A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 09

"What kind of stupid idea is that?" Tashka interrupted. "Why may I not be an officer because I am a woman? Is a woman too fragile, too stupid to be an officer? You know it well, that all these years I have been the best officer you could have had!"

"I cannot answer these things!" Vadya shouted. "All I know is that my Captain is my betrothed! What will my friends and my soldiers say of it when they hear that!"

Tashka went white with rage, her blue eyes shone vivid as jewels in her white face. Vadya felt suddenly scared, he knew Tashka was a much better swordsman than he was, she was a killer and in a stupid fit of rage he had given her the glove. She walked towards him on stiff legs but her hand stayed away from her rapier, flew into the air, clenched into a fist and struck him on the side of the head.

"Is that it?!" she screamed. "You are ashamed of me now! and I am the one fought for you and obeyed you above all others, even my own brother!"

He was clutching his head, thinking that he had done badly not to ward off the blow and vaguely grateful that she had not caught him in the face and marked him up. 'I did not see his hand move that way,' he thought, more annoyed at himself than anything else. His head hurt. Then he started to laugh. "Angels," he said. "What am I to do? I am so proud of you as my officer and so angry to find you a woman and my betrothed! Oh Maien, prithou," he could not say it, he had started to cry. He wanted to beg her tell him it was all a dream, to say she was just an officer like all of the others. But she had never been just an officer like the others to him.

"What is it?" she shouted.

He threw his head up with the tears running down his face. "Get out," he sobbed gruffly. "Get away from me, go on, leave me."

She stared at him. Three years of quiet long talks by the fireside on night sentry duty and laughter in taverns and discussions about strategy over a campaign table of maps looked at him from her deep slanted blue eyes. Then she turned on her booted heel, failing to do the ritual stamping steps of the junior leaving the senior H'las officer, and left.