The Luck Of The Wheels (33 page)

He passed him a dish of stewed spiced fruit. A strange smile stretched his lips. 'Earlier today, I mistook you for a man of honor.'

Vandien accepted the dish, served himself some. It was a good accompaniment for the strong-flavored meat. He didn't reply to the Duke, but went on eating. Silence would draw him out.

'I was sure you had some secret grudge against me, something that drove you to win a bout with me at all costs. I almost admired you for it. And when I witnessed your final display of swordsmanship, I said to myself, "There is a nobleman born and true to the old ways of honor." I knew you wouldn't be swerved from your resolve to kill me.'

Vandien set down his wineglass. 'And?'

'And I find I'm wrong. You cut through those men for a chance to betray them. For revenge.' The Duke permitted himself a small smile. 'You may be more useful to me alive than dead. I'd have to mark you in some way, so folk would not think I'd gone softly with you ... perhaps a slash down your face. One more scar should not matter to a man marked as you are. Though I'd like to see the swordsman who put it there.'

Vandien kept his rising temper from showing in his face as he sliced more meat. 'Not a swordsman, Duke Loveran. A Harpy's talons. Not that it matters to our previous discussion. I am curious as to what use you would find for an "honorless" man like myself. Do you refer to what I could tell you of the rebellion?'

The Duke made a dismissing gesture with his hand that had nothing to do with the meat being cleared from the table. 'The rebellion. Pah. Frankly speaking, Vandien, there is very little you could tell me of them that I don't already know. No. When I said you might be useful to me, I was speaking of your skill with the sword. Archaic and obsolete as it is, I'd still love to learn Harperian fencing.'

Vandien let the last thrust slip by him. 'If your knowledge of the rebels is so complete,' he asked slowly, 'why haven't you acted upon it?'

The Duke chose a pastry from a beaten silver platter set before them. 'I might say they amuse me. Surely, even you must have been amused by the childishness of their plottings. Try one of the raspberry cream ones; my cook has a special knack with them. I could tell you that it's easier to leave them intact and deal with their small treacheries as my informants make them known to me; if I crushed them here, I'd only have a dozen more such "rebellions" popping up tomorrow. Sort of like a skin rash, Vandien. Scratching only spreads it.'

'And your real reason for not dealing with them?' Vandien was eating the pastry calmly, forcing his face to stay neutral despite the slow chill that was spreading up his arm.

'They simply aren't that important, nor that powerful. If I moved against them, their movement would gain recruits and impetus. If I publicly ignore them, while privately making sure that all their plots come to nothing, I take their credibility away. Who joins them now? Younger offspring with no money and no hope of inheriting, old men whose families don't pay enough attention to them ... no one I need fear.' The Duke looked up at him calmly. 'I'm afraid I won't be the vehicle for your revenge, Vandien. You see, there's nothing in it for me.'

'I see.' Vandien's hand slipped toward his cuff, where he had concealed the roll of Thwartspite. He felt for it, then became desperate enough to look. It wasn't there. The Brurjan's search had been more thorough than he realized. He glanced at Halikira; she lifted her lips slightly, rolled something briefly between her short fingers. He glanced away. Damn her. He lowered his sword arm to his lap, pressed it against the warmth of his belly. The ache eased slightly.

'Don't be so disappointed, man. A hundred years from now, it won't make one whit of difference to anyone. Here. Try this wine with the pastries; I find it provides the perfect contrast.' The Duke was pouring from a different bottle into fresh glasses.

Vandien watched him idly. He could think of nothing significant to say. His day had suddenly caught up with him. His poisoned arm ached like desolation itself, and every other muscle in his body was protesting his earlier exertions. Even sitting down, his hip pained him. And the hot bath followed by a generous meal had done nothing to increase his alertness. The false energy of the Thwartspite had led him to exceed himself. Even his mind felt muzzy. Not one whit of difference a hundred years hence. So the Duke had said. And probably true. What would remain of him a hundred years hence? No child would carry his names. His body would be long gone to good black soil. His sword, perhaps; it was already older than a hundred years. Where would it be? Hanging in a dim corner of the Duke's Masterhold? Or maybe heaped on a table full of secondhand weapons in some Loveranish marketplace? And what would its honor mean then, or his? What had it ever meant to him, really? He tried to think of a time when being an honorable man had given him the advantage in a fight. He sipped absently at the wine the Duke set before him. 'Of what use is honor?'

'None at all,' the Duke replied.

Vandien startled, surprised to find he had spoken his question aloud. 'It has to be,' he insisted, but couldn't think of any arguments to support it. A less honorable man would have let Kellich kill Goat. A little less honor would have kept Ki alive.

'Honor's of no use at all,' the Duke was saying. 'In fact, it's a handicap. Tonight, for instance. Keep your honor and I kill you. Or renounce it, take a slash down the face, and live on as my retainer. You can ask my Brurjans; I'm a generous man with those who work for me.'

'I don't know,' Vandien said, but he was not answering the Duke, but himself.

'You don't have to decide right now,' the Duke told him. 'Even in the middle of the bout, you can change your mind.' The man was standing, gesturing to Halikira to bring his weapon. It was a lovely blade. Another time Vandien would have itched to examine it. Its swept hilt glistened with a myriad of tiny sparkling stones set into it. A true swordsman would have disdained them, lest others say he used them to distract his opponents. But there, again, that was the thought of a man concerned with his honor. The Duke disdained honor. And Vandien had none left. He couldn't bring down the rebellion that had killed Ki. He'd die on the Duke's sword, and it would all have been for nothing.

'I've fought all day. I've taken a sword-slash on my hip. I've had a hot bath, a heavy meal, and wine, and I've sat still long enough to stiffen up. Will you call this a fair match?'

'Fair is like honor. Of no real value. But take a moment or two to limber up if you must.'

Vandien was silent as he drew his rapier, made a vain attempt to stretch out his muscles. They felt liked dried-up twisted leather strips. At his first tentative lunge, he felt the wound on his hip open up. The blood seemed hot enough to scald as it soaked through the bandages. Ironic, when his sword arm felt so cold. He knew he gripped his rapier's hilt, but he could not actually feel his fingers. He glanced over to where the Duke was limbering up. He stared for a moment, then suddenly saw. The fancy shirt with the lace at collar and cuffs was camouflage for chain mail. Light and fine as it must be, he could still see its betraying outline when the Duke lunged. Vandien's sparse chances suddenly shrank.

He would have been better off not to have eaten at all. His whole body felt heavy, and his mind was muzzy. He tried to consider his options. There didn't seem to be very many. He could fight the Duke and die on his sword. He could accept the Duke's offer of a position as fencing master, and take a slash down the face and die of the poison. He could refuse to fight the Duke ... and the Duke, a man without honor, would kill him anyway. Funny. It all seemed to end with his death. Well, if all he could do was die, he'd die well. He wondered how high up the Duke's throat his mail went. Probably a good leather collar under the one of lace. Halikira was watching him with unreadable dark eyes. Brurjans. Whatever else you might say about them, they died well. He grinned at her, offered her a sketchy salute with his blade. Her black lips writhed up slightly, a shadow of the Brurjan smile-snarl. And inspiration struck Vandien.

His hand and sword arm were cold, his hip stiff. He slammed his mind shut to pain, forced his body to respond as he limbered it up, rapidly and roughly. He turned to face the Duke. Two other Brurjans were lifting the laden table, setting it up against the wall. 'Rules for this bout?' Vandien asked quietly.

'None,' the Duke said in an equally soft voice. 'What do rules mean to men without honor?'

'Nothing. Nothing at all,' Vandien conceded.

Vandien drew himself up straight. The Duke matched him. Their blades were down. Then slowly the salute began, the guards brought up chin high, tips up, blades vertical. The jeweled hilt glinted into Vandien's eyes, but his face never changed expression. Then, as the Duke began to bring his blade down and around, out to the side in a standard salute, Vandien extended in a lightning thrust. The tip of his rapier leaped precisely into the Duke's eye socket, sank a good four inches. It was out again before the Duke even began to fall.

'Lesson one in Harperian fencing,' Vandien heard himself say. 'Precise point control is everything.'

The Duke's body hit the carpet.

Vandien swayed where he stood. The chill was spreading. He caught the rapier in his off hand as his sword arm died and fell numb to his side. He turned to the Brurjan guards, lifted the rapier to guard position. He'd show them a Human could die well, too.

Halikira was making a peculiar sound, almost like a dog panting. Her great jaws were wide, baring her gleaming battle fangs and blue-spotted tongue. She clutched suddenly at her belly, and leaned against one of her companions, who abruptly joined her in panting noisily. Suddenly she raised her crest, the spiky swath of semi-hair that crowned a Brurjan and was usually erect only during battle or moments of great emotion. Vandien braced himself.

The third Brurjan guard crossed the room slowly. Vandien turned, keeping his rapier up and threatening. This one was an older male, grey mottling his black pelt. He squatted by the Duke, and he, too, began panting noisily. He leaned forward suddenly, and with a thumb gouged out the Duke's pierced eye. He held it up, dangling tissue clinging to his black-nailed thumb. 'Pig's eye, anyone?' he offered raspily. Halikira yelped suddenly and slid to floor, her panting increasing in tempo as the black male popped the eyeball into his mouth and gravely crunched it.

The strength went suddenly out of Vandien's body. He staggered to a chair, sat. 'I never heard a Brurjan laugh before,' he admitted bewilderedly to no one in particular.

'Then it's even. I never saw a Human do anything funny before,' Halikira replied.

This comment further convulsed all three Brurjans. Vandien sat in his chair, feeling the cold seeping from his arm into his chest. Strange, he thought, to die hearing the sound of Brurjan laughter. His own smile dawned as the room darkened around him. He clutched at the chair to keep from falling.

When his vision returned, the Brurjans were already stripping the body. 'His stuff ought to fit you pretty well,' Halikira observed. 'Korioko! Get that fancy helm out of the chest; the one with the crest on it. Hurry up. In fact, get out the whole battle harness. Bet it looks better on this one than it did on old Pig-eyes.' More of the dog-pant laughter. Halikira tossed the fine chain mail into Vandien's lap. With difficulty he sheathed his rapier, ran appreciative fingers over the fine intermeshed links. The metal was still warm from the Duke's body.

'Get it on!' Halikira ordered him impatiently. Then, peering at Vandien more closely, 'What's wrong with your arm? Your hand's turning blue.'

'Poison,' he said absently, fingering the chain mail. 'Kellich's blade was poisoned. I'm dying.'

'Coward's weapon. No fighter should ever have to die of poison. Here, I'll help you,' she said matter-of-factly, and Vandien sat quietly, expecting a quick knife slice across the throat. LastFriend, the Brurjans translated knife, and were rumored to carry special ones to dispatch their own wounded. But instead she hauled him to his feet and began wrestling him into the chain mail. The cold was squeezing his chest now. He had neither the strength to resist her, nor to help her. In a moment more Korioko was setting a crested helm crookedly atop his head, and the other Brurjan, addressed only as Tiyo, was buckling the Duke's jeweled sword onto his other hip. Their hot meaty breath enveloped him as they laughed their way through the task of arraying him in the Duke's personal battle dress, right down to the heavy purse the Duke had been carrying. Then Halikira stood back and nodded her satisfaction.

'Looks better,' she said affably. 'Always turned my gut to see Pig-eyes in Brurjan harness. Man should fight like a Brurjan before he wears Brurjan harness.' She glanced around the room, then turned back to Vandien. 'You want any of his other stuff?'

He shook his head slowly. His good arm cradled his numbed one to him. Cold, spreading cold. His answer seemed to astonish them. Avariciously happy snarls broke out on their faces. They looted like children, competing and squabbling and bragging, and occasionally bringing some special piece to him and offering it to him. He always refused it, and with each refusal, their respect for him seemed to grow. Korioko bared his yellowed teeth in a Brurjan smile, and commented, 'So were the Old Ones, who fought only for blood and weapons. So we are, even today, when we have made a Great Kill. You honor the harness.' He glanced to Halikira and Tiyo. 'Let's drink with him.'

Tiyo tucked his chin into his chest, a Brurjan gesture of surprise, but Halikira cuffed him roughly. 'It's a good idea. We'll do it.' She stuffed the last of the Duke's jewelry into her shoulder pouch, and stood.

When she dragged Vandien to his feet, he nearly blacked out. Dimly he heard her say something about 'His ass is still bleeding,' which seemed to occasion much merriment among the threesome. His vision cleared slightly to find they were walking him down the stairs. He wasn't sure if his boots were touching the steps or not. As they passed the doorway to the common room of the inn, Halikira paused and leaned in. 'Duke's dead!' she announced to the Brurjan patrollers lounging there. 'VandienScarface killed him.' She paused a moment. 'It'd sound better in Brurjan. KeklokitoVandien. Now there's a proper name. Keklokito will drink with us! He leaves the spoils of the Duke to such as want them. And he says the town is yours! Celebrate a Great Kill as befits it!'