23rd Day of Flocktime, 565 CY
The Cynewine House, Chendl, Furyondy
"Harder."
Nesco and Grimdegn Cynewine stopped sparring. Nesco glanced over at Sir Alexor.
"Father," Nesco said, "He's not going to learn any faster if I break his arm."
The knight's hazel eyes never left his daughter's face. "You think an orc is going to care? Harder."
Lady Cynewine grimaced and looked back at her younger brother. Grimdegn's tanned face was glistening with sweat. Wide-eyed with exhaustion and despair, the boy looked a lot younger to her than his fifteen years. His breath was coming in great ragged gasps, and both his practice sword and his wooden shield bobbed up and down as the youth's arms struggled to stay upright. His eyes, the same green with a hint of hazel as his sister's, silently begged for succor.
Nesco gave him a few extra seconds of rest by turning to her father again. "With Sir Juntaros now going through officer training at the War College, Grimdegn isn't likely to see action again so soon. Why put him through this?"
Sir Alexor folded his arms across his chest. "If Sir Juntaros has requested additional combat training for his squire, I take it as given that such training is required. Proceed."
Nesco turned back to Grimdegn, shrugged, gave him a sad smile and mouthed Sorry. She was getting ready to swing again when the teenager spoke up.
"Sir Juntaros thinks I'm a coward."
She blinked. Her little brother looked so miserable, she wanted to give him a hug, not swing a sword at him. "Does he think everyone who doesn't see action in a particular battle is a coward?" the ranger asked, hoping she was keeping the anger out of her voice.
Nesco had been so taken aback by her initial discovery that her brother Joseph had recently been involved in his first battle that she had completely forgotten at the time that Juntaros had also been assigned to the same unit in the Vesve Forest. They had come under orcish assault while setting up camp for the night. Grimdegn had been ordered to take shelter in one of the rear tents with the other squires and protect the porters, cooks and other non-combatants. He had done so, and although the orcs had come close to their tent, they had been driven back before they actually reached it.
"You stayed at your post- what else does he want?" she continued. "If they'd had a few more high-quality scouts, you wouldn't have been caught unprepared in the first place! Sir Damoscene can't be expected to do everything by-"
"I'm not going to tell you again, Nesco," Sir Alexor interrupted. His voice carried the weight of a commander. "Get on with it."
"Yes, Father," she mumbled and turned her attention back to her current pupil. "Try it again, Grimdegn. Remember, watch where my blade is heading, not where it is. Lead with your shield and cover the exposed space with your sword."
"I won't be in a position to counterattack if I do that!" the youth complained.
"I'm teaching you defense," Nesco retorted. "I'm trying to keep you alive, not fill your head with stupid notions of being a hero. Your master is supposed to look out for you. If you're cut off from help and under attack, you run. You got that?"
Grimdegn started trembling again, but this time it was from emotion, not fatigue. The boy's eyes grew moist.
"No matter who I obey, someone is going to be angry with me."
Nesco locked eyes with her brother. "Grimdegn," she said as calmly as she could. "In position. Here I come."
The ranger attacked with her own practice sword, hoping the necessity of defending himself would snap Grimdegn out of his melancholia, even if only temporarily. It seemed to work. He blocked her first three swings, even with the increased power behind them, but he was just a second too slow responding to the next one, which bypassed both sword and shield and rammed full on into the boy's crude leather jack. Grimdegn gasped in pain and doubled over, dropping his sword. Nesco, a heavy feeling in her own chest, waited until she was sure he wasn't seriously hurt.
"I can't," Grimdegn gasped, "I can't-"
"Sir Juntaros should be returning shortly," the Cynewine patriarch stated with no apparent emotion. "Go and clean up, Grimdegn."
Without a word, the teenager picked up his sword and staggered off. Nesco couldn't tell if he was crying or not.
When the ranger turned back to face Sir Alexor, his eyes were already waiting for her.
"Walk with me," he said.
Nesco was sweating more now than she had during the spar session. It was a hot summer's day, and she was clad in her new chainmail armor. It was not dyed like her old armor had been, and it still didn't feel quite as comfortable. Instead of a helm on her head, Nesco now wore a chainmail coif. It was more stable, but it made her feel even hotter.
Alexor steered them away from the grassy field into the winding paths among the flowerbeds that constituted half of the rear grounds of the Cynewine mansion.
"You looked tired out there," the knight commented, his gaze wandering from a buzzing bee to his daughter's face, "even before you started."
Nesco sighed and pulled off her open-faced mail hood. Her hair was plastered to her head in various unflattering ways, and her face was covered with sweat and grime. She really didn't feel like waiting for Alexor to get to the point. "Is there something you wanted to ask me, father?"
"I've been concerned about you, Nesco," he replied in an unexpectedly mild tone.
This remark caught Nesco so off-balance that she almost stumbled, but her father kept pace with her without comment.
She stared at him as they continued their stroll. Alexor merely shrugged. "You've had a brutal time of it recently, and the last two weeks haven't been quite as... stable as I would have hoped for you."
A grim smile settled on Nesco's features. "Are you referring to my brief stint at the War College?"
"Possibly," her father admitted, taking the time to stop and lean his face into a lilac bush.
"I lasted what, a week? I think that may be a record."
Sir Alexor turned his head and gazed at Nesco silently. If his intent was to agitate his daughter into speech, it succeeded.
"Why, father? Why did you let mother enroll me for officer training? I have absolutely no desire for that, and you know it! It was a colossal waste of time!"
"Both Joseph and Sir Juntaros were enrolling, and your mother wanted you to do so, as well," he replied. "I saw no reason to deny her."
Nesco mulled this over. "You knew I'd get myself expelled. This was just throwing Gella a bone, wasn't it?"
Her father said nothing but started again down the path. Nesco hurried to catch up.
"I'm not a leader, father. You know that I'm better-"
Sir Alexor abruptly stopped again and held up a hand to cut her off. "You're not officer material, Nesco. That's completely different from saying you're not a leader. In the right situation, such as in a small group of irregulars, you would flourish in a leadership role. Sir Damoscene told me that, and I concur with his opinion."
Nesco was too disturbed by her recent memories of the College to pay attention to the compliment. "If you did this to placate Mother, it didn't work. She's as angry with me as ever. She thinks I didn't even try."
The knight shrugged. "You didn't try, Nesco. It would have been too painful for you."
She gasped, stung by the unexpected criticism. "I can't believe you're siding with her!" she cried. "That woman has done nothing but make-"
"That woman is your mother!" Alexor roared, stopping short and grabbing his daughter's arm. "And I will hear no more against her!"
The ranger just stood there, trembling, hovering somewhere between anger and a cold hurt.
Her father's face softened, but only partially. "Do you wonder why your mother is as she is, Nesco, or do you concentrate only on yourself?" he asked, letting go of her arm.
Unable to meet his gaze, Nesco looked at a rose bush instead.
"We are Cynewines, Nesco," she heard her father say, and she knew he was drawing himself up to his full height. "The Cynewine men serve. They are trained as warriors, and they serve their king as such. It's been this way for the past fifty years, and it will go on that way for as long as I have anything to say about it." The knight paused, taking a deep breath. "As for the women..."
Nesco glanced over to him.
"There is no such family tradition. I chose to allow my daughters that option. My eldest took it, and she has made me very, very proud of her. As proud of her as I have ever been of any one of my sons."
Nesco blinked in surprise. Speech failed her, which was just as well because her father had started walking again. It was all she could do to get her legs moving again to keep up.
"Put yourself in your mother's place, Nesco. Her oldest son has died, and now her next son has as well- and yes, she knows it to be true, no matter what she says. Her third son has already been in battle and shows a recklessness that marks him as a dead man unless he learns to temper it. Her fourth son, Nesco- just barely a man, is about to become a warrior. She looks at her youngest son- page to a knight already and knows that his fate is just as uncertain as his brothers. And now one of her only two daughters, who is not obligated to risk her life as her brothers must, chooses that life nonetheless."
Sir Alexor gazed evenly at his daughter as they walked. "Lady Gella Cynewine knows that she will preside over the funerals of her own sons- a burden no woman should have to bear once, let alone again and again. She considers our family motto to be a curse, not a blessing, and she cannot understand why you do not feel the same way."
Nesco could only shake her head in bewilderment. "Then why did she marry you, father?" the ranger asked. "And why does she treat her other daughter- the one who didn't go off to battle- so poorly?"
There was a pause, and when the elder Cynewine spoke again, it was no longer spoke with authority- only weariness.
"Your mother is no angel, Nesco," he said quietly. "None of us are. She thought that she would be able to bear the burden of the Cynewine name when she married me- and I agreed that I would support her whether her resolve failed or not. And as for Bretagne... your mother piled all of her expectations upon her. She intended for Bretagne to be her successor, as it were. It was inevitable that at some point, the poor child would fail to live up to that impossible standard."
"You cling ferociously to who you are, Nesco." Her father's voice regained its authoritarian edge. "That is why you abandoned the god that all other Cynewines venerate. That is why you refused to accept the restrictions that becoming an officer would have placed upon you. That is why you prefer the company of those who do not demand you to question your values."
Nesco stopped again. Her face flushed, and her eyes could only move in the general direction of her father's face. Her hand squeezed the mail coif she held until her knuckles hurt.
"Do you approve or disapprove of this, father?" she was finally able to ask. "Is who I am a blessing or a curse?"
Sir Alexor smiled. His response was again unexpectedly mild.
"You tell me, Nesco," he said. "That's your decision, not mine. I have already told you that you have earned my respect."
The knight walked over to a nearby bench and sat down. Smile intact, he glanced back at his daughter and patted the wooden surface next to him.
For the first time that afternoon, a legitimate smile appeared on the ranger's face, and she sat down next to her father. They both watched the flashes of yellow as warblers chased each other among the branches of a flowering bush opposite them. It was a few minutes before Sir Alexor spoke again, and when he did, his voice was much lighter.
"Sir Juntaros seems persistent in his attentions. Do you wish me to divert him when he arrives, so that you may make your escape?"
Nesco's smile turned into a half-grimace. "He's a good man father, but I don't love him."
Sir Alexor waved an acknowledgment. "I know, daughter. And you have comported yourself honorably around him. Eventually, this bee will take the hint and move on to another flower."
Nesco shook her head in mild exasperation. "I don't understand men, father. How can they be so dense sometimes? How can you look directly into someone's eyes and not see-"
She stopped dead. An image had just come crashing into her mind.
Suddenly Nesco no longer felt hot. The sweat felt cold on her body. In fact, she felt absolutely frozen, unable to even turn her head when she heard the voice of their butler.
"A visitor wishes to speak with you in the parlor, Master Cynewine."
"Coming, Jeffers." Sir Alexor rose up. Nesco didn't even know if he had noticed her sudden discomfort, but when she finally managed to look up, he was still standing nearby and looking at her. The expression on his face clearly indicated he had.
"Be careful in combat, Nesco," her father said softly. "Be even more careful in love."
He turned and followed Jeffers back into the house.
Nesco spent the next few minutes bringing her breathing back under control, and used thoughts of Sir Juntaros, irritating as they were, to try and push that other image out of her mind. That was part of her past now. She'd been more successful than she'd have thought possible in returning to her own life. Even the pains of dealing with her mother were useful distractions towards that end.
Sir Juntaros however, wasn't getting the job done this time. Well, that's one thing I can't blame on him, the ranger thought to herself with a wry smile.
Joseph. That did it, Nesco thought as she recalled her brother's insufferable attitude towards her, in or out of the War College. He knew Nesco never wanted to be an officer, but that didn't stop his constant harping about she had brought shame to the Cynewine name by being expelled.
The ranger glanced down at the wooden training sword hanging from her weapons belt and thought about her other sword. Her real sword, currently lying in her room upstairs at the house. Only the fact that Nesco had given up on ever getting Sundancer's special power to ever work for her had saved Joseph's sword from being turned to glass- preferably right in front of all his sniggering friends.
Knighthood. Nesco clenched the mail coif tightly again in frustration before dropping it on the bench, leaning back and looking over her shoulder towards the edge of the Cynewine estate, and the city of Chendl beyond.
This was the newest bone of contention between the two Cynewine siblings. At present, Joseph was nowhere near being able to land that coveted title. He may have been admitted to the Azure Order, but he was still wet behind the ears, and everyone knew it.
Nesco, on the other hand, had dared to hope that her heroics in the Pomarj (on two separate occasions, no less) might have been sufficient for her ascendance to knighthood. Two factors had dashed that hope, though. The first was that her latest expedition had not been technically a success, although she couldn't believe that anyone who had seen the devastation she and the others had wrought would call it a failure.
The second and more damning factor was, of course, her being dropped from the War College. Comitello had told Nesco not to rule out all hope, but he admitted her knighthood was not a subject likely to come up in the near-
"I must say, Nesco- you have very persistent friends," came the voice of her father.
Nesco closed her eyes in resignation. I should have taken Father up on his offer, she thought before putting on a proper smile of greeting and swinging her head back around in preparation of standing up.
She never made it all the way.
Nesco froze, still in a crouch. She barely registered her father, or Jeffers standing behind him and off to the side. All she could do was gape at the figure standing on her father's left.
The figure that was supposed to be Sir Juntaros but wasn't.
Oh my god. No. Not again.
And Nesco Cynewine fell right back into that face and right back into those eyes, as if not a single moment had passed. Her heart hurled itself around inside her chest, and her own eyes surrendered their independence. They couldn't look anywhere but right into that face.
"Hello, Nesco," said Aslan, smiling wide. "Miss us?"