Valdemar 06 - [Exile 01] - Exile’s Honor (11 page)

“Ah,” Jadus said, and grimaced. As Alberich had expected, the Herald was utterly transparent when it came to his feelings and what he was thinking, and right now, he realized just how wary, even frightened, all those young Trainees might be of Alberich. “I suppose he's right, Alberich; I don't think you would fit in very well with the rest of the boys.”

“I think not,” Alberich agreed quietly. Although he did not know this man Dethor—he knew the species. Another warrior. Someone who would think as
he
thought. As comfortable a Valdemaran to share living space with as he was likely to find.

“Then have them fetch his things over. As of now, he's an Internee with classes. I know the rules as well as you, but rules are made to be broken, now and then. Just tell Talamir what I've done, Sendar will decree it, and there'll be an end to argument.”

:This is better than I had hoped for,:
Kantor said, sounding pleased.
:Dethor fought on the Border, you see. We weren't altogether certain what he'd think of you.:

:Why didn't you ask his Companion?:
Alberich asked.

:Because Dethor doesn't have much consistency in the way of Mindspeech. Pahshen doesn't always know what he's thinking. The bond is there, and they do just fine, but when Dethor closes up—well, he's unreadable, and he's been completely unreadable where
you
are concerned.:

Ah. That put a different complexion on things.

“I'll see to it,” Jadus said, and turned to look at the gaping children. “Shouldn't you be practicing?” he asked pointedly.

They flushed and looked guilty, especially the eldest, and gathered up their equipment and went back to the archery field. Alberich followed Dethor back into the building.

At the back wall was a door, half hidden in the paneling, the same door that Kimel, the man in the blue uniform, had come through. Alberich followed Dethor through that door as well, into a long and narrow room with seating and a wall of windows that looked out on a rather unprepossessing stretch of meadow and bushes.

“Come in here, and I'll show you how to clean up,” the old man said, waving him on. Apparently there was an entire suite of rooms here, behind the salle. Through another door, Alberich found Dethor waiting in a tiny room tiled floor-to-ceiling in white ceramic, holding a lit fireplace squib.

“Take this, reach up, and light that,” the old man said, pointing to a metal container that looked very like a candle with an enormously fat wick. Pipes led up through the ceiling, and also from the bottom of the drum across to a perforated disk suspended from the middle of the ceiling. “Then turn that spigot, and you'll get a warm rain shower out of that plate. There's a box of soap there, and I'll bring you a towel; by the time you're clean, Jadus will have brought your things here and I'll have a new uniform for you. Then we can talk.”

Then we can talk.
Words both ominous and positive. This man had fought against Karse on the Border—but he had just brought Alberich into his personal quarters, and he was going to talk.

We are both warriors,
he reminded himself.
We speak a common language that has nothing to do with Valdemaran syntax and Karsite verbs.

Alberich stripped off his sweat-sodden uniform and turned the spigot on the wall, and just as Dethor had said, a “rain” of warm water came down from the perforated plate, draining away through a grate in the floor. This was an infinitely faster way of getting clean than a bath. Not as luxurious, but much more efficient. There was a second door into this chamber, but for now, Alberich figured he could wait to discover what lay behind it.

Dethor was as good as his word. By the time Alberich cautiously opened the door to the little room, there was a folded uniform and a towel in a pile beside it. He snuffed the contrivance that heated the water, then lost no time in toweling himself off and getting into a brand new uniform for the second time that day. It felt good to be clean, to have all his muscles aching—just a little—from the exertion. For the first time since he'd come here, he felt entirely like himself. He joined his new mentor in the sitting area, hair still damp.

“Take a seat,” the old man said. Alberich gingerly chose a chair facing his new mentor.

“Now, before we start out, I want everything straight between us,” said Dethor forthrightly. “I don't particularly like Karsites.” He sucked in his lower lip. “Mind, it's the ones in charge I've got a bone to pick with. Your Sunpriests. Just the Karsite ones, mind; we've got a little sect of your lot on this side of the Border, and I've no quarrel with
them.
”

Alberich nodded, cautiously.

“Now, you're a soldier. Reckon that mostly what you did was take orders. Question I've got for you is—just how much did you
think
about them orders when you got 'em?” Dethor gave him a sharp look.

“Much,” Alberich replied immediately, without even thinking about it very long. “Look you—my duty—to
what
it was? My God, and my people.” He decided that he would leave his duty to Vkandis between himself and the God. “My people to
protect.
Not to the Fires to feed them. Not to bandits to leave them.”

“And if them priests had told you to attack us, you'd have done it?” Dethor persisted.

Alberich could only shrug. “Then? You, Demon-Riders, lovers of demons, with witch-powers and witch-ways? Yes. A threat, I saw you.”

“Hmph. Honest, at least. Now?” Dethor asked.

“Now—there, I am not. Here, I am.” He shrugged. What was the point in asking such a question? Already he was an entirely different person from Captain Alberich of the Sunsguard. Tomorrow he might be a different person from today.

Dethor sighed, with some exaggeration. “All I'm asking is, are you going to knife me in my sleep because I killed a baker's dozen of
your
folk
and
a couple of your Priests a while back?”

Alberich gave Dethor the same answer
he
had given Alberich. “You, a soldier are. And your duty? To your King, and your people. This, I understand.”

And if he asked
me
about questioning orders, I would suspect he thought about
his
before he obeyed them. . . .

“Farmers, killed you?” he persisted. “Craftsmen?” He hunted for the word. Kantor helped.

“Civilians?”

“Never,” Dethor replied, with such matter-of-factness that Alberich couldn't doubt him. “Unless you count the priests.”

Alberich dismissed the Sunpriests out of hand. “Then, no quarrel have I with you.”

“Reckon you're ready to help me beat some skill into a pack of puppies that never saw blood?” Dethor asked, the wrinkles around his eyes relaxing, and a hint of ease creeping into his voice.

Some of whom may grow up to slay more Karsites. . . .
“A question,” he asked, and picked his words with care. “The answer, on your honor, swear.
Do
you of Valdemar—
do
you make war, and unleash demons, my people upon?”

“No!”
Dethor said with such force that Alberich started back in his chair, his hand reaching automatically for a knife that wasn't there.

“No,” the Weaponsmaster repeated, without the heat. “I swear to you, on my honor, on my gods, on my life, we do nothing of the sort. We'll defend ourselves—and there's bandits along the Border that prey on both sides of it, as I assume you know well enough—but never
once
in my time have we even pursued an invading army past the Border once we reached it. You already know that what you call ‘White Demons' are nothing but our Companions. If there are demons preying on your people by night—” and a knowing glance told Alberich that this man
knew
that there were, “—then I say, look to your own priests. We don't have anything or anyone that calls up the likes of demons, and even if we did, we'd not set them on ordinary folk who just have the misfortune to live in the wrong place.”

Dethor's suggestion that Alberich look to the Sunpriests for those who let demons prowl the night was not unexpected—and it was true. This was a thought that had already passed through Alberich's mind, more than once. He nodded.

And he thought of those fresh-faced youngsters at the archery field, how unless someone taught them all of the thousands of ways in which they could die and how to counter their opponents and save themselves—then they
would
die. For no more crime than serving their people, as he had. This man would not have taken him, a foreigner, to apprentice as his replacement, if he'd had any other choice. He could turn Dethor down, and have all those needless deaths on his own conscience. Or he could accept the position—

—and accept that he was going to stay.

:You are needed here,:
Kantor said simply.
:Perhaps only a handful of people even among the Heralds know this—but you
are
needed here. Whatever else comes, whether your God had a hand in bringing you here, whether or not He has further plans for you here, there is that. No one else can do what you can; Dethor has looked a long, long time for his replacement, and you are his last, best choice.:

“Then—yes,” he replied, answering both Dethor and Kantor. “Yes. Learn I will, and teach.”

“Then here's my hand on it.” Dethor held out his sword-callused palm, and Alberich clasped it. A powerful and strong hand, that one had been; it was strong still, under the swollen joints and past the pain.

“Now, let me show you your quarters.” Dethor got up out of his chair; Alberich forbore to offer him a hand. There would be a time for that later. Right now, Dethor could manage, and as long as he could manage alone, he would want to. Alberich rose, and followed in the old man's footsteps.

The quarters behind the salle turned out to be a series of interconnected rooms, with no space wasted on halls. This was a sitting room, primarily; the sun came in here on winter afternoons, which probably made it a good place for Dethor to sit and bask his bones. At the rear, it led into the “showering room” which had a cistern on the roof that fed both it and a privy on the other side of the room—which was where that second door led. On the other side of
that
was Dethor's bedroom, then a second room, which looked mostly unused, but which did have a bed and a wooden chest in it. Then storage rooms and an office, which led, in turn, back into the salle. If one followed a path around, it would be in the shape of a “u” with the two points of the letter representing the two doors into the salle.

A pile of clothing and gear lay on the bed in the second room, which Alberich assumed was going to be his. Jadus worked quickly, it seemed. The arrangement suited him, actually. And comforted him. There would be no one sleeping between him and a direct line out of here. Oh, there were windows to climb out of, but that was awkward and had the potential to be very noisy.

“This has always been laid out with the idea that the Weaponsmaster shares quarters with his Second,” Dethor told him, then grinned evilly. “The Second's closer to the salle, so if there's a crisis in the middle of the night—?”

“The Second, the one who answers, is,” Alberich said with mock resignation. “Master.”

“Exactly. Just got one question for you.
I
have 'em bring my meals over from the Collegium—there's a fireplace in the sitting room where things can be kept hot. Wastes my time to be hauling myself over there and back, three times a day. But
you
—you might be wanting to be around people more.”

It's too painful for him to be dragging himself back and forth.
Alberich found it very easy to read between
those
lines.
But—he's lonely. No, I won't desert him, not even for meals.
“If you, my master and teacher will be here—then going
there
of what use is?” he asked logically. “A waste of
my
time. Asking questions, having advice, I could be. Besides, soldiers are we. Understand each other, we do.”

Was it his imagination, or did Dethor actually soften a bit? “You'll find that boy Kimel is another of our sort,” he said. “Head of His Majesty's Personal Guard, that boy, and hard on himself. Always after someone to make him better and keener, but he just hasn't what's needed to be Weaponsmaster. Trained him myself, though.”

“Then, on himself, he would hard be.” Alberich knew that much for certain. “Like master, like man, at home we say.”

“We say the same thing here,” Dethor replied, and it seemed, with some content. “Not so different after all, in some things, at least.”

“No,” Alberich agreed.

“Right.
I
have a gaggle of youngsters coming in a moment.
You
get this room arranged to your liking, then come out and give me a hand with 'em. No time like the present to start.” Once again, Dethor was all brisk business, and as he limped out, Alberich made haste to follow his orders.

He made up the bed with the linens and blankets he found in the chest, and put his things away. Not that he had a great deal to put away—those uniforms, light ones for summer, heavier materials for winter, a cloak—some toiletries, which he was pleased enough to see. He took the opportunity to give his short-cut hair a good combing, thinking as he did so that he probably ought to let it grow out now. Longer hair seemed to be the fashion in Valdemar, and there was no use in looking more conspicuous than he already did.

:You've decided to stay.:
Kantor exuded satisfaction.

:Yes.:
He knew he had made up his mind that the so-called “trial” was over, probably the instant that he realized Dethor wanted him to train as a replacement Weaponsmaster. Maybe that was all it had really taken, the knowledge that they weren't going to
make
work for him, and fit him in somehow, but that there already was a place here that was crying out for someone like him.
:Yes,:
he repeated.
:It seems I'm needed.: