Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Thom reined in his horse beside her with a wide smile. His riding coat was dusty and he had the look of a man who had been out since early morning.
"This is a wonderful surprise," he said. "You should have sent word you were coming."
"Spur of the moment decision," she said. "I came to talk."
Something in her tone registered that he mightn’t like what she had to say, but he didn't press her immediately. He was a perceptive man and had the good sense to know when not to push. It was one of the things she had always liked about him, and one that was going to make today harder.
"Well, we can talk about it over lunch." He turned his horse toward the house. "Come on. I was just finishing up the ridge inspection. Before we eat, I'll show you what we've done with the southern slope since you were last here."
They rode up through the upper vineyard together, and her guards peeled away to the stable yard.
The vines on either side of the track were heavy with fruit, the workers walking down the rows, harvesting the bunches of grapes into cane baskets.
Thom talked about the yield, and a problem with drainage on the lower southern terrace that he'd been meaning to address for two seasons.
Verna listened and asked questions, grateful for the ordinary conversation and a little ashamed of why she had come.
He took her on a circuit of the estate before they went inside.
It was different from her own in ways she always noticed afresh each visit.
The pale limestone and terraced hillside were familiar, but where her estate looked out over the Meridian Sea, Thom's faced inland toward rolling hills that turned amber in the afternoon light.
Where her soil had a loose, layered quality, his was heavier with some clay.
He showed her the new drainage channels he'd cut along the lower rows, then the changes to the pressing room floor, a better grade that shed the juice more cleanly into the collection vats below.
He was proud of it, explaining the practical reasoning with the enthusiasm of a man who found genuine satisfaction in solving problems.
She asked about the irrigation from the upper cistern and he led her to look at it, talking as they went.
The workers they passed nodded to him without the subdued deference she sometimes saw on estates where the owner was feared rather than respected.
A woman pruning near the path said something to him in a low voice as they passed, and he stopped, gave a brief answer, and moved on.
The woman looked satisfied. These were small things but Verna had always noticed them.
"Your people are content," she said, as they turned back toward the house.
"I try to give them reason to be," he said simply.
By the time they came into the main entrance the sun was well past its midpoint and the cool of the stone interior was welcome.
A woman appeared and took their riding coats, and Thom led her through to the courtyard at the centre of the house where a table had been laid in the shade of an old fig tree.
There was bread already on the table, a dish of oil, olives and sliced cheese, and a jug of watered wine sweating gently in the warmth.
"Sit," he said. "They'll bring the rest."
They sat across from each other and he poured the wine and they drank while they talked about the harvest and about a new variety of grape he was trialling on the northern slope.
Then he told her about a dispute between two trading families that had been entertaining Castine for the better part of a month.
He told it with the dry wit he brought to most things, and she laughed with him.
The food came in stages: a dish of roasted vegetables glistening with oil and herbs, then cold lamb sliced thin, a soft cheese rolled in dried herbs from the garden, and a bowl of the small dark olives the estate produced from its own trees. Everything tasted of the land it had come from.
Verna found it simultaneously reassuring and unbearable. He was a good man whom any woman would be proud, and lucky, to marry. Just not her.
When the plates had been cleared and only the wine and a small dish of figs remained, Thom leaned back in his chair. "All right," he said eyeing her over his glass. "You've been very patient about whatever it is you came to say. I imagine you'd like to tell me now."
Despite herself, she smiled. "Am I so transparent?"
"Only to me," he said. "And because I've known you since we were children. You were always a handful, Verna. Remember when you pulled apart my father's best hunting trap to see how it worked."
She smiled at the memory. "I put it back together."
"Eventually," he agreed. "After considerable effort and a great deal of swearing for a child of eight." He picked up his cup. "What is it, Verna?"
She folded her hands on the table and looked at him directly, because he deserved that much. "I want to ask you to delay the wedding."
He was still for a moment, the way he went when something landed that he needed a moment to absorb. "Delay it?" he repeated.
"Yes. Until after the Trials."
He set down his cup carefully. Outside the courtyard wall, she could hear the distant sound of the press house beginning its afternoon work, a rhythmic, steady percussion that was the same on every estate at this time of year.
"Why?" he asked.
She had her answer ready. A logical one that she had composed on the road.
"Because the timing is wrong. We're less than three weeks from the games and both our estates are in the middle of the harvest. A rushed and half-attended ceremony because everyone's busy, isn't the beginning to a married life we deserve.
" She kept her voice steady. "And there's a practical argument.
A wedding before the Trials looks like panic.
Bain wants to marry me, and you will be too exposed at the competition. "
He frowned. "You think I’ll be in danger?"
"The emperor is becoming more vicious every year. He has his eyes on my lands."
Thom leaned over the table and took her hand. "Be careful, Verna, what you say in public. We don’t know who the enemies are amongst the royal houses."
"I know," she said quietly. "Are you okay with putting off the wedding?"
He was quiet, gazing at their joined hands, then up at her. "What if your house comes last? The emperor will move the next day, and we'd have no time."
"Then I’ll marry you immediately then," she said. "Same evening. I must look after my people."
He gazed at her for a long moment across the table and pulled back his hand. "And if both our houses do well?" he asked. "Will you marry me then?"
She gulped. "I don’t know," she whispered.
"Then no." He reached for a fig from the dish and turned it in his fingers without eating it.
"I won't pretend I'm happy with the delay.
I wanted it settled before the games. But I'm not going to quarrel with you just because it isn't what I hoped for.
" He looked at her steadily. "You'll tell me if something else is going on. "
It was not quite a question.
"Of course," she said, and hated herself how easy it was to lie.
He nodded once, and that was the end of it.
He put the fig into his mouth, refilled both their cups, and steered the conversation toward the Trials.
His champion was from the Province of the Nine Moons, a hulking man who had never been defeated in single combat.
And she told him her champion was the slave, Kalen, who she had bought at the auction.
"I hope she can fight," was all he said.
They talked on with the ease of two people who had discussed problems together for many years, and by the time it was mid-afternoon and she prepared to leave, it felt almost like any other visit.
Almost.
When she rose to go, he walked her out to the stable yard, and while her mare was brought around, he pulled her into a stall and kissed her soundly.
"Whatever happens at the Trials," he said, "I want to marry you, Verna."
She looked at him, this man who had known her since childhood, who loved her steadily and without conditions, who would never deliberately cause her harm and who deserved far better than what she was giving him today.
She squeezed his hand and offered him the most honest thing she could. "I know," she said quietly. "Thank you, Thom."
She mounted, turned the mare toward the gate, and rode out with her guards by her side, between the wheat sheaf pillars into the open road.
It was dusk when they reached the iron gate to her estate. The guards on the wall saluted as she passed through, and she returned it automatically, her mind still partly on the conversation with Thom.
The whispering trees came into view as she crested the rise, their silver leaves catching the last of the afternoon sun, and she felt the familiar easing in her chest at the sight of her home.
When she rode across the lower courtyard and turned up the path toward the stables, she saw Kalen.
She was coming up from the vineyard rows along the lower terrace path with a large harvest basket balanced against her hip.
It was loaded with the last of the day's grapes, deep purple clusters heaped above the rim, and she carried it with ease.
Her hair was loose from its training tie, her temple was dark with sweat, and her working tunic was stained at the hem with the deep purple that marked everyone at harvest time.
She looked up when she heard the horses.
Her eyes found Verna immediately, before her gaze swung to the two guards riding in behind her. Then she turned and continued up the path toward the pressing shed without changing her pace or her expression.
Verna watched her go for exactly as long as she could justify it, then looked away.
She dismounted in the stable yard and handed her mare's reins to the stable girl. Her two guards pulled up alongside her and swung down from their saddles, rolling their shoulders and flexing their hands.
She was ready to leave when she heard boots on the cobblestones behind her and turned. Kalen walked into the yard, went to the nearest guard's horse without a word and reached for the girth buckle. The guard, who looked mildly surprised and then grateful, handed her the reins and stepped back.
Verna stood and watched this for one unwise moment.
Kalen said something to the guard in a low voice. Then the second guard said something in return and Kalen leaned in to listen.
Verna turned and walked up the steps into the house.
She curled her lip. The guards would tell Kalen where she had been and why, and precisely what had happened in the stable yard when Thom pulled her into the stall and kissed her. Soldiers gossiped like everyone else.
Verna told herself firmly that it didn't matter.
Kalen had made her position perfectly clear.
She had left the bedchamber with a parting remark that had been delivered with all the warmth of a legal document.
You needn't fear your wedding night. You'll have no trouble satisfying a husband.
She had said it with her back already turned, her hand already on the door, making it abundantly clear that what had passed between them was a transaction now complete and a subject she had no interest in revisiting.
Verna probably hadn't been woman enough to hold her interest. Kalen was from another world, a community of warrior women who had presumably none of the Empire's peculiar notions about how women should conduct themselves.
She had very likely had lovers of considerable experience, women who knew what they were doing and didn't lie there with their hands gripping the sheets like they were holding on for dear life.
Verna pushed this thought away firmly and went to her room to collect a clean gown before heading to the bathhouse.
It was not, as she had hoped, empty.
She heard them before she pushed open the door: voices and laughter of women unwinding after a physical day. The communal pool was at the far end of the long room, and as Verna came through the entrance and her eyes adjusted to the steam, she could make out half a dozen figures in the water.
Her guards from the ride occupied the pool with the unselfconscious ease of soldiers who had shared bathing facilities for years.
And Kalen was there.
She was at the far end of the pool, her back against the stone, her arms resting along the lip on either side, her head tipped back slightly. Her dark hair was wet and pushed back from her face. She looked, Verna thought with considerable irritation, entirely at ease.
One of the guards was talking and Kalen was listening with the focused patience she extended to very few people. As Verna watched, she said something brief in response and two of the women laughed.
Verna walked across the bathhouse to her private room at the far end without slowing her pace or looking toward the pool. She kept her eyes forward and her chin level and her expression entirely neutral.
She didn’t look at Kalen.
She stepped into her private room and closed the door behind her, and stood in the cool stone quiet with her clean gown folded over her arm.
From beyond the door came the sound of the women in the pool, the water and the laughter and the low ongoing conversation. She could hear Kalen's voice once, distinct from the others, saying something she couldn't make out.
She undressed, stepped into her private bath, and lowered herself into the water.
She stared into space for a long time.
Then she closed her eyes, and told herself with great conviction that she was perfectly fine, that everything was entirely under control, and that she was not listening for Kalen's voice through the wall.
She almost convinced herself.