I
Restormir: 58th of Spring
"Look," said Jame, for the dozenth time. "Why don't you all just go home? We'll be fine."
The answer came back with the same dogged patience as on each previous occasion: "Lady, I can't leave you here. You must see that."
Jame sighed. In fact, she understood the Kendar's dilemma perfectly well. To abandon the Highlord's sister on the doorstep of his archenemy was unthinkable—but to linger put his cadets at risk.
The latter huddled together on the southern slope of the ridge, six male and three female, where they all had taken refuge from sharp Caineron eyes. Only one, a cadet named Rue, was shorter than Jame, although the Kendar girl outweighed the Highborn by a good thirty pounds. The biggest, five-leader Vant, almost matched his tall ten-commander. All were armed for the hunt with long knives and short, elk horn bows, which the rain had rendered useless. Size and weaponry notwithstanding, to Jame they looked as bedraggled as a parcel of Molocar pups.
"For ancestors' sake, get them away!" she said to their leader, dropping her voice. "They aren't ready for this."
Brier Iron-thorn stared at her. And you are? A Highborn girl, sequestered and cosseted all her life . . . but this one spoke so disconcertingly, as if from her own store of experience. Brier had meant to respond slowly and firmly, as one does to a child or a half-wit. Instead, she found herself protesting:
"Lady, if only you would tell me what you intend to do!"
Jame hesitated. The cadet would think she was crazy but, dammit, this stalemate was wasting time. "All right," she said, and told her.
Brier blinked, twice. The Knorth was mad. Kendar at the Cataracts had whispered it when she had suddenly appeared in the middle of the battle and afterward been confined by the Highlord to the inner chamber of his tent until he could discreetly bundle her home by closed litter. How sad, the Caineron had said to each other, smiling.
"Don't interfere, cadet," the escaped lunatic said, looking hard at her. "This is honor—and obligation."
For a long moment, Kendar regarded Highborn without expression, then made a brusque gesture of acknowledgment. "Honor is honor, and obligation is unarguable. I can't stop you, lady, so I'll have to go with you."
"Lady," Vant burst out, "you should know: Ten is a Caineron herself."
"Was!" Rue snapped.
Ah, thought Jame. She had wondered why this tall cadet sounded so familiar. Confined to her brother's tent at the Cataracts, she had perforce overheard him outside, binding new Kendar to his service. One of them had spoken in just such a voice, rich but nearly inflectionless, a Caineron schooled to concealment.
"Raiding another house's Kendar," Harn Grip-hard had said afterward to Torisen. "You won't hear the end of this in a hurry."
"It can't be helped. I'll be damned if I'll let Caldane ruin someone like that—for her mother's sake, if nothing else."
"Huh. Old debts aside, you've snatched a real prize. M'lord Caineron is going to be furious."
Jame's curiosity had set Jorin's whiskers twitching then, as it did again now. One thing at least was obvious: after Graykin and herself, the last person who should visit Restormir uninvited was this erstwhile Caineron. She said as much.
"Nonetheless," the Kendar replied, in a voice like ironwood.
". . . in trouble enough as it is," Vant was protesting to the other cadets in a low, urgent voice. "The Highlord won't thank us for encouraging this . . . this . . . ."
He felt the eyes of the Highlord's sister on him, and stuttered to a halt. What word was there, anyway, both diplomatic and strong enough to describe so absurd a predicament? He lived to serve the Highborn, of course. Any ambitious Kendar did. But they in turn should behave as befit both their dignity and his. He had sneered at the Southie Ten at every opportunity. Now, however, he resented that she so obviously was not up to the situation.
"We're already days overdue at Tentir," he argued doggedly, not meeting anyone's eyes. "D'you want to make the Commandant a present of our scarves?"
"If Ten goes," said Rue stubbornly, "so should we."
"No!" said Brier and Jame simultaneously.
"I agree with Rue," another cadet said, with wriggle that might have been deference to his superiors or a digging in of heels. "If we stay behind, that's what people will remember about us for the rest of our lives. Anyway, think what an opportunity this is! We didn't have a chance to prove ourselves at the Cataracts, but a raid on Restormir . . . they'll talk about that at Tentir for the next fifty years!"
"Oh, at least," said Jame dryly. "Especially if you get skinned alive in the process. D'you really want to risk a blooding like that?"
"Well, lady, you know what they say: true tests are sent, not sought."
Brier and Jame looked at each other. Both knew that maxim's corollary: refuse such a test and risk never being sent another. Put that way, it would be as serious to interfere with such a matter as with honor itself.
Nonetheless, Vant made one last try. "Ten, I'm warning you. This may not ruin us"—not if he could help it, anyway—"but it certainly will you."
"In that case," said Brier Iron-thorn, rising and towering over him so that, big as he was, he shrank from her, "you have something to look forward to, don't you?"