Valdemar 05 - [Vows & Honor 02] - Oathbreakers by Mercedes Lackey Page B

hardly even feel her on a battlefield, with women fighting and dying all around. I don’t talk about her, much, but I think she’s been changing. I think she’s managed to become a little more capable of distinguishing real troubles that only Tarma and I can take care of. So—I think Idra requires help, I agree with you. All right, what do you want us to do? Track her down and see what’s wrong? Just remember though, if we go—” She forced a smile. “—Tresti loses her baby-tender and you lose your Masterclass mage.”
    Sewen just looked relieved to the point of tears. “Look, I hate to roust you two out like this, and I know how Tarma feels about traveling in cold weather, but—you’re the only two I’d feel safe about sending. Most of the kids are what you said, hotheads. The rest—‘cept for Jodi, they’re mostly like me, commonborn. Keth, you’re highborn, you can deal with highborns, get stuff out of ’em I couldn’t. And Tarma can give you two a reason for hauling up there.”
    â€œWhich is what?”
    â€œYou know your people hauled in the fall lot of horses just before we got back from the last campaign. Well, since we weren’t here, Ersala went ahead and bought the whole string, figuring she couldn’t know how many mounts we’d lost, and figuring it would be no big job to resell the ones we didn’t want. We’ve still got a nice string of about thirty nobody’s bespoken, and I was going to go ahead and keep them here till spring, then sell ‘em. Rethwellan don’t see Shin’a‘in-breds, much; those they do are crossbred to culls. I doubt they’ve seen purebloods, much less good purebloods.”
    â€œWe play merchant princes, hmm?” Kethry asked, seeing the outlines of his plan. “It could work. With rare beasts like that, we’d be welcome in the palace itself.”
    â€œThat’s it. Once you get in, Keth, you can puff up your lineage and move around in the court, or something. You talk highborn, and you’re sneaky, you could learn a lot—”
    â€œWhile I see what the kitchen and stable talk is,” Tarma interrupted him. “Hai. Good plan, ‘specially if I make out like I don’t know much of the lingo. I could pick up a lot that way.”
    â€œYou aren’t just doing this to ease your conscience, are you?” Kethry asked, knowing there would be others who would ask the same question. Sewen had been Idra’s Second for years now—playing Second to a woman had let him in for a certain amount of twitting from his peers in other companies. Notwithstanding the fact that one quarter to one third of all mercenary fighters were female, female Company Captains were few, and of all of them, only Idra led a mixed-sex Company. And Idra had been showing no signs of retiring, nor had Sewen made any moves indicating that he was contemplating starting his own Company.
    â€œI won’t deny that I want the Hawks,” he said, slowly. “But— not like this. I want the Company fair and square, either ‘cause Idra goes down, or ’cause she hands ‘em over to me. This—it’s too damn iffy, that’s what it is! It’s eating at me. And what’s worse, it’s eating at me that Idra might be in something deep—”
    â€œâ€”and you have to do something to get her out of it, if you can.”
    â€œThat’s it, Keth. And it’s for a lot of reasons. She’s my friend, she’s my Captain, she’s the one who took me out of the ranks and taught me. I can’t just sit here for a year, and then announce she’s gone missing and I’m taking over. I owe her too damned much, even if she keeps tellin’ me I don’t owe her a thing! How can I act like nothin’s wrong an’ not try t’ help her?”
    â€œSewen, if every merc had your ethics—” Tarma