JANISSARIES

"You're already married. I should have known." She was alone again. Alone, and she couldn't go home.

His reaction startled her. He laughed. Then he said, "No. I'm not married." He stood and came toward her. She moved away. His face changed, the expression softening. "Gwen, it's going to be all right. You startled me, that's all. It will be all right. You'll see."

She wanted desperately to believe him. "Les, I love you-"

He moved closer. She was afraid, of him and of everything, but she didn't know what to do; and when he came to her, she clung to him in despair.

Two weeks passed. Les did not mention their future again. They entered Tran's star system, and Les busied himself finding a suitable place to land the mercenaries.

PART THREE:

Tylara do Tamaerthon sat at the head of the great wooden council table beneath ba

She was young and beautiful, and every man in the room felt her presence; despite her armor and the dagger at her waist, she seemed small and vulnerable, in need of protection.

Everyone seemed dwarfed in the great hall of Castle Dravan. Like all of the ancient castles of Tran, Dravan stood above caves of ice; there was a faint smell of ammonia in the council room as an acolyte opened a massive door far below them. Above ground, stone arches and great wooden beams stretched massively. Other rooms in the fortress sported rich tapestries and wood paneling, but here the bones and sinews of the castle showed nakedly. The only decorations were mementos of battles won.

There were many of those. Ba

It was her first meeting of the full council, and she had no real confidence in these westerners. They seemed so little like her husband! And there were only two bheromen in attendance. The others were knights and merchants, a local priest of Hestia- this was a grain-producing region-and the inevitable priests of Yatar, two representatives of the yeomanry, a scattering of guildmasters. They called her Great Lady, and for the moment they respected her as Eqetassa of Chelm; but she was still a stranger who had never lived among them.

Her only real friends were the retinue she had brought from Tamaerthon, and they had no place in the council of this western land.

A messenger stood at the end of the table. What he read was full of flowery phrases and elaborate compliments, but his meaning was clear enough. She heard him out with impatience, then waved to have him led from the room. When he was gone, she looked down the length of the heavy wooden table. "Well, my lords? Wanax Sarakos makes us an offer. Have you advice?"

There was profound silence. Tylara smiled thinly. The silence was more eloquent than any speech could have been. Her bheromen wanted to accept the offer-or at least bargain with Sarakos while they still had something to bargain with. The yeomen and guildmasters-could they want Sarakos here also? Tylara looked at the impassive faces and read nothing. She knew too little of these people, and they were accustomed to hiding their thoughts from the great ones.

But if one of the bheromen spoke for accepting Sarakos, others would join. Or would they? These were her husband's people. Could they be so little like him? The memory of him stabbed at her, and she saw him as he had been: ta

She keenly felt her youth and inexperience. She was only twelve as they reckoned years here (in Tamaerthon they counted a child a year old at birth and added four more at age nine, so that she would be called seventeen there). She had lived far from these iron hills, and she did not know these people.

It said much for her husband – and for the strength of his family-that they obeyed her at all.

"Captain Camithon," she said. "It seems no one wishes to speak. Perhaps you will advise me."

Camithon had served three generations of Eqetas of Chelm; his beard had greyed in that service, and his body was scarred with wounds. A long scar from a lance that had narrowly missed taking his eye ran diagonally across his cheek, giving him a somewhat ferocious appearance that he sometimes took advantage of in councils of war. He stood hunched over as if his very bones were tired, and as he stood he muttered about his estates, which he had not visited in a year. But his voice was steady enough when he spoke. "The usurper marches with two thousand lances and a great train of foot," he said. "We have but a hundred lances, and we stand in Wanax Sarakos's way."

Tylara nodded gravely as she had seen her father do in clan meetings. Inwardly she wished to shout. Camithon was broadly proclaimed a splendid soldier and perhaps he was, but he could never come to the point until he had reviewed everything a dozen times and more.

She hid her impatience with good grace and thought no one noticed. She had learned endurance if not patience, and that would have to do.

"Dravan is strong," mused Camithon. He brushed his fingers against the scar on his cheek, as if to remind everyone that he had held Dravan in the battle that earned him his distinctive mark. "Our lady has seen to the granaries and magazines, and well done that was, too. This old castle has killed five armies -but it has never before been held with only a hundred lances, and it has never before been so thoroughly cut off from aid."

"As if there were any aid to send," one of the guildmasters muttered.

Camithon's sword rested on a map unrolled on the table. He lifted the weapon and used it as a pointer. "The Protector is here, ten days and more to the northwest with our Wanax Ganton. He has no more than a thousand lances, and the Protector ca

Tylara wanted to shout. I know all that, her mind screamed. Outwardly she smiled and said, "You give us a hundred lances, but you have forgotten my Tamaerthon archers. I hope this usurper Sarakos makes that mistake. He won't make it twice."

There were murmurs of approval from behind her. Tylara's people could not sit at the council table, but she was attended by them; and the Tamaerthon yeomanry wasn't afraid to be heard in any council room. In their mountainous plateau by the sea, the clans did not live as peasants lived among the great lords and bheromen of the west.

She had a momentary twinge of homesickness. She longed for her high ridges, with the blue sea to the east, stark mountains rising from it to stand deep blue in dusklight and dawn. It would be so easy to go home. She had only to give up this castle to Sarakos and she could return as the wealthiest lady in Tamaerthon-or she could stay, with all her husband's lands restored. Sarakos would give her that, and the council would approve. She had only to say the words- "A hundred lances and two hundred archers are still but five hundred fighting men," Camithon said. He spoke as if proud of his arithmetic. "Fewer, for not all our knights have squire and man-at-arms. And these walls, though strong, enclose a great area. We have no reserve. Every man is needed at his post. What happens when they tire?"