Warrior Page 4

  “That may well be the case,” she conceded. “But we’re not at war with them, so I’m not going to make an issue of it. Anyway, you’ll have your chance to watch Mahkas closely for a while, seeing as how he concerns you so much. I’ve decided you’re going to be the next tutor I send to Krakandar.”

  Elezaar stared at her in shock. “Have I done something to displease you, your highness?”

  “On the contrary, you’ve done nothing but please me.”

  “Then why are you sending me away?”

  The princess smiled reassuringly, as if she’d only just realised the fright she had given him. “Dear gods, I’m not sending you away, Elezaar! I’m entrusting you with the most important job in the world. I want you to teach my sons the same things you taught me. I want you to teach them your damn Rules of Gaining and Wielding Power. Make them understand the responsibility that comes with their birthrights.

  Narvell will rule Elasapine some day and Damin will be the next High Prince of Hythria. I intend to see he’s the best High Prince I can make him.”

  “But you need me here.”

  “I will miss your counsel, Elezaar,” the princess admitted. “But I have three of my own children and three stepchildren riding roughshod over the entire staff of the Krakandar Palace, apparently doing whatever they please. No matter how much I might enjoy your advice, I owe it to my country to ensure the next High Prince is not a spoiled brat.”

  “But, your highness—”

  Princess Marla smiled at him, shaking her head. “I might need you here, Dwarf, but Hythria needs you in Krakandar.”

  Chapter 3

  It was hard sometimes, being the youngest. Even harder when you were the youngest and a girl.

  You never got to go first at anything. You had to fight for every little thing. And you had to stand up for yourself or you’d be left behind playing girly games while the boys had all the fun.

  Technically, Kalan Hawksword wasn’t the youngest child in the Krakandar nursery. Her twin brother, Narvell, was twenty minutes younger, but it seemed his gender gave him an edge that outweighed the scant few minutes’ head start she had on him.

  There were two other girls in Krakandar Palace, but they just made things worse. The eldest was Kalan’s stepsister, Rielle Tirstone, a raven-haired beauty who had just turned sixteen, whose only interests in life seemed to be planning her wedding, wearing out her court’esa or flirting with the palace Raiders. The other girl was her cousin, Leila. She was eleven, a bit less than a year older than Kalan, with long golden hair and smoky dark eyes.

  Unlike Kalan, Rielle and Leila actually liked being girls. They were much prettier than Kalan (it was rather irritating how everyone kept remarking on that) and they could make the boys do anything they wanted just by smiling at them. Kalan didn’t care about that. She wanted to be one of the boys and was annoyed that she wasn’t.

  And things were about to change in a way Kalan couldn’t anticipate. There was another girl on the way, older than Kalan, Leila and Rielle.

  Princess Marla had written to them about the newcomer several weeks ago. Aunt Bylinda had come into the nursery to tell them the latest news, the way she always did when a letter arrived from Princess Marla. She had read the announcement with a slight frown. Luciena, the daughter of Marla’s late husband, the shipping merchant Jarvan Mariner, was coming to Krakandar with Marla when she returned for the summer.

  There were already more than half a dozen children in Bylinda’s care. Another one added to the mix was asking a great deal of the eternally patient young woman, particularly as she only had one child of her own and had never been able to carry another past the third month. But as usual, Aunt Bylinda had smiled and put on a jovial face and declared with entirely forced enthusiasm that it would be wonderful, having another sister in the palace.

  The boys—Kalan’s twin, Narvell, and her stepbrothers, Rodja and Adham—didn’t seem to care one way or the other when they heard about it. Her stepsister, Rielle, was much too enchanted with the court’esa her father had given her for her birthday to care about anybody else at the moment. Kalan’s older brother, Damin, was at that age where girls were a nuisance, and Starros, the oldest in the group, would probably just ignore her. He was fifteen and had very little time for any of the girls these days.

  Almodavar was too busy trying to make a warrior out of him.

  Thinking of the boys, Kalan looked wistfully out of the window at the gardens, wondering how long it would be before they got back from the training yards. It was such a glorious day, too.

  Much too nice to be cooped up inside doing boring, girly things.

  Damin, Starros, Narvell, Adham and Rodja were training with Almodavar and her cousin, Travin, which was how they usually spent the mornings, learning interesting things in life, like swordplay, and knife-fighting, and how to use a bow, and all the other stuff Kalan wasn’t allowed to learn because she was a girl. With a scowl at her needlework, she stabbed at the linen in annoyance. Why didn’t boys have to learn how to sew?

  “It’s quite dead, Kalan.”

  She looked up at Lirena, their long-suffering nurse. She had thought the old slave asleep in her armchair. “What?”

  “The linen, dear. It’s quite dead. You don’t have to stab at it like that.”

  Leila looked up from her own embroidery and smiled at the slave. “Kalan’s just mad because she’s in here and not outside with the boys.”

  “It’s too hot outside,” Lirena informed the girls. “You’ll get all freckly and look like a peasant if you go outside in this heat.”

  “Why don’t boys look like peasants if they have freckles?” Kalan asked.

  “Don’t be silly, Kalan!” Leila laughed.

  “I’m not being silly,” Kalan replied, a little put out. It seemed a perfectly reasonable question to her. “If freckles are what make you look like a peasant, then why doesn’t anybody care if the boys get them? I mean, it might be all right for Starros and Rodja and Adham, ’cause they’re not highborn, but Narvell is the heir to Elasapine. And Damin’s a prince. Don’t princes have to worry about things like that?”

  “It’s different for boys,” Lirena informed her, as if that was all the explanation she needed.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why is it different for boys?”

  “Because it is.”

  “But why should it be?” Kalan insisted.

  “Because women are supposed to look beautiful and have babies and men are supposed to do everything else,” the slave replied uncomfortably, ill equipped to argue the issue of female emancipation with a well-read ten-year-old.

  “That can’t be right,” Kalan pointed out. “Mama rules Hythria, and she’s a girl.”

  Leila rolled her eyes at her foolish young cousin. “Princess Marla does no such thing, Kalan. And you really shouldn’t say such things. Uncle Lernen is the High Prince. He’s the one who rules Hythria.”

  “But Grandpa Charel called Uncle Lernen a perverted waste of time and space,” she announced, thinking of a conversation she’d heard between her grandfather and her Uncle Mahkas, a few months ago when Charel Hawksword had come to Krakandar to visit his grandchildren. “He said if it wasn’t for Mama’s level head, Hythria would be in ruins.”

  “Leila’s right, lass,” Lirena said with a frown. “You really shouldn’t repeat such things. Anyway, you probably didn’t hear all of it. It can be confusing when you hear only half a conversation.”

  As far as Kalan was concerned, she’d heard more than enough to glean the gist of the discussion between her grandfather and her uncle. And she knew her mother was involved in important business.

  That was why Princess Marla lived in Greenharbour and Kalan lived at the other end of the country with her Uncle Mahkas and Aunt Bylinda. It was safe here in Krakandar. Marla had important work to do.

  Every time her mother left Krakandar after a visit, Marla hugged her and told Kalan so. I love you, darling, sh
e always said as she was departing. And I miss you desperately. But I have to go back to Greenharbour. I have important work to do there.

  Kalan wanted to have important work to do, too. And she was fairly certain, even at the tender age of ten, that it didn’t involve embroidery.

  “Mama’s very, very important,” Kalan insisted.

  “Of course she is, dear,” Lirena agreed soothingly. “Now finish that row of knots and I’ll have some morning tea brought in, shall I? Some nice little tea cakes, perhaps? Or some nut bread? You like nut bread.”

  I like not being treated like a three-year-old even more, she grumbled silently, but knew better than to say it aloud. Kalan looked out of the window again, at that perfect sky, and sighed. She had to get out of here. Now. Otherwise, she’d go mad.

  “I suppose if I eat enough nut bread I’ll get fat,” she declared, turning on the slave argumentatively. “And being fat means I won’t look like a starving peasant, either, I suppose?” Kalan pulled a face and added in a falsely high voice, “Oh, look at Lady Kalan Hawksword . . . we can tell she’s highborn . . . just look at how bloated and podgy she is . . .”

  The old slave was not amused. “Just you watch that tone, little miss. I put your mother over my knee more than once. Don’t think I’m too old to do the same to you.”

  “She could do with a good spanking, if you want my opinion,” Leila said.

  Hugely offended, Kalan jumped to her feet. “Well, nobody asked you for your stupid opinion, Leila Damaran! You’re always picking on me! I hate you!”

  Kalan threw down her embroidery and stormed from the nursery. Leila winked at her on the way past and then lowered her head over her embroidery to hide her smile, knowing full well her comment had given her cousin the excuse she needed to flounce from the room in high dudgeon. Leila was a pretty good sport when you needed to escape being cooped up doing embroidery lessons in the nursery on a perfect spring day. All Leila had to do was say something to which Kalan was sure to take offence and, for the sake of peace, the old slave would do nothing to stop Kalan storming off in a huff.

  Once that happened, Kalan was free to storm all the way down to the yards where her brothers were training.

  Slamming the door with a resounding thump, Kalan strode past the guards outside the nursery, who hurriedly stood to attention as she passed. Taking a shortcut through the glass-roofed solar, Kalan ran out into the gardens and headed for the gate that led down to the barracks. With luck, Almodavar wouldn’t be there. It might be Raek Harlen who had charge of the boys’ training today—after all, Damin had almost killed Almodavar last night. He might need a rest. Raek would usually let Kalan stay and watch. He might even be in a good mood and let her have a turn with one of the wooden practice swords.

  Slipping through the gate at the bottom of the garden, Kalan headed down the gravel path at a run, thinking the only thing that could ruin her day now was finding out that her brothers had been sent inside to study.

  Despite the forty laps of the training yard Almodavar had insisted her brother run for not killing him last night, Damin looked to be in high spirits when Kalan climbed the fence to watch him and their stepbrother, Rodja Tirstone, go through their paces with quarterstaffs under the watchful eye of Raek Harlen. The air was dusty where the boys had scuffed the loose dirt during their bout, and it hung over the training yards like a dry, brown mist. A few feet away, Kalan’s twin brother, Narvell, was locked in a similar bout with Rodja’s younger brother, Adham. Beyond them were her foster-brother, Starros, and her cousin, Travin Taranger. The last pair was being watched over by another Raider, who stopped the boys occasionally to correct their technique.

  Tall, dark-haired, and very handsome to Kalan’s eye, at nineteen, Travin seemed all grown up now. Six years as a fosterling in her grandfather’s household in Byamor had changed her cousin beyond recognition—not that she remembered him much from before; Kalan was only four when Travin left Krakandar and her contact with him since then had been sporadic at best. But he was home now and he had lots of stories about Grandpa Charel’s court and didn’t seem to mind Kalan asking him about it, so she figured he was just about the most perfect boy she’d ever met (not counting Wrayan Lightfinger).

  If she’d been the type who wanted to get married, Travin would have been her first choice. If not Travin, then his younger brother, Xanda, might do just as well. Kalan missed Xanda since he’d left for Greenharbour and she wondered if her mother would allow him to come home for a visit when she returned this year.

  The problem of marriage bothered Kalan a great deal more than it did most ten-year-old girls.

  She knew these things were arranged well in advance. She also knew alliances sealed by marriage were more than just social arrangements. Travin would one day inherit his father’s title as the Earl of Walsark and be a lord in his own right. He would be a vassal of Krakandar, which her brother, Damin, would one day inherit, so it seemed perfectly logical to keep it all in the family, except Damin was going to be High Prince one day, too, and she wasn’t sure quite how that worked, because if Uncle Lernen died, then Damin would have to go to Greenharbour. How could he be Warlord of Krakandar if he was living at the other end of the country?

  Thinking about it gave Kalan a headache. Anyway, Uncle Mahkas was always saying how Leila would probably marry Damin when they both grew up. They were cousins, so it didn’t seem in the least bit strange that if Kalan was going to be forced to marry somebody, she couldn’t have the cousin of her choice, too.

  Of course, the entire issue was moot, Kalan reminded herself, because she wasn’t going to get married. She had decided this some time ago. All she needed now was to figure out what she wanted to do with her life, a problem that was looming larger every day as she realised how limited her career options were.

  The captain spotted Kalan at the same time as the boys did and frowned at her disapprovingly.

  “Are you supposed to be down here in the yards, my lady?”

  “Lirena didn’t say I couldn’t come, Captain Harlen,” Kalan replied truthfully, lifting her skirts as she climbed over to sit on the top rail. “Who’s winning?”

  “Who do you think?” Rodja asked, sucking on his bleeding knuckles. The boys were practising with weapons scaled to their height. Although Damin was two years younger than Rodja, there was little difference in their size. If anything, Damin was a little taller. And he was almost unbeatable. Certainly her stepbrothers, Rodja and Adham, rarely got the better of him. She’d even seen Damin give Xanda a run for his money before he left, and Xanda was five years older than Damin. Being perhaps the smartest of the boys, Starros simply refused to fight him any more.

  “You’re letting Damin win,” Raek Harlen told Rodja unsympathetically. “Instead of striking at his shoulder, you could have changed your grip on your own weapon and taken a strike at Damin’s neck.”

  Rodja rolled his eyes. “Now why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Because you fight like a girl,” Kalan told him with a laugh.

  “I fight like a girl?” he asked, turning to her with a wounded look. “I’d like to see you do any better, Kalan Hawksword. And does anybody actually care that I’m bleeding?” When nobody answered him immediately, he threw his hands up in disgust. “Apparently not.”

  “A few bloodied knuckles won’t kill you, Rodja,” Damin assured him with a friendly poke of his staff. “Again?”

  “You really do think this is fun, don’t you?” Rodja said, blowing on his stinging hand before turning back to face Damin and resuming a fighting stance.

  Waiting for Rodja to attack, Damin assumed a similar pose, but for him it seemed natural, whereas Rodja had to consciously think about it. As Rodja moved to strike, Damin grinned at his stepbrother. “Don’t you think it’s fun?”

  In reply, Rodja struck hard, his left leg forward and his left hand at the centre of the staff. As soon as he moved, Damin, with his right hand placed between the centre and the butt-end of the staff, rotated
his weapon too fast for Rodja to counter and brought it up with a whack on his stepbrother’s already bruised and bloodied knuckles.

  Rodja yelped with pain, dropped his staff and jumped back out of Damin’s reach. “Right! That’s it! I’ve had enough of this! You did that on purpose!”

  “No! Really?” Damin asked with a laugh.

  “Always hit a man in his weakest spot,” Kalan added cheerily. “Isn’t that what Almodavar’s always telling you?”

  Rodja didn’t appreciate the reminder. He nursed his sore hand against his chest and glared at his stepbrother. “That’s all right for you, your highness. You’re going to be High Prince some day. I don’t need to know how to fight. I’m planning a nice safe career as a spice importer like my pa.”

  “And you think ‘always hit a man in his weakest spot’ isn’t the first bit of advice your father’s going to give you when it comes to dealing with the competition in the spice trade?” Raek asked, picking up Rodja’s discarded staff. “Mercenaries and merchants have more in common than you imagine, lad.

  Here, let me look at it.”

  Reluctantly, Rodja held out his hand for Raek’s inspection. The captain studied it for a moment and then nodded. “Perhaps you should get Lady Bylinda to dress it for you.”

  “Thank you,” he said impatiently, snatching his hand back.

  “You still fight like a girl, Rodja Tirstone!” Kalan called after him, as her stepbrother turned and headed for the gate. He didn’t reply, but he did make a rude gesture at her with his bloody finger, which made Kalan laugh. If Lirena or Aunt Bylinda caught any of the children making a gesture like that around the palace, they’d be on bread and water for a week, but down here in the training yards, things were much more relaxed.

  “You shouldn’t taunt him, my lady,” Raek warned. “Rodja’s actually not that bad. And Damin did hurt him.”

  “I know,” she shrugged. “But he gets all red in the face when you tease him. Haven’t you ever noticed that?”

  “It’s still not very nice, Lady Kalan.”