There was a stable for the hataari out front, and she got her first sight of small men that worked in it. They weren't really small, just not giant-sized like the warriors, and they dressed differently, too, in thin white pants and shirts. Darash males of the servant class apparently, whom she'd been told about. They were descended from a people conquered so long ago that no one had the date of it anymore.

They weren't slaves, but were more like a mix between a medieval serf and someone from the servant class of eighteenth-century England. They were the working class, the ones who did all the menial labor warriors snubbed their noses at, though they didn't get paid for it. There were laws to govern them, they had some rights, but they couldn't just pick up and move like normal working-class people. For the most part, she'd been told, they were a happy lot who knew their worth in as much as the warrior society would probably collapse without them.

Dalden's parents led the way inside. Shanelle would be staying a few more days, but then would be leaving for Ba-Har-an, a country that used to take a good three months to reach by hataar, but now was just a few minutes away by airobus. The distance, or prior travel time, was why not much had been known about Ba-Har-an before Challen had been asked to contact them for trade with the League, plentiful deposits of gold having been scanned in that region that other planets were interested in.

But it wasn't really the distance that had kept the two countries virtual strangers for so long, but that the Sha-Ka'ani were a sedentary warrior species. They might differ here and there in each separate country, but they pretty much universally weren't explorers. By nature, they preferred to stay, grow, and prosper in familiar surroundings.

« ^ »

BRITTANY MIGHT HAVE BEEN PICKING HER JAW UP OFF the floor again after walking through the mammoth steel doors of the castle if she hadn't had prior warning-pools in bedrooms had been a clue-that inside wasn't going to look like a castle, but more like a palace. Even so, the bright, open airiness of the place made it unique: high ceilings, huge rooms, everything predominantly white, even the floors, which were marblelike granite.

Potted plants and flowering trees added greenery and other colors, and a blue carpet runner about twelve feet wide extended down the center of the hall where they entered. Two big rooms on each side of it were divided by arches, but arches so wide they were barely divisions, so that standing at the end of one room you could see clearly across to the end of the other. Tall open windows at the ends of these rooms let in soft breezes that kept the place cool, as well as so much daylight they might as well have been still outside. More trees in great urns were in the two rooms, along with backless couches, tables…

Brittany's interest perked yet again. Tables meant carpentry, but her kind or-bah, there was only one kind. Yet Kodos had said there was no one around here who could teach him how to work with wood, that most of the buildings in town had been built by the Darash so long ago that the knowledge of how to do so had been lost. A challenge loser could be made to build a building in punishment, but it tended to be of such poor quality that it would never be used.

"You expect to lose some challenges?" she'd teased her young friend.

He'd replied a bit indignantly, "I want to show a challenge loser how to build something properly so it can be useful, rather than task the next challenge loser with tearing it down, as is usually the case."

She hadn't asked much about these challenges, figured they were just another warrior sport. But that conversation had illuminated the early one she'd had with Dalden when he equated her job with punishment. Warriors apparently could be merchants, could direct Darash in farming, but the only thing they did with their own hands was sword-wielding. Amazing how these people managed to connect and combine their stories into a whole tale without loose ends.

The party divided then, with plans to gather again for dinner: Challen off to attend to shodan business, Tedra off for a catch-up session with Martha, Shanelle and Falon off to her old room, and Dalden pulling Brittany along to his: down one hallway, then another, through a tower, then a garden outside with a covered walk that passed down the middle of it, into the next building, a few more hallways, some stairs, some more stairs. She was absolutely lost by the time they reached his room, which was so far away from the main sections of the castle that it might as well not be considered part of it.

The room covered the whole upper floor of the building it was in, so the balcony that surrounded it surrounded all of it. And yes, there really was a sunken pool in it, about eight feet round, like a miniature oasis with potted trees around it and a stone bench next to it. An extra-big bed was against the only wall that didn't have those open, arched windows. Not a normal bed as she knew it, it seemed to be a thick, stuffed mattress that fit into a full boxlike frame with no springs. Although it was very old-fashioned looking, the bedding appeared soft and comfortable.

There were a few more of those backless couches around a long, low table. Did they eat lying down? Carved chests sat between arches-detailed woodworking! The floors were again white marblelike stones but lightly veined with blue. Sheer lightblue curtains stirred at the windows, their only covering. There were no windowpanes or shutters.

"Tell me something, how do you keep out the flies and mosquitoes?" she asked Dalden.

"The what?"

"Insects, bugs, you know, tiny things that fly around in the air and make a habit of biting people."

"You will find such things in the lowlands, not up on a mountain.

"Ah."

"What think you of your new home?"

She knew he'd been eagerly awaiting that answer, though his expression was guarded. It was truly beautiful, his room, uncluttered yet lavish. But the whole place made her think of a sultan's harem. It brought home clearly that she was nowhere near her own home.

"It's big," she allowed.

"Indeed, a warrior has need of space to not feel confined," he agreed.

"I suppose."

"You do not like it," he remarked, clear disappointment in his tone now.

"I didn't say that," she said quickly. "It will just take getting used to."

"What do you not like about it?"

"Dalden, stop it. It's beautiful, really."

"You are mine, thus do I know you well, kerima, and you are not pleased with where you will live."

She held out her hand to him. When he clasped it, she brought his fingers to her mouth and bit one of his knuckles, hard. He raised a golden brow at her, though he barely felt any pain. He then grinned at her and pulled her to him. She pushed away.

"Bah, that wasn't an invitation. I was just proving you'll never know me as well as you think you do, which is a good thing. Surprises add spice to life, after all. As for these quarters, I will get used to them. But you saw where I lived. The house I had planned to build for myself would have been four times as big, but it still wouldn't be a castle. This place is like a-a fairy tale to me. Fairy tales are nice, but they are to be enjoyed temporarily, not permanently. I can't see staying here forever."

"You wish to live elsewhere?"

Instead of answering that, she asked him, "Did you plan to always live here, even after you took a lifemate and started your own family?"