That must have rankled the most. Mages were not to be trusted; mages could change reality into whatever suited them at the moment. Mages were the source of everything that was wrong with the world....
“That’s how and why your folk ended up with a breeding-herd of Shin’a’in horses,” Tarma said, startling her out of deep thought. “I don’t know if you know how rare it is for us to sell a stud, but we let him have one—an ungelded cull, but still, a stud. He wouldn’t listen to Keth about the lands, he didn’t have her resources, and he didn’t have her capital. He was operating on the edge of disaster, squeaking through season after season, never making a profit. We had done fine, but we’d had the Schools. This land is too rocky to be good farm land; the tenants barely managed to make ends meet. Finally I had the Clan bring in a herd of the best culls and sell them to him at a bargain price. He figured he’d outbargained the ignorant barbarians. We didn’t care; that got him something he could use to maintain the Keep and Lenore without stripping the lands bare or abusing the tenants. Then, when you and your brother were of an age to train your own beasts, I arranged to have a couple of good young mares slipped into the next batch he bought.”
She lifted her face to the sun and breeze, and Kero thought she looked very like a weathered, bronze statue. Tough, yet somehow graceful.
“It wasn’t all that hard to do,” Kethry said wryly. “Really, it wasn’t. After all, we were making trips back to the Clan every year to see the rest of my brood. It was more than worth the fuss to get him convinced you two should have them and then convince him it had been all his own idea. It was about my only way of doing anything for you after I pulled back to the Tower and promised to leave you all alone.”
“So what do you think of all this?” Tarma asked, finally turning those bright blue eyes back toward Kero. “It isn’t often a person gets an entire Clan as relatives, and right out of nowhere, too.”
“Am I ever going to get to meet them?” she asked impulsively. “The others, my uncles and aunts and all—”
Tarma laughed. “Oh, I imagine. Eventually. But right now you and I have a previous appointment.”
Kero felt a moment of disappointment, then smiled. After all, it wasn’t as if everything had to happen all at once. Look how much has happened in just the past few weeks! I think I can wait a little longer.
“Then we’d better get to it before we both get stiff,” she replied, and grinned. “Or before I get a chance to think about what you’re going to do to me at practice!”
The one thing Tarma was an absolute fanatic about was cleanliness. She insisted Kero take a bath after morning work and afternoon training, both. There was no shortage of hot water at the Tower, unlike the Keep—that was one magical extravagance Kethry was more than willing to indulge in. Once Kero got over her initial surprise, she found that she liked the idea of twice-daily baths. Hot water did a great deal to ease aching muscles, and the evening bath was a good place to think things over, with a light dinner and good wine right beside the enormous tub. Kethry left her granddaughter alone after dinner, saying when Kero asked her that “everyone needs a little privacy.” Kero was just as glad. She tended to fall asleep rather quickly after those long soaks, and she doubted she’d be very good company for anyone.
With unlimited hot water, she found she was following Tarma’s example; drawing one bath to get rid of the dirt and sweat, then draining it and drawing a second of hotter, clean water to soak in.
The bathing chamber in her room was far nicer than the corresponding room at the Keep. It was as big as her sleeping chamber, easily, and the tub could have held two comfortably. That tub looked as if it had been hollowed out of a huge granite boulder, then polished to a mirror-smooth finish. There were convenient flattened places, just the right size to rest a plate and a cup, at either end of it. Water, hot and cold, came out of spouts in the wall above the middle. You simply pulled a little lever, attached to something like a sluice-gate, and the water ran into the tub. The water itself came from a spring in the mountain above. Kethry had shown her the cisterns at the top of the cliff the Tower had been built into—telling her they were part of the original building.
The original building. And she doesn’t know how old it is. That’s—amazing. It made Kero wonder who those builders were—and what they’d been like.
They certainly enjoyed their comforts, she mused idly, sipping her wine. Set into the wall of the bathing chamber was an enormous window made of tiny, hand-sized, diamond-shaped panes of glass. Glazing the windows had been Kethry’s addition; the previous occupants had either seen no need for glazed windows, or had been unable to produce them. Tonight Kero had noticed a full moon rising, and once she’d drawn her second bath, she blew out the candles to watch it and the stars. With all the incredible things those Builders were able to do, I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t have been able to make a little glass. I wonder if they were so powerful that they could actually keep the winter winds out of the Tower by magic?
Moonlight filtered through the steam rising from her bath, and touched the surface of the water, turning it into a rippling mirror. She had to laugh at her fancies, then, for the answer was obvious to anyone but a romantic. Of course; glass breaks, and Grandmother said herself she had no idea how long the place stood empty. There are more than enough crows and robber-rats around here to steal every last shard. Blessed Agnira, some of Mother’s silliness must have rubbed off on me.
She laughed aloud, and the water sloshed at the sides of the tub as she reached for the carafe of wine to pour herself a second serving. That was when she noticed that she was nowhere near as sore and stiff as she’d expected to be.
I must be getting use to this, she thought with surprise. By the Trine—I was beginning to think I’d never stop aching! Funny, though—even when I was so sore I wanted to die, I still was enjoying myself....
This afternoon had been the first time Tarma had actually given her a lesson in real swordwork. Admonishing her to “pretend I’m one of those logs,” the Shin’a’in had run her through some basic moves, then brought her up to speed on them. Before the afternoon was over, she had been performing simple strike-guard-strike patterns against Tarma at full force and full speed—and she thought her teacher seemed pleased. It had been even better than yesterday, when Tarma started her on tracking. Once Kero knew what to look for, it had been surprisingly easy to track the movements of a deer, a badger, and Warrl himself across a stretch of forest floor.
Of course, none of them had been trying to hide their trails. Kero had a notion that if Warrl wanted to hide his traces, the only way anyone would be able to track him would be by magic.
Most satisfying about today’s exercises had been that the skills she’d acquired had been all her own. The sword was hanging on the wall of her room, and Kero wasn’t going to take it down until she didn’t need its uncanny expert assistance—at least where fighting was concerned.
Is that what I want to do? she asked herself suddenly. Is that what I want to learn? She pondered the question while the moon climbed higher in the window, and the square of silver light crept off the water and onto the floor, leaving her end of the bathing chamber in darkness. I suppose it makes sense, she thought with a certain unease. After all, it’s always been physical things that I’ve been best at. Riding, hunting, hawking—that knife-fighting I pried out of Dent. The only “proper” thing I was ever any good at was dancing....