Empire of the East (20 page)

Rolf wasted no time in preliminaries. “It may be you can tell me something that I want to know,” he began. “About a matter that is not likely to mean anything to you, one way or the other. Of course I'll be willing to give you something, within reason, in return for information.”

Not for the first time, Chup found himself somewhat taken with this youth, who came neither bullying the cripple nor trying to be sly. “My wants these days are few. I have food, and little need of anything else. What could you give me?”

“I expect you'll be able to think of something.”

Chup almost smiled. “Suppose I did. What must I tell you in return?”

“I want to find my sister.” Speaking rapidly, saying nothing of his sources of information, Rolf described briefly the time and circumstances of Lisa's vanishing, her appearance, and that of the proud-faced officer.

Chup scowled. The tale awoke real memories, a little hazy though they were. Better and better, he would not have to invent. “What makes you think that I can tell you anything?”

“I have good reason.”

Grunting in a way that might mean anything or nothing, Chup stared past Rolf again as if he had forgotten him. He must not seem eager to do business.

The silence stretched until Rolf broke it impatiently. “Why should you not help me? I think you no longer have any great love for anyone in the East—” He broke off suddenly, like one aware of blundering. Then went on, in a slower voice. “Your bride is there, I know. I didn't—I didn't mean to say anything about her.”

Here was a peculiar near-apology. Chup looked up. Rolf had lost the aspect of a determined, bitter man. He had become an awkward boy, speaking of a lady in the manner of one who cherished secret thoughts of her.

Rolf stumbled on. “I mean, she—the Lady Charmian—couldn't be harmed in any way by what you tell me of my sister or her kidnapper.” One of Rolf's big hands rose, perhaps unconsciously, to touch his jacket, as if for reassurance that something carried in an inner pocket was safe. “I know you were her husband,” he blurted awkwardly, and then ran out of words. He stared at Chup with what seemed a mixture of anxiety, hatred, and despair.

“I
am
her husband,” Chup corrected drily.

Rolf came near blushing, or did blush; it was hard to tell, with his dark skin. “You are. Of course.”

Though Chup preferred the sword, he could use cleverness. “I am so in name only, of course. You came breaking in the Castle gates before Charmian and I could do more than drink from the same winecup.”

Rolf looked somewhat relieved, and utterly distracted now, despite himself, from whatever his original business with Chup had been. He sat down facing Chup. He wanted, needed, to ask Chup something more, but it took much hesitation before he could get it out.

“Was she really…I mean, there have always been bad things said about the Lady Charmian, things I can't believe…”

Chup had to conceal amusement, a problem he had not faced in quite a while. He managed, though. “You mean, was she as evil as they say?” Chup looked very sober. “You can't believe all that you hear, young one. Things were very dangerous for her in the Castle.” Though not as dangerous as they were for others, living with her. “She had to pretend to be something different than what she truly was; and she learned to dissemble very well.” Rolf was nodding, and seemed relieved; it amused Chup to have answered him with perfect truth.

“So I have thought,” said Rolf. “She seemed so…”

“Beautiful.”

“Yes. So she could not have been like her father and the others.”

Of course, Chup thought, suddenly understanding the boy's monumentally innocent stupidity about the Lady Charmian. He was befuddled by the love-charm that he carried; the same that Chup would have to carry, later. However, time enough then to cross that bridge…

Rolf was saying, more calmly: “Nor were you, I think, as bad as Ekuman and the others. I know you were a satrap of the East, oppressing people. But you were not as vile as most of them.”

“The most gracious compliment I have enjoyed in some time.” Chup rubbed a flea-bitten shoulder against the cool, damp stone of the sunless wall. The moment seemed favorable for getting down to business. “So, you would like me to tell you where your sister may be found. I can't.”

Much of Rolf's original businesslike manner returned. “But you know something?”

“Something that you'll want to hear.”

“Which is?”

“And, since you are in earnest, I will tell you what I want in return.”

“All right, let's hear that first.”

Chup let his voice fall into a grim monotone. “If I can help it, I do not want to die like this, rotting by centimeters. Give me a rusty knifeblade, so I can at least feel like an armed man, and take me out into the desert and leave me there. The great birds are gone south on their migration, but some other creature will find me and oblige me with a finish fight. Or let thirst kill me, or a mirage-plant. But I am loath to beg myself to death before my enemies.” It came out quite convincingly, he thought. Yesterday, there would have been more truth in it than fiction.

Rolf frowned. “Why must it be the desert, if you can't bear to live? Why not here?”

“No. Dying here would be a giving in, to you who've made a beggar of me. Out there I'll have gotten away from you.”

So long did Rolf sit silent, pondering, that Chup felt sure the bait was taken. However, the fish was not yet caught. Chup volunteered: “If you want to make sure of my finish, bring along a pair of swords. I think the chances would now be somewhat in your favor. I'll tell you what I can about your sister before we fight.”

If Rolf was outraged by this challenge from a cripple, he did not show it. Once away from the subject of Charmian, he was adult again. Again he was silent for a time, watching Chup closely. Then he said: “I'll take you to the desert. If you lie to me about my sister, or try any other sort of foolishness, I won't leave you in the desert, dead or living. Instead I'll drag you back here, dead or living, to be displayed beside this gate.”

Chup, keeping his face impassive, shifted his gaze into the distance. In a moment Rolf grunted, got to his feet, and strode away.

In midafternoon Rolf came back, leading a loadbeast. The look of the animal suggested it might be a reject from the Castle stable that could not be expected to give useful service in the coming campaign. Slung on it were several containers that might hold food and water. Rolf had also armed himself, but not with two swords. A serviceable sword and a long, keen knife hung from separate belts cinched round his waist.

The time since morning had tested Chup's patience to the limit. First, of course, because he was not sure his fish was wholly caught. Secondly, the urge to move his legs had become almost overwhelming. Under his ragged trousers their muscles were far looser, and even seemed thicker, than they had been yesterday. The ache and tingle of returning life had turned into an itch for movement.

Rolf said nothing but halted his feeble-looking animal just beside Chup. Then he came to catch Chup under the armpits, and with wiry strength heave his half-wasted frame erect. The gate sentries turned their heads to watch, as did some passersby. But no one seemed to care if Chup departed. He was a prisoner no more, only a beggar.

Once standing, Chup gripped the saddle with his strong hands and raised himself, while Rolf guided his dangling legs into the stirrups. Rolf asked: “Are you going to be able to hang on, there? I wouldn't want you to fall and split your head. Not just yet.”

“I can manage.” Chup had forgotten how high riding raised a man. Rolf took the loadbeast by the bridle, and they were off, down the sloping switchback road that led first to the village and then the world.

Rolf walked with long strides beside the loadbeast's head: a position that let him keep the corner of one eye on Chup. Chup, for his part, breathed deeply with the joy of seeing the Castle gradually recede behind him, and the greater joy of surreptitiously testing his legs in the stirrups and feeling them respond.

Before they reached the village, Rolf turned off the road. He led the animal down a slope of wasteland to the beginning of the desert. The autumn day had cleared, and had grown almost hot. Ahead of them, gently rolling flatness shimmered with mirage. Sparsely marked with vegetation, it stretched on to the horizon, where towered the Black Mountains, jagged and enigmatic. Rolf had chosen the only direction which led quickly to solitude, and was heading straight east from the Castle.

Men in the service of the Lady Charmian were to be patrolling in the desert. That might or might not mean some help for Chup. He could not count on any.

Neither Chup nor Rolf spoke again until the Castle had fallen nine or ten kilometers behind them. At this distance it plainly overlooked them still, from its perch on the low flank of a mountain pass. But eastward of this point where they now were, the lay of the land was such that a man going east could take advantage of declivities and brush, and perhaps never see the Castle or be seen from it again.

Here Rolf stopped the beast, and, still warily holding its bridle, turned to Chup. “Tell me what you know.”

“And after that?”

Touching a water bag slung on the animal, Rolf said: “This I'll leave with you, and the knife. The beast goes back with me, of course. You won't be able to get anywhere, or to stay alive out here for very long, but that's what you asked for.”

Chup was curious. “How do you plan to judge whether or not what I tell you is the truth?”

“You have no cause to seek revenge on me in particular.” Rolf paused. “And I don't think you lie just for the sake of lying; do harm just for the sake of doing it. Also, I already know, on good authority, a few things more than what I've told you about what happened to my sister. Whatever you tell me should match with that.”

Chup nodded several times. He had intended anyway to tell Rolf the truth; he could almost regret that Rolf would not live long enough to benefit.

“The name of the man you want is Tarlenot,” Chup said. “He served as an escort commander and a courier between the Black Mountains and outlying satrapies. He may still; whether he still is alive I have no idea.”

“What did he look like?”

“His face, as you described it. I've heard that women found him handsome, and I think he shared their view. He was young, strong, of middling height. An uncommonly good fighter, so I've heard.”

“And when did you see him last?” Rolf might have had his questions on a written list.

“I can tell you that exactly enough.” Chup turned his face to the north, remembering. “It was on the last night of my journey southward from my own satrapy, coming here to the Broken Lands to take my charming bride.

“I came on river barge down the Dolles, escorted by two hundred armed men. Tarlenot, with five or six, going northward, met us on the last day before we reached the Castle. He and his troop, being so few in unfriendly country, were glad to spend the night in our encampment.”

“Who or what was he escorting then?” Rolf, listening eagerly, leaned forward. But he was not near enough, as yet, for Chup to lunge at him.

“He was escorting no one. Perhaps he carried messages. Anyway, he had with him one captive girl who might have been your sister. As nearly as I can recall, she must have been about twelve years old. Dark-haired, I think. Ugly. Whether she had any closer resemblance to yourself I can't remember.”

“True, she was not pretty,” Rolf said eagerly. He shook his head. “Nor was she my blood relative. What happened then?”

“I had other things to think about. I remember Tarlenot, if I am not mistaken, saying something about selling her, in the north. There was a tavernkeeper up there at a caravanserai—” Chup stopped, caught by a sudden thought. “Why, it comes back, now. On that night I dreamt, and it was most odd. I thought I wakened, while all the men in the encampment, even the sentries, lay sleeping all around me. Tarlenot rose up from his blankets, but I could see his eyes were closed and he was still asleep.”

“What happened then?” Rolf was utterly intent, but none the less alert. And still no closer.

Chup thought he might better have kept quiet about the dream. It must sound like some devious lie or stalling tactic. But now he had begun it.

“I dreamt there came one from outside the firelight, taller than a man and dressed in full dark armor that hid his face and all his body. A great Lord, certainly, but whether of East or West I could not say. The earth seemed to sink down beneath his feet, as stretched cloth would yield to the weight of a walking man. He stood before the sleeping, standing Tarlenot, and stretched out his hand toward—yes, toward where the girl must have been lying.

“And the dark Lord said: ‘What you have there is mine, and you will dispose of it as I wish.' Those were his words, or very like them. And Tarlenot bowed, like one accepting orders, though his eyes remained closed in sleep.

“Then all became confused, as in dreams it often does, you know? When I awoke it was morning. The sentries were alert, as they must have been all through the night. The girl was still asleep, and smiling. That recalled to me my dream, but then I forgot it again in the press of the day's business.” The dream had been very vivid, and the way he had forgotten and then remembered it was odd. Quite likely it had some magical importance. But what?

Chup asked: “The girl was not blood relative, you say? Who was she?”

“I call her my sister; I thought of her that way.” Seeing how intently Chup leaned forward, gripping the saddle, Rolf went on. “She was about six years old when she came to us, the year I was eleven. The armies of the East had not yet reached here, but they were in the country to the south, and people fleeing north sometimes passed along our road. We thought Lisa must have come from some such group passing through. My parents and I woke up one spring morning to find her standing naked in our farmyard, crying. She could remember nothing, not her name or how she'd got there. She could hardly talk. But she had been well fed and cared for up till then; my mother marveled that she had not a bruise or scratch.”

“You took her in?” Chup would find out all he could from the young fool. Before he should come close enough…

“Of course. I told you, that was before the East had come upon us; we had food in plenty. We named her Lisa, for my true sister, that had died as a baby.” Rolf scowled, running thin on patience. “Why are
you
questioning
me
? Tell me what happened to her.”

Chup shook his head. “I told you, what happened to her finally I do not know. Except for this: when we separated in the morning, Tarlenot spoke no more of going north and selling his captive, but of going east to the Black Mountains.” Weary of talking, Chup reached for the waterbag and got a drink.

After probing Chup with his gaze for a time, Rolf nodded, “I think, if you were making up a lie, you would make one that was more satisfying and believable.” And yet Rolf hesitated. “Come, if this tale just now was a lie, tell me. The water and the knife will still be yours. And freedom, whatever it may be worth to you out here.”

“No lie. I've done my part of the bargain, told you all I know.” Chup gripped his left leg with his hands and pulled it free of the stirrup, and then the right. He made them dangle lifelessly. “Come, get me down. Another moment or two, and this animal will fall beneath my weight.”

“Swing yourself off with your arms,” said Rolf. “I'll hold its head.”

Chup, had he been honestly trying, might not have been able to manage getting off without using his legs. Whichever side he lurched toward, one of his limp legs hooked over the saddle, while the other dangled awkwardly in such a position that it was likely to be broken under him if he just let go and fell. Even a man seeking to be left alone in the desert to die would not like to start his ordeal with a broken ankle. The beast grew restive, while Rolf held its head.

At last Rolf muttered impatiently: “I'll lift you down.” Still holding the bridle with one hand, he stepped to the side of the animal opposite from where Chup was clinging at the moment. He freed Chup's leg so it would slide easily over the animal's back. Then, bridle still in hand, he moved back around the loadbeast's head.

He found Chup standing free.

Rolf's moment of surprise was time enough for Chup to half-lunge, half-fall, upon his victim. Chup learned in that first moment that his legs were still far from their full strength. They could do little more than hold him up.

But they had served him well enough for a moment, and that moment was enough. Rolf's hand had moved quickly, but still he had hesitated fractionally between drawing sword and dagger, and by the time his choice had settled on the shorter blade it was too late. Chup's hand was there to grip Rolf's wrist and argue for the weapon. Grappling as he fell, Chup dragged the other down upon the sand.

The youth had wiry strength, and two good legs. He writhed and kicked and struggled. But already Lord Chup had the grip he wanted, on Rolf's dagger arm. Rolf's tough arm muscles strained and quivered, fighting for his life; the Lord Chup's brutal power, methodical and patient, wore them down.

The captured arm began to bend. It was near the breaking point before its hand would open and give the dagger up. Chup caught the weapon up, reversed; he did not want to kill Rolf until he had made absolutely sure the charm was still with him. If it was not, Rolf would have to tell him where it was. He clubbed Rolf along the skull with the butt of the knife, and Rolf went limp.

Inside Rolf's jacket, in an inner pocket buttoned shut and holding nothing else, Chup found the charm. No sooner had his fingers touched it than he snatched them back. When he took it, would it work on him as it seemed to have on this young clod? Turn him misty-eyed and doting over the treacherous woman whom he had wed for nothing but political reasons?

Only briefly did he hesitate. If he would be a Lord once more, he had no choice but to take the charm into his possession and carry it to the East.

The loadbeast, decrepit and lethargic as it was had run off a few strides and was still stirring restlessly. Chup called to it in a soothing voice. Then he muttered the three brief defensive spells that sometimes seemed to work for him—he was a poor magician—and drew the coil of hair out of Rolf's pocket.

It was an intricately woven circlet of startling gold, large enough to fit around a man's wrist. Chup had no immediate feeling of power in it, but obviously it was no mere trinket; it was not dull or crumpled, though an oaf had kept it in his pocket perhaps for half a year, and had probably given it much secret fondling.

Chup did not doubt for a moment that it was Charmian's hair. It brought her beauty sharply to his mind, and he stood up, swaying on his reborn legs, gazing at the charm. Aye, his unclaimed bride was beautiful. Whatever else was said of her, no one argued that. Charmian's was the beauty, made real, that lonely men imagined in their daydreams. He recalled now the ceremonies of their wedding. There had followed half a year of death, for him. But now he was a man again…

Eventually he took note of Rolf's stirrings at his feet, and tucked the charm into a pocket in his own rags, and bent to put an end to his victim. On Chup's still-unsteady legs it was a slow bending. Before he could complete it, one of his victim's feet was hooked behind his right ankle, and the other came pushing neatly at the front of Chup's right knee. The warrior-lord had no more chance of remaining upright right than a chopped-through tree.

When he landed on his back he lay still briefly, raging at his own foolishness while he pretended to be stunned. Pretending did no good, for the peasant was not fool enough to jump on him. Instead, Rolf was crawling and scrambling away, dazed-looking, but also plainly full of life. Chup struggled erect, and tried to hurry in pursuit. But instead of lunging and pouncing he could only stumble on his traitorous legs and fall again.

Quickly he was up once more, holding his captured dagger. But Rolf too was now on his feet, sword drawn and pointed more or less steadily at Chup's midsection.