And most importantly, what would they ever do if they fought an enemy who did not bother with such scruples?
Obviously, they would lose, and lose quickly and decisively.
He could only hope that nothing like that happened while he was warlord. His duty, Lady Kalira had told him, was to defend Semma, but some things were indefensible.
An Ethsharitic obscenity escaped him.
“My lord?” Alder inquired, startled by the outburst.
“Nothing,” Sterren said, “It’s nothing.” His initial amazement at the idea of fighting a war without using magic was beginning to fade, and another thought struck him. “What was that that Shemder said, about using magic to fight?”
Uncomfortably, Alder asked, “You mean that word, gakhar?” He shifted uneasily.
“Yes, that’s it.” Sterren saw Alder’s discomfort, but declined to let him off the hook; he stared inquiringly.
Reluctantly, Alder said, “It means a... a person of no culture, a person not fit to be among ordinary people.”
Sterren considered that, then stared after the vanished Shemder the Bold.
“You mean he called me a barbarian?” Sterren was dumbfounded. He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or scream with rage at the unbelievable insult of being called a barbarian by people such as these, but after a moment laughter won out.
Alder stared at him, puzzled and amused, but not particularly displeased with his new warlord.
CHAPTER 7
The clothes in the wardrobe did not fit him; Sterren, Eighth Warlord had obviously been considerably larger than was Sterren, Ninth Warlord. Not that he had been anything like Alder or Dogal, but he surely had the advantage of a few inches over his great-nephew, both in height and circumference.
Even so, Sterren thought that he would do better to wear something from the wardrobe, belted up tight, than to try to get any more use out of his own tattered garments. He was to eat dinner with the king, at the High Table, and he had not a single tunic left that had neither patches nor major stains.
Furthermore, he saw that all his clothes were cut differently from the prevailing mode in Semma. The local style was looser, more flowing, but with more fancywork to it.
He picked out an elegant black silk tunic embroidered in gold, and a pair of black leather breeches, black seemed to be the predominant color in the collection, and he guessed it had something to do with the office he held. It seemed an appropriate color for a warlord.
Of course, it might just be that his great-uncle had liked the dramatic, or maybe he had a morbid streak, but in any case, black clothes might not look quite so oversized on him.
He would, he thought with a sigh, have to alter all the clothes, take them in to fit him.
No, he wouldn’t, he corrected himself, brightening up; he was an aristocrat now! He could find a servant to do that. The castle probably had a tailor somewhere.
He pulled the tunic over his head and looked in the flaking, yellowed mirror that hung in the back of the wardrobe.
He shuddered. The tunic almost reached his knees; he looked like a little boy.
He pulled on the breeches, then began adjusting belts and fabric.
By tucking in the top of the breeches and folding under the cuff on each leg, he was able to make them fit, though they were still rather baggy in spots. The tunic was less cooperative, but he finally contrived an arrangement of two belts, one under and one over, that pulled the hem up to a height he could live with. The embroidered sleeves he had to roll up.
He was studying his appearance critically when someone knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” he called, unthinkingly using Ethsharitic.
“What?” someone answered in Semmat. The voice was female, young and female.
“Sorry,” he called, switching to Semmat as he adjusted his belts. “Who is it?” “The Princess Lura, Lord Sterren,” Alder’s voice replied.
Sterren whirled around and stared at the door. A princess? He glanced down at himself.
He looked foolish, he knew, but he would have to face this soon enough. He pursed his lips and decided not to put off the inevitable. “Come in,” he called.
The door swung open and Sterren looked up to see who was there, but at first he saw no one. Then he let his gaze drop.
“Hello,” Princess Lura said, smiling up at him. “You look funny in those clothes; don’t you have any that fit?”
Sterren was not particularly fond of children, but Lura, whom he guessed to be no more than nine, at the most, had an irresistible grin.
Besides, she was a princess. He smiled back, and it was only slightly forced.
“No,” he said, “I’m afraid I don’t. The clothes I brought with me are all worn out.”
“Can’t you get new ones?” she demanded.
“I haven’t had time,” he explained.
“Oh, I guess not.” Her gaze dropped for a moment, and an awkward silence fell, to be quickly broken when she raised her eyes again and said, “I wanted to meet you. I never met anybody from Ethshar before.”
Sterren noticed that she pronounced “Ethshar” correctly, even when speaking Semmat, and nodded approvingly. “I can understand that,” he said. “I must seem... um... I must be like... I guess you haven’t.” His Semmat vocabulary had failed him again. He hastened to cover over his slip. “I never met a princess before.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “No,” he said.
“Not even back in Ethshar?”
“Not even in Ethshar. There’s only one princess in all of Ethshar of the Spices, and I never met her.”
Actually, technically, there were no “princesses” at all, but Azrad VII’s sister, Imra the Unfortunate, was a reasonably close approximation. Sterren had no idea what her correct title would be in Semmat; in Ethsharitic she was simply Lady Imra.
“Oh, we have lots of princesses here!” Lura announced proudly. “There’s me, of course, and my sisters — Ashassa doesn’t live here any more, she’s in Kalithon with her husband Prince Tabar — but there’s Nissitha and Shirrin, still. And there’s my Aunt Sanda. That’s four of us, not counting Ashassa.”
Sterren nodded. “Four’s a good number, I guess,” he said, smiling foolishly.
Lura’s expression suddenly turned suspicious. “I’m not a baby, you know,” she said. “You don’t have to play along with me.”
“I’m sorry,” Sterren said, dropping the false smile, “I didn’t mean to... to do as if you were a baby. Um... how old are you?” He looked a little more closely at her face. He could not tell her age with any certainty, but he noticed a resemblance to her father, the king.
“Seven,” she said. “I’ll be eight in Icebound. The ninth of Icebound.”
“I was born on the eighth of Thaw, myself,” Sterren said.
Lura nodded and another awkward silence fell. The two of them stood there, looking at each other or glancing around the room, until Sterren, desperately, said, “So you just wanted to meet me because I’m from Ethshar?”
“Well, mostly. And you are the new warlord, so I guess you’re important. Everybody else wants to meet you, too, but they didn’t come up here, I did. My sister Shirrin was scared to, and Nissitha says she doesn’t have time for such foolishness, but she’s just trying to act grown-up. She’s twenty-one and not even betrothed yet, so I don’t know why she’s so proud of herself!”