Moving Water (7 page)

We left our horses at the post-house. I said, “Dismiss.” He said, “Wasn't such a bad road, was it?” And before that smile could elicit drinking invitations I said firmly, “Sir, I doubt the Lady will expect you at this hour.” There were tales of how she spent her nights, tales which had perturbed Callissa when I was promoted, despite all assurances that I was hardly pretty enough to make a favorite. “Would you care to lodge the night with me?”

The guards clattered away with a volley of parting remembrances. He nodded. “Yes, Captain,” he said. “I'd be pleased.”

As we mounted the two steps to the gate amid its yellow-flowered emvath brambles, and the house lights shone through a tangle of ornamental shrubs and helliens, he said, “I like these door-gardens.” Crunching up the path, I whistled the Stand-to as usual. And as usual there was uproar behind the moontree fanlight, squeals of delight and cries of reproof, the pounding of small boots and lighter, larger feet, then the door flew back and two small thunderbolts hurtled across the porch with Callissa exclaiming in the rear.

“If only I'd known you were coming, there's no dinner—no, of course it doesn't matter, just so you're back—you little wretches, let me to your father—thank goodness. . . .” She submerged, to resume beyond our greeting kiss. “Rema can find something, she—what did you do with the—never mind, you'll tell me after—oh!”

I had moved. The hall light, occupying my shadow, revealed the tall shadow at my back.

“My wife Callissa,” I said. “One of these is Zam, the other is Zem. Callissa, this is—” I broke off, discomfited yet again.

“My name is Beryx.” With a tinge of amusement he brought me smoothly off the reef. “I come from Hethria.”

Callissa's usual guest front, already shaken, fell into abject rout. “I must see Rema,” she gabbled. “Alkir, you'll look after—see to—excuse me—I mean, please come in. . . .” And she fled.

The twins were not disturbed. They escorted us from hall to guest reception room to our living place, oversaw the deposit of saddlebags, the doffing of helmet and turban, the disposal of chairs, with silent unwinking scrutiny. I was on tenterhooks over their reaction to his scar, not to mention the rest, but there was no hope of banishing them. Not that night.

Seeming unconcerned, my guest scanned the big room under the hanging lamp, the floor strewn with boys' debris and Tasmarn rugs, the medley of old and new furniture, Callissa's sewing spread over a table and three chairs, my account-desk neck deep opposite. “So this is a house,” he said. “I never had one myself.”

“A palace,” he expanded as my jaw dropped. “But you inherit that. Then I shared with Fengthira.” For a moment it could have been envy. “Not like this.”

I sought for cover. “Will you drink something before we eat? Not Everran wine, but they make a barley-spirit in Morrya. . . .” Retiring on the tall dresser that housed our alcohol I was just in time to hear a small, clear, uncompromising voice enquire, “What happened to your face?”

I spun round. Zem, I think, was planted before his chair, Zam usefully posted on the right flank. Aghast, I wondered if it would be worse to call them off or let them go. But my guest had already responded, perfectly assured.

“It got burnt.”

I cringed. Sure enough, the interrogation began.

“How did it get burnt?”

He scrubbed at his hair. “You see, there was a dragon. They spit fire, you know? I came too close, and it spat on me.”

“A dragon?” The flank force discarded tactics, the frontal assault goggled as wildly as its sire. “A real dragon? With wings and claws and everything?”

“And everything,” he agreed. At which the flank guard elbowed past the van, scaled his closer knee and ensconced itself as with me, perched on the chair-arm with both feet on his thigh, to announce in a fair copy of my defaulters' voice, “You'd best tell us all about it. From the start.”

Over their heads his eyes met mine, green chips of mirth. “We should,” he suggested blandly, “ask permission first.”

I levered my mouth shut. “Not at all—please don't—only if they don't bother you—”

His laughter brightened. “Don't you,” he suggested demurely, “want to hear it too?”

“Femaere,” I said, and brought over the drinks.

He sipped, choked, and still half-smiling, began. “Once upon a time”—they wriggled ecstatically—“there was a kingdom called Everran, and I was its king. One day a dragon came. Its name was Hawge, and it had every intention of eating everything in Everran that was eatable.” They nodded. It was orthodox dragonry. “But I had no wish to see my kingdom eaten, so I declared war. No, I didn't send a herald. The dragon would have eaten him too. I mustered troops—three hundred troops. Not cavalry, horses don't like dragons.” A shadow crossed his face. “They wore leather because the dragon fire would have made steel armor too hot, and,” with a chuckle, “they didn't much care for it. We marched off on the dragon's trail, burnt houses and eaten cattle and—other things—” That memory held no mirth at all. “We found it near two farms it had just burnt, and we attacked. Yes, with a battle-order. Hollow square of spearmen, archers inside. To shoot at its eyes.” More knowledgeable nods. “Hawge woke and saw us, and up it flew.

First it tried to break the spears, but they were too sharp for its liking, so it spat fire instead. The troops were very good. They stood fast, just as your father's would.” He was smiling, but I could see the memory's grief. “Four times it spat fire, and they never broke.” The twins were enraptured, lurid visions weaving in their eyes. “Then one archer put an arrow in a wing and brought it down, so we charged. The trouble was, the worst thing about a dragon isn't the fire, it's the tail. When we came in range it knocked the whole front rank over. Then it spat fire and bit and clawed the rest of us, and in the end we had to give up.”

Zem and Zam did not. “But what happened to your face?”

“I,” he said lightly, “was more stupid than any commander ought to be. I took a spear and blindfolded my horse and charged it myself. No.” He grinned wryly at their idolatrous looks. “I didn't kill it. The horse and I came off worst.”

He touched his cheek. “As you see.”

His eyes lifted to mine. “Military,” he murmured, “hotheadedness.”

They drew breath to burst. I was beyond speech, for I could put fact between the carefully edited lines. Phalanxmen, the troops must have been. Against a dragon. I knew in theory what one was like. My hair rose at thought of what had to be no bare defeat but a massacre. Hotheadedness? Sheer berserk. . . .

“Lunacy,” he supplied. “Homicidal nerve,” I corrected. He shook his head. “Desperation,” I amended. “That,” he answered dryly, “came later.” And before the twins could rend him for details he was moving their feet in readiness to rise.

“I'm sorry to be so long,” Callissa was in the doorway. “Rema's just—”

She saw the twins. A hand flew to her mouth. “Zem, Zam,” she snapped, “come out of that. Come out!”

They gaped, amazed as I. He said swiftly, “They're all right, ma'am. I won't hurt them,” and she grew positively wild-eyed. The whole by-play still had me mystified when the twins took advantage of the gap.

“Mi, mi, he's fought a dragon, we can't go yet, he hasn't told us the rest, we haven't talked to Da, it's not time, we always have supper with Da first night home—”

Two small square faces reddened, four gray eyes glistened ominously. “Halt!” I said in a hurry. “You eat with us, but you're quiet. Quiet or the cells. Right?”

They were quiet. At least, until our guest hesitated at the lamb cutlets Rema had “found,” and Callissa intervened, too kindly for kindness. “I'm so sorry, I didn't think. Would you like them cut?”

I wished wives were subject to army discipline. He gave her a steady, unresentful look. “I can manage, thank you, ma'am. If you don't mind Sathel manners, that is.”

The boys' eyes were already circular. When he took up a cutlet left-handed, discipline broke. “What happened to your arm?” the nearer one burst out. “Was that the dragon too?”

“Yes, Zem,” he replied without the slightest hesitation, and I heard Callissa gasp. She too had been sure it was Zam. “It threw the horse and me up in the air with its tail. I smashed the nerve in that arm when I came down.”

“It's a wonder,” I exclaimed, impulsive as my son, “you're alive at all!”

“No wonder,” he answered mildly. “Just a very good friend to pick me up.”

“My husband,” Callissa observed, “has been wounded too. Was it five times, dear? Or six?”

What, I signaled, is the matter with you? She ignored me. He said, “The war with Phaxia?” She agreed, in detail. Full detail. Two-year campaign, begun as a troop-leader, promoted to squadron-leader, then wing-leader, three pitched battles, a turn with the swamp guerillas, victory pulled from the fire when an ambush commander fell, two mural crowns in the forts beyond Stirsselian, a corps commander at the peace. He heard her out. Then he said modestly, “I can hardly compete with a hero like that.”

“Da says,” Zam announced before I could retaliate, “that there are no heroes. Just dead clowns and lucky ones.”

“Da,” replied my guest with feeling, “is right. When you get your first command, Zam, remember it.”

Their eyes met across the table, in equality, harmony, perfect understanding. Then Zam said, so quietly I knew he meant it, “Yes, sir. I will.”

“You've had your supper.” Apparently unable to tolerate even this minor apostasy, Callissa used the tone that meant no appeals. “Now you'll come to bed.”

Meekly they left their chairs, came for my goodnight hug, went out, hanging back from her hands for a last look. He watched the door close. He did not have to tell me he would have given his magic, probably his former kingdom, for just one son of his own.

Before I could hide my pity he had turned and was smiling, so quickly I wondered if I had imagined the rest. “Well, Fylghjos?” A brow cocked. “That's what the escort call you, you know. Granite-eyes.” Mischievously he let me consider its present delicious inappropriateness, until Callissa returned, and he was all formality again.

“You got on so well with them,” she said as we all sat down. “Quite surprising, really.”

I tried not to gasp. Inept in noble company she might be, insecure enough to boast about her husband, but this was clean out of character.

He replied with perfect courtesy, covering the lapse, negating the spite.

“I'm sure anyone who took the trouble would get on with them, ma'am. Their manners are a credit to you.”

“Oh, that's Alkir. I just bandage the knees and patch the pants.” She donned her social voice. “Are you married, my lord?”

His face shut like a door. He said, “Once.”

I tried to kick her under the table, and missed. Brightly, she charged on. “Then you've no children of your own?”

If you are unlucky, you may see such a face in battle, as your spear strikes home. He said in a low voice, “No.”

“Oh, such a pity. I'm sure you'd be good with them. . . .”

How, I thought in furious unbelief, can she have missed it, can she go on trampling over what even I can tell was not just a pity but stark tragedy? Wildly I sought words, something to drop, to overset. But my brain was numb, the table cleared. Callissa was prattling still. “Children make your life I always feel, they're troublesome at times, but all the same. . . .”

In a moment she would be pitying his wife. He took a breath I heard. Then, looking full at her, he said, “She has—had—children afterwards. Not . . . mine.”

I could no longer offer so much as the paltry aid of keeping rank, pretending to see nothing wrong. Kicking the chair back, I said, “Let me show you your room.

“You can see clear to the harbor.” I shoved the window wide in some fuzzy idea of comfort, amends, knowing his silence for the voice of the unsealed wound.

He came to lean on the sill. I blurted, “She's never like that. I don't know what's got into her.”

“Mothers.” The sadness held no grudge. “She doesn't know what I am. She doesn't have to. She just feels I'm dangerous to them.”

What could make amends for that? And the full sense of that last cruel confession, its sequel in questions no man could possibly ask, was still racketing round my head. She had children later. . . . There is no more terrible way to be maimed. In my extremity I actually hoped that he would read my thoughts and extract the speech I could not muster, for the solace nothing could give.

“Just sterile. Not impotent.” He not only read my thoughts, with paralyzing candor he answered the question I could not ask. “Don't upset yourself, Fylghjos. After all”—the tiny quiver of amusement was the bravest thing I ever heard—“it could have been worse.”

With shame I admit myself unable to match it. I said goodnight and fled.