Bahnak Karathson, Prince of Hurgrum and Lord of Clan Iron Axe of the Horse Stealer hradani, had a voice even deeper than his son's. He was three inches shorter than Bahzell, but his words rumbled up out of an enormous chest, and his mobile ears pressed close to his gray-streaked hair as he glowered down at his offspring from the dais on which his throne sat. Bahzell and his companions stood in the Great Hall of Bahnak's palace. The Great Hall would have been appropriate enough as a town hall in most cities of the Empire, but few of those would have been illuminated with the traditional, barbaric spill of torchlight or had such huge, heavily armed guardsmen lounging against the walls and grinning as they watched their prince greet his wandering son's return.
"Not a reason in the world," Bahzell admitted cheerfully. Then he paused and cocked his head thoughtfully. "Other than to be pointing out my hairy backside is wearing armor as might be a bit hard on your toe, that is."
"Oh, might it, now?" Bahnak glared, but the corner of his mouth twitched. "And while we're speaking of armor, could you be so very kind as to be telling me what you think you're doing in those colors? It was bad enough to hear as how you'd been after fooling about with wizards—even a 'white' one!—but it was in my mind that I'd at least taught you better than to be mixing in the business of gods and demons and such!"
"Aye, you did that," Bahzell agreed. "But what's a man to do when a god decides as how he wants him? I tried not listening, and that didn't work. Then I tried outrunning him, and that didn't work. And in the end, a demon tried to eat me and then himself was after turning up in the flesh to bid me join up, as it were, and not a bit of good at all did it do to be telling him no then. Besides, I'd asked his aid, and he'd given it, so what else was I to do?"
"Hmpf! Not much, I suppose, if you'd asked such of him in the first place," his father growled. "And now I think on it, no one as knew you's ever said you were smart, now have they?" Bahzell grinned as Brandark smothered a laugh behind him. "And stupid or no, I'm thinking the color becomes you," Bahnak went on with a slow smile of his own. "Contrasts with your eyes, it does."
"Thank you, Father," Bahzell said with exquisite politeness. "It's pleased I am that you approve."
"I'll not go quite that far—not yet," Bahnak replied, and the hint of steel in the words promised that he meant it. "And Krashnark only knows how it's likely to affect the war. But it's more important that you're after being home, I suppose."
He spoke grudgingly, but even as he did he rose from his carved wooden throne and came down the three steps to the floor of the Great Hall to throw his arms about his son. He hugged him fiercely, hard enough to break the back of any lesser man, and his eyes glowed. Bahzell returned his embrace for endless seconds, and then Bahnak clapped him on the back once with both hands and stepped back.
"Well!" he said, his voice just the slightest bit husky, "your mother's wishful to see you too, and you've some brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews somewhere about the place, as well. We've a deal to talk over, you and I," he went on, letting his eyes move briefly over Brandark, Kaeritha, and Vaijon, "but no doubt we'll get to that in time, and I'm not so brave as to be putting matters of state in front of your mother's orders. So come along—you and your friends—" he added, gathering up Bahzell's unlikely companions with a sweep of his hand, "and let's be getting all the hugging and sniffling over with first."
Chapter Twenty
"So that's the way of it, hey?"
A huge fire crackled on the immense hearth at one end of the drafty dining room as Prince Bahnak leaned back in his chair at the head of the table. There had been a time when Bahzell would have noticed neither the drafts nor the thin wisps of smoke which escaped the chimney to add their tiny contributions to the soot blackening the overhead beams, but he'd met rather more efficient means of heating since then. Not that such small considerations as cold fingers and toes or a little smoke mattered in the least beside the opportunity to see his father once again raising an enormous tankard of ale to gaze thoughtfully at him over the rim.
Bahzell's oldest brother, Barodahn, sat to Bahnak's left, facing Bahzell across the table. Barodahn was a bare half-inch shorter than Bahzell and twenty-five years older. Despite the difference in their ages, they had always been close, but Barodahn was a taciturn sort. Although he shared their father's aspirations to drag their people out of barbarism and had always taken greater pleasure than Bahzell in scholarly pursuits, he was far more like the Horse Stealer ideal, outwardly at least. A long-ago sword had left him with a scarred, grim-looking visage, and he had to feel very close to someone before he decided to open his mouth. Even then, he seldom used two words if one would suffice, but he was their father's senior field commander, and when he gave an order, the hardiest warrior jumped to obey. Bahzell's other brothers were absent—carrying their father's instructions to some of his allies, no doubt—and three of his sisters sat with his mother (much closer to the fire) chatting with his companions.
His mother had her embroidery frame before her, taking advantage of the light to set beautiful stitches, and warm memories flowed over Bahzell as he watched her skillful hands. His grandfather, Prince Karath, had been appalled when his heir chose Arthanal Farlachsdaughter as his bride. She was a Horse Stealer, true, and a first cousin of the Prince of Mazgau, but Clan Iron Axe and her own War Hammer Clan were scarcely friends, and she was a slender, delicate young woman (for a hradani). Karath and his own wife had produced only three children in an eighty-six-year marriage, and he'd nursed serious doubts over how many grandchildren a frail young thing like Arthanal could be expected to bear.
Worse, she had a reputation as a shy girl who was actually bookish—not exactly the sort of consort who would be a political asset to a ruling prince's efforts to unite a warrior people. Karath had done his utmost to prevent such a clearly unsuitable union, but for the first time in Karath's memory, his son's intransigence had matched his own. Bahnak had been attentive, polite, and willing to admit at least some of his father's points; he'd also been as unyielding as granite, and, against his better judgment, Karath had accepted that an estrangement from his heir would be even more disastrous than a sickly War Hammer daughter-in-law.
But Prince Bahnak's lady had made liars of her father-in-law's fears. True, she chose to remain in the background, but her apparent shyness actually stemmed from a calm self-assurance which knew her strengths lay in less public areas and saw no need to thrust herself forward. She was an astute observer and analyst, and if she was "bookish," it was only because she shared the same thirst for learning that filled Bahnak, although in her case it was the love of knowledge for its own sake while Bahnak hungered for it as the one thing which could raise his people from barbarism. Despite his initial reservations, Prince Karath soon found himself listening very carefully to her advice, and however fragile she might look, she was far, far from frail. The arrival of his first sturdy, noisy grandson put that particular concern to rest quite nicely, and the way the marriage also turned her War Hammer kinsmen from enemies into allies also dawned quickly on him. The old man was never noted for changing his mind easily, but Arthanal was a special case. He soon came to dote upon her, and his son's willingness to defy his own wishes to wed such a treasure only strengthened his faith in Bahnak's judgment.
Even today, few people realized how heavily Bahnak depended upon her. She was not only his collaborator, analyst, and closest strategic adviser, but also his balance wheel, the steadying influence which helped restrain his occasional bursts of excessive enthusiasm for a given project or stratagem, as well as the center about which his entire family orbited. And if she still chose to remain in the background, she had encouraged her daughters to follow their hearts and make their own decisions. Halah and Adalah, the youngest of them, were made very much in her mold, but Marglyth and Maritha, the two older girls, had thrown themselves into Bahnak's projects as boldly as any of her sons.
Sharkah, Bahzell's middle sister, was the odd one out, for she had no taste for politics and less for scholarship. What she was interested in was the martial arts, and she'd fastened on Kaeritha like a limpet. Bahzell had little doubt Kaeritha's example was going to be the final straw that broke the back of his father's insistence that political considerations made it impossible for Sharkah to pursue a warrior's vocation. Not that his insistence wouldn't have crumpled eventually, given his wife's calm assumption that her daughter—as herself—would do whatever she chose to do.