War Maid's Choice-ARC (38 page)

“I think Gayrfressa’s business may be with you, love,” she said.

“With me?” Leeana’s voice sounded entirely too much like a teenager’s on the pronoun for her own satisfaction, and her mother chuckled.

“Well, she’s not being discourteous, but she’s also not looking at
me
at the moment, now is she? May I ask if I’m correct, Milady?”

Gayrfressa looked back at Hanatha and then tossed her head in clear, unambiguous agreement. The baroness shrugged.

“There you have it, Leeana. I would suggest that since Gayrfressa has clearly come quite some distance, it would only be courteous for you to see to the quality of our hospitality.” The baroness let her eyes sweep the watching stablehands and raised her voice ever so slightly. “In this, you act for me and for your father,” she said. “I’m certain you’ll be able to find any assistance you might require.”

“I—” Leeana changed what she’d been about to say and bent her head in a respectful bow. “Of course, Milady.”

“Good.” Hanatha let her gaze circle the stable yard one last time, then held out her free hand to Sharlassa. “Come with me, my dear. I’m sure some of that tea is still left. Until later, Milady.”

She gave Gayrfressa another one of those half-curtsies, and then she and Sharlassa departed leaving Leeana nose to nose with the towering courser.

* * *

“Well, this is the first time I’ve had
this
problem in years,” Leeana murmured wryly as she stepped up onto the stool.

She’d already checked and picked out Gayrfressa’s feet, noting in passing that it was time the courser was reshod. Now it was time to work down the mare’s coat with the dandy brush, starting at the poll, which posed a slight problem, since the top of Gayrfressa’s head was over ten feet off the ground. That was quite a reach, even for an overgrown war maid, hence the stool.

Gayrfressa made an amused sound as Leeana lifted her mane to the far side to get it out of the way and began working the dandy brush down her neck. Coursers, like horses, spent a great deal of their time in the wild grooming one another, and they were cleverer about it than horses because of their greater intelligence. Nonetheless, they didn’t have hands, and on the occasions when an un-companioned courser came calling on the two-footed inhabitants of the Wind Plain, simple courtesy required those who did have hands to groom them properly and completely. Of course, Gayrfressa wasn’t leading a stabled existence, so it wouldn’t do to give her the complete rubbing down with body brush and scrubbing cloth Leanna gave Boots each day. Horses—or coursers—exposed to the elements needed a little grease and oil in their coat. On the other hand, Gayrfressa was a lot of mare to groom at all.

“Oh, I don’t know as it was all that long ago...Ma’am.”

Leeana looked over her shoulder and Doram Greenslope smiled at her. Greenslope had served in Hill Guard’s stables at least since the creation of the world. As a senior undergroom, he’d taught Tellian himself how to ride, and he’d become stablemaster years before Leeana was born. He’d taught
her
how to ride, as well, and schooled her rigorously in the care, treatment, respect, and courtesy to which any horse was entitled. Along the way, he’d also pulled a rambunctious girl child out from under various horses when she’d gone darting into their stalls, helped set the left arm one of those horses had broken, and—at least once that she could remember—hauled her out of the stable yard fountain after the gelding a six-year-old Leeana had been enthusiastically riding bareback decided to stop unexpectedly for a drink.

Now he stepped up beside her with a polite bob of his snow-white head to Gayrfressa.

“I seem to remember someone needing a
ladder
to groom Dathgar,” he went on to Leeana. “Yesterday, that was, or maybe the day before.”

“Trust me, it was longer than that, Doram,” Leeana said, moving the dandy brush in long, sweeping strokes to break loose the sweat and dust clinging to Gayrfressa’s coat. The courser’s remaining ear moved and her eye half-closed in pleasure, and Leeana smiled. But then her smile dimmed, as she looked back at the stablemaster. “It was a lifetime ago,” she said softly.

“Ah, now, that’s a weighty thing, a lifetime,” Doram replied. “So far, mine’s been a mite better than three of yours...Ma’am.” He smiled. “And I’m planning on being around for quite a few more years, you understand, so maybe a lifetime’s just a bit longer than it might be seeming to someone your age.”

“Maybe.” She shook her head, her eyes going back to the steadily moving brush. “But you can measure lifetimes in more than just years. There’s what you do with them, too.”

“And you’ve gone and used yours up already?” The irony in the stablemaster’s voice pulled her gaze back around to him, and it was his turn to shake his head. “Seems to me you’ve time enough to be doing just about anything you choose to with your life...Leeana.”

Tears blurred her vision for a moment. It was the first time in her life Doram Greenslope had ever addressed her simply by her name. No honorific, no “ma’am,” simply “Leeana.” He never would have dreamed of doing such a thing when she’d been heiress conveyant to Balthar...and how many “properly reared” Sothōii men would ever have called a
war maid
by her name at all, she wondered?

“Was a time,” Greenslope continued, looking back up at Gayrfressa and reaching up to stroke the white blaze running down the mare’s forehead, “when you just about lived in this stable. Learned a lot about you when you did, and nothing I’ve ever seen or heard’s changed who you were.
What
you were, maybe, but what’s inside...that’s harder to change. Might be you’ve made some decisions I’d sooner a daughter of mine not make, but I’m one as spends a lot of time around horses—and coursers—and their riders, Young Leeana. Could be I’ve heard a thing or two passing between a certain wind rider I might name and his courser, or between him and his wind brother while they were seeing to their coursers together. And it might just be, you know,” he turned his head, meeting Leeana’s eyes levelly, “I’ve heard a story about why a certain young lady ran away from home that’s not so much like the ones I hear in town.”

“I—”

The dandy brush stopped moving, and Leeana felt a mortified blush sweeping over her face as her throat closed and she literally could not speak. She stared into Greenslope’s eyes, and the stablemaster did something he hadn’t done since she was ten years old. He reached up one gnarled, work-hardened hand and laid it ever so gently against her cheek.

“I’d not want my daughter to make that decision, lass,” he said quietly, “but my heart would fair bust with pride if she did. And I don’t think any lass as had the heart and courage and the love to make it is going to do anything with her life that could ever cause shame to those as love her.”

Tears welled in Leeana’s eyes, and he smiled crookedly, then smacked her cheek lightly with his palm and turned away.

“I’ll just go and see to the manger in Her Ladyship’s stall,” he said, and walked away whistling.

* * *

“You look...better,” Hanatha said, regarding her daughter across the table.

Tahlmah Bronzebow had successfully corralled Sharlassa before she could escape at the end of lunch and hauled her off for a session with Sir Jahlahan, leaving Hanatha and Leeana to sit in companionable silence. Now Leeana swirled her glass of lemonade, listening to the gentle clink of a few precious pieces of ice from the spacious Hill Guard icehouse. It was a scandalous luxury, of course, and one she hadn’t sampled in at least six years.

“I feel better,” she admitted, looking up from the glass to meet her mother’s gaze. “I hadn’t really talked with Doram in too long.”

“Ah.” Hanatha smiled faintly. “I wondered if he might take the opportunity to offer you some sage advice.”

“Sage advice?” Leeana tilted her head, looking at her mother quizzically, and Hanatha chuckled.

“Doram Greenslope’s been a fixture of Hill Guard since before your father was born, my dear. And I don’t suppose any Sothōii with a working brain—which
does
describe your father...most of the time, at least—picks a fool to supervise his stables, do you? Over the years, Doram’s found a way to give quite a few bits and pieces of sage advice to various inhabitants of this castle. Including various inhabitants who happen to be sitting across the table from each other at this very moment.” Her green eyes warmed. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t hoped he might have a few gems to share with
you
, love.”

“Well, he did,” Leeana acknowledged, feeling her eyes prickle afresh with memory. “And you might want to mention to Father that just because no one else can hear Dathgar when Dathgar talks to him, that doesn’t mean no one can hear
him
when he talks to
Dathgar
.”

“So Doram knows the real reason you ran away?” If Hanatha felt any distress over the discovery, she hid it well, Leeana thought.

“He didn’t come straight out and say ‘I know you ran away to avoid that proposed betrothal to Rulth Blackhill, well-known philanderer, lecher, and rapist,’” Leeana said dryly, “but I think he had most of it figured out.”

“Including the bit about running away to prevent your father’s political enemies from using you as a weapon against him?” Hanatha asked softly.

“Maybe.” Leeana looked back down into her lemonade again and inhaled deeply. “No, not maybe. He
knows
; I’m pretty certain of it.”

“Good,” Hanatha said in that same soft voice, and Leeana looked back up quickly.

“Mother—” she began, but Hanatha’s headshake cut her off.

“Leeana, there’s no one in the entire Kingdom who can see lightning or hear thunder who hasn’t figured out by now that the dearest desire of Cassan Axehammer’s heart is to see your father ruined and—preferably—dead,” she said calmly. “The lines have been drawn for longer than you’ve been alive, and the political battlefield’s changed—changed pretty significantly—since you became a war maid. To be honest, part of that is
because
you became a war maid, which cleared the way for your father to formally adopt Trianal as his heir. I suppose it’s unfair, but removing you from the succession and settling it firmly on a
male
heir took the wind out of Cassan’s sails where that whole flank attack was concerned. And then Bahzell had the sheer effrontery to save the survivors of Gayrfressa’s herd from Krahana, after which he and Kaeritha—with the help of your father and a few other wind riders and coursers—settled that situation in Quaysar and Trianal and Lord Warden Festian settled Cassan’s hash in that little campaign of his to ruin Glanharrow. And as if that weren’t enough, there’s this whole new canal project and tunnel your father’s concocted with Kilthandahknarthas and Brandark!”

She paused to take a sip of her own lemonade, then smiled crookedly.

“Darling, if any of us had been able to read the future and know what was going to happen in Warm Springs and in Quaysar, and what Trianal and Sir Yarran were going to do to Lord Saratic’s armsmen, there would never have been any
need
for you to ‘run away’ to the war maids. I regret that more than I could ever tell you, in many ways. I regret what it’s cost you, and I regret the last seven years that it’s cost your father and me because it was so painful for you to come visit us here.”

Leeana started to protest, but her mother shook her head and raised her hand.

“Leeana, I’ve loved you more than life itself from the day your heart began to beat beneath mine, and so has your father,” Hanatha said quietly. “And, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you really can’t lie or pretend very well to me. Not when I can look in your eyes, hear what your voice is trying to hide. I know exactly why you’ve stayed away for so many years. Perhaps I should have said something about it at the time, but to be honest, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to let you do a little more growing up before you came home to deal with the kinds of looks and attitudes you’re likely to deal with here in Balthar. You were always strong, love, but sometimes it takes a while to grow the armor we need, and you needed the time away from here to grow yours.

“Now I think you have, because when I look at you now all I see is the strength, not the pain. I don’t doubt there’s still hurt in there, because I don’t see how it could be any other way, but you’ve got the strength—and the armor—to watch it bounce off instead of cutting you to the quick. Enough that maybe you’ll realize Doram isn’t the only one of your old friends who’s missed you. And I’m not surprised Doram’s kept your father’s confidence and not broken a few tankards over loudmouthed heads down at the Crimson Arrow when they started talking about the barony’s ‘disgraced daughter.’ I’m sure he
wanted
to, but he’d never dream of revealing anything he learned in confidence...or by accident, especially if it might hurt the family, however badly his heart might have wanted to tell certain idiots what really happened. And, truth to tell, it was probably a good thing he did, at least for the first few years. But now?”

She shook her head again.

“Now I don’t think your father’s worst enemies could make any capital at all out of the fact that you ‘fled’ to the war maids to prevent Cassan and his cronies from using a forced betrothal to you as a weapon against him. And the fact that you’re a war maid, shocking and appalling as that must be to any decent-minded person”—Hanatha’s irony was withering—“doesn’t worry either of us a single solitary damn.” Leeana’s eyes widened, because Hanatha never swore even the mildest of oaths, but her mother only smiled. “Time and events have moved on, love, and hard as that decision was for you at the time, it simply doesn’t matter now. I don’t care who Doram might choose to share his interpretation of the truth with. In fact, I hope he shares it with everyone in Balthar!”

It was a day for revelations, Leeana thought, feeling the glass of lemonade cold in her fingers. First Doram and now her mother.

Should’ve known better than to think you could fool
her,
nitwit
, she told herself.
Your skull always was made out of glass where she was concerned. But I wonder if—?

“I...I don’t think he has to,” she said out loud. “Oh, it matters to me that
he
knows, and it matters more than I could ever say that you understand why I stayed away. But you’re right, I think—probably more right than I would’ve realized before this moment. I have grown the armor I need; I just hadn’t realized I have.” She smiled, and if it was a bit lopsided, that smile, it was also warm and loving. “I don’t need Doram to convince anyone else I did the right thing as long as
I
know I did and as long as I know
you
believe I did. We despicable war maids are used to standing up for ourselves, you know.”