The Destiny of the Sword (30 page)

“Healer!” Wallie croaked. “Give me a cloth.”

It was scruffy but he took it in his free hand, wadded it, and tossed it to the blinded Boariyi, who flinched when it hit his chest and fell on his knees. He made no move to pick it up—more confirmation.

Where the hell had Nnanji gone?

Now the silence was too old. He had to speak, and he was almost capable of it.

“Lord Boariyi...” Louder: “Lord Boariyi, you did not lose. My sword won, yours lost. I have not met a swordsman like you before. In a best of ten, I should be proud to get five on you.”

The tall man’s face twitched, but he did not speak.

Wallie continued. “Now you will order the council to swear the third oath to me. But not you. From you I require only the first.”

There was a pause while the words sank in. Then Boariyi fumbled to find the cloth, raise it to wipe his face and then press

it one,handed over his forehead. He opened his eyes—startling eyes in a bloody mask—and stared up unbelievingly at Wailie.

“The first oath?” he mumbled.

“I need you io fight sorcerers,” Wailie whispered.

“But I ordered them to kill you.”

“I need you,” Wailie repeated. “The tryst needs you!”

The loser took a deep breath. Life won over honor. “So be it!”

Wailie sheathed his sword and held out a hand to help him rise, then lifted their joined hands high. The spectators roared.

“Bravely fought, my lords!” That was Tivanixi, beaming. “A legendary feat of arms! Never have I seen such a match!”

“And you won’t again—not from me, anyway,” Wailie said with feeling. He thumped Boariyi on the back. “You?”

“Never, my lord!”

The healers were flocking to his wound like blowflies, but Wailie pushed them away. His arm had almost stopped bleeding and another bout of blood poisoning, he did not desire.

“My lords...” The bullfrog herald was trumpeting the outcome of the match. Big raindrops began to fall in the sunshine. Wailie began to shiver as the inevitable reaction rushed in on him.

Boariyi had been fitted with a bandage and now he, too, waved the healers away. “My lord vassals, you will swear the blood oath to Lord Shonsu. Lord Shonsu, may I have the honor...”

He presented Tivanixi, and Wailie responded, feeling about a thousand years old and afraid he might be swaying on his feet. “Where the hell is Nnanji?” he demanded, looking around.

Tivanixi smiled and said softly, “Eleven forty,four.”

There were puzzled frowns as the Sevenths worked it out, and annoyed glares from most of the Sixths who formed the front rank of spectators—although a few of them nodded wisely to show that they knew all the sutras, even the last. A couple of the Sevenths remained puzzled, not understanding.

But Wailie understood and felt shock. Your oaths are my oaths! Nnanji was going to be liege lord, too! Wailie had not thought of that implication of the fourth oath, but Nnanji had. If he was present, then the Sevenths would have to kiss his boot, also, but he was only a Fifth. Nnanji would find that as outra,

geous as they would, so he had tactfully migrated elsewhere.

The five Sevenths were presented, prostrating themselves to swear the terrible blood oath and kiss Wallie’s foot. The sun died away, and the rain grew serious. Then Boariyi borrowed a sword and swore the trivial first, promising to obey Lord Shonsu*s commands—but reserving his honor, which could mean anything at all.

“You will address the company, my lord?” the chief herald inquired.

The rain was excuse enough. WaUie shook his head wearily. ‘Tomorrow I shall meet with the council and the Sixths to explain how to fight sorcerers. Lord Zoariyi, your nephew proclaimed certain rules of discipline regarding behavior toward civilians. Pray have those reissued in my name. Lord Tivanixi? Two ships were seized?”

The castellan nodded uneasily.

“Release them and compensate the crew. Five golds apiece.” For a moment Wailie thought he was going to get an argument, which probably meant that the treasury was almost empty. “Proclaim to the sailors and traders that the tryst will not commandeer any vessels in future and will charter any shipping required at negotiated rates. I swear this on my sword.”

What else? His head was spinning. He was nauseated. “Who is the best horseman on the council?”

They exchanged glances of astonishment and—after a suitable pause for modesty—Tivanixi said that he had done some riding in his youth.

‘Then pray attend me an hour before sunset. Bring a saddler and a blacksmith.”

“But no minstrels,” Nnanji said, appearing magically at Wallie’s side with an extra,large grin.

Gratefully Wailie draped an arm on his shoulder and almost fell. ‘Take me home,” he whispered. He was dead on his feet.

Nnanji staggered under the weight and then looked him over, appraising his condition.

“Right!” He pointed inpudently at two large Sixths. “You! And you! Up!” Then—even worse—he turned to the cluster of Sevenths. “You will follow, my lords!” Wailie found himself being hoisted, protesting, on the Sixths’ shoulders, but Nnanji

was not done yet. “Bandsmen? Minstrels? The Swordsmen in the Morning!”

Tomiyano had been lingering offshore in one of Sapphire’s dinghies lest anyone need make a fast escape. Nnanji had the choice of two jetties, so he chose the farther. The band started a march beat, a trumpeter began the tune, the minstrels picked up the words, and off went the tryst, the two brawny Sixths bearing the new liege shoulder,high to his boat, with the Sevenths following behind and then everyone else; all joyfully singing the song that was evermore to be not merely the march of the tryst of Casr, but the instilled marching song of the whole craft: The Swordsmen in the Morning. While out in front, leading the whole parade with drawn sword, singing as loudly as anyone and somehow grinning as well, stalked Nnanji of the Fifth.

The question rang out so clearly that for a moment he thought it had been spoken aloud. It startled him. His eyes flicked open and stared unseeing at the bare planks above. If the words had been spoken, though, then his had been the voice saying them.

He was in his cabin on Sapphire, his wounded arm throbbing dimly in its bandage. His skin had the all,over softness, the woolly feel that sleep can bring, but Jja had washed away the blood with hot water, an unthinkable luxury on a wooden ship. His fatigue had gone, also—which meant that his body had already replaced that lost blood. He felt good. Now his danger was over and his task began.

Bare plank ceiling, bare plank walls—yet it felt like home. If Brota agreed, he would continue to live on board. A general should stay with his army, but he would never make a conventional leader. Probably Brota would keep her ship at Casr for a while, rather than lose Thana.

Daylight still shone through the port, so he had not slept long. Life was simple in the World—no television sets or air conditioners or furnaces, no books or magazines. All they had in the cabin was a bedroll, covers, and a small chest to hold a few spare garments. Vixi’s small bedding was tucked in a comer... few possessions.

Then he saw another possession. She was sitting cross,legged,

watching him. She might have been there all the time he was asleep, like a statue, a buddha, waiting for him with the timeless stoicism of a slave—smooth brown skin and two black sashes, dark eyes inscrutable, dark hair grown to a decent length at last. Her smile told peacefully of things that could not be adequately confined to words.

“What do I do now?” he asked.

In one graceful movement like the swoop of a bird, she moved from her position by the wall to lie alongside him. She laid a cool hand on his face and gazed into his eyes—amused, content.

“Whatever you want. Are you hungry? Thirsty?” She paused. “Lonely?”

He smiled and tried to reach for her, but her weight and warmth were against his good arm, and he abandoned an attempt to move the other. “None of those, my love. No... I have an army now. I am liege lord. I have more than a thousand men sworn to obey me, to die for me. What do I do now?”

Jja slid fingers into his hair and steadied his head while her lips met his in a chaste, sisterly kiss. But her other hand slid down to stroke his chest. When the kiss ended she held her face only a few inches away from his and waited, expectant.

“In a minute,” he said. “What do I do then?”

“I don’t think a liege lord should ask his slave such things.”

He had taken the tryst away from Boariyi to stop him doing whatever it was he was going to do with it. But he had made no decisions on what he would do with it himself, once he had it.

“But I do ask.”

She studied him gravely. “Do what feels right!”

He was very conscious of her warm silk smoothness against him. That felt right.

The other problem did not feel right. “The thought of a war horrifies me, my love—death and maiming, bereavement and suffering, cities burned... Yet the Goddess wants the sorcerers driven out, thrown back into their mountains—doesn’t she? Isn’t that my mission? It is Her army, Her tryst, Her swordsmen. She has put me in charge. What do I do now?”

Jja laid her lips on his again and this time the kiss was less sisterly. Her hand continued its caressing, exploring. Inexplicably her bra sash had come loose.

“I said ‘in a minute’!” he insisted, when she let him speak. ‘Talk about this first—I can’t think straight afterward. The gods are cruel, Jja! That little prince... A few thousand deaths don’t worry them. They live forever. So what if a mortal dies—it must seem so unimportant.”

She shook her head gently, her hair sweeping his brow.

Forestalling another kiss, he turned his head away and spoke to the wall. “I can do it... if I can ever make the swordsmen listen.”

“Do what seems right,” she said again.

“But if what I do is not what they want the gods will stop me.”

“No.”

He looked at her. “How can you tell?”

“You really ask your slave this?”

“Yes. You are saner than anyone else in the World, my darling. Tell me. Explain.”

She frowned. Jja did not communicate with speech unless she must. “The Goddess would not have given you Her tryst if She did not think you were the best man to have it.” Her lips came closer again. “So you must do... what... feels... right.”

The kissing was growing more frequent, more insistent, more exploratory; and her hand continued its travels, also.

He tried to resist and winced at a complaint from his other arm. “Yes! All right! We’ll do that soon. But what do I do after?”

“The same again,” she whispered urgently from somewhere.

“And after that?” His good arm was free now and his hand slid to the knot on her other sash.

“More!”

“Glutton!”

She chuckled very quietly. “I must serve my master.”

Then her actions achieved her purpose. Suddenly it felt right.

It felt very good indeed.

The deck was silvery with rain, RegiVul and the far bank hidden by misty nothing. Gray tendrils of cloud traveled the deserted streets of Casr. Few ships lay alongside the wide plaza since the Goddess had ceased Her sendings.

Tomiyano was handing round wine in the deckhouse, and the whole family had gathered to honor Lord Shonsu, liege lord of the tryst. There had been toasts and congratulations, and now there was merriment and loud conversation. Wallie was more touched than he liked to show, but the difficult parts were over. With only the two wood chests to sit on in the big room, people usually sat on the floor. Today, because this was a special occasion, they were all standing, as if at a cocktail party. Then an unexpected gap in the talk brought silence, broken by the pattering of rain.

“Who’s missing?” he demanded, looking around.

“The priest,” Nnanji suggested. He was pink. It was unknown for Nnanji to drink too much; the pinkness had other causes. Thana was certainly merry and was continually whispering things in his ear. He would probably consent very soon.

“Katanji?”

Nnanji nodded glumly. “He stayed in town. I wonder what he’ll get up to this time?”

Katanji had his fortune with him.

Wallie chuckled. “I expect he’ll buy the lodge and raise the rent. I know who’s missing—our sorcerer! What did you do with him?”

“Bolted him in a cabin,” Nnanji said.

“Bring him, brother, if you please.”

Nnanji freed himself from Thana and stalked off, pouting. In a few minutes he returned with drawn sword, driving Rotanxi. The old man’s hands were tied and his feet bare. He wore the ill,fitting blue gown he had been given for his appearance in the temple. It had no cowl and his white hair was disheveled. Probably he had been asleep. After Griffon, Sapphire was restful.

The conversation died as the sailors studied this awesome yet pathetic captive.