The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition) (16 page)

I ran, I swerved, I dodged, and at a certain point I found myself in a narrow cleft, with three mountain walls around me. I turned, and found the lieutenant at the entrance to the cleft.
The moon had risen high, and though the shadows draped darkly upon us, I could see the moon's glitter upon the lieutenant's eyes and his sword. He had paused, but the angle of his sword told me that he was on the point of attacking. The pause was longer than it had been when I faced Fowler, and this time I felt pain well up inside me, and the feel of the trap's jaws close upon me. I must kill him, or be killed. I had no choice, no choice at all.
I had only a moment to think. Then I flung the dagger from my hand, and with a sob escaping from my throat, I turned and tried to climb the mountain wall.
I was no more than an arm's length up the wall when I felt my collar seized, and I was flung onto the ground, back-first. My head hit the rock, and for a moment I lay stunned. Only one whistle-code echoed through the air now, one that sounded familiar. With my head still sick with dizziness, I tried to rise, but something sharp against my chest held me back. I opened my eyes and saw the lieutenant, calmly pressing his sword against my heart.
The hunt was ended; the hunted was captured alive.
 
CHAPTER NINE
The eighteenth day of October in the 940th year a.g.l. (entry continued)
I lay very still. My hands were still raised above my head, the way they had been when I tried to climb, and I felt my wrists and ankles being pinned to the ground by unseen guards. I didn't resist them. I was afraid that if I moved in the slightest, the lieutenant's sword would miss the spot he was aiming for, and I would die a more painful death than already awaited me.
There was a pause while a soft shuffle of footsteps gathered round me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that there were more than six guards here; I had been right in thinking that the full unit was after me. My gaze, though, was on the lieutenant, staring down at me with dark hatred in his eyes, and my one thought, outside of terror, was my growing concern as to how long he was going to make me wait like this before he finished his deed.
Softly he said, "Search him."
Instantly, on both sides of me, I felt hands touching my body, swiftly and firmly. I resisted an impulse to flinch away, mainly because I was uncertain as to what they were doing. What did it matter to them whether I had another weapon? I'd have no chance to use it. The hands ceased to touch me on my front, and then I was rolled over onto my stomach, and I could feel myself being touched again. Still I did not move, for now I could feel the lieutenant's blade against my spine.
God of Mercy,
I thought.
Is he really going to kill me in the back?
For the first time I felt the impulse to speak – not to plead for my life, which was clearly forfeit, but to ask the lieutenant to give me an honorable death. Then I stifled the impulse. What did I know of Emorian honor? Perhaps in Emor there was no shame attached to being stabbed in the back, as a fleeing man might be killed.
"He is naked," said one of the guards, meaning of course that I was unarmed. There was another pause, and my shoulder-blades began to draw toward each other, bracing for the moment.
Then the lieutenant said, "All right, get him up. And bind his eyes too; we take no chances with this one."
My momentary bewilderment was ended by sharp pain as one of the guards jerked down my upraised hands down and began to bind them behind my back with a leather strap. Another guard was tying a cloth over my eyes. Then I was pulled to my feet.
This was worse than I had expected; I was not even going to be granted the quick death I had dreaded. They were going to take me some place where they could give me a slow, painful death – perhaps they would torture me for days. I felt myself begin to shiver once more, and this time I knew that it wasn't from the wind.
Given the fact that I had been travelling in near darkness, I ought not to have had any trouble travelling eye-bound, but there is a great difference between walking forward in the darkness on your own feet and being propelled forward without having a chance to feel the ground beneath you. I never fell; the hands holding me on either side wrenched me upward each time I stumbled. After a few minutes of this, I discovered to my fury that moisture was forming at the edge of my eyes. Death I could accept, pain I would endure somehow, but this march of humiliation seemed calculated to break my spirit.
Presently the hands released me, and someone pushed me sideways, then forward. On either side of me I could feel rocks brushing against my arms; from the hollowness of the footsteps before me and behind me, I could tell that we were in the tunnel leading to the hut. The patrol guards must have marched me over the wooden plank across the pit, for the echoes of my footsteps ceased. I felt grass under my feet for a while, then the hands took hold of me again, and I travelled through open air for a short space before being suddenly thrust forward. I stumbled and fell to my knees, just saving myself from falling entirely to the floor. The ground beneath me was dirt, the air felt warm, and there were low voices speaking around me that had a hollow tone to them. I must be in some sort of enclosure again.
I heard the lieutenant saying something soft to his men. I was raised to my feet, less harshly than I had been thrown forward, and the cloth was removed from my eyes.
I found I was standing in a small room – this must be the hut I had seen in the hollow. Immediately in front of me was an open hearth-fire that was the sole source of light in the room. Beyond it, most of the soldiers were crowded around a dark, open doorway. Then they stepped back, and from the room beyond the main chamber stepped the sublieutenant.
He took no notice of me. He went over to the lieutenant, who was standing near me, and pulled his sword from his sheath. For a moment, he held the blade flat against his face; then he sheathed his weapon once more.
"How is he?" asked the lieutenant in Emorian.
"He will live." The sublieutenant's gaze wandered over toward me for the first time, and his brows dived low. "He caught Fowler's side – the wound is bad, but his life's blood has not spilled without measure. Gamaliel says that he should be taken back to the city. He doubts that Fowler will recover before the snows fall."
The door in the back was closing, and the other soldiers had begun to turn my way. The lieutenant was looking at me now as well; his expression had not grown any lighter since he first captured me. I felt my lungs being squeezed short at the same moment that my breath quickened. Now, I thought, they will begin.
"Very well, sir," said the lieutenant to me in Common Koretian. "You obviously wanted badly to cross the border. You may as well tell us why."
I must have gaped – at least, that was what I was feeling inside. But perhaps my expression came across as defiance, for the next thing I knew the lieutenant had me pinned by both shoulders against the wall. "Listen, Koretian," he said, his voice still even and cool, though his hands were pressed hard against me, "you just wounded one of my best men. I am not in a mood to be patient. You will answer the questions I ask you."
My voice came out in a feeble sort of tremble. "You won't believe me."
"You have nothing to lose by telling me the truth," said the lieutenant, still very cool. "You have a great deal to lose by not speaking."
Blocked from my view by the lieutenant, the sublieutenant said, "He is probably going to say that his gods made him do it. That is what Koretians always say when they break the law."
The one, small part of me that was still functioning rationally put out an urgent message that I must not mention the gods in my reply. This created a difficulty – I had never before tried to censor all reference to the gods in my speech – but the lieutenant was clearly not prepared to wait long, so I switched over to Emorian, which gave me an excuse to stumble slowly through my speech. "I wanted to be Emorian," I said. "I knew that you wouldn't let me into your land without a letter of passage, but I wanted to become one of you. I wanted—" I hesitated before remembering what Fenton had said about the law. This was how I could find a substitute for speaking of the gods. "I wanted to take a vow of service to the Chara."
There was a good deal of murmuring going on between the soldiers now, but the lieutenant didn't move his gaze. He still had me pinned to the wall, and his face was but a hand's span from mine. "I see," he said. "Is there any particular reason you were so eager to do this?"
"My family is in a blood feud."
The side of the lieutenant's mouth quirked up, though his eyes remained angry. "You fled to Emor so that you would not be murdered?"
"No. So that I wouldn't have to murder."
The lieutenant made no reply; he still hadn't released me. I thought wildly to myself that I would never be able to explain. He must have heard of blood feuds, but he couldn't understand what it was like to take part in one. I wouldn't have understood if it hadn't happened to me. I might as well remain quiet and let them do whatever it was that they planned to do to me.
But I found myself saying, "I wanted to live in a land where there are no blood feuds. I heard about the Chara's law – about how murderers in Emor are brought to judgment, and no one has to kill out of blood-lust. I wanted to find out more about this law. It seemed to me that it must be more worthy of honor than—" I faltered, then concluded, "Than the gods."
The murmuring in the room had died out. The lieutenant straightened his elbows so that, while he was still holding me, he was further back from me now. "Carle," he said.
The sublieutenant's head appeared over the lieutenant's shoulder. "Sir?"
"Is he telling the truth?"
The sublieutenant looked into my eyes, peering as closely at me as I used to look at Emorian writings I was trying to translate. Sublieutenant Carle said slowly, "Yes, sir, I believe he is."
The lieutenant released my shoulders with a suddenness that startled me. "So you like the idea of Emorian law, do you?"
I nodded mutely.
"Do you think what you did just now was lawful?" asked the lieutenant softly.
I swallowed; my throat was so tightly closed that even that was painful. "I don't know, sir," I said. "I don't know any Emorian law."
"Let me try another question. Do you think that what you did was just? Do you think that it was right?"
"He has no understanding of justice, sir," said Carle with disgust. "He does whatever his gods tell him to do."
I could feel myself growing dizzy with bewilderment again. Was it right for me to have attacked a man who had been keeping me from doing what I wanted? The question would never have occurred to me. If I were in my village— No, that wouldn't do; if I were in my village, I would either be dead or undergoing torture by now. There must be some reason that the lieutenant was asking me these questions. Well, in the old days, would I have thought that the gods would approve of what I did? Despite Carle's statement, it seemed to me that that was closer to what the lieutenant was asking me, but I was still unsure of an answer.
"I don't know, sir," I said. "Perhaps it wasn't."
In the silence that followed, I could hear the crackle of the fire and the moan of the wounded man in the next room, but nothing more. Then the lieutenant said, "I will give you a choice, then. You can return to Koretia now and start your life over again. Or you can undergo judgment by Emorian law for what you did. The maximum penalty for your crime is death."
It wasn't clear to me what he was offering. On the one hand, he seemed to be offering to let me go, as long as I went back to Koretia . . . and that was a fate that I was not prepared to contemplate. On the other hand, he was asking me to accept certain death – or was it certain?
"Did you say 'maximum penalty,' sir?" I asked.
"Yes. You could be given a lesser sentence." Then, seeing my blank look, he added, "A lesser punishment. But I cannot promise that; you might be sentenced to death."
"The question is not which penalty is worse," said Carle. "By the law-structure, lieutenant, is it not clear that this boy has no understanding? He is just trying to find the easiest way out. He cares nothing about what he has done."
Somehow, Carle's words made it clear to me what I was being offered. I felt a burst of joy and said, "Will you do that? Will you show me how the law works?"
"It would not be a game," said the lieutenant. "You would be on trial for your life."
"That doesn't matter," I said impatiently. "I'd rather die than go back to Koretia. But if I could just know first what the law is—" I stopped, thought back to the words I had heard Carle speak at the fireside, and added, "It would be worth dying, to know what the law is and to be obedient to its consequences, even for a short time."
The soldiers' murmuring returned once more; I heard one of them mutter, "Heart of Mercy," but I did not hear the rest of this mysterious oath. The lieutenant was exchanging looks with Carle. After a moment he said, "Very well. What is your name?"
"Adrian son of Berenger," I replied.
"Adrian, since you are in the black border mountains, you are under my care and therefore under my judgment; I will be the judge for your trial. Carle, who is the witness?"
"Myself, sir."
"Devin, you are the herald, Payne is the clerk, and Sewell is the summoner; we may as well do this properly for the benefit of the prisoner's education. As for a guide— Adrian."
"Yes, sir?"
"Since you know little of the law, you are entitled to a guide to answer your questions during the trial and explain to you what is happening. Sublieutenant Carle is appearing as a witness against you, but he also happens to be the man in this unit who knows the most about Emorian law. Are you willing to accept him as your guide, or would you prefer that I appoint someone else?"
I looked over at the sublieutenant uncertainly. He no longer looked angry, but I couldn't read his look; it was as if a mask had appeared over his face. "He would be fine, sir," I said, "if – if he wishes to be my guide."
The lieutenant raised his eyebrows toward Carle in query. Carle said, with phrasing that appeared deliberate, "I would be glad to undertake this duty, sir. I want him to have a fair trial."
"Let me know when you are ready, then. I will be in the storeroom in the meantime." And the lieutenant, without looking my way again, walked over to the room in the back.