Broken Vows Read online

  Imoshen bowed her head in acknowledgment, but resentment burned in her as her great-aunt signaled that she would meet with the defenders to hear the Ghebite’s terms.

  Retreating to the window embrasure, Imoshen picked up the farseer again. A compulsion which was equal parts fascination and revulsion drove her to study the True-man who had destroyed her world and stolen her future.

  General Tulkhan was the first son of the Ghebite King’s second wife. Imoshen sniffed disdainfully. Wife! That word smacked of slavery. What could you expect of a culture where men had more than one bond-partner and called them “wives,” not equals?

  These barbarians had complicated family lines. Being the first son of the second wife, the General had not inherited the kingship when the old king had died during the spring campaign. Instead the first son of the first wife, Tulkhan’s younger half-brother, had assumed the title.

  Young King Gharavan followed the main army at a more sedate pace with his own contingent of men, consolidating the General’s rapid victories. This much Imoshen had heard. Rumor ran wild concerning the Ghebite General, his cunning, his prowess in battle.

  But she could not discount any of it, for General Tulkhan was here at the gates of her Stronghold. He had defeated Stronghold after Stronghold. Often with a lesser army he had met and surrounded opposing forces in the fields and vanquished them. If half of what she’d heard was true, Imoshen had to conclude that he was a brilliant tactician.

  It was said that the men who served under the General adored him, that he had led a charmed life, working his way up through the ranks on ability, not connections. Loyal to the old king, he had subjugated nations, collected bounty and annexed countries all in his father’s name.

  Creeping southeast across the mainland like a plague year by year, the Ghebites under the young General’s leadership had advanced steadily, devouring all resistance in their path. Through brilliant strategy and, Imoshen suspected, tactical errors on the part of her complacent blood relatives, in one short season General Tulkhan had defeated the T’En. He was on the brink of ultimate victory. Fair Isle, the center of T’En culture and learning, was within his grasp.

  Once he had captured the last great Stronghold he would ride into the capital and the citizens, with nothing more than their city patrol to protect them, would lay down their arms and the jewel in the crown would be his to lay at the feet of his half-brother, King Gharavan.

  From this fertile, strategic island General Tulkhan could command the trade routes of the world just as Imoshen’s people had done for six centuries.

  Studying the rows of men standing at attention in orderly ranks, she had to admit that despite their constant battles and enforced marches they looked fresh and their pride was obvious.

  Closing the farseer, Imoshen swallowed uneasily. She did not relish her position. It would have been better to die on the battlefield than live a captive.

  She bitterly resented her parents’ decision not to allow her to fight alongside them. Though she had been trained in the arts of war, they had considered her too young to fight.

  She had offered to travel behind the army to serve as a healer, but her elder brother and sister had objected. Imoshen had not been surprised. She knew them well enough to understand that though they loved her with one breath, they resented her with the next. This war was their chance to win honor and recognition on the battlefield, to outshine her.

  They had not found it easy to watch her outgrow them in size and ability. And when her T’En gift for healing surfaced during puberty they had withdrawn even further, excluding her from their social life with cruel taunts and whispered jibes.

  Imoshen knew she had been more of a burden than a blessing to her family. A Throwback daughter who was forbidden to take a bond-partner could not hope to advance the family’s power through a good marriage.

  Even now, her face grew hot as she remembered the last time she had spoken with her family. She had turned on her siblings in a rage, accusing them of not caring about the men and women who served them. If they did, they would take her along because of the lives she could save, the suffering she could ease. But no. All they cared about was their own advancement!

  After that outburst her parents had banished her from the strategy meetings. So their parting had been strained with resentment on both sides and now they were all dead. She could never take back those words, or make amends.

  Imoshen didn’t know how she felt. So much had happened since spring. This war had come upon Fair Isle like a storm at sea, sweeping all before it. It was four hundred years since the T’En had led an army into battle and that had been to quell local resistance to T’En rule. Since then her people had relied on threat and coercion, otherwise known as diplomacy. The Aayel was right—her people had grown complacent.

  But not Reothe. Her betrothed had sailed south and east discovering new trading routes, returning with knowledge and riches.

  A cold hand closed around Imoshen’s heart. She fought a wave of nausea as the realization struck her—Reothe must be dead, too.

  Impossible! He was so alive, so intense. Her heart raced with the memory of him.

  Her family had been honored when Reothe chose to ally his line with theirs. But when he made it plain he wanted Imoshen and not her elder sister her parents had balked, for Reothe was a Throwback like herself, exhibiting all the T’En traits untainted by the blood of True-people. Everyone knew pure T’En women did not bond, that the church expected them to be celibate in honor of the first Imoshen’s celibacy.

  T’Imoshen the first had decreed that the T’En males, both pure and part, and all part T’En females were to take bond-partners outside their own people. The policy had been designed to assimilate the invaders with the native population of Fair Isle. It was an old law which had been followed without question until the T’En race was spread far and wide but was diluted to a point where it was almost negligible.

  T’En Throwbacks from these unions were so rare everyone had thought the Aayel was going to be the last pure relic of their race. That was until Reothe’s parents announced his birth but, unlike Imoshen’s arrival, his hadn’t been so unexpected.

  His eccentric, first-cousin parents were a tolerated oddity. Their fascination with everything T’En was considered in bad taste.

  After years of infertility the birth of a pure Throwback son was seen as retribution. When they retired from court life to live quietly on their estates and raise the child, their extended family was relieved.

  All this she had overheard. The child Imoshen had missed few of the nuances of adult conversation. Anything she had failed to understand had been thoroughly explained by her sister, who never missed an opportunity to make sure Imoshen understood her place.

  She’d always felt her parents could not understand why they had been blessed, or cursed, with a Throwback. All her life she had been an object of fascination, distrust and derision.

  She had never expected to take a bond-partner.

  But Reothe had anticipated everyone’s objections. He had brought with him a document of dispensation signed by the Emperor and Empress, witnessed by the Beatific. Relieved, her parents had given their consent for Reothe to approach Imoshen.

  Assuring Imoshen it was a good alliance, they had pointed out that she and Reothe were second cousins, both related to the royal family. And with two voyages mapping new trade routes to his credit Reothe already had a reputation for brilliance and daring. He would go far.

  She had not been so sure. Something about Reothe made her senses quicken with a presentiment of danger. It had all happened while the Aayel was away at Landsend Abbey serving the church in her official capacity. With no one to consult, Imoshen had been forced to make a decision.

  She recalled how she had last seen Reothe striding toward her, his fine silver hair lifting in the breeze, his piercing wine-dark eyes fixed on her. It was an eerie sensation, seeing a male mirror of herself. Had he experienced the duality of their people? He mus
t know what it was like to be both loved and feared.

  Imoshen had longed to let her guard down. All her life she had been a barely tolerated outcast in her own family. Even the Aayel had kept her at a distance. In Reothe she hoped to find a kindred spirit. If so, why didn’t she trust him?

  Was she unnerved by his Otherness? How absurd, when she was as pure T’En as he!

  But he was different and it made her wonder if the people she lived with found her as unnerving as she found Reothe.

  A shift had occurred over the six hundred years since the first T’Imoshen and her explorers set foot on Fair Isle. Where once the vanquished people were the underclass, recognized by their language, their religion, their slight frames and golden skin, through interbreeding and the interweaving of everyday life the T’En had grown to be one with the locals, just as the original inhabitants had assumed a fierce loyalty to their once-invaders.

  It was odd, Imoshen thought. She had never regarded her people as invaders but innate honesty forced her to admit the truth.

  The Ghebites’ primitive chanting carried on the wind. The men were singing a deep, repetitive passage which stirred her blood despite herself.

  Yes, she could sense their virility, their passion. No wonder they drove the complacent and overfed T’En army before them. Sated with life’s pleasures, her people had been no match for the primal hunger of the battle-hardened Ghebites.

  In other circumstances she might have admired the vitality of these barbarians. Imoshen had studied the tactics of mainland invasions. Unlike many of her peers, she had learned the ancient T’En art of armed and unarmed combat, as well as diplomacy of state.

  Her brother and sister had teased her, contemptuous of her old-fashioned dedication to knowledge for its own sake. But Imoshen felt more at home immersed in the ancient manuscripts, communing with long-dead people, than dealing with the sly smiles and whispers of her peers. While her brother looked for recognition with his poetry and her sister prepared herself for the acid frivolity of court life, Imoshen retreated to the library and read of old battles.

  Having heard the many tales of the Ghebite General’s tactical brilliance, she was curious to get a closer look at the man who had subdued the warring northern kingdoms, allied Gheeaba to the Low-lands and then in one summer campaign conquered Fair Isle, once thought impregnable.

  Raising the farseer, she located General Tulkhan again, the Ghebite standard billowing behind him. His commanders gathered around him, gloating over the Stronghold’s surrender, no doubt. Imoshen’s lips curled with contempt, for she did not see one woman in the ranks. So it was true. The Ghebite males shut their women away from life.

  Instead the warriors bonded to each other—the Ghebites believed it made for a fiercer fighting unit. Ghebite women were either wife-slaves or a harmless diversion for their males.

  She had heard they kept their wives and daughters in seclusion to produce sons, that Ghebite women were merely instruments of birth. The males ran their barbaric society and look where it had led them: on a pointless path of destruction, acquisition of territory for its own sake!

  Imoshen tensed. Anger threatened to consume her. It was a sad day for the T’En, reduced to Ghebite rule. She was no man’s slave. The Ghebites were fools if they underestimated the women of Fair Isle.

  Wincing, she felt heat flood her cheeks as she heard the Aayel accept the Terms of surrender. Against her will Imoshen’s gaze was drawn to the tableau. Having delivered the General’s message, their own Stronghold Guard stood with despair written clear in their faces. The men and women she had trained beside now faced defeat with her.

  “... and in return for a bloodless victory,” the Aayel was saying, “General Tulkhan must appoint someone to meet with me and discuss the welfare of our people. There will be no looting, no wanton killing, or we will defend this Stronghold to our last breath.”

  The old woman’s dark eyes flashed fiercely and hope surged in Imoshen. Defeat was ignoble, but if they could rescue some honor from this surrender . . .

  When the defenders had gone, the Aayel beckoned Imoshen. She came forward, head held high, rebellion in her breast.

  “You are the last pure T’En. I am old, but you hold the seeds of the future. If you die, our line perishes. Now is not the time for heroics, Shenna. Keep quiet, attract no attention.”

  Imoshen would have spoken, but her great-aunt silenced her. “I will negotiate an honorable surrender. The fields are ripe with crops which must be harvested or the winter snows will find us all starving. Already, from here to the northwest coast the land lies black and ruined. Unless we move now famine will stalk us this winter. Go, and heed my warning. I rely on your good sense!”

  Her great-aunt’s aged hand trembled as she lifted it in the T’En sign of blessing, causing Imoshen a stab of guilt. The light touch of the Aayel’s sixth finger brushed Imoshen’s forehead.

  Impulsively she caught that hand between hers. “I will heed your words, but—”

  “I know it is hard, Shenna. You are my sister’s daughter’s child yet you are more mine than theirs. I thought I had years to watch over you but now . . . There is much I wanted to tell you, only your parents would not have it. They wanted to ignore the pure T’En in you—”

  They were interrupted by anxious Stronghold servants and the Aayel dismissed her. So Imoshen was left to wander, angry and heart sore. It was bitter to have confirmed what she had always suspected. Her family had tried to deny what she was.

  Throughout the Stronghold the inhabitants went about their tasks in trepidation, unsure whether the General would honor the terms of surrender. They came to Imoshen—some merely touched her hair or her sixth finger in passing, others asked for verbal reassurance.

  The irony of it made her smile. In good times they had barely tolerated her but when they felt threatened they turned to her!

  She had to cloak her own fear and mistrust to bolster the courage of her people but she was practiced at this. All summer, as word had come of defeat after defeat, she had lived a lie of reassurance while she watched her world crumble. Since spring her life had veered off course and changed direction irrevocably.

  She should have been taking her formal vows with Reothe in the coming spring, creating history as the first pure T’En female to take a bond-partner, a pure T’En male. Imoshen shivered.

  Banishing her betrothed’s intense eyes from her memory, she stood at the window of her tower room to watch a different, unwelcome history unfold. The Stronghold’s inner gates opened and the General entered astride his black warhorse, flanked by his commanders.

  The people watched sullenly as their barbarian conquerors filed into the courtyard without a drop of blood being shed.

  General Tulkhan was followed by his Elite Guard, who oversaw the laying down of arms.

  Impotent rage seared Imoshen as she stood at her tower window. The autumn sun sank, cloaking her in its red glow, staining her with the unshed blood of their ignoble surrender. And she hated General Tulkhan with all her heart.

  Shut away from everyone, she brooded, feeding the fires of her anger until shrill cries of excitement told her that the General was making his way to the formal chamber to meet the Aayel.

  Imoshen knew she was supposed to remain out of sight, but she wanted to hear the terms, to judge the man for herself. So she slipped a cloak over her shoulders and joined the scurrying workers in the stairs and corridors of the conquered Stronghold.

  Truly, she meant to follow the Aayel’s advice and hold her tongue but as she entered the passage leading to the Great Library she heard a terrible commotion.

  Impulsively, Imoshen tiptoed quickly down the passage and slipped into the library. All the knowledge of the Stronghold was stored there, along with treasures, treatises on herbal cures, plays, and profound philosophies, held in trust by the Keeper of Knowledge.

  Before Imoshen could take in the chaos around her, the old scholar threw his frail body between the barbarians and his charges
. Already the Ghebites had broken open several earthen jars and tipped the oil on the stones to expose the ancient scrolls to the air. When they broke the seal of the next jar the Keeper cried out in dismay. The Ghebites laughed raucously.

  A flash of fury ignited Imoshen. These men were animals!

  One lifted a glass jar of preserved organs and smashed it on the floor. The pungent aroma of its preserving fluid filled the air. Where it met the oil a slow fusion occurred, hissing and fizzing menacingly—two vastly different substances in contact with one another, destroying each other. Was it an omen foretelling the fate of her race, as the T’En met the Ghebites?

  The largest male snatched up another precious canister and prepared to break the seal.

  “Cease!” At Imoshen’s command he stopped. The men looked at her, startled. “You must stop the wanton destruction immediately. The knowledge in this room has been collected over—”

  They recovered and laughed. Imoshen strode toward the nearest soldier, who held the old man, and cuffed him across the head as she would an errant stable boy. Though she was only seventeen she looked down on the man. “This is an outrage! Release the Keeper of Knowledge. Have you no respect?”

  The Ghebite and his partner released the old man. Leering, they turned on Imoshen, who instantly realized her mistake. Both men were armed. But they ignored their weapons, seeking instead to grab her.

  She ducked under the arms of the first and swung her foot at his knees, sending him to the floor. The second caught her shoulder, but instead of pulling away she went with his strength, darting inside his guard to elbow him in the ribs and jerk her head back into his face. His nose broke with a satisfying crunch.

  These were both simple moves learned in early childhood by those who revered the old ways. A female might not have the muscle of a male but she had speed and could use her enemy’s own strength against them.