“Mother of the gods, boy! Where the hell does this bit go?”
“Here,” Rorin told Tejay calmly, pushing her hand away. “It joins that bit there in the back.”
Impatiently, Tejay let the young sorcerer fix the buckles on the shoulder of her gilded armour, cursing under her breath in several languages when she ran out of all the words she knew in Hythrun.
“I swear, Tejay, you know curses I’ve never even heard before.”
She looked up to find Damin ducking under the tent flap, dressed for battle, wearing the same metal gauntlets he had used to rob Mahkas of his windpipe. It was just on dawn and the whole camp was roused. Thunder rumbled distantly across the hills and the occasional flash of lightning blanketed the overcast sky. For the past two days as the storm built up, the Fardohnyans had been moving down the valley and it seemed they had arrived together. It had all been terribly civilised, too. Envoys had been exchanged, the peace offerings dutifully rejected. All the forms of war had been adhered to. Now they were down to the fighting.
She glared at the young prince, thunder rattling dramatically in the background. “Make one more smart-mouthed comment, my lad, and you’ll find I do a lot of things better than you besides cursing.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Damin assured her. “I must say, you do look very … decorative.”
She tugged on the uncomfortable breastplate and scowled. “I look like a galloping great fool.”
“Which will simply reinforce everyone’s opinion that it really is Terin inside this thing,” Rorin remarked. “Hold still, my lady.”
“Gods! I spent less time getting dressed for the Feast of Kaelarn ball in Greenharbour,” she complained.
“You probably moved around a lot less, too,” Rorin protested. “Please, my lady, we’re almost done.”
“Is he always like this?” she asked Damin grumpily.
Damin sympathised with her discomfort, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. “Are you sure you know what you have to do today?”
Still suffering Rorin’s ministrations, Tejay rolled her eyes. “Hold the line long enough to draw them in, collapse it, bit by bit, so we can encircle them, and then fake a rout, leading the enemy too far in to retreat when the flanks close in behind them. I’m not stupid, Damin.”
“I never meant to imply that you were, Tejay. I asked Rogan, Conin and Narvell the same question.”
“What about Cyrus and Toren?”
“Didn’t get a chance. They took off for the command post at Lasting Drift before I could speak to either of them.”
“Now why doesn’t that surprise me? Ow!” She glared at Rorin. “Just watch how tight you’re pulling that strap, young man. There’s a healthy bosom under there that’s fed four children, you know. It wasn’t meant to be squashed into a steel bucket.”
“I’m sorry, my lady, but this armour was designed for a man. We always knew the fit was going to be a bit dicey.”
“Which brings up another point nobody seems to have mentioned,” she declared, turning to look at Damin. “What happens if I want to pee?”
“What?”
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s a perfectly reasonable question. How does one pee in a suit of armour?”
“Um …” Damin said uncomfortably. “Well … I know how I would do it …”
“Thanks, Damin, you’re a real big help.” She turned to Rorin. “Do you know?”
Rorin looked at her helplessly. “If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say very carefully.”
“Wonderful! Just what I need. Another fool who thinks he’s a wit!”
“In all fairness, Tejay,” Damin pointed out, “they don’t make these things for women, as a rule. I don’t suppose anyone’s given the matter a great deal of thought.”
“I can imagine I will have remedied that little problem by this evening. Are you sure this looks convincing?”
“You look like a galloping great fool.”
“Thank you, your highness. I feel so much better now.”
“Well, that’s my job, you know. Keeping up morale. You’ll make sure you keep that damned helmet on, won’t you?”
She glared at him.
“I’m just offering a bit of useful advice.”
Tejay sighed. “What do you really want, Damin?”
“Cyrus Eaglespike’s naked body smeared with honey and staked out over an anthill.” Then he thought about it a little longer, adding, “And the news Hablet of Fardohnya has died a gruesome and painful death in a manner that can’t be traced back to anybody in my family.”
She tossed one of her gauntlets at him. “Get out of here, you fool. And take Rorin with you.”
Damin’s smile faded. “He’s staying with you, Tejay. I won’t have you arguing with me about it, either.”
“Rorin’s a healer, Damin. He needs to be by your side.”
“I don’t intend to get hurt.”
“Neither do I,” she retorted, “and what’s more, I’m wearing armour, so I’m far less likely to. You need him. I’ll be fine.”
Damin was adamant. “He stays with you. If anything happens …”
“It won’t.”
“I meant,” he repeated, a little annoyed she had interrupted him, “that if anything happens and you’re knocked off your horse or otherwise incapacitated, I want Rorin in a position to get you off the field before anybody realises there’s a healthy and impressive bosom under that breastplate, and not the Warlord of Sunrise Province.”
“He’s right, my lady,” Rorin agreed. “I really should stay with you.”
“Armour or not, Tejay, you’ll be right there in the front lines in the thick of battle,” Damin reminded her. “I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you.”
“Damin, if you don’t want people getting killed, you really should rethink this whole worshipping the God of War philosophy, you know. It’s been my observation that people quite often come to harm when you throw them all on a field together, arm them with sharp implements, and tell them to hit each other until there’s nobody left standing.”
Damin smiled at her. “Rorin stays.”
“Bully. What happens afterwards?”
“What do you mean?”
“After the battle? Do I just go back to my embroidery and await some man to come and tell me what’s best for me and my province once you have no further use for my military skills?”
Damin frowned, as if the question had caught him off guard. “To be perfectly honest, Tejay, I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. I’ll owe you a big favour though, once this is over, I know that much.”
“Well, don’t think about it for too long, will you? This battle is likely to be decided, one way or the other, by the end of the day. Assuming I’m still around at the end of it, I want to know if I have to start looking for another husband.”
“Do you want another husband?” Rorin asked curiously.
“I didn’t even want the first one,” she informed him with a grimace, picking up her helmet. “But there’s no other way to hold on to Sunrise Province except find a semi-decent husband and have him appointed my son’s regent. There’s a reason your mother’s been married four times, you know, Damin, and it isn’t her great love of being a wife.”
The prince seemed sympathetic to her plight even if, as a man, he didn’t fully grasp the gravity of her situation. “I know how you must feel, Tejay …”
“No, you don’t,” she declared, settling the helmet on her
head. It was a little loose, but her long blond hair was gathered up in a bun and served as extra padding, which stopped the helmet moving around too much. “You haven’t got the slightest notion of what it’s like to be dictated to by someone you know you’re smarter than, having to watch them make stupid decisions, knowing you could have done better … and then having to lay down and open your legs to him, just because the law gives him the right to have you any time he pleases. If you want to do me a favour, Damin Wolfblade, . find a way for me to avoid that fate. How do I look?”
Damin nodded approvingly. “Like a Warlord,” he said.
Which is all well and good, Tejay lamented silently, as Rorin helped her buckle on her sword. But regardless of what happens on the battlefield today, come tomorrow I’ll still be a mere woman and you’ll be the lords and masters.
Worst of all, she knew, by tomorrow these men would have forgotten that in the heat of battle, for a short time at least, they couldn’t tell the difference.