“Are you certain you want to do this, Lord Gareth?”
He turned from the window to where Caralin stood beside her own writing table, across the room from his. Hers was piled with the estate account books. She had run his estates all the years he had been gone, and without doubt she still made a better job of it than he did.
“If you had set them to work for Admer Nem, as the law required,” she went on, “this would be none of your affair at all.”
“But I did not,” he told her. “And would not if I had it to do again. You know as well as I do, Nem and his male kin would be trying to corner those girls day and night. And Maigan and the rest of the women would make their lives the Pit of Doom, that is if all three girls didn't accidentally fall down a well and drown.”
“Even Maigan would not use a well,” Caralin said dryly, “not with the weather we've been having. Still, I take your point, Lord Gareth. But they have had most of a day and a night to run in any direction. You will locate them as soon by sending out word of them. If they can be found.”
“Thad can find them.” Thad was over seventy, but he could still track yesterday's wind across stone by moonlight, and he had been more than happy to turn the brickyard over to his son.
“If you say so, Lord Gareth.” She and Thad did not get on. “Well, when you bring them back, I can certainly use them in the house.”
Something in her voice, casual as it was, pricked his attention. A touch of satisfaction. Practically from the day he arrived home Caralin had introduced a succession of pretty maids and farmgirls into the manor house, all willing and eager to help the lord forget his miseries. “They are oathbreakers, Caralin. I fear it's the fields for them.”
A brief, exasperated tightening of her lips confirmed his suspicions, but she kept her tone indifferent. “The other two perhaps, Lord Gareth, but the Domani girl's grace would be wasted in the fields, and would suit serving at table very well. A remarkably pretty young woman. Still, it will be as you wish, of course.”
So that was the one Caralin had picked out. A remarkably pretty young woman indeed. Though oddly different from the Domani women he had met. A touch hesitant here, a touch too fast there. Almost as if she were just now trying out her arts for the first time. That was impossible, of course. Domani women trained their daughters to twine men around their fingers almost from the cradle. Not that she had been ineffective, he admitted. If Caralin had sprung her on him among the farmgirls... Remarkably pretty.
So why was it not her face that kept filling his mind? Why did he find himself thinking of a pair of blue eyes? Challenging him as though wishing she had a sword, afraid and refusing to yield to fear. Mara Tomanes. He had been sure she was one to keep her word, even without oaths. “I will bring her back,” he muttered to himself. “I will know why she broke oath.”
“As you say, my Lord,” Caralin said. “I thought she might do for your bedchamber maid. Sela is getting a bit old to be running up and down the stairs to fetch for you at night.”
Bryne blinked at her. What? Oh. The Domani girl. He shook his head at Caralin's foolishness. But was he being any less foolish? He was the lord here; he should remain here to take care of his people. Yet Caralin had taken better care than he knew how, all the years he was gone. He knew camps and soldiers and campaigns, and maybe a bit of how to maneuver in court intrigues. She was right. He should take off his sword and this fool hat, and have Caralin write out their descriptions, and...
Instead, he said, “Keep a close eye on Admer Nem and his kin. They'll try to cheat you as much as they can.”
“As you say, my Lord.” The words were perfectly respectful; the tone told him to go teach his grandfather to shear sheep. Chuckling to himself, he went outside.
The manor house was really little more than a tremendously overgrown farmhouse, two rambling stories of brick and stone under a slate roof, added to again and again by generations of Brynes. House Bryne had owned this land — or it had owned them — since Andor was wrought from the wreckage of Artur Hawkwing's empire a thousand years before, and for all that time it had sent its sons off to fight Andor's wars. He would fight no more wars, but it was too late for House Bryne. There had been too many wars, too many battles. He was the last of the blood. No wife, no son, no daughter. The line ended with him. All things had to end; the Wheel of Time turned.
Twenty men waited beside saddled horses on the stonepaved yard in front of the manor house. Men even grayer than he, mostly, if they had hair. Experienced soldiers all, former squadmen, squadron leaders and bannermen who had served with him at one time or another in his career. Joni Shagrin, who had been Senior Bannerman of the Guards, was right at the front with a bandage around his temples, though Bryne knew for a fact his daughters had set their children to keep him in his bed. He was one of the few who had any family, here or anywhere else. Most had chosen to come serve Gareth Bryne again rather than drink away their pensions over reminiscences no one but another old soldier wanted to hear.
All wore swords belted over their coats, and a few carried long, steeltipped lances that had hung for years on a wall until this morning. Every saddle had a fat blanket roll behind, and bulging saddlebags, plus a pot or kettle and full water bags, just as if they were riding out on campaign instead of a week's jaunt to chase down three women who set fire to a barn. Here was a chance to relive old days, or pretend to.
He wondered if that was what was rousting him out. He was certainly too old to go riding off after a set of pretty eyes on a woman young enough to be his daughter. Maybe his granddaughter. I am not that big a fool, he told himself firmly. Caralin could manage things better with him not getting in the way.
A lanky bay gelding came galloping up the oak lane that led down to the road, and the rider threw himself out of the saddle before the animal came to a full stop; the man halfstumbled but still managed to put fist to heart in a proper salute. Barim Halle, who served under him as a senior squadman years ago, was hard and wiry, with a leather egg for a head and white eyebrows that seemed to be trying to make up for the lack of other hair. “You been recalled to Caemlyn, my CaptainGeneral?” he panted.
“No,” Bryne said, too sharply. “What do you mean riding in here as though you had Cairhienin cavalry on your tail?” Some of the other horses were frisking, ca
