Chapter Nine
She was used to exhaustion.
Athdara had run a full lap around Lake Cocytus as the sun rose, a distance of a few miles at least. It was an enormous lake. But considering how much she’d run since leaving Toxandria, it wasn’t all that difficult.
At least bounty hunters weren’t chasing her this time.
But the trainers were.
She hadn’t seen Tay since returning to Blackchurch.
Even in this morning’s training session, there were four men who served him doing the training, but no Tay.
His men were in various places around the lake, making sure the recruits were running as they were supposed to.
The rule at Blackchurch was that if a man was ever carried away, unable to continue, he was finished, and that included a run around the lake.
Any recruits who had twisted their ankles in holes in the fields, or injured a knee or a hip, were limping along as they ran. No one wanted to be carried off.
That, in particular, included Athdara.
She was long-legged, and running had always come easily to her, so she was one of the recruits in the lead as they made their way around the lake.
The second lap was about the same time as the first, as she didn’t slow down, but nearing the end of the lap, she put her foot in a rabbit hole.
She stumbled but didn’t break a leg, thankfully, and was able to pick up and keep going with only a little pain in her foot.
The third lap went a little slower because her foot was starting to swell.
She could feel it in her shoe. The Leviathan’s associates were spread out along the path, so one was always there to yell at her to get her going, which she did.
Through the trees and over small hills the path went, the lake always on her right-hand side.
It was a beautiful lake, truthfully, but she didn’t pause to look at it. Today was a running day, so she ran.
And ran and ran.
It was after the nooning hour, and after her fourth lap, she neared the recruit field to see Tay standing near the end of it, where the path went around the lake.
He was with a shorter man clad in robes.
She was exhausted and in some pain with her swelling foot, but she didn’t slow down as she approached them.
In fact, she picked up speed. She nearly sprinted past them, but Tay called out to her as she blew by.
“My lady,” he shouted. “Athdara, stop!”
She did, grinding to an unsteady halt. Her face was red with exertion, sweat covering her body, and her breathing was coming in heavy pants as she made her way back to Tay and the man in the earth-colored robes.
She coughed a couple of times, trying to clear her lungs and catch her breath, her attention on Tay until she got a good look at the man beside him.
He wasn’t like any man she’d ever seen before, and her curious focus switched to him until Tay started talking.
“How early did you leave The Rook’s Nest?” he asked.
She tore her gaze away from the other man and looked at him. “Well before dawn,” she said. “I wanted to come back here on my own.”
“But why?”
She lifted a well-shaped brow. “Because I did not want it to appear as if you were dragging me back,” she said. “I said I would return, and I did. Under my own power and without a guard.”
The woman had pride. Tay fought off a smirk. “I should have known,” he said. “My apologies for humiliating you with the suggestion of an escort.”
Athdara could see that he was being humorous, and her eyes glimmered with mirth. “You are forgiven,” she said. “But much as you did not wish for Lord Exmoor to think that you chased me away, I did not want anyone to think you chased me back. I came back of my own will.”
“I know.”
“Did you tell him so?”
“He knows, but he’ll still want to hear it from you.”
She nodded firmly. “He will, but not now,” she said. “If you do not mind, I must continue running. We are running all day, evidently.”
Tay shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “You are coming with me.”
She looked at him curiously. “But why?”
He reached out and grasped her by the elbow, pulling her along. “Just come,” he said. “I have something else in mind for you.”
Athdara wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, so her movements were hesitant. She wasn’t going eagerly.
“But you said that I could continue to train,” she said.
“And you shall.”
“But where are we going?”
“To meet the other trainers.”
She wasn’t sure what he was talking about. Last night, he’d spoken of having him and his trainer friends educate her, and she thought that meant returning to her recruit group, but evidently, he had something different in mind.
With that thought, she followed.
“I did intend to ask permission to speak with Lord Exmoor today,” she said. “I wanted to make sure he knew you did not chase me away.”
Tay shook his head. “That would be appreciated,” he said. “However, I saw him this morning, and we discussed the situation. We had a long discussion about you and your objectives.”
She looked at him. “About me?” she said. “What was said?”
Tay caught a glimpse of Ming Tang on the lady’s opposite side and gestured toward the man.
“At the risk of being rude, let me first introduce you to one of the trainers here at Blackchurch,” he said.
“He also happens to be one of my closest friends. Lady Athdara de Ghent, daughter of the Duke of Toxandria, this is Ming Tang.”
Athdara turned to the short but powerful man with the dark eyes. “It is an honor, my lord,” she said. “Your name is most unusual.”
Ming Tang smiled faintly at the tall, beautiful woman. “I am most unusual,” he said. “At least, in England I am, but not where I am from.”
“Where is that?”
He gestured in an eastward direction. “A land very far away,” he said. “A beautiful and gracious land that speaks to its people and nurtures the chosen.”
Athdara was listening with increasing fascination. “Are you one of the chosen?”
He grinned at her. “If Buddha wishes.”
“Who is Buddha?”
“That is something to learn at another time,” Tay answered for him.
“Ming Tang teaches an ancient form of hand-to-hand combat and can outfight any knight I have ever seen. He can kill a man with great ease or command a battle with equal skill. I’ve never seen finer.
But he is also a great healer with techniques he has brought from his home. He’s a man of many talents.”
Athdara nodded. “Then, like me, you are not from England,” she said to Ming Tang. “Have you been here long?”
“Long enough.”
“Do you like it here?” she said. “Or do you miss your home?”
The man nodded. “I am content here, but I do miss my familiar lands at times,” he said. “It is normal to long for one’s place of birth, as I’m sure you do.”
“I do, very much.”
Ming Tang smiled faintly. “I have traveled the world and gathered much knowledge to take back with me,” he said. “My longing will not last forever. I shall return, someday, and teach what I have learned.”
The glimmer in Athdara’s eyes faded. “I shall return someday, also, but not to teach what I have learned,” she said. “I return to render a lesson.”
“So I have heard.”
Athdara looked at him, perhaps a bit uncomfortable that he had been told her objectives, only to see understanding and approval in those dark depths. Tay had rather painted the man to be some kind of physic-warrior, but she saw more than that in him.
Ming Tang was an interesting soul, indeed.
She was so wrapped up in her impressions of Ming Tang that she failed to realize they were heading into the trainer village.
It looked like any other village, with cottages and a well in the central town square, except for the fact that it was filled with everyone who served a purpose at Blackchurch.
Athdara had never been this far inside the forbidden village, and she looked around with interest.
“No dogs, no children,” she muttered. “I feel as if I am looking at something dead.”
Tay glanced at her. “What are you looking at?”
She gestured to the village. “This,” she said. “It was once a thriving town, wasn’t it?”
Tay nodded. “Long ago, before the Lords of Exmoor claimed it.”
“That’s what I mean by dead,” she said. “There are ghosts here. Ghosts of families, of a vibrant life. It seems like a rather sad place.”
“I have often thought that,” Ming Tang said. “This should be a village of merchants and peasants, all of them going about their lives, but instead it is a village of those who serve Lord Exmoor. It is… quiet.”
Athdara looked at Tay. “And all of you live here?”
He nodded. “All of the trainers and those who serve them,” he said. “I have six men who serve me personally, men you have seen training the recruits. Each trainer has anywhere from two to ten men serving him. They all live here.”
Athdara turned to Ming Tang. “Do you have men who serve you?”
He shrugged. “I have two young men whom I have trained to assist in my teachings,” he said. “I have taught them the Shaolin way.”
“What is Shaolin?”
“It is where I was educated. It is my belief.”
“A way to fight?”
Ming Tang nodded. “And more,” he said. “It is a way of life, a way of being.”
“Are the men who serve you from your country?”
He grinned. “Cut them and they bleed green, like the impossibly green fields of Devon,” he said. “They are Norman.”
“Yet you have taught them something different from what they have always known?”
“They are young, but that does not mean they are foolish,” Ming Tang said. “They want to know more than what the wai teaches them.”
She cocked her head. “What does wai mean?”
He waved a hand. “It means far away,” he said. “People who are far away from my own people and do not think like those who live where I was born. You are wai.”
Athdara chuckled. “See? I am learning something already.”