Firewalk Page 3

  Kayli sighed. What Kairi said sounded much like High Priestess Brisi’s last words.

  “No,” she said. “I pray that one day I will. You mean that you are whole no matter where you are, whether you are far from your family or your temple?”

  Kairi nodded.

  “Yes, Kayli,” she said gently. “All we need, we carry within us. Take that comfort with you. Nothing has ended, nothing is gone, any more than if you left behind your life as a novice to become an Initiate; only a new journey is begun.”

  Kayli understood not a word, but she gave Kairi one final embrace before she turned, rather stiffly, and forced herself back out through the door. She felt calm now, almost numb, as she walked slowly down the stairs, looping the satchel’s strap over her shoulder. At the landing she paused, peering around the corner.

  The main hall was thronged with strange-looking men—no women, Kayli noted uncomfortably. Perhaps in Agrond, women were not permitted to become warriors. By the Flame, they were so pale, these Agrondish men, their skins barely gilded by the sun. Some were as familiarly black-haired as any Bregond, but others had lighter brown or even yellowish hair. All had shorn their hair off at shoulder length like a child, and some lacked even a proper mustache, but most, as if to atone for the lack of a proper tail of hair on their heads, had let it grow on their chins. Their matching clothes were apparently uniforms, but the green-colored cloth seemed more suited to festivals than to hard riding on the plains. No Bregond would wear mere cloth leggings for riding through the tall plains grass, nor those silly low, soft boots that seemed mere slippers.

  Elaasar stood in one corner, Brother Santee, the family priest, beside him, talking to what must be Terralt, a handsome, tall fellow wearing a surcoat. Suddenly the stranger glanced over at her as if feeling her gaze. Kayli took a deep breath and stepped out onto the landing.

  The Agrondish guards fell silent, and Kayli saw the strange lord’s eyebrows raise mockingly, fanning a small spark of anger in her heart. She knew she was not as beautiful as Fidaya, but by Bregondish standards she was lovely, even with her black braids coiled back and hidden under a riding scarf. Her skin, she knew, would be dark gold against the dust-pale cloth of her scarf, strange to their eyes, and her plain, sturdy buff riding jerkin and trousers, her high boots and sturdy leather jaffs covering her legs must look drab to the Agrondish lord.

  Kayli felt her back stiffening, her shoulders drawing back. She was a noblewoman of Bregond and Dedicated of the Order of Inner Flame, beautiful enough, and gifted with magic and skilled in the thirty-nine arts of a Bregondish lady. She needed no finery or jewels to make her seem more than she was. If these outland louts wished to stare rudely, let them. Kayli descended the stairs slowly and glided through the crowd of guards as if they were grass to bend aside at her step, giving Terralt and Brother Santee a brief bow before turning to her father.

  “I apologize for any delay my slowness may have caused,” she said calmly.

  “No matter.” Elaasar smiled. “Brother Santee and I were explaining to Terralt the custom of bloodbonding. Terralt, allow me to make known to you my daughter Kayli. Kayli, I make known to you Terralt of Agrond.”

  Kayli turned and gave Terralt the full bow accorded to an equal; until she became High Lady of Agrond, Terralt’s rank was the same as hers. He was even paler than most of the guards, his hair the color of dead grass, but his deep brown-green eyes, sparkling now with amusement, were mesmerizing.

  “Terralt, I am honored to make your acquaintance, and I thank you for your trouble in making this journey personally to escort me to your brother,” she said in Agrondish.

  Terralt raised one eyebrow, and the faintest hint of an admiring grin twitched the corner of his mouth. To Kayli’s amazement, he took her hand, kissing the back lightly.

  “My lady Kayli,” he said smoothly in heavily accented Bregondish, not relinquishing her hand, “if I had thought the journey an irksome chore, the moment of our meeting would have proven me wrong.”

  Heat rushed to Kayli’s cheeks. He might have learned her language, but apparently he’d not troubled himself to learn Bregondish custom, or perhaps he had and simply chose to flout it. To address an unmarried woman as “his” lady was a claim to intimacy, and to take her hand in public, to speak to her in so familiar a manner, was unthinkable. It took every bit of Kayli’s hard-earned self-discipline not to wrench her hand from his grasp.

  “Terralt,” she said serenely, “your respect for our language and customs is admirable. It is truly said that the measure of a man is his courtesy.”

  Terralt appeared pleased by the retort, rather than offended, and released her hand, bowing once again.

  “Why, thank you, my lady,” he said. “I believe that’s the last of your boxes going out the door. I beg your pardon that we can offer you no carriage for your comfort, but as there are no proper roads between Agrond and Bregond, we were hard put to find wagons equal to the journey, much less a carriage. I have, however, had a wagon outfitted for our comfort as we travel.”

  Kayli chuckled, diplomatically ignoring “our comfort.”

  “I thank you for your concern, Terralt,” she said. “But this is my first opportunity to ride in some time, and I will not be deprived of the chance to fly the hawk Lord Randon so kindly sent me.”

  Terralt looked momentarily annoyed, and Kayli wondered if he’d ridden in the wagon like an invalid all the way from Agrond. Surely he would not have expected to ride in a wagon with his brother’s bride-to-be.

  Kayli had turned to take her father’s arm, but she found that Terralt had taken her hand again; tucking it firmly into the crook of his arm so that Kayli was forced to walk beside him. This was almost too much to bear, and she saw her father scowl, but Kayli understood Terralt’s game now, and it was a game she’d played before.

  From her first day at the temple so long ago, when the haughty High Lord’s young daughter had been assigned to muck out the goat pen, to the day before her firewalk, when Vayavara had unexpectedly spat full in her face, her teaching had been interspersed with tests of her self-discipline. The Dedicates practiced amongst themselves as well, exchanging insults and pranks, endlessly worrying at each other’s sore points, and anyone who became provoked was sentenced to the chores of the one who provoked her. Whatever insult Terralt could offer could not possibly match the combined efforts of all her teachers and fellow Dedicates. Kayli almost laughed.

  “Whatever you find so amusing,” Terralt said, glancing sideways at her, “I’m glad of it. I was half-afraid of nurse-maiding a frightened child torn weeping from the arms of her family, like my wife.” He had lapsed back into Agrondish, which Kayli found a considerable relief after his terrible mangling of Bregondish.

  “I am sure few are glad to leave family and home forever to wed a stranger,” Kayli said levelly. “But I assure you that you need not act as my nursemaid. Doubtless I find the prospect of my marriage less dismaying than your wife did.”

  That was a telling blow, and Kayli was rewarded by silence from the lord at her side. The guards scattered to their mounts at a glance from Terralt. One of the grooms had already saddled Maja and led her from the stables, and held the restless mare now with some difficulty.

  “That’s your mount?” Terralt said amusedly. “A fiery beast.” He glanced at her daringly. “Like her mistress, I suppose.”

  Ignoring the suggestive remark, Kayli freed her hand from his arm, and turning away from Terralt as if he no longer existed, she stepped over to where her family was waiting to say last good-byes.

  Danine wept quietly as she buried her face in Kayli’s vest. Melia and Kirsa were too young to understand what all the fuss was about, but they cried, too, because Danine was crying. Kairi’s serenity was a welcome contrast, a warm strength against which Kayli could lean. Kairi bent close and kissed Kayli on the cheek.

  “When you learn to use the speaking crystal,” she murmured quietly, “I will be waiting for your call.”

  Laal
en’s eyes held a hint of guilt as she embraced her sister. Were it not for her sickliness, she knew, she herself would be making this journey and Kayli would be back at the Order. Fidaya’s embrace was brief and absentminded. She was more concerned with her own wedding, eager for the present chaos to subside so preparations could resume.

  And Jaenira, of course, was gone. Likely Kayli would never see her oldest sister again. If, indeed, she ever saw any of her family again. Her mother’s kiss was cool and formal and Kayli took no comfort from it. From Nerina’s standpoint, Kayli was making an advantageous marriage into a wealthy country where she’d have comfort and power; what more could she want?

  Elaasar’s embrace was strong, but the warmth in his eyes was tinged with shame. He knew what he was doing—tearing Kayli’s dreams away, bartering her to the ruler of a hostile country in exchange for peace. But he met her eyes squarely; he regretted none of it, and Kayli expected no less of him. She returned his embrace and turned away, saying nothing.

  There was nothing more, after all, to be said.

  Kayli saw that one of the guards had hastily saddled a horse for Terralt—one of the spare horses they’d brought, not one of Kayli’s string. It might have been amusing to see if Terralt was capable of riding one of the spirited Bregondish mares. Kayli gave Maja’s tack a brief inspection, breathed lightly into the mare’s nostrils to calm her, and swung lightly into the saddle.

  It was good to sit in a saddle again, to feel Maja’s strength against her thighs. The ebony perch affixed to the already high pommel of the Bregondish saddle was inconvenient; any higher and she’d have difficulty mounting, and her shooting might be impaired as well. But there was nothing to be done for it right now. She accepted the hawk from its handler and transferred it to its perch.

  By the time she had finished these preparations, Terralt had mounted his sleek brown gelding, far handsomer than the buff or pale gray thick-coated horses of Kayli’s string. Kayli frowned at the gelding. Its sleek, short hair was no more a match for Bregond’s razor-edged plains grasses than Agrondish low boots and soft trousers. But Terralt looked annoyed enough to be riding at all; he would not welcome any criticism.

  Terralt waved his hand impatiently and the guards started forward, the wagons turning in a wide circle to follow. Kayli looked back one last time at her family standing quietly, as she had stood with them when Kairi rode off to her Order, grief tempered by their pride in their kinswoman. Brisi had been right. By marriage or by Dedication to the Order, Kayli’s first duty was service to her country. Nothing had changed, after all, but the form of that service. She had passed every test the Order had presented; she would prove equal to this challenge, too.

  Kayli raised one hand in a last salute, then turned and rode toward her future.

  Chapter Two

  By the end of the first day’s ride, kayo’s sense of pride had changed, first to a sort of heady freedom—how wonderful it was to be riding again in the fresh sweet wind of the plains—and then to grim amusement as it became apparent just how unprepared Terralt and his men had been for their ride through Bregond. The wagon axles had been built high—probably to get the wagons through mud and swampy earth in the wetlands—and that height served them well in the tall grass, but thin cloth leggings and the horses’ short coats were poor protection against the sharp-edged swordgrass and the toothed sawgrass that grew almost to the height of a man, or the barbed hookthorn thickets scattered thickly across the plains.

  Perhaps Terralt had ridden in the wagon like a sick child on the journey to Bregond and had somehow ignored the cursing of his men as first their trousers, then their legs, were slashed and torn. Now, however, as his own curses joined the rest, he was obviously too proud to retreat to the wagon while Kayli rode.

  “Pride and foolishness sleep in the same bed,” Brisi had told her many times. “See that you do not sleep with them.”

  Kayli touched Maja’s sides with her heels, urging the mare ahead to ride by Terralt’s side. “Endra and the other maids doubtless brought their jaffs,” Kayli said, indicating the sturdy leather flaps she wore over the outside of her own trousers. “Riding in the wagon, they do not need them, and I have spares as well. There are not enough for all your men, but some can ride behind the wagons where the grass is trampled.” She glanced at Terralt, saw his jaw clench. Pride again. “I suppose the grasses are very different in the wetlands.”

  “You speak as if Agrond were a swamp,” Terralt said wryly. “It’s not. But yes, it’s very different. There are more roads, for one thing. The land’s more settled.”

  “You mean permanent villages, farms to grow food.” Kayli nodded. “The wetlands are well suited to such settlement. Our clans follow their herds from watering hole to watering hole, to new grazing. Our roads circle Bregond instead of crossing it. But a great river crosses Agrond, does it not?”

  “The Dezarin, yes,” Terralt said, nodding. “It links a dozen trade cities. Perhaps my brother will take you one day to see it.” He glanced at her mockingly. “Or I will.”

  “Tell me about your brother,” Kayli said, refusing to acknowledge the innuendo. “So few merchants trade with both Agrond and Bregond that my father had heard little of him.”

  “I’d have thought otherwise, judging from your gift.” Terralt gestured at the string of horses tied behind the wagons. “Randon will be beside himself. I’m sure he’ll insist on founding a whole new stable on them.”

  “Then he enjoys riding and hunting?” Kayli prompted. “I thought as much from the gift of the hawk.”

  “I can’t think what he loves more, unless it’s sport of a more amorous nature, if your ladyship knows what I mean,” Terralt said smoothly. “But then, being a maiden, you probably don’t.”

  “You speak as if you believe your brother frivolous,” Kayli said calmly.

  “Frivolous? No.” Terralt shrugged. “But too full of foolish dreams. When he was younger he wanted to become a mage. Stevann, our palace mage, sadly encouraged him, but Father put a stop to it, said he’d not have a robed fop for a son, and he was right. Randon would never have made a mage in any wise. He shares Father’s affliction.”

  “Affliction?” Kayli said slowly. “No mention was made of any—”

  “Oh, it’s no disease like whore’s rot or shaking fits,” Terralt said carelessly. “Father could barely read and write. He sees letters or words as if they were backward. I always had to read documents to him. Randon shares that affliction, or so Stevann says. Father spoiled him, released him from most studies, although the boy was bright enough. So he’s done much as he liked since childhood, and that’s been nothing of any worth. He’s spent too much of his time mucking around among the peasants. None of the lords will take him seriously now.”

  “Perhaps he would fare better with the support of his own kin,” Kayli said serenely.

  “Support?” Terralt glanced at her again, then laughed bitterly. “Lady, I’ve spent years at my father’s side, High Lord in all but name for the last months, while Randon played with his horses and his peasants and his women. Now he’s been made Heir to ruin all I’ve worked for, and I’m set aside, my years of labor forgotten. You have no idea how it galls me.” Kayli said nothing. She could sympathize with his frustration, but if she had whined so in the temple, she’d have been set to scrubbing out chamber pots.

  Terralt swore and reached down to free the hookthorn branch snared in his boot, then swore again as the barbed thorns pierced his unprotected fingers instead. He straightened and shrugged apologetically at Kayli.

  “Forgive the language, my lady.”

  “No apology is necessary, although my father would be scandalized,” Kayli said, stifling a chuckle. “You further my knowledge of Agrondish. The merchants neglected to teach us such colorful phrases.”

  “I believe I heard your ladyship had been brought back from service at a temple or some such?” Terralt asked, sucking his bleeding fingers.

  “The Order of Inner Flame,” Kayli
said, nodding. “I was a Dedicate at the temple.”

  “Bregond must be a sorry country when out of a High Lord’s family of eight daughters, they have to drag priestesses from their temple to find a virgin,” Terralt said sourly.

  “I was not a priestess,” Kayli said smoothly. “I was a Dedicate, as many others, there to study magic. When we have progressed sufficiently in our studies, most of the Initiates leave to become mages in the great houses or among the clans, wherever we are most needed. I might never have become a priestess within the temple.” But Brisi had thought otherwise.

  “Such a lovely, virtuous maiden, and a mage, too,” Terralt said mockingly. “Randon will be beside himself at his good fortune. You, I fear, are getting somewhat less of a bargain.”

  Terralt glanced at the sinking sun and turned back to the rest of the guards, signaling a halt. The wagons formed a circle and stopped. Some of the guards continued outward to patrol the area and hunt; others dismounted to tend the horses and ready the camp. Kayli slid down from Maja’s back and stifled a groan of pain. In the year since her Dedication she’d grown unaccustomed to long riding, and her legs and bottom ached wretchedly, but the Flame would burn her to ash before she’d give Terralt excuse to call her weak and whining.

  Endra took Maja’s rein, materializing by Kayli’s side as if by magic.

  “Some of the girls are raising your tent, lady,” the midwife said cheerfully. “Take your ease and let us tend to this pretty girl and the rest of your string. It’s a mercy to stretch our legs after sitting in that wagon all day.”

  “I thank you, Endra, but Maja and I are only just becoming friends again.” Kayli laughed. “She’s borne me patiently all day; now the least I can do is tend her myself.” In truth it was pleasant to stretch her legs as she walked the mare, and the tasks of wiping dry the tack and brushing the horse were a sweet reminder of her chores at the temple. Working with her hands under the setting sun, in the sweet-smelling, clean breeze of the plains gave her a sense of place in the order of things, and with a lighter heart Kayli joined Endra at the fire the midwife had built in front of her tent.