Prince of Outcasts (42 page)

I really wish I hadn't seen that,
John thought, feeling queasy even in the rush of battle and turning his head and blinking against the afterimages of intolerable light.
I'm going to remember that and I don't want to.

“Eyes on!” Evrouin snapped, before adding: “Sire.”

Not
Eyes on, you idiot,
at least
, he thought.

John forced himself to squint and blink watering eyes. That was enough to show the final despairing rush break on a serried rank—the Guard crossbowmen in their half-armor had come up with their swords and bucklers in hand to stand with the leaders, and the sailors held their flanks with knife and cutlass and
naginata
. It was hard to be sure in the darkness, but he thought the Iban were fewer than his band now, as well as more lightly armed. Each advantage magnified the other.

He stabbed at one attacker, but the man jumped backward with frantic agility and the Montivallan pulled back into guard. Toa's great spear flashed in a circle trailing blood, then struck out underarm in a stab like a frog's tongue. That killed, but the broad head caught in bone and the rearward jerk didn't clear it as the body flopped loosely and came back with the weapon. The moment of immobility was near-fatal; the big Maori went down as another Iban appeared out of nowhere and cracked the firebolt warhead he carried against the side of his head—fortunately
not with the point, and he had to reach up to do it, which robbed the stroke of some of its force. Blades poised to finish the fallen man.

“
Tennō Heika
banzai!”

Ishikawa drew and cut horizontally with his katana in a single arc of movement, topping a man's head like a boiled egg; even then John blinked at the sight, shocked that the steel hadn't locked in bone, and the dead man dropped and knotted into a convulsion at the same time.

Pip screamed as Toa went down, a sound composed of fear and sheer raw fury. She moved so quickly that suddenly she was just
there
standing over Toa's body, a kukri in one hand and her cane in the other, and they were blurring even faster, chopping and blocking and smashing into the sides of heads or down onto collarbones or elbows. Blood flew, trails of black in the night, adding to the metallic stink. The last of the raiders went down under multiple attacks.

Then she was standing still and poised, glaring around them as the light grew brighter; more armloads of brush were being thrown on the fires, some of them on the earth berm that surrounded the camp. She used the illumination to administer a series of whacks with her cane to the heads of half a dozen recumbent writhing figures, an unpleasant almost vegetable-sounding crunch-crunch-crunch as she swung it like a flail with her hand tucked right under the knob at the other end.

“Do you have a
flaaag
, you creeping little poison-dart sods?” he heard her mutter between blows, under her panting breath. “No? Didn't bloody
think
”—another full-armed swing and a last crunch—“so!”

Another thing his father had told him once was that you should never just
frighten
a brave enemy if you could help it, because in a courageous mind fear tripped over into killing rage almost immediately.

The fighting was over, as far as he could tell, but the noise all around was building instead of dying, shrieks and what seemed to be chants.

“Deor, I'm going to need you to talk for me if Tuan Anak's down—we have to find out what's going on,” he said firmly. “Mr. Radavindraban—”

He was still standing, thought bloodied by a cut on the forehead and holding an arm to it to keep the flow out of his eyes.

Never show the doubt or the hesitation.

“—you're in charge here. Sergeant Fayard, maintain the perimeter around the catapults. It's essential to the mission,” he added as the Guardsman looked rebellious.

He was probably going to say:
you are our mission, Your Highness
, but John had a counter to that . . .

“And if the mission fails, none of us are getting off this island alive. Myself included.”

Deor nodded agreement, but the scop also looked for Ruan; the young healer was busy—he was threading a needle and telling Radavindraban to sit—and spared him only time enough for a smile and a wave.

Pip bent over Toa, who winced as she felt at the injured spot on his head and groaned as he rose using the shaft of his spear as a lever, with the other hand on Pip's shoulder. He winced again when he shook his head.

“Getting too old for this,” he said with a groan. “Time for a rocking chair on the verandah and a bottomless bottle of beer.”

“It's not cracked,” she said with relief. “You need to remember that big doesn't mean immortal!”

Then she nodded to John. “Bloody right we have to know what's going on,” she said.

Her head went up, as if she was a gray-eyed tawny cat sniffing for a scent.

“Something's not right,” she said. “That doesn't
sound
like people who just won a fight. It sounds like someone whose puppy got run over by the post-coach.”

“Exactly,” John said, as the remark crystalized his unease.

The five of them set out—Evrouin wasn't going out of glaive-distance from John, and Thora came along rubbing a swatch of fringed cloth from an Iban's clout along the blade of her bloody sword.

“This has the feel of a decapitation strike,” she said, and at their puzzlement: “Term of art in the A-List. Trying to weaken an opponent by cutting off their leadership or their specialists. Like a jab to daze and a kick to finish.”

John nodded as he unclipped his helmet and bevor and handed them to Evrouin, cutting off his protest with a gesture.

“I don't want to talk to the locals looking like a man with half a head, or . . . what were those clockwork mechanical men the ancients had called . . .”

“Robots, Your Highness,” the older man said. “Or Terminators, in some of the stories.”

John nodded; he wasn't sure how many of the stories were true, anyway, but you used metaphor on instinct. A faceless moving thing of metal was intimidating, especially if you weren't used to seeing the like.

Thora tossed him the cloth, and he carefully cleaned the blade of his longsword as they walked; blood was essentially salt water, and that didn't go well with steel. Walking up to excited foreigners in flame-shot darkness with a red-running sword in your hand wasn't the smartest thing to do, either. As he slid it home with a
cling
sound when the guard hit the metal plates of the scabbard's mouth he noticed the stickiness on his right arm and side as the blood ran under the armor and into the cloth beneath. It met the sweat that soaked the doublet and fused into a thick gelid mass that stung in places where his skin was grazed; he hadn't noticed that happening, but if something hit the armor hard at a joint you got rasped as the friction was transmitted through the metal sheets and coarse cloth below.

He grimaced in disgust, and then hid it as he turned to look at Pip. She was casting little glances at Toa, and relaxing a bit as his stride grew more confident.

I'm starting to like her even more,
he thought.

The big man was obviously a sort of unofficial uncle and had raised her as much as her parents had. He wiped at the black glinting mass on the side of his head with a folded bandage she handed him from a pouch on her belt, wincing as the alcohol-based disinfectant it was soaked with cut through the clotted blood and met the raw flesh beneath.

“Just stunned a bit,” he said to her. “Nothing cracked, not dizzy or seeing lights or feeling like a chunder.”

“Technicolor yawn,” he added to John's puzzlement. “Puke, like?”

John blinked at the colorful vocabulary, but nodded. Those were the symptoms of a concussion, which was no joke. It didn't matter how big or strong you were, either, if you got hit in the right—wrong—place. A human head and brain were just jelly in a pottery case, regardless of the size of the body attached, and Toa's wouldn't be much more resistant to a whack with a heavy steel weight than his, or Pip's for that matter.

The problem at Tuan Anak's headquarters was obvious when they got there, and visible enough because there were lanterns on poles and fires built up enough to mostly dispel the darkness. The tent the High Priest and Priestess had used—it was the howdah from their elephant set on the ground, basically—was down, and parts of it still smoldering where it had fallen into the nearby fire. There were bodies lying about, Baru Denpasarans and attackers. A few of them were Ibans. The rest of them were Carcosans, wearing vests made of mail and small plates but with the same build and coloring as their enemies, save for two. Those had looked a good deal more like John or Pip—or probably had, since between darkness and the way they'd been hacked about long after they fell it was difficult to be sure.

The two bodies that really mattered had been covered with matting and blood pooled beneath them. John knew immediately from the stunned grief or wails from the others that it was the local clerics. Tuan Anak was standing with his parang almost dropping from his nerveless hand; there was blood on it and on his arm and chest, the more visible because he'd started up in nothing but his loincloth and had apparently fought that way too. A few thin wounds marked his torso, adding to a truly impressive collection of healed scars, but the loss of his holy Pedanda was probably what was causing the stunned look on his face. As John watched he swallowed and gave his parang a considering look and began to turn it in his hand.

Uh-oh, he's thinking that death would spare him having to explain this to the Raja,
John thought.
It must be even more serious than I thought.

“Deor,” he said quietly. “Translate for me as I speak—until Anak answers, at least.”

He stepped up smartly—ignoring leveled spears in the hands of men wild-eyed with grief and horror and ready to lash out against anyone not of their blood—and thumped his fist to his chest in salute.

“Tuan Anak,” he said.

He also made his voice a little louder than was strictly necessary, but not shouting. It was very difficult not to sound angry if you shouted, and even more difficult to not be
perceived
that way. His sword was sheathed, but the blood spattering his armor and face was plainly visible, showing that he'd been fighting the same enemy.

He was rewarded when the Baru Denpasaran commander looked at him.

“We have beaten off the attack on the catapults.”

Deor echoed it; John hoped very much that his Balinese was up to this. Then he bowed deeply to the dead priest and priestess and saluted again. It wasn't the sort of gesture the locals used, but it was visible respect, which was what mattered.

“My condolences on your tragic loss. These holy folk must be avenged in enemy blood!”

That got through,
he realized as the locals growled agreement. He made himself not let out a breath of relief.

His parents had said that you could pour heart into another like water into a jug; it was part of the mystery of ruling or commanding. Anak straightened, obviously thinking now . . . and thinking that success was the only way he could justify this when he returned to his ruler. The Baru Denpasaran commander looked around at his own folk; he was obviously a very brave man under ordinary circumstances, quick-witted and with the self-confidence that came of high birth and long experience in war. He made a quick calculation and shouted in his own language, waving his blade aloft. Deor stepped up and spoke softly in John's ear:

“Vengeance, he cries,” the scop said. “Vengeance, and victory. He calls
on Indera—the God of theirs who protects human-kind against the beings of darkness, who rides the elephant and wields the lightning, the smasher of citadels—reminds me a bit of Thunor. He calls on Him for vengeance on the enemies of their faith, the defilers of holiness.”

John did let his breath out in a
whoof
of relief then, as he stepped back and motioned the others with him. Tuan Anak gave him a single glance and a hard nod as he turned to snapping orders to his subordinates.

Well, we'll give it a good try, at least,
John thought.

As they walked back to their encampment Thora spoke thoughtfully.

“The enemy tried for the one thing we need to take their fort,” she said. “And they failed; as long as we have the catapults and prang-prangs we can keep going. And they didn't get Anak, either.”

Pip spoke, slow and thoughtful. “No. They tried for the
two
things we need,” she said. “I've been here longer. Believe me, against Carcosa, we need those Brahmins too. Needed them, that is. I suggest you all pray
really hard
to Whoever you think is listening.”

Toa grunted agreement. Deor nodded slowly. “She's right,” he said, and made the sign of the Hammer.

It occurred to John that they might be needing some of Deor's other skills as much as his undoubted worth as a fighter.

Oh, that's a wonderful thought to try to sleep on,
John thought, looking up at the stars. It was about four hours to dawn, and tomorrow was going to be . . .

More of an adventure than I wanted,
he thought.
I've daydreamed about being out from under Órlaith's shadow. Be careful what you ask for, because God may give it to you!

D
ÚN
NA
S
ÍOCHÁNA

(F
ORMERLY
S
ALEM
, O
REGON
)

C
APITAL
, H
IGH
K
INGDOM
OF
M
ONTIVAL

(F
ORMERLY
WESTERN
N
ORTH
A
MERICA
)

O
CTOBER
31
ST

C
HANGE
Y
EAR
46/2044 AD

A
few moments after the commander of the Imperial Guard left, Chiyo knocked softly at the door—a polite scratch was impractical with thick portals of solid wood. Then she came through, made obeisance to Reiko and turned as she announced in a high soft voice that didn't mangle the foreign names and titles too badly:

“Crown Princess Órlaith, the heir of the High Kingdom.”

She bowed deeply, though not to the forty-five-degree angle with head inclination reserved for her own royalty.

“Lady Heuradys d'Ath, her
hatamoto
.”

Another bow, not quite so deep, as to a highborn bannerman . . . bannerwoman, rather. That was rarer at home than here, but not so rare as to be totally outlandish in these days of desperate need and straitened means.

“Admit them, thank you,” Reiko said.

How to address people was going to be even more of a puzzle as
Tennō
than as heir-apparent, and being among her own people once more brought that back to mind. Speaking English all the time had made her
more conscious of how Nihongo had distinctly different registers for men and women—and
onna no kotoba
, women's speech, tended to be rather deferential, at least in its surface forms. In fact her language made it oddly difficult for a woman to be assertive at all without being grossly, obtrusively impolite. Which was inappropriate for her position—much more so now that she was
Tennō
. Extreme formality helped, since both sexes sounded more female when they were being very polite. With men like Egawa she could use the male register suitable to one of higher rank and they just acknowledged it without much thought, but addressing women was a little more difficult if she didn't want to seem . . .

Rather
onabe
. Rather butch, as they say in English.

There was a slight stiffness in the lady-in-waiting's manner as well. That would be the Sword of the Lady at Órlaith's side. Reiko could feel it herself, the more so now that she bore the Grasscutter. The Lady's gift to the line of House Artos was something that was a sword to the eye . . . but to the inner eye a force like the planes of continents meeting and grinding beneath earth's surface. It would require someone more than human not to be affected when such a thing was near.

The more so if you were not Montivallan. Besides great power, what Reiko sensed was a friendly apartness; as
Kusanagi
was bound to her blood and that of the Yamato people and to the fabric of their homeland, so the Lady's gift was to Montival and its folk and the bloodline of he who had been gifted with it. She suspected that to others the uneasiness would be more profound.

“And bring the meal now, Chiyo-san,” she added gently.

Órlaith entered, in kilt and plaid, Montrose jacket and knee-hose, with Heuradys beside her in Associate dress—a belted green kirtle under a sleeveless open-sided surcoat, and a fawn wimple on her head bound with rose-gold chains. Reiko rose, and Órlaith made a bow just slightly deeper than hers, suitable from the heir to a throne to a ruling monarch; Heuradys' was impeccable, deep but not so deep as would have been proper to her own ruler. Lady Chiyo was respectably impassive as she withdrew at the gesture of the
tessen
fan, but Reiko could sense her
satisfaction, overriding outrage that foreigners were admitted with swords at their waists at all.

Órlaith grinned as she sat across the table, probably sensing the same thing and feeling she'd scored a point in a mildly amusing game.
Seiza
was excruciating to the point of impossibility for many Montivallans since they generally sat on chairs, but Mackenzies used something very like it for some of their rituals and for unarmed-combat training, which she had found to her surprise had strong similarities to the style she had been trained in and even incorporated mangled
Nihongo
terminology. Heuradys was almost as supple.

“Aren't you glad to have a proper retinue once more, Reiko-chan?” Órlaith asked in her perfect Japanese and with only the very slightest tint of irony, still smiling, as she laid the Sword of the Lady by her right hand.

That was the courtesy position, where your blade was hardest to draw. Courteous if you were going to carry a long blade indoors at all, but her declaration had made this like a war-camp. Which had had several purposes, starting with the fact that they had both been on the receiving end of assassination attempts more than once. Heuradys kept hers by her left, ready for draw-and-strike, which was obligatory given her position as Órlaith's liege woman; she was much more than a bodyguard, but that for starters. From the way her clothes moved, Reiko suspected a vest of light mail beneath.

“I can virtually feel your joy at it radiating like the sun,” Órlaith continued dryly.

Reiko used her fan to conceal a chuckle, feeling more at ease than she had all day. She dropped back into English, since Heuradys could follow only the simplest Nihongo and spoke no more than a few words.

“That is not fair, Orrey-chan!” She indicated the Sword of the Lady. “I cannot be polite with
that
at your side!”

Her friend's smile grew wry. “If you think this is stressful, imagine what it's like when I'm talking to my mother with
this
beside us, and both of us entitled to bear it.”

Reiko blinked, then half-laughed, half-shuddered in genuine horror.

“You would have to say
everything
!” she blurted. Then, more slowly: “If you were to say anything at all.”

“And not speaking is not an option; not with your mother, and not with your sovereign, and when it's both . . . So telling the whole truth of the matter is what I did all afternoon, and she to me. It's not precisely mind-reading, but it's not entirely unlike it, either.”

Reiko made a sympathetic noise. Órlaith shrugged, but gave a grateful smile.

“It's helped, in a way. Painfully, but it's speeded our coming together again. It makes an
I love you
a different thing; and now I understand the way things were between my parents better. But to business. It's agreed, I'm to take the expeditionary force. With Lord Maugis de Grimmond as my second-in-command of land forces and Admiral Naysmith for the Navy.”

“You are to command? Excellent!” Reiko said. “Maugis-sama is Grand Constable of the Association, is he not?”

“Yes; the baron's a very capable man, and almost as important, well-respected outside the Protectorate . . . outside the Association territories.”

A thought struck her. “But was not his son Sir Aleaume, who died with us in the fight at the Bay?”

Órlaith sighed and nodded. “Sir Droyn took him his son's sword and shield, and told him how he met his end; that was fitting, since they were brothers of the sword. His grief won't affect his actions—he's proud that Aleaume fell blade in hand and face to the foe in his liege's service.”

Reiko inclined her head slightly. “Duty, heavier than mountains,” she said softly; she'd liked the grave young noble.

“Death, lighter than a feather,” Heuradys finished.

Órlaith nodded; Reiko had discovered that the saying had long been current here as well as at home. Which was odd, since it originated in an Imperial rescript of Meiji times.

But the sentiment is universal, I suppose. How else could warriors live?

They were silent for a moment before Órlaith went on. Sir Aleaume
hadn't been the only young warrior who would never come home save as a token and a memory tinged with grief, nor would he be the last.

“Admiral Naysmith is a Bearkiller of the A-list; that's convenient, and her career a bit remarkable, since they're not a seafaring folk for the most part. And I'm to have Edain Aylward Mackenzie for my chief-of-staff.”

“A very capable man,” Reiko agreed.

“And
not
an Associate. Mackenzies are well-liked by most; and we've always been close, Uncle Wolf and I.”

Reiko nodded; at this level, politics and military command were very much the same thing.

“He knows his business,” Heuradys said. “But Orrey . . . just
because
he grew up with your father, he does tend to forget you're not fourteen anymore, sometimes. Or possibly around eight, when he's not watching it.”

Reiko sighed; Órlaith wasn't the only person in this room who ran into
that
problem with her father's close retainers.

And in the Montivallan system the Chief of Staff of an army is about as important as the commander; they give a command to one of sufficient birth and rank, with an experienced professional by their side. In this case with another experienced professional in the position immediately below. And yet . . . not only does Orrey-chan have the raw ability, she has the Sword of the Lady.

As she understood it, the Lady's gift to the line of House Artos did much more than show truth; in time of war it amplified the native abilities of the wielder with a preternatural grasp of the things a ruler—or commander—needed to know, amplifying the powers of memory and thought, observation and calculation, making planning swift and sure. The bearer could be their
own
staff.

The door opened again, and Lady Chiyo came in with the maids—three this time—to remove and file away the documents and maps with quick skill, remove the writing-table, to put an additional
kakeban
by Heuradys, and set out the meal she'd ordered. Two of them went to the end of the long room to be ready to shuttle the succession of courses to the three diners, and the third began to play softly on a samisen.

Heuradys ran a quick appraising eye over them. “Not just for giving you consequence and serving the drinks, are they?” she murmured.

Reiko acknowledged it with a slight twitch of the fan and flick of her eyes. She'd repeat the remark in Nihongo later, where it could be overheard; they would be pleased. They were too far away to overhear a quiet-spoken conversation, and of course
spoke
very little English as yet. Now and then she felt sorry for the isolation that must mean, though from subtle signs they all seemed excited and intrigued by their surroundings and were working very hard on improving their command of the spoken tongue. They were only the second group of Nihonjin to travel abroad since the Change, after all. Unless you counted captives bound for extremely unpleasant fates.

Then Reiko looked at the first trays of food and sighed entirely to herself as her friends praised the pretty arrangements; she'd ordered an informal meal suitable for three persons of high rank, and had expected perhaps three dishes and some miso to go with the rice or noodles.

But while she and her party had been housed at Montinore Manor on Barony Ath in the spring, their hosts had found cooks who could produce somewhat Japanese-style dishes . . . except that they had been entirely too rich and elaborate for every day.

Though better than the local styles. Which are very tasty sometimes, but they bolt huge chunks of meat like wolves on a carcass! And the dairy foods range from the repulsive and indigestible to pleasant and indigestible.

She'd been looking forward to a more normal diet when the Palace cook arrived with the ship . . . but he'd been at the banquet laid on to greet the newcomers, and now he was apparently determined not to let the Montivallans show him up. What was before her was a
sakizuke
course, traditionally the first in a
Kaiseki Ryōri
, a formal Court feast. A small aperitif of plum wine, then a few little bite-sized pieces of baby carp simmered in sweetened shoyu with ginger, radish and asparagus and mint leaf, shrimp, flounder rolled in kelp, and black bean with
tsukushi
bud, all set out in artistic combinations in patterned ceramic boxes and bowls.

Very spare compared to the Montivallan equivalents, but a full
Kaiseki Ryōri
had
twelve
courses.

Well, at least I managed two hours of sparring practice today.

In theory she could just set a menu and order it done. But besides being unfitting to her rank, no matter how theoretically absolute you were there were orders that it was wiser not to give. If only because when you devalued another's work, you stepped upon the sleeve of their honor, and doing that without grave need was . . .

Uncouth,
she thought.
One must take motives into consideration.

“Itadakimasu,”
they murmured with their hands pressed palm to palm, and then their respective prayers at food.

Heuradys picked up a single grain of the rice in her chopsticks and dipped it in the plum wine before burning it delicately in the flame of one of the candles, as her offering to the
kami
she called Hestia of the Hearth.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the surprise of the attendants when both the Montivallans used the chopsticks with courteous skill, though they remained outwardly impassive. One knee-walked forward to fill their cups—the situation and various status considerations would make the usual Nihonjin custom of doing that for your neighbor awkward—and then retired.

“And Heuradys is to be my aide-de-camp and head of Household, which means we can keep it down to something reasonable. Mother doesn't care about keeping state, though she doesn't actively dislike it the way I do or Da did—she sort of endures it without really noticing it much. But Lord and Lady, there are plenty of people in Todenangst and the City Palace in Portland who are obsessed with it even now, reason, common sense, offending the rest of Montival, and military necessity be damned. If my father and mother between them couldn't really budge it, I doubt I can. I'll be working around it all my life, I suppose. It's like pushing on a spring, it comes back as soon as you let up.”