“You can't boss him about,” said Lynette from Jaryd's side in the kitchen, “this isn't your house.” Jaryd stared at her, blankly. Stupid pest of a girl. He hadn't seen her either, there at her kitchen bench chopping vegetables. She had long, tangled red hair, a flaming red unlike this new arrival's pale rose. She was skinny and freckled, and a pain in the neck. Worst of all, she was Teriyan Tremel's daughter, a dear friend of Sashandra's, and was in fact, if not in title, the person-most-senior for the entire gods-damned ranch. At sixteen summers.
Jaryd didn't mind taking instruction from a woman beneath a roof, least of all in the kitchen. That was the way through most of Lenayin-men ruled outside, and women ruled within. But this brat was a horsewoman too, and an annoyingly good one, even if she couldn't see the point of lagand. Around the ranch, all of his victories at grand lagand tournaments, all of his fame as a rider and a horseman and victor in countless swordwork contests, all counted for nothing.
“Aeryl, don't mind him,” Lynette called, returning attention to her vegetables. “He's just grumpy all the time. You've my invitation to stay, and Andreyis's too.”
“M'Lady,” said Aeryl with a light bow. “Jaryd come, share a drink with me.” Earnestly. “It's so good to see you, I can't tell you how…”
He stepped forward, and Jaryd drew his sword. “They sent you, didn't they?” Aeryl stared at the naked steel. “They sent you to talk with me, just like they sent Rhyst to talk with me while they murdered my little brother!”
“Jaryd, you stupid fool!” Lynette yelled at him. “Put it away right now! Andreyis!”
“Jaryd, I swear, I wasn't even at Rathynal, my sister was ill in childbirth, we were not certain that she would live-”
“Liar! You're all the same, all the Tyree nobility, all a mob of liars and murderers and honourless thieves!”
“Andreyis!” Lynette yelled again and then Andreyis was there, stopping between Jaryd and Aeryl, tall and dark, his hand on the hilt of his sword.
“Put it away,” said the younger man. He was awkward, this lad of eighteen summers, not yet grown into his gangling frame. But there was a confidence in his young eyes, and the effect was not entirely spoiled by the big ears that stuck out from under his ragged mop of dark hair. Rabbit ears, the other Baerlyn boys sometimes called him. And other names besides.
Jaryd snorted. “What are you going to do, draw that thing? You couldn't take me in your dreams.”
“I could too,” Andreyis retorted, but Lynette was advancing on Jaryd in fury.
“You stupid, idiot bonehead!” she shouted, stirring spoon waving in one hand. “What's the matter with you? Is everything a war to you now? Do you solve every argument by killing someone?” Jaryd's lip curled, and he tried to think of some suitably cutting riposte, but he only knew the language of men, all threats, insults and bluster. A redheaded girl with a kitchen spoon was nothing he was equipped to handle. “You're five years older than me, but at least I'm aware that being a great warrior is far more about who you kill and why than just whether or not you can! When are you going to grow up?”
Jaryd stood where he was, sword trembling in his hand. He couldn't recall it feeling this heavy before. It seemed to be made of iron, dragging his arm toward the floor.
“I mean, when are all you young men of Lenayin going to-”
“Lynnie,” Andreyis interrupted and shook his head, dark eyes watching Jaryd warily. “Enough, Lynnie.” A moment passed. Jaryd sheathed his sword and leaned a hand against the wall. The world was spinning. “Jaryd, come and take a seat. I'll get you something to drink.”
Jaryd went, because there was nothing else to do. A chair presented itself and he collapsed into it, somehow managing to avoid tangling the sword. He could hear Lynette and Andreyis in hushed conversation in the kitchen and, quite unexpectedly, he felt a sudden affection for the lad. Andreyis remembered what Jaryd had been, even when everyone else seemed to have forgotten. Andreyis still looked up to him.
For no particular reason, his hand strayed to his chest, feeling at the rings beneath his shirt. There were two of them, slim metal, gleaming with a hint of gold when observed in the firelight. They would bend and come apart to pierce through an ear, or sometimes a nose-Goeren-yai rings, decorations for men, not for women. He had declared himself Goeren-yai to free himself from the restrictive practices of Verenthanes. Those practices would not allow him his revenge. But the old ways of the Goeren-yai knew the tale of blood and steel all too well.
Princess Sofy had given him these rings. A dying man had pressed them into her hand on the battlefield. But a warrior's decorations belonged in battle, and so she'd granted the rings to Jaryd in turn. He wore them now on a chain around his neck. There was no expectation of such decorations amongst Goeren-yai-Teriyan himself, as fiercely proud a Goeren-yai warrior as one could meet, wore neither rings nor tattoos. Yet somehow, Jaryd felt like a fraud, that he could not put the rings in his ear. It was one thing to declare oneself Goeren-yai, and to throw the Verenthane medallion to the floor before his king. But to come here and live amongst the Goeren-yai themselves, to feel their gaze upon him, watching his every move, considering his every foreignness, his every misunderstanding…
Andreyis pressed a cup into his hand, and he drank. The wine reminded him once more of Sofy. Princess Sofy, he corrected himself. One did not abandon that formality as one abandoned the Verenthane gods, for the Goeren-yai loved the youngest Princess of Lenayin as much or more than the Verenthanes. In the two days after Sashandra's parley with her father, Sofy and Jaryd had shared wine and talked. What they had talked of, he could no longer remember. Probably, he realised, he'd not been lively conversation. In the battle, he'd wished for death. That denied him, he had only revenge left. But Sofy had evidently not found his morbidity too off-putting. She'd granted him the rings, had sipped wine that no Verenthane princess was supposed to sip, and had wished him luck.
Then Sashandra had come and told him that, since she and Kessligh would be absent from the ranch, there was a place available for someone prepared to work hard. A place amongst townfolk accustomed to controversial outsiders in their midst. A place, no doubt, where they could keep an eye on him. His old resentment resurfaced, dark and brooding.
He looked up and found Aeryl watching him from the chair opposite, a cup in hand. Aeryl managed another faint smile. “Your hair is growing,” he observed. “Perhaps soon you'll have to tie it in braids.”
Jaryd sipped his wine and took a deep breath. “Enough with the small talk. What did they send you here to tell me? What threats?”
“I did not attend Rathynal because my sister was ill,” Aeryl said quietly. “She died, Jaryd. I played no part in the great gathering of provinces, nor the events that befell you there. I had my own grieving to attend to.”
“I'm sorry.” Jaryd stared into the fire. He did not want to look at his old “friend.” Amongst those people he had once called his own, he had no friends.
“Your brother Wyndal has been adopted by Family Arastyn,” Aeryl offered. “He is most well. He sends his regards.”
“Did he send word that he wished me to surrender myself?”
Aeryl paused for a brief moment. “No,” he said, then carefully, “no, he did not.”
“Good. Because then I'd be forced to kill my own brother for a traitor.”
Jaryd sipped his wine again. Aeryl stared for a moment. “Galyndry's marriage preparations are nearly complete,” he tried again. “Family Iryani are pleased. Your sister Dalya sends word that she would like you to be there.”
“I bet she does,” Jaryd muttered. “Just so long as her precious banquets and dances are not disturbed, I'm sure her little brother's murder won't bother her a bit.”
“Will you attend?” Aeryl was nothing if not persistent. He'd assisted Jaryd with his studies, when the words and symbols had refused to make sense. The fifth son of Family Daery, he'd always been quiet and studious, excelling in studies, while having much less interest in Jaryd's passions of swordplay and horsemanship. In all their studying together, he'd never voiced exasperation or contempt at Jaryd's complete inability with letters. He'd just made him repeat the same phrases, again, and again, and again. Jaryd had found his attention span with such tedious things astonishing.
“No,” he answered. “I've no interest in seeing the last of Family Nyvar abolished before my eyes.”
“And so you mean to live out your days here?” Aeryl looked about. “A fair place…but something of a fall, wouldn't you say?”
“It was enough for a Lenay princess. Besides, I'm not planning to sit here for long.”
“You plan revenge,” Aeryl said flatly. Andreyis came from the kitchen and sat beside Aeryl, placing a plate of sliced bread and a bowl of hashal on the table between the chairs.
“I mean to kill them all,” Jaryd said darkly.
“That's real smart, that is,” Andreyis announced, dipping some bread in the bean paste. “Tell them all about your plans. That'll improve your chances no end.”
Aeryl looked incredulous. “Jaryd…there are a hundred and seventeen noble families in Tyree alone. They have allies and family through marriage with many other provinces. All have accepted Great Lord Arastyn. How can you possibly think to best them all?”
Jaryd said nothing, and stared at the flames.
“He has a death wish, that's what,” said Lynette, coming from the kitchen with bowls of grapes and plums. She pulled up another chair. “He's too damn stubborn to imagine an alternative.”
“If I killed you,” Jaryd said, “would your father be any different?”
Lynette snorted, tossing her wild hair back. “If you killed me, most of Baerlyn would chase you to the ends of the world. But you're all alone. No one came with you, Jaryd. You've no allies, no support, no army. You'll die, it'll be messy, and it'll be a great waste.”
“I used to hear all these great stories from the men in the Falcon Guard,” Jaryd muttered. “Stories of Goeren-yai heroism. Now I arrive here, I find they're all cowards.”
“I'd think twice before using that word around here.” Andreyis said warily.
“What else would you call a people who dissuaded me from taking revenge against those who murdered my eleven-year-old brother!” Jaryd shouted.
“Your honour is your own,” Andreyis said. “What you choose to do with it is your concern. No man in Baerlyn will stop you should you choose to continue this path. But neither will we assist or approve if you give us no cause to.”
“Listen to your friends, Jaryd,” Aeryl pleaded. “They're young, but they speak with great wisdom.”
“Growing up in Kessligh's shadow will do that,” said Andreyis. Lynette rolled her eyes a little. Now that Andreyis was a warrior, blooded in battle and successful in his Wakening, she thought him far too big for his boots.