Rogue Sword (14 page)

“For all the saints’ sake, be not such a weak-livered woman!” she rebuked. “Have you never heard what was done to our own ambassadors in this city?”

“But the small children--”

“Let me go, you wretch! Let me go or--Asberto! No, Asberto! He’s sick! He knows not what he’s doing!”

The knight’s boot smashed against Lucas’ ribs.

He fell at Violante’s feet, in a jaggedness of pain. His tears blurred her, so that she towered above him like some pagan idol, the Great Mother worshipped among remote Asiatic tribes . . . yes, he had been seeking his mother, as if once again he were a little boy who had put a bare foot into something sticky on the beach, and looked down to see a rotten corpse washed ashore. . . . “Get up!” grated Asberto. “Get you hence!”

Lucas focused on the pocked, broken countenance. Asberto had been napping in his clothes. A sword was in his hand. As he rose, a black peace descended upon Lucas.

“I daresay you aided that butchery,” he said without tone.

“Go, I say! Or Satan eat me if I don’t run you through!” A fury beyond all reason shook the Catalan’s voice.

Lucas spat in his face.

Asberto roared. His steel whipped in a long slanting cut toward Lucas’ neck. Violante backed against the tent.

Lucas had already drawn. He parried the blow. Metal belled. He hardly felt the shock. Bouncing aside, he released his opponent’s weapon. Asberto lurched forward, off balance. Lucas cut him in the leg.

Asberto recovered himself with trained speed. The swords whirred, clashed, leaped and thrust and struck. A sweep of the Catalan’s edge sheared down one tent flap. Lucas lunged. Asberto reacted fast enough to save his breast from the point, but his left shoulder was gashed open.

He counterattacked with a hail of blows. It was as if he had three swords in his hand. Lucas gave ground, warding himself, coldly alert for a chance to kill. As they emerged in the open, he saw Violante again. She had gotten back her color and stood with fists clenched, lips parted, eyes ashine.

Now that the fight was visible to all the camp, men shouted and hurried to intervene. But only a suicide would have gone between those two. Steel bounded, shrieked and rang. The crowd became spectators. Soon they were cheering.

Asberto’s flail tactics drove Lucas backward.
Whsssh, clang!
At the edge of vision, the latter discerned a solid wall of soldiers and camp followers. He could retreat no farther.

Well, then . . . God send the right!

His blade blazed. It smote Asberto’s so that the knight’s grip trembled. Reckless of cuts, Lucas slid his weapon along the other until he saw a steel x centered on his enemy’s heart. At once, he withdrew his own pressure and fell to one knee. The Catalan glaive flashed an inch above his head. He thrust upward and felt a somehow bulky impact.

The maneuver was not quite successful. Asberto was not skewered under the breastbone and up through the lungs. The steel pierced him higher, and a rib deflected the point. Even so, blood spurted forth as Lucas withdrew.

Asberto dropped his sword. He turned gray. “Holy Mother of God . . . pray for me,” he choked, and went on all fours.

Lucas stood aside, panting.

Chaos broke loose. A dozen men engulfed Asberto, each with his own idea of helpfulness. A dozen others moved in upon Lucas. He swung his reddened sword and they milled back. He heard some of their words, through all the babble. “In the name of mercy, Micer. . . . Send for an officer . . . a priest. . . . Brawl. . . . Affray between gentlemen. . . .”

Violante was at his side. Her face burned. She breathed as if she had run a long way. But never had Lucas heard greater haughtiness than hers:

“Take Cornel away. Take him to what help he can use, priest or leech. Don’t stand there! Go! This was an honest duel and no affair of you peasants!”

“But my lady--” bleated an
adalid
of Almugavares.

“Silence!” she commanded. “Nasberto nor I will thank you for meddling in his quarrels. We’ll see the proper authorities about this in our own good time. I know you well, Perico. And I say, woe betide you if any oafs come interfering!”

“But my lady--” The wild man rolled his eyes as if seeking an escape.

“Perico, I make you responsible for keeping everyone away from here. You’ll rue it if you fail. Enough!”

She took Lucas’ arm.

Mindlessly, he followed her back into the tent. It was large, well supplied with camp furniture. A hot yellow light filtered through its canvas. She dropped the remaining flap across the entrance, plucked the sword from his unresisting fingers, laid it next the pallet and seized him at the waist. Her nearness rushed over him.

“Oh, Lucas,” she said, “know what you did?”

Out of the crazy satisfaction in him (crazy, for how had he avenged those people whom he never saw alive?) he answered, “Yes. I’ve done what was needful. Nag me not about trouble I may have caused myself.”

“Enough of that,” she said with a flick of scorn. “You have En Jamie’s favor. My own influence is not so slight, either. And the laws of honor--well, they must either agree you are of gentle standing, and therefore right to challenge a man who kicked you; or admit that someone base-born defeated a Catalan knight. Which they never would do.” The gladness leaped forth: “He was among the most famous warriors in the Company. I didn’t think another man alive could best him. And then, that it should be you--oh, all my sins must be atoned for, if this can happen!”

She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him down onto the pallet.

En Jaime looked stern, but when Lucas remained impenitent, standing with folded arms and a one-sided smile, the
rich hom
became merely serious.

“Well,” he said, “let’s talk no more, then, of rights and wrongs in the matter. I suppose it is indeed to your credit as a Christian man, if what you saw in the marketplace unhinged your reason for a time. An ugly business. I hope you know it began without clear orders. A few knights and priests, including myself, tried to halt the massacre, but the troops were out for blood. We could do nothing which would not have provoked a mutiny. And should we have done that for the sake of some worthless schismatical Greeks?”

My mother was a Candian Greek, Lucas thought, and her uncle who led me into Homer’s world was an Orthodox monk.

But that was not a very good retort. He said instead: “Could they not even spare the children?”

“God’s wrath is terrible, Lucas.”

“I fear I’ve forgotten most Holy Writ, but--” With calculated malice: “Is there not a text which says,
whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea--
?”

Lucas had not expected En Jaime to recoil so violently. “Have done, you devil!” the Catalan shouted.

He quickly composed himself. “There are so many texts,” he said. “Who but the saints have read them aright? You know not how often I’ve asked to know God’s will, and been unanswered. We sinners have no other guidance vouchsafed us than Church and King. Have we? Is not our duty as soldiers the best service we, who are not saints, can render to God?”

Lucas’ virulence was lost in embarrassment. He was not truly pious, and he winced at such blundering earnestness in others. Once, when he was En Jaime’s servant, he had found a scourge clotted with old blood at the bottom of his master’s trunk. It took him a long time to realize that the knight kept it for himself.

The return to worldly matters was a relief. “If you were clearly of gentle rank,” said En Jaime, “there’d be no question but that there were faults on both sides, leading to an affair of honor. In all events, you’re no simple commoner who must be punished for assaulting a cavalier. Confound it, Lucas, you aren’t anything! Neither in birth nor nation nor way of thinking. Does anyone alive understand you? Do you understand yourself?” He shrugged. “Enough. I’ve worked like a hero this day and night on your behalf, since Na Violante first informed me of the duel. I would not speak to you before I could say that something clear-cut had been achieved, that you would hang or go free. And where were you in all that time? Not on your knees in the chapel tent, I know!”

Lucas’ grin became shamelessly wide. It was hard to believe that yesterday he had been on the point of quitting the Grand Company. Violante had ways to change a man’s decisions. He was, at least, no longer in a hurry to go.

(Down under the surface was darkness, and shapes not of earth flitted quietly from cavern to reef to ancient wreck. For one instant, awareness rose toward sunlight
. I am in no hurry to go. But I no longer think of these as my newly won countrymen
. Frightened, the shape dove down out of sight before its strangeness was fully seen.)

“I know he’s a trusty man of yours, En Jaime,” said Lucas, “but except for whatever trouble this has caused you, I don’t think the injuring of Cornel requires any penance.”

“Oh, there was trouble in surfeit.” En Jaime tugged his beard nervously. “Lucas, a lord must stand by his men. Had Asberto died, I could not, in honor, have striven to protect you from the consequences. By God’s mercy, though, he’ll evidently recover. Come, we must see him now.”

Lucas grimaced, but followed him out of the tent and across the camp to another.

En Jaime went inside. Lucas heard an oath as first answer to the nobleman’s words; but little by little Asberto was soothed, until En Jaime could summon Lucas within.

The wounded knight sat up on a pallet, leaning against a plank. He was very pale, which heightened his uncomeliness, but the clean bandages on his hairy breast showed that bleeding had stopped. The surgeon had told En Jaime that it did not look as if there would be much inflammation. Since that killed more men than outright wounds ever did, Nasberto Cornel could already give thanks for his deliverance. He seemed in no such mood, however.

“Well, Greek,” he said, “my master persuaded me to spare your life both by sword and by the law, since you crawl back offering restitution. But I’ll want you to own your fault before all the Company, d’you understand?” Since that would end his chance of rising to more than a sort of scribe cum man-at-arms, Lucas bristled. “You twist En Jaime’s meaning, Micer,” he stated flatly. “My offer was to let the affair pass. But if you wish to invoke the. law, I stand ready to tell the world what shame you brought on yourself. As for the sword, Micer, mine is always prepared to resume our dispute.”

“Be still, both of you!” snapped the
rich hom
. “Isn’t there enough battle to wage?” He stood erect, dominating that narrow space, his dark, gray-tinged head brushing the canvas top. “I’ve worked to conciliate all the officers who wished to make an example of both you brawlers. Now, by the Host, you’ll do as I say! Both of you! I command you to swear peace! “

Asberto picked at his coverlet. His breathing came loud and painful. “My lord,” he asked finally, forcing the words out, “will the Greek remain in your service?”

“Yes.”

“My lord would not consider . . . sending him elsewhere? Even to some post of honor, so it be not with my lord?” En Jaime shook his head. “I’ve need of his wit, Asberto, as I have of your strength.”

The remark that Asberto’s strength had not shown so well, either, was on Lucas’ tongue. But he checked himself, less from fear of En Jaime than because, looking at the man hunched on the pallet, he lost all wish to jeer.

“So. I could plead with you to decide otherwise. But no Cornel was ever a beggar.” Asberto lifted unhappy eyes to his chief. “I swore I’d obey you in all things, Micer, and I will in this, too. Only ask me not to withstand more temptation than poor Cain. If the Greek must abide with you, send me away.”

En Jaime’s composure was a trifle shaken. “What?”

“The army is about to divide itself, Micer, as you know,” said Asberto feverishly. “A part will remain at Gallipoli, the rest will leave. Whichever town my lord chooses to dwell in, let him find a place for me in the other. Until the Greek goes away.”

“But I’ve need of your sword arm, Asberto.”

“Lord, if I see the Greek every day, the time must come when I forget any peace-oath sworn and kill the dirty little beast. Sword arms are plentiful enough. ... I can serve Micer’s interests well elsewhere . . . until I may come back to serve Micer’s banner--” Exhausted, Asberto lay down. “May that be soon.”

Lucas shifted from foot to foot while En Jaime pondered. At last the
rich hom
sighed. “As you wish, Asberto.”

“So you do choose him--” The wounded man closed his eyes. En Jaime led Lucas from the tent.

Later, the disputants vowed separately, but formally, not to pursue their grudge. For his part, Lucas was sincere. He had never liked Cornel; at the time of the fight, he had wanted nothing in the world except to kill the man, who happened to be the closest at hand of the murderers in the marketplace. Cooled off, Lucas was not self-righteous enough to believe he must punish anyone: especially since he also remained with the army. Asberto Cornel became simply a man who had lost his lady, his self-esteem, and his chieftain: an object of rather distant pity.

The Catalans took several days to complete their work. Panidos surrendered on demand, its few craven guardians having already departed, and while thoroughly plundered, was spared massacre. The Company had had its fill of blood for a while. Furthermore, if the new headquarters was to be established hereabouts, some native population was required to maintain the towns. It sufficed as revenge that any Almugavare could enter any house at any hour, line up all the women, and take his pleasure of whichever he fancied.

Lucas kept apart from such doings. Even had he not felt disgust at the idea, Violante’s demands took all his returning strength. When desire had been spent, she would still not let him alone. Sitting up among tangled bedclothes, she asked so eagerly about his past adventures that En Jaime himself was not a more entertaining companion. Now and again--increasingly often, as time passed--she would debate philosophy with him. It usually began when she made some statement so ignorant that he must pause to remember she had been brought up aristocratically. He would point out her error, she would dispute. At last she would understand his point . . . and throw herself into his embrace. In that fashion, he took better than a month to convince her the ancients were right about the earth being round.