Sword of the Bright Lady (12 page)

“Get up, old man,” Karl said, and he didn't mean Svengusta. Christopher blinked, rubbed his eyes and his aching temples.

It was morning already. He got dressed, came out into the kitchen where everyone else was eating breakfast, apparently unmarked by the excesses of last night.

Except Helga. Helga was positively glowing, a radiance that flared every time Karl spoke to her or glanced in her direction. His relief that he would not have to deal with Helga's crush was swiftly ruined by concern. He hoped Karl would let her down easy.

“I wish to apologize in advance, Pater. You asked me to teach you to ride,” Karl said as they walked to the stable. “If I correct you, it is only for the sake of your horse.”

“Of course,” Christopher said. “And call me Christopher.”

Christopher had been on the back of a horse one or two times before. The experience had little in common with riding the magnificent Royal. Especially the way Karl defined riding. Karl's own horse, though smaller and more nimble than Royal, was barely able to keep up with the huge stallion. “Keep up” being the operative phrase, since under no circumstance would Royal allow the other horse to pull ahead of him.

They saw a lot of the surrounding countryside, or at least Karl and the horses did. Once they got to trotting, Christopher mostly saw shooting stars of pain from his spine. When Karl finally decided that any more saddle time would cause Christopher's ineptitude to risk injuring the horse, they turned back to the stable. Christopher was a limp rag that had been through the wringer too many times; Karl was unsparing, and left him to unsaddle and brush down the warhorse under the supervision of a stable boy. The boy was merciless in the way all ten-year-old experts are with incompetent adults.

Christopher waddled back to the chapel, grateful that the ground was no longer rising up to kick him in the butt with every step. Svengusta had a fire going in the main hall, with two hard benches pulled up. Apparently he felt religious education shouldn't take place in a nice, comfortable kitchen while Christopher lay on Helga's bed.

“And don't even think of healing those blisters yet,” the old man admonished. “You've got to give your skin a chance to toughen up, otherwise it will be this bad every time.”

Svengusta skipped the abstracts and went straight to the practical aspects of healing. Magic, yes, but also mundane things like diagnosis and emergency care. The goal was to determine who needed real magical healing and how to keep them alive until they could get it. The other goal was to not waste the high rank's time on things that weren't important. Christopher kept failing those quizzes. Absent antibiotics and MRI scanners, every symptom seemed important to him. The lesson went on during lunch, Svengusta howling with laughter through his porridge every time he fooled Christopher with a trick case.

Eventually Svengusta ran out of patience, and the party retired to the tavern. Christopher limited himself to one beer, partially out of a sense of poverty, although he seemed to be on Svengusta's tab, but also because the beer was thick, sour, and stringent. He wondered if lager had been invented yet.

He sat around the fire, listening to the men talk. Their discussions were completely unintelligible to him, being strictly limited to farming, husbandry, and weather.

On the way back to the chapel for dinner, a shadowy figure intercepted them. Christopher could feel the electric, automatic response in Karl, as his hand slipped down to his sword hilt. They were both wearing their swords, as always. They only took them off in the chapel and in the tavern, and even then they stayed within arm's reach. But the stalker was revealed by Svengusta's light-stone to be the young man from the chapel, pretty Dynae's handsome boyfriend.

“I wanted to thank you, Pater,” he stammered out.

Christopher tried to think of something appropriate to say. “It was no more than she deserved.”

“Dereth says when I come back from the war, he'll make me a smith. Then Dynae and I can get married,” the boy offered for his approval.

“That sounds good.” Christopher was not sure what else he was supposed to say. Then he thought of something. “When are you going to be drafted?”

“Next winter, Pater,” the boy said mournfully. “And I'm afraid—I mean, I'm worried that I might never see Dynae again. Begging your pardon, Goodman,” he said to Karl, “but I don't think I can measure up to you.”

“It is not character you need, but luck,” Karl said.

“Don't worry, lad,” Svengusta said. “No one is expected to measure up to Karl. A single term is all we are asking, not two.”

“Two?” Christopher said. “You were drafted twice?”

“The second time I volunteered,” Karl said. “Afterwards, Saint Krellyan made me a civil servant, to prevent a third term. As Quarter-Master of the draft, I now send others to die in my place.”

“Two terms, and you still don't have any rank?” That did not bode well for Christopher's plan of advancement.

“He was offered promotion,” Svengusta said. “He turned it down.”

“I have my reasons,” Karl said. “They are not worth your time.”

Christopher scratched his chin to cover over the awkward pause in the conversation. “Well,” he said to the boy, “then you and I are to be comrades-in-arms. I'll be part of that draft, and I swear I'll do what I can to make sure you come back.”

“Truth, Pater?” the boy asked with astonishment. “They drafted you? But you're old!”

Svengusta cackled at Christopher and shooed the boy off. “Go on to bed, son,” he said. “He'll be here for the rest of the year for you to gawk at, but your chores won't do themselves on the morrow.”

In the chapel, getting ready for sleep, Helga's doe eyes were like beacons. Karl sat on her bed and smiled at her while she stripped off his boots. Christopher and Svengusta retired to their own room, where they had to remove their boots by themselves. Disturbed by the quiet sounds in the next room, Christopher cast his arm over his bed, but there was nothing to hold.

7.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

The next several days passed swiftly, if not painlessly. Spooked by the duel and the upcoming draft, Christopher had become obsessed with sword practice. Karl was always willing and sparred with daunting relentlessness even after a hard day's ride. The regime left little time for self-reflection. What time there was, Christopher spent considering how out of shape he was compared to these people. Unending hard labor was a personal trainer no gym could hope to match. He was a bit relieved when Karl eventually decided that he should be heading back to town. Christopher decided to go along to see what he could buy. The village didn't even have a forge of its own.

“I will escort you for the day and keep you out of harm's way. But you no longer need me here in the village.” Karl had conceded that Christopher now understood the basics of riding and just required practice. For his part, Karl already had learned half of what Christopher, the kendo black belt, could teach about swordsmanship. The other half he'd started out knowing.

Dawn had hardly happened by the time they were out of the village. Karl delayed for nothing so trivial as a hot breakfast. But the clear road gave Christopher a chance to talk. Not having to duck tree branches or dodge fences made conversation possible.

“Thank you for the fencing lessons,” he said to Karl. “I've found them incredibly helpful.”

Karl's shoulder twitched, which would have been a shrug on any less tightly wound man.

“Seriously,” Christopher said, “I'm better than I ever was. I can't believe how much difference a week of practice has made.”

“It is not practice,” Karl said. “It is the rank.”

Christopher paused, looking for the right words. Finally he gave up and said, “I don't know what you mean.”

“Skill at arms is one of the privileges of rank,” Karl explained, “and it gets worse. You want to know what it's like to be fifth rank? I'll close my eyes next time we spar. Then you'll know what a fifth rank feels when facing common men.”

Healing, magic, and now skill? The benefits of tael seemed insurmountable. No ordinary man could hope to best someone with that kind of advantage. The only thing they could do against a foe like that would be to overwhelm him with numbers, at terrible cost.

“Are there fifth ranks in the war, then?”

“Yes, and worse,” Karl said without emotion. “Let me explain the nature of war. The power of great rank is such that whoever strikes first usually wins. Thus, a battle is a game of hide-and-seek between ranks. The commoners are cast onto the field like sounding stones, to reveal the position of the enemy powers. They do this by dying. To see a crowd of men clashing together with steel means nothing; to see bodies exploding in pieces signifies the presence of rank.”

Trying to overwhelm super-swordsmen with mass formations wouldn't work any better than cavalry charges had against machine guns. “What about bows?” Christopher asked. “Can't you just get a bunch of archers to shoot the high ranks to death from a safe distance?”

“Bows are unpopular. Slay a foe at range, and someone else might take his head and his tael before you can claim it.

“Also, bows are expensive,” Karl added, sourly. “The Saint will spend thirty gold to equip each boy called to the draft. A crossbow costs thirty-five.”

Christopher was alarmed to realize how much his horse and sword would stand out. “What do they get, then?”

Karl barked what might have been a laugh. “That's the business I've been avoiding. Traditionally, each boy is given a spear, a shield, a helm, and a studded tunic.” Noticing Christopher's questioning look, he explained. “Studded is leather armor with metal discs sewn in, to give the pretension of a chance to turn a sharp blade.”

“Traditionally?”

“Studs are expensive. The armorers charge Krellyan twenty gold for each suit. Replacing it with plain leather would save fifteen gold per boy. With the money saved, Krellyan could send another priest out with the draftees. An extra healer is going to save a lot more lives than that stupid, useless armor.”

“So, why not send them out with leather?” Christopher asked. It seemed like an innocent question.

“What? You would send our boys naked to the war?” Karl snarled. “The people wouldn't stand for it. They think the armor helps. They think it protects the boys. You can't tell them it only protects their own pride, to pretend that they are not sacrificing their sons without hope. To suggest such a thing would be unthinkable. Only an immensely popular man could change our vaunted tradition, and he wouldn't be very popular afterward.”

A sad realization crept into Christopher's mind. “So what Krellyan needs is a war hero. A man so concerned with the safety of his fellow soldiers that he'd sacrifice his popularity. But of course, he has to have lots of experience on the battlefield, so people believe he knows what he's talking about. He has to have the personal bravery to have done what he's asking others to do. And of course he has to be a commoner if he's going to take something away from the commoners. Where do you suppose he could find such a man?”

They rode in silence for a while.

“Krellyan is a hard master,” Christopher said softly. No wonder Karl took no notice of his popularity. He expected it to be a temporary condition.

Karl snorted. “Not as hard as I would be. I'd send them out with nothing but slings and spears. The rest of it's useless, anyway. Don't you see,” Karl said with a deep and inexhaustible bitterness, “they're
right
. Commoners really are as useless as stones. If they bunch up in pike squares, one spell kills them all. If they spread out with bows, the knights mow them down like blades of grass. All they can do is die, preferably loudly, and hope someone important noticed.”

Christopher could not share Karl's defeatism. Hobilar's enhanced vitality had only stopped a few blows from a stick; it would count for nothing in the teeth of a cannon. Gunpowder here would have the same effect on the nobility as it had on Earth.

“When are you going to give the armorers the bad news?” Christopher asked, wanting to know how long he had to convince them to spend it on something new.

“As late as possible, so they can't do anything about it. When I finally give out the contracts for the leather, too late for the studding to be done, I'll be pilloried in every town as incompetent, dishonorable, and insensitive to boot. Then Krellyan will pacify them by sending out a third priest.”

Christopher suddenly understood why he was being told all this. The depth of Krellyan's opportunism was made clear. “I'm the third priest, aren't I?”

Karl gave him a grin that challenged the snowy fields for the title of “wintry.” “You're sharper than a slice of bread, Pater. When the complaints have reached their limit, the Saint will placate the people with your head, and you will be the darling of the hour.”