Shaman's Crossing (The Soldier Son Trilogy #1)

Epiny guided her horse away from the commonly used paths and onto a lesser trail. We left the groomed environs of the park behind and soon raced, single file, down a bramble-choked winding path. Spink had his horse between my cousin and me, or Sirlofty could easily have outrun Epiny’s mare and let me catch her. Twice, fallen trees blocked the way, and each time her horse cleared the obstacle in a jump, I feared that I would be bringing her lifeless body home to my uncle. We came to an open area alongside the river, and there it was that she finally pulled in her mount.

Spink reached her first, crying out, “Epiny, are you hurt?” as he flung himself off his horse. She had already dismounted and was breathing hard. Her cheeks were very pink in the cool air and her hair had come undone from her netted hat and tangled about on her shoulders. As I rode up and dismounted, she reached back to carelessly knot it up again and restore it to the snood it had escaped.

“Of course I’m all right!” She smiled. “Oh, what a lovely gallop that was. It did both of us much good. Celeste so seldom gets a chance to really stretch her legs.”

“I thought your horse had run away with you!” Spink exclaimed.

“Well, yes, she did, but only because I urged her to it. Come. Let us walk the horses on the path by the river to cool them. It’s lovely there, even this time of year.”

I had had enough. “Epiny, I cannot believe your behavior! What is the matter with you, to give us such a scare? Spink and I were terrified for you, to say nothing of the other people in the park. What ails you, that a young woman of your family and years acts like an irresponsible hoyden?”

She had begun to walk away, leading her mare. Now she turned back to me. Her face changed as completely as if she had removed a mask, and I think that in some ways she had. She leaned toward me as she spoke, and had she been a horse, her ears would have been back and her teeth bared. “The day I begin acting like a ‘woman’ instead of a ‘girl,’ the day I succumb to the manacles and shackles prepared for me, is the day on which my parents will auction me off to the highest bidder. I had heard that on the border, women were allowed to have lives of their own. I had expected a more modern sensibility from you, cousin dear. Instead, over and over, you reveal my worst fears for you rather than my fondest hopes.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I felt angry, indignant, and strangely hurt at her disparaging words.

“I do,” Spink said quietly. “My mother speaks of it.”

“Of what?” I demanded. Was he siding with Epiny again? I felt as I did when I first tried to learn Varnian; that people were talking, but that their words conveyed no meaning.

“Of women learning to run their own affairs,” Spink said. “I’ve told you how our first overseer cheated us, when my brothers and I were little more than children. My mother blames that on her education and upbringing. She says that if she had been able to understand the accounts and how the holdings should have been operated, she would never have lost for us what should have been my brother’s fortune. So when she sent for a tutor for my brother, she insisted that she be allowed to sit in on all his lessons. And she has taught my two sisters all that they might need to know should they ever become untimely widows with small children to defend.”

I stared at him, unable to think of anything to say.

“Exactly,” Epiny said, as if it justified all her strange behavior.

I found my tongue. “I would blame more your mother’s family that your uncle did not come to your aid.”

“Blaming them will not undo what is done. And even though I doubt that my elder brother would ever abandon my wife and children to such a fate, no one can predict that he would be alive and in a position to help them in such straits. My mother has said that no daughter of hers will suffer as she did, from ignorance.”

I could think of any number of replies to that, ranging from tactless to cutting. Instead, I turned to my cousin and said, “I cannot imagine what ‘shackles and manacles’ you are so dreading, Epiny. If you behave like a lady, you will marry well and go to a lovely home of your own, with servants to care for your needs. It seems to me that all noble ladies in Old Thares have to do is fix their hair and order new clothing made for them. Are those your ‘shackles’ you speak of? It shames you to speak of your parents as ‘auctioning you off’ as if you were a prize cow! How can you say such a cruel thing when your father so obviously loves you?”

“Shackles of velvet, and manacles of lace, dear cousin, can bind a woman as effectively as those of cold iron. Oh, my father loves me and so does my mother, and they will find some noble son of a good family who will be delighted with my dowry and will probably treat me well, especially if I produce children for him in a timely and uncomplicated way. The man they choose for me will become an important political ally, which is where I see all the difficulties arise, for my father and my mother have very different political ambitions, as you undoubtedly know.”