“Surely you hear rumours,” Damon said then, gazing away, across the room.
“Highness, I’ve walked here from Lenayin,” Jaryd replied, with sarcasm. “Blisters are my friends, I carry the tackle of a common soldier, and I’ve been as far from courtly rumours as is possible within this army.”
“I have no issue with my brother. I have an issue with this war, Jaryd. I lack no courage for a fight, but look around you. Do you see Lenay interests here?”
Jaryd nodded, and gave a harsh laugh. “The people are truly friendly!” he quipped.
Damon leaned forward in his chair. “I am a Verenthane, Jaryd, but this faith that we serve is not something I recognise.” His face was intent, his voice harsh. “They fear us, and loathe us, these people. It galls them that their failures against the Saalshen Bacosh have brought them to this-an allegiance with highland barbarians, and by marriage no less! One of those barbarians shall be their queen, once the regent dies. Father and Koenyg may see the greatness of allegiance to the Verenthane powers, but all I see is our own Lenay fanatics hoping to use such allegiance to spread the faith in Lenayin and convert all pagans. To say nothing of your old friends the lords, with dreams of a feudal Lenayin. We are all being fairly buggered for another’s benefit, and I like it not.”
Suddenly, Jaryd thought he understood. The seclusion of these quarters in Sherdaine. Armed men in the courtyard. A gathering of friendly supporters.
“Do you feel yourself threatened?” he asked.
“I do not choose this out of cowardice,” Damon said warningly, and Jaryd held up a hand, shaking his head. Damon seemed placated. He smacked his leg in profound frustration. “Damn him! Koenyg thinks me a worrier, but I fear for my neck every night I sleep in castle quarters without my personal guard from the road. There are many discontents, Jaryd, and if something happened to me, they would have no one to speak for them.”
Jaryd nodded slowly but he had no idea what to say.
“I would not choose to abandon Sofy so close to her wedding, but…” Damon grimaced, and glanced over his shoulder at the courtyard beyond the window. “This army may split, Jaryd, truly I fear it. Oh, the provinces are spoiling for a fight at the moment: Lenayin is a land of warriors and has never fought a united battle as a kingdom…hot-headed men think it’s about damn time, and think nothing for the rightness of it. But when the Goeren-yai are tired of being used as fodder for foreign Verenthanes who care not a jot for them, and see all the rewards heaped upon northern fanatics who hate them worse than those we fight…”
He shook his head, despairingly. “I chided Sasha, once, for thinking to champion the cause of the Goeren-yai. Now I find myself realising as she did, that if we lose the Goeren-yai, we lose Lenayin.”
“Ever think,” said Jaryd, “that if we lost the nobility, we’d lose nothing at all?” Damon was silent. “Lenayin needs nobility like a bull needs tits.”
“Now you sound like Sasha,” Damon muttered. He gave Jaryd a dark look. “My sister. Did you fuck her?”
Jaryd coughed and managed, somewhat suicidally, a roguish grin. “Which one?”
“Surely not Sasha?” said Damon. Jaryd shrugged. Then shook his head, reluctantly, beneath that hard stare.
“Not Sasha,” he admitted. “Though she did make very friendly with one of those serrin who came to help in the rebellion. Errollyn, that was his name.”
“Sasha can fuck who she likes,” Damon snorted, “it makes naught of an issue for anyone. Sofy is another matter.”
“Why do you ask?”
“She was very different after she returned from her little adventure to Baerlyn. Only she didn’t just travel to Baerlyn, did she? Or she tells me she didn’t.”
Jaryd blinked. “She told you?”
“I’m her friend, Jaryd. Not merely her brother. We tell each other things. It makes us a formidable pairing, one that some would love to see broken. I know she rode with you to Algery. What she would not tell me was if anything happened between the two of you. But I suspect. I may not have women’s intuition, but I know my sister.”
Jaryd felt a surge of anger. “Look, either state your accusation or don’t!” he snapped. “Good gods, what do you want from me, an admission to something that should by law cost me my head?”
“‘Good spirits,’” Damon corrected. Jaryd stared, not understanding. “You are supposed to be Goeren-yai now, you say ‘Good spirits,’ else someone take you for a fraud.” Pointedly. Jaryd felt his face redden with anger. “Furthermore, I do not wish you to lose either honour or head. I merely wish to ask if you’d like to see Sofy once more. Before she weds, in private. I can make that happen.”
“For the last time, I am not wearing that dress!” Princess Sofy Lenayin was not happy. She stood in the middle of a grand Larosan hall already decked out for the wedding, with great banners lining its walls. About her were Larosan priests, women of the Merciful Sisters, palace officials, numerous servants and an awful lot of dresses. The servants stood in a circle about her, each holding a dress, and struggling beneath their weight.
“Well then perhaps Your Highness could indicate precisely which wedding dress she would choose?” asked Master Hern, a portly, white-bearded man in an official’s cloak and hat.
“None of them!” Sofy said angrily. “There must be something in this wedding that shall be Lenay!”
“There shall be yourself, my dear,” the Princess Elora remarked, examining her nails on her seat nearby. “Surely that is adequate?”
Sofy struggled to control her temper. Princess Elora was soon to be her sister-in-law. She was a lean girl in her early twenties, and wore several times the jewellery that Sofy considered decent for a person of any station. Sofy thought she looked a little horsey. Perhaps she was overcompensating.
The Maris Tere, or “First Matron” of the Merciful Sisters was no longer present. On the first day, she had insisted that Sofy wear the white of Larosan maidenhood and that she cover her hair in the torhes foud, the pious shroud, of a girl to be wed. She had demanded that Sofy spend the next two days in the Sherdaine Temple “cleansing” herself in ritual prayer, presumably to remove the stain of a lifetime of barbarian practices.
When Sofy had refused, the First Matron had become angry, and slapped her. Yasmyn had struck her back, hard enough to drop the old woman to the ground, and drew her darak on the others who sought to retaliate. Blood had nearly been spilt, and Yasmyn plus Sofy’s four-strong contingent of elite Royal Guards had escorted the bride-to-be to a deserted chambers and kept her there under guard until Koenyg, Princess Elora, and numerous lords and other importances had settled the misunderstanding.
Many of the Larosan court still demanded that Yasmyn be executed for her impudence, but were no longer demanding it so loudly after Koenyg had explained that executing the daughter of Isfayen’s Great Lord Faras would be taken by the Isfayen as declaration of war, upon which event there was nothing any man of Lenayin could say to hold them. Now, Sofy caught Yasmyn staring at her. Her dark, slanted eyes beheld more knowledge of her princess than any other in the room.
“Your Highness is a nice girl,” Yasmyn had said when they were alone, in the sarcastic tone of an Isfayen delivering a calculated insult. “She does not like to fight. People who do like to fight will see this, and challenge her with their blades until they back her up against a wall and there is nowhere left to run. Your Highness must realise that she cannot win a sword fight with a pretty smile and a silver tongue.”
Sofy looked about at the dresses and took a deep breath. “None of these will do,” she announced. “I shall decide my own attire for the wedding. I shall dress according to Lenay marital custom. I shall keep my own council only. Now thank you,” and she made a dismissive gesture to the dress-wielding servants, “we have other matters to attend to.”