From Across the Clouded Range (11 page)

Seeing nothing further to lose, Dasen
had allowed his distaste to show. He was insolent and derisive in
the mill, rude to the managers, and defiant when speaking with the
workers. When they finished, an epic argument had ensued. They
opposed each other at ear-splitting decibels on everything from
working conditions, to wages, to pricing. Each drew on different
interpretations of the Order to defend their positions and claimed
to be working for the betterment of all society. It ended only when
Ipid again threatening to end Dasen’s time at the university, which
was “corrupting his good sense,” and Dasen told his father he would
be cast into the Maelstrom for his defilement of the Holy Order.
After two other, equally petulant, stops, Ipid had given up and
allowed Dasen to remain sitting in the coach while he toured the
final mill. They had barely shared a civil word since. When his
father wasn’t reviewing contracts, reports, or production plans, he
was staring morosely out the window. If he bothered to look at his
son, it was with disappointment in his eyes.

“
What is it, Elton?” Ipid
looked up from his contract and stared at his servant over the rims
of his reading glasses. “I want to get a revised version of this
contract sent back to Wildern in the morning, and there are still
several pages here. Is it critical?”

“
I’m sorry, sir,” the Morg
responded. He was wearing a waxed canvas coat and broad brimmed hat
both of which dripped with rain, making a substantial puddle on the
floor. The innkeeper stood behind him, towel in hand and a severe
frown on his face. “I’m afraid I was correct about the wagon. There
is a crack in the wheel. Given the state of these roads, I don’t
think it will make it another day. We’ll have to leave it here
until it can be repaired. We need to decide what we’re taking with
us and what we’re leaving behind. They’re unloading the wagon now.
I need your guidance on what to bring so we can get it transferred
to the top of the coach.”

“
By the Order,” Ipid
cursed, “we’ve already lost a day to the Order-cursed rain, now
this.” He growled in frustration and pounded his hands onto the
polished table. He looked at the pages spread before him and
sighed. “I guess there’s no helping it. Let’s get it done quickly,
so I can get back to this before we burn them out of oil.” Ipid
stood and marched toward the door. As he departed, he turned.
“Dasen, you should get to bed. We will arrive in Randor’s Pass
tomorrow. You’ll want to be fresh when you meet
Tethina.”

Dasen grunted. It was about as much as
he allowed his father these days. But as soon as Ipid was out the
door, he lurched for his father’s satchel, flung it open, and
rifled through his papers. His father had received a letter from
Randor’s Pass when they arrived in Wildern. Dasen had, of course,
not been able to read it, but it was of great interest to Ipid.
What’s more, Dasen knew exactly where it was located in his
father’s bag. Unfortunately, his father never let the satchel out
of his sight, until now.

“
What are you doing?” Rynn
whispered. “Your father is going to skin you.”

“
I have to read this
letter,” Dasen announced as he pulled it triumphantly from the bag.
He unfolded it and immediately started reading the flowing script.
Rynn joined him, looking over his shoulder. Dasen quickly realized
that the letter was not in Tethina’s hand or voice – this was not
the writing of a young woman and was about rather than by her. A
glance at the bottom showed the mark of Tethina’s aunt and a
notation from the local counselor stating that he had done the
dictation.

He returned to reading but was
interrupted by Rynn’s gasp. “No!” he exclaimed. “She didn’t. By the
Order, this is going to be legendary.”

“
What?” Dasen desperately
scanned the words, now unable to focus on any of them.

“
Just read,” Rynn
suggested through the hand covering his mouth. Dasen had never seen
his friend so scandalized, and that was profound.

Dasen took a deep breath
and forced his mind to focus on the words before him. He scanned
past the opening pleasantries to where the letter was, for some
reason, discussing the recently completed district games. Dasen
realized he had missed something and went back.
As she promised, Tethina competed in the games
today
, the letter said. Dasen read it
again. Shook his head and read one more time. He looked at
Rynn.

“
Keep reading,” his friend
chuckled, “it gets better.”

I’m sure you won’t be
surprised to learn that she won five first place coins,
the letter continued.
I
didn’t get a chance to ask which ones, but she was very pleased
with herself. Unfortunately, it appears that the village boys are
extremely upset. I think they have finally had enough of her. I am
concerned that they may really hurt her this time, so the ceremony
becomes all the more necessary.
Dasen
stopped. His mind could not even process what he was reading. How
was it possible that a girl had competed in the district games,
much less won against boys? He assumed he must have misunderstood.
He read the paragraph again but could think of no other way to
interpret it.

“
Keep reading,” Rynn
insisted when he saw that Dasen had stopped. He was literally
hopping with anticipation. “Either this is the best joke ever or
the Order has it out for you in the worst possible way.”

Head spinning, Dasen read. Having
covered the games, Milne mentioned a long overdue talk, in which
she had told Tethina about the proposed joining. Tethina’s apparent
reaction brought Dasen to another stop. “She ran off into the
forest?” he read out loud, questioning each statement. “I don’t
expect to see her for a few days? I have no concerns about her
taking care of herself? I am confident that she will return ready
for her new life?” He looked up at Rynn. “What is that supposed to
mean?”

“
Dasen,” Rynn turned
serious, “you say you knew this Tethina as a child.” Dasen nodded
dumbly. “Are you certain that she was a girl? Are you sure that
your father has not promised you to another man?” Dasen swatted at
his friend, but he just backed away and continued, “And one much
more manly than you. How many first place coins have you won?”
Dasen refused to answer. “Oh, yeah, the exact same number as me,
none. You’ve never even competed. And spending several days in some
forest. You wouldn’t last fifteen minutes without cobbled streets
and food carts. I mean you can barely manage in provincial
inns.”

Ignoring his friend, Dasen read the
rest of the letter. It gave measurements for Teth, which were
meaningless to Dasen, though they seemed surprisingly similar to
his own. There was a wish for safe travels and a few other
pleasantries, but that was it. Dasen sat back in shock. His mind
spun but could not come to terms with what he had just read. In all
his thinking on Tethina, this was not something he had ever come
close to considering.

Rynn, for his part, snatched the
letter from Dasen’s limp fingers and read it again. “Can I make a
copy of this? It is absolutely the most deliciously scandalous
thing I have ever read.”

“
You may not!” Ipid
shouted. He stormed into the room and tore the letter from Rynn’s
fingers. “That is my letter. From my satchel. How dare
you?”

For once in his life, Rynn had the
good sense to not smile. He retreated to put one of the four round
tables between himself and his accuser. He stammered, at a rare
loss for words.

“
I took it from your bag,”
Dasen admitted, “and I’m glad I did. Is this what you’ve been
hiding from me? That you’re forcing me to join some freakish
he-woman? When were you planning to tell me? When she ran off to
kill us a boar for our wedding feast?”

“
Enough!” Ipid roared.
“You will not speak of Tethina that way! You don’t know anything.
You’ve read one letter, and it wasn’t even from her.”

“
Then let me read her
letters, though I didn’t see much room for confusion in
that.”

“
That’s why I didn’t want
you to read it! What it says is true, but you are jumping to the
wrong conclusions. Tethina is strong and independent, but she’s not
some freak. She’s a young woman who’s had an Order-cursed hard
life.”

“
So you’ve decided to
strap her to me. I’m the one who has to teach manners to the wild
woman of the west. Do you have any idea the scandal it will create
if this news reaches Liandrin?” Dasen paused for a moment in shock.
“How could this not travel? A girl competes in the district games
and wins five first place coins. That will spread across the world
like an old Imperial decree. By the Order, what if they attach it
to Tethina? What if they realize it’s the same girl?”

“
Now, Dasen.” Ipid tried
to calm his son. “It will blow over like these things always do. I
thought you’d be proud of her.”

“
Blow over! Proud! I will
be a laughing stock! I won’t be able to walk into a room without it
erupting into whispers at best, outright jeers at worst. It will be
impossible. And Tethina, she will be a constant source of ridicule.
It will be ten times worse for her. No girl will speak with her.
The boys will taunt her. The counselors will deride her. Where did
you think this would go?”

“
I think you are blowing
this entirely out of proportion,” Ipid stuffed the letter into his
bag, obviously done with the discussion. “So she competed in the
games. People will have some fun with it, then it will be over. I
always thought you were a better man than to worry about what
others thought of you. That you stood up for your friends.” Ipid
made a point of looking toward Rynn as he spoke the last. “Now I
think we should forget about this and get some sleep. It will be a
long day tomorrow, especially if this rain continues.” With that,
Ipid gathered his remaining papers, buckled them into his satchel,
gave Dasen and Rynn each a disapproving look, then stomped up the
stairs to his room.

Dasen collapsed into a chair and
dropped his head to the polished planks. Images of a muscle-bound
man clad in leathers with a woman’s face flashed before his eyes.
He tried to imagine himself even kissing such a creature and
couldn’t. The reactions she would solicit at the university echoed
in his ears. For the first time, he seriously considered running
away. But now he was in the middle of nowhere. How would he even
go? Hire a horse that he could barely ride? His father probably had
the only coach this side of Thoren. If he had known this back in
Liandrin or even Wildern on Orm that would have been one thing, but
now he was stuck.

Seeing his friend’s duress, Rynn
placed a hand on his back. “I’m sorry, Dasen. I shouldn’t have made
such a deal of it. Your father’s right. It might be a thing for a
week or two, but it will blow over, especially if she’s not like
that when you arrive. I mean, if she shows up and actually looks
and acts like a normal girl, people will think it was an
exaggeration or even a lie. It will never hold up. Just like the
rumor that Albin Churler’s mother was a simpleton. It followed him
for a while, but when his parents visited and people saw that she
was just plain stupid, it died out.”

“
You started that rumor,”
Dasen reminded Rynn.

“
Which is another
advantage you have, the most virulent rumor monger at the
university is your best friend.”

“
Small consolation that,
but I do think you are on the right track. We do have six months.
By then it will be old news, and if we arrive and Tethina is
nothing like the rumor, it will be done. By the time we reach
Liandrin, she needs to seem so demure and delicate that no one will
be able to imagine the rumors were true. I’ll just have to make it
very clear that she can’t continue as she has, that it is against
the Order. She hasn’t had a man in her life to guide her, after
all. She probably just needs a strong hand to show her what is
proper.”

“
See,” Rynn declared. “I
have galloped in to save you yet again. All I need is a white
steed, and I could be a folk hero.”

“
I think the horse is the
least of your needs, but thank you. Now that I know what I’m
dealing with, I’m going up to my room to put some thought into it.”
Dasen rose and patted Rynn on the shoulder before starting up the
stairs. Somehow, despite finding the match to be worse than his
wildest fears, he was relieved to at least know what he was facing.
In the end, Tethina was nothing more than a mistake created by a
lack of proper male guidance, but the Order always sought to
correct itself. All he had to do was make Tethina see her proper
place, push her strongly back into that place, and the Order would
reestablish itself.

#

Ipid pushed the contract away in
disgust. He sat back from the small desk and pulled at the few
strands of hair remaining on either side of his scalp. A cry of
frustration rose inside him. He restrained it with grinding teeth.
How could he have made such a complete mess of every truly
important thing in his life? It was not supposed to be like this.
Kira was supposed to be here to keep him grounded, to keep the
ambition from overcoming the man. That had always been her role.
When he got ahead of himself, spent too much time dreaming and
planning, she always brought him back, reminded him what was
important. She’d come to him at times like these, when he was so
focused on some scheme that he didn’t know his own name, and lift
his head forcefully from the paper, remove the pen from his hand,
and lead him without a word to the table, to their son playing
before the fire, to their bed. Without her, he had no idea how to
separate himself from his ambitions, how to let it go and focus on
what is really important, how to relate to the only person that
really mattered, his son.