Free Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) by T.O. Munro Page B

enough without calling on choice cuts of venison.”
    “I did try to find you before dinner, ma. ” Hepdida’s eyes were hooded in reproach.  “I thought tonight… it felt like it might be special.  But you weren’t there.”
    Sahira nodded quickly.  “Aye, gir l.  I was … I was in the keep, Castellan’s business.”
    “Oh,” Hepdida stifled her surprise.
    “We’ll see you fixed up, girl, don’t you worry.  Maybe a sergeant might take a shine to you,” Sahira offered good naturedly, putting her arms around her daughter’s shoulders.
    Hepdida shuffled off her mother’s embrace.  “I don’t want a sergeant, ma.  I don’t want anyone else.  I just want him, I love him.”
    “I used to think like that too,” her mother smiled with all the assurance of an experience crammed thirty one years.
    “I’m not you, ma,” Hepdida shrieked.  “I’m not like you. Not at all.  I just want one man.”
    Sahira’s hand slammed into her cheek, with force enough to redden it far more than tears of distress ever had done. Stunned Hepdida lifted her hand to her face, feeling the warmth of the smarting blow.  “I’m your mother,” Sahira spat with cold fury.  “And you will use me with more respect.  When I was your age I was n othing, crawling out of the gutter doing what had to be done until I met your father.  People like us, we find security where-ever we can, pah, love! Love doesn’t put bread on the table or a roof over your head, silly silly little girl.”
    “You just don’t know what lo ve is, you’ve never known love. You’re a sad old woman.”
    Sahira’s flung back her hand to strike again, but Hepdida stood her grou nd.  “Go on then, hit me again. It won’t change how you feel, or how I feel about Captain Kimbolt.”
    “Go to your room!” Sahira ground out the instruction through clenched teeth, her raised arm trembling with barely restrained fury.
    As abruptly as it had formed, the bubble of Hepdida’s bravado burst, and she fled the kitchen in a fresh deluge of tears.
***
    Xander, in Udecht’s form, hurried down the steps between Sturmcairn’s inner courtyard and the outer bailey.  The inner courtyard was closest to the steep peak to which Sturmcairn clung.  It housed the Castellan’s fortified quarters, the temple and the officers’ mess.    The slope of the mountainside meant that the wall dividing inner courtyard from the outer bailey was five feet high on the Northern courtyard side, but twenty foot high on the Southern bailey side.  At its Eastern end, like a slender spear, rose Sturmcairntor, known to most simply as the Beacon tower.  It soared a clear hundred foot higher than any other building in the castle. 
    As he emerged into the bailey, Xander took a long look at the beacon tower. From its crenelated top, a man looking East could see twenty mil es into Morsalve the capital province of the Kingdom of the Salved.   Perhaps two thirds of that distance away lay Gargator the simple relay tower with its own beacon and small garrison which was the first in the chain of beacon towers stretching from Sturmcairn all the way into the kingdom and beyond.  Xander tried to recall how many steps it was up to the top of the Sturmcairntor; He had counted them once long ago in a half remembered previous life.  Perhaps he would get the chance to do so again this evening – though other matters should press more on his mind.
    It was quiet as he crossed the b ailey, late enough that any soldiers not on watch were hunkered down in the low barracks tucked up against the eastern and western walls.  Again the steep slope of the mountain showed itself in buildings which were single storey at the Northern end, but became two storey as the ground fell away where they neared the southern curtain wall.  There was no-one about, barring the soldiers on the walls, patrolling in pairs.  Xander cursed.  Damn his nephew’s caution, doubling the guard. That would complicate