"Na, Venn." Agroda blushed. "It was only that the colt has too tender a mouth, I told you so. You frightened and hurt him with the bit—never meaning to—and he smelled pain on you thereafter. Me, I do not smell like you, I do not look nor sound like you, and I put on him a halter with nothing to hurt his silly mouth. He lost his fear very quickly—and quicker still when you gave him of sweet-root. Now when he smells you he thinks of long gallops and more sweet-root! So long as he neck-reins and answers to the knee, you need never subject him to a bit, and he will go gladly for you—"
"Your warrior is too modest," Elian said mock sternly. "He saw at once what I never thought of."
"So this is where you have been spending your time, Agroda?" Jegrai asked. "With this good man? We missed you at practice and the hunt, but I think your time was better used than ours, now! But surely not all your days were spent in gentling one colt?"
"Ah . . . well . . ." Agroda blushed even redder.
"My daughter sought out his advice on my recommendation. She has charge of halter-breaking the young foals, and gentling some of the lighter horses to saddle," Elkin replied, that grin tugging at the corners of his mouth and trying to escape again. "I have no sons, you see. . . ."
"Ah." Jegrai nodded. "But a good daughter is worth any number of bad sons."
"In truth. I have never noted the lack of sons, except . . ." Venn contrived to look mournful. "A man knows, Khene—he would feel happier going to his rest, knowing that there was a strong fighter to protect his little filly foals, his sweet little mares—"
"Father!" the girl protested, blushing fit to match Agroda.
"I speak only of horses, do I not? But also—knowing that there will be others to carry on his work—grandchildren, Khene, a man would like to see his grandchildren—and the traders are not so like to try to cheat a man, a strong, tall man, a man with a sword at his side—eh?"
"Indeed, I have often seen it to be the case," Jegrai replied as neutrally as he could. "Although I must say that any trader who chose to bargain with my own mother Aravay would be lucky to come out with a whole skin."
The girl gave her father an "I told you so" glare.
"Well, the long and the short of it is, Khene, it seems that my daughter has halter-broke a stranger young colt that ever I had seen before—"
"Father!"
"—and your warrior and my girl here seem to have conceived a liking for each other."
They both blushed, and the grin escaped from Venn Elkin's control.
"I'm all for the match—but the young man says he must ask permission of his Khene."
"Well that he has. I'm sure you are aware that there will be problems," Jegrai replied. He leaned forward in his chair, and fixed the horsebreeder and his daughter with as serious a stare as he could manage. "Our gods are not yours, our way of life is not yours, nor our language."
"But I'll learn—" both Agroda and Briya burst out simultaneously.
Jegrai nodded. "That is what I wished to hear," he said, sitting back a little and crossing his legs. "Look, the both of you young ones—this will be no easy thing. You do not go to a wedding as you go to a light love. You must both be willing to change at least some things. Near every moment of your lives will be one of compromise. Yours, too, good sir," he said, looking over to Elkin, who also nodded. "You realize that by having one of my people in your household, you will be bringing change into your life, I trust?"
"I'd like to think I'm not too old to change, a bit," the horsebreeder said quietly. "Hladyr bless, if I can learn to train a colt to neck and knee, I expect I can learn to like meat spiced to burning and a son-in-law who spends half his nights sleeping out under stars! Aye, and a daughter out there with him!"
Jegrai exchanged a wry look with him—and was relieved by it. The man was under no illusions about what had been going on these warm starlit nights. And evidently hadn't been worried about it, so long as it wasn't rape. That took one burden off Jegrai's mind, assuming that all Vale folk were of the same customs as the horsebreeder. Clan women slept where they wished until they wed, though if one were bearing it were wise to have a name-father for the child. Teo had hinted that the Vale folk were something similarly minded, but Jegrai had wondered, and worried.
Even the Vredai had not always been so cavalier about beddings and bearings, despite the old teachings of "cherish the children." But they had changed. They had to change. Too many children had died for the Vredai to put overmuch stock in who fathered whom. Now a child was precious of itself, and welcome no matter its origins.
"One other thing," Jegrai said, still quite seriously. "Agroda's loyalties and duties lie chiefly with me and Vredai. If I call him to war, he must obey me. Can you abide this, Briya? I will have no broken hearts that I can prevent; I would incur no resentments because of prior vows. But we have had to fight in the past, and though I do not care to think of it at this moment, we are like to do so in the future. And we will need every hand that can raise a sword to do so."
"If I were a flatlander down in Ancas, my husband could be hauled off to some fool war whenever his duke felt like a bit of excitement," Briya said in a high, breathy voice, raising her chin proudly. "At least I know who my Agroda be fighting for, and what, and that you won't be doing it as a game, like. I can abide it. Tell you truth, Khene, m'Da taught me staff 'n bow. Need came to it, I might be right there with him."
"And your children—should they choose Clan life over life in walls, could you abide that as well? For you must pledge to offer them that choice."
"Agroda told me. I won't pledge to like it—but I've not tried it either." She smiled, and Jegrai saw why Agroda looked ready to fall over his own feet whenever he gazed at her. She was utterly enchanting when she smiled, like a beam of sunlight given woman-form. "So by the time they come of age to choose, it may be me that's running about in tents, and them thinking their mam is a fool and a wild thing."
"Well spoken, lady." Jegrai gave her the bow of full respect he'd have given his mother. "I believe you have all thought this out, and I see no reason why this should not be the first of many matings between Clan and Vale." He looked out over the fertile little valley they were calling home—and realized, as he truly saw the "settled" look to the encampment, that the Vredai were, indeed, coming to think of it as their home, and not just another stopping-place. There were a full dozen of the great, anchored tents they called eyerts under construction, and they were not being anchored to wagons, but being given foundation-walls of stone from the river. Jegrai himself had never seen such a thing; only the Shaman had memories of such settlements.
They want to remain, to make a place of permanence. They'll fight for this place, he thought somberly. They'll fight anyone and anything that tries to drive them from it. That was why the rebels didn't simply ride off. This place was home, and they didn't want to leave.
"I do think," he said, half to himself, "I do truly think we are here to stay."
"Did you mean that?" Teo asked quietly, much later, after the evening meal, in the relative privacy of Jegrai's tent. "That you're here to stay?"
"If I had not meant it," Jegrai said, face very somber, "I would not have said it. This place has come to be home to us; I can see it every time I look about the camp. Indeed, it looks less like a 'camp' with each sunrise. You cannot tell me it has escaped your eyes, Teo."
Teo shrugged. It hadn't escaped his notice; the temporary jury-rigs of a people on the move were vanishing all over the camp. "Well, I thought things were getting to look awfully settled. Making that stone-lined pool for washing, for one; and there's talk of a steam-tent—and those big eyerts—and I overheard one of the old women talking about a kind of wooden eyert, and there were an awful lot of people listening to her with speculative looks in their eyes."