Diamond Warriors by David Zindell Read Free Book Online

before you went off with him, you might have married my daughter and given her your name.'
    'But I -
    'Too, you might have given her your estates, such as they are, and most important of all, a child.'
    As the look of longing lighting up Behira's face grew even brighter, Maram closed his mouth, for he seemed to have run out of objections. And then he said, 'But our journeys were dangerous! You can't imagine! I didn't want to leave behind a fatherless child.' Lord Harsha sighed at this, then said, 'In our land, since the Great Battle, there are many fatherless children. And too few men to be husbands to all the widows and maidens.'
    All my life, I had heard of the ancient Battle of the Sarburn referred to in this way, but it seemed strange for Lord Harsha to give the recent Battle of the Culhadosh Commons that name as well.
    'Sar Joshu himself,' Lord Harsha continued, 'lost his father and both his brothers there.'
    Joshu looked straight at me then, and I felt in him the pain of a loss that was scarcely less than my own. I remembered that his mother had died giving him birth, while his two older sisters had been married off. Joshu had inherited his family's rich farm lands only a few miles from here, and who could blame Lord Harsha for wanting to join estates and take this orphan into his own family?
    'Sar Joshu,' I said, looking down the table. I studied the two diamonds set into the silver ring that encircled his finger. 'Before the battle, my brother gave you your warrior's ring. And now you wear that of a knight?'
    Sar Joshu bowed his head at this, but seemed too modest to say anything. And so Lord Harsha told us of his deeds: 'You came late, Lord Valashu, to the fight with the Ikurians, and so you did not witness Sar Joshu's slaying of two knights in defense of Lord Asaru. Nor the lance wound through his lung that unhorsed him and nearly killed him. In reward for his valor. Lord Sharad, Lord Avijan and myself agreed that he should be knighted.'
    Now I could only bow my head to Joshu. 'Then Mesh has another fine knight to help make up for those who have fallen.'
    'Nothing,' Joshu said, 'can ever replace those who fell at the Great Battle.'
    I thought of my father and my six brothers, and I said, 'No, of course not. But as I have had to learn, life still must go on.'
    'And that,' Lord Harsha said, 'is exactly the point I have been trying to make. Morjin's cursed armies cut down a whole forest of warriors and knights. It's time new seeds were planted and new trees were grown.'
    I considered this as I studied the way that Joshu looked at Behira. I sensed in him a burning passion - but not for her.
    'Sar Joshu,' I asked, 'have you ever been in love?'
    He looked down at his hands, and he said simply, 'Yes, Lord Valashu.'
    As Behira took charge of finally passing around the roasted chickens, blueberry muffins, mashed potatoes and asparagus that she had prepared for dinner, it came out that Joshu had indeed known the kind of all-consuming love that makes the very stars weep - and he still did. It seemed that he had been smitten by a young woman named Sarai Garvar, of the Lake Country Garvars. But a great lord had married her instead.
    'My father was to have spoken with her father, Lord Garvar, after the battle,' Joshu told us. Although he shrugged his shoulders, I felt his throat tighten with a great sadness. 'But my father died, my brothers, too, and so it nearly was with me. And so I lost her to another. Everyone knows how bitter Lord Tanu was when the enemy killed his wife during the sack of the Elahad castle. So who can blame him for wanting to take a new wife? And who can blame Lord Garvar for wanting to make a match with one of Mesh's greatest lords?'
    Lord Tanu, of course, had been not only my father's second-in-command but held large estates around Godhra, and his family owned many of the smithies there. As Joshu had said, who could blame any father for wanting to join fortunes with such a man?
    'But Lord Tanu is old!'