A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 23

"Oh well," she said in a toneless voice, "if it is a question of honour, I completely understand." He looked up at her. Her face was still like a marble statue with her blue eyes veiled of emotion.

"You too are honourable," he said slowly and as if he were thinking aloud, "since you will take us Sietter soldiers in even though we came to lay siege to you."

She hesitated before replying to this. She knew that for the Sietter soldiers, the region was paramount. It was the region that was above the slippery fingers of the sworn Lord whom they knew in their hearts was not worthy the allegiance they were obliged to bestow on him. These soldiers in particular had been sent to fight many wars and bitter skirmishes in the name of their region and so they had to put a value on it even above their lives. She could make an appeal to their hearts through her position as Clair's Lady wife, the future sworn Lady of their region.

She took a deep breath and raised her flaxen gold head, standing tall and plump and beautiful above him in her red dress, the mother who had borne a future sworn Lord. "I will take you in," she said, "because my honour will be compromised if I do not do all I can for any one of humanity." His pale blue eyes lifted to her were puzzled and she knew she was in danger of losing his influence with the men clustering behind them, watching nervously to see what the outcome would be of her discussion with the one commanding officer they could refer to. But she was not a politician, she was a mathematical mind. It was impossible to lie in mathematics, she had not the habit of it. "Even you and Lord Clair and Lord Tashka," she said, "might call each other brother officers. I prefer to think of all people as my brothers and sisters in common humanity. I will take you all in not because you are Sietter but because you are in pain and I can help you.

"Darien, I know has't suffered for my Lord's sake. To lose your brother is terrible, although let us admit it here, Lord Tashka had what you might call honourable cause for what he did. However I am a pacifist. I do not think it is right that shoulds't lose your brother in vengeance taken over Tashka's brother. I am sorry for it, Darien."

He stared at her from pale blue eyes suddenly full of tears. "Lord Tashka had no need to kill him with a cut to the throat," he said in a choked voice. "He could have done it cleanly at the least of it."

Her eyes clouded with pity and horror. In a movement of unthinking simple charity, she leant close to him and gently took his hand. He let his hand lie heavily in her long pale hand, her eyes looked softly and sadly at him. "I am truly sorry," she said. "Lord Tashka was very young, I believe. Although I know it is the truth, he is a killer."

Darien looked at her dimly through his tears. Then he gripped her hand and pulled her gently so she had to bend even closer to him. She smelt blood and smoke from the cannons and a sour dampness. He said, "do you realise that we had expressed orders to take you and your brother, el Jien van Iarve, prisoner? We were to take you back to Iarve but," he dropped his voice so she had to lean even nearer to him, so that the other soldiers and Petra the steward could not hear him, "you would not have arrived there." He looked intently into her startled round blue eyes. "I did not have time to destroy the paperwork when we had to go into battle formation," he whispered. His eyes stared into her eyes. She realised that he was trying to tell her that incriminating papers with van Sietter's - and perhaps her own brother's - signatures were in the battle-torn tents of Fifth Sietter. "When we have won the war," he whispered, "do not go with any troop to Iarve. Get away to court or some region friendly to you."

She straightened up, her face remained blank of expression, she did not give away in her astonishment any hint of what they had been discussing, to his relief. If the Generals' strategic staff ever found out he had passed information to her he would be hung for a spy. "Does't think you will win?" she enquired, as if they were talking about whether it might rain or not.

"Yes," he answered honestly, lifting his blue eyes to her blue eyes. "We have more men, they are battle-hardened for in Sietter we are often skirmishing and at war. We have unlimited arms and other supplies, too. The H'las have a better structure to their command but if they cannot draw in other regions to support them, they will struggle. Arms in particular will be an expensive drain on their coffers and General-Lord van H'las has spent too much succouring his people, he has not the reserves in his treasury that Lord van Sietter has." He saw her eyes focus on him more sharply in appreciation of this surprisingly intelligent analysis from a bone-headed field officer.

"But if you lose," she murmured, not concentrating on what she was saying, thinking about the extraordinary information he had just passed to her.

"I'll not swear to Lord Clair's fingers," he muttered. He lifted his head and looked at her and said: "If we lose, I'll swear to your fingers."

Suddenly her eyes unveiled, her face seemed to melt. She looked at him in startled enquiry, the faintest of pink flushes in her pale cheeks.

"But if we lose," he said, "I'll be stripped out of the army a traitor for having taken arms against Lord Clair in support of the sworn Lord. Lord Tashka will be well glad to see me turned out of my position and home."

"Does't not think you will lose," she pointed out, "and Lord Tashka is van H'las now, it is not for him to say who is stripped out of the Sietter army or named a traitor because when their loyalties came into conflict, they chose to honour their vow."

"van H'las?" he said, puzzled, then his eyes cleared. "He's married his senior officer, el Gaiel," he muttered. "Crossed his vow like the brother did."

"He obeyed van Sietter in that at the least of it," Arianna pointed out. "It is Lord van Sietter arranged the betrothal."

"Yes," Darien said. Now that he was no longer angry the battle weariness came over him, his head tilted aside to rest on the back and the wing of the armchair he was in. "And Lord Clair was like an equal to Vashin, that's the truth of it," he murmured. The pain of his wounds was starting to cloud his mind and he had forgotten exactly whom he was talking to. "They conduct themselves with honour, the el Maiens. I should not have suspected them of taking us prisoner." He raised his voice to her, his head still leaning exhausted on the wing of the chair, tears for his slaughtered brother still glistening in his pale blue eyes. "I will tell the men to accept the medical help and the food. I will command those who are badly wounded to stay here out of the war until it ends, under your orders."

"I thank you, Commander," Arianna said politely.

"My Lady," he answered with great courtesy, managing to lift and bow his head.

As she walked away with Petra she said softly: "I prithou ask one of my Lord's men-servants to come and assist the Commander. He needs fresh clothes. Tell the man to bring one of the old Sietter uniforms we have, I think the Commander is more Lord Tashka's size but tell the man not to say whose is the uniform and not to tell Lord Tashka nor my Lord."

As she came out of the corridor into the entrance hall she saw Clair pretending to check up on the wooden cases which had held blankets for the soldiers and were piled up to the side of the huge hall. He started when he saw her coming towards him, unable to keep the relief and fear out of his lean face.

"My dear!" he exclaimed. "What happened? Darien did not offer you any insult, his soldiers have treated you with respect?"

She looked full into his face with a frown and said: "Yes of course. Darien has agreed that those who are able will be taken back to Arventa when they send for them and that those who are too badly wounded will stay here out of the war for its duration."

Clair's mouth dropped open, he stared blankly at her. He said: "What, is that it? Darien said nothing more?"

"You must swear ... on your Commander's life not to tell that I learned this from him," she said it like a child confiding a secret to another child but he saw in her round blue eyes that she was in deadly earnest.

He smiled a bit and said, "I swear on my juniors' lives that I will not reveal where you learned this from."

"There is paperwork in Darien's tent," she said. "He had expressed orders to take Hanya and myself back to Iarve and to kill us on the way there. He has not destroyed the paperwork, it is still there for us to take up to court."

Clair gave a cry of anger and disgust, he swung round and looked about him, then ran across the hall to catch Fiotr, the footman who had been in military service. He spoke intently to him for a moment, Fiotr straightened up in his wheelchair and pulled a salute before setting off towards the castle offices for Tarra Larian, the chief clerk who as well as discretion in confidential matters, had both military experience and the ability to read. Clair was coming back to Arianna where she leant heavily on the empty wooden boxes, her pale face still set immobile with her blue eyes staring dimly away out of the front doors to the chaotic movement in the castle courtyard outside.

"My Lady," Clair said softly, looking with astonishment into her pale set face. "How in Hell did Darien come to tell you this? What more did he say?"

"Mm, well," she could not resist telling him, "he says they will win because they have more men and van H'las has not funds to buy the arms he needs but that if they lose he'll not swear to your fingers but he will swear to mine."

She almost burst out laughing at the incredulity in Clair's face, only she knew that if she laughed she would start sobbing and have hysterics in the entrance hall. She bit her trembling lip, keeping her face as still as she could.

Clair stared into her statuesque pale face with the veiled round blue eyes. He gave a sudden grin and said: "My Lady, I do begin to think that Prianne did not look high enough when he married you to me. You ought to have been a Queen! You would run the King in training reins." Her lip curled in scorn at his suggestion, he laughed, that she was derisory towards the King himself as a potential match. "It would have been a good thing for our country," he said.

She looked sideways at him and suddenly she gave him that sly secretive sexy smile. "Perhaps," she said softly, "but not so much fun as being married to you." Then her pale statuesque face shivered, she gave a great sob. He looked quickly around them, put his arms about her and drew her back into a gap in the piled up wooden crates where they were hidden from view. She leant into his warm embrace, sobbing into his shoulder while their servants bustled on by, arranging everything in methodical fashion, following the sets of orders he and she had given them. His hand was round the back of her head, gripping so gently in her elegantly dressed hair, his arm wrapped about her back so comforting. He knew, he knew how terrible it was to see men die for a nothing, for the whim of an old snake plotting towards his selfish ends far from the misery he caused.

The pity of it! The wasted lives and the wounded. All because that old snake of a father by marriage had to be so pig-headed. He thought he was always right and he only cared for his own interests. Why could he not be more intelligent and say to her:

Well my dear, you are a clever girl. Even if you are a younger child, not the oldest. A scheme to get the merchants help us give the people wealth and happiness which would also give us wealth and happiness. Of course you may look into it. And if you are a good girl, I will take you one day to sit in on a Privy Council meeting and see how we men do these things.