Homage and Honour Read online

  HOMAGE AND HONOUR

  Candy Rae

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  SMASHWORDS EDITION

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  Homage and Honour

  Copyright © 2013 Candy Rae

  Artwork Copyright © 2010 Jennifer Johnson

  Proofreading and Editing by - Colt Proofreading Services, Auchterarder

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  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This electronic book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by any way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form other than that which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

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  Homage and Honour is dedicated to my friends from our fan-fiction writing club who taught me how to write.

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  PLANET WOLF

  Planet Wolf is a world where the grass is not green.

  It's a planet where alien trees and spiky foliage move strangely in the breeze.

  It's a world of gigantic mountains and deep valleys, of huge rivers and primaeval forests, of vast plains and arid deserts, of restless seas and great continents.

  On Planet Wolf, the native creatures act and sound like nothing mankind has seen before.

  * * * * *

  The Planet Wolf Series

  Wolves and War - Conflict and Courage - Homage and Honour - Dragons and Destiny - Valour and Victory - Paws and Planets - Tales and Tales - Ambition and Alavidha

  The T’Quel Magic - A Trilogy

  (Forthcoming - Publish Date 2013)

  Ephemeral Boundary - Enduring Barrier - Eternal Bulwark

  The New Planet Wolf Series

  (Forthcoming - Publish Date 2014)

  Journey and Jeopardy - Gossamer and Grass - Flames and Freedom

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Vadrhed (Second Month of Summer) - AL156

  Lokrhed (Third Month of Summer) - AL156

  Sanrhed (Fourth Month of Summer) - AL156

  Rakrhed (Fifth Month of Summer) - AL 156

  Dunthed (First Month of Winter ) - AL156

  Vadthed (Second Month of Winter - AL156

  Lokthed (Third Month of Winter) - AL156

  Santhed (Fourth Month of Winter ) - AL156

  Rakthed (Fifth Month of Winter) - AL156

  Dunrhed (First Month of Summer) - AL157

  Vadrhed (Second Month of Summer) - AL157

  Lokrhed (Third Month of Summer) - AL157

  Sanrhed (Fourth Month of Summer) - AL157

  Rakrhed (Fifth Month of Summer) - AL157

  Dunthed (First Month of Winter ) - AL157

  Interregnum

  Lokrhed (Third Month of Summer) - AL166

  Sanrhed (Fourth Month of Summer) - AL166

  Vadthed (Second Month of Winter - AL166

  Lokthed (Third Month of Winter) - AL166

  Santhed (Fourth Month of Winter ) - AL166

  Rakthed (Fifth Month of Winter) - AL166

  Vadrhed (Second Month of Summer) - AL167

  The Southern Continent - AL234

  Characters and Glossary

  Appendices

  * * * * *

  Vadrhed (Second Month of Summer) – AL156

  Convergence (1)

  In the decades to come glorious tales will be told and songs will be sung about the exploits of ‘The Quartet’ but in the summer of the year of landing one hundred and fifty-six, they are but four anxious young people travelling north, east, west and south.

  The first to set out on the journey hadn’t even heard of the Vada until a few tendays prior to when this story opens, the second had known for a number of years that joining the Vada would be her future, the third had always wanted to join the Vada and the fourth had never in a million years thought she would get the chance.

  * * * * *

  Nemesis (1)

  The creature bursting out of the egg was three millimetres long.

  Thirty years before, in the summer of Anno Landing126 it had been hot and arid enough to dry out the marshes and allow the creature’s mother to mate and breed. Since then the egg had lain hidden under the marsh-mud, waiting for a dry summer like the one of its conception.

  Anno Landing 156 was such a summer.

  The shell had begun to harden and the cells within the egg sac had coalesced to form the creature. Safe within, the tiny infant had eaten the remaining nutrients and hungry, began to tap at the shell.

  It would have died if pure chance had not intervened. The creature needed rain to soften the shell the drought had hardened and, in the summer of AL156, no rain fell. The season would go down in history as the hottest and driest since mankind had arrived on the planet.

  Chance, fate, atropos, clothos, lachesis, call it what you will, unfortunately, the dry mud in which the tiny egg was embedded was lifted out of the ground as the man dug his shovel in and hefted the clod upwards and out into the daylight. Life might have ended there but the man decided at that point to spit out the mucus he was swilling around in his mouth, which landed on the spot where the egg sat.

  It was enough, the liquid began to soften the shell’s hard outer layer and when the shovelful was dropped into the waiting barrow the creature was well on its way to the next stage of its existence. It emerged from the shell and into the daylight.

  The thin and ragged boy who manhandled the barrow over the rough ground had no way of knowing that its contents consisted of more than simple mud and dried out plant-matter.

  Reaching the spoil heap that was his destination and with a pair of mud-caked hands the boy lifted the first clod out of the barrow and on to the pile.

  He did not feel the creature bite. He continued with the task in hand, for that was his job, to cart the mud away from the irrigation ditches his Lord and Master had decreed must be dug.

  The ricca fields were drying out. If they did not get water soon many would go hungry this coming winter. Starvation was a very real threat and as a slave, the boy was right at the bottom of the food chain, even the animals would be fed before him. Slaves could be replaced at need. His master’s prize cattle herds could not.

  At least, the boy was thinking as he bent down to pick up another sticky clod of the mud, his eyes flicking right and left in case the overseer with his whip was hovering nearby, the ditches would be finished soon and he would be able to return to his more usual occupation of tending the ripening crops in the ricca fields, his fears about impending starvation at bay, just so long as the river kept at its present level.

  * * * * *

  The state of the river was the subject under discussion by the Duke of van Buren, Lord Raoul and two of his companions. The fourth member of the party was not talking; he had not wished to accompany his cousins and his father on the tour of inspection of this, one of the more productive areas within the Duchy of van Buren.

  The three discussing the state of the river were dressed in workmanlike garb of soft linen surcoats and leather breeches of superfine quality, but plain. The fourth was dressed in a far more fanciful, some might say foppish, style and he looked as if he wished to be anywhere other than where he was.

  It was not one of the younger Raoul’s favourite occupations, watching as a hundred or so sweaty slaves toiled at the ditches under the eagl
e eyes of the overseers. Raoul van Buren the Younger had far more interesting matters to think about. His marriage to Contessa Celine Brentwood was scheduled for a tenday hence and dreaming about the imminent delights of the marriage bed was a far more agreeable occupation.

  It was to be a double celebration. His sister Eloise was to be married the same day, a good match, to the nephew of the King no less, Prince Brandon of Murdoch.

  He, the heir of van Buren would have liked to marry a Princess of the Bloodline himself but his father’s choice of Celine Brentwood had its compensations. All the Brentwood girls were pretty but Celine’s prettiness was considered out of the ordinary even by that good-looking family and although Prince Brandon’s sister was as yet un-betrothed, she was only fourteen years old and Raoul was not emotionally suited to waiting to get what he desired.

  Not long before this Raoul had overheard his uncle describing him as an ‘arrogant young pup’ who needed his corners rubbed away before he would be fit to take his father’s place.

  The two boys, Raoul’s cousins, who were riding alongside his father were the Duke’s nephews, Wolfram and Brandon, the latter a jolly and muscular boy of fifteen, a year younger than his brother and three years younger than Raoul himself.

  The fifteen-year-old Margrave Brandon van Buren would not be attending the double wedding celebrations as he was to leave next day for the Duchy of Graham, there to marry the Daughter Heir of its Duke. With him would go his elder brother Wolfram and his father the Count Wolfram, Duke Raoul’s younger brother.

  Raoul couldn’t be bothered wondering what political shenanigans had occurred to arrange that betrothal. As women could not hold land, his cousin would, on the death of the present duke, become Duke of Graham with a seat on King’s Conclave, as would Raoul himself when his father died and he came into his inheritance.

  The one whose nose was out of joint, reflected Raoul, was his older cousin Wolfram. He was the future Lord William, Count van Buren, in rank a full strata lower than the future ranks of his younger brother and older cousin.

  Wolfram was betrothed to one Thanessa Sheila Ross; a relation of the newly appointed Lord Marshall, Philip Ross and a Thanessa was the female equivalent of the lowest strata of nobility. For the nobility, especially those not at the top, rank and prospects were of paramount importance.

  It was a good marriage for Sheila, at present a very junior lady-in-waiting to the Princess Jennifer but Wolfram must be wondering why his father and uncle had arranged the match and why his brother had been selected by Lord Jeremy Graham as heir and not him.

  Raoul thought he knew why. His father, Duke of van Buren was an ambitious man.

  For years now the Dukes of Gardiner and Brentwood had been the two with the most influence in Conclave and Raoul’s father had decided that it was time the van Buren family had a turn. A marriage alliance with the Lord Marshall would help.

  His horse stumbled and Raoul came back to himself with a start. They had arrived at the site of the new irrigation ditches.

  He looked around with unconcealed disdain. Wolfram and Brandon, however, kneed their mounts forward and dismounted, the better to see how the job was progressing.

  One of the smaller slave urchins, Raoul noticed, was being sent off towards the water butts. Bucket in hand; his skinny legs were moving very fast and sending mud-dust up behind his running feet. The senior overseer was deep in conversation with his father who had also dismounted and, to Raoul’s horror, looked as if he might be actually intending to go to the ditches to inspect the progress close up. He hoped his father wouldn’t demand that he accompany him. Raoul disliked the smells that emanated from the lower classes, especially the lowest caste, the slaves.

  Catching his father’s eye, he reluctantly decided that he might as well show willing and swung his legs down on to the ground. To stall for time he pretended to be busy adjusting his horse’s harness but was distracted. The slave urchin had returned with his bucketful and was offering up a battered cup brimming over with fresh drinking water. Raoul could not bring himself to drink out of the same cup the slaves had been using. He shuddered and pushed the boy’s arm away. He took a kerchief out of his pocket and wiped at the dirty spot where their skins had touched. The kerchief he dropped on to the ground.

  He watched while his father, Wolfram and Brandon accepted the cup and drank their fill. He listened amazed as Brandon thanked the lad for his trouble, but that was Brandon all over. He had a ‘feel’ for people, an attribute his brother Wolfram shared, although to a lesser degree.

  He stood to one side trying to look interested and hoping that his father would not call him over. It was with relief that he mounted his horse when he realised that the inspection was over and followed his father and cousins back to the manor.

  The skinny slave urchin watched them leave; he was absently scratching at the part of his hand that the creature had bitten, the same hand that young Raoul had brushed aside.

  The Lord Raoul, Duke of van Buren rode home in fine fettle. The irrigation ditches were almost finished, the ricca crop was safe. Son, daughter and nephew would be advantageously married before the month was out and the other nephew before summer’s end.

  He was not to know that death rode behind him and that only one of these marriages would take place.

  * * * * *

  Convergence (2)

  The first of them to set out on her journey to the Vada Stronghold hadn’t even heard of the Vada until a few tendays prior to when this story opens.

  “It’s marry Brentwood’s heir or enter the cloister, it is your choice.”

  The Duke of Graham’s second daughter stared at her father with despair in her heart. She knew her elder sister Marcia was the important one. The present Duke of Graham had no sons and it was Marcia who would inherit the ducal position although it would be Margrave Brandon van Buren who would take over the actual governance of the dukedom when Marcia came into her inheritance. He would become the fifth Lord Graham and Marcia his consort.

  Tom, heir to Brentwood was a large clumsy man, some five years older than Elisabeth and the one time they had met she had not liked him at all. It appeared, however, that he liked her otherwise he wouldn’t have spoken to his father about a match.

  “Could I have some time to decide Father?” Elisabeth faltered. She did not want to become Lady Elisabeth, Duchess of Brentwood and brood mare of the Brentwood bloodline.

  “What’s to decide? It’s a good match.”

  Elisabeth knew that the situation was hopeless. Her father had decided, had already accepted the proposal on her behalf.

  “Yes Father,” she answered, the picture of a dutiful daughter, “when will the marriage take place?”

  “That’s better,” said Lord Jeremy, patting her on her head, much as he did one of his hound bitches, “as for the marriage, after Marcia’s. Let us say that you will be leaving for Brentwood in a few months.” He turned away. It was a dismissal and Elisabeth knew it.

  She fled to the rooms she shared with her sister.

  “What did you expect?” was Marcia’s reasonable question as she continued with the elaborate embroidery on her wedding-gown, “you’re fifteen this summer.”

  “I didn’t think it would be so soon,” fretted Elisabeth, “I thought there’d be time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “I don’t know,” Elisabeth muttered and flounced off towards the window embrasure.

  Marcia laid her needle down.

  “Beth, you knew this would happen one day, why trouble yourself about something you can’t do anything about? If not Tom Brentwood it will be another. At least,” she continued, picking up the discarded needle and frowning over tangles in the thread, “you’ll be able to attend Court and we’ll be able to see each other.”

  “I don’t like Tom Brentwood.”

  “You’ve only met him once,” she answered reasonably, “same time as I met Brandon. Give it time.”

  “I don’t want to give it time,�
� answered Elisabeth with passion, “I don’t want to marry him. I won’t marry him.”

  Marcia ignored that.

  “It’s either marriage or the cloister,” Marcia said, echoing her father’s words but she was talking into thin air. Elisabeth had gone. The elder sister shrugged, Elisabeth would come round of that Marcia was sure. She had no other choice.

  * * * * *

  Elisabeth retained an outward docility over the days that followed.

  Her father made arrangements for her dower and she made arrangements of her own.

  She stood at Marcia’s side as she married her young husband. She sat in her assigned place at the nuptial feast, the very picture of a dutiful daughter. She made polite conversation to the noble guests. She accepted their congratulations concerning her own impending nuptials. She retired to her bedchamber.

  Her knapsack was packed. She unbuttoned her dress with fingers that shook with haste and stepped out of the silken folds. She dragged out the tunic and trews she had hidden under her bed wishing she had managed to steal some boots but it couldn’t be helped. It had been difficult enough stealing the clothes. She picked up the scissors she had ‘borrowed’ from the sewing room earlier and took a deep breath. It was time to cut off her hair.