The Warrior's Tale (33 page)

I removed my helmet and bowed. 'I greet you in the name of Orissa,' I said, but made no response to his statement about sorcerers. 'I see you have the powers of magic and are what we call an Evocator. Can you sense aught of our history?'

'Some,' he said. 'And what I cannot, I am sure you will tell me. But we need not go into that now. I know you are not long from a great voyage
and a greater battl
e, and since your victory, which nearly brought you down, you have been harried and sore-struck. But now you are safe. You may remain here as long as you wish and refit. What tools and equipment you find, you are welcome to use as you wish. You may find housing below in the village, or up here, on the plateau. There are more than enough barracks to accommodate regiments far greater than your own.

'The fresh water, the grains that grow wild, the fruits of the trees
are yours for the taking. You may hunt, you may fish where you will. I ask only that you hunt no creatures who walk upright. Nor should you take any creatures who wear my sign, a jewel set in their forehead or on a band around their neck. They are my servants and my friends and I have sworn to let them come to no harm. This I must insist on, and anyone who breaks that law will be punished and the manner of his punishment shall be most dire.' Now all of us could see that sheen of authority in his eyes.

I broke the hold he had on us. 'We come in peace, and none of us are fools or children. We hold to the laws of the country we visit,' and I allowed a bit of steel into my voice,
^l
so long as we are honoured as guests.
If that agreement is broken
...'
I did not finish my sentence, nor need to.

'Good,' The Sarzana said. 'I have already sent one of my
...
servants down to welcome the rest of your party, and to invite the officers of the ships, particularly the one you call Cholla Yi, to my villa. Captain Antero, you may, if you choose, allow your soldiers to break ranks and relax. There will be an opportunity to refresh yourselves before we dine.'

I thought a moment. It would have been absurd to have listened to his honeyed words, but once more I felt nothing but calm and welcome. I looked at Gamelan, and he wore a slight smile, lifted his face as if to the warm afternoon sun.

'Thank you, Sarzana,' I said. 'We thank you deeply for welcoming us to your kingdom.'

The Sarzana's expression changed, darkened. 'Kingdom?' he said, and his voice, too, altered. It was as if a sudden storm cloud had rolled across the clear sky. 'I who once ruled lands that stretched so wide no man could see them all in a lifetime?
This
is not my kingdom.

'This is my doom, Captain. This is my exile. This is where I was sent to die!'

By mid-afternoon all of our ships were moored in the harbour and most of the men ashore. The Sarzana said he'd have his minions clean out the death barracks in the village and our people could quarter there. Those of us who heard the offer shuddered collectively at spending even one night in that morgue. The Sarzana saw our response and said we were more than welcome to sleep up here on the plateau if we wished - his enemies had built more than enough rooms when they exiled him to this island.

Corais boldly chanced a question, and asked what had happened below.

The Sarzana smiled and his smile wasn't humorous. He said we'd learn in time, but that was near the end of his tale, and he preferred to tell it later. Unless, he added, the legate was worried that somehow what happened to those scoundrels bore on her fate? Even though his words were a taste harsh, no one took offence. Corais shrugged and said it was his island. All of us were still feeling that odd contentment, as if our troubles had come to an end.

The Sarzana's offer was generous, but neither Cholla Yi nor I wanted to be that far from our ships. Also, it would've taken too long for the working parties to go up and down that staircase and as long as our ships were near-derelicts, we felt naked, unprotected.

We decided a small party of my Guardswomen, headed by Corais, would be quartered on the plateau, more to keep an eye on The Sarzana than anything else. The rest of us would use the abandoned houses along the waterfront and cleaning them would be our first task. Two taprooms would be used for Cholla Yi's and my headquarters. The tavern I'd chosen also had good-sized rooms above-stairs, so these became quarters for Polillo, Aspirant Dica and myself. I'd determined to make her a legate if she survived our next
battle
and to blazes with the official policy of not making promotions without a higher officer - which meant a man - approving. The long voyage had given me time to think about many things I'd taken for granted in Orissa and there would be changes when we got back.

The Sarzana informed us he'd planned a feast to celebrate our arrival. We accepted, but told him some of my Guardswomen and a small watch aboard each ship would be unable to attend. They would mess off ship's rations. Tomorrow, if none of us fell ill from the food we'd eaten, they could have their own feast. This was common practice when dealing with foreign lords for whom poison might be an ordinary tool of state.

The Sarzana frowned when I told him we wouldn't all be able to take advantage of his hospitality and I said, perhaps a little sharply, that we, too, had our customs. He smiled, not taking offence and I felt whatever bit of suspicion I might have felt melt m his warmth. He said custom was a most good thing and that one of his own personal beliefs was the commoner was as deserving of a banquet for his or her deeds as any lord. It had been his way, he said, from the very beginning, that nobility and peasants should sit intermingled.

'If nothing else,' he said, his smile becoming jovial, but never touching his eyes, 'I've found the man or woman of the soil or sea has far more interesting things to say than the latest court prattlings.'

I was most impressed, as were my women. This was the way we ate and lived in
battle
, but in barracks even the Maranon Guard had separate messes for sergeants, officers and privates. I made a note to think about this way of The Sarzana's. Perhaps when we returned home, this would be another idea worth introducing to the cob-webbed customs of the army, at least for the Guard. Only Cholla Yi and some of his officers appeared to resent the planned seating arrangement, but none of them said anything within my hearing.

We toileted in shifts and did our best to smarten up to our best full dress. But it was pretty pathetic. Our dress tunics were salt-spotted and our armour had discoloured, in spite of constant polishing. Our brass had a beautiful greenish tint that took much cursing and many ashes to remove. We whitened our leather as best we could, although it needed more than
oiling and bl
anco -
1
hoped we could find time to cut and tan new hides before we sailed on. Our beautiful plumed helms had not taken the passage well and looked like seabirds who'd been tumbled about in a winter's gale. Only our weapons gleamed with never a stain.

We ourselves were so many harridans. Polillo took one look in a pier-glass set between the two windows that looked out onto the harbour, and moaned. 'This isn't hair, this is a dustmop,' she said, waving a handful of her brown locks at me.

I tried to be polite, but she was right. We'd combed and washed and, when we could, oiled. But the sea and salt air had laughed at our efforts. Somehow, it hadn't seemed important aboard ship, when we all looked equally good or bad and who gave a damn what any sailor thought. But now, with the promise of this banquet, even though there was no one to impress but The Sarzana and his half-men, we felt shamed.

But we did what we could with the time and materials we had. And from this came another tale my women would be telling as long as I led them and beyond.

The
villagers of Tristan had evidentl
y been cleanly sorts, because there were more than enough tubs, wooden or metal, for bathing. Two of Cholla Yi's sailors decided to amuse themselves by peeping on our pastime. One earned himself a broken arm courtesy of a hurled stave by Polillo, the other bruised or broken ribs from a blunt-headed arrow fired by Gerasa.

Those of us who preferred our limbs hairless stropped our razors or smallknives and shaved. I wondered, as I cut myself and swore, why no Evocator had ever provided a depilatory spell, until I realized men set great store by their own bodily hair and of course paid little heed to a woman's desires. I did remember having heard tales that some of Orissa's finer courtesans had their bodies completely ridden of hair below the neck and realized perhaps such a spell did exist and I'd never considered magic as being intended for daily use, until Gamelan began tutoring me.

And from there came my disaster. Just as I opened my small personal case and groaned, I heard other women complaining. The few cosmetic items we'd carried in our warbags had seen even worse treatment than our bodies. Our powders were caked, our oils were dried and thick, our creams were clotted, our rouges were cracked. This, and the way I'd been thinking a few minutes earlier, brought inspiration. I would save the day. I called for my sergeants and had them collect these dried up items, each marked as to its owner. I thought for a moment and set my own kit in front of the others. I collected a bit of clean rainwater from a nearby cistern, some sweet-smelling flowers from a bush, a bit of oil from the tavern's kitchen and finally a gaily coloured scarf that had been abandoned in a closet. I touched the scarf to each of my other ingredients and was ready.

All I needed was some species of goddess. I t
hought of Maranonia, but instantl
y put her aside. If she heard my prayer, she was as likely to turn me into a warthog for bothering her with something so trivial as face powder as grant my wishes.

I tried to remember another god, but unfortunately, being a true and sceptical Orissan, I grew up paying
little
attention to any gods except my own hearth god, Maranonia, the gods of the city, and any other beings it might have been politic to pray to in a public place. Having a god or godlet for each and every function - why, that was fo
r superstitious peasants and outl
anders. I asked if anyone knew of a goddess who might help us and there was a long moment of silence.

Finally Polillo brightened and said that when she was but a mite of a youth, she remembered a friend of hers. 'She was like a young deer,' Polillo mooned, 'but she preferred only men, the hairier the better, so she had no time for me. But I remember she used to pray to
...
to some goddess named
...
let me think
...
I have it! Helthoth. No, Heloth. Yes, that's it. I'm sure of it.'

By this time about half my Guardswomen had gathered around and I knew I had better pull this one off most handily.

So I began my spell:

As you were

So shall you be

Listen Heloth

And grant my plea.

Turn back Turn back

Turn back again

Now you are

What you were.

As I chanted, I touched my scarf to each of the cases, willing the properties of the oil, the flower, the sweet water, to rejuvenate our powders. I thought I saw a bit of a flicker and looked down at my own case. It looked as if it were brand new, and the nicks and scratches from a hundred hundred campaigns in my warbag were gone.

I'm afraid I got a little over-excited, this being my first real spell from intent to end. In fact, I yelped, 'I did it!'

Corais was the first to pick up her case and open it, even before I opened mine. She gaped
...
and then she started laughing, laughing like a vixen in the spring watching her kits play. I had just time to realize something had gone very wrong and then my fingers fumbled my own case open. My spell had worked very well. In fact, it had worked too well. My cosmetics had grown young - inside the case was a disgusting mess of ingredients: almonds, before they'd been crushed for their oil, rose petals, metallic powder, butter, olive oil, and all the rest of the things skilled chemists ground and mashed to make unguents from.

As the laughter grew into hoots, I glumly knew it would be a
very
long time before the Guard forgot the tale of
'How Captain Antero Turned Back Time'.

Before we assembled and went back up those stairs to the plateau to meet The Sarzana, I drew Gamelan aside and asked him if he sensed any magic being constructed against us. He said he did not.

'But I can tell you one thing for certain, which you will have realized already. This Sarzana is a mighty sorcerer, as mighty, I can
feel
even though stripped of my powers, as any I have heard of or encountered. Further, I sense that he held power in a temporal sense.'

'Like the Archons?' I said.

Gamelan thought for a while. 'In a way. It is hard to describe
exactly
, but with a difference. The Archons learned magic and with that magic seized the throne, true to the tradition of the rulers of Lycanth. This man is different. I feel that this Sarzana, and I wish I knew what that word meant, whether name or title, seized wand and sceptre at the same time - and used one to give the other greater strength and then return the favour before he fell.'