A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 29

He had never offered her any support or love such as a child needs to grow happy and confident into the world. Instead he had tried to use her, to bend her to his own purposes. For years she had lived in a half-terror of the secrets of his that she just knew, in case she let one slip by mistake and was sent to die in V'ta. But for months now she had been free of that restraint. She had been at war but in her heart she had felt securely held in the affection and respect of her marital relations: the el Gaiels van H'las. She had been campaigning with the strategic support of her husband and of her brother. She had been fighting alongside that laughing loving silly old Captain: el Jien van Vail, and two of her brother officers: the Angels of the Sietter army. Her sister by marriage had been willing to throw as much money as she wanted at her war coffers even though Lady el Jien was a renowned pacifist. Friends as different as her scandalous former lover el V'lair van Athagine and her sister by marriage's brother el Jien van Iarve had offered her any assistance she wished to call on them for. Against such a group of friends, close as the fingers of a hand, what influence could one old man hope to maintain.

She stood up and heaved off her silk surcoat, mailcoat and leather undercoat, chucking them onto the floor by the body. She stretched out her exhausted muscles with a yawn then bent and scrabbled in the pocket of her surcoat, fished out some scrappy stained paper from it with lines of extravagant handwriting and also some scribbled pencil diagrams on its pages. Without troubling to look at her husband's carefully penned letter or the victorious strategy she had scrawled, she tucked the paper securely into the pocket of her leather breeches where she would be able to reach it if she wanted it. She sat down again in the red leather chair, set her ankle on one knee and leant back exhausted in the chair, looking dimly away past the body to where the opaque windows let in a little of the bright spring sunlight pouring down outside.

~#~*~#~

Dar Vaie stopped surreptitiously squeezing Hanya's buttock under the back of that fetching black felt double-breasted H'las tunic and walked to the middle of the corridor, looking irritably at the closed door of the study. The other officers carried on chatting to each other but they all looked at him as he went to the doors. He stooped near but he could hear nothing. The doors were clearly built very heavy, he did not think any sound would come through them.

"It is not like him to keep us waiting," Commander Fiotr Araine of Ninth H'las said with a frown.

"Call on him again," Commander Pava Talien suggested nervously.

Dar took a deep breath and raised his fist. He hammered on the door and shouted: "Thy time for my allegiance!"

He stepped quickly back, leaving Fiotr standing nearest the door so it would look as if it had been Fiotr who had knocked and called. Fiotr gave him a mute indignant glare.

There was no reply.

"Sweet Angels!" Dar said crossly, running nervous fingers through his hair and going patchily pink with anxiety. "He is only a Commander, the same as we are. Why are we trembling out here like schoolgirls? He is not even of my army the more. I am going in!" He looked round at the other Commanders. They all fell nervously back, apart from his brother officer Loisir Stariel who said: "I am with you," but as anxiously as if they were going out on a dangerous raid into the enemy at night.

The two Sietter Commanders each seized a handle of the doors to the study, twisted them, expecting them to be locked, and were flung forwards into the room. They stumbled in and came to an abrupt halt, looking over at Tashka's lifted dim blue gaze where she sat in her leather breeches and sweaty muslin undershirt. Underneath the thin shirt Dar blushed to see the outlines of her bodice. Loisir turned his head away.

They caught sight of the body at her feet. The H'las officers behind saw them both quiver, to have to confront the slain body of the sworn Lord whom they had betrayed, breaking their vow to him to follow their hearts and souls. They looked at each other with the same expression in their eyes: better that than in the end have to use the very blade he had bestowed on you to finally be rid of the vile old snake.

Loisir Stariel lifted his blond head and said: "We ... have been waiting on you," to his brother officer, successfully looking into her slanted blue eyes and not at the small breasts vaguely visible under the thin muslin of her shirt.

She turned her head back to look at the body one last time, rose and came towards them. Her dim blue gaze focussed onto Loisir's face, unexpectedly she smiled very sweetly and clasped his arm. "My dear," she said huskily. "Your father may rest peacefully now." He smiled back at her through tears in his blue eyes.

"Vaie," she said, turning a suddenly piercing stare at him. "I had rather it were Sietter soldiers took him up and put him in the chapel. The papers here must not be touched, they are for Lord Clair and his Lady wife to see only. Here are the keys, guard them well and only give them to the Commander ... I mean, to Lord van Sietter." She detached a set of jingling keys from the many rings she held: big ones for the door, little ones for the many boxes of papers and the drawers in the desk. She pressed them into his hand.

"Um, you have not washed yet," Dar Vaie said gently as his fingers closed over the bunch of keys.

"There is no time, let us go," she started forward and he took her arm and then took off his own tunic and gave it to her.

She looked down at the thin muslin undershirt through which could be seen her bodice and the low swell of her breasts. She took the red felt tunic he was offering, looked dimly at it, then pulled it on and flicked the gold buttons expertly into the single-breasting. H'las tunics were double-breasted but the Sietter buttoning was very familiar to her fingers.

"I suppose you'll not come back to restructure the command," Dar could not forbear saying.

She looked into his eyes and smiled that very sweet smile. "I regret," she said. "My loyalties have been divided and I have chosen to follow my heart."

"Not just the heart, considering how poor the structure was even before this," he muttered grumpily as he and Loisir followed her out.

She led them into a massive dining room nearby, with a wall of glass like the study's only made of clear glass. The officers looked nervously at the huge dark wood table, the polished sideboards laden with crystal glasses and silverware, the rich paintings on the dark green walls. Tashka walked casually to the head of the table and sat there in her leather breeches and a borrowed Sietter tunic, buttoned neatly right up the high gold-embroidered collar. She said: "Lein, sit here by me and take notes."

Dar hurried to get the seat next to Hanya's, beckoning his Lieutenant to sit by him and pushing Hanya's Lieutenant inappropriately out to sit next to his own with a fierce glare. Loisir rushed to sit on Tashka's other side and the other H'las officers came up to take their places. Fiotr Araine sat considerately next to Hanya's Lieutenant to give him guidance, with a teasing grin at Hanya Lein who blushed. Then the heads turned above the rank of black and blue double-breasted chests to the red jacketed group at the head of the table, with the one H'las Captain sitting in it.

"Set down," Tashka said in her husky cool tones, "that Lord Pava el Maien van Sietter is dead. Put the names of those Commanders here who are Sietter and who now offer their vow to Lord Clair. Set it down that v-v-victory ... that the strategy as communicated in our reports from the field was successful. I will hear you." She stared intently into their eyes while they spoke. She listened patiently to the Commanders' verbal reports while the Lieutenants hurriedly wrote out rough notes, crossing words out occasionally and pulling faces when the Commanders went too fast for their skidding pencils. She cut Fiotr Araine short when he rambled but she listened in a gentle silence when Pava Talien stuttered as he recounted a difficult engagement with heavy losses. At the end she made a precise history of the battle they had just fought. The Lieutenants and Hanya Lein wrote furiously as she talked then they sat writing out fair copies of their work in pen while the Commanders and she heard from the officers who had been designated that work the lists of the dead and wounded. They sat quietly with their eyes turned to the table while the names were read out although once Loisir Stariel could not restrain a heart-wrenching sob and she leant sideways to grip a hand on his arm on the table.

When the Lieutenants and Hanya had finished, she took Hanya's copy and folded it into a packet, directing it herself to: General-Lord E. el Gaiel van H'las of the strategic staff offices in Port H'las. She looked about her for a seal to press into the red wax that Hanya's Lieutenant came quickly to drip onto the packet for her then she took Hanya's arm and pressed his cuff button into the warm wax: the two towers and the wavy lines with a sword across the top meaning Captain. She scrawled AeM van H'las under the seal and drew a sun in the corner of the front of the packet, handing it to Hanya and saying: "To be sent with despatch." He stood up, saluted and turned with the ritual H'las stamp of heels which Dar Vaie watched surreptitiously with a titillated glint in his eye.

Tashka turned back to the table, kicking Dar under it so he said: "Ow!" in an obvious way, drawing even more attention to his misdemeanour. The other Commanders saw her suppress a smile in the corner of her rose-petal mouth then the pretty mouth opened and orders started pouring out in detail: disposition of the troops; who would be in control of the defensive position she expected them to strike about the Palladia, lines of supply, supplies of food, rations of drink; how the enemy were to be held on station in their barracks. Dar Vaie would be in control of them until Lord Clair could come to decide if he were willing to accept the vow of those who would slip to his fingers. Loisir Stariel must look to the care of those Sietter who were wounded. They stared at her open-mouthed, luckily their Lieutenants had been quicker-witted and were already scribbling busily by their sides.

"Sir, it is done," the Commanders said automatically every so often.

Finally she said: "I have spoken," and they got up to go, casting quick looks at the piles of papers their Lieutenants were shuffling hastily together. Tashka stood up too but suddenly gripped the edge of the table, leaning on it, shaking with fatigue. They turned to her, falling quiet.

"To quarter!" she barked. They looked at each other then hesitantly stamped out the ritual steps of junior officers in H'las leaving a senior before hurrying away. Like a bunch of scared rabbits was how Dar and Loisir hilariously described it later to Pava el Jien. Loisir went to look to the Sietter wounded but Dar remained sitting in his chair in the red cotton shirt he had been wearing under his tunic, not of her army.

Batren came bustling in and glared at Tashka, who swung an angry blue gaze at him. "Your bath has been waiting for you these three hours!" he said, reminding Dar irresistibly of a fussy old nursery-maid.

"We are having a dinner here the night, the officers and I," Tashka said, still leaning trembling on the table.

"Oh yes," Batren's voice was hot with annoyance, we will see about that implied in it.

Dar got up and offered Tashka his arm. She looked at him with a mute glare but he shook his head with a smile so she took it and leant heavily on it. She walked out leaning on his arm, dragging her leg on the carpets, shaking and white with exhaustion. He and Batren got her up the stairs without having to carry her and into the big square guest room which the steward had set aside for her. It had a glass wall looking out to the courtyard, beautiful no doubt but not very comfortable for a bedroom. Tashka staggered across the rich blue carpet and sat heavily on the bed. Batren moved over to start undressing her and Dar started to leave - rather hurriedly and without bothering to wait for his tunic. Tashka suddenly fell backwards in the soft quilts of the bed, her muscles as limp as dirty washing.

"Get out!" Batren cried indignantly to Dar and some servants who were still in the room. He bustled them out and shut the door on them. He came and took hold of Tashka, pulled off her boots and her weaponry - in spite of her feeble protest. He stripped off her clothes, even unhooking her bodice, seized her long thin white body and hauled her to dump her in the bath full of hot water. Tashka gave a long luxurious groan, relaxing her strained muscles in the heat of the bath. Her eyes started to drift shut but Batren was soaping up her arm, now he was washing her chest, which was embarrassing, and even between her toes, which tickled. He washed her hair and poured hot water over her head. He pulled her out of the bath into a huge towel he wrapped about her and vigorously rubbed her dry until her limbs were tingling and her cropped hair stood up over her head. He put ointment on her wounds, rubbed cream into her shoulders, back and legs where she had most used her muscles in combat, pulled a nightshirt over her head and finally put some scented oil in her hair. She lifted her head, grabbed his hand and sniffed at the oil on it, Vadya's scented oil. Her eyes went soft, her mouth went down at the corners. He rolled her into the bed. She was asleep before the covers had settled down over her.