We rode slowly, to spare my injured leg. I had tried sitting on the little cart, but the bumping and shaking were just too much for me. Ahli's maid was the only one in it, now. Indrek's daughter preferred to ride.
Aare led our little escort of six men. Everyone else had gone in different directions. Borna was off, into Adarion, in pursuit of Leho's brother, Dagnis.
After burying the dead, Hravar took our wounded, and the prisoners - there were 150 of them - north. He would go back to our steading, and even into the forest, if necessary.
That would depend on Indrek, the Ban of Yelsa. He had enough men to defeat Hravar, or even Borna, if he moved quickly and decisively. Borna didn't believe that he would. The return of his daughter, unharmed, might persuade him to accept a truce, or even a peace.
- "I'd never seen a battle before." said Ahli. She insisted on riding beside me, and talking my ear off.
- "Hmm." I grunted. I was trying to rehearse what I was going to say to her father, if I got the chance to speak with him.
- "I hope I never see another."
- "That makes two of us." I replied.
- "Does your leg hurt?" she asked.
One look from me was enough to make her realize what a silly question that was.
"I'm sorry." she said, with the earnestness of a 15 year-old. "It's just that I'm ... curious. Nobody that I know could tell about me about a real battle. I don't think my father's ever been in one, either."
- "That's not necessarily a bad thing." I said.
- "No, I know that. I don't mean ... it's just that, if you're right, and the Izumyrians do invade ... shouldn't I know more about what's involved in a war? How it works, the cost ... I just wanted to ask you some questions."
I would have to be careful. I didn't want to give away too much information. But neither did I wish to insult Ahli, or offend her. 'She's important', Borna had said - more than once.
On top of that, I quite liked her.
- "What did you want to know?" I asked, with as much good grace as I could muster.
- "Well ... did the battle go as you expected?"
- "I certainly didn't expect to end up on my backside, with a hole in my leg." I said.
- "No, I meant, did it go according to plan?"
- "I know what you meant. Most battles don't. You have to be prepared for the unexpected. But in this particular case, Borna had a very good idea that Leho would ... pretty much do just about what he did."
- "Borna predicted it?" asked Ahli.
- "Partly. Bona knew that Leho would come seeking a battle. Then he offered him one that seemed to present several advantages for the Ban. Leho saw our numbers, and the edge of our line, just begging to be outflanked. He took the bait."
- "What if he hadn't?"
"Then we would have slipped away, off the back side of the ridge, and made for home. We were worried that your father might arrive, with many more warriors than we could have handled."
- "But you knew that he wouldn't? Or Borna predicted it?"
- "We guessed. Or hoped." I admitted.
- "But you had a contingency plan."
- "Always."
Ahli thought about that for a while.
- "Back up a bit - you said that Borna
knew
that Leho wanted a battle. How did he know?"
- "By putting himself in Leho's place - trying to see things as he would. Last year, Leho seemed to have all of the advantages: he had the numbers, the title, and the wealth. No reasonable man would dare to oppose him."
- "But Borna isn't a reasonable man." said Ahli, with a little smirk. She was guessing. She was also young, and impressionable.
- "We stung Leho several times. We overwhelmed his outposts, and captured men and horses. He had to answer it, somehow. That's why he wanted - why he
needed
a battle."
"See, Borna had no steading, no fort. There was nothing for Leho to capture. It had to be a battle. But Borna wouldn't give him one. We were safe in the forest. When Leho and your father tried to come into the woods after us, they got their fingers burned."
- "That still sounds like a lucky guess." she said.
- "You met Leho, didn't you?" I asked her.
- "Once. When we were betrothed."
- "What was your impression of the man?"
Ahli frowned. "At first, I thought he was handsome. And dashing. But we didn't talk much. He sat next to my father. I found him ... condescending, I suppose." She frowned again. "It feels wrong to be speaking ill of the dead."
- "Not if it's true." I said. Poor Ahli probably thought her romantic prince had come, and then she was disappointed that he wasn't interested in her at all - except as the means to an end. But I didn't have to bring that up.
"Did you find Leho ... patient?" I asked.
- "Patient? No, I don't think so. I don't think Leho had to wait for many things in his life."
- "Used to getting what he wanted?"
- "You're suggesting that he was impatient. Even rash. I see now." she said.
- "Proud. Unaccustomed to failure. Perhaps even a little vain. That's why Borna knew that his failure to come to grips with us would rankle. He burned our lands on his way home - but if he was claiming to be Ban of Yeseriya, then weren't they
his
lands? It was just spite."
- "He was angry, then. He must have been livid after you stole his salt!"
- "You heard about that?"
- "Everyone did." Ahli looked thoughtful again. "So you plan according to the character of your enemy? Is that it?"
- "Among other things." I agreed.
- "Such as?"
Her curiosity was insatiable. So I answered her questions as best I could, without giving away too many secrets. There
weren't
that many, really; it was all Borna. His daring, his eye for terrain, his luck. These things couldn't be duplicated, or copied by another person.
- "How would you judge my father?" she asked. "If you had to face him?"
- "I hope we don't have to, Lady. For everybody's sake."
- "I understand. But how do you judge his character?" she persisted.
- "I don't know. I've never met him."
- "You never met Leho, either." she pointed out.
She was a little too smart, too perceptive. I stubbornly refused to be drawn into a discussion of her father. For a time, the only sound was the clump of our horse's hooves, and the jingling of harnesses. Ahli changed the subject.
- "Did you .. did you lose any close friends? At the battle?"
Dirayr.
'
He fought like a maniac.' said Mutimir. 'I thought he'd lost his mind. He just attacked. No defence. Like he didn't care. I saw that he was in danger ... just couldn't get there in time.'
Durra.
She had never fully recovered from the first wound. But she saw another woman in trouble, and went to her aid.
- "Yes." I said.
- "I'm sorry." said Ahli. "I shouldn't have asked that."
She changed the subject again. Ahli asked me a hundred questions about Borna. What kind of man he was, his family, our childhood. She steered me from one story to the next.
Until Aare rode over to join us.
- "They're here." he said.
***
Indrek of Yelsa did not cut a very impressive figure. He had a narrow face, a thin-lipped mouth that turned down at the corners, and a pair of overlarge ears. His grey hair was thinning, and his mustache only accentuated the curve of his mouth. He did have an impressive nose, but the wrinkles around his pale, grey-blue eyes made him seem old and anxious, all at once. He was a little old man before his time.
- "Father, this is Ljudevit." said Ahli. "He is Borna's Hand." The little imp was making herself the go-between.
- "Are you alright?" her father asked.
- "I'm fine. Nobody hurt me. Ljudevit has been very kind."
Indrek tried to give me an intimidating glare - he wasn't very good at it. I felt sorry for him, actually. He was a weak man, yoked into an alliance he hadn't sought, dragged along by the current of events - and apparently unable to change their course.
- "I'm not here as your daughter's jailer, Lord Indrek. We took her from her mother only to keep her away from Leho."
Weak, perhaps, but not a fool. Indrek continued to glare at me, but said nothing.
"I've come as Borna's envoy. To speak with you on his behalf." I said.
- "What would Borna say to me?" he asked.
- "First, that he regrets the necessity that drove him to take your daughter. But that he is glad he did, because we have learned to respect her. And she's learned a great deal about us. Ahli will have much to tell you, Lord - which is all to the good. The more we understand each other, the less likely we are to do something foolish."
- "What do you mean?" asked Indrek. "What would be 'foolish'?"
I took a deep breath. "Borna believes that continuing the war against you would serve no purpose. That there is no need for animosity between Yelsa and Yeseriya."
- "Does he, now?" said Indrek. That wasn't a challenge. He seemed to be mulling over what I had said, or considering his options.
- "What would it take, Lord Indrek, for peace between you and Borna?"
There it was. I'd thrown it out there, as Borna had asked me to.
- "I wish to speak to my daughter." said the Ban.
I nodded. I could hardly refuse. Indrek had come with almost 200 warriors. I had Aare, and six men. There was no way that I could harm Ahli. We were at his mercy, now. So I watched as father and daughter conferred.
Ahli came back to me.
- "He's angry, Ljudevit." she said.
- "That's understandable." I said.
- "Is it? I told him plainly that it's his own fault. He didn't have to join Leho in an attack on Borna. He said that it was for me. For my future."
Ahli shrugged, and smiled. "But that's not important. My father will accept a truce. Six weeks. Will that be long enough?"
- "Lady?" I was surprised. The meeting between a Ban and another Ban's Hand was being stolen by a little slip of a girl. Ahli had taken control, and was dictating terms.
- "That should give Borna enough time, don't you think?" said Ahli. She grinned at me.
- "What is it you seek, Lady?' I asked her.
- "Why - the same as you, Ljudevit. Peace. And then we can plan for the Izumyrian invasion, if it's really coming. Because if it is, we should really be on the same side. Don't you think?"
***
We held the election for Ban of Yeseriya at Manahir's steading six weeks later. Indrek attended the election, with his wife and daughter.
- "I am perfectly neutral." he said. My friends and I discussed what that meant.
- "Horseshit." said Nanaidh. "It's a show of support. But it's welcome."
We had a small meeting beforehand: Hravar, Nanaidh, and me, with Borna - at
our
