Shanakan (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 1) (20 page)

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Corban was checking inventory in one of the store rooms when he heard a commotion in the courtyard and stepped out to see what was going on. A group of royalist soldiers were in the courtyard, being closely watched by his father’s militia. As he stepped out he saw one of them gesture to the others, dismissing them, and they all gave a sort of half bow and departed. Corban walked over to the remaining soldier, who was taking a moment to adjust one of the many straps that help armour stay in place.

The soldier turned and looked at him.

Corban’s mouth fell open, and he stood and stared like an idiot.

She was about his age, perhaps a little older. She wore a leather cap, and beneath that her face was tanned, symmetrical, and adorned with intelligent, grey blue eyes. Her mouth was generous, almost sensual. She was the most beautiful thing that Corban had ever seen.

“Boy,” she said. “Take me to Saine.”

It was a moment before he realised that she was talking to him. He bowed.

“I am Corban san Tarlyn Saine,” he said.

She looked a little less certain. “I apologise. I took you for a servant. I am Calaine san Regani Tarnell. It is your father that I must see. Can you direct me?”

The Princess Calaine. She was exactly what he had expected, and yet completely different at the same time. He was having difficulty not staring at her.

“I would be delighted to take you there myself,” he said. Apart from her face she was exactly what a royalist soldier should be. She wore plate armour that covered her torso, and beneath that a mail shirt which covered her arms to the wrist. Her legs were clad in leather trousers onto which hundred of pieces of steel had been sewn. They must be very heavy, but she moved easily beneath the weight. A sword was fastened to her left hip, and a single dagger to her right. There was a bow slung over her right shoulder, and a quiver thick with arrows hung from her back. She looked ready to start a war.

He led her up to his father’s study, not trusting himself to make small talk on the way. He was sure that he would only be capable of sounding like a fool. Tarlyn was sitting behind his desk, but stood when they entered. Corban could read the surprise on his face, though he hid it well.

“I am Tarlyn san Porwill Saine,” he said.

“I am Calaine,” she replied. “I am your hostage.”

“No,” Tarlyn said. “You are my foster daughter, and will be treated as a member of the family in all things.”

She looked uncertain again, and Corban had to look away. He guessed that she had expected a cool if not hostile reception. It was probably what her father would give to poor Ella, but the trading house of Saine was not a hostile place.

“I am grateful for your generosity,” she said.

“Have you eaten? We were going to take our lunch in about twenty minutes. Perhaps you’d like to change and join us in the dining room?”

Corban understood almost at once that most of what her father said sounded like the old tongue to Calaine. She was wearing her clothes. Probably all of them; and she had almost certainly never seen a dining room. This was going to be fun. He wished that Ella had been with them. She would have enjoyed this more than any of them.

“Father,” he said. “Might I suggest Bellamaria?”

“Quite so,” Tarlyn replied. “Why didn’t I think of that myself? Crise?” The servant materialised from behind a door jamb. “Crise, fetch Bellamaria. She will be the san Regani’s servant while she stays with us.”

In a minute Bellamaria was there, taking charge as she had done all of Ella’s life, whisking a reluctant Calaine away to a chamber to prepare her for lunch. When she was gone Tarlyn sat down in his chair as though he was winded.

“How did that ever come from Tarnell?” he said.

“She’s stunning, isn’t she father?”

“You be careful, Corban. Stunning she may be, but more important than that, she has no idea of it.”

“What? How can that be?”

“You look at the way she acts, and you’ll see it. In her eyes she’s a soldier, a daughter, a princess, nothing more.”

They waited in the dining room. Corban, for one, had no interest in continuing stock checking. The food was served, and about five minutes later Calaine appeared. The armour had gone, and her hair, freed from the leather cap was the colour of yellow sandstone in the sun. She had tied it back. She wore a loose fitting clean white shirt and a pair of dark brown trousers.

“Your servant is impertinent,” she complained. “She argued with me.”

“San Regani, she’s been impertinent to my daughter for fifteen years. I value the quality.”

“I do not,” Calaine snapped back. “I can do quite well without a servant.”

“I regret that I cannot allow a princess of the royal line to dwell in my house unattended. You will have to get used to it.”

Calaine was about to say something, but caught sight of the table. It was spread with a range of delicacies, as was the custom. Her eyes grew big staring at it.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Lunch,” Corban said. “We trade with many far places, san Regani, and much of what is here may be unfamiliar to you. Please permit me to be of assistance.” He saw Tarlyn smile as the older man sat down and began to fill his plate. He sat next to Calaine and was delicate in his guidance, suggesting a spoonful of this, a slice of that, guiding her through a medley of tastes and textures. There was even something on the table touched with a Shan spice that burned like fire in the mouth, but he avoided that.

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Time passed easily in Tarlyn’s house, but Calaine quickly became bored. She missed the discipline and routine of her life. It was only a few days before she persuaded Tarlyn to let her join the militia when they practiced. She was adept with all weapons, and quickly earned their respect. It put some distance between her and Corban, which he regretted, but the militia provided the nearest thing to the atmosphere of her own home, and she was comfortable with them.

Corban came down late to breakfast, as was his habit, and found Calaine standing on the balcony looking down on the city.

“It is a marvellous view,” she said to him as he stepped out. “The whole city is laid out like a map.”

“I have never tired of it,” Corban replied.

They stood in silence for a while, absorbing the play of light on the river and the stone and the brick as the sun crept up above the peaks behind them. After a minute or so she turned to go.

“Training with the militia?” he asked.

“Yes.” She stopped.

“Do you learn anything there, Calaine?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you learn any new tricks, improve your skills?”

“Not really, I am better than most of your men at all skills, but it is a good exercise, and keeps me ready for battle.”

“What battle is that?” He could see that she was becoming impatient with his questions, but he persisted.

“Whatever battle I am destined to fight.”

“There are other things you could learn here, san Regani, new things.”

“Strength comes from the sword,” she said. “You are lucky to have so many men to protect you.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Of course. Your trader games are all very well, but they are no match for a body of armed men.”

He laughed. “You are indeed your father’s daughter,” he said.

“And proud to be,” she was annoyed now. “You dare to mock me now, but in my father’s house you would be beaten for your insolence.”

“You think that makes it the better place?”

“Are you nothing but a bag of questions?”

Corban sat down and placed his elbow on the table in front of him, his hand open and raised.

“You believe in strength, san Regani, put my arm down and I will cease my questions. If I win you will allow me to show you other wisdom. Do you accept?” He saw the look of contempt in her eyes. She had practiced with sword and bow since the age of eight, wrestled and tried her strength against stone hard men. How could she loose against a boy who counted sacks and wrote on papers.

“I accept,” she said. She sat opposite him and placed her hand in his. They stared into each other’s eyes and Corban felt for a moment what he had felt on that first day. “Call it,” she said. “Or are we going to hold hands all day?”

“You may begin when you wish, san Regani. I am the challenger.”

She pushed, and she was very strong. Corban held her easily, though. He allowed his hand to descend towards the table a small way, then pushed their arms upright again. She looked surprised, and her face was flushed. Do not be cruel, he reminded himself, and pushed her hand over gently until it touched the table. She snatched it away.

“You are very strong,” she said.

“And you are very surprised, Calaine. You made the mistake of judging a man by his coat.”

“How is it that you are so strong?”

“I climb.”

“What?”

“I climb cliffs – mostly the ones up behind the house where the granite of the Peaks cuts through the softer rock. Some of the faces are quite difficult.”

“Why? There must be an easier way to get to the top.”

“When I was young I used to go up there in spring, when the children from Gulltown would come over on an evening and climb after birds eggs. I tried it myself, and broke a leg. After that I watched them, and the best climbers always did certain things, so I copied them when I was mended, and I found that I liked climbing, but even more than that I liked getting to the top. When I tired of the easy climbs I sought out harder ones, and after that still harder. My strength comes from years of holding on by a couple of fingers and toes fifty feet above the ground.”

“Well, you have won your wager.”

“The militia will be disappointed.”

“So show me this other wisdom.”

For all his fine words before they had matched strength Corban was now a little at a loss what to tell her. His irritation with her had driven him to this, and now he had to come up with something concrete. Ella was the scholar of the family, and he wished for her council now, but he was very much on his own.

“Our library,” he said, “contains many volumes…”

“Show me climbing. Show me what you do.”

It was a lifeline, not wisdom, but something different.

“That will take a little while,” he said. “To be safe we must have a line secured at the top of the cliff, and men will have to ride around to the west to do that. I will arrange it.”

It took an hour, and they spent most of the time in the garden, which was between the main house and the slope that led up to the peaks. It was a private place, designed that way, and full of fruit trees, hedges, and quiet corners.

“Why do you climb?” she asked him.

It was a question that could be answered on so many levels. He chose the simplest.

“Because I enjoy it. The challenge is considerable, and I am better for meeting it.”

“There must be more. They are just, well, cliffs.” She seemed genuinely puzzled.

“Perhaps you should try it?”

“I intend to. But I want to understand, first.”

Corban thought back to conversations he’d had with Ella.

“There are two schools of thought in ancient philosophy,” he said. “One holds that everything is perfect; that I am a perfect Corban, that you are a perfect Calaine, that this is a perfect house of Saine, that today is a perfect today, simply because each is unique, singular, unrepeatable. All the things that we perceive as faults are part of the unique signature of the individual thing. Anything we change, even ourselves, just creates a new, perfect thing. I do not like that idea. It is stagnant. It says that there is no real point in changing anything. The alternate idea is that perfection is a destination. The journey can never be completed, but we travel anyway. If we travel well we get closer, but sometimes we get distracted and move further away. Any facet of ourselves that we improve brings us closer. Any new thing that we embrace gives us another avenue to advance. I like this idea because the journey pleases me.”

“What is the point of a journey if you never arrive?”

“The journey is the point. In a way it is the destination. Have you never travelled and just enjoyed being on the road?”

“I have never left the city.”

That, in a sentence, was the problem for Calaine, he thought. Her world had been so restricted that it could be summed up in a few ideas, a few square miles, even a few people.

A militiaman came to tell them that the ropes and guards were in place, so they walked up the hill behind the house to the base of the cliffs, while Corban tried to explain the principles of climbing to her.

They stopped and looked up at the sheer face. To Corban it looked like a map. Routes that he had climbed before stood out clearly, and he knew how to judge the appearance of each crevice, crack and lump. He knew the rock, how it weathered, how it supported weight.

“Look at the climb for a few moments,” he said. “Try to see a way to the top, what you can reach, each place for your hands and feet, and watch what I do.”