“So, you’ve literally got no experience with men at all,” Atres muses, “For the record, you’re not a blundering idiot, just inexperienced. Like all things, it’s a skill that you acquire and hone through practice. You simply haven’t had that.”
Atres gives her a lazy smile and a sidelong glance, “It pleases me to no end to help you with that.”
Emlyn gives him a playful swat on the arm before she continues. “As a girl in a House of that caliber, I would never have been allowed to be this close to a man, any man, not my blood kin or one of my childhood friends,” Emlyn explains, “There were seven of us – fast friends from the time we could walk. Even then, my male kin and our family retainers would have been present.”
“What’s this about annual tournaments?” Atres asks, “I know what a tournament is, but this sounds like something a bit different.”
“We had annual tournaments where everyone was ranked based on their House’s standing and their results from the previous years. If you were too old, sick, pregnant, or injured, you might be exempted. Slaves and some criminals weren’t permitted. Otherwise, everyone fought, mostly grouped by gender and age, starting at about the age of eight. The rules were complicated, and once I became a paladin, the rules that applied to me changed. I was fighting mainly against other paladins, and less against those from the same gender and age group I’d grown up with. I still managed to stay in the top five of my group nearly every year.”
“It wasn’t just that your House was highly ranked,” Atres frowns, “but that you personally were as well? Is that right?”
“Yes,” Emlyn nods, “I was, and it made me a target for kidnapping. That’s why my mother taught me to kill with any number of ordinary objects. I might be overpowered and forced into a marriage, but making me stay married to some lout would be a completely different story. I’d have murdered my rapist and returned to my father’s House as a widow. Lower-ranking houses who tried this soon found out that the groom might not survive the process, or if he did, he might not survive it for very long. That stopped a lot of it, but not all of it. There was a girl in my age group who snuck out to meet some friends who ended up having to do exactly that.”
“Now I’m interested,” Atres grins, “What kinds of things did she teach you to use?”
“All manner of ordinary objects. Things like a hair comb, pottery, glass, firewood, clothing, shoes, bed coverings.”
“You know how to kill a man with nothing more than his shoes?” Atres looks at her sideways and swallows a bit when she nods.
“Can you show me?” Atres grins, “I can think of a few uses for that in my line of work.”
“I’d need a shoe, and I don’t have any to spare at the moment,” Emlyn explains, “but I can tell you well enough. There are a few ways, depending on how the shoe is made. The first one is to burn the sole and shape it until you can make it into a makeshift knife. The second one is to use the tongue or sole and laces as a garotte. The third one is to simply shove it, or part of it, down his throat and let him strangle on it.”
“That’s a bit… vicious,” Atres says, “but everything you’ve mentioned is possible. I’m rather... impressed.”
“My mother would never shirk her duty,” Emlyn, “and among my people, that was one of the things that every mother was responsible for teaching her daughters.”
“Your mother taught you these things?” Atres marvels, “Just how war-like are your people?”
“War among us,” Emlyn grins, “is an art form. We had ways to destroy and dismantle an enemy before they could ever attack us, ways to baffle and confuse them, ways to distract and disrupt them. Some of these were meant for armies or even entire countries. Others were... more personal, meant for individual combat.”
“And you,” Atres says with a question in his voice.
“As the second-highest-ranking general,” Emlyn shrugs, “with plans already in motion to displace the jealous jackass above me and become the highest-ranking general, yes, I know how to do these things. Anything that my grandfather neglected to teach me, I learned from the First Awst while he was waiting to retire.”
“Would you ever do these things to this kingdom?” Atres asks, slightly alarmed.
“I shelter here,” Emlyn shakes her head, “To paraphrase, one does not shit where one eats or where one lays one’s head. Should you ever require a general who will find and walk the path to victory, you know where to find me. I live here now, and, if it were to come to that, I will defend my home.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Atres considers this for a long moment before nodding.
“Why did you push yourself to rank so highly?” Atres asks.
“Because I wanted more out of life for myself and my younger sisters than being pampered broodmares or jealously guarded parlor ornaments,” Emlyn says, “If we girls were to be caged, I wanted to be sure that we at least got to pick our cages. After seeing what happened with my older sister... I was ready to stab her husband or just simply shove him off a parapet. He’d strut around every time she was pregnant, bragging about her good breeding and what fine bloodlines his children would have. He used to call her his “little brooder” and his walking womb to her face.”
“Gods, he sounds horrible,” Atres says, “I think I’d like to stab him. No wonder you hated him.”
“And pitied my sister,” Emlyn adds, “for being forced to marry that dung heap to escape my older brothers and our father. I wasn’t having any of that for myself or my younger sisters, so my grandfather and I hatched a plan.”
“Your mother’s father?” Atres asks.
Laughing, Emlyn shakes her head, “Oh no, my father’s father, who despised what my father and three oldest brothers were doing as much as any of the rest of us. When my father started in on me, like he’d done with my older sister, my mother finally told my father to leave for a day to consider his actions and not to come back if he didn’t plan to change his ways. She told him that my older sister was the first and last of her daughters he was going to ruin.”
“Wait, this is the woman who taught you how to kill a man with a shoe?” Atres grins, “and she told him that? I think I’d be bunking somewhere else until I was sure she wasn’t going to kill me with a shoe.”
“Why do you think she told him to take a day?” Emlyn grins, “and not to come back if he wasn’t going to change, because that’s exactly what she meant. When that happened, all of us younger ones went out in the orchard, away from the house, and celebrated. We hated seeing our parents at odds, but my older brothers were louts, and my father had refused to rein them in. The third oldest was the worst of the lot, as bad as any of those Brotherhood of the Patriarchy mouth-breathers. My oldest brother was a close second, though. My second-oldest was a bit better, but he’d still fall in line with the other two. Once I got big enough to take them in the ring, every time I’d catch them spouting that nonsense, I’d drub them so badly they finally started keeping their opinions to themselves. If someone is going to insist that their dangly bits make them superior and my lack of them makes me somehow inferior, then they’d better be able to back that up, or I’ll pound the stuffing out of them. My youngest sister was only four, and I didn’t want her to hear that drivel or think that this is what she must do.”
“Hmmm,” Atres says thoughtfully, “I can see where you wouldn’t want someone at an impressionable age listening to that.”
“Can I ask you a question?” Emlyn says hesitantly, “If it's rude, you can tell me.”
“What do you want to know, lass?” Atres says with a grin.
“Your eyes are an unusual color,” Emlyn says, “and I get a hum of power from you. Not quite like what I’d sense from one of my own people. A bit different, but just as strong. Do you know why?”
“I’ve got a bit of dragon blood,” Atres grins at her for a moment, “all three of us do.”
“More than a bit, I think,” Emlyn says, “or maybe not the same kind. I don’t get the same sense of it from Korek or Argonath. With them it's... faint, more muffled, I think is the best way to describe it. Almost not there at all.”
“So does everyone have this hum?” Atres asks, “Or just me?”
“Among my people, I’d have said everyone. Some a bit more, some a bit less, but here… no one at all,” Emlyn explains, “You're the only one I’ve met so far.”
“This is a bit too public a place,” Atres grins, “but remind me sometime in more private circumstances and we can try a couple of experiments.”
At this mention of being alone with Atres, Emlyn is blushing again.
Laughing, Atres tells her, “I’m going to have a hard time not wanting to do things that make you blush like that. I do hope you’re prepared for that. You're truly scrumptious when your ears turn pink. Let’s go see if that stone is hot enough to cook on yet.”
Atres escorts her back to Benger’s family’s fire and seats her on a log.
“This is something I learned from my mother,” Atres explains as he begins to slice off thin strips of elk and tosses them onto the stone. As they sizzle and crisp, he deftly uses a knife to toss them around until they’re done. Then he uses the knife to skewer them.
Bowing gallantly, he hands the knife and meat to Emlyn, “You killed it, so you should eat first.”
Eyeing the makeshift skewer, Emlyn looks at him shyly, “Perhaps we could share?”
“Hmmm...,” Atres purrs, “In that case, you hold this for a moment while I fetch some things from my saddle bags.”
As Atres walks towards his horse, Argonath swings in beside him, “What was all that about? Did you make her cry already?”
“Gods, yes,” Atres shrugs, “and I feel like a boot heel for doing it. It was nothing really, just a simple misunderstanding. Once I got it out of her that until she arrived here in Harito, she had never once been near a man she wasn't related to unchaperoned... Her people do arranged marriages, and her parents would have been having that discussion with me that she just blundered through… Then I understood what she meant, and what she was asking for was easy enough to agree to.”
“And what was she asking for?” Argonath inquires curiously.
“To put it plainly,” Atres shrugs, “she says as the last of her line, she has a duty to rebuild her House. She was trying to find out if marriage, fatherhood, and the work of rebuilding her House were something that would put me off and send me running as fast as I could, or if I thought it might be something I would help her with, when the time came. Stupidly, I thought she meant now.”
At Argonath’s look, Atres shrugs, “In my defense, her phrasing was inept, at best.”
“Ah, so you refused,” Argonath nods, “and dashed her hopes.”
“That was never my intention,” Atres shrugs, “It is much too soon to speak of these things, but it is good to know her plans. It seems that she’s been even more isolated and protected than one of our girls. Until today, I hadn’t ever considered marriage and fatherhood seriously. If I’m being honest, not at all. I thought it wasn’t going to be possible.”
At Argonath’s look, Atres chuckles and shrugs, “Women come to me easily enough. You know this. You’ve seen it often enough. This one, though, is different. I knew, from the moment I made her blush so, that if I meant to have her in my bed, it would be a marriage bed with everything that implies. Raising children isn’t something I’ve thought much about at all. Now these are things I must think on. She’s looking for a bit more than just that, though. She is looking for an equal, a partner in all things. She would be a worthy partner. What remains to be seen is if I am up to the task.”
Will Atres be up to the task or will we have to revert to plan A?