His Own Good Sword (The Cymeriad #1) (9 page)

“Tell me truthfully about the Church,” he said.

“What is it you wish to know about the Church, Lord Risto?”

“Do you answer to it? You native priests?”

“Some do. They’re well-paid for it. The Church makes
great use of Cesino priests.”

“And you?”

Muryn had looked away from him again. “For a time,” he
said.

“But no longer?”

Muryn’s voice was quiet. “I had my fill of Choiro, Lord
Risto,” he said.

“Of answering to Choiro?”

“Of seeing the Church become just another political weapon in
the hands of the Berioni,” said Muryn.

There was a sudden heaviness in Tyren’s chest, a dryness in his
mouth. “You speak treason,” he said.

“I speak the truth,” said Muryn. “I was in Choiro
long enough to see it for myself, Lord Risto.”

“To see what?”

He said it through his teeth, more harshly than he’d intended.
But if Muryn were daunted by that he didn’t show it. His voice
was quiet still.

“How every priest must swear an oath owning the emperor as head
of the Church. How those who refuse are branded agitators, traitors,
fomenters of rebellion. How those who do swear it and yet speak out
against the injustices being done in the Empire’s name are
charged with heresy and removed from the priesthood, sometimes to
imprisonment, sometimes to death. That’s what I saw in Choiro,
Lord Risto. I might have stayed and sworn the oath and kept my
silence. There are Cesini who do. But I couldn’t.”

It took effort to keep his steps from faltering again. Not from the
shock of the words, this time, but from the way they cut him down to
nothing. He’d no counterargument. To argue now would be to
argue for a lie, he knew that well as Muryn did. He swallowed. It did
nothing to ease the tightness in his throat, the weight in his heart,
the pain of the memory at the back of his mind—that day in
Choiro when he’d seen justice crumble to dust before his eyes
and realized, too late, the Empire endured regardless.

He spoke in the same harsh voice to mask the unsteadiness.

“So you left twelve years ago to come thresh wheat in Souvin.
Or was there some other reason?”

“To thresh wheat and to raise a family,” Muryn said.
“Isn’t that reason enough to be away from Choiro?”

“Twelve years ago. And ten years ago Rylan Sarre was raising
this place in rebellion against the Empire. Explain that to me,
Muryn.”

Muryn seemed taken aback for the first time. “You think I urged
Rylan Sarre to rebellion?”

“I don’t know what part you played in it. But I find it
hard to believe you played no part at all. You’d no other
reason to come to Souvin—Souvin, out of every farm village in
Cesin.”

“Maybe not,” said Muryn. He’d recovered himself
quickly. “Only certain men come to places like Souvin, after
all, Lord Risto: rebels, and traitors, and the ones the Empire finds
undesirable. Maybe you’re right.”

Tyren searched for a reply and found none. He looked away so Muryn
wouldn’t see the color come into his face.

Muryn said, in a milder voice, “No, it would be sore neglect of
my duty if I took to preaching uprising against the Empire, Lord
Risto.”

“Then tell me what you preach.”

“The grace and love of God. That suffices for most of it.”

“If you’d no other thought than preaching the love of God
you needn’t have left the Church.”

Muryn smiled. “Better not to preach at all than to preach
without living it,” he said. “To preach the love of God,
and then turn a blind eye to injustice—that would be more than
hypocrisy, Lord Risto. That would be betrayal.”

Tyren said nothing.

By now they’d come down through the village to the common. It
wasn’t yet dawn, but the village was beginning to stir round
them. There was a cock crowing, woodsmoke drifting on the air.

“Muryn,” Tyren said.

“Yes, Lord Risto?”

“I don’t mind that you speak plainly to me.” The
words felt heavy on his tongue. He spoke slowly, carefully, because
it took that effort to speak at all. “To me, do you understand?
I won’t be able to protect you if any of my people find you
out—if it comes to that. Do you understand?”

Muryn looked at him. There was something almost quizzical in his
look. But his voice was steady.

“I understand that, Lord Risto,” he said.

“I’ll speak with you again,” Tyren said.

He left the Cesino on the common and got back to the fort in time to
join Verio and Regaro and Aino in the officer’s mess for the
morning meal. He said nothing of what had passed on the road—nodded
and said something noncommittal when Verio asked him if the ride had
been pleasant.

* * *

His life fell into routine. He got up early in the cool mountain
mornings, time enough to take Risun out for a short ride on the Rien
road before breakfast and the muster. He drilled the men after the
muster, out in the yard, though Verio sneered a little the first few
times he did this, because Choiro drills were no use out here in the
wilderness. But he ignored Verio and drilled the men anyway. After
the drills he went over the horses, the stores, listened to the
suggestions and requests of Verio and the junior officers and the
stable-master, noted any changes that needed to be made, instructed
Verio to see to those changes. When the mid-day meal was done he had
some time to himself, and he spent it in his office, reading the
reports written by the previous commander, who’d died quite
suddenly in the early spring. In the evenings he ate supper with his
officers in the mess, saying little, trying to listen to what they
said, to learn from them. After the meal he reviewed the men, could
address them if he felt the need, or else dismiss them to their
quarters, and then he and Verio would sit with a skin of wine in his
office and he’d listen to Verio talk. He didn’t think
Verio respected him; Verio still thought him untested, naïve.
But Verio liked to drink, and to talk when he drank, and Tyren, not
wanting to give the impression he was all cold aristocratic
formality, sat and listened. Verio talked of his childhood home back
in Varen, a fishing village on the mouth of great river Breche;
talked of a wife who’d died young, and his joining up
afterward, and his eventual coming to Souvin—might as well
serve the Empire here, as it needed him, since there was nothing left
for him in Varen.

When Verio had gone Tyren would go into his own quarters and lie on
his back on the low bed, listening through the open window to the
nightingales singing in the pines, smelling the warm, pungent smell
of the laurel leaves drifting in from the garden, and he’d
think about maybe writing letters—writing to Mureno, back at
Vione, and telling him polite lies about the command; writing to
Michane, Lady Rano, telling her polite lies about his feelings for
her.

He hadn’t written her in a long while now and he felt guilty
about that. In truth she was a beautiful woman now, his betrothed,
and his mother had been right; he should be thankful he was bound to
marry her, the younger daughter of a powerful Choiro family,
certainly better than most soldier sons could ever aspire to. But he
didn’t love her and he knew now he’d never love her. He’d
been interested in her when he was younger, true, because she’d
a pretty face; they’d been betrothed since he was a boy of ten,
and he’d been pleased enough with the arrangement then, when
he’d given it any thought. But he was older now and he’d
seen too much of the Choiro life, knew what would be expected of him
were he to marry into that, knew he and Michane would end up like all
the rest: husband and wife in name only, pulled slowly apart, drawn
inevitably, inescapably each to their own circles, as the city
demanded it. They’d grow distant, bored, have lovers—would
barely be able to look at each other after a while. She’d be
embarrassed he was a younger son, a soldier, could never amount to
much more than that. She’d despise him behind his back. And
he’d be like his father: respected publicly, or at least
feared, and yet unable to govern his own home.

He didn’t want to marry Michane. He didn’t want to settle
complacently into that sort of life, as Torien had done. He hadn’t
been particularly angry, as he should have been, as Mureno had been,
when he’d gotten this disgrace of a commission. If not for the
fact he was a Risto, that being a Risto came with its own
expectations and responsibilities—if not for that, he might
even have been happy here in Souvin. At least it was away from the
emptiness, the hollow and sickening grandeur of the capital. Torien
didn’t understand that. Certainly Mureno hadn’t
understood it. He wasn’t sure he understood it fully himself.
He couldn’t explain it, anyway. Or he could do so only vaguely,
and in a way that sounded trite: he’d come to Souvin because it
had been the right thing to do, the honorable thing to do. Maybe that
would have been sufficient explanation once. It seemed meaningless
now.

V

It took more time than Torien had anticipated for word to come back
from Mureno. A fortnight passed, then a month. The cool, wet Cesino
spring had turned fully to summer by then and the post-ride to Choiro
shouldn’t have taken so long.

They were already starting the wheat threshing on the farmland
outside the city when the letter finally came. It came without
explanation or apology for the delay, and it was worded stiffly and
coldly, so that if not for the signature at the bottom of the
papyrus, and the seal on the scroll’s scarlet cord, he wouldn’t
have recognized it as Mureno’s work at all.

Governor Risto
, it read—
Your son proved himself a
capable commander, and so was posted to a garrison which had need of
a capable commander. As a former officer yourself you will appreciate
that commissions in the Imperial military are awarded not on the
basis of a man’s name but on the basis of the Empire’s
need
.

He read the thing and gave it without a word to Moien, who’d
delivered it to him in the study and who stood now by the corner of
the desk, patiently waiting. Moien took it and read it for himself.
He tossed it down onto the desk when he was done.

“So Mureno will be no help to us,” he said.

Torien stood up from the desk and paced the floor of the study from
the desk to the eastward window, back again.

“The Marri have bought him,” he said.

“It certainly appears that way.”

He spoke unsteadily—was shaken and couldn’t hide it
completely.

“I didn’t think, Sere—I didn’t think Mureno
would be the one.”

“No, I wouldn’t have thought it,” said Moien.

“If Mureno could be bought there are few enough left for us to
trust. I’m beginning to think I’ve finally lost this
fight, Sere. After twenty years—I’m beginning to think I
have lost, the Marri have won.”

“They’ve not yet been willing to make a direct move
against you.”

“Not yet,” said Torien.

The anger cooled a little when Moien had gone, but the unsteadiness
remained, the dazed stumbling of his thoughts. It wasn’t only
that Chion Mureno was an army man, and a good one, and should have
been above this bribing—of all of them in Choiro, in Vione,
Mureno should have been above this bribing. No, but he’d been a
friend, too. That was the hardest part. That had always been the
hardest part of this life, the hardest thing to get used to. He’d
never been able to get used to it. He’d been on too many
battlefields. He couldn’t get used to a war in which
friendships were the casualties—friendships, family.

He’d kept a distance between himself and Tore ever since that
exchange in the garden-room the morning Tyren had left for Souvin. He
was suddenly desperate to heal the break, to have Tore close by his
side. An idea came into his head almost at once: he’d take Tore
with him when he went north to Chalen. The invitation had come
recently from Viere, Chalen’s new-installed governor: a boar
hunt, a few days of northern hospitality. It would be good to go, and
to take Tore, and to forget the cares of Vessy for a while. It would
be good for both of them.

* * *

Chalen was a full day’s ride north and east of Vessy, on the
edge of the great black-pine forest spreading across northern Cesin
all the way up to the border of Sevarre. They came to the governor’s
villa in the twilight, he and Tore and Moien and one of Moien’s
guardsmen. There were torches already lit on the gate-wall and in the
garden, a mist rising over the trees beyond the villa’s cleared
land. Viere was present at the gate to meet them. Torien had met him
before, of course; Viere had come to Vessy to give his obeisance
nearly two months ago now, before making his way north. He was young
to be a governor, even to be a county governor in a backwater of the
province. But he came of good Choiro family; the name was an old one,
a respected one. Torien didn’t know him well, was glad for this
opportunity to know him better—the opportunity, perhaps, to
gauge his loyalties.

Viere had waited the evening meal for them. It was simple fare:
pheasant snared in the forest, olives and green herbs, a sweet wine
made from wild berries, so dark it was almost black. The table crowd
was small. Viere had no other retainers than a white-haired old
steward, and there were few servants; Viere’s wife served the
meal alongside them.

“I apologize for the meagerness of our hospitality, Lord
Risto,” Viere said to Torien. “It’s nothing to
Vessy, I’m sure.”

“It’s a welcome relief from Vessy,” said Torien.

They set out early in the morning for the hunt, riding north into the
pine forest. He hadn’t hunted in a long while, not since before
his own taking of the governorship. His father and brother had still
lived then. He’d hunted with them through the wooded land along
the river, east of Vessy. That thought made his fingers tighten
involuntarily on the haft of his hunting spear, made the horse
skitter sideways under him as it sensed his tension. Moien looked
over to him with a question in his eyes. He shook his head tightly
and pressed the horse on.