“Let me question him,” said Jaryd and pulled a knife from his belt.
“No,” said Jaegar, unmoving.
“He has transgressed on the honour of Baerlyn,” Jaryd said incredulously, “and now you grant him favours?”
“No man of Baerlyn will stick a blade into a defenceless opponent and consider Baerlyn's honour unsullied,” Jaegar said bluntly.
“I'm not a man of Baerlyn,” Jaryd retorted.
Jaegar's stare was flat and level within a face set like granite. One eye dark within a maze of intricate black tattoos that covered half his face. “While you live here,” he said, “you are.”
The prisoner groaned and moved his legs. Blood dripped. Raegyl's fists had made a mess, but it was a mercy compared to the fate of such a man in other parts of Lenayin. In Isfayen, Jaryd had no doubt, the man's face would have been his prettiest feature by now.
“Look at him!” Jaryd exclaimed in frustration. “He knows this is the worst you will do! He's survived this far, he probably thinks he can survive the rest!”
“Betraying the Great Lord will gain him far worse,” Cranyk agreed. “But should he hold his silence now, his reward will be even greater. Such are the moments that can make a man's life. He grasps his chance with both hands, with the honour of a whipped dog whining at his master's feet.”
“No,” Jaegar repeated, this time to Cranyk. “Not while I am headman.”
“When I was a boy,” Cranyk replied, his aged voice high and thin, “I saw Cherrovan prisoners flayed alive on the road.”
“That was revenge,” said Raegyl, still massaging his knuckles. “Revenge is different.”
“The young daylthar has claim for revenge,” said Cranyk, nodding at Jaryd. Daylthar, good gods, that was an old word. Jaryd had heard it only in recitals of Tullamayne epics, and similar old tales. It meant “stranger,” in that very Lenay sense that could mean the person from the next village, or the invading Cherrovan warlord, or the travelling serrin from Saalshen. “All the rest of the world,” in totality. Jaryd hadn't thought anyone still used the term. “If the Great Lord had any honour, he would meet the honourable challenge with a blade in his hand. Instead, he sends gold and trades favours to buy the likes of this…” with a disdainful nod at the slumped prisoner, “and a cowardly shot from a distance. All who fall outside our honour are no longer protected by it.”
“The serrin fall outside our honour too,” Jaegar replied, as unmoved as the rock his face and build resembled. “They share none of our beliefs and convictions. Should we then accord them no respect either?”
“The serrin,” Cranyk replied, “would never stoop to such an act. They have their own honour, whatever they might call it.”
“So do the nobles,” said Jaegar.
“Why are you defending them?” Jaryd demanded, folding his arms, his knife still in hand. “What have they done to make you so enamoured of them?”
“It's not a question of liking them, kid,” said Teriyan. “It's a question of law. Our laws exist because they are what we have decided is right and just. If others don't share those values, that's no reason to just ignore it all. Honour is honour. End of discussion.”
Jaryd shoved his knife back into its sheath in disgust. “This is why civilisations are destroyed,” he said darkly. “They lack the conviction to defend themselves by every means possible against those who would destroy them.”
“Aye,” Cranyk agreed, nodding slowly.
“If we must defeat dishonour by becoming dishonourable,” Jaegar replied, “then what have we won?”
Jaryd stared at the men. Teriyan looked sombre, but in general agreement with his friend Jaegar. Raegyl too, and Ryssin. Geldon looked more troubled, his round face etched with a frown. Byorn, too, looked uncertain. Jaryd gave a slight bow to Cranyk. “I thank you for your support, Yuan Cranyk,” he said.
Cranyk looked up at him shrewdly. He studied Jaryd's dripping sweat and the weariness of his posture. “You train hard, young Jaryd. Most likely this quest of yours will kill you. But I wish you an honourable death, and the blood of your enemies. Perhaps we shall sing songs of it.”
From a man such as Cranyk, Jaryd reckoned, that was great praise. He gave another slight bow, turned on his heel and departed the room.
At the ranch Jaryd went to the stables to see what needed doing, and found Parrachik there looking at some horses with the Petrodor merchants who'd attended the wedding last night.
Lynette had saddled one of the fillies-Felsy, Jaryd saw, noting the white-socked hindleg-and was showing her off to the merchants as they leaned on the enclosure fence. Jaryd stood back, unnoticed for the moment, hands on his head as he tried to stretch his aching shoulders. After watching awhile, he found he could only admire, however grudgingly, the sheer audacity of the skinny red-haired girl who commanded the men's attentions in the manly business of horses. She moved quickly and expertly around the filly, handling her with the surest touch, lifting a hoof with the easy pressure of a hand, reciting breeding and conditioning from immediate memory.
Soon Parrachik glanced back and saw him. “Jaryd!” All present turned to look. “I was hoping to find you here. Tell me, have we found that last scoundrel yet?”
Jaryd shook his head, moving wearily to the fenceline. “Not yet.” There was a party of woodsmen out looking for the escaped assassin. Such woodsmen were the reason Kessligh and Sasha had never particularly feared an attack-travelling on the roads in these parts would get you spotted, and travelling off them would get you tracked.
Jaryd exchanged greetings with the merchants and leaned on the fence to watch as Lynette held Felsy's bridle and the prospective buyer climbed astride. A nudge of heels and the buyer moved off, walking the filly at a gentle pace.
“She's a nice horse, that one,” Jaryd remarked to the men. “Quick like lightning, she'll be a racer when she's filled out. Hasn't quite the temperament for lagand, but then most mares don't.”
“There is no lagand in Petrodor,” one of the merchants assured Jaryd in a thick lowlands accent. “We race. And we hunt…ah…foxes. Big hunts, lots of dogs. We like a good horse. Very pretty, very fast, very…well-behaved, yes?”
Jaryd nodded at Felsy. “Well then, that's your girl. She's very sweet.”
The rider nudged Felsy up to a canter, and the filly responded briskly. Clearly she wanted to run and the rider obliged – they took off at a gallop, heading upslope.
“We heard the captive and the man you slew were dressed as Torovans?” Parrachik said, looking concerned.
“Aye.”
“Most alarming,” said the elder of the merchants. “Should you uncover this dishonourable person's true identity, and his employers, you must instruct us. We shall sever ties and do no more trade with these people. We will not have the goodwill between Lenays and Torovan merchants damaged in such a manner. We are appalled.”
There was a chorus of agreement from the others, and much nodding of heads. Jaryd wondered if Lord Arastyn had figured that into his plans or not. Certainly Arastyn was as beholden to the wealth of Petrodor as any other Lenay noble family. Jaryd wondered if there was more to it.
He excused himself and took his place beneath the vertyn tree to practise taka-dans. His muscles protested, and his form was terrible. He could barely manage three precise strokes in a row. He stopped, a hand against the tree, breathing hard. Parrachik's eldest son was watching, having more interest in swords than horses. The lad looked nothing like his father-tall with dark, curling hair in Goeren-yai custom. He dressed like any other Baerlyn boy, wore a sword at his hip and was reputed to be one of the better lads at the training hall. What his Verenthane, lowlands, sword-shunning father made of it, Jaryd did not know. Surely he did not disapprove, or else why did the boy dress like this so openly? And Parrachik seemed to have nothing but fatherly affection for him.
Jaryd gave up the taka-dans, called his gelding from happy grazing on the hillside and rode to a rock pool with a waterfall, which Sasha had told him was her favourite place. He left the gelding to graze near the pool, pulled off his clothes and all but fell into the water. The cold hit him with a welcome shock. It was so calm and still, with nothing but the trickle of the waterfall to break the silence. He drifted while river trout flitted amidst the rocks below.
When the cold became too much, he climbed out and lay on a patch of sun-warmed rock. He thought again of Parrachik's son-a boy nothing like his father, yet his father loved him all the same. Parrachik was a good man, he decided. An outsider who made no attempt to copy Lenay ways, but neither caused them any offence. And now his eldest son was more Goeren-yai than Torovan.
His own father was dead, yet Jaryd did not miss him. He supposed that made him a bad son, which was fitting because the old Great Lord Nyvar had been a terrible father. Some rumoured he'd been poisoned by Arastyn. Jaryd couldn't see that it mattered. If his father had died naturally, then he was now with his gods, and out of Jaryd's life. If he'd been murdered, it was just another thing for Jaryd to avenge himself of when the time for revenge came near. Jaryd just wished he didn't feel like a fraud, to be claiming revenge for his father who would certainly not have done the same for him.
His father had always liked Wyndal better. Wyndal was clever, could read in three languages and had a head for treasury sums. He was also thoughtful and rarely answered back. Memories assailed him…Wyndal's reproachful stare above a stack of papers as Jaryd came strolling in from another lagand practice. Wyndal all red-faced and embarrassed over a village girl at a dance. He'd rejected Jaryd's advice on how to handle an insistent, buxom young maiden…“Not everyone can be like you, Jaryd. A lord should have manners.”
Wyndal teaching Tarryn to read before the fireplace. Tarryn had been delighted and intrigued at the beautiful calligraphy. He'd learned fast, to Jaryd's dismay. It had been a battle between him and Wyndal over Tarryn. Thankfully, Tarryn loved his big brother's books and sums just as much as he loved his biggest brother's horses and swords. He'd always been so pleased to see either of them, running out with a grin and a hug…Jaryd and Wyndal had become friends almost by accident, mostly because of Tarryn. Because Tarryn loved stories and Tarryn loved horses, and Tarryn was always laughing and exuberant and drawing everyone else into his little circle of sunshine. So many conversations he'd started between Jaryd and Wyndal simply because one of them would be playing with Tarryn first. And then there was the incident with the lame puppy that Tarryn had tried to hide in his room to save from the knife, and the scandal over the hole in Lady Heryn's expensive gown, and the whole uproar about Tefyd the gardener's ruined flowerbeds…
Jaryd felt the tears coming, and did not fight them. He curled up on his side, naked on the rocks beside the peaceful rockpool, and sobbed like a baby. About him, the pines stood tall and proud like the columns of some magnificent cathedral, and golden rays of sunshine speared through the branches.
By the time he returned to the ranch, the weather had closed in with a rush. Wind snapped and tossed at the treetops, and drizzling rain threatened to turn to heavier squalls.
Lynette was bringing the horses back and Jaryd helped her stable them. The merchants had departed, taking Felsy with them. She'd sold for thirteen crowns and fifty-seven shingles…a small fortune in local terms. Lynette's money pouch rattled at her belt as they ran down to the house in the first drenching downpour. Kessligh had taken the finest horses from Baen-Tar's royal stables as a gift from the king, and the Torovans knew good bloodlines when they saw them.
Jaryd ducked under the house to get some more firewood, while Lynette set about preparing dinner. Andreyis was still out with the hunting parties searching for the assassin. Rain rattled against the shutters, wind heaved at the roof timbers, and Jaryd was glad he was not in Andreyis's boots this evening.
He'd just relaxed in front of the kitchen fire, when there came a thumping at the kitchen door. Lynette spun with a gasp. Jaryd climbed from his chair and took up the scabbard he'd hooked over a chairback. Usually the dogs barked when strangers arrived, but Andreyis had taken them with him. And with many of the woodsmen also out on the hunt, the ranch was less protected than usual. Jaryd pulled the sword from its sheath and advanced toward the door. Lynette took up a kitchen knife, evidently thinking the same thing.
Jaryd stopped a stride from the door, recalling the crossbow bolt that had gone half through the Steltsyn's wall. Could a bolt go straight through this door? Could the house be surrounded?