The Smiling Stallion Inn Read online

  He passed by Iibala, Sir Nickleby’s daughter, and wondered why she was heading toward town instead of to the meadow where all the action was. He quickly shook off his curiosity and ran past the crowd of people gathered at the edge of Sir Nickleby’s property. He joined the boys at the other end of the meadow where he and his classmates had trained for over four years.

  As Oaka greeted his friends and joked with them a bit, trying to forget his worries, he looked around for Basha and Jawen. There was no sign of them, and Oaka reckoned they were running late which made him remember the last time—two days ago, just after Geda had set out the sign-in sheet for the Courtship Ritual—Jawen had come to the inn, looking for Basha…

  “Is Basha here?” Jawen asked him.

  Oaka was in the stables at the inn, feeding Joko and Talan, the two horses he and Basha had bought from Sir Nickleby by working at his stables for a couple of months during the Reda, Plig, and Suma seasons, taking care of his horses and doing odd chores. Eventually, once the foals had grown up and the boys had paid off their debt, they received them.

  Oaka’s gelding, Joko, was a bit of a joker, hence the name. On the other hand, Talan, Basha’s horse, was a steed of good breeding whose name meant “loyal” and whose sire had been Sir Nickleby’s grand warhorse.

  “No, he went to the market,” Oaka told her as he unloaded bales of hay from a wagon and shoveled some into the feed trough. It was always the same—every other day, it seemed Basha would go off to pursue Jawen so they could rendezvous at some hidey hole where they wouldn’t be seen together. Or Jawen might come over to tease Basha if he wasn’t there on time. Jawen, however, never came to the front door; instead she’d go around back or to the stables.

  “Well, tell him I stopped by to look for him,” Jawen said with a smile before she turned around to leave.

  Irritated, Oaka stopped working and said, loud enough for her to hear, “Jawen, you’re almost as bad as Iibala.”

  Jawen turned back to face him. “Oaka, why do you hate me so?”

  “Because you’re embarrassed to be seen in public with Basha! You toy with him, and it makes me angry to see him disappointed every time you give him reason to doubt your love for him. Have you ever once told him you love him?” Oaka didn’t want to mention the fact Basha was planning to ask for her hand in marriage.

  “Of course I have.”

  “Did you mean it?” Oaka asked.

  “Oaka…I don’t have to listen to you, you fool,” Jawen said, muttering as she left.

  Now, days later, Oaka firmly believed Basha was trying too hard to find something that was already lost or had never come to fruition between himself and Jawen. Perhaps he’d just set his sights too high in looking for that perfect girl. He couldn’t support a bride right now, and he couldn’t love Jawen without sacrifice.

  Wasn’t there anybody else for Basha?

  Oaka thought Basha ought to be able to find somebody else with fewer demands on his character and values, but was there anybody else here in Coe Baba who wanted Basha? While Oaka was worried about Basha’s future, his own couldn’t look any brighter.

  He just couldn’t wait to propose to Sisila. Of course, Oaka felt the urgency of the moment, as did many other young people like him, who were always in a hurry. Every day, every moment, had to be enjoyed, since it could very well be your last, and Oaka wanted to enjoy his days, nights, and moments with Sisila. He understood how people could spend their whole lives in pursuit of that one moment—that one perfect moment when everything worked out and was as it should be. He thought he’d found that most perfect moment with Sisila.

  But Basha was still in search of his one special moment, hoping he might find it with Jawen. Personally, Oaka couldn’t see how Basha was ever going to find that perfect moment with Jawen. Sooner than later, he was certain, his brother would suffer certain heartbreak.

  Chapter 3

  Keep Him Warm

  “Do you trust him, even with your life?

  Is it wise to trust someone so intimately?”

  Or are you taking a risk that shouldn’t be ignored?

  —A Caution from Pakric

  Sisila waited a few minutes longer by the side of the road, planning to follow after Oaka. She smiled as she mentally relived what had just happened; she couldn’t get enough of Oaka, even with the occasional fires plaguing him. He was her heart and soul, and more than anything else, she felt like she was a part of him, and she didn’t care what other people thought.

  Nevertheless, she brushed leaves and twigs from her hair, trying to unravel the tangles so she wouldn’t get herself in a worse predicament with her family. She heard someone coming from the direction of the meadow and thought it was Oaka, coming back to give her one last kiss before the big fight. She turned around and saw instead that it was Iibala.

  Sisila’s smile faded, and she said, “Iibala? What are you doing here?”

  “Excuse me,” Iibala said, storming past Sisila.

  Sisila frowned. She’d once been friends with Iibala, just like Jawen, but that had all changed once the girls hit puberty and Iibala had started going wild. Suddenly they heard somebody running, coming from town this time. Iibala raised her head, smiling as she seemed to spot whoever was in the distance, before she ducked behind a tree.

  Sisila, curious, decided to retreat behind a bush and see what would happen. She wondered who or what could excite Iibala. But then she saw…her eyes widened. Basha and Iibala, together? Sisila, however, was too far away to hear what happened; she could only see.

  * * * *

  Basha, rushing to get to the militia tryouts on time, strapped on his belt with his sword inside its sheath as he raced down the road toward Sir Nickleby’s. He cursed himself for being so late, even though he knew who was to blame for not telling him: Oaka. Maybe it had slipped Oaka’s mind; maybe Oaka assumed Basha already knew, but Basha thought Oaka must have known he’d forgotten and decided not to tell him. In any case, Basha was still upset over Jawen’s rejection for what seemed like the hundredth time. He wondered if he’d ever win her love, or attain approval from Lapo, to marry her. Although his own parents hadn’t seemed too keen on his relationship with Jawen, at least they tolerated their relationship. Regardless of his situation with Jawen, what he needed to focus on right now was winning a spot in the town militia. He prayed the gods would will it so.

  Basha headed toward the farms and ranches near the edge of the tall pine forest. The pines dwarfed the oaks and maples among them, the leaves of the smaller hardwoods just beginning to leaf out. He passed the communal fields shared among the townspeople, whose survival depended upon the harvest. For what they received from the crop yield, everyone had to participate in the seeding and harvest, even the families of the innkeeper, the merchant, and Baron Augwys. The fields were still overgrown with brush from the dormant Sna, the snow months. There would be months of work ahead to get them all cleared and furrowed and then seeded in Plig, the season of planting.

  Some of the fields were still bare and blackened by the blaze that had swept through several months ago. Sir Nickleby and a handful of his patrol had barely escaped the blaze with their lives. Although the dead were still mourned, seedlings were starting to grow up again through the blackened soil, a heartening sign of rebirth.

  He hoped the renewal of the land would carry over this day to bigger and better things to come in his own life. Getting a spot in the town militia would be a stepping stone to higher things, but it could mean getting into the Border Guards, which would mean moving away from home.

  Independent of the military, the Border Guards were the first and last line of defense for Arria. Ordained by the government of Arria to protect its borders with the countries of Pinal, Pakka, and Urso, they were trained to fight only when and if necessary. The guards often moved permanently away from their hometowns and were sometimes killed in action. He didn’t want to cut off all ties to Coe Baba, but as a border guard, he could earn enough money to support Jawen fo
r the rest of her life. He just didn’t know if that would offset the high price he might have to pay for her hand in marriage.

  He stopped in his tracks as Iibala suddenly appeared from behind a tree, stepping into the middle of his path. “Where are you going, Basha?” she asked with a smile telling she’d been lying in wait for him.

  Iibala was one of the most attractive young women in town, a real beauty who outshone all the other girls who stood in her shadow. She knew her own charm, using it to attract all of the young men to her. She was hard to resist.

  And she was Sir Nickleby’s daughter.

  Beyond that, she was a mystery to most young men, even to those who had dated her. She was tight-lipped about her innermost thoughts and used her words to flatter and flirt with those boys she deemed interesting enough—or perhaps dumb enough—to be worthy of her attention. But when she lifted her brown eyes—eyes that scorched and mocked you at the same time. Her almost perpetual smile won you over and made you believe she was excited about seeing you and no one else. Basha had once believed in and had felt the power in those enticing brown eyes, and he definitely didn’t want to go back down that particular road.

  Before Jawen, there had been Iibala, his first love or more appropriately, his first crush. She was only a year or two older than he was, but she was surprisingly mature for her age. Although Basha had feelings for Jawen, even as a boy, Iibala had made him feel like a man for the first time. Only thirteen or fourteen when he first started spending time with her, he worried continually she might leave him for one of the other young men who had paid her attention, even in his presence. He wondered what they did when he wasn’t around.

  Iibala took control of her own destiny by carefully choosing the young men she showered her attentions upon or whatever she wanted from them at the time. Even at fifteen or sixteen, rumor was that she’d already dated men three or four years older than her, some of them with wives or fiancées. Basha had been one of the few she’d been with who was younger than her. At first, he’d thought himself the luckiest young man in all of Coe Baba. Then she cheated on him with an older man and called him a boy to his face right in front of the man—laughing at him—he was glad she dumped him. He hadn’t spent time with another girl until Jawen came along. She’d saved him, made him believe in her and in love again.

  “You know where I’m going, Iibala,” Basha tried to dodge her, but she moved with him. He couldn’t avoid her. “I’m already late!” he cried, frustrated and agitated. There was a prickling sensation on the back of his neck that he’d come to associate with anger and frustration of a certain kind. He sometimes got this feeling around Jawen, when she was being obstinate and teasing him, but usually he tried to suppress the feeling, and it would go away after a little while. It wasn’t natural.

  “What’s the rush? You always have next year,” Iibala said, sidling up to him. She was deadly to any man who didn’t have a heart of steel.

  “I should already be checked in with your father,” Basha said, trying to distance himself from her close proximity. He knew she was only playing with him. “Now excuse me, please!” He turned to go but went suddenly still. “Iibala, don’t move,” he cautioned in a low voice.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, looking around.

  “This has happened to me before. I—duck!” he cried, hunkering down and throwing his arms over his head.

  “Don’t you mean raven?” Iibala cried, covering her head as the vicious, murderous flock attacked them both.

  Basha leaped up and swung his sword at the birds as they swept down to peck and scratch at them. “I’m sorry!” he yelled. “I don’t know why this keeps happening to me!”

  “Basha, wait!” Iibala cried, and then muttered, “By the blood in me, by the spirit of my heart…” She cried out once as a bird nabbed her hair, the others swarming even closer. She shook them off and kept going. “By the sweat off my brow, by the breath that stirred me…” She inhaled and held her breath as Basha pierced another bird close to her eyes, “And by the clay that molded me, I, Iibala, cast you birds of death and air away from here by the power of Tau who created me!”

  The crows cawed out and turned about in a swoop, flying away and leaving Basha and Iibala behind with a few corpses of dead and dying birds. Basha gasped and inhaled, trying to calm himself. “Iibala, what were you chanting?”

  “I wish they’d make it shorter,” Iibala muttered, breathing hard. She blinked as she turned to face Basha. “Uh…it wasn’t anything…nothing,” she said, turning and walking away.

  “Wait! You can’t just walk away!”

  Iibala turned back. “I just don’t think you should…” She sighed and stopped. “I don’t think you really want to know, Basha.”

  Basha sighed and shook his head. “Never mind,” he said, walking away from her. He didn’t want any part of that. Sometimes he wanted to know the truth, and sometimes he was afraid of what he might find out, what it might mean for him.

  * * * *

  Unable to believe her eyes, Sisila decided she couldn’t stand to see any more. Despite the fact that Iibala might have known she was here in the bushes, she didn’t want Basha to know, so she quickly went over one of the stone walls and darted across the vacant fields to reach the meadow on the far side. After all of these years of Jawen and Basha courting each other—albeit from afar—she couldn’t stand the thought Iibala might be courting Basha. Didn’t she know Jawen was interested in Basha? But then again, perhaps she did know.

  And what was with all those ravens attacking them like that? And then Iibala chanted something and they flew away. This was strange business, and Iibala was right in the middle of it.

  Sisila went over another stone wall, this one along the plots of land that farmers and ranchers claimed for their own. As she tramped through the woods by Sir Nickleby’s house, she remembered Iibala when she was her friend—and Jawen’s as well—until it got to be embarrassing, the way Iibala threw herself at other men.

  Worse was Iibala’s behavior when it came to older, married men. Most women avoided Iibala now, and most men weren’t quite as keen as they had once been to be seen with her in public. Even Sir Nickleby had to be ashamed of her, his own daughter.

  Speaking of the demon, Sisila froze when she saw Sir Nickleby walking through the woods not far from his home. And he wasn’t alone. He was deep in conversation with none other than her older brother, Hastin. All the sons of Baron Augwys had received private instruction, in addition to the normal class-structured schooling, from Sir Nickleby, but Hastin hated the knight’s methods of instruction. Hastin had always thought he treated his horses better than he treated the boys under his instruction. Sisila, however, wasn’t willing to believe that Sir Nickleby was all that harsh.

  She frowned, wondering what her brother was about, hanging onto Sir Nickleby’s every word when he couldn’t abide the man, and they looked quite secretive about it.

  When Hastin finally left to join the other young men in formation, leaving Sir Nickleby alone for the moment, Sisila decided to seize her chance. She stepped out from behind the tree. “Sir Nickleby?” she called out to him and he turned around.

  “Miss Sisila, what can I do for you?” he asked.

  “What were you talking to my brother about?” she asked, approaching him. She was nervous about confronting the knight like this. Sir Nickleby wasn’t a man to be taken lightly, but he still was a man and could be controlled, she hoped. “I order you, in the name of my father, to tell me what is going on here.”

  “All right, all right,” Sir Nickleby groused. The man owed much to Baron Augwys, but he didn’t have to be happy about taking orders from the baron’s children. “Your brother wants to have the first fight in the tryouts against your boyfriend, Oaka. You happy?”

  Sisila gasped. “Oaka?” she said. “Oh no! Hastin must have found out—”

  “Exactly,” Sir Nickleby said. “You couldn’t expect to gallivant around with that boy, without the news ev
entually reaching your brother.”

  “Don’t call Oaka a boy!” Sisila said. “What about my father? Does he know?” she asked, trying to calm herself down.

  “He doesn’t know…yet,” Sir Nickleby said. “Anyway, I think not. I’m assuming Hastin must have just found out.”

  Sisila tried to think, flushing as she realized he must have seen them together in the bushes beside the road. “Oaka can’t possibly stand up against him,” Sisila said, knowing her brother’s strengths and skills, and Oaka’s were no match. He’d received more one-on-one instruction from Sir Nickleby than Oaka ever would.

  She met his eyes directly. “It’s unfair—put Hastin up against somebody else.”

  “I can’t do that,” Sir Nickleby said. “Hastin would complain to your father, and then where would we be?”

  “All right, never mind that!” Sisila said. She didn’t want her father finding out just yet, and she certainly didn’t want Hastin’s wrath coming down on her. “What do we do?”

  “I don’t know about you. I’m going to do my job,” Sir Nickleby said as he turned around.

  “Wait!” Sisila said as an idea came to her. “If Hastin wins the first fight against Oaka, then have Basha fight against him next.”

  Sir Nickleby paused. “Basha…interesting…” Sir Nickleby said, looking up at the sky. “Are you sure about that?”

  “I’m positive; Basha has a chance with Hastin,” Sisila said. She’d seen enough of his bouts to know he had what it took to match Hastin.

  “Consider it done,” Sir Nickleby said as he went back to the meadow.

  * * * *

  Perched in a tree at the edge of the forest, a woman named Nisa watched the ravens and crows flying away to make sure that none of them would regroup again. She’d been concerned at first when she saw such a huge flock swarming around Basha and Iibala, and wondered if she should step in and try to stop the birds before they killed the boy. But somehow they repelled the birds. Perhaps Iibala had had a hand in that? Basha didn’t know anything that could be useful in such a situation. Nisa spun around and jumped to the ground, catching Iibala sneaking up on her. “What are you doing?” she asked Iibala, rising up to stand with her sword at the ready.