A short fic totally separate from This Heart of Mine, a couple chapters at most :). I wanted to approach the KW relationship from a slightly different angle. Takes place after the Scanran War.


A Marriage of Convenience

I.

Kel could feel their eyes on her, even as hers were glued to the expensive, cream-colored parchment in her hands. Their gaze prickled the back of her neck, but she studiously ignored her parents. Instead, she tried to reread the words in front of her. The letters were pristine, perfect, with just the right amount of flourish: the painstaking work of a scribe. The ink was blacker than anything formed from Tortallan hands, with a flat, unreflective finish: Carthaki ink, the secrets of its making guarded jealously, the price far higher than Kel's family could afford.

Baron Piers and Lady Ilane of Mindelan watched Keladry closely as she read the missive a second time. A person not well-acquainted with the family might think that the Baron and his wife were only mildly concerned, and that their twenty-two-year-old daughter felt nothing at all. But this was far from true. Living for six years with a people who regarded emotion as shameful had left its mark on all of them, even after these many years living in Tortall; Piers and Ilane, therefore, held their distress behind polite faces while they waited for their daughter to react.

"Is it… so unexpected?" Ilane ventured at last. Her melodic voice was low for a woman, but no less feminine for it.

Kel's hands trembled as she lowered the letter to her lap, finally meeting her parents' eyes. Behind the crumbling Yamani mask, both could see the confusion that warred within their daughter.

"No. Not so unexpected." Her voice was flat and calm, but the last word held a tremor. "I just didn't think he would ask in this way."

"Then he has made his regard for you plain," Baron Piers said, trying to confirm what Kel was saying – or not saying.

She shook her head slowly, cropped hair brushing her cheeks. "I'm not sure." Kel swallowed, and was still. "We have – we have been training, together. You know that." Their serene nods gave her the strength to continue. "He has become a dear friend to me, but more than that…"

When Kel didn't continue, her father stepped in kindly. "Do not feel you must answer him right away, qechanta. It is certainly a difficult decision. And remember that whatever you do, you have our wholehearted support."

At last, Keladry smiled. "That I know." She stood, hands folding the letter into a small square as though detached from the good humor on her face, and bowed briefly to her parents in the Yamani style. "I have always known it, and I thank you. Other parents might not be so obliging."

"Oh, Keladry." Ilane came around her husband's desk, where she had been standing, and pressed a kiss to her daughter's cheek. "We love you so."

"I love you, too." Kel's hazel eyes, fringed with long lashes that even her lovely sister Oranie envied, crinkled at last with worry. "If you will excuse me? I'd like to think about this on my own."

"Of course." Ilane stepped back as her youngest daughter walked out of the room, her back straight and proud in a Mindelan tunic. Without turning, she knew her husband was standing silently from the desk and coming to stand beside her. "We need the money, don't we." It was not a question.

"I couldn't tell her. I will not tell her." Piers' voice hardened. "I will not influence her decision in any way."

"I know." Ilane took her husband's hand and squeezed. "How much did he offer?"

His mouth thinned. "A lot. More than enough of a bride-price for the youngest daughter of a family not even in the Book of Copper."

"I wouldn't have thought it of him."

"What?"

"Buying us off like this." Lady Ilane's eyes flashed, and faded. "How badly do we need the money?"

Piers shook his head. "I don't know, yet. I'm waiting until I hear back from Anders about the state of the grain crop before I do anything. I refuse to borrow money without knowing how much I will have to pay back." He took his wife's chin in one hand, angling her head so that he could kiss her cheek without having to lift himself on tip-toe. A man needed his pride, after all. "And I wouldn't exactly call it 'buying us off,' as you so eloquently put it." He leaned back against the desk, hands pushing aside piles of ledgers and loose paper to brace his weight against the dark teak wood.

"Then what would you call it?" Ilane asked, one eyebrow raised.

Piers resisted the urge to rub his headache away. Experience had taught him it would only make matters worse. "I genuinely believe Wyldon wants to help. If not for our sake, then for Kel's. He has four daughters himself – I am certain he knows the strain it can put on one's budget to have girls at Court. And bride-prices are rare these days, certainly, but not unusual."

Lady Ilane snorted, sounding very unladylike but not caring. "It still doesn't sit right with me."

"Or with me," Piers assured her, smiling wearily. "But two things stop me from calling a halt to all this. First, I believe Kel has the right to decide her own fate. Let her think over his request, and make the decision herself, without our interference. She has earned that much, at least."

When he fell silent, Ilane reached out and laced her hands with his where they rested on the desk. "And the second?"

Piers met her eyes, defeat plain in every line of his body. "As much as I hate to admit it, we really do need the money."


Kel found him in the cramped office adjoined to his rooms, poring over reports. Her old knight-master stared at her blearily for a few moments when she knocked at the half-open door, not seeming to recognize her, before he waved a hand in her general direction.

"Come in, sit down," Raoul muttered, rubbing grit from his eyes. "What's wrong? You look like that pet monster of yours died instead of just throwing a shoe."

"Peachblossom's fine," Kel retorted, too impatient to dance around the matter. "And he's been seen to. Are you busy? I need to hit something."

Raoul looked up, startled. She was standing, still, her tall, muscled frame taut as a drawn bow, eyes smoldering with contained emotion. He rarely saw Kel like this – indeed, Kel was almost never like this – but he knew what she needed: an outlet.

"Drum hasn't had a good run in a while," he said, carefully neutral as he analyzed her. As predicted, she shook her head firmly.

"I need a joust, Raoul." For a moment her control slipped, and her lower lip trembled before she could control it. "Badly."

"Say no more. I'll take any excuse to escape this wretched report business." Pushing himself away from the desk, Raoul stood, half-expecting her to tower over him. Sitting at a desk for all hours had put a cramp in his spine, and he swore to Jon that it was making him shorter. As if he would listen. "Besides," he added, selecting a leather jerkin from a rack on the wall and slipping it over his tunic, "I have more than half a mind to know what's gotten under your skin, if I don't know already."

Startlement flashed across Kel's face, but she didn't press him. Frankly, he was relieved. He didn't want to have to explain the unusual friendship he'd recently – and reluctantly – acquired.


Peachblossom was restless, and he fidgeted in his stall as Kel tacked him up. Two days ago he had thrown a shoe as Kel took him through a series of complicated jumps, and the Own's farrier hadn't been able to re-shoe him right away. Turning him out to pasture with other horses was out of the question, since the gelding's temperament was not improved with the loss of a shoe, and keeping the enormous beast contained in a stall for two days had strained his patience beyond its limits.

But Kel was thankful for his frisking as she struggled to haul the cinches tight, and wasn't angry when he tossed his head, refusing the bit twice before she finally managed to slip it between his teeth. His energy was hers, and it promised a good, hard joust to come.

Raoul was already saddled and ready when she finally led Peachblossom into the jousting ring. Above her, the sky was overcast, reflecting her mood. Smiling grimly, she swung into the saddle and accepted a lance from the attendant they had requested to attend them. She needed this.

Jousting was, Kel had long ago found, her true love when it came to weapons. The sword she had mastered, the glaive was a joy to wield, but the lance was something different altogether. The sheer power was exhilarating in and of itself, but the pure physicality of it was what sang to her. With Peachblossom between her knees, the saddle high in front and back, lance in hand, she felt incredibly at peace for the first time in almost an hour.

"Let's thrash him," she said as she put on her helmet. Beneath her, Peachblossom side-stepped, dancing with impatience. A fierce joy filled her heart, and Kel hefted the lance, eying Raoul's shield at the other end of the ring. It was time.

"Charge."

Hooves thudded into the dirt, but they left the dust far behind. Kel's knees firmed, her heels jammed down as far as her tendons would allow, and the lance came down. Beneath her, Peachblossom's body gathered and released, muscles bunching and straining as he flew down the lane. The wind keened through her visor as horse and woman moved as one.

Their lances broke with the satisfying shatter of wood on metal, and Kel pulled her horse up almost immediately, bringing him into a half-rear as he danced on his hind legs to keep his balance. But Peachblossom had caught her mood, and his restlessness had become unstoppable. Without orders he trotted to the other end of the lane, high-stepping enough to catch the light on the new metal on his hooves.

Kel could feel the rightness in her grip as she readied herself for another pass. The lances were only practice ones, but with the right leverage, she could pop him from the saddle, she was certain. Months of practice with Lord Wyldon had not been in vain. Her fingers curled around the butt of the lance, feeling the grain even through the leather of her gloves, and suddenly the flood of emotion was curbed.

"Focus. Feel the lance, Keladry. It is a part of you, an extension of your very self." Wyldon's hands clamped down on hers until she could feel her bones grinding in response to the pressure. "Any weapon requires drive to wield it, but without focus, you will lose your control. Focus is the key."

Kel rose in her stirrups, and Peachblossom vaulted down the lane with the speed and strength of a Bazhir racehorse. Drum was only an instant behind, Raoul's lance coming down a heartbeat behind hers. A stray thought – I have him – was noted and absorbed without wavering her concentration a hairsbreadth. Her entire identity had escaped the bounds of her body. She was the horse, she was the lance, all breathing and throbbing and thundering together with every fiber of her being.

At the last second, she changed her grip, twisting the lance to catch Raoul's shield squarely with just a hint of an upward thrust.

"A feather-light touch is all you need. The barest change in how you hold the lance, how your body is pitched, will change the outcome of the pass."

She could feel her lance bend. It gave just slightly, bowing upwards at its center, and then Raoul was in the air. Peachblossom slowed to a canter, then a trot, side-stepping with a very un-destrier-like elegance as her old knight-master came back to earth with a resounding crash.

Before she realized what she was doing, Kel had jumped from the saddle and was at his side. "Sir? Sir, are you okay?"

"Mithros, girl, get off me," Raoul exclaimed, struggling to breathe and laugh at the same time as he waved her away. "I knew you were training with Wyldon, but Goddess! A practice lance!" Sitting up, he pushed up the visor of his helmet so that he could see the awe and delight that warred in his laughing black eyes. "Well done, Kel, well done indeed!" He finally managed to discard the helmet entirely, and groaned when he realized they had an audience. "Mithros, I'll never live this down. Unseated by my own squire!"

"Former squire," Kel corrected him half-heartedly as the collection of knights, Riders, and King's Own that had gathered to watch the joust broke from their dumbfounded silence into roars and cheers of approval. Even Raoul's blackest scowl could not dissuade them.

"I feel so betrayed," he muttered under his breath as he hauled himself to his feet, pointedly refusing Kel's help. "Well, has that satisfied your need to hit something?"

"Very much so, sir," Kel answered, belatedly realizing the ache spreading through her left side. Raoul still hit as hard as ever, even if it had taken a few minutes to fully recognize it. "If you don't mind… I mean…"

Raoul clapped her on the shoulder, eyes meeting hers squarely and soberly. "Let's take a walk, Lady Knight."


Down to shirts and breeches, the two knights let the soft summer breeze dry their sweat-soaked hair and clothing as they strolled down to the fields where the Queen's Rider's paddocked their tough mountain ponies. It was peaceful here, and the paddocks were hardly occupied; only two Rider groups were currently in Corus, and the trainees were off to Fief Naxen for the summer. The result was a perfectly safe and inconspicuous walk, with no one to overhear any incriminating conversation.

"You said you might know," Kel said finally, after a solid ten minutes of companionable silence. "Do you?"

Raoul looked askance at her, hands thrust into the pockets of his breeches. "Know what? That Wyldon met with your father last week to ask for your hand in marriage? Or that you probably just got the letter today, and you're trying to decide what to do about it?"

Kel stopped abruptly, turning to face her old knight-master. "How did you know that?"

"Kel… Alanna, Gary, Padraig haMinch, and I have had a running bet on how long it would take him for three weeks now. It's not exactly a secret."

"What's not exactly a secret, Raoul?"

She was using his first name. Always a bad sign. Another bad sign was the flatness of her voice, and the way her eyes flashed in her cold face. Never try a woman in a temper. He dug his hands deeper, uncomfortable and trying to hide it.

"Him. Wyldon. And you. His regard for you, I mean."

To his surprise, she deflated almost instantly, turning away to kick at a stone lying on the road that cut between two paddocks. They watched its tumbling progress with quiet gazes until it fell into a depression and rolled to a clumsy stop.

"I wasn't sure," she said finally. They were walking again, albeit slowly. "It's hard to tell, with him."

"It is, that," he agreed.

She looked up, questioning. "Then how did you guess?"

He hunched his shoulders. "It wasn't entirely a guess."

"He told you."

"…a bit."

"Raoul! For being a hero and a giant killer, you sure know how to dance around a topic," Kel exclaimed crossly. "I don't mean to offend, but last I checked, you and Wyldon weren't exactly the best of friends."

"We're not," Raoul answered flatly. His heavy sigh belied his words. "We weren't. I'm a progressive, I took a girl for my squire – as if that weren't enough, the man's so stiff-necked we can barely exchange polite rejoinders without some verbal sparring."

"But?" Kel prodded.

Raoul shook his head, seeming to disbelieve his own words even as he spoke them: "He asked for my help. In all my years… You don't understand, Kel. He was three years ahead of me, a squire by the time I was a second-year page, but for all that, the Stump was well known for being proud and unbending."

Kel felt a sudden pang at his words. So Neal isn't the only one to have called him that, she thought sadly. Just as the pages used to call me the Yamani Lump. Still, her thoughts couldn't distract her long from what Raoul was saying. The words were too strange, and she needed all her attention to comprehend them.

"He never asks for anything, Kel. No favors, no requests. I thought I might faint when he came to my room that night, asking for advice. About whether or not to openly court you."

"If this whole letter business was your idea, then my opinion of your skills in romance is severely curbed," Kel said dryly.

"Gods, no! The man would take the stiffest way out," he grumbled. "That is what has you all riled up, isn't it?"

She nodded, feeling a lump in her throat. She swallowed it angrily. "I thought he'd at least have the decency to ask me to my face." A pause. "What's your opinion? Do you… approve?"

Raoul shook his head. "Somehow, I do. He's the last man I would have thought to win you over – or try, at least, since clearly he's failing – but somehow it makes sense. You're so similar, so stoic and self-assured, but you also complement each other. You soften him, I suppose."

They walked in silence for a little more until Raoul finally spoke again. "What are you going to tell him?"

"I never wanted a noble marriage," Kel said suddenly, as if she hadn't heard the question. "What does he expect? That I hang my shield on the wall and start having babies? Because I won't! I don't care if he is the last Lord of Cavall," she added, spiteful.

"He's not," Raoul remarked, startling her. "He has a younger brother. Trevelan of Cavall."

Kel racked her memory, but nothing surfaced. "I've never heard of him."

"You wouldn't," he agreed, laughter in his voice. "No one talks about him much."

"Why not?"

"Wouldn't try for his knighthood. Refused, actually. His father finally disowned him when he left home to become a Player, though people said the old lord was just looking for an excuse. Trev was never one to cater to his betters."

Kel scrutinized his face unashamedly. "You were friends, weren't you?"

"Goldenlake and Cavall are neighboring fiefs," Raoul explained. "Trevelan was my age – we grew up together, you might say. When he was disowned, he came to me for help. Wyldon was livid, of course, but he couldn't risk his father's wrath by helping his brother. I don't think he ever forgave me for being there for Trev when he wasn't."

"Until now," she remarked innocently.

"Ha! Perhaps." Raoul frowned. "When did this conversation stop being about you and Wyldon?"

Kel shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I've made up my mind." She grinned at his pleading expression. "You're channeling Neal with that look, and believe me, I've resisted his pouting before."

Raoul threw up his hands. "After all my sage advice, what do I get? A scold! Come, Kel, not even a hint?"

"Not a one," she answered, eyes glittering mischievously. "Race you back to the palace!" Ignoring his complaints that he was an old, wretched knight who'd just been soundly thrown into the dirt by an unforgiving former squire, Kel lengthened her stride to outdistance him up the hill to the palace.


Opinions? I'm trying a less direct approach than THoM, and it's kind of refreshing :). It's fun to explore the different personalities and relationships here. Please review and tell me what you think! DR