A Match for the El Maiens

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*****

It was cold and the light was grey on the grey stone of Castle Sietter's walls but the courtyard was a milling mass of colours: people, horses, dogs. The kennelmaster and one of the houndsmen were in deep discussion, two rocks in a sea of bobbing sandy and brindled hounds' heads. The grooms were frantically busy, going from dappled horse to black horse, checking stirrups and saddle-girths, soothing a nervous horse, giving a friendly slap to a placid one.

Vadya chewed mechanically on a piece of bread and ham, one hand in the pocket of his jodhpurs absently fingering a filigree button that had come off Tashka's breeches the previous night. He saw Pava in a dark blue hacking jacket chatting idly with Sevie el Jien and Volka el Darien. Tarra el V'lair was flirting with three giggling kitchen maids who had sneaked out to watch the hunt set off.

Vadya's grandmother in duty bound, Lady van P'shan, dressed in a splendid dark green habit with a wine red pattern in it, was chatting to her groom. She had been unusually reserved towards Vadya, making him down-hearted. Angels' sake, some of the things people said she might have done (not usually to him) were a lot worse than being obliged to put your ring on the finger of your junior officer who ought to have been promoted your equal a while back.

Vadya saw that Arianna was coming out of the castle on Clair's arm, wearing dark blue, her hair in a net at the nape of her neck and on her head a fetching hard flat dark blue hat with a brim and a little eye-veil. She had caught up her long skirt in one hand and was stepping out lightly by Clair's side, her eyes sparkling with anticipation and an appealing dimple dancing in her chin.

Vadya thought longingly of what it would be like when he and Tashka were married, when they could walk or sit or lie together as and when they pleased. He might come out to his own hunting party with Tashka on his arm.

Then he remembered that people would say Tashka had been his junior officer and comment on their being together whether they were married or not. Besides, Tashka would already be out there bossing the grooms about.

Tashka came suddenly out of the castle in a black silk jumper, heavy cotton cream jodhpurs and black riding boots, a black hard hat on her head. She was slapping one glove idly in the other hand. Vadya's heart jumped, his body gave a warm lurch. He walked over and took hold of her arm with a grin. Tashka winked one lapis lazuli eye at him. She looked fabulous, the black emphasised her features: the dark hair and lashes, the pink lips, the slanted blue eyes. Tarra el V'lair was casting a look over at them. His eyes met Vadya's and he gave Vadya a grin that Vadya was already disposed to find offensive, but then Vadya remembered with satisfaction that he had a bigger cock than el V'lair's.

Tashka was pouting her rose-petal mouth in a manner which made evident what she had done with it to his big cock the previous night, after luring him off into her room in spite of his reservations. (

Angels' sake, Tashka! under your brother's roof! He'll have me for it.

)

Clair cast her a penetrating look from one grey eye under a raised eyebrow. She sniggered and he could not forbear a curve of the lips in response but then he straightened his mouth and the look in his eye made evident what he would do if he was obliged to publicly notice the stain on her honour. He went to Arianna's side, his linked hands held out for her to step up into the saddle from. She saw his eyes distant; he was thinking about all the arrangements for the hunt, and for the dinner and entertainment of their guests, yet he had spared the time to come and put her in the saddle, a menial task.

She put her foot in his hands and he threw her, she leapt up, clasped her knee about the pommel of her side-saddle (no chance to ride in a proper saddle today). She stooped down and said: "My thanks, sweetness," in accents as friendly as her siblings' and Pava's. He lifted his lovely slanted grey eyes to her and smiled, clasping the calf of her booted leg through her skirts before moving to his own horse.

Clair swung into the saddle, looked quickly about the courtyard. They were all mounted, the horses moved restlessly over the cobbles, the dogs were already baying and barking. He lifted his hand high in the air, called the signal, waving his arm forward and they were away. Horses and hounds poured out of the castle gates, down the green hillside, away past a group of servants standing excitedly outside the gates, past Tenth Athagine who were gathered by the tents to watch them pass, past a few of the townsfolk who had come up to see them ride away into the rolling fields and light woodland, the perfect hunting territory of the Sietter Hills.

Tashka was in the front at the tail-edge of the yelping pack of hounds, bent low in her saddle with the cold damp autumn air in her face, Vadya and Tarra a few lengths behind her.

They were coming to a fence. Arianna drew a big breath in, she settled her weight carefully over Sweetheart's saddle. She went over the fence as light as a bird and landed with a heavy jolt. Ahead was the series of fences which always broke the party into two halves, some were high hedges and less able riders would go round them. Arianna saw Tashka take a hedge on Honour Bright so high that they seemed to be flying. Vadya had got over but Tarra el Vlair's horse refused the first time, almost shooting him into the hedge, it stopped so sharply.

Arianna wanted to laugh at him, half hanging off his horse's neck, but she was gathering herself for the jump. She gripped her knee on the pommel of the saddle, made sure her weight was evenly distributed over Sweetheart's back. Sweetheart leapt from the ground and they were landing with the shock that jolted Arianna in the saddle. She gasped and laughed out in the cold grey morning. Clair's voice was raised beside her. He was shouting at her that she should not have risked the jump and her riding side-saddle - what if Sweetheart had fallen?

"I'll race you to Hell but I'll jump if I want to!" she shouted back. He looked astounded to hear her talking so free. She laughed and pressed on after Tashka.

As a hunt it was a disaster but everyone enjoyed a good ride so it was no matter. Tashka had gone off after the main body of the hounds so far ahead that even Vadya could hardly keep up with her and Clair lost command of the field. He pulled away after a little off-shoot of the pack which seemed to have picked up a scent going into the light woodland.

The sun was rising and the grass was flinging back a myriad diamond sparkles. Clair cantered easily along, conscious of cold raw air in his lungs, of a breeze sweeping over his eyes and through his hair, of Arianna cantering just behind and beside him on Sweetheart. He was still admiring her riding skill, although he also felt an annoyed qualm at her leaping the high hedges in a side-saddle. Angels! yet another matter in which he would have to keep an eye over her wild ways. It was almost enough to make him wish she were the placid cow he used to think he had married. He laughed as he rode, the blood was dancing in his veins, his grey eyes shone. He slowed True View to a trot, to a walk, and turned in the saddle to collect the hunting party.

Too late. In the distraction of thinking about his wilful Lady wife he had lost them. He could see a pair of figures on horseback disappearing in the distance, one in an elegant dark green habit. He sighed. They would never keep up with Tashka. Perhaps Vadya or Tarra might collect them together, perhaps they would all ride about in a ragged bunch and come home laughing and hungry and teasing him that the party had gone astray.

Riding up behind him were Pava and Arianna, looking suddenly very alike, both in dark blue. They had the same lazy smile in their eyes, the same pink glow in their fair faces, they smiled with that full red mouth like a bowl of cherries. Clair grinned at them and turned to canter after the hounds as they trotted sniffing into the widely spaced trees. He turned his head back again and there was only Arianna. He met her serene blue gaze and looked for Pava but Pava had gone.

Holy Heaven, she was lovely; her cheeks flushed with exercise and the fresh autumn air, her eyes bright, her golden-pink complexion picked up by her dark blue habit. She held herself in the saddle with such grace and poise, his Lady wife, his elegant and intelligent and thrillingly seditious wife. Clair turned and trotted True View after the hounds into the trees, his mind clouded by a myriad of thoughts about this situation. Alone with his own wife in a wood. The hounds were starting to splinter, to run separately in different directions, they had clearly lost the scent. It was an old scent, they were not excited by it. He reined True up, allowing Arianna to come and rein Sweetheart up beside him.

They sat looking at each other. Then he slipped his foot out of the stirrup, swung his leg over the saddle and caught the horses' reins. He whistled the dogs off the scent and led the horses to a brook where he let them drink.

Arianna sat still in her saddle, suddenly shy. She felt shyer than any of the young things whose sexual flirtations she was obliged to keep a check on at their parties: shyer than her sister Sevie whispering in a corner of the sitting-room with Volka el Darien, shyer than Tashka's friend Anata parrying with exquisite wit the attentions of Pava and Tarra el V'lair, certainly shyer than that bold young animal her sister by marriage Tashka. She felt as if she were a gauche young girl, alone with a man in a wood. Clair led the horses to a tree, looped their reins over a branch, settled the hounds down and came back to reach up to her waist. She put her hands on his shoulders, unhooked her leg from the pommel and slid down into his arms.

He held her close to him, pressed her head to his shoulder. Her arms were around his neck, she hesitated and then ran her fingers into his hair and pushed her nose into his neck, sniffing at the smell of his clean laundered shirt, the scent of his soap, the oil he used for his hair, his sweat. She felt as if a tight band suddenly relaxed in her chest, to allow her to embrace her husband.

Clair was holding her more loosely, he kept one arm about her and drew her aside to a bank drifted up with dry dead leaves where the early morning sunshine was falling in bright shafts through brown and yellow leaves that were still on the trees. He pulled gently at her arm to persuade her to sit down with him. She resisted, turning her head aside and blushing. He laughed, letting her arm go and flinging himself back on the bank. He lay back there laughing up at her, his grey felt riding jacket with the high collar and green trim caught up behind him, his slanted grey eyes watching her with an amused sparkle. He was as easy as if he were lounging on a sofa in the sitting-room. He was as beautiful as an Angel, long-legged and lean, the most desirable man at court.

She wondered about all the other people he had been with. She felt suddenly like one of them, just a one-day-one-night that he had come away with from the hunting party. That ought to have been exciting but it made her want to cry. She turned her head and sat apart from him, trying to remind herself that it was she who had said to Pava: "Will you go with the others?" and her cousin had said teasingly: "Sweet hunting, sweet cousin," and ridden off to let her go to this man.

"Anna," he said. His voice was soft and warm, hesitant.

As ever, she tactlessly blurted straight out what was in her mind: "Is this ... the kind of thing woulds't do? Leave an hunting party with someone?"

His face was confounded, he stared at her. He flushed up and his eyes narrowed. He looked insulted, angry and hurt, he sat up and drew his knees into his chest. "No," he said in a cold voice.

She had wrongly accused him. As usual she had broken up his good humour, the mellow mood in which she might have had the kisses of a man well experienced in sex, the kind of man Tashka had described as her first lover. She felt her heart constrict in a clutch of sorrow. He had been in a caressing laughing mood, perhaps offering a sexy favour out here in the soft autumn woodland and in her clumsy fear about having to take her own husband's favour, she had lost the chance of the kiss that was all she wanted. She did not want a sexy favour that was as casual as had been those he had slung to people he had not cared a copper coin's curse for but it made her sad to think that she might not get a kiss.

Was it an unreasonable question? If he had not come away from a hunting party to take a favour, he had certainly left other events to do so. She looked sidelong through her lashes and the eye-veil of her hat at her tall lean husband with his lovely long limbs and his beautiful slanted eyes, sitting hunched up with his arms hugging his booted knees to his chest.

He started to kick out his long legs and stand up, saying, "let us go back, my dear, the children will like to see us return early," in a reserved voice. There it was, she had lost it, the chance of his kiss. But looking up into his face, she realised that it was not her he was angry with. He had turned those slanted grey eyes onto her with an expression which she had not expected of him. A patient warmth made his grey eyes soft although his mouth remained in a thin line.

She lifted her head to look up at the yellow leaves dancing in a breeze above her head. "My ... my dear," she said. His eyes widened to hear those soft Iarvian tones, the voice so like Pava's which had never yet been affectionate towards him as Pava's silly loving voice had always been - until he had been obliged to take the hand of Pava's own beloved cousin sitting here on the bank of dried leaves with her back as straight as she was wont to sit on the sofa in the sitting-room. "T-talk to me. Tell me ... why ar't content to support my politics when thinkest they will bring trouble on us. Ar't an officer-aristocrat. I did not expect you to ... to have the intelligence to understand what Hanya and I are trying to do." She gave him a shy sideways deprecating smile in apology.

Clair sat down again on the bank of dried leaves with a rustle. He rested his elbows on his knees and turned his head of elegantly cut curls to look at her through clear grey eyes. "Oh well," he said. "I suppose I believe in what you want to do." His thin mouth curved in a smile but she saw that his eyes were suddenly full of tears. "I have suffered, you know," he said softly. "I should like us to live in a way that my people can enjoy a good life and I might not have to fear going back to war."

She cast her eyes down into the leaves, her long fingers shuffled among the curled brown leaves. "I heard," she said softly. "Wents't to court, bloody from the field of battle, carrying the weaponry of men who had died at Shier Bridge. I heard how woulds't not wait when they tried to make you an appointment - an appointment for such a matter! Wents't in to the King's meeting, pusheds't past the guards, brokes't through the doors. Threws't the weaponry on the floor - Sietter and H'las mixed together - and wents't on your knees to beg van Sietter, van H'las and the King for peace. I was so proud to be your Lady wife when I heard about that day. I was so sad because I knew what it meant to you and that for you peace was nothing, it was empty without Hanya Vashin, who should have been your husband."

He stared at the back of her head, the dark blue flat hard hat perched on her rich flaxen hair. He could not remember it properly, that insane journey. He had screamed at the guards on the door so wildly that they started back from him. He staggered with exhaustion and the heavy weight of weapons in his arms and fell against the doors so hard that he burst them open by accident. He stumbled into the council chamber, his eyes wild with shock and grief. He could not speak, he could not find words. He threw the weaponry he carried in a crash on the floor, collapsed exhausted to his knees and burst into tears of frustration because he could not talk. After all his efforts he could not articulate what he had struggled here to say. It was van H'las who shouted out: "Give the boy peace, el Maien!" and suddenly there was a great call of voices saying:

Peace, Peace,

but there was no peace for him only grief-stricken rage and madness because that rat Hanya had deserted him, had gone long years ahead of him into death.

He swallowed and said in a cool even voice, keeping his grief back so that he could get to the truth of her feelings: "You are not jealous of that love I had ... have for Hanya?"

"No of course not," she said, lifting her head to look directly into his grey eyes, watching the stormclouds of tears gather there and recede. "Since was't loyal to Hanya, since gaves't him such devoted passion in return for his love, I hope mights't one day ... not love me as dids't Hanya. I do not hope for that of course. I only wish for loyalty."

"Loyalty?" he asked, with a light puzzled frown. "You do not want my love, you want my loyalty? They are the same."

She hesitated. Her tongue ran over her warm wide red mouth, he watched it with a flick of desire but she did not seem to want to rouse desire in him. "Not to ... to give your favours so lightly," she said. She blushed and turned her face away.

"Not to lie in the bed of every man and woman I trip over in the corridor," he suggested. The blush deepened in her cheek. "Mm," he said reflectively. "You can accept Hanya was, and remains, part of my life because that was a true love. It was before your time with me, it shows I am capable to be in a true love affair and Hanya ... Hanya is dead and go-one," his voice wavered but he bit his lip and kept the tears back. He felt them run down inside his nose and swallowed. "It is the one-day-one-nights. You cannot forgive me that I was casual with my favours. How can you trust me if I offer you a kiss since my kisses have been meaninglessly bestowed on anyone who fell in my bed."

She looked down at the leaves beside her, rumpling them in her fingers.

"I have never left an hunting party for anyone before," he said. "I like hunting too much. What does it matter to you if I pick up some light piece of trimming? It is not a two-three hours passing pleasure I seek with you. You are so fine a woman: your magnificent beauty, your elegant style, your understanding of art, your morality, your intelligence in mathematics. You can have any heart you put out your hand for, do you not know that?"

"Oh no," she answered. "I am not even sure of it now, that wills't not turn and say:

This is too much, I dislike it that works't with merchants and spends't your time making sums instead of sewing.

When I was young, no one wished to be my sweetheart. Who would want to chat of equations or morality in political economics? I was lucky that Pava did not mind all that, he just liked me and wanted to dance, to have a little kiss. Sometimes I think back and wonder whatever did he make of the letters I wrote him, that would be full of my thinking on what the high nobility should do about the poor people or I would send him some book of simple equations I thought might lure him to share my interest."

Clair smiled. "I can tell it you," he answered. "I have seen him in the Lieutenants' tent, secretly take some parcel with a book in it out from where he hid it in his bedding roll and kiss it. He never did read the books! but he dearly loved to have a letter from you. Never mind all those fools who gave your fine mind the go-by when you were a little girl, my dear. Am I them? You know that although I am not a scientific or mathematical mind I value science as well as the arts, you know it from how I have supported scientists. I am well willing to support your mathematical work, if that is what you wish. Can you not understand that I appreciate your mind?"