THREE LETTERS
Donal immediately set about taking care of “that,”
much to Karigan’s chagrin, and with marked enthusiasm. He
instructed his fellow Weapons to move tables out of the way so he
could begin work with Karigan right then in their dining hall.
Someone fetched Donal’s staff, and when he had it in hand he said
to her, “We do not have much time before you leave. Therefore we
begin now.”
Several Weapons
remained to watch while others, including Colin, excused themselves
and returned to duty. The solemn, quiet presence of the watchers
unnerved Karigan. Better the heckling she received on the practice
field when at sword practice than this sepulchral
attention.
Donal led her
through several exercises, demonstrating with his own staff so she
could get a feel for handling hers.
“The staff is a
discipline unto itself,” Donal said, “though you will find like the
sword, true masters make an art of it using many forms and
movements. Unfortunately we do not have time to make you a master,
so we shall settle for competency.”
That evening he
showed her many defensive techniques. He played attacker, at first
moving slowly so she could learn each move, then increasing his
speed and power. Time after time, his staff blurred through the air
and his feet glided over the flagstones, he pushed her back and
back into the wall or a table. Time after time he knocked her staff
out of her hands and sent it clattering to the floor.
Once when he got
past her defenses and jabbed her in the stomach with the butt of
his staff, she went staggering away, doubled over and retching. It
was a good thing, she thought in retrospect, she’d not yet had
supper.
“I will not do that
to you again,” Donal said, “but I want you to remember what happens
when you do not pay attention.”
Karigan could have
sworn she was paying attention, but when she could stand straight
and breathe again, he showed her in detail where she’d gone wrong.
It turned out she’d been paying attention to his staff when she
should have been watching his hands.
She discovered, as
they continued with the exercises, staff fighting could take on a
rhythm very like a sword bout and some of the techniques were not
so very different.
When Donal finally
called it a night, he ordered her to come back the next evening at
the same hour to continue training. She returned to the Rider wing
at half past seven hour, hair clinging to her sweaty brow and
clothes damp. She was bruised all over and three fingers on her
left hand were swollen and stiff. Her new staff, she noted, was
entirely unscathed. It suffered not a scratch, chip, or dent. It
was evidence, she supposed of the strength of the bonewood
oak.
Lured by the sounds
of chatter and laughter, she bypassed her own chamber and headed
down the corridor to the common room, thinking maybe she’d get some
sympathy from her friends. She found the room full of Riders
playing card games and tossing dice, gossiping, or just lounging in
front of the fire. A couple were engaged in horseplay. Most of
these were the young, new Riders. She hadn’t had a chance to learn
all their names yet, and it occurred to her maybe she never would
with her journey to Blackveil fast approaching.
At one end of the
long table in the center of the room sat Mara and Yates, as well as
Elgin Foxsmith. They glanced up at her approach.
“Someone decide you
were too old and frail to walk without a cane?” Yates asked, a
smirk on his face.
Karigan considered
giving him a good whack with it. “I have been hard at work while
all of you have been loafing about here.” To her disappointment,
her pronouncement aroused no sympathy. She stood there pointedly
waiting for someone to offer her a chair, but no one took the hint.
It appeared in addition to being unsympathetic to her condition,
her knighthood, as usual, failed to elicit special treatment from
her friends.
She sighed and cast
about for a free chair but all were full. Finally she stole one
from a young Rider who briefly left his chair to retrieve a playing
card that had dropped to the floor.
“Hey!” he protested.
“That’s mine!”
“Not anymore,”
Karigan said.
“But—”
“You should respect
your elders,” Yates said.
Karigan stuck her
tongue out at him. “I’m not much older than you.”
“Neither of you are
very mature,” Mara observed.
Karigan dragged her
chair between Mara and Elgin and dropped into it with a groan of
relief to be off her feet.
“Well?” Mara said
when finally she was settled.
“Well
what?”
“Yates said you were
spirited away by a group of Weapons. What did they
want?”
“They wanted to give
me this.” Karigan set the cane on the table with a clunk that
caused the room to go still and quiet. After a moment, the chatter
and motion resumed.
“They gave you that?” Yates asked
incredulously.
“That, several
bruises, and some sprained fingers, I think.” With a grimace she
showed them her left hand and sausage-sized fingers.
Elgin rubbed his
upper lip and gazed intently at Karigan. Yates picked up the cane
to inspect it.
“What in the name of
the gods were they doing to you?” Mara demanded. “It’s not like
you’re one of them—they can’t be stealing one of our Riders
away!”
“I am thinking,”
Elgin said, finally breaking his silence, “they have bestowed a
great honor upon her.”
“They—” Karigan
began.
“Honor?” Mara’s
voice was aggrieved. “By breaking her hand?”
“Not—” Karigan tried
to interject.
“It is obvious to
me,” Elgin said, “they hold her in esteem.”
“But she’s a Rider,
not a Weapon. I should really inform Captain Mapstone of
this.”
“I—”
“I think Red
probably knows,” Elgin said, “or at least sees it.”
Karigan heard an
unmistakable snick as Yates’ hands probed the cane.
“I wouldn’t—” she
began.
“If they hold you in
such high esteem,” Mara said, turning to her, “why are they beating
you up?”
“They—”
Yates shook the
cane.
“No!” Karigan cried,
but too late.
The shaft extended
and the handle slammed into Yates’ forehead, knocking him over
backward in his chair and leaving him in an unceremonious sprawl on
the floor.
In the astonished
silence that followed, Karigan said in a small voice, “They were
teaching me staff fighting.”
A clamor arose in
the room, but Mara shortly had it in hand. Elgin helped the dazed
Yates to his feet and took him to the mending wing to get checked
out. Yates would have a bump and bruise on his forehead as a reward
for his curiosity.
Mara sent one of the
young Riders out for a bucket of still unmelted snow in some shady
corner of castle grounds to help Karigan’s swollen fingers. She
sent another to the kitchens for whatever scraps were left over
from supper since Karigan hadn’t had hers. The boy returned with
bean soup and half a loaf of bread. Everyone else Mara sent to
their chambers.
When at last the
common room grew silent and empty but for Mara and Karigan, Karigan
was able to tell her friend all about her visit with the Weapons.
Mara tried out the mechanism of the staff several times, both
impressed and disturbed.
“I can’t say I’m
comfortable with them taking you into their world,” Mara said,
setting the staff aside.
“I wouldn’t say
they’re taking me into their world.” Karigan pulled her fingers
from the bucket of snow and gazed at them. They were growing numb
from the cold, but the swelling had decreased.
“Then what do you
call this?” Mara rested her hand on the staff. “Made by Weapons
with their shield on it.”
“I’m not leaving the
Riders if that’s what you’re worried about. My brooch hasn’t
abandoned me.”
“I know, I know. I
just worry about you as a Rider and a friend. You’ve been put into
such a strange position with the knighthood. And then there’s the
Weapons. It just seems like they’re trying to turn you into someone
else.”
Karigan set the
bucket of melting snow out of the way and glanced at the bean soup.
A layer of fat had congealed on its surface as it cooled and she
pushed the bowl aside.
“I don’t feel
different,” Karigan said. “At least inside. My outside hurts,
though.” When Mara did not laugh or even smile at the joke, she
added, “The knighthood is just a title, and as you saw tonight, no
one treats me any differently. In fact Yates seems to be working
hard to keep me humble. In any case, I’m still pretty much the same
old me.”
“Yes and
no.”
“Yes and
no?”
“The same but not
unchanged.”
“I think that’s true
for any of us who have been through some of the things we have,”
Karigan said. She watched as Mara’s hand went to the burn scars on
her face. The fire that leveled the old Rider barracks had changed
her, and not just outwardly. How could it not?
“It’s not just you
as you,” Mara said after some thought. “It’s ... Five hells. I just
don’t want to lose my friend.”
Karigan was taken
aback. She was surprised, surprised and touched to hear the words
spoken aloud, that someone actually cared. She had come to the
common room hoping for a little sympathy for her bruises and found
instead something even more precious: a reaffirmation of friendship
and knowledge that someone gave a damn.
Not that she ever
doubted the Riders cared about her, despite the fact they often
worked alone on far flung errands. She might go months without
seeing Tegan or Garth, or even Mara who kept close to the castle,
but there was always that sense of family, of inclusion, and the
knowledge the Riders would watch her back.
Still, it made all
the difference in the world just to hear it spoken
aloud.
“Mara,” she said,
rubbing a stray tear from her cheek, “no title or gift is going to
change our friendship. You won’t lose mine. Ever.”
“I guess I know
that,” Mara replied. “But Osric’s death is still fresh in my mind,
and now you’re being sent into Blackveil.”
“Lynx and Yates,
too,” Karigan murmured.
“I understand the
reasons for the expedition, but I wish none of our people had to
go.”
“I know. But it’s
what we do. What we all do.”
After that they
spoke quietly for a while of Karigan’s preparations, then each went
to her separate chamber. Karigan lit a lamp and found Ghost Kitty
nestled on her pillow. She stroked his head for a while reflecting
on her day, the gift from the Weapons, and her conversation with
Mara.
It was true she
might not return from Blackveil; but there had been other occasions
when she might not have returned from other adventures. Danger was
part of the job. Knowing people cared—friends and family
both—buoyed her, made it worth coming back alive.
It occurred to her
that in the event she did not return, her loved ones might
appreciate some final word from her. She would write letters—one to
her father and aunts, and one to the Riders. She searched through
the drawer of her desk for pen, ink, and paper, and using a book as
a hard surface to write on, she sat on her bed and set to work,
Ghost Kitty purring beside her.
Mainly she told them
how much she loved and admired them. She needed them to
know it. As she had just experienced
with Mara, love and friendship was so often taken for granted that
one could forget, or begin to believe otherwise.
In addition, her
father would be angry, so she wanted to ensure he knew she’d gone
into Blackveil willingly and believed in the mission. She could
never tell him about it beforehand—he’d be an absolute wreck and
she could easily imagine him coming to Sacor City to berate both
Captain Mapstone and King Zachary for sending her, something to be
avoided at all costs.
When she was done,
she folded the letters into envelopes and sealed them with green
wax. She tucked them into the drawer and was about to put away her
writing supplies when she paused and decided to write a
third.
This one was to King
Zachary.
She was not sure
what he thought of her, or whether or not he thought of her at all
anymore. He had once told her he loved her, but then agreed to the
contract to marry Lady Estora, and since then she’d seen little of
him. It was for the best, she knew, but it did nothing to squelch
the ache she felt for something, someone, she could never have.
Much of the time she could put her sense of loss to the back of her
mind by keeping busy, but it never totally went away, like the
undercurrent of a fast moving stream.
She felt she must
put it all down in writing for him. For herself. If something
should happen to her, she would know at least this one thing was
not left undone; that words that should be said were not left
unspoken.
She poured into the
letter her dreams, her desires, and her regrets. So many regrets.
She expressed how she felt for him—had felt for him for so long
now—and how she wished things could have been different if only
he’d not been a king or she not a commoner. She did not forgive him
for suggesting that one moonlit night on the castle roof that she
become his mistress, but she expressed understanding for how their
births to one class or another put them in difficult
positions.
She told him things
in her letter she could never say now, but if she were gone, would
not matter. At least he would know, and that knowledge would not
affect his marriage, and hence, the stability of the kingdom. Then,
before she could cross any of it out, she placed the letter into an
envelope and sealed it.
The three letters
would remain safely in the drawer, only to be found if she did not
return from Blackveil.