His Own Good Sword (The Cymeriad #1) (15 page)

“What is it?”

“The same question you left unanswered on the road the other
morning. What has a Risto to do to be sent to a place like Souvin?”

He hesitated. Then he spoke a little sourly. “It needn’t
have been a punishment. I might have come willingly. Maybe it was my
sense of duty. Maybe it was that I wanted to win such a victory for
the Empire. You haven’t considered that could be the
explanation?”

“I’ve considered it, yes.”

“You think I’ve no sense of duty to the Empire?”

“I think you’ve a very uncommon sense of duty, Lord
Risto,” Muryn said.

He looked down at Muryn in silence a long moment.

“It was in Choiro,” he said, finally. “At the fort,
Vione. Almost a year ago now. I was there for my training. There was
a Cesino soldier in my column, from Rien. And one of my fellow
officers was from Rien, too—one of the Marri. You know the
name?”

“I know the name,” said Muryn.

“There’d been a grievance between them before, back
home.” He hadn’t spoken of it since the examination. It
was odd to speak of it now. The words didn’t come readily. His
tongue stumbled over them, his voice unsteady. But it was clear and
sharp and vivid in his mind, as it always was. “He was
common-blood, the Cesino. His family were free laborers on the
farmland the Marri hold outside the city. He had a sister. Marro
had—forced her, had threatened punishment for all the family if
they tried to make it known afterward, if they tried to seek justice
for it. So nothing came of it, at first. The Cesino knew better than
that, knew how useless it would have been. Marro had his name and his
rank and his Vareno blood. And Marro made sure he knew it. Pushed him
on and on, taunting him, humiliating him. Pushed a little too far,
finally, and the Cesino forgot himself, drew a blade on him. Stupid
to try it. He might have been executed for less. Marro wanted it
done, of course. It—would have been done. They didn’t
give him a trial. There are few enough in Choiro willing to run afoul
of a Marro for the sake of a Cesino commoner.”

“You prevented it,” said Muryn, quietly.

“It was luck, mostly. Our commander had been a friend of my
father’s. For the sake of that—for my sake—he was
willing to see Marro was reprimanded. Only that: reprimanded,
transferred to another column so there’d be little chance for
further trouble. But Marro told me I’d pay for it. For the
humiliation, maybe. He’s not used to not getting his way. And
the Marri have influence enough in the capital—so I’m
paying for it.”

Muryn said, “I see.”

Tyren said, dryly, “That explains things to your satisfaction?”

“It explains things, yes.”

Tyren gathered up Risun’s reins. “I’ll come
tomorrow with medicine, if I can,” he said. “Keep a fresh
dressing on the wound.”

“It’ll be done, Lord Risto.”

“Tyren,” Tyren said.

Muryn smiled. “Tyren, then,” he said.

* * *

He rode back to the fort and gave Risun to a stable-boy who came
running and went to his office, as if nothing had happened, to write
the letters he’d meant to write that morning. When he’d
finished he picked out a rider to carry the letters and the battle
report down to Rien. Then, because he knew he couldn’t put it
off any longer, he found Verio and rode with him down to the hall of
the Magryni to meet the new lord.

Magryn’s oldest son met them in the ivy-choked yard with a
tight, nervous bow. He was young, fifteen or sixteen at most, slight
and pale and soft-eyed like a deer. Uncertain how to handle his new
authority—hadn’t been ready for this, Tyren thought. The
lady Magryn was with him. She was a striking, cold, haughty woman,
clad, in Vareno fashion, in a stola of fine black silk for her
mourning, dark hair piled elaborately on her head under a thin veil,
silver bracelets circling her slender white arms, rings glinting on
her fingers and in the lobes of her ears. The young Magryn seemed
almost afraid of her, letting her make the formal greeting and pour
the wine when they sat down at the table in the darkened hall, not
speaking a word, keeping his eyes down, twisting the great seal ring
on the forefinger of his right hand absently, as if its unaccustomed
weight irritated him.

Tyren said to him, out of duty, “I’m sorry for the loss
of your father, Lord Magryn.”

The young Magryn said nothing, gave no indication he’d heard,
other than a slight lifting of his chin, but the woman said, “I
want justice done on the bastard who did it, Lord Risto.”

“I’m doing what I can, Lady Magryn,” Tyren said.

She spat her words. “It was Sarre’s son. He told us he
was the son of Rylan Sarre. I thought your people had dealt with
that, Commander Risto. They told my husband they’d dealt with
it, ten years ago.”

There was silence a moment.

“Impossible,” said Verio, stupidly.

“He killed my husband in his own hall, my lord,” Lady
Magryn said.

“And left you and your children alive and unharmed?” said
Tyren.

The young Magryn glanced up to his mother very briefly. Lady Magryn’s
heavily painted eyelids flickered a little. She looked away. Her
voice, when she spoke again, was subdued.

“Yes, he left us alive,” she said.

“I expect there was some condition for it.”

A flush started in Lady Magryn’s cheeks, beneath the paint. She
said nothing.

“You,” Tyren said to the young Magryn.

The young Magryn didn’t look at him. He’d looked back
down to the ring on his finger, was still turning it slowly over and
over again, though Tyren could tell, from the remoteness in his gray
eyes, he wasn’t really paying it any mind.

He spoke in a low, toneless voice. “It was justice. He and his
mother were left alive when they executed Rylan Sarre. So it was
justice to leave us alive. That was his reason.”

“The ill-bred cur,” Lady Magryn said. The flush had
spread all across her face and throat now. “To stand there and
speak of justice with the blood of the lord of Souvin still on his
hands. Justice would have him hanging from a gibbet same as his
father.”

Tyren said, “He might be dead already. The rebels lost a good
number of men in the Outland yesterday, Lady Magryn.”

“Maybe,” Lady Magryn said. Her lips were pressed tight;
she wasn’t convinced. “But if not—if he’s
still alive, Commander Risto, and if your people find him, I want him
brought here, brought to me, to be dealt with according to Cesino
law. He’ll pay for the murder of his lord after I have his
tongue out for his insolence.”

“If I find him,” Tyren said, “it’ll be my
decision as to how best to deal with him.”

Afterward he and Verio rode back across the water channel and over
the common to the fort. He was lost in his thoughts and he started a
little when Verio spoke.

Verio said, “I wonder if it really could be Rylan Sarre’s
son.”

“You said the woman and the boy were sold in Rien when Sarre
was executed,” Tyren said.

“That’s what I heard, sir.”

“It’s possible he might have escaped or been set free.
It’s been ten years. Anything can happen in ten years.”

“If it was Sarre’s son, sir,” Verio said, “and
if the word spreads—we may well have open uprising on our
hands.”

“You don’t think we could have killed him in the Outland,
then?”

Verio said, shrugging, “If he’s anything like his father,
sir, it won’t matter he’s dead. They’ll rally
behind him anyway—make a martyr of him.”

* * *

That evening went busily. He reviewed the stores and the armory and
gave orders for a troop of twelve horse to be ready to ride out at
first light in the morning, impressing upon Verio he intended to
continue the work in the Outland they’d begun yesterday—to
meet the rebels again while they were still dazed, still recuperating
from the earlier blow, maybe even to finish them.

Later, when Verio had retired, he wrapped himself in his cape and
went alone in the darkness to the surgeon’s storeroom. He took
down two flasks of acetum and emptied both into another bottle and
poured water into the flasks and set them back on the shelf. Then he
went back to his own quarters and put the bottle and a skin of red
wine and some bandage cloth into one of his saddlebags. He stowed the
bag under his cot. It would have to be enough. Anything more and the
loss would be noticed, would have to be explained.

Afterward he lay awake on the cot and wondered how he could do this
thing so willingly, so readily. Had it been like this since Choiro?
Of course he’d never been particularly zealous about duty,
about loyalty. Not the way some were. Maybe it was being Cesin-born,
knowing he had the blood. But he’d been proud enough to earn
his commander’s braid and his sword and to stand before Senate
and Emperor and swear his allegiance on that sword. He could still
remember that cold white sun-washed spring day clearly as if he were
there—could remember his heart racing so quickly, as Mureno
pinned the gold braid on his shoulder, it had been almost painful.
He’d been proud enough then.

If he’d only ever seen the Empire as it had been on that
day—maybe it would be easier, now, to do his duty without
question, without hesitation, without remorse. Duty would demand the
Cesino’s life, and the priest’s, and maybe if he’d
only ever seen that glorious face of the Empire it would be easier to
accept that, to justify it in his own mind. But he’d seen the
other face too, the uglier face, the lie underneath. There was no
glory in it, no honor, no virtue to be dearly and jealously defended.
Maybe there had been once. Now it was just the hollow shell and a
cold emptiness inside him. He couldn’t go on clinging blindly
to duty for duty’s sake, as if nothing had changed that day in
Choiro—as if he hadn’t changed.

* * *

He took the Cesino-blood corporal Aino with him on patrol the next
day, leaving Verio in command at the fort. He led the troop out from
the fort and took them westward up the valley to the patrol path.
They came to the path by the seventh hour, the early morning sun
warming their backs while a cool wind tossed the pine-boughs above
them, and they rode in file up the tree-clad hill and then down into
the Outland, the way they’d gone before.

They made better time this day, because there was no trail to be
looked for and because the men weren’t so uneasy. They came to
the broad valley before the cliff, where they’d met the rebels
in battle, and they went north a little, riding along the ridge,
until they came out onto the long, bare, stone-topped plateau atop
the cliff—he didn’t have much inclination to venture
through the straight-sided gap below. He called the troop to a halt
and they sat their horses a little while in the stark white sunlight
and took in the surroundings: the blue mountains circling them like a
wall, the valleys hidden in deep shadow below them.

Aino spoke up suddenly from beside him. “This is the furthest
the Empire’s ever come into this place.”

“The Empire was here?”

“There was a battle—the last stand of Tarien Varro
against Berion’s armies, if you believe the legend. When it was
done they vanished into the mountains, those of Varro’s people
who were left. It was slaughter for both sides, though Berion claimed
the victory. But that’s why the Vareni avoid this place. If you
believe the legend their ghosts are still here—or Varro
himself, waiting to reclaim his throne.”

Tyren said, a little sourly, “Do you believe the legend,
Corporal?”

Aino smiled.

“Superstition, most of it, sir,” he said. “They’re
not ghosts, the rebels in this place. They’re real enough.”

“They might as well be ghosts. They leave no signs.”

“This is their land, sir—the last scrap of independent
Cesin left to them. They know it the way you know your own Vessy.
Better, maybe. They know how to stay hidden. It was some great luck
you had a victory against them here.”

Tyren said, “Yes, great luck.”

He didn’t say anything else, his thoughts fixing upon something
suddenly, and Aino, mistaking his silence, turned his head away and
said, “Forgive me, sir, for speaking out of turn.”

“No,” Tyren said. “No—I was thinking it’s
a hard thing to be from two different worlds. I was Cesin-born,
Corporal. I even have the blood, if you trace the line far enough
back. But it seems a lie to call this place my homeland—a lie
to your people, betrayal to mine. And another lie, another betrayal,
to say it of Varen.”

Aino, not looking at him, said, “Yes, sir, it’s a hard
thing.”

The rebels didn’t come out to fight. He’d known they
wouldn’t. When it was getting on towards mid-afternoon he took
the troop back to the patrol path and then down to the fort, because
the light faded early from the low places between the hills, and even
with the rebellion broken and leaderless, as he knew it was now, he
didn’t want to be in the Outland after dark.

* * *

He went back to Muryn’s that night, after the meal.

He took the black colt when he went, explaining to Verio he wanted to
try out the colt’s paces on the Rien road. He let the colt run
when they’d gotten out of the village. The colt ran smoothly,
effortlessly. For a little while he could forget about everything
else: there was just the colt surging beneath him and the cool
evening wind whistling past him and the nightingales piping in the
dark pine wood above the road. He slowed the colt to a trot when they
climbed the embankment and went west into the trees, and even the
trot was smooth and light. Muryn’s clearing lay blue and silent
under a rising mist but warm yellow firelight was spilling out from
the open doorway of the house and woodsmoke was curling up from the
opening cut in the thatched roof. He left the colt tethered to a tree
at the edge of the clearing and took down his saddlebag and went up
to the house on foot.