Chapter Seven #3
It wasn’t an old story, but given that Athdara was involved, it was a serious one to him.
A dukedom stolen, a dead family… it was not an uncommon tragedy.
Tay understood politics and battles, and the reasons behind them, but the truth was that he was somewhat removed from all of that in the wilds of Exmoor.
He didn’t fight battles anymore, but he trained men to fight him. Warfare was no longer his world.
But it was Athdara’s.
“Where is your younger brother?” he asked.
Athdara lifted her eyebrows, resigned. “He is living with a farmer’s family outside of London,” she said.
“When I first came to England, it was on a cog that moored on the shores of the Thames. I went to St. Bartholomew, near Aldergate, and asked for help in hiding my brother. I told you that my uncle had bounty hunters following us, so it was essential to protect Niko. The priests arranged to place him with a farmer named Fann, who has many children, and I send them money when I can. Niko is living his life as a farmer’s son, growing up surrounded by siblings and hard work, and that is the way it should be.
Should my Uncle Attila catch wind of his survival, however, he would be in great danger. ”
“That is the man who sacked your home and killed your father?”
“Aye,” she said. “Atilla de Ghent.”
Tay nodded as the situation, and the players, became clear. “I understand,” he said. “But it does not explain why you are at Blackchurch. Why have you come to train as an elite warrior?”
“Revenge,” she said, fixing him in the eye. “I want to learn to fight properly. I want to learn how to command properly. I want to learn how to raise an army so I can regain what my uncle has stolen. Niko deserves his legacy, and my father and brother must be avenged.”
“And you intend to do it all?”
“I do. God help me, I do.”
Had he heard this from anyone else, he would have dismissed it as pure fantasy.
But looking into Athdara’s face, he believed every word.
Now, he completely understood why she’d come to Blackchurch.
He understood her motivation and her intentions, because he would have felt the same way if it was his family.
But given how she’d run from hurting him, she wasn’t going to get very far unless she was able to suppress her emotions.
Coming to know her as he was, he hated to see that.
In fact, he hated to hear about her motivation in general.
Her determination was admirable, but he wondered if she really understood what this kind of venture meant.
It meant blood and pain and sweat and death.
He couldn’t imagine this fine, elegant creature heading down that path, but she seemed determined.
He knew he couldn’t stop her. If he chased her away, she’d only find somewhere else to train with men perhaps not so scrupulous.
Nay, he didn’t want her away from him at all. If she was going to do this, then he was going to help her.
“Then let me train you,” he said quietly. “Come back with me and let me train you. If you truly have vengeance on your mind, you must learn to be more calculating and less emotional. Let me and my friends train you.”
“Friends?”
“My fellow trainers at Blackchurch.”
She was hesitant but clearly intrigued. “You will not try to fail me?”
“Of course I will,” he said. “Athdara, life does not come with any guarantees. You must learn to handle failure as well as success, or you have no business being at Blackchurch or leading an army or anything else. I will not try to discourage you from what you feel you must do, because that is yours and yours alone, but if you are going to do it, you must learn how to do it. Do you understand me?”
Athdara nodded. “I do.”
“That means no more running away.”
“I will not, I swear it.”
“You’d better,” he said, eyeing her. “I will not waste my valuable time to train you if you are only going to quit.”
“The only way I will quit is if I am dead.”
He stared at her a moment. Then he broke out in a big grin. “That is something a knight would say.”
“I do not want to be a knight. I simply want to learn to fight like one.”
“Do you mind if we eat before we begin?”
He was trying to lighten the mood, which had become heady.
She smiled weakly, and he laughed softly at her, watching her grin with embarrassment.
He stood up and went to the door, bellowing for the food he’d requested earlier, and was rewarded when the old man with the hook nose appeared followed by two serving wenches.
They were all carrying trays loaded with food and drink, running toward him as if their lives depended on it.
Tay stood back and enjoyed the show. They couldn’t get the trays on the table fast enough.
The old man grabbed the chickens he’d left for Athdara, hauling away the carcasses, as the serving women made sure the food was suitably presented.
No one wanted trouble. They put out stew in a small iron cauldron, bread and butter, stewed vegetables, stewed fruit, and two pitchers of watered wine.
The old man rushed the servants out of the chamber, leaving Athdara wide-eyed at all of the food.
Tay sat down and began pouring the wine. “Now,” he said as he filled her cup, “we will eat, go to bed, and then return to Blackchurch at dawn. Since you will be training away from the bulk of the recruits, I will see about putting you in the village.”
Athdara began spooning the stew into one of the wooden bowls they’d brought. It was thick, with barley and carrots and chicken meat.
“The village is where the trainers live,” she said. “We’ve been told to stay away from it.”
He nodded as he began to fill his own bowl. “The recruits are limited to the cloisters and their designated training fields,” he said. “There is a hierarchy at Blackchurch, which I’m sure you have noticed.”
She nodded as she shoveled the chicken stew into her mouth.
“The men who handle the dregs speak of the trainers as if you are all gods,” she said.
“We are not really told much about you, so to your point of my not recognizing you when I saw you at The Black Cock, there is no way I could have. I had never heard of the Leviathan until this morning.”
He was already halfway finished with his stew. “You will meet others,” he said, mouth full. “Men who will help you learn what you need to learn, but I must ask… after we train you, what then?”
She looked up from her food. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what is your plan?”
“I told you. To regain my father’s duchy.”
“But how? How are you going to do it?”
She blinked, unsure of her answer at first because she understood what he meant. “I am hoping you will teach me how,” she said. “I am hoping to learn how to create a strategy. I am hoping to learn how to raise an army.”
Tay looked at her for a moment. The more she spoke, the more he realized how completely na?ve she was about something like this.
Her heart was in the right place, and she clearly wanted to do something to regain her brother’s duchy, but raising an army was his first clue that her expectations versus the reality of the situation were far from each other.
She simply didn’t have the experience or know-how to realize the scope of what she was undertaking.
“An army takes money,” he said. “Do you have any?”
“Nay.”
“Then how do you plan to raise an army?”
“With the promise of money if they help me.”
“But where are you going to get the money?”
“When we depose my uncle, I will get the money from Toxandria’s treasury,” she said as if that would be no great feat. “Toxandria is very rich. I will promise to pay the men once we take back Breda Castle.”
He tore off a piece of bread and began to mop up his stew. “And if you do not?”
“But we must. How else am I to pay them?”
He could see that she didn’t understand.
“Are you listening to yourself?” he said in an effort to force her to focus.
“Gaining back Breda Castle is not promised, my lady. If you raise an army and swear that you will pay them upon capturing the castle, and then you fail in your objective, they are going to want to be paid, because men you raise for your army, men that expect payment, are mercenaries. They are only in it for the money and not because they have sworn fealty to you. Not because they love you. Do you understand that?”
Athdara nodded. “I do.”
“Are you certain? Because I am not entirely sure you do.”
She had been buttering her bread, but her movements slowed. “I understand that they will want money,” she said. “If they fight hard enough, they shall have it.”
He sighed sharply. “Athdara, you are not understanding the situation for what it is,” he said with strained patience.
“I can train you to endure a physical battle. Other trainers can teach you how to fight in different ways, upon land or sea, with or without weapons. Still others can teach you about military tactics and how to command an army. But you must understand that what you wish to attempt is one of the most dangerous things an army can do, with no guarantee you will complete your objective, and the men you wish to hire are the brutal sort. If you do not pay them, they will kill you.”
She was listening intently. “Then what would you suggest?”
He shrugged. “We can discuss that when we return to Blackchurch,” he said. “But I want you to think about what it is you are planning to do and all of the implications. It will not be a simple thing.”
Athdara lowered her gaze, returning to her buttered bread, but it was clear that she was pondering his words.
Tay returned to his meal also, but he was watching her.
He knew that his truth had been a little too frank, but that couldn’t be helped.
She had to know what she was getting herself into, and it had to start now.
“I wish you could have known my father,” she finally said softly. “He was a good man, a fair man. He loved his family. He would be devastated to know what his brother did, how Niko and I are the only survivors. He would be so worried for us.”
Tay bit into his bread before replying. “He raised a very strong daughter,” he said, chewing. “Did you have any training before the fall of your father’s duchy?”
“A little,” she said. “All children of the dukes of Toxandria are trained in the use of swords and other weapons, but the males more than the females.”
“When you were not training, what did you do with your time?”
She looked at him, a dull gleam in her eye. “You will laugh at me.”
“I swear that I will not.”
“I danced,” she said. “I was instructed in dance from a very early age. I find great peace and freedom in dance. When my father had great feasts, I would instruct the diners on how to do certain dances. I even created my own dances that would be the talk of the town. Everyone in my father’s dukedom would summon me for their great feasts, to teach dancing. I was very good at it.”
He stopped chewing and stared at her. Then a smile creased his lips. “I should have known,” he said. “As beautiful and elegant as you are, there is a grace to you that is not often found in a woman. And you are very strong. I found that out the hard way.”
He waggled his eyebrows comically, and Athdara grinned, her cheeks flushing. “I would dance for many hours each day,” she said. “It is good training. It makes your muscles strong.”
“But you said that you were also trained with weapons,” he said. “Those will make you strong as well.”
She nodded. “That is why I know I can do well at Blackchurch,” she said. “If you teach me, I can learn.”
His eyes glimmered with warmth. “Of that, I have no doubt,” he said. “But we will not teach you only warfare. Most of the battle is fought in the mind. That is something you must learn more than anything else.”
“I will, I swear it.”
He nodded, not referring back to the earlier part of their conversation where she seemed oblivious to the true danger of what she wanted to accomplish.
There was no use bringing that up again until she entered into her training.
Whether or not she was able to learn the mental as well as the physical aspects would be decided then.
But the discussion wasn’t over, not in the least.
They ate the rest of their meal in relative silence, and by the time they were finished, they were so exhausted and full of food that a soft bed was the next logical step.
The old man with the hook nose was sent for, and he showed them to the only rooms he had, connecting chambers, both of them with three beds each.
Athdara took the smaller room, shutting the door before Tay could say a word, which left him with the larger chamber.
Too tired to dwell on their conversation, or even the situation he was getting himself into when it came to training her, he threw himself down on the nearest bed and immediately passed into a deep, dreamless slumber.
It had been a long day…
For them both.