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“I’ve sent word of your arrival to Lord Trisu,” he continued. “I’m sure he’ll want to come down to the gate to greet you properly and in person.”
Or to kick me back out of the gate if he decides I’m not a champion after all, Kaeritha added silently. On the other hand, one must be polite, I suppose.
“Thank you, Captain —?”
“Forgive me,” the officer said hastily. “I seem to be forgetting all of my ma
“Thank you, Sir Altharn,” Kaeritha said. “I appreciate the prompt and efficient ma
The words were courteously formal, but Sir Altharn obviously noticed the gently teasing edge to her voice. For a moment he started to color up again, but then, to her pleased surprise, he shook his head and smiled at her, instead.
“I suppose I had that coming,” he told her. “But truly, Dame Kaeritha, I’m seldom quite so inept as I’ve managed to appear this morning.”
“I believe that,” Kaeritha said, and somewhat to her own surprise, it was true.
“Thank you. That’s kinder than I deserve,” Sir Altharn said. “I hope I’ll have the opportunity to demonstrate the fact that I don’t always manage to put my own boot in my mouth. Or, at least, that I usually remember to take my spurs off first!”
He laughed at himself, so naturally that Kaeritha laughed with him. There might be some worthwhile depths to this fellow after all, she reflected.
“I’m sure you’ll have the chance,” she told him. “In fact, I —”
She broke off in midsentence as four more men, one of them the messenger Altharn had dispatched, arrived from the direction of the central keep. The one in the lead had to be Trisu, she thought. His stride was too imperious, his bearing too confident—indeed, arrogant—for him to be anyone else. He was fair-haired, gray-eyed, and darkly ta
He was unarmored, but he’d taken time to belt on a jewel-hilted saber in a gold-chased black scabbard, and two of the men behind him—obviously armsmen—wore the standard steel breastplates and leather armor of Sothoii horse archers.
“So!” Trisu rocked to a halt and tucked his hands inside his sword belt as he glowered up at Kaeritha. She looked back down at him calmly from Cloudy’s saddle, her very silence an unspoken rebuke of his brusqueness. He seemed remarkably impervious to it, however, for his only response was to bare his teeth in a tight, humorless smile.
“So you claim to be a champion of Tomanak, do you?” he continued before the silence could stretch out too far.
“I do not ’claim’ anything, Milord,” Kaeritha returned in a deliberately courteous but pointed tone. She smiled thinly. “It would take a braver woman than me to attempt to pass herself off falsely as one of His champions. Somehow, I don’t think He’d like that very much, do you?”
Something flashed in Trisu’s gray eyes—a sparkle of anger, perhaps, although she supposed it was remotely possible it might have been humor. But whatever it had been, it went almost as fast as it had come, and he snorted.
“Bravery might be one word for it,” he said. “Foolishness—or perhaps even stupidity—might be others, though, don’t you think?”
“They might,” she acknowledged. “In the meantime, however, Milord, I have to wonder if keeping a traveler standing in the courtyard is the usual courtesy of Lorham.”
“Under normal circumstances, no,” he said coolly. “On the other hand, I trust you will concede that women claiming to be knights and champions of the gods aren’t exactly normal travelers.”
“On the Wind Plain, perhaps,” Kaeritha replied with matching coolness, and, for the first time, he flushed. But he wasn’t prepared to surrender the point quite yet.
“That’s as may be, Milady,” he told her, “but at the moment, you’re on the Wind Plain, and here what you claim to be is not simply unusual, but unheard of. Under the circumstances, I hope you’ll not find me unduly discourteous if I request some proof that you are indeed who and what you say you are.” He smiled again. “Surely, the Order of Tomanak would prefer that people be cautious about accepting anyone’s unsubstantiated claim to be one of His champions.”
“I see.” Kaeritha regarded him thoughtfully for a long moment. It would have been handy, she reflected, if Tomanak had seen fit to give to gift her with a sword like Bahzell’s, which came when he called it. It was certainly an impressive way to demonstrate his champion’s credentials when necessary. Unfortunately, her own blades, while possessed of certain unusual attributes of their own, stayed obstinately in their sheaths unless she drew them herself, no matter how much she might whistle or snap her fingers for them.
“I’ve come from Balthar,” she said, after a moment, “where Baron Tellian was kind enough to offer me hospitality and to gift me with this lovely lady.” She leaned forward to stroke Cloudy’s neck, and smiled behind her expressionless face as the first, faint uncertainty flickered in those gray eyes. “He also,” she continued blandly, “sent with me written letters of introduction and, I believe, instructions to cooperate with me in my mission.” Those eyes were definitely less cheerful than they had been, she noted with satisfaction. “And if you should happen to have anyone here in the Keep who is injured or ill, I suppose I could demonstrate my ability to heal them. Or —” she looked straight into Trisu’s eyes “— if you insist, I suppose I might simply settle for demonstrating my skill at arms upon your chosen champion, instead. In that case, however, I hope you won’t be requiring his services anytime soon.”
Trisu’s face tightened, its lines momentarily harder and bleaker than its owner’s years. The people wh’d described him as “conservative” had been guilty of considerable understatement, Kaeritha thought. But there appeared to be a brain behind that hard face. However angry he might be, his was not an unthinking reactionism, and he made his expression relax.
“If you bear the letters you’ve described,” he said after a moment, with what Kaeritha had to concede was commendable dignity under the circumstances, “that will be more than sufficient proof for me, Milady.”
“I thank you for your courtesy, Milord,” she said, bending her head in a slight bow. “At the same time—and I fear I owe you an apology, because I did make the offer at least partly out of pique—if there are any sick or injured, it would be my pleasure as well as my duty to offer them healing.”
“That was courteously said, Milady,” Trisu replied, still more than a bit stiffly but with the first genuine warmth she’d seen from him. “Please, Dame Kaeritha—alight from your horse. My house is yours, and it would seem I have a certain unfortunate first impression to overcome.”
Kaeritha’s initial impression of Sir Altharn had been misleading. Her first impression of Lord Trisu, unfortunately, and despite his promise to overcome it, had not.
It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with Trisu’s brain; it was simply that he chose not to use it where certain opinions and preconceptions were concerned. Kaeritha could see only too well why Yalith and the war maids found it so difficult to work with him. However determined one might be to be diplomatic and reasonable, it must be hard to remember one’s intention when all one wanted to do was to strangle the stiff-necked, obstinate, bigoted, prejudiced, quintessential young Sothoii reactionary on the other side of the conference table.