruct a
Lenay
man on to what, or to whom, he must or must not kneel!”

It was a
kayesar
, and she knew it. A pronouncement of righteous truth. About the courtyard, more Lenays stood. Most of the lords remained kneeling, but Sasha saw with satisfaction that many of their guards and company captains were standing. More long-haired and slant-eyed lords also stood…Yethulyn, Sasha saw, the Isfayen’s western neighbours, and unwilling to be shown up by their hated rivals on a point of Lenay honour. And what was some golden trinket to a lord of Yethulyn? They were Verenthanes, but not in any fashion a lowlander would recognise. The thing in the archbishop’s hands looked like jewellery, a thing of great value, with which to stoke a man’s greed. The Lenays of the western highlands liked gold as well as anyone, yet few Lenays anywhere would fight and die for it. To suggest that a man might was to suggest that his honour could be bought. To suggest such a thing, anywhere in Lenayin, was a dangerous matter.

The angry priest seemed to take a breath, eyes darting, as he reassessed his situation. Clearly it had not occurred to anyone, in organising this ceremony, that something like this might happen.

“That is the Shereldin Star,” he explained. “It is the founding star of the Enoran High Temple, the holiest temple in all Verenthane lands, the place where the gods did pass down the Scrolls of Ulessis to Saint Tristen, and to all human kind. It is surely most blessed by the gods, and should you not kneel before their audience, then you do blaspheme most grievously to their very faces!”

“I see no gods here,” said Sasha. “Only men. Any god who would demand that a Lenay man kneel to a golden trinket is no true god of Lenays.”

“You must kneel!” the priest yelled, tendons straining in his neck.

Sasha just stared at him, contemptuously.

“We Lenays,” Jaryd said loudly, “have very stiff knees.” There was laughter from Lenays about the courtyard. More rose to their feet, even the
lords. To blaspheme was one thing, but even for devout Verenthanes, this was now about far more than faith.

Behind the priest, a dark-cloaked figure came walking. To Sasha’s astonishment, it was her father, solemn and unsmiling as always. He stopped beside the priest.

“It was a mistake,” he told the priest, in Torovan, “to hold this ceremony before the Goeren-yai. I would have told you that this would happen, but I was not consulted. That oversight now leaves us in an unfortunate predicament.”

“This is your daughter,” said the priest. “Make her obey.”

“She is Goeren-yai,” the king said simply, “and I cannot.”

The priest stared at him. Sasha stared too, in greater shock than the priest. Her father had admitted the unsayable. She had lived much of her life in fear of what might happen should she state the fact so publicly. Now, her father did it for her, in front of a lowlands priest and his flock.

“Your Highness,” said the priest, between gritted teeth, “Lenayin must decide whether it is a Verenthane kingdom or not. The moment for deciding is now.”

“In Lenayin,” said the king, “the chasm between what the kingdom is, and what its nobility may aspire to make it, is often vast indeed. I urge you not to press this matter. I know my people. A Lenay will bow only to whom he chooses, and should you seek to deny him that right, then this alliance is ended, and the holy lands shall remain in the hands of Saalshen. Worse, I think it likely this courtyard shall be drowned with holy blood. I urge you to consider your priorities, Father.”

Torvaal Lenayin did not look at his daughter. He had not spoken with her since her return to the Lenay fold. Word was that he grieved for Alythia. Sasha had wondered if he blamed her and decided that she did not care what he thought. But now, she wondered again.

The priest stormed back toward the archbishop.

“Father,” said Sasha. And felt a sudden, inexplicable yearning. For what, she did not know. “Father…”

Torvaal Lenayin turned on his heel and followed the priest, his black cloak flowing out behind. Sasha felt a pain in her throat. She wanted to run after him and grab him by the arms, and yell into his face. But she did not know what she would say.

There was dark, earnest discussion between priests, Archbishop Turen, King Torvaal and Regent Arosh. They took their places again, and the command was given to rise. The ceremony resumed with all now standing. Sasha could not see much over the tall heads of the men around her, but she did not care. Bacosh men standing nearby gave her very dark looks, but Jaryd and
Yasmyn kept guard of her flanks. She could not see Sofy, nor her brothers, from this position, but she could see the Black Order, pointed hoods in rows, like sharp black teeth before the temple steps.

Sasha trained with the officers and yuans that Damon had selected, discussing tactics, and the new use to which Lenay warriors were being instructed to put their shields. There were even several knights, one from Merraine, the other from Tournea, adding their expertise at Damon’s request. They discussed, demonstrated, and made small formations on the riverbank a little upstream from the Nithele walls. Even here, Lenay soldiers intruded upon their practice, filling pots with water, leading horses to drink, bathing, or bartering with the boats that rowed upstream from the city. Those were everywhere, a mass of narrow vessels hugging the shore where the high waters moved with less force, men aboard shouting their wares to all ashore. In others, city girls lifted their dresses to show pale legs, as men ashore hollered and laughed, and asked after the price.

“Perhaps if our cavalry cannot win through the Steel lines,” one powerful yuan said at a pause in training, “we could send our army of whores at them.”

Men laughed. There were hundreds trailing the Army of Lenayin, it was said, though Sasha had not visited the tail of the column to see. Many had children with them, and some, husbands. It was even said that parents were offering daughters for a price. Sasha was astonished at the utter pridelessness of the Bacosh peasantry. She had never considered that a people might discard their honour so wantonly. Perhaps, it occurred to her, honour was not a necessity of human life, but rather a luxury. Her Lenay soul rebelled at the thought.

Mostly she watched as the men discussed and considered the battle to come, contributing occasionally, but not joining in directly. This was men’s fighting, with heavy armour and heavy blows, and no room for finesse. Svaalverd technique counted for little in such an environment. Without technique, she would be just a woman surrounded by men, and no use to anyone. Ahorse, however, she fancied she might have a contribution to make.

One of the young men present was a new arrival, from Torovan. Duke Carlito Rochel, the Lord of Pazira province, son of Sasha’s old friend Alexanda Rochel. He had ridden in with the advance party bearing the Shereldin Star, and said now that the main Torovan column was but two days’ march behind. Sasha was pleased to meet Carlito, yet sad too, for his father had tried his best to prevent Pazira’s participation in this war. He would be very sad to know that his son now rode to fight in the greatest battle the Bacosh had ever known. Sasha wondered if Alexanda had died in vain. And wondered if she would ever again see a day where every new thought did not make her sad.

As she sat on a riverside log, watching the men discussing the collision of two shield lines, she heard a rattle of armoured footsteps. A knight approached, in neck-to-ankles chain mail, and carrying a sack.

“Sashandra Lenayin!” he called, as though pleased to see her. Sasha stood up. Over the mail, the knight wore a surcoat of family colours that Sasha did not recognise. Four more knights walked with him, and there was something to their manner that she did not like. Sasha heard the discussion and clash of practice stanch on shield behind her cease.

The man before her was broad and dark haired. “Aren’t you going to ask who I am?” he asked her after a pause.

“If I cared, I’d ask,” said Sasha.

“I am Sir Eskwith, Lord of Assineth. Cousin to the prince regent. Your relation, I suppose.”

“Great,” said Sasha, expressionlessly. “Welcome to the family.”

“I saw your little performance today, before the temple,” Eskwith continued. “It has caused many of the good lords to wonder exactly whose side you’re on.”

“Lenayin’s,” said Sasha, with certainty.

“Pagan Lenayin’s,” said Sir Eskwith.

“Lowlanders make that distinction. Lenays don’t.”

“My new friends in the Lenay north certainly do.”

“I’ve killed plenty,” said Sasha. “I don’t care what they think.” She could hear her friends approaching, wondering at the intrusion on the Lenay camp.

“I hear you have a serrin lover,” he said. “I wonder if he looks anything like this?” He upended the sack and a severed head fell on the rough grass at Sasha’s feet. The hair was silver tingeing toward pale blue and tied with several long braids. The eyes, and features, were serrin. Sasha’s heart nearly stopped. For an instant, she saw the head as Errollyn’s. Then, as Alythia’s, as it had lain at her feet in her Tracato cell. “This one was a scout, moving by night. We caught him, and I assure you, he did not die quickly. That is what we do to demon spawn and their friends in these lands.” He paused for effect. “And to their whores.”

Sasha drew her sword and cut off Sir Eskwith’s head. The body toppled, fountaining blood. The head rolled to join the serrin’s at Sasha’s feet. “Is that a fact?” she said.

She advanced on Eskwith’s companions as they fumbled for their swords in shock, holding her blade low, the fourth
en’alan
commencement, a wrist cocked behind one hip and inviting the obvious attack. One knight swung at her, and she swayed aside and took his hand off in the follow through. Swung back fast to deflect the second knight’s attack, the second motion of which
became a new strike that took off the handless man’s head. She spun about the falling body to impale the third in the shoulder in mid-backswing, ducking away from the second as he came at her, spinning her blade through easy wrist twirls.

“Run away or yield!” she could hear Jaryd yelling from nearby. “I’m warning you, run away or yield, or you’re dead!” He was not yelling at her, she knew very well. There were two healthy ones left, and the wounded one. They were powerful, but their chain mail and heavy swords made them slow.

One advanced on Sasha as she skipped backward on the grass. She invited his feint, swaying one way and then the other, only bringing her sword into play at the last moment to take his forearm as he lunged, then reverse into a cut up under the armpit, severing weak armour and most of the shoulder.

The last had been coming after her, but now stopped, looking scared. His companion, with a stab wound through one shoulder, was wavering on his feet, clutching the bloody slice through his mail. The man whose shoulder she’d severed was noisily dying amid great spurts of blood.

“Best let them yield, Sasha,” Jaryd warned her, still from a respectful distance. Her comrades were all watching, making no attempt to intervene on her behalf. They knew she wasn’t the one needing help. “I know this one man here, he assisted on the wedding. He’s not a bad man, Sasha.”

Sasha looked at him blandly. “Why should that matter?”

Jaryd looked back, warily, hand to his sword. Duke Carlito stood nearby, with wide-eyed disbelief. And Great Lord Faras, his dark eyes gleaming with admiration.

“Do you yield?” Jaryd asked the surviving two men. “There is no shame in it. She is the greatest swordsman in Lenayin.”

“No,” said Lord Faras, loudly. “She is the Synnich. You should bow before her, and be proud that your friends have had the honour to taste her blade.”

“What did they say?” Koenyg asked his sister as she stood before him in the royal tent. Beyond the canvas walls, there were crowds. Royal Guards stood at the entrance, leaving the heir and his sister to privacy.