The Reluctant Swordsman (41 page)

“My lord!” squeaked Katanji, white-faced with terror, his sword canted at an absurd angle across his back. Imperkanni’s face darkened at the presumption. One of the Fourths reached out a large hand to grab the impudent urchin.
 
“AskLordShonsuhowhegothiskiltwet!” Katanji screamed as he was dragged away.

“Stop!” Imperkanni barked. “What did you say, novice?”

The Fourth restored Katanji to a vertical position and released him.
 
“My lord, ask Lord Shonsu how he got his kilt wet.” Katanji made a sickly smile and rubbed his ill-treated shoulder.

Imperkanni, Yoningu, and Nnanji all looked down at Wallie’s kilt and boots.
 
Great! Wallie thought. He had broken the taboo against going in the River, but no one had noticed except the smartypants kid. Probably there was an automatic and painful death penalty for that—ganching on hot irons for a first offense, perhaps. Thanks, Katanji!

Yoningu jumped from his stool and raced out to the jetty, leaping over Trasingji as he went.

Imperkanni was looking at Wallie with teeth bared in a very strange and unhumorous smile.

Nnanji was also staring, and his eyes were glistening.
 
Yet under the guano and the road dust and the charcoal smears and the bloodstains . . . under all those, Nnanji was certainly wearing something like his old grin. Hero worship, force ten.

What the hell was going on here?

Visibly pale, Yoningu strode back in, came to attention beside his stool, and said stiffly, “Mentor, I wish to withdraw the charges against Lord Shonsu.” “Indeed?” Imperkanni said. “Yes, I expect you do! Lord Shonsu, will you graciously permit my protégé to withdraw his charges?” He was openly smiling now, very friendly.

That was how it was done? Wallie recalled the little healer in the jail, Innulari, who had died for losing a patient. So Yoningu was less of a prosecutor than a plaintiff, and if the court decided that he had brought false charges then he would pay the penalty—a good way to prevent frivolous litigation and an excellent means of deterring the proliferation of lawyers. Not that Wallie needed a slave, if that was an option, but a good Sixth would be an invaluable addition to his force, so perhaps there was room to bargain . . .
 
Then he saw that his hesitation had caused Imperkanni’s smile to dry up, and that there were lowered heads and tightened fists and slitted eyes all the way around him. Whatever the rules said, Yoningu was one of the band. If Wallie demanded his pound of whatever flesh he was entitled to, then he was going to have to fight every last man of them afterward, from Imperkanni himself down to the lowest apprentice.

“The charges against Adept Nnanji are likewise withdrawn?” Wallie asked, not understanding why anything should be withdrawn.
 
Imperkanni relaxed and restored his smile. “Of course, my lord.” He looked for a long moment at Nnanji, and when he returned his smile to Wallie it said quite plainly that Nnanji was a glass box to him. He was a practiced leader of men. In Nnanji he could see the juvenile doubts and hero worship that would fade in the light of experience; the courage, tenacity, and integrity that would shine more brightly.

“As you said, my lord, this was no affair of honor, but a true battle. Adept Nnanji is to be congratulated on a fine start to his career. He was correct to come to your assistance. His honor is without reproach, his courage beyond question, my lord, like your own.”

Nnanji gasped, then stammered and thanked him, and sniffled. Then he squared his shoulders and grinned at Wallie.

Imperkanni rose, so the others did. “Indeed, I would seek to recruit him to my troop, but I assume that you will be taking him back as protégé yourself, my lord?” he asked, and his yellow eyes twinkled.

“If he will accept me as mentor,” Wallie said, “I will be honored—and very humble.”

A look of disbelief and delight spread over Nnanji’s filthy face. “My lord! You will let me swear to you after I denounced you?” Cinderella’s lemon was a coach again, with all the optionals.

“It was your duty,” Wallie said. “If you had not done so, then I should not want you.” He could out-Alice their Wonderland any time.
 
Yoningu had been following the treatment of Nnanji with a smile adding to the lopsidedness of his face. He and Imperkanni, as longtime companions, could probably read each other’s thoughts without difficulty. He flickered a wink at Wallie and remarked, “Of course, my lord, the first minstrel we meet will be informed how Shonsu and Nnanji defeated ten swordsmen in a redoubtable feat of arms.”

Nnanji had not yet thought of fame. His mouth opened and nothing but a croak emerged. It was the glass slipper Cinderella could live happily ever after on that alone.

“Not Shonsu and Nnanji,” Wallie said solemnly, “but Nnanji and Shonsu. He started it.”

Jja was smiling at him. Cowie was asleep. Even the old man was looking better, sitting up straight and listening. Katanji . . . Katanji was studying Wallie with a puzzled expression. He alone seemed to know that Wallie was winging it, and did not understand his acquittal.

“Indeed, my lord,” Imperkanni said thoughtfully, “I do not presume to advise you in your affairs . . . but in this case you might even consider eleven forty-four.”

Seniors loved to quote high-number sutras over the heads of juniors—they all did it. Yoningu frowned, for Sixths were usually immune to that game. Nnanji pouted and looked puzzled.

Eleven forty-four? The last sutra? Was Imperkanni testing to see if Shonsu was a genuine Seventh?

Then Wallie worked it out, and a great blaze of excitement banished his darkness of guilt and fatigue. He recognized the favor of the gods. It had not been a test—for a test he must have failed—but a lesson, and he had learned as required. He was not a failure, he was still Her champion. His relief was as great as Nnanji’s. “Of course!” he said. “Why not? A very good idea, Lord Imperkanni!” Then he threw back his head and bellowed that vast sepulchral laugh of Shonsu’s, lifting the swallows and frightening the horses, startling the mules in the meadow, waking the baby, echoing and reechoing over the corpses in the guardhouse like the tolling of the temple bell.

#1144 THE FOURTH OATH

Fortunate is he who saves the life of a colleague, and greatly blessed are two who have saved each other’s. To them only is permitted this oath and it shall be paramount, absolute, and irrevocable:

I am your brother,

My life is your life,

Your joy is my joy,

My honor is your honor,

Your anger is my anger,

My friends are your friends,

Your enemies are my enemies,

My secrets are your secrets,

Your oaths are my oaths,

My goods are your goods,

You are my brother.

†††††††

The sun was sinking into the horizon like a drop of blood soaking into sand, pointing an accusing, bloody finger across the tops of the ripples toward Wallie on the jetty. Perhaps, suggested Imperkanni, the noble lord should consider spending the night at the guardhouse and continue his journey the next day? But despite his sudden mood of jubilation, Wallie wanted nothing more than to get away from the scene of carnage and the holy island as soon as he could. Anywhere else would be better.

He turned to the boat captain, who had been resignedly sitting on the floor through the whole trial and had now been released. “Have you any reservations about traveling by night, sailor?”

“Not with you on board, my lord,” said the man, groveling. So whatever it was that had happened, it affected sailors, also.

The suspicion and hostility had vanished. Every man of the free company had been presented to the relentless Lord Shonsu and the inexorable Adept Nnanji and each had humbly congratulated both on their magnificent feat of arms. Nnanji’s grin appeared to have become permanent.

Imperkanni had put his efficient organization to work. Food and straw mattresses were being stripped from the guardhouse and carried to the boat, bodies gathered up, horses inspected and tended. A laughing Third produced food to silence the loud Vixini, and a glass of wine for the old man, which affected a dramatic improvement there, also.

“We shall stay here ourselves tonight,” the Seventh said. He looked at the skinner. “You can sleep in one of the horse stalls. We shall need some of your mules in the morning. Not many.”

The skinner seemed to have had news of a major disaster. His rodent eyes switched plaintively to Wallie, who was puzzled for a moment, and then started to laugh.

“I expect that he will be missed if he does not return to his loved ones, my lord,” he said. “Someone will go looking for him. Right, skinner?” The man nodded meaningfully. “My wife, my lord.” And she would find no husband, no mules, but a fortune in gold coins in the stable.

“I am sure that your men can handle mules, can they not, Lord Imperkanni? Keep what you need and let him go. He was helpful to me.” The white-maned swordsman raised his salt-and-pepper eyebrows in astonishment, but agreed as a favor to Lord Shonsu. Wallie was amused—even mass murderers can be good guys sometimes.

By tacit consent, the two Sevenths began to stroll along the jetty for a private talk.

“You realize that the Goddess has brought you here to be reeve?” Wallie said.

“The priests will have you appointed before you can get off your horse.” The older man nodded. “I admit that the idea tempts,” he replied. “Yoningu and I have talked much lately of finding the stone scabbard. One grows old, I fear.
 
The cheering becomes more fun than the fighting.” He was silent for a moment and then continued. “This was not the first time that Her hand has moved us, and always thereafter we found noble work for our swords.
 
But Hann was a surprise; we could find no problem that needed us. Then Yoningu persuaded me to make the pilgrimage. He wanted to inquire after his father . . .
 
and here we are.” He chuckled, being jovially patronizing. “When we stepped on the jetty and heard the swords, I thought that you were the problem, my lord. I see now that you were the solution.”

He was probably testing Wallie’s spark point, but Wallie was in no mood to let him find it. “Tell me about his father, then?” he asked.
 
Imperkanni shrugged. “He last heard of him years and years ago. At that time he was planning to come here to enlist with the guard. I expect acorns have grown oaks since he died.”

“Nnanji may have heard tell of him,” Wallie suggested. “What was his name?”

“Coningu of the Fifth.”

“Indeed?” Lord Shonsu suddenly seemed to lose interest. “On second thought, perhaps Yoningu’s best bet would be to inquire of the old commissary I mentioned. He would know, if anyone would. You will find him cooperative and honorable.” He turned to a more delicate subject. “Some of your younger men will find life in the guard very dull, will they not?” The gold eyes went stony cold, and Wallie had the impression that the white ponytail was twitching by itself. He wondered if Sevenths could ever relax together, two stags discussing their herds.

“I have not yet been offered the position, my lord.”

No recruiting!

Wallie sighed and then smiled. “There are reports of brigands fleecing pilgrims on the trail.”

Imperkanni chuckled. “Most humbly I pray to the Holiest that they try that tomorrow.”

At the end of the quay they turned and started back. There was very little wind.
 
Work on the boat seemed to have been completed. Wallie started looking around for his party—and once more caught the eye of young Katanji.
 
Katanji nudged his brother, who was standing beside him. He got angrily hushed, but Imperkanni also had intercepted the exchange. He raised an eyebrow at Nnanji.

Nnanji flushed. “Nothing, my lord.”

“That protégé of yours is a sharp little dagger,” the Seventh remarked. “He noticed what no one else did, and what Lord Shonsu was too proud to mention. I am in his debt. Present him.”

“He does not yet know the salutes and responses, my lord,” Nnanji protested.
 
Any swordsmen of the Seventh rank could freeze a man through to his spinal column with one glance. Even the intrepid Adept Nnanji quailed before the look he now received.

“Then let him salute as a civilian,” Imperkanni said.
 
So Katanji was presented and had his chance: “I wondered if I might ask one of your juniors, my lord, to take word to my . . . our parents? Just to tell them where we have gone?” He flashed a glance toward Wallie. “And say that I am in good hands?”

Nnanji squirmed at such sentimentality. Imperkanni exchanged a smile with Wallie. He had noticed the civilian parentmarks. “I shall deliver that message myself,” he said. “And I shall tell them that they make fine sons, good swordsmen . . . and that you are in Her hands. Who can direct me to them?” “A-adept Briu, my lord,” stuttered Nnanji, red and awkward.
 
Wallie said, “I commend Briu to you, my lord. I think he would be grateful for a chance to redeem himself. He is basically an honest man. He could advise you on the others, if nothing else.”

Imperkanni thanked him politely, but obviously intended to make his own decisions about the temple guard.

Then the boat was ready and night had seeped into the sky.