A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 22

"Vaie," Tashka said with a winning smile. "What is Hanya?"

"Hanya?" Dar Vaie had lifted his wine-bowl to his mouth, he paused to look warily at Tashka. "What has he to do with this?"

"Hanya is a merchant's son," Tashka said slowly, as if explaining that one and one must make two to a small child. "He is an officer, he is one of us. Who runs this land, Dar?"

"What do you mean? We run this land."

"We? Who is we?"

"Well, the aristocrats. And the armies."

"You and I run this land is it?" Dar nodded his head more confidently. "And Hanya? Hanya the officer who is also a merchant's son, does he run this land?"

"Whatever family he grew up in, now he is an officer," Dar Vaie asserted.

"Nonsense," Tashka said crisply. "We are not so divided: a merchant here, an officer there. Hanya the merchant's son has become an officer. The high nobility engage in trade."

"Whatsover they do, they do for the good of the people and the regions," Dar said. "Like your father, he works ... for the good of the region." As soon as he said it, he knew he had made a mistake.

"Oh no," Tashka said softly. "You know it very well. That old snake works for his own interest alone." Dar bit his lip and looked away into the candlelit shadows of his tent then back at Tashka.

She leant forwards in her seat, resting her arms on her knees and tilting her lean tanned face towards him. There was a line of crumbling blood down one of her cheeks. "Dar, are you willing to cling to the Generals' fingers, the Generals who sent you into that valley at Shier Bridge, who have always been willing to throw your life and mine away for victory? Are you willing to act on the expressed orders of one you know will send the poor of his region, all the people of his region, to Hell if it serves his interest? Are you willing to turn your back on the Commander, whose eyes you have looked into and seen how much love he holds for the whole troop, tell it me, was he willing to throw you into that ditch at Shier Bridge? You know how he loved the laziest trooper of Fourth so you know how much affection he would have for the poorest beggar of his region.

"Hear me!" she said quickly, raising her scarred right hand to stop him as he opened his mouth to speak. "Lady el Jien - the Commander's Lady wife - wants to set up a body of merchants who will write reports and advise the King and the Privy Council just as the other councils do. Their interest is partly in the network of trade across the whole country but they also want to make it so that nobody need be poor, so that trade is managed to give everybody work and sufficient money for the work they do. Why should we live as we do now, when some work too hard for too little money and others cannot work at all? The merchants are sick of seeing the poor begging at their doors. They know too that if people work, they will buy goods and then the money will flow more freely and we will all benefit. Is that such a terrible strategy, Vaie? Do you think the Sietter army is wise to take arms against Lady el Jien, and Lieutenant-Lord el Jien van Iarve, for wanting to take such a strategy to the King and his Ministers to consider?"

"Well ... why should your father be against such a plan?" Dar asked, puzzled.

"Because he cares nothing for the poor, not even the cloth trade in his own region. Such a body will undermine his power. He has a chance now to bring Vilandia in; he will do it, Vaie. He is married to a Vilandian bitch. Do you want to live under Vilandian rule or under the rule of the King and the Nobles, guided by Trossian merchants and workers?"

"The cloth trade," Dar Vaie said thoughtfully. "There was a riot in Arventa not three weeks back. First Sietter had to battle with weavers. I was glad at the time that we were out in the Sietter Hills so could not be called to support them. Imagine it, to use weaponry on the unemployed and unarmed poor. I ... I have heard it is bad throughout the country," he looked up through his lashes at Tashka.

"Yes," Tashka said, sitting back in her chair. "Hanya's father is being ruined by van Sietter's machinations against the cloth trade. This year Hanya has had to send half his salary home when they were used to give him enough to keep two horses. He could not afford to come to meet you when he was last on leave. He had to go home and help his family and of course you would not come to a rabble of an H'las merchant's house to see your lover. You would never ask them to bestow Hanya on you, would you? Who are they, only his parents." Her lip curled at him. Dar Vaie looked shamefacedly up at her through his fair lashes.

"I do not understand politics," he said mournfully.

"Well I do," Tashka said, "and I tell it you. If van Sietter wins this war, you'll live in a country where no one has enough, where there are poor who creep in and out of corners, starving - literally starving to death, their children dying in rat-infested hovels, while we officer-aristocrats ride over their bones and kick them back for fear that they will justifiably rise up against us - we who were supposed to take them for our care and our honour and our fellow humanity."

Dar looked into her face and saw how intensely serious she was. He sighed and shook his head. "I know not," he said softly.

"And you will take me a prisoner to Arventa," Tashka added. "That will not leave any stain on your honour, I suppose, to take your brother officer a prisoner to that old snake van Sietter?"

"Why should you not go to him?" Dar asked. "He is your father, however much of a snake he be to any other. He has called you to come to him. Why do you not go and persuade him, as you do me? He must be angry to find you an officer of an H'las troop but he will surely forgive it you. Maybe he will get them to give you your banner for Sixteenth? We could campaign together then. You could bring Hanya to Sixteenth with you, perhaps?" He blushed.

Tashka laughed but through a sigh. "No," she said quietly. "He will not give me Sixteenth Sietter. He has often denied being my father and he wants to hand me over to el F'lara van V'ta."

Dar looked narrowly at her. "But ... did you and Sixth H'las not do battle in V'ta?" he asked.

"Ay," Tashka said. "I did so. I was the one led the charge out of the trap they sprang on us and fetched Ninth P'shan to our aid."

"Oh that was a magnificent ...!" Dar began then he said: "el F'lara, he will have you hung so as to wipe the stain from his army's honour that they sprang that assault on you!"

"It is so," Tashka agreed.

"Tashka, surely not! No man will send his own child to such a death!"

"Dar, I have told you! When it suits his mind, he denies my parentage. Look at me! Of course I am his, I have his cursed thin body yet he denies me. He is a snake. He has sent three troops to carry off his own son and his, er, his daughter's betrothed before he even broke the betrothal or made a formal declaration of war."

Dar leant closer to Tashka and stared into her slanted blue eyes. Tashka stared intently back into his grey eyes. "Hear me," Dar said slowly. "None of us, not even Fifth Sietter, want to take you prisoner back to Arventa. Fifth Sietter curse you, although to do them justice they have never said any thing of the Commander, some of them even agree it was a fair fight and say Darien should let it pass now. el Gaiel is another matter. I know he is your Commander, I know you have sworn to his banner but he is van H'las. You were not with him from a baby Lieutenant, as you were with el Jien. He cannot mean as much to you as we Angels who trained with you in Fourth Sietter. What about if you give us el Gaiel and I will persuade them to let you go?"

"No!" Tashka cried, she bunched her left hand into a fist and banged it on the arm of her folding canvas chair. The rubies and gold of her rings sparkled in the candlelight. She and Dar both saw the rings and she thought: "Damn the Angels! Curse me to Hell!' Dar said: "What ... is that?"

"You butterfly-wits," Tashka said roughly, whipping her hand into her breeches' pocket where she tried to work the rings off her finger - too late! "A wedding ring."

"But the other," Dar said, raising his wide grey eyes to stare into her face. "el Maien, that is a woman's betrothal ring."

"Oh is it?" Tashka said carelessly, unable to bear looking in his eyes. She looked to one side, hunching up her shoulders as if she could feel the rough scratch of the noose about her neck.

Dar stared at her with his mouth open. Then he started to laugh. "Sweet Angels!" he cried. "You are a woman! Heaven and Hell! and I who used to long for your favours when we were Lieutenants together. How I used to sigh over your long legs and your lovely eyes and curse the Captain for putting you in his tent instead of letting you sleep with the rest of us Lieutenants. And how wasted my passion for you was."

"Is it so?" Tashka turned her head back again to look at him, relaxing into a still half-scared grin. "You hid your desire well."

"I surely did!" Dar's face was still alight with laughter. "You never gave any of us the eye and we all knew that anyone who looked on you would have words from the Captain; and a lot worse than words from the Commander! I thought it was because you were el Maien van Sietter and that el Jien took you into his tent because you were too pretty to let lie loosely around for us scummy Lieutenants to fumble with. I thought they were protecting you from me but it was Stariel and Nain they wanted to keep you from! You dog, el Maien. Give me your hand."

He leant across and grasped Tashka's openly offered sword hand with his sword hand. They held each other's right hand, took hold of each other's arm with their left hands and sat looking affectionately into each other's face.

"It is el Gaiel, is it?" Dar asked, "your husband."

"We have been married three days," Tashka said. Dar smiled to see how her face lit up with tender joy at being married to Vadya el Gaiel van H'las.

"Long love and happiness," he said softly.

"Thank you," Tashka said shyly.

"Mm, so, was not el Gaiel a bit ... troubled to find his betrothed was his own Captain?" Dar asked.

Tashka flashed him a wicked wink. "He was livid!" she said, "but I seduced him." They sniggered evilly.

"He is the lucky one," Dar said to her. "I wish I had any preference for women, el Maien!"

Tashka tossed her head. "Loisir and Caja will laugh at us," she said, "both gone over boots, cavalry and honour to the H'las!"

They sniggered again to think of how their brother officers would tease them then Dar said, looking puzzled: "Your father arranged the match. That must have caused some trouble for you in the troop when el Gaiel first found out. Did he not know it was el Gaiel's troop you were commissioned in?"

"Of course he knew," Tashka said gravely. "I was nearly hung for a spy. I nearly lost my commission. But Vadya's father - van H'las - offered me a banner and a desk in the Generals' strategic staff in Port H'las. The Lord General is a sportsman, Vaie. You will like to meet him ... If you come with us. Vadya was piqued, he did not want to lose me to the Generals' strategic staff. We have a bit of trouble now and then. You know me, I cannot resist to tease him, sometimes I give him the eye in the Captains' meetings just to see him blush." She grinned at Dar and Dar burst out laughing. "He tried to give me grief too about whether I should ride to war but he knows he must let me go."

"Well take your rings off before your next raid," Dar said with a grin. "They catch the light! And your father?" he asked. "Why does he no longer want the match?"

"He never gave a copper coin's curse to tie me into H'las," Tashka answered. "He was hoping el Gaiel would be so angry to find me van Sietter, a woman and his own junior officer that he would hang me, that would have given van Sietter an excuse to go to war with H'las, stop all the negotiations with the merchants to lower duties on passage through the Maier Pass and also put a stop to my sister by marriage's plans with the merchants. I am more fortunate in my father by marriage. I know Lord Esha loves me well and will honour me as his ... well, not his daughter, because what he wants is for me to swear to his fingers and go and make strategies with him!"

"You must be well content," Dar said. "You have always admired the structure of the command in H'las."

"Why yes," Tashka said, "sithou, the way the command is structured here in Sietter ..."

"Yes yes!" Dar laughed, "I have heard you cut about our structure enough times with your analysis! You know I agree with you. You can leave it out." Then he said: "But why does van Sietter want another war? Angels, it is but five years since the war with H'las," his face was mournful. He had lost many friends in that war and in this one he was likely to be fighting not only his lover but also his senior and brother officers.

"He has signed a treaty with the arms merchants," Tashka answered. "They give him arms at half the price they offer the rest of the regions yet make a fat profit because he provokes a war every so often so we are all scared of war and go about fully armed."

"van Sietter signed a treaty with some merchants?" Dar asked incredulously.

"I have said it," Tashka answered.

The young Commander Knight sat back in his chair and frowned at the ceiling of his tent, rocking his wine in his bowl. Tashka watched him, her slanted blue eyes sombre. It was a serious thing she was asking him to do, to give his vow to the Generals the go-by was a big thing to ask of any Commander.

"Dar," she said in her husky voice, so familiar to him. She stared intently into his eyes as he brought his head down to look at her. "What are the Generals' strategic staff to you? Have they marched and laughed and fought by your side? Have they held you while the medical staff saw to your broken leg, as Captain-Lord el Jien held you? Have they stood before you in the field of battle with their arm your signal, as the Commander has done? We can think and talk of these political matters but at the end of it we are soldiers and the only thing we believe in is each other.

"I have believed in you enough to walk alone into your tent. You may take me now, if you will, and bind my eyes and hang me for a spy in front of my brother, my former Captain and my husband. You would be richly rewarded for doing so, Dar. Even Clair would never blame you, he would know you had to do your duty by your expressed orders from the Generals.

"If you come with us and we fail, you know it well, Vaie, the Generals will want to show you mercy, they will understand if you cannot forswear your vow to Clair's banner. But my father will force them to the worst, you must understand this. If you come with us, you may be hung for a traitor and your lands stripped from your family in consequence. Your mother and sisters will be flung out to starve. There are not many can come to fight for us. Fourth will come, of course."

Dar Vaie was nodding, he said: "Yes, Fourth will always and forever be the Commander's. And on his deathbed Commander-Sir Stariel made Loisir swear that if ever he could do you any service he should cross his vow to do it. He never lifted his head after you had to go to Vail that time although he would not explain to us what he felt he was to blame for. And Caja will bring Seventh."

"No," Tashka answered with a bitter smile. "Caja will not want to give the Commander the go-by but he has been deployed the other side of Arventa. If you and Tenth come to us, Vaie, the Generals will call him in. His father, General Nain, will tell him that victory cannot be ours and will appeal to him, that he ought to remember it, that his men should be his victory, he should not lead them to so uncertain a future as to fight on our side but rather should remain with the strategic staff and plead for Clair and I when victory is theirs.

"el Jien will bring us his proper half of Ninth Vail and we have Tenth Athagine just now but I think the Athagine Council will make young van Athagine fall back once he is out of this siege, he has not secured the succession and his father will not last long now. All we have against the Sietter soldiers is our strategic minds. You know my strategic mind, Vaie. You know the Commander's abilities. Do you think the Generals in Arventa can prevail against us and give Nain the victory they will promise him? You must decide now, Dar, will you side with Nain and the Generals, hang me and cling to the rings on the Generals' fingers or will you join Loisir to wipe out that stain to the old Commander's honour, he who sought out us four as the rising stars, put us together, Angels of military skill, trained us and then thought he had betrayed me because when he went to try to persuade my father to let me go up to the strategic staff, instead my father tried to bestow me on the Captain." Her brother officer let out a cry of disgust and anger, she gripped his arm with her scarred right hand, staring intently into his eyes. "Never mind that, nor Loisir's vow, will you from your own heart believe in Clair's and my minds?"

Dar bit his lip and looked aside, his grey eyes full of conflicted loyalties.

"You were with the Commander at Shier Bridge," Tashka went on. "I was not permitted but Nain, Stariel and you, you stood with him and tried to hide his madness after he had gone to get peace for you."

Dar looked down at the floor, his eyes screwed up.

"And you stood at his back while he wept over Hanya Vashin."

"Prithou!" Dar Vaie burst out. Tashka fell silent. Dar put a hand to his eyes and tears dripped through his fingers. Then he began to speak: "I would have died for him myself," he said softly. "We say it, that someone is our life and days and fight but sometimes it is true to the core of our heart. You know what a Commander he was - or perhaps you cannot see it, being his brother. Angels! you led him a dance in the troop, el Maien. He was forever cursing you out for something you did that got him on the go although he was the only one whom you could not get around with your tears. For us he was different. He knew how to make us laugh when we were walking with heavy packs in the snow, he knew how to talk with us, how to hold us if we had cause to weep, he knew how to get us to give up the last ounce of effort that we did not know we had in us. Vashin was the strategist but the Commander had the command of our hearts.

"It is the truth, Vashin was his junior officer, but it was nobody's business, el Maien. They had been baby Lieutenants and Captains together; the Commander wanted to marry him but Captain-Sir Vashin made him take the banner so they could stay together. I would have done it too. I mean, not for Commander-Lord el Maien, of course, he was my senior," he looked nervously at Tashka but Tashka's face was grave and without judgement of his love for her brother Clair. "And Vashin died for him. Angels! Stand at his back while he wept for Vashin, we had to stand there ... while he ... s-s-screamed. He was mad, he was crazy with grief. He s-s-set us all about our d-duties: f-f-fetch the wounded, collect the weaponry, he was about it all ni-i-ight and his face - there was nothing in his face but the orders he gave us. In the morning we could not fi-i-ind him, there was s-s-some st-stupid thing we needed. We ran to look for him.

"He was there where V-V-Vashin had f-f-fallen, with him in his arms. He screamed curses on Vashin for dying before him, prayed his pardon for the curses he screamed. We had to t-t-tear him from Vashin's dead body and drag him b-b-back to the camp, oh my Commander! My Commander!" Dar put his head in his hands, his whole body curled over in grief. Tashka leant over and put her hand gently on his back, he lifted his head, his grey eyes flashing with tears. She pulled her chair nearer to his and wiped her own hand under his eyes, wiping his tears away.