Free Betrayal by Jon Kiln Page B

goodness sake. I better be grown up by now. Being married to a soldier has expanded my understanding of what my mother did and sacrificed for that life. I understand my father a little better for it too. Maybe I understand you more as well, for that matter.”
    “That’s good, I suppose.” Nisero’s voice sounded tight and drawn in his own ears.
    “Dreth is like all other soldiers in many ways,” she continued. “He does not have the same humor or observations of life that you and my father seem to have. He is no warrior-philosopher. He just does his work and returns home.”
    “Is that the difference then?” Nisero turned his head toward the wall away from her.
    “Maybe it is something different in being a member of the Elite Guard. You boys are warriors first and everything else later… sometimes much later.”
    “You thought I would neglect you. That was it?”
    He heard her breath catch and then she said, “That’s not what I was saying.”
    “I offered to leave that all to be everything else you needed, first and only.”
    “That’s not why I brought this up. And I think we both know that the Elite Guard never really leaves a man. We both saw that in my father. You were already becoming more like him then. You are even more so now.”
    “So that was it,” Nisero confirmed.
    “Now you are just sadness without the humor, Nisero.”
    “Dreth offers you happiness and no humor, which is enough to make the soldiering tolerable.”
    “And there are the teeth,” Arianne said, amused. “He has nice teeth.”
    Nisero leaned back onto the pallet. “Hmph. I was hoping you were going to say you had made a terrible mistake and you will spend all your years pining for me.”
    Arianne let out a hearty, high laugh. “I’m not much of a piner. More of a resenter really, and even that is something I grow tired of and hope to outgrow.”
    “You seem to be growing quite a bit these days,” Nisero pointed out.
    “If that is a shot at my weight with this pregnancy,” she warned, “you better start reevaluating your life choices in a hurry.”
    Nisero opened his mouth to answer, but a shout from outside cut him off.
    “Arianne… Arianne… come on out, please, dear.”
    Nisero jumped to his feet and put his hand on the hilt of his sword before he registered that it was Berengar’s voice.
    Nisero made eye contact with Arianne.
    “Should we both go out?” he wondered aloud.
    “He only called me,” she said.
    “Why would he do that knowing we both were here? Why not just come in?”
    “Maybe he has someone with him,” she proposed, “but does not want to reveal you are here yet.”
    Nisero nodded and waved her on. “Go ahead. I’ll be right here.”
    She turned and waddled up the corridor. Nisero stepped into the storage room doorway and leaned his head out. He saw the opening of the front door, but did not see any sign of Berengar outside.
    “Arianne, come out, please,” Berengar called again.
    “I’m coming. Be patient,” Arianne demanded back.
    Nisero listened, but did not hear anything else. He stepped out of the storage room. He moved across the hall and put his back to the wall around the corner from the the missing front doors. As he listened, he saw the cow near the corn fields though the open wall.
    Nisero heard Arianne shout. “What are you doing here? What is this, father?”
    Nisero rolled out and stepped around the corner of the wall. He saw Arianne’s back as she stood just outside the doorway. Berengar stood a little farther on with a uniformed soldier. The man had curly, black hair and a close cropped black beard. From his garb, Nisero could tell he was a high ranking officer.
    Lieutenant Nisero clutched the hilt of his sword until his knuckles tightened. He glanced over at the cow chewing and the chicken pecking. He looked back at Berengar. Was this a friend or treachery? Why would Berengar have called his daughter out first? To clear her out of the inn before they came in to