The Death of Nnanji (3 page)

He had done some good, though, and the People mostly approved when Nnanji or other Sevenths arrived in their town with the Tryst’s impeccably honest legions. Swordsmen, being both police and military, had far too often been bullies and crooks as well. Honest kings or elders tyrannized by corrupt swordsmen had welcomed the rescue, and honest garrisons were glad to be relieved of the duty of upholding bad laws. As the Tryst’s borders kept expanding, the only serious resistance had come from tyrants and corrupt garrisons in combination, and there the citizens themselves often provided the necessary support.

Crowds parted for the liege, people bowing, saluting, smiling: naked children, scantily clad adolescents, decorous adults, all the way to the ancients robed from head to toe. The colors were common to all crafts, for all had exactly seven ranks: white, yellow, brown, orange, red, green, blue.

Everywhere there were swordsmen. For sixths and sevenths—greens and blues—Shonsu had to stop and accept formal salutes. Salutes from lesser folk he just acknowledged by thumping his chest with his fist.

So he came at last to the lodge, being saluted as he marched through the high gate. The din in the great central quadrangle was deafening. On the well-trampled grass under the shade trees at least two hundred swordsmen were fencing, leaping around, bellowing instruction, banging steel. Their ponytails flapped like banners, they streamed sweat, and they made him feel old. He was old, for a swordsman. Whenever Shonsu had been born, he had seemed about in his mid-twenties when he died and the Goddess gave his body and skills to Wallie Smith. Physically he must be around forty now, and mentally even older. Once he had been the greatest swordsman in the World, but Nnanji had overtaken him, and he knew there were younger men who could beat him now. So far none had been brash enough to do so.

Most days he liked to linger for a while to watch the training, mentally noting newcomers moving up the promotion ladder. Today he had too much on his mind. He carried on around the perimeter to the grandiose edifice that he thought of as the Executive Block. Nnanji called it the Tivanixi Building. To the rank and file it was the Lions’ Den. It flaunted pillars, gargoyles, balconies, and turrets in the currently fashionable wedding-cake style. Marble and gilt shone everywhere, for this was a state building, expected to last for centuries.

Just inside the doorway, stood a skinny First, who moved forward to intercept without looking nearly as awed as he should at having to accost the great Lord Shonsu. He was a page on the liege’s staff, named… named…

“My lord?”

“Yes, Novice—”
Got it!
“—Gwiddle?”

Gwiddle glowed with pleasure at being remembered. “Master Horkoda sent me to wa— to
inform
you, my lord, that Lady Thana and Chancellor Katanji are both waiting to see you.”

“Great Goddess! They’re not together, I hope?”

“No, my lord. Master Horkoda is attending her ladyship in your office.”

Wallie muttered thanks and turned to the much larger lad hovering in the background. It was Vixini, with a very smug expression on his not-so-innocent young face.

“Where is he?” Wallie demanded.

“In the kitchen, my lord.”

“Good man. Keep him there until I send for you. Um, wait…”

Vixi reversed his turn. “My lord?”

Wallie had been thinking about the killer in the night. Had he not wakened in time, he would have died. What would have happened then to Jja and the children? Jja was a highly intelligent and competent woman, but this was still a male-dominated world, and it had no pensions or entitlements. Nnanji might support her, if he thought of it, but chances were that the load would fall on this yellow-kilted kid with the sword on his back. A Second was not paid a living wage and had almost no legal standing, whereas a Third in any craft was an adult citizen, regardless of age.

“I am calling an assembly for Sailors’ Day. I am going to put you up for promotion. You are still fifteen sutras short of the requirement for third rank.”

Vixini stiffened in astonishment. “But, mentor—“

“I won’t have time to coach you myself, I’m afraid. You have my permission to get help from other swordsmen.” He turned to Filurz. “Adept, will you see my protégé is fluent in the first 314 sutras by Sailors’ Day?”

Filurz looked skeptical but saluted, fist on heart. “My pleasure, my lord.”

Vixini looked aghast at the prospect. “But…”

“That’s an order, protégé.”

“Mentor!” Vixini thumped his chest.

Chuckling to himself, Wallie headed for the guardroom, which offered a private route into his office, bypassing the antechamber where Katanji would be waiting.

“Keep them all here for now,” he told Filurz, meaning that he might have to leave the lodge again very shortly. Since he did not need guarding otherwise, Wallie’s escort could often spend their days training for their next promotion, which made theirs a very coveted posting.

He crossed the guardroom and stepped through the door into his office. Horkoda of the Fifth looked up with obvious relief, but did not stand up. Horkoda had been a rising star until he was pushed overboard during a fight on a ship. Although he had managed to catch hold of the rail and escape total emersion, by the time he had hauled himself completely out of the water, the piranha had taken all of his left foot and the toes of his right. He spent his days now in a wheelchair—designed by Lord Shonsu, of course—and now much copied in the World.

As Wallie’s chief of staff, Horkoda ran the office and kept Wallie sane. Whether Horkoda himself was totally sane was open to question. He had reacted to his personal tragedy by rationalizing that he had been chosen by the Goddess to serve his liege in this way. He had turned into a workaholic, capable of working all night or forgetting to eat.

The office itself was roomy but simple. It was furnished with a table and stools, not chairs, because most visitors wore swords on their backs. A single chest under the window provided adequate filing space, for the World was still very largely illiterate, and the window itself offered a fine view of the riverbank and the mountains of the RegiVul range in the distance.

Lady Thana rose to greet the deputy liege.

Chapter 3

Thana was always a problem. In the early days of the Tryst she had tried sending for Shonsu when she had something to discuss. As a Seventh, he had declined to answer her summons, but that meant that she would not answer his either, so they had reached a tacit understanding that whoever wanted a meeting went to call on the other. In fifteen years Nnanji had never noticed any friction between his wife and his oath brother. She was still a strikingly beautiful woman, if no longer the svelte young goddess whom Nnanji had wooed and won fifteen years ago. Childbearing had thickened her, and in a few years she might be as bulgy as a feather mattress, like her mother, Brota. Nevertheless, Lady Thana was empress of the World, at least in her own eyes, and possessor of unbounded wealth. Nnanji was as honest as an angel; his wife and brother made up for it.

She gestured to make the salute to a superior. “I am Thana, swordsman of the third rank…”

Wallie drew his sword to give the response. Then, “I am glad to see Master Horkoda has been plying you with wine and pastries. I deeply regret keeping you waiting, my lady. I had a disturbed night, and—”

“So I hear. I congratulate you on a very narrow escape.”

Just for a moment Wallie wondered if Thana might have sent the mysterious assassin after him, but saw at once that the idea was absurd. Their feud did not run as deep as that. In fact they needed each other, for they were both vital cogs in Nnanji’s empire-building machine.

Wallie sat down on the nearest stool. Horkoda reached for his wheels, an offer to leave the two of them alone. Wallie gestured for him to stay.

“So what can I do for you today, my lady?”

“I received your message, of course, that my husband will return. I thought we might drive out together to meet him. I brought my carriage.”

They had done that before, so it was not an unreasonable request. Indeed, when she did not invite him along, it was because she had been up to something and wanted to be sure she spoke to Nnanji before Wallie did. He was not aware of anything underhand overhanging at the moment, and Horkoda wasn’t sending him signals to warn of something he ought to know and didn’t. But Katanji was out in the waiting room, which certainly was unusual. Curious!

And why come in person instead of sending a servant with the invitation?

“That seems like an excellent idea,” Wallie said. “The pickets out at the Divide will signal us when his train approaches.” He glanced at Horkoda, who nodded to imply that that arrangement had been confirmed. Such signals were sent by pigeon. Nnanji was always pleased to receive a royal welcome when he returned from campaigning, but probably had little idea how much organizing that took. “There has been no further word from Lord Nnanji?”

Horkoda pulled a face. “A brief note, rather cryptic.”

“Saying what?”

“Saying only,
Where is Lord Mibullim?
”

Blank looks all round.

“I do not recall any lord Mibullim,” Wallie admitted. Nor even an Honorable Mibullim, as he would have been before winning promotion from sixth rank. Nnanji must be referring to a swordsman, or he would have specified the unknown man’s craft when he dictated the message. “When did that arrive?”

“Just before dusk last night, late for the bird to fly. I have made extensive inquiries since then, my lord, and no one in the lodge has ever heard of a swordsman named Mibullim.” Horkoda’s idea of extensive inquiries might have involved staying up all night to question a thousand swordsmen.

Nnanji was at Quo. Casr was on the RegiVul loop, a part of the River very hard to access by boat, so the city’s door to the rest of the World was the overland trail to Quo. A swordsman of the seventh rank never went anywhere without an entourage, so if Nnanji had expected to meet this Mibullim in Quo, the man should have been easily located. If Horkoda had found no trace of him, the man did not belong to the Tryst.

“Very peculiar,” Wallie said, “but I expect we shall learn more when Nnanji arrives.” There was no point sending a query to Quo; he would be well on his way by now. He turned to Thana again. “The moment I hear that Nnanji’s party has been sighted, my lady, I shall ride over to your palace and be most happy to ride in your carriage with you.”

She rose. “I expect he’ll be here shortly. By the way, have you seen Addis anywhere today?”

Was that the real reason she had come here? Probably someone had seen the boy going off with Vixi and she had followed in hot pursuit to their most likely destination.

“Has he run off without his guards again?”

She rolled her eyes. “I suggested last time that we put a ball and chain on him, remember?”

Body guarding an active fourteen-year-old was like trying to glue a snowdrift to a ceiling. Thana had often appealed to Wallie to play the in-loco-parentis role and put the fear of the Goddess into Addis, but he was Nnanji’s son: threats just bounced off him.

“If I see him, Thana, I will chain both his balls, I promise you.” But Wallie was fairly sure that there must be more behind this visit, so he fed her a cue. “It’s about time you found a mentor to handle him.”

Cats never really smiled, but some smiles were catlike. “Which craft would you recommend?”

How much she had guessed about Vixini’s abduction of her son that morning? Any child balked by one unreasonable parent would at once appeal to the other, and Shonsu was Addis’s father substitute until Nnanji returned. Thana was within her maternal rights in not wanting Wallie interfering in the matter of her child’s initiation, except that her son’s choice of craft might become a matter of geopolitical importance some day.

Wallie had an empire to run, a reception and assembly to organize, a celebration to plan, and here he was, all entangled in the consequences of one boy’s hormonal maturation. But that mattered. Of course it mattered! Addis was the eldest son. The World had never know an empire before Thana and Katanji invented that use for the Tryst, but it had umpteen petty kingdoms, and male primogeniture was the commonest means of succession. Vixini had said she wanted Addis sworn in as a priest. That made sense, because kingship was not a craft, and royal heirs were usually sworn to the priesthood. Priests were sacrosanct. Only a swordsman could wear the seventh sword of Chioxin, the sword of the Goddess, but a civilian could own a sword as long as he did not wear it or try to use it. Wallie was not at all sure that she was right, but now he knew how her mind was working, and he could see that the next day or two in the life of Addis, son of Nnanji, might well determine the future history of the World.

Why had there been a diamond in his bed to waken him? Why another assassination attempt just now? Who was Lord Mibullim? On Earth he had distrusted coincidences. In the World he saw them as the handiwork of the gods. All these odd events would turn out to be related, even Addis’s coming of age.

“I’m not sure,” he said truthfully. “Addis is a clever boy. He has lots of charm. And lately he’s been getting very good at using it! He’s his father’s son when it comes to stubbornness, and probably courage. It’s up to you and Nnanji to decide, of course, but don’t try to make a fish fly, as they say.”

Thana bit her lip and headed for the door. “I shall let you busy men get on with your labors. See you shortly, Lord Shonsu.”

“This way is more private!” Wallie hastily crossed the room and let her out through the guardroom. He did not want her coming face to face with Katanji, or vice versa. Life was complicated enough at the moment without getting any deeper into a family quarrel.

He went back to his stool. “Treasurer Katanji next, of course, please. And, master, why don’t you see who else is out there and put off anyone whose business will wait until tomorrow?”

He meant that he wanted no witnesses when he spoke with Katanji, who was usually skirting some law or other on the wrong side. Understanding perfectly, Horkoda wheeled himself over to the door and went out. Wallie opened the hidden liquor cabinet and filled a silver goblet with his best sweet wine. He put a much lesser amount in a second goblet, then turned to hand the first to Katanji as the treasurer strolled in.