Then again, Cinnabar is the soul of discretion. She might already have recognized Winterhart, and she’s keeping quiet about it. If there were no compelling reasons to unmask Winterhart, Cinnabar would probably let things stand.
Now that he came to think about it, ever since he had begun Winterhart’s treatments, Lady Cinnabar had been very silent on the subject of that particular Trondi’irn. This despite Cinnabar’s intervention at the time of the “hertasi incident.” The Healer had been as angry as anyone else over Winterhart’s parroted orders, but since then she had not said a word about Winterhart even when others discussed something she had said or done. Perhaps Cinnabar recognized her, or perhaps not; in any event, the Lady was a powerful enough Empath as well as a Healer to realize, once she had been around the Trondi’irn for any length of time, how much of Winterhart’s coldness was due to emotional damage and fear.
Little by little, she reveals herself to me, as she begins to trust me. But I think this may be the most difficult case I have ever dealt with. Zhaneel was simple in comparison; she only needed to learn how outstanding she was, and to be given a way to succeed on her own terms. Once she had those, she blossomed. Winterhart has so pent herself up that I do not even know who she truly is, only what the facade and the cracks in it tell me. Winterhart is afraid, every moment of her life, and she has yet to show me what she is afraid of.
Maybe that was why she had taken Conn Levas into her bed. The man was appallingly simple to understand.
Simply give him everything he wants, and he is happy to let you have an identity as “his woman.” He is protection, of a sort, because he is so possessive about everything he thinks is his. He doesn’t even know she isn’t a Kaled’a’in. He thinks she is, just because of the name, that’s how unobservant he is.
Then again, that was simply a reflection of what Amberdrake already knew. A mercenary mage, in this war only for the pay, would have to be unobservant. Anyone who could even consider being in the pay of Ma’ar would have to be completely amoral.
But Conn Levas was incidental to the puzzle. Amberdrake laid his forearm across his eyes for a moment, and tried to put the pieces he had so far into some kind of an arrangement. When she joined the army, it had to be for a reason. I don’t know what that reason is yet. But she joined it under a cloud of fear, terrified that her identity would be revealed, even though, since she is very intelligent, she must have chosen the profession of Trondi’irn because it was utterly unlike anything else she had been known for in her previous identity. She may also have taken that position because of another fear; the Trondi’irn do not normally go anywhere near the front lines. I know that fighting terrifies her. I know that she is horribly afraid of what Ma’ar and his mages can do.
He had seen her in the grip of that fear himself, more than once, when the two of them had been together at a moment when news came in from the front lines. She controlled herself well, but there was always an instant when absolute terror painted her features with a different kind of mask than the facade of coldness she habitually wore.
So, when Conn Levas propositioned her, it must have seemed sent from the gods. Perhaps he even wooed, charmed her. I am certain that he has the ability to do just that, when he chooses. He had a position with Sixth Wing; so would she. He had an identity that no one questioned; so would she, as “his woman.” No one would ask her anything personal. And she could do her job among the gryphons impersonally-after all, they were “obviously” nothing more than sophisticated animals. She could deal with them on terms that cost her nothing, other than a bit of energy.
That was where Zhaneel had inadvertently shaken up her world as much as Amberdrake had. The gryfalcon had forced Winterhart to accept the fact that the gryphons in her charge were not “sophisticated animals” with limited ability to ape human speech-for she had tried to convince herself that they were only something a little larger than a messenger-bird, but along the same lines.
But Zhaneel changed all that. Zhaneel showed her in no uncertain terms that these charges of hers were people. And she had an obligation to them, to see that they received treatment as such, with consideration, politeness, and decency. She had an obligation to act as their advocate to the commander of Sixth Wing.
She was in every way as responsible for them as their commander was.
She had not wanted to know that; it was putting stresses on her that showed up when she came to get her treatments for her back from Amberdrake. So long as the gryphons had not been “people” to her, she had been able to cope. Now they were real to her, as they had not been before. Now she had to look at them and know there were personalities there behind the beaks and alien eyes, personalities like those of every human in the ranks. She was sending people off into the war to be swallowed up, and she could no longer ignore that fact. She had begun to feel again, and ironically, it was that very fact that was sending tremors through her relationship with her lover. As long as she had not been able to feel, she did not care what he did to her, said to her, or how he treated her. Now she did care, and she was no longer giving him the absolute deference he required. That much came through in the edited things that she told Amberdrake.
Circumstances have been keeping them separated quite a bit, but once this operation is over, he’ll be back, wanting “his rights.” She’s not going put up with his arrogance and indifference to her feelings anymore; she is bound to break off with him. I don’t think she’s been sleeping with him much even when he’s in camp; maybe she’s been finding reasons to avoid their tent. I wonder if I should see if he’s been going to any of the perchi? Or should I stay out of it?
It was hard to tell; this was not the usual client-kestra’chern relationship, and had not been since the beginning. And of the two people in the relationship, only one was currently his client. How much interference was too much? When did “need to know” end and “snooping” begin?
And she was so profoundly damaged, so terribly brittle. A confrontation with Conn Levas would shatter her, for he would not hesitate to use the most hurtful things he could think of against her. Yet, under her fragility, there was a core of strength that he would like to have the privilege of calling on, from time to time. He needed a confidant as much as she did, and he had the feeling that once she sorted herself out, she would be able to fill that need better than anyone he knew. He sensed that he could trust her, and there were not many people that a kestra’chern could trust. All too often, the profession became a bone of contention, or a cause for derision. But somehow he knew that Winterhart would never do that to him; no matter what, she would keep the things she knew would hurt the most under the tightest control.
He knew that. Even though he couldn’t have told why he was so certain about it.
This end of camp was very quiet, unusually so for the middle of the day. Off in the distance, he heard a sergeant bellowing orders, but here there was scarcely more than the chattering of messenger-birds and the occasional rattle of equipment. He guessed that most of the other kestra’chern had opted for a nap, in anticipation of being needed when the Sixth returned. Well, all this thinking is not getting the dinner taken care of. And I do have my share of it to do!
He was as relaxed as he was going to get, and the tension-headache that had threatened to bloom while he was counseling Winterhart had gone away.
He took his arm away from his eyes and rolled off the bed. Time to get to work. First thing; find out what was happening with the Sixth and the attempt to retake Stelvi Pass. If all went well, the first gryphons from Sixth Wing, Zhaneel leading, should be coming back about now. But there would be more than enough folk crowding the landing field at the moment, and this was not supposed to be a mission whose purpose was widely known. No point in making a spectacle when someone might make some inferences.