The Reluctant Swordsman (31 page)

“Certainly not!” Wallie snapped. “Much too obvious!” He sipped wine, enjoying the expression on Honakura’s face—had anyone ever before had cause to tell Honakura that he was being too obvious? Then he continued.

“At breakfast this morning—and, by the way, you could tell who was on my side from the grins when I came in . . . not that I can trust even those men any more. Where was I? Yes, Tarru was not there, but Trasingji was . . . ” Wallie and his protégé had finished breakfast in their usual seats. Then their way out had taken them past Trasingji, sitting with two other Fifths. Wallie had stopped to accept their salutes. Only a slight lowering of the feathery white eyebrows had hinted at Trasingji’s thoughts, but his companions had been grinning openly at the Seventh.

“Tell your friend this,” Wallie had said. “I do not know where it is. Nnanji does not know where it is. Nor do his parents; it is not at their house. In fact it is not in the town at all. All this I swear by my sword. The Goddess be with you, master.” And he had stalked out, feeling very pleased with himself. There was nothing more holy to a swordsman than the oath of his craft, so he would probably be believed.

“I see,” Honakura said. “I think. So he knows that it is still within the grounds?” The priest was peeved at being mystified by a mere swordsman. He knew that Wallie knew that.

Wallie nodded. “He may well assume that you have it, holy one. I should have excluded you also; you may be in danger.”

“Bah!” Honakura frowned darkly. “I still think you have removed it from the temple altogether. But you would not perjure yourself . . . ” “And Tarru has extra guards on the gate. They will all swear that neither Nnanji nor I went out. They don’t know Katanji. They may have seen Jja come and go, for they watch the women, but she was carrying nothing.” He sipped his wine and added casually, “Except a blanket, when she returned.” “A blanket?”

Wallie took pity on him. “Her baby misses his blanket. I gave her a copper to buy it from Kikarani. Having smelled it, I can tell how he recognizes it, but not why he would want it.”

Now the old man understood and he shook his head in wonder. “So you trusted the sword to a slave and a boy you have never met?” Wallie nodded, well pleased. If the devious Honakura, who knew that Jja was no ordinary slave, had found his actions incredible, then Tarru would never get close. Tarru was covetous and a gambler, but not a trusting man. Tarru would not even have trusted Nnanji the swordsman with a jewel.
 
“Katanji carried it up the road in the rug, with Jja following to watch. Then she slipped into an empty cottage and hid it in the thatch. But I do not know which cottage, so I do not know where it is.”

“So the blanket was her excuse to be there and absent from the barracks,” the priest concluded, smiling and nodding. “And the sword has not only left the temple but is even beyond the town. Oh, yes! You are a most subtle swordsman, my lord!” He could probably pay no higher compliment.
 
Wallie accepted a cake and more wine. He could admit the cause for celebration.
 
He provoked more mirth by telling how he had checked in Nnanji’s old sword the previous evening.

“How is his fencing, then?” Honakura asked. “I heard that you had treated him severely.”

Wallie confessed that he had been forced to beat Nnanji, although not in conventional fashion. “His swordsmanship is astonishing. His defense was fine before, and now he has an attack to match. He tried to butcher me this morning, but he will grow out of that.”

Nnanji would be an easy Third by temple standards, even by Shonsu’s. Almost it seemed as though those years of frustrated practice had been locked up in storage and were now released. Wallie had offered to arrange promotion that very day. Nnanji had turned coy, and asked if there was any rule against jumping two ranks at once. There wasn’t, so Wallie had agreed to let him wait until he was ready to try for Fourth. Nnanji was now his secret weapon.
 
Honakura huddled back in his wicker chair and twinkled at his guest. “And the slave?”

Unconsciously Wallie yawned. He was not sure whether he had slept at all in the night. He wished that Honakura was literate, to appreciate a joke about a World book of records. But he wasn’t, so Wallie merely remarked that there had been a lot more feathers on the floor again in the morning. Shonsu was a tireless performer when encouraged; Jja an enthusiastic partner. Together they had scaled heights of rapture that he would have thought quite unattainable had he not experienced them.

“So now, what do you do?” the priest asked, refilling his chalice.
 
“Now I have time,” Wallie said. “Time to heal, to train Nnanji, to learn about the World from you . . . time to think! Honorable Tarru can carry on taking the temple complex apart, but now he must be seriously considering the possibility of failure, so I think he will be circumspect.” “And this Katanji?”

“Ah,” Wallie said. “I have not met him, but I think he must be the fifth. Two more to go.”

“You are learning, Walliesmith,” said Honakura.

Wallie could not afford to relax, but he no longer felt death stalking closely at his back. Days crept by, and his feet healed with a rapidity that astonished Dinartura, yet the bandages stayed on. Wallie spent most of his time in the guest room—exercising, chanting sutras and fencing with Nnanji, playing with Vixini, making love with Jja. Any time he went out he was certain that he was being followed, and he suspected that the same was now true of Nnanji.
 
Shonsu was a brilliant instructor, Nnanji an incredible pupil. Shown a knack, trick, or skill, he never forgot it. His swordsmanship grew like a thunderhead on a summer’s afternoon, as Wallie could see from the level at which he had to fence to equal him. He should have had more than one partner, but they were both taking pleasure in keeping his progress secret.
 
The days crept by . . .

One evening, when teacher and pupil had finished bathing and were both feeling the weary contentment that comes from long and hard exertion, Nnanji confessed to feeling frustrated.

“You are a much better instructor than anyone in the guard, my liege,” he said.
 
“You show me all this wonderful technique, but I don’t seem to be improving very much at all, not since the first day.” He threw down his towel angrily.
 
Wallie laughed. “Yes you are! I keep raising the standard on you!”

“Oh!” Nnanji looked surprised. “You do?”

“I do. Let’s go out to the exercise yard.”

They stood on the little platform together and watched the action. At that time of day there were only a half-dozen couples fencing, some supervised and others merely practicing. Nnanji stared for a while, then turned to his mentor with an astonished grin.

“They are so slow!” he said. “So obvious!”

Wallie nodded. “You can’t expect to be hit by lightning every day,” he said. “It comes gradually. But you are a hundred times better than you were.” “Look at that thumb over there!” Nnanji muttered in contempt.
 
Then one of the pairs finished their practice. They pulled off their masks and were revealed as Gorramini and Ghaniri. Nnanji yelped, his eyes flashing with delight. “I could beat them, my liege!”

“Possibly,” said Wallie, who privately agreed. “Let’s give it a few more days, though.”

Each morning he visited Honakura in his little courtyard and learned more of the World. He also asked about Shonsu and was distressed to discover how little the priest knew about him. He had come a long way, but that did not mean a long journey. The Hand of the Goddess would have brought him, Honakura insisted, and similarly Wallie could be transported to wherever She wished him to be. So all he needed to do was board a boat in Hann, and he might find his task—or his mysterious brother—in the next port.

“There is one thing you should know, my lord,” the little man said. He seemed reluctant to continue. “Obviously the demon had been sent by the Goddess, as our exorcism was a failure.”

Wallie found this subject confusing, having been the demon in question, and it always reminded him of the demigod’s hints of Someone Having Made a Bad Lead.
 
“So?” he asked.

“Your previous occupant . . . ” Honakura said. “That is . . . the original Lord Shonsu . . . he thought that the demon had been sent by sorcerers.” “Sorcerers!” Wallie exclaimed in dismay. “I didn’t know you had sorcerers in the World.”

“Neither did I,” the priest replied, surprisingly. “There are old legends of them, but I have never heard them mentioned by any pilgrim. They were supposedly associated with the priests once.”

Wallie did not enjoy the idea of sorcerers. How could a swordsman fight sorcerers? But a world of gods and miracles could presumably be a world of magic, also.

“It figures,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Where there are swordsmen there would have to be sorcerers, wouldn’t there?”

“I don’t see why.” Honakura sniffed. “But I can’t advise you about them. They were supposed to worship the Fire God. Their facemarks are feathers.” Why feathers? No one knew, and Wallie discovered that no one else knew much about sorcerers either. Nnanji just scowled and complained that there would be no honor in fighting sorcerers. Nnanji’s ideals ran to heroic single combat and epics. He probably dreamed of a great epic: How Nnanji Slew Goliath.

One day a junior priest, carefully selected by Honakura, carried a message to Nnanji’s brother. Next morning the boy knelt at the temple arches with the pilgrims. A youth not apprenticed to a craft was of little interest to the priests, but this one was approached after a very short while and led in to pray . . . and then spirited out through the back. He sat on a stool in Honakura’s courtyard with that gentleman and Wallie and ate all the cakes.
 
He was very unlike Nnanji: short and dark, with curly black hair, and sharp, restless eyes, plus a bubbling impudence that seemed little impressed by the august company of two Sevenths. He did not look much like swordsman material to Wallie, but Wallie had accepted Honakura’s belief that the gods were recruiting on his behalf, and if Nnanji wanted his brother as his first protégé, then that was how it would be.

Katanji solemnly swore that he had told no one of his exploit with the sword. He was reminded how important that was to Nnanji, for if Tarru laid hands on the sword, he must then kill Wallie in self-defense, or from spite. Then he would have to plan on killing Nnanji, also.

Before Katanji left, he was awarded a contract for repairs to the rugs in one of the priests’ dormitories. If he was needed for any more conspiring, then he would be informed when he made the deliveries. Honakura seemed perturbed by the price that the lad demanded. He glanced in rueful surprise at Wallie, but agreed that it would be paid. Katanji was skipping as he departed.
 
When Nnanji later heard the terms he almost exploded.

“Your father will be pleased, then,” Wallie said.

Nnanji growled ominously. “If he finds out.”

Wallie had made no progress in planning his escape. Tarru had searched the whole barracks and failed to find the sword. He could hardly rummage the entire temple grounds, so he must wait until Wallie tried to leave. He had many guards on the gate. He had placed a roadblock at the foot of the hill and greatly increased the detachment at the ferry port.

All this Wallie learned from the slaves. His intelligence sources were now better even than Honakura’s. The slaves knew everything, but normally they formed a self-contained society. They had no interest in, and played no part in, the affairs of the free. For Lord Shonsu they made exception, and Jja was given all the news to pass on to him.

Tarru was stalemated, but he was continuing to swear swordsmen by the blood oath. Unfortunately this was not done in the presence of slaves, and Wallie could not determine who might still be trustworthy—probably not even lowranks now. There must have been some resistance, for three times slaves had been called in to clean up bloodstains. The guard was so large that the absences were not noticeable, and they were not discussed.

Wallie felt horrified and guilty at these needless deaths. Even Nnanji looked bleak when he heard, but he had to assume that the proprieties of challenge had been observed. Such ritual murder was not an abomination, merely an occupational hazard of being an honorable swordsman. Even the retired swordsmen of the barracks staff seemed to have been infected. The old commissary, Coningu, suddenly became bitter, snappish, and uncooperative. Wallie assumed that the old man was hinting that he was now unreliable, but could not openly say so.
 
So the slaves provided information on the present situation. For long-term strategy Wallie cross-examined Honakura. What happened if you sailed down the River forever’? The priest had never thought of that and assumed that you would never stop—how could there be an end to a River? Where would the water go? What happened if you walked away from the River? You would come back to it, for it was everywhere. The only qualification was that there were mountains, and here his knowledge was scanty. There might be other peoples, other customs, other gods, in the mountains.

Politics, it seemed, was rudimentary, each city ruling itself. Wallie had great trouble explaining warfare to the priest, for it was almost unknown. A city that wished to oppress a neighbor would have to hire swordsmen, because only swordsmen might use violence. But then the neighbor would also hire swordsmen, and why should swordsmen hurt or kill members of their own craft for others’ benefit? Surely one side must be in the right, and one in the wrong? And honorable swordsmen would not fight for the wrong. It sounded too good to be true, and Nnanji told contrary stories with good guys and bad guys, but clearly the World was a more peaceful place than certain other planets.
 
Jja’s skill with a needle flourished as fast as Nnanji’s with a sword, although there Shonsu’s expertise was of no help. She had been taught to sew in her childhood, but had never had a chance to use what she had learned. Now she could discover the joy of doing something purely for its own sake. She was astonished at the idea that she could have more than one garment, and even more than one evening gown, but she produced a second in white, and a third in cobalt, and each was better made and more cunningly provoking than the last. She embroidered a white griffon on the hem of Wallie’s kilt—and then on Nnanji’s, to his great delight.