Tracato: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Three (52 page)

“The leader threw a severed serrin head at my feet,” said Sasha. Her eyes seemed almost dull, devoid of feeling. Koenyg had never seen her like this before. It unnerved him, in a way that countless boasting, chest-thumping Lenay warriors had never managed before. “It was a threat, to my head, and to the heads of those I care for. He called me a whore to the serrin.”

“Did you feel yourself personally threatened?”

“Only my honour,” said Sasha. “In Lenayin, men die for less.”

“Did you give warning?”

“It was a threat. The codes say an accusation must be tested in honourable combat, but a threat may warrant an immediate reply. There were five of them.”

“You had support,” Koenyg replied.

“Not immediately to hand. I was not favoured by numbers. They threatened me five-against-one. It was dishonourable, and they deserved to die.”

“That’s brutal, Sasha,” Koenyg said. “Even for you.” Sasha’s eyes registered nothing. “I’d have expected such an interpretation of the codes from Lord Krayliss, or maybe Lord Heryd.”

Sasha met his stare for the first time. The old temper was still there, burning deep. Somehow, Koenyg found that comforting. “Lenayin did not march to Larosa to be buggered by swinging dicks in chain mail,” Sasha said loudly. “Are we an equal partner in this marriage, or do they get liberties? First they ask us to kneel. Do they next ask us to bend over?”

Koenyg shook his head in faint disbelief. “Don’t attempt to excuse each of your personal tantrums as a grand act of patriotism. You’re a mess, Sasha. You and I have rarely agreed, but I admit I did find some affection for the lively girl who rode horses and skinned her knees. That girl loved life, and often laughed. The girl I see now loves only death, and she never smiles.”

“She was a fool,” Sasha said bitterly. “She did not understand the world. She knows better now, and she knows that freedom must be fought for, or lost.”

“And for whose freedom do you fight?”

“The freedom for Lenays to be Lenays!”

“Or the freedom to kill people you don’t like,” Koenyg suggested. Sasha folded her arms, and looked aside.

“If you wish to punish me,” she said shortly, “then do so. I’ve better things to do than listen to lectures.”

“I’m not going to punish you, Sasha. You’ve caused a mess, but it has its uses. I did warn our Larosan allies that they should tread carefully upon Lenay honour, and that lords should not presume to rub their lessers’ noses in the mud, as they do amongst their own kind. I also warned them to accept that half of our army are not even Verenthanes, and not to provoke that half with the fact. But first they make a mess with the Shereldin Star, and now this. Best that they learn
their
place, with us.”

He took a waterskin from its hanging peg upon the tent’s central pole, and poured them each a cup.

Sasha took a sip, her eyes upon him, and frowning. She’d expected him to be angry, clearly.

“Sasha, you’re an idiot. You’ve never understood my motivations. You’re like all these stupid Goeren-yai gossipers. You think I’m putting Lenayin in
the pockets of lowlands Verenthanes. No, Sasha.” He leaned forward. “I am a Lenay patriot. I wish to make Lenayin strong. This war shall secure our strength, forging ties to the most powerful lowlands kingdoms, and proving our worth to all. It shall unite our peoples, as nothing else has managed before. And if you cutting the heads off a few lowlanders helps them to learn respect and fear of us, then so much the better. A little fear can be a good thing, Sasha. I do not mind that you frighten them, and I do not wish for any of us to kneel.”

He smiled at her grimly. Sasha looked a little dazed. Perhaps she had not expected him to be honest.

“I saw Alythia’s head,” she said quietly. “When he tossed that head from the sack, I saw Alythia’s head instead. I just killed him. I mean…I just killed him.”

She looked shaken. Gods, Koenyg thought, she did the strangest things to him sometimes. There was a time when he’d hated her for being Krystoff’s collaborator, for causing father and the kingdom such trouble, and for being so selfish. But she had much to admire about her too, like bravery, skill and leadership. Her presence here united the most troublesome factions of the Lenay Army firmly beneath his command—the eastern Goeren-yai, the ones who had followed her on her northern rebellion, and had never liked this war. If she followed him, then they would too. And now, it was clear that she’d truly loved Alythia, whatever their earlier differences. Sasha did not hold grudges, Sofy had insisted to him once. Sasha could change her mind about people. Perhaps there was yet hope for them, as siblings.

Koenyg put a hand to her shoulder. “I miss Alythia too.”

“Do you ever get scared that one day, you’ll do something really terrible?” The look in Sasha’s eyes was haunted. “That one day, you’ll just lose control, and be responsible for something that will eat at your soul for the rest of your life?”

“No,” said Koenyg. “I worry that one day there’ll be something I
didn’t
do, that led to something terrible. Inaction is the worst sin of leaders, Sasha. If your cause is just, then the greatest sin in all the world is to sit and do nothing.”

Sasha nodded uncertainly. It was the only time Koenyg could recall her seeming so vulnerable in his presence.

“Sasha, you killed Eskwith because he killed a serrin. Yes, he challenged your honour, but that was not the primary matter. Yet we ride against serrin. Doubtless there will be many, fighting against us in days to come. If you fight with us, you may even kill some yourself. Perhaps, if you are unlucky, even a friend of yours.”

“Errollyn is too ill,” Sasha replied, her voice barely audible.

“But you have other friends. And they have friends, and perhaps family, in the
talmaad
or the Steel. I know how serrin and human intermix in the Saalshen Bacosh.” He tried to search her face, but she was looking down. Koenyg put gentle fingers under her chin, and lifted.

Sasha’s eyes spilled tears. Her gaze was desperate. Pleading. Koenyg considered her for a long moment and nodded. Now he knew. What effect it would have, when the time came, he could not know. But he would be ready for all eventualities.

“Very well,” he said softly. “No more questions. Do not think on it. Go back to your friends, and rest. I shall deal with the angry in-laws.”

Sofy sat in the hot bath, and gazed at the roof of her tent. Outside, she could hear the sounds of the camp. Not for the first time, she wondered why she was here in the field, and not back in the palace in Sherdaine.

She knew that there were some in Sherdaine who did not appreciate the fact that the new princess regent was a barbarian Lenay, but she doubted that it was that simple. The Bacosh Army was not merely a temporary allegiance of Larosa, Tournea, Meraine, Algrasse and Rakani, it was an allegiance of all the families, properties, lineages and minor allegiances
within
those provinces. Much like Lenayin in that each province was shared by many conflicting interests…except that in Lenayin, the nobility were largely united, a necessity given how badly outnumbered they were, and how poorly respected among the nonnobility, both Verenthane and Goeren-yai.

In the Bacosh, those not noble were dismissed as “peasants,” and used as little more than tools of power. All true power rested with the nobility, and noble families, it seemed to Sofy, had no true friends. The borders of the provinces were only temporary things. Sofy had seen maps of the Bacosh covering the last two hundred years, and further back still, before King Leyvaan and the creation of the Saalshen Bacosh. The borders changed every decade or so, it seemed, and the smaller boundaries of noble lands that split each province in a ragged patchwork of lines were constantly clustering, uniting, splitting and shifting. On those maps, the boundaries of noble lands remained drawn on the Saalshen Bacosh side of the border, where such things had long since ceased to hold any meaning. She had noticed, from decade to decade, that those lines never shifted, preserving the holdings as they’d stood, as though the coming of the serrin had been a great winter chill, freezing the territories as they’d stood in King Leyvaan’s time.

There were some families marching in the army who claimed ancient ancestral rights on those territories, primarily in Enora where no surviving
claimants remained. In Rhodaan and Ilduur, many thought to reinstate surviving claimants and thus gain powerful allegiances, or perhaps to have those claimants found unworthy once the lands were conquered, and struck out by ruling of the new Bacosh king. Some of the Rhodaani nobility had arrived in the army at the same time as Sasha. Men from Tracato, who now declared their rights to old Rhodaani territories, and registered their claims with old maps before the regent. Sofy had spoken with a Lord Elot from Tracato who had been displeased that instead of a joyful welcome from his noble allies, he had received cold hostility from some who felt that his claims were overstated, and impinged upon their own entitlements. Others, Lord Elot had said with frustration, were demanding land concessions as compensation for losses that would be incurred in battles to come. Sofy had tried to be understanding, yet she wondered if the Tracato nobility had ever truly considered the nature of civilisation they now sought to rejoin. It was power hungry and competitive, and wanted advancement to the detriment of others. To hear Sasha speak of it, the Rhodaani nobility had thought themselves to be fighting an ideological battle for the restoration of ancient justice. They had forgotten that to the nobility of the “free Bacosh,” such sentiments meant nothing. They wanted land, and gathered beneath the priests’ holy banners not for the gods, but like hounds behind their masters’ horses on a hunt, hoping for the reward of fresh prey, and blood.

Balthaar and his father, the regent, had brought Sofy on this march simply for the safety and continuity of the family line, she was increasingly certain. She would not be safe from the family’s rivals in Sherdaine, particularly were the war to be lost. In that case, there would follow a quick ride to the family holdings in Ashane, seventeen leagues from Sherdaine, and a mustering of allies there to ward off further challenge. Family Arosh risked a lot in this venture. But the potential rewards were phenomenal.

Sofy heard a commotion at the entrance to her tent, then a striking sound. Yells followed, and the noise of fighting, barefisted. She thought to leap from her bath, her heart pounding in sudden fear, yet mailed, angry men were coming into the tent even now, two holding between them one of the guards, his sword missing, arms immobilised.

“You!” said a man, and strode to Sofy’s bath in fury. She recognised Sir Elias Assineth, Balthaar’s cousin. Sofy barely had time to snatch at a bathside gown before he had her by the arm, and yanked her dripping to her feet, then onto the grassy tent floor.

“What is the meaning of this?” Sofy shouted, struggling to free herself and protect her modesty. “Let me go!”

“Speak Larosan like a true Larosan Queen, you pagan bitch!” snarled Sir
Elias, and backhanded her to the face. Sofy fell to her knees, her gown fallen. Elias’s hand dragged her upright once more as her head continued to spin. She’d never been struck in the face before in her life. Far worse than the pain, she could not believe how helpless it rendered her. Her vision swam, and she could not think.

“You shall denounce your pagan sister!” Elias yelled. “You shall instruct your father to hand her to us for godly Larosan justice!”

Sofy’s Larosan was adequate now to understand him. And yet, she felt utterly uncomprehending. “My…my sister?” Sasha. Oh gods, not again. “What did she do?”

“She murdered my brother!”

A blood-chilling cry from outside spun Elias and his companions about, one nearest the tent’s entrance fending desperately with a mailed arm as a dark-haired girl with a wicked short blade tried to gut him like a fish.

“Yasmyn, no!” Sofy cried, as the first knight danced back, drawing his blade. Yasmyn spun to confront a second to her side, her slash deflecting harmlessly from his weapon. The first knight simply threw himself on her, heavy weight of mailed man crashing her down, then pinning her effortlessly beneath. They pulled her back up, deprived of her darak as she fought like a wild thing. The knights laughed, and hit her, again and again.

“Stop it!” Sofy yelled, tears flowing, but they paid her no mind. Sasha, she thought desperately, would have killed them all, but she was just a slim, naked girl. She struggled, trying to twist free, but Sir Elias wrenched her arm back and she fell to her knees. “Leave her alone, she was only protecting me!”

When Yasmyn was no longer fighting, the knights dragged her to a table, cleared it of cups and teapot with a sweep of an arm, and dumped her onto it, her head lolling and face bloody. One held her arms above her head, while another hiked up her dress, and yanked down her under garments. Yasmyn regained enough sense to kick him, and he and his companion punched her in the stomach with brutal force, laughing all the while.

Sofy screamed for help, but no one came. In the tales, the heroic knight always arrived in time to save the lady in distress. But although the tent was in the centre of the Larosan camp, and surrounded by those who could surely hear her cries, no one came. One knight took his turn with Yasmyn, and then the other. Yasmyn regained consciousness but she no longer fought. As a third knight unbuckled his pants, Yasmyn turned her head upon the table and fixed her princess with a stare of furious intensity, although one eye was already swollen nearly shut.

“Crying solves nothing!” she hissed at her in Lenay. “Be a woman, little girl!”

Sofy was so shocked, she swallowed her tears. Oddly, as soon as she did so, she felt something else, that the tears had perhaps obscured. Pure, molten fury. In her protected palace life, she had often wondered how Lenay warriors, or even her otherwise kind and wonderful sister Sasha, could hate a man enough to want to sever his limbs with sharpened steel. Now, finally, she understood.

While the third knight was taking his turn, Balthaar arrived, many armed men at his back.