The Deed of Paksenarrion (126 page)

“Is it indeed, my young Marshal! Perhaps you’d like to trade a few buffets in Hall and find out just how old I am?”

“Perhaps I’ll throw myself down the steps on my own, and not wait for you.”

They all laughed, even Paks. Belfan came over to her. “You look enough better that I expect you’ll be throwing the Marshal-General down the steps in a few days yourself. What a time we’ve had! The long faces around here looked more like a horse farm than Fin Panir’s grange and Hall.”

“What about something to eat?” asked the Marshal-General. “I can have something sent up for all of us.”

“Good idea.” The Duke smiled down at Paks. “If we stuff her with food, she’ll soon feel more herself.”

And when faced with a bowl of thick soup, Paks was able to spoon it up with few spills. No one commented on the mess; the Marshal-General wiped it up matter-of-factly, while talking of other things. When they had all finished, she helped Paks sit up on the bed: she could not lift herself, but could balance alone.

The next time she woke, the Marshal-General and Belfan helped her stand, wavering, between them. She walked lopsided and staggering, but with their aid could make it across the room. Several days later she could walk alone, slowly but more steadily. Her improvement continued. When she could manage stairs, she went outside, to the Marshal-General’s walled garden. After that came her first walk across the forecourt, to the High Lord’s Hall. The glances of the others pricked her like nettles; she looked down, watching the stones under her feet. Haran had claimed that others felt as she did: some of them saw cowardice on her face, with her scars. But she hoped, while fearing her hope was false, that with the return of physical strength she had nothing else to fear.

She had grown strong enough to fret at the confinement of the Marshal-General’s quarters, and had begun taking walks on the training fields, usually with the Duke, or one of the Marshals. She did not question their company, noticing that they rarely left her alone, but not wanting to know why. One crisp cold day, she was with Belfan when a thunder of hooves came from behind. They turned, to see several students galloping up, carrying lances. Paks felt a wave of weakness and fear that took the strength from her knees. Sunlight glittered from the lance-tips, ominous as dragons’ teeth; the horses seemed twice as large as normal, their great hooves digging at the ground. She clutched Belfan’s arm, breathless.

“Paks! We thought you were going to be shut up forever!” It was the young Marrakai boy, waving his lance in his excitement. “I wanted to tell you: I’ve been put in the higher class! I can drill with you now—” As his horse pranced, Paks tried not to flinch from the sudden movements. Another of the students peered at her.

“You’ve got new scars. They said—”

“Enough. Begone, now.” Marshal Belfan spoke firmly.

“But Marshal—”

“Paks, what’s wrong? You’re shaking—” The Marrakai boy’s sharp eyes glittered; she could see the curiosity and worry on all their faces.

“Go on, now.” The Marshal took a step forward. “This is nothing for you.”

“But she’s—”

“Now!” Paks had never heard Belfan bellow like that, and she jumped as the students did. They rode away, looking back over their shoulders. He looked down at her. Only then did she realize that her legs had failed her, and she had collapsed in a heap. “Here—let me help you up.” His hand, hard and callused, suddenly seemed threatening in its strength; Paks had to force herself to take it. She felt the blood rushing to her face. What would the students think? She knew. She knew what she thought. She had never felt such fear, never been mastered by fear like that. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. She heard Belfan sigh heavily. When he spoke again, his voice was still cheerful, though Paks thought she heard the effort behind it.

“Paks, don’t think one time means anything. Some days back you couldn’t take a single step alone. Now you can walk around the wall. This is the same; this weakness can pass, just as the weakness of your legs passed. What frightened you most?”

But this she could not say. Noise, movement, speed, the sharpness of the lances, the memory of old wounds and what that speed and sharpness could mean, in her own flesh—all these jumbled in her mind, and left her speechless. She shook her head.

“Well, it came suddenly, all at once. Like a cavalry charge, and here you were unarmed: no wonder.” But to Paks his voice carried no conviction. “I daresay it will be better, when you begin training with one weapon at a time. Your skills will be slow to return, perhaps, as you were slow to walk, but they’ll come back, and so will your confidence.”

“And if it doesn’t?” She spoke very low, but Belfan heard her.

“If not, then—something will come for you. Most of the world is not fighters, after all. If you’d lost an arm or leg, you’d have to learn something else. This is not different. Besides, it hasn’t come to that yet.”

Paks returned to hauk drill, in a beginning class: clumsy, as she now expected, in the first days. When someone lost the grip, and a hauk flew through the air, she flinched, and tried to hide it. Afraid of a hauk! She forced herself on, exercising early and late, and the strength and coordination came back. But that only hastened sword drill.

When she first gripped a sword again, it felt odd in her hand. Marshal Cieri looked curiously at her, and adjusted her grip. “Like this,” he said. It felt no better. She looked down the length of dangerous metal—for he had seen no reason to try her with a wooden practice blade—and tried not to show her fear. The edges, the point, stood out in her eyes; she was afraid to move it lest she cut her own leg. He faced her, and lifted his own sword. Paks stared at it, eyes widening. It seemed to catch the sunlight and throw it at her in angled flashes that hurt her eyes. She blinked. “Ready?” he asked.

Her mouth was dry; her reply came as a hoarse croak. He nodded and moved forward, lifting the tip for the first drill movement. Paks froze, her eyes following the sword. She tried to force her own arm to move, to interpose her own blade, but she could not. She saw the surprise on his face, the change to annoyance, and then some other emotion she could not read, that terrified her with its withdrawal.

“Paks. Position one.”

She struggled, managed to move her arm awkwardly. His blade touched hers, a light tap. She gasped, whirled away, tried to face him again, and dropped her sword. As it clanged on the ground, she was already shaking, eyes shut.

The next time, and the next, were no better. If anything, they were worse. Soon she feared anyone bearing arms, even the Duke when he came to her room with his sword on his belt. As she felt herself weaker and more fearful, she saw the Marshals and paladins and other students as stronger, braver, more vigorous. Despite the Marshal-General’s protection, she had heard enough to know that many agreed with Haran. Their scorn sharpened her own.

At last even the Marshal-General admitted that she was not improving. “But as long as you want to try, Paksenarrion—” she said, eyes clouded with worry.

“I can’t.” Paks could not meet her gaze.

“Enough, then. We hoped the contact would help, but it hasn’t. We’ll see what else can be done for you—”

“Nothing.” Paks turned her head away, and stared at the pattern of the rug. Blue stars on red, white stars on blue. “I don’t want anything—”

“Paksenarrion, we are not abandoning you. It’s not your fault, and we’ll—”

“I can’t stay here.” The words and tears burst from her both at once. “I can’t stay! If I can’t be one of you, let me go!”

The Marshal-General shook her head. “I don’t want you to leave until you have some way of living, some trade or craft. You’re not well yet—”

“I’ll never be well.” Paks hated the tremor in her voice. “I can’t stay here, my lady, not with real fighters.” She would not, she told herself, tell the Marshal-General about the taunts she’d heard, the mocking whispers just loud enough to carry to her ears.

“Through the winter, then. Leave in spring, when the weather’s better. You can study in the archives—”

Paks shook her head stubbornly. “No. Please. Let me go now. To sit and read all day, read of others fighting—I can’t do that.”

“But—Paks—what can you do? How will you live?”

Nor would she admit she didn’t much care whether she lived. And she had thought of a reasonable plan. “I came from a sheep farm; I can herd.”

“Are you sure? Herding’s hard work, and—”

Paks drove the thought of wolves away—she would not be alone, on a winter range—and steadied her voice. “I’m sure.”

The Marshal-General sighed. “Well. I’ll see. If we can find a place—”

Before she left, she had a last talk with the Duke. He showed none of the anger she had feared, and no scorn; his voice was gentle.

“Take this ring,” he said, tugging a black signet ring from his finger. “If ever you need help—any kind of help—show this ring to anyone in the Company, or anyone who knows me, or send it. I will come, Paksenarrion, wherever you are, whatever you need.”

“My lord, I’m not worthy—”

“Child, you did not throw your gifts away. They were taken from you. For your service to me—for that alone—you are worthy of my respect. Now put that ring on—yes. You must not fail to call, Paks, if you need me. I will be thinking of you.” He hugged her again, and turned to go. Then he swung back. “To my thinking, Paks, you have shown great courage in consenting to risk its loss, and in trying so hard to regain your skills. Whatever others call you, remember that Phelan of Tsaia never called you coward.” Then he was gone, and Paks turned the ring nervously on her finger. It was loose, and she took it off and stuffed it in her belt pouch.

Two days later, the Marshal-General walked with her to the archway. “Remember, Paksenarrion: you will be welcome in any grange, at any time. I have already sent word. Gird’s grace is on you, and our good will follows you. If my parting gift is not enough, you can ask more, freely.” But Paks was determined not to spend that roll of coins, wound in a sock in the midst of her pack. “Right now you are unhappy, and reasonably so, with the Fellowship of Gird—”

Paks shook her head. “Not so, my lady. Not with you. I think Marshal Haran had the right of it, in part. My error let Achrya’s evil in, and my weakness could not withstand what you had to do—”

The Marshal-General stopped and looked at her. “That’s not true, and I’ve told you before. By Gird’s cudgel, I hate to let you go, thinking that. All paladin-candidates are vulnerable, and anyone with less strength than you would have been taken over completely far sooner. You must believe in yourself.” She paused, rocking from heel to toe, arms crossed. “Paks, please. Promise me that if things get worse, you will come for help.”

Paks looked away. She did not want to say what she thought, that more of such help as she’d had would leave her bedbound as well as craven.

“My lady, I’d best go, to be in the market on time.” Paks kept her eyes stubbornly on the ground. The Marshal-General’s sigh was gusty.

“Very well, Paks. You are sworn to Gird’s Fellowship, and Gird the protector will guard your way. All our prayers are with you.” She turned back through the gate, and Paks walked on, determined not to glance back.

With that walk down to the market in Fin Panir, where she was to meet the shepherd who would hire her, a pattern was set that continued all that hard winter.

“Eh, you took your time,” grumbled Selim Habensson, when she found him talking with several other sheepmen. “Hated to leave the Lord’s Hall, I suppose. Let’s see—” He looked her over as if she were a ewe up for sale. “The Marshal-General says you’re fit, and you’ve handled sheep—is that so?”

“Yes, sir. My father raised sheep.”

“Good enough. Get in there and find me th’ three-tit ewe w’ the scarred hock and a double down-nick offside ear.” As Paks paused to look over the pen of sheep, trying to see a likely earmark, he barked, “Get on, there—get in—I want to see you in with ‘em.”

Paks swung over the low railing, among the crowded sheep. She had not feared sheep since she had been able to see over their backs, but the shoving of woolly backs and sides made her feel strange. She saw one offside earmark, but it was a single notch. Most of this pen was nearside marked. There—on the far side—was a double down-nick, offside. She pushed her way slowly through the sheep, careful not to startle or disturb them. A quick look told her this was a normal ewe, not hock-scarred; she looked again for the right earmark, and found it in a corner. A ewe, a three-tit, and scarred on the near hock. She looked up to see the shepherd just outside the rail.

“Very well—you do know somewhat about sheep. But you haven’t worked ‘em lately, I’ll warrant.”

“No, sir.”

“I thought not. Those clothes belong in a shop, not on drive.” He spat on the cobbles outside the pen. “I hope to Gird you don’t mind getting dirty.”

“No, sir.”

“All right. When market’s over—another glass, say—we’ll be moving this pen and those two—” he pointed, “—out to a meadow for tonight. Tomorrow we start for the south. Follow us out—make sure none of ‘em stray in the city—and you’ll be watching tonight.”

Although bothered by the noise and bustle of the market, Paks had no trouble with the sheep on the way out—to her own and the shepherd’s surprise. The sheep settled well in their temporary grazing ground, and Paks took up her assigned post on the far side while the other shepherds made camp and cooked supper. She had not thought to bring anything for lunch, planning to buy it in the market, so by evening she was hungry. When the first group had eaten, Selim called in the others to eat. Paks was given a bowl of porridge and a hunk of bread. She ate quickly, hardly noticing the others until she finished. Then she looked up to find them watching her.

“You eat like you thought there was more coming,” commented Selim. She had, indeed, assumed there was more. He turned to the others. “Been living in a city for awhile, she has. Fine clothes. Eating well. Listen, now: we’re sheepfarmers, not rich merchants or fancy warriors. We work hard for what we get; you’ll get your fair share, but not a drop more. Understand?”