The Summer Palace (5 page)

“But still, I suspect that at least some among you would prefer not to allow him even that.”

The chieftain did not reply in words, but the expression on his face was enough to confirm for Sword that not only did the Wizard Lord's imposition annoy the chieftain, but that Sword's own insistence on it was also annoying. So far, he was not doing his case any good.

“I think we have a common enemy, sir,” Sword continued. “At least, I came here in that hope.”

“We have no enemies,” the seated man replied. “None who still live. But tell us, then, who
your
enemy is.”

“You will see when the snows come and you return to Winter-home's guesthouses, I think. You may find notices there, and my portrait,” Sword said. “I am the Wizard Lord's foe, and he has declared me traitor and outlaw. He has sent his men out across the countryside seeking me, and ordering any who see me to notify him at once. I fled here, to the Uplands, because there was nowhere in Barokan I would be safe from him.”

“Ah, now that
is
interesting,” the chieftain said, leaning forward. “And you carry a sword. Are you the Chosen Swordsman, perhaps? Have the Chosen declared this one a Dark Lord?”

Sword bowed. “You are wise, sir. I regret I do not know a better title to call you by, sir, for such wisdom deserves respect.” He hoped that he was not overdoing his politeness; he did not want it to be taken for mockery.

Somehow, though, he didn't think these people would see any sort of flattery or formality as excessive.

“I am the Patriarch of the Golden Spear,” the seated man said, as if bestowing a great favor. “You may address me as Patriarch.”

“Thank you, Patriarch. I am called the Swordsman, as you guessed.”

“And have the Chosen named the Wizard Lord of Winterhome a Dark Lord?”

“I think we must say he is, O Patriarch.”

“Yet I have heard much of the benefits he has brought to Barokan, and I have seen with my own eyes the magnificence of the market square in Winterhome. I have tasted the new foods and felt the new fabrics available there. What evil has he done, to counterbalance this?”

“He has violated his oath and turned on the Chosen without cause, O Patriarch.”

“Has he? In what manner?”

“Two of us sought to parley with the Wizard Lord,” he explained, “regarding certain matters where we were unsure he had acted wisely, whereupon he imprisoned the Leader and the Scholar, and sent soldiers to slay the rest of us. They killed the Seer and the Speaker. I escaped, and I do not know what became of the Thief, the Archer, and the Beauty. We had not yet determined him to be a Dark Lord, and ordinarily it is not my place to make that determination, but under the laws and customs of Barokan, if the Wizard Lord brings about the death of any of the Chosen, then he has broken his oath and become a Dark Lord. Therefore,
I
consider him to be one.”

His voice started to give out by the end of this speech, and another cup of water appeared. He drank it quickly.

“What were these matters where your comrades thought the Wizard Lord might have acted unwisely?” the Patriarch asked as Sword handed back the empty cup.

“He had ordered several wizards to be killed, and we did not believe he had sufficient cause for their deaths.”

“Ah. Then it was purely a Barokanese matter, and none of our concern here.”

Sword bowed again. “As you say, O Patriarch.”

The Patriarch tugged at his beard thoughtfully, then straightened a bit of feather he had dislodged. “You are aware, of course,” he said, “that we do not owe any allegiance to the Wizard Lord, nor do we consider ourselves bound by the foolish games of you chosen heroes, with your rules and magics and trickery. Ordinarily, we would take no side in your quarrel.”

“Of course! You are the masters of the Uplands, you aren't Barokanese,” Sword said. “But you spend your winters in the Wizard Lord's domain, and I assume that was the power he held over you to compel you to grant him that bit of land on the clifftop—in exchange for your winters below, he wanted summers above.”

“And if it was?”

“Why, then you might have cause to dislike him. No one wishes to be compelled in such matters. And for that reason, I thought you might choose to grant me sanctuary.”

“Go on.”

“If he were slain, you could reclaim that land. The next Wizard Lord, if there even is one after two such Dark Lords in a row, may well be forbidden to leave Barokan—certainly, I will advise the Council of Immortals, the wizards who determine the rules by which the Wizard Lord is bound, to add that restriction. And in any case, the next Wizard Lord will not live in Winterhome; custom requires that each Wizard Lord choose a home where no other Wizard Lord before him has dwelled. If you found this one's presence uncomfortable during these past few winters, that would cease to trouble you when he dies.”

“Then you are suggesting that we should allow you to live freely in the Uplands so that you may kill the Wizard Lord at some future time.”

“Yes. Killing him is my duty, as the Chosen Swordsman—and while you, as you say, take no side in our quarrels, I thought you might find his death convenient.”

The Patriarch leaned back in his chair and stroked his beard. “Interesting,” he said. “Just how would you hope to approach him? I
had understood, from the stories and ballads, that the Chosen operate as a team, and that most of the others serve only to get you close enough to perform the actual killing. Yet you say two of you have been captured, two have been killed, and the rest have scattered. How, then, do you expect to manage without your companions?”

Sword dropped down to one knee again, and lowered his eyes. “O Patriarch,” he said, “while I recognize you as a man to be trusted, a man whose discretion can be relied upon, I do not know what other, less worthy ears may be listening. I do not question the men you allow to serve you here, for to do so would be to question your own judgment, but could there not be boys, women, or slaves listening outside? Children can have keen ears and loose tongues, women can let slip secrets, and what slave can be entirely trusted? What I say here might be heard by the Wizard Lord months from now in Winterhome, passed from eavesdropper to friendly Hostman, Hostman to guard, and guard to lord, and if the wrong words are spoken and transmitted in such a fashion, all my efforts might be thwarted. I would prefer, then, to say nothing of my plans at this time, and in this place.”

The Patriarch frowned. “You ask me to take much on faith.”

Sword bowed his head, then raised it and met the Patriarch's gaze. “I do, I know, and therefore I will say that I spent some time in the Winter Palace, and spoke at length with the Scholar, who had been there much longer and had studied its construction. The Thief is a master at entering guarded homes, and may have taught me a few tricks.” While these facts were literally true, the implication that he knew of some secret way in, some way to get past all the Wizard Lord's guards and defenses, was not.

“I see.” The Patriarch did not sound entirely convinced.

“I do not ask for your assistance in this,” Sword said, dropping his gaze again. “I ask only that you allow me to live freely on your lands, and teach me enough of your ways to survive. I know nothing of finding food and water here.”

“An interesting proposition. But why, O Chosen Swordsman, should we not keep you as a slave for now, and release you when we
make the journey down the cliffs? Regardless of how we treat you, you are still required to kill the Wizard Lord, are you not?”

“I am. But I am a strong man, and skilled with the sword, and will not submit willingly, and if you kill me, I am of no use to you and no danger to the Wizard Lord.” He carefully kept his gaze lowered as he said this; the words were defiance enough without showing his face.

“Ha! A good reply. Perhaps you could work for us in certain ways, though?”

“I am glad to earn my keep in any honorable fashion, Patriarch.”

“Then I think an accommodation can be reached. Rise, Swordsman.”

Sword rose.

He was given a place to sleep in a tent shared by four of the clan's young men—not a bed, but a patch of ground and a thin bit of carpet. Two of them were the pair who had found him out on the plain and helped him to the camp; they were known as Fist and Dancer. The other two were called Whistler and Bent Ear.

He did not think to ask until days later, but eventually Sword discovered that the Uplanders never used true names, not because they were worried about hostile magic like the people of Mad Oak, but because they had no way of learning their own true names. They had no contact with
ler
who might have informed them; even during their stays in Winterhome, they did not consult the Host People's priests. Instead they used nicknames.

They also had clan names that described their lineage, which were used on formal occasions, but which were unsuitable for everyday use—”Second Son of the Third Daughter of the Eleventh Generation of the Blue Chalk Line of the Dragon Clan, Sired by the Eldest Scion of the Tertiary Honor Line of the Clan of the Golden Spear” did not come so easily to the tongue, in either Barokanese or Uplander, as “Fist.”

Fist and Dancer seemed friendly enough at that first meeting; Whistler nodded an acknowledgment when introduced, but said nothing, while Bent Ear merely grunted. That night Sword was too exhausted to do anything more than roll himself up in the tattered scrap of carpet and go to sleep. In the morning, though, he felt sufficiently recovered to begin his education in Uplander life.

The young men whose tent he shared and two wrinkled old women, called Gnaw Gnaw and Stepmother, served as his instructors
in the ways of the Clan of the Golden Spear. He began asking questions as soon as he was out of his carpet, and the six of them answered—or four of the six, anyway; Bent Ear and Whistler didn't say much.

“Bent Ear doesn't speak much Barokanese,” Dancer explained quietly. “We all learn it during the winters, down in the Lowlands, but among ourselves we have our own tongue. Bent Ear has no knack for languages; he sometimes has trouble understanding the dialects of other clans, let alone Barokanese.”

“What about Whistler?” Sword asked.

Dancer shrugged. “He just doesn't talk much, in any tongue.”

Sword nodded, and asked about what he should wear—would his Host People garb be acceptable?

“You aren't going to look like one of us in any case, so I can't see that it matters,” Fist told him.

“I doubt it will hold up,” Gnaw Gnaw said. “And you might want more feathers, to keep your dreams private.”

Sword did not mention that his clothes were lined with hidden feathers; instead he said, “I can't sense any
ler
at all here; I doubt dreams will be a problem.”

“That may change, when you have been here awhile.”

“A change of clothing would be welcome, in any case.”

“Then you'll need to make some.”

“I hope someone will help me with that.”

The Uplanders exchanged glances. “If you can find a way to pay for it, I'm sure someone will,” Dancer told him.

Sword persevered, asking more about clothing, about food, about shelter, about everything he could think of. While his ignorance often provoked grins or outright laughter, the six of them patiently answered even his most foolish questions. The Patriarch had told them to teach him, and so they would teach him; no one dared defy the Patriarch.

After he had breakfasted on bits of smoked
ara
and washed himself as well as he could with only a small pot of water and a bit of
rag, all under Fist's watchful eye, he presented himself to be trained further, and his designated teachers then led him around the encampment, explaining everything he saw.

Each clan, Sword learned, survived by following a particular flock of
ara.
Each year the Uplanders came up from Barokan just as the great flocks were returning from their own winter homes in the distant south, and the clans would find and claim their flocks for that season. If there were not enough flocks, as sometimes happened, then whatever clan failed to find a flock would be forced to disband, its members finding new homes in other clans. If there were more flocks than clans, as happened somewhat more often, then lost clans might be reconstituted, or young men and women from the largest clans might form an entirely new one.

The camp was maintained at a safe distance from the flock—not so close the birds were panicked, nor so far that the flock might slip away unnoticed. If the flock moved on, nesting too far away, the camp was packed up and relocated, as well.

The men of the clan hunted the
ara.
Whenever the supplies of meat were low, a hunting party would go out and pick off any birds that had strayed from the main body, and if those were not sufficient, they would deliberately startle a group of
ara
and bring down the slowest.