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“ ’For the most part’ still leaves a lot of room for potential trouble, though,” Kaeritha pointed out. “And somehow, I don’t think He’d be sending me off to deal with a crop of Sothoii who were ’getting on with one another.’ Do you?”
“Well, as to that,” Bahzell replied with a crooked smile, “no.”
It was still raining when Kaeritha left Hill Guard … of course.
At least it wasn’t a torrential downpour, she told herself encouragingly as she started down the steep approach road from Baron Tellian’s ancestral keep. The Wind Plain was actually a huge, high plateau which, for the most part, was one vast ocean of grass and occasionally interspersed patches of ancient forest. The terrain might fairly be described as “rolling,” but there weren’t very many true hills on it, so, over the centuries, those which did exist had exhibited a distinct tendency to attract towns and fortifications. Hill Guard had come into existence in exactly that fashion the better part of eight hundred years ago when Halyu Bowmaster, the first Lord Warden of Balthar, had looked about for a suitable spot for the capital of his new holding. Now the city of Balthar sprawled out for several miles from the castle which brooded down over it from above.
The Sothoii weren’t great city builders. For the most part, their people continued to follow their ancestors’ pastoral lifestyle. While the Wind Plain remained the heart of their realm, they’d also acquired extensive holdings to the east, below the towering plateau. Those lower regions enjoyed a far milder climate, and a substantial portion of the vast Sothoii horse and cattle herds were wintered in those more salubrious surroundings. But the huge stud farms where the magnificent Sothoii warhorses were bred and trained remained where tradition insisted they must—atop the Wind Plain. And for whatever reason, the Sothoii coursers flatly refused to live anywhere else.
Horses—and coursers—required a lot of space, and the Sothoii population by and large was scattered sparsely about the Wind Plain, watching over its herds. That produced a lot of villages and small towns, but not very many cities. Which, conversely, meant that what cities there were tended to be quite large.
They were also well maintained, and Kaeritha moved briskly along the wide, straight avenue on the new mount Tellian had insisted upon giving her. She’d argued about accepting it, but not, she was guiltily aware, very hard. Any Sothoii warhorse was worth a prince’s ransom, and the mare Tellian had bestowed upon Kaeritha was a princess among her own kind. Smaller and lighter than the heavier cavalry horses of other lands, the winter-hardy Sothoii warhorse was perfectly suited to the swift, deadly, archery-dominated tactics of the people who had bred it. Indeed, only the coursers themselves excelled its combination of speed and endurance.
And unlike Kaeritha, the warhorses seemed perfectly content with the Wind Plain’s soggy spring weather.
She chuckled damply at the thought and reached down to pat the mare’s shoulder. The horse flicked her ears in acknowledgment of the caress, and Kaeritha smiled. The mare’s dark chestnut coloring, even darker at the moment thanks to the rain, probably accounted for her name, but Kaeritha still felt that naming such an affectionate creature “Dark War Cloud Rising” was just a bit much. She’d promptly shortened it to “Cloudy,” which had earned her a rather pained look from Tellian. His stable master, on the other hand, had only gri
A packhorse trotted along at Cloudy’s heels. Even he, although far more plebeian than the aristocratic warhorse, was a magnificent creature. He would have been happily accepted as a superior light cavalry mount anywhere but among the Sothoii, and Kaeritha knew she had never been better mounted in her life. Which, she reflected, was saying something, given the care the Order of Tomanak took when it came to equipping their god’s champions.
Despite Balthar’s size, there was very little traffic as she approached the city’s East Gate. The weather undoubtably had a little something to do with that, she thought, looking past the open gate to the rain blowing across the road beyond and rippling the endless spring grass of the Wind Plain. Sothoii roads were not, by and large, up to Axeman standards. Few highways outside the Empire itself were, but the Sothoii’s efforts came up shorter than most, and Kaeritha felt an undeniable sinking sensation as she contemplated the one before her. It was straight enough—not surprisingly, given the unobstructed terrain of the Wind Plain—but that was about all she could say for the broad line of mud stretching out before her.
The officer commanding the gate guard saluted her respectfully as she passed, and she nodded back with equal courtesy. Yet even as she did, she wondered how the officer might have greeted her if not for the gold and green badge of the Order of Tomanak Tellian’s seamstresses had embroidered across the front of her poncho.
Then she was through the gate, and the gentle pressure of a heel sent Cloudy trotting down the last bit of slope towards the waiting road.
Chapter Ten
“I apologize for intruding, Milord, but someone has arrived to see you.”
“Indeed?” Baron Tellian paused with his glass half-raised and looked up at his majordomo with a slight, inquiring frown. “Who is it, Kalan?” His tone added another, unspoken question—And why is his arrival important enough for you to disturb my lunch?
“It’s Sir Yarran Battlecrow, Milord. He says he carries an urgent message from Lord Warden Glanharrow,”the majordomo said, in a calm, unflustered voice, and Tellian’s eyes narrowed. Then he nodded.
“Thank you, Kalan,” he said. “Please have him shown into my study. See to it that he’s offered a chance to wash up first, if he so desires, and that refreshments are available to him. Tell him I’ll join him there as soon as I can.”
“Of course, Milord,”Kalan replied, then coughed gently. “In fact, I’d already given those instructions.”
“You’re entirely too efficient, Kalan,” Tellian said with a smile. “Certainly more efficient than I deserve.”
“It’s kind of you to say so, anyway, Milord,”Kalan murmured, and withdrew with a slight bow.
Tellian gazed down into his wineglass for several seconds, then took a sip and set the glass on the table. He wiped his mouth with a linen napkin and looked around the circle of his family and guests.
“Fortunately, I think we were about finished here,” he said.
“And if we weren’t,” Baroness Hanatha said, “we’d all pretend we were, anyway.”
“Of course you would, my dear. And so cheerfully and so well that I would never even suspect how I’d trodden on your enjoyment of the meal for reasons of state.”
The two of them shared a smile, but there was more than a hint of anxiety behind the baroness’ jade eyes. Tellian saw it, and reached out to touch the back of her hand in brief, wordless reassurance. Then he looked at Bahzell and Brandark.
“It doesn’t take a wizard or a mage to divine the reason for Sir Yarran’s visit. I think it might be as well for the two of you to join us in the study, if that would be convenient.”
“I’m thinking it would be convenient enough for the pair of us,” Bahzell rumble. “But it’s in my mind that Lord Festian and Sir Yarran might be minded for him to have a word or two with you in private without such as us listening in.”
“It might,” Tellian agreed. “On the other hand, the Gullet opens on Glanharrow. That means your father, and so you, Bahzell, have a legitimate interest in anything that happens there. Especially if it concerns the man who was named to replace that idiot Redhelm. Don’t tell me you haven’t been expecting a messenger like this for weeks, man. Just as I have.”