"Worried, Marglyth?" Brandark asked gently. She glanced quickly at him, expression guarded, then relaxed as she saw the understanding in his eyes.
"I am that. Mind, it's not because I've any objection to her doing as she chooses. Come to that, I've been telling Da for two years now that he'd be wiser to see to her training himself before she was after sneaking off to learn it on her own. It's only that she's so... focused. I've this dream comes to me these nights that she's like to be running off half-trained to do something truly stupid when once the war ever starts."
"She does rather remind you of her youngest brother, doesn't she?" Brandark murmured, and Marglyth chuckled.
"Aye, she does. And as you'll be knowing as well as I, there was never a day in his life Bahzell Bahnakson looked before he leapt!"
"Actually, I don't think I can agree with that—not really," Brandark said much more seriously, and Marglyth raised an eyebrow. "He's not a patient man, your brother, but I don't really think of him as hasty. It's more a matter of knowing his own mind. Or knowing himself, maybe." The Bloody Sword frowned, trying to find exactly the right words. "It's not that he doesn't think about the consequences of what he does, Marglyth; it's just that he accepts those consequences, whatever they may be, if that sense of responsibility tells him he should do it anyway." He shook his head.
"Bahzell is probably the least complicated man I know, once you figure out what's truly important to him, but he's also the stubbornest. It's like this business about the Rage. Tomanāk told him to tell all hradani, and damn me if he didn't—right on the brink of a flaming war!" Brandark shook his head again, gazing out across the field at his friend. "Somehow I suspect your father would have preferred for him to wait to tell Churnazh and his lot about that until after the fighting was over."
"He would that," Marglyth agreed. "But Bahzell was after insisting it had to be now, before the fighting. He said Tomanāk hadn't told him to be doing it at the most convenient time for us. I was thinking Da was like to burst a blood vessel, but then he just threw up his hands and went stalking out of the room." She chuckled. "Truth to tell, I'm thinking he was a mite pleased about it, once his temper'd cooled."
"He would be," Brandark said dryly. "But that's my point. Bahzell loves his father dearly, but even if he'd expected Prince Bahnak to be furious—and to stay that way—he still would have done exactly the same thing because it was his job to do it. I may not accuse him of being very smart, but he is a bit on the determined side."
"Aye, and Sharkah's another chip from the same boneheaded boulder!" Marglyth said tartly, then sighed. "I could wish as how she'd be just a bit less mulish than he. After all, she's the better part of ten years' advantage on him, and she could have been learning some discretion in that long! But it's useless telling myself there's hope she'll change this late in the day."
"Probably not. On the other hand, Kerry's as well aware of that as you are, and she gave her as stern a lecture as I've ever heard before she agreed to train her." Brandark laughed again. "The funny thing is, Sharkah is a good fifteen years older than Kerry is, but in terms of experience—!" He shrugged, and Marglyth nodded.
"Aye. It's hard to remind myself sometimes that humans are only like to live seventy or eighty years. It must give them a dreadful need to be out and doing early."
"I don't think they really see it that way," Brandark said thoughtfully. "That they're shorter on time than we are, I mean. All other things being equal, they're inclined to let their children grow up faster than we let ours, I think, but then, they have more of them than we do. If Kerry's childhood had been less ugly, she'd probably have stayed in her home village and had at least four or five children by now. Probably more."
"What?" Marglyth blinked at her. "But if Sharkah's being—" She broke off and did some rapid math. "Why, she's not a day past thirty-two!" she said in half-shocked tones, for a hradani girl seldom married before her late twenties and it was extremely rare for her to bear her first child before thirty.
"No, she isn't." Brandark took another swallow of beer and nodded towards the practice field. "She's little more than a girl, by our standards, but do you see her deferring to any of the lads out there?" Marglyth shook her head, and he shrugged. "That's what I mean about them growing up faster. That 'girl' has been a belted knight of Tomanāk —and a champion—since she was twenty-four. What were you doing at that age?"
"Mooning after my favorite tutor," Marglyth admitted with a smile.
"And Sharkah?"
"Avoiding my favorite tutor. In fact, she was after avoiding every tutor, if the truth be told. I did mention as how she was just a mite like Bahzell, didn't I?"
"Yes, I believe you did. But that difference in the rate at which we expect our children to grow up is why she listens to every word Kerry says." He shrugged. "I doubt it even crosses her mind to think about Kerry's age, because what she's hearing is Kerry's experience. So when Kerry delivered her lecture, Sharkah listened, believe me."
"And what would that lecture have been about?"
"The most important part was a solemn promise from Sharkah that she'll stay home and tend to her training until Kerry decides she's ready. It was a precondition of Kerry's agreeing to train her at all, and then Bahzell came along and made her swear to obey all the Order's trainers."
"Are you saying he's admitted her to the Order?" Marglyth blinked in surprise, but Brandark shook his head.
"No. Not that he'd tell her no if she wanted to join it. But even if she did, he wouldn't let her take Sword Oath until she'd completed her initial training to the Order's satisfaction. I think the training itself is a testing process. It's grueling enough that no one who's survived it can cherish any illusions about what swearing obedience to a military order entails."
Marglyth nodded, but her eyes were on Brandark, not the field, and her expression was thoughtful. The Bloody Sword didn't seem to notice at once, but then her silence drew his own attention back from the field and he cocked his ears at her.
"You're after knowing a lot about the Order, aren't you?" she asked.
"Well, thanks to your brother I've been hanging about with it one way and another for the better part of four months," Brandark said wryly. "I suppose I've learned a little about it along the way."
"Aye, so you have. And I'm hoping you'll not take this wrongly, but why is it that you haven't joined it?" Brandark cocked his head, and Marglyth hurried on. "What I'm meaning to say is, you've been going along with Bahzell and watching his back wherever the Order took him, and from all I've had the hearing of, there's not a knight of Tomanāk at all as has done more."
"Um." Brandark reached for his balalaika and picked out soft, plaintive notes while he considered her question. She watched his maimed left hand chording around the missing fingers and waited patiently for more than a full minute. Then he shrugged. "Tomanāk's not the right god," he said simply.
"Excuse me?" Marglyth blinked, and he laughed.
"Oh, I respect Him, and I certainly agree with what He seems to have in mind. But the deity I've always felt closest to is Chesmirsa. Unfortunately, as you may've noticed, I lack the voice of a true bard. And despite the success of my little ditty about Bahzell, I'm actually a pretty terrible poet, as well." He said it so lightly most people might have been fooled into missing the sad longing which lurked behind the words. Marglyth wasn't one of them, but she respected him too much to show it, and so she simply nodded.