Valour and Victory by Candy Rae Read Free Book Online Page B

another visit on
the way here if I remember rightly.”
    “We’re
triplets,” protested Rilla. Surely he isn’t going to refuse
me?
    “So how many
sisters do you have?” he asked beckoning her to follow him to the
office tent where passes for entry into the Settlement area were
kept.
    “There are us
triplets, Hilla, me and Zilla.”
    “It was Zilla
you visited at Dunetown?”
    “Yes, Hilla’s
with the Garda, in officer training and I haven’t seen her for
simply ages, Zala’s married and lives in Stewarton. Lastly there’s
Tala, I don’t know where she is. She visited me at Vada before we
left but wouldn’t tell me what she was doing. Tala’s really clever;
she’ll be doing something terribly important.”
    Little do
you know young Rilla . “So five sisters. Any brothers?”
    “Just the one.
His name is Zak and is with the Dunetown Militia. I don’t suppose
Weaponsmaster that you know where they are?”
    “I’ll try to
find out,” he told her, “and if I do, no promises mind, I’ll try to
see if you can pay him a quick call.”
    After he has
signed Rilla’s pass and watched her scud off to find Zawlei, Jilmis
sat down heavily in his camp-chair. The sons and daughters of Talan
the Innkeeper were certainly ‘doing their bit’ for the war effort,
with four out of the six involved. At least two of their daughters
were out of immediate harm’s way. He had got this far in his
ruminations when a head poked itself under the tent-flap. It was
Cadet Charles.
    “Weaponsmaster?
There’s a girl out here looking for Rilla and Zawlei. She says she
is Rilla’s sister and has come to offer her services as a
nurse.”
     
     
    * * * * *
     
     
    At the
Academie, Rilla located Hilla and the two spent the afternoon in an
orgy of reminiscing, by mutual consent not talking overmuch about
the incipient war.
    Hilla and the
other Officer Trainees were embarking for the south that
evening.
    “How was Zilla
when you saw her?” asked Hilla.
    “Okay I think,”
answered Rilla. “Very quiet, she didn’t say much.”
    “Does she
ever?” queried Hilla.
    “I know, I
know, but I’m sure there was something, something that she was
hiding from me. Course, we didn’t have long together so she didn’t
have much time to talk but she’s never hidden anything from me
before.”
    “A young man?”
hazarded Hilla.
    “Could be but
Mother didn’t say anything and I think she would have done if that
had been it.”
    “If she
knew.”
    “There is
that,” admitted Rilla, “but who?”
    Hilla shrugged.
“She’s growing up.”
    “We’re all the
same age,” protested Rilla.
    “She was always
the youngest.”
    “By under a
bell.”
    “No,” said
Hilla, surprising Rilla with her understanding. “The youngest
mentally. You and I left home and had to grow up, learn to live
without each other. She always let us make decisions for her.”
    “You rather
than me.”
    “But when I
left you took over, didn’t you?”
    “Not that I was
aware of,” said Rilla, bristling.
    “Unintentionally then, but true,” Hilla insisted. “With us gone she
has had to learn to think for herself. I’ve noticed it in her
letters. To begin with, when you were still at home they were
filled with Rilla this and Rilla that. Her own personality never
showed. When you and Zawlei left for Vada glimmers of her started,
what she thought, what she did. More and more lately. I wondered if
there is a young man involved. Did she seem happy?”
    “Not
really.”
    “That’s it
then. She’ll tell us when she’s ready. We’re triplets, stands to
reason that she will eventually and you, any young man?”
    Rilla shook her
head. “Zawlei’s enough for me. It’s different for us who are bonded
with Lind. It was explained in classes and there’s Zawlei to
consider. One of the Fourth Stripe Cadets, Charles is his name, he
and I had a fling.”
    “Is he
nice?”
    “Very nice, but
Zawlei doesn’t much like his Lind Wlya so we both knew that
anything