Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Thom Lanath was beside his horse when she reached him, the dust on his riding coat and the state of his horse suggested he hadn’t stopped on the way.
She looked at him fondly. Thom was a man everyone liked.
He stood just over six feet, with an athletic build of someone who worked his own land alongside his labourers rather than directing them from a distance.
His hair was the colour of ripened wheat, worn a little long, and the sun had bleached it further at the temples, where it curled slightly from the heat of the ride.
His face was open, with a strong jaw, a straight nose, and a generous mouth.
He had the kind of looks that improved with age, and he wore them with the unconscious ease of a man who had never particularly thought about them.
When he smiled, which he did readily, it reached his eyes without effort.
In his mid-thirties, he’d known Verna since childhood, and they had remained good friends over the years.
He handed the reins to the girl who appeared from the stables, and looked Verna over with amusement. "Verna. You've been in the vat."
"The first pressing," she said. "You should have sent word you were coming. I'd have waited for you."
"I only decided last night to come over." He kissed her cheek and she took his arm as they walked together under the portico. He accepted a cup of wine from the woman who came with a tray, drank half of it with the thirst of a man who had been riding for hours, and then looked at her.
"I've had word from Castine," he said.
"Oh?"
"The format for the Trials has been confirmed. Individual combat, mounted endurance, and a surprise event that will be announced on the last day."
She frowned. "He’s not going to tell us beforehand?"
"Apparently not."
"The bastard," Verna growled. "He’s tipping the scales in his favour."
Thom watched her face. "Borgine's second son, Olag, is competing for the palace house."
"Huh?" Verna huffed out. "I’m not surprised. He’s a brute of a man."
"And very good. They say he's been training hard this year with the best fighters in the empire." Thom set his cup down on the low wall and turned to face her squarely. "He’ll be a formidable opponent."
"I know," she said. "All we have to do Thom, is not come last."
"I’m worried about you, Verna. Each house is going to enter their best warrior and some of them are massive.
No woman could compete against them, not even your guards from Abrensia.
" Thom’s voice was careful, the voice he used when he wanted to say something she mightn’t like, but intended to say it regardless.
"I've also heard that if the palace house wins, the emperor intends to announce a marriage between Borgine's son and a woman of the losing house. " He paused. "Which could be you."
"It’s intended to be me," she said quietly. "He wants me to wed one of his sons. He’s been eyeing off my lands for a while now. I suspect his warmongering has depleted the imperial coffers."
Thom looked at her steadily. "Verna. Marry me."
She blinked. "I beg your pardon."
"You heard me," he replied. "We've known each other all our lives. We’re the best of friends and you know how I feel about you. We could marry in a private ceremony before the games."
Verna looked at him. He gazed back, patient and serious, this man she had known since they were children running through the same hills, who was one of her best friends. Who, she knew, loved her. With their two estates together, even the emperor couldn’t touch them.
She almost smiled at the hopeful look on his face. "Thom. You know how I feel about marriage."
"I'm not proposing to take your holdings, Verna. You'd keep the estate, the title, and everything as it is. I have my own lands to manage." He spread his hands. "We would do very well together."
Yes, we would, thought Verna, but not in the most important way that mattered.
She didn’t love him, not how it should be between a man and wife.
She hated to think she would eventually cringe at his touch.
But maybe… maybe it wouldn’t be like that.
She would grow to like it, or at least tolerate it.
There was more to a good marriage than passion, and it would certainly foil the emperor’s plan.
Then she heard them. The whispering trees. They were hissing, though there was no wind today. The ring on her finger warmed, but this time it wasn’t a pleasant feeling. It hurt.
"Thank you for the offer, Thom." Verna kept her voice even. "But I can’t."
He was quiet for a few seconds. "Why not?"
She reached out and took his hand. "I don’t love you. Not in that way."
"I'm asking you to at least consider it while there's still time to make the arrangement before the Trials." He looked at her earnestly. "I'm not Borgine's son, Verna. I'll treat you properly."
She knew that. That was the difficult part.
He was an honourable man making a good offer for the best reasons.
But she’d spent her entire adult life making sure she would never have to accept anyone's offer of marriage. However well meant, her position hadn’t changed, but she owed him some consideration. "Let me think about it."
"Thank you." He looked at her with hope in his eyes. "You’ll have to make up your mind soon. There’s not much time."
"I know," she said, then smiled at him. "Stay tonight."
"I was hoping you'd ask," said Thom.
Verna smiled. "Come. I’ll take you around."
They began the tour at the vineyards.
Thom walked beside her, his hands clasped behind his back, asking questions about the harvest yields and the new irrigation channels she'd had dug along the lower terraces.
"The early fruit was exceptional this year," she told him, gesturing to the rows. "The dry summer held off just long enough. We'll have the best pressing in a decade."
"Your grandmother would have approved," Thom said, smiling at her sideways.
"She would have been insufferable about it," Verna replied, and he laughed.
They descended to the press house, then the cellar, where Thom tasted three vintages with genuine appreciation. "They’re even better than mine," he said with a grin.
Then they climbed back toward the main terrace, following the path that curved along the cliff edge where the Meridian Sea spread below them.
Thom was midway through a story about a new worker on his estate when Verna noticed Kalen.
She was on the upper wall, standing at the parapet with her arms folded, watching them.
Not a lazy observation, but the focused, unblinking attention of a hawk.
Her dark hair was loose from its training tie and moved slightly in the sea breeze.
Her expression, even from a distance, was not warm.
Verna kept her eyes forward and said nothing.
As Thom continued with his story, she laughed in the right places, but was aware Kalen had moved along the parapet and was still watching.
They went through the olive grove where some of the younger women were learning to press oil, then to the small schoolroom where the eldest of her new arrivals was bent over a wax tablet with fierce concentration, the tip of her tongue between her teeth.
Thom looked in quietly and nodded his approval.
At the lower garden they stopped at a shrine to the old goddess in the wall niche, its bowl full of fresh marigolds. He stood before it a moment with the respectful silence of a man who had been well raised.
"You've built something remarkable here," he said. It wasn't the first time he’d said it, but today there was a heaviness behind it, and she knew he was thinking of his proposal.
"I love the land," she said. "And helping the girls. We’re a family here."
He gave her a look but didn’t comment.
They turned to walk back up toward the house along the terrace path.
When they passed the cypress trees, the amphitheatre came into view.
The training session had apparently just finished; three of the guards were walking up the lower steps, their sparring pads under their arms, stiffly moving like women who had been worked hard.
Behind them, a distance back, was Kalen.
She had stopped on the amphitheatre steps and was looking up the terrace slope directly at them. At Thom, specifically. She stood with her thumbs hooked in her weapons harness, her weight on one hip, and something about her stillness suggested she had been watching for some time.
Thom noticed. "Who’s she?"
"I bought her at the last auction," Verna said, without breaking stride.
Thom glanced back. "I heard you paid a fortune for a fiery one. What possessed you? She looks like she'd like to take my head off."
"She looks at everyone like that," Verna said off-handedly. "The slavers were beating her, so I got her out of there."
"By the Gods, Verna. You’re such a soft touch. One day, your generosity will come back to bite you."
She frowned at him. "You know I abhor slavery."
"I do too, but it’s a fact of life."
"Unfortunately, it is," she muttered. From the corner of her eye she saw Kalen's gaze shift, slowly and deliberately, from Thom to her. Even at this distance, Verna felt the weight of it.
She looked away and kept walking. "I'll show you to your room, and Dara will take you to my private bathing area."
At dinner that evening, Thom was at his best.
He had changed from his riding coat into a clean linen shirt and sat at Verna's right with the ease of an old friend. He had eaten at this table many times over the years, and tonight Verna had asked some of the older women to share the meal with them.
He didn’t make the mistake that some visitors made of treating the women around it as servants who happened to be dining above their station.
He spoke to Dara about the olive harvest with genuine curiosity, asked Patrice about the press house work with the interest of a man who actually wanted to know, and listened when she answered without the glaze that came over some men's eyes when women spoke at length about their trades.
The food was good: roasted lamb flavoured with herbs from the garden, flatbread still warm from the oven, fresh vegetables, and a soft cheese that one of the women had been learning to make.
Verna's best red wine sat open on the table, a vintage from four years ago that had developed a depth she was quietly proud of.
Thom poured for the women nearest him without being asked which was, Verna reflected, one of the small things she had always liked about him.
He was midway through a story about a flooded cellar that had gone badly wrong two summers ago, some combination of a blocked drain and a poorly secured barrel that had resulted in three feet of wine-dark water and a very expensive loss.
He told it with the self-deprecating detail of a man who had processed the humiliation sufficiently to find it funny.
Patrice had tears running down her face.
Even Dara, who did not laugh easily, was pressing her lips together with a visible effort.
Verna laughed with them.
This was the ease of old friendship, she thought, watching him gesticulate over the ruined vintage.
The comfort of a person who knew you well enough to be unguarded, who asked nothing of you in the moment beyond your company.
It was not nothing. It was, if she was truthful, something she didn't have enough of.
She refilled his cup and he thanked her, then moved on to asking about the Trials, carefully, as if testing the ground.
"Have you settled on your strategy?" he asked.
"I have some ideas," she said, though didn’t elaborate.
He accepted this without pushing. "Hardy’s house is entering that enormous man of his. You know the one who broke three ribs of the last man he sparred with in a practice bout."
"I expected he would," Verna said.
"And the Velmart family are apparently entering their youngest son, which surprised everyone, but apparently the boy is remarkable with a blade." He turned his cup slowly. "It'll be a strong field."
"It will," she agreed.
He looked at her steadily across the rim of his cup. She could see him deciding whether to say more, then deciding against it. Instead, he turned to Dara and asked about the whispering trees, whether they were difficult to maintain, whether they grew anywhere else along the coast.
Dara, who loved those trees as much as Verna did, brightened immediately and launched into their history. He listened to every word.
The candles burned lower. The food was cleared away and a dish of dried figs and honeyed almonds was brought out. Someone poured the last of the wine. The conversation softened and slowed in the way it did when an evening was winding down.
Verna looked around the table. Patrice was finishing a quiet conversation with the woman beside her. Dara was relaxed in her chair in a way she rarely allowed herself. Two of the younger household women had their heads together over something that was making them stifle smiles.
Verna reached for a plate. "More spiced figs?" she asked.
Thom set down his cup and stretched. "Not for me, thanks. It’s been a long ride and I’m tired."
He got up and kissed her cheek, thanked everyone and vanished out the door.
Verna remained at the table a while longer with the last of her wine, while around her the women cleared the table before they left the room.
The night had turned cool and through the open shutters she could hear the sea and the faint stirring of the whispering trees.
With a sigh, she went to her room, knowing she wouldn’t sleep well.
Thom would expect an answer to his proposal before he left tomorrow.