Free The Iron Tempest by Ron Miller Page B

hundred times before, she told them how it could hardly have been helped, all things considered, that the lone sister should have been raised in the arts of war. But to the simple question of what she was doing in this particular place, so far from either the emperor or his enemies, she had no ready answer. She blushed with shame at this innocent reminder that she was selfishly shirking her rightful duty and self-consciously hoped that if the serfs noticed her red face, they would attribute the coloring to the sun.
    The story she told the peasants was simple enough to satisfy their curiosity and need for an exciting tale, but if it was simple it was because her listeners took her story at face value—it would never occur to them to cross-examine her about the most obvious deletions, contradictions or unlikelihoods.
    That Bradamant had been the only girl-child among half a dozen aggresively martial males surely was not enough to account for her prediliction for what were usually considered manly arts; it was a prediliction she had ardently pursued since she had been old enough to walk. That she had been worshipped to the dangerous limits of idolatry by her older brothers had certainly been an incentive, and her reciprocal worship undoubtedly influenced her to emulate them, though surely she must have been born with some innate talent—it is obvious to anyone that belligerancy and martialism ran strong in Clairmont blood. Of course, it did no harm that Montauban had been as much—indeed much more—a military training camp as it had been a home. During the family’s war with the emperor, it had been forced to flee its ancestral home in its native Ardennes when a traitor delivered it into the enemy’s hands. After discovering and hanging the spy, the Clairmonts narrowly made their escape. Finding no refuge anywhere within the realm of Charlemagne, they finally took service with the King of Gascony and there built Montauban, the “Hill of the Foreigner”.
    If Bradamant’s combative personality was inherent, then there surely must have been a powerfully dominant gene in the Clairmont line, for Bradamant proved to be no less physically capable than her siblings; her desire to echo their achievements needed be no unfulfilled fantasy. She grew from an awkward and gangly child into a tall, long-armed, long-legged youth; it was a peculiar and incongruous sight to see her handling a five-foot sword as easily as a conductor brandishing his baton. Or at least it seemed incongruous until the watcher noticed the grim intensity of the lean, tight face. The duke once remarked that his daughter must be constructed entirely of willow wands, wire and Damascus steel since there seemed to be no alternate explanation for such prodigious strength in such a lanky body. She was built, as one of the old instructors—retired knights all—said with considerable admiration and not a little envy, much more like a snake than a badger. Her strength was like that of a spring or bowstring, instead of that of the solid block or cudgel. Neither brothers nor cousins, except morally and physically impregnable Roland (whom she had, in any case, always thought of as obnoxiously self-righteous—an ill-expressed opinion that accounted for the perceptible coolness between them) were ever able to consistently best her at any game or with any weapon. And she was virtually indomitable with the lance, her weapon of choice. Nor could any, except Roland of course, match her in piety. But then, piety and martial training do go very much hand in hand, since both depend a great deal upon an unquestioning acceptance of authority.
    Bradamant did not at all like the daily grind of her scholarly training—the lessons to be conned, the enforced scrutiny of endless Latin texts—and she hated being cooped up while all the outside world impatiently awaited her to combat its sins. Her happiness, however, counted for nought: for seven years the training of her mind and body