Scion of Cyador (6 page)

“The turn of summer, ser?”

The overcaptain gives the senior squad leader another smile. “I’m certain you can help me work this out, Helkyt. I’d much rather rely on someone of your experience in Biehl than to break in someone new.”

“I am sure we can meet the Majer-Commander’s requirements, ser. Ah… will there be other officers… company captains?”

“I was led to believe that I have the first opportunity here, Helkyt. I’d like to be able to work it out between us. If it proves to take too long, though, there could be several officers arriving, and the Majer-Commander would just bring in an entire new cadre.”

“I am most sure we can work out matters, ser. Most sure.”

Lorn leans back in his chair, but only slightly. “I am most pleased that you feel that way. Both the Majer-Commander and His Mightiness are known to reward success as surely as they punish failure. We would both prefer the rewards, I believe.”

“Yes, ser. Yes, ser.” Helkyt nods his head twice, quickly.

“Now… let’s talk about what we can do immediately. The payroll first, because it affects how many new lancers we can train. I’ve been looking at those records.”

Helkyt remains impassive in his chair, but his eyes flicker.

“The numbers don’t add up.” The overcaptain shrugs. “We cannot change the past, and I won’t pass judgment on what has happened.” He pauses. “But it won’t keep happening. We have a payroll enough for two companies of lancers. We have less than one company. We aren’t recruiting that many young lancers, and I would guess many of their skills are suspect. So… we’ll have to make sure the lancers who aren’t so good get retrained, as well. I’d like you to begin organizing the training program-both for recruits and for those who need more training. Pick the two best riding lancers for mount and formation training and the two best for sabres. They can be the same men, or they can be different. I may help out, as I can.” Lorn frowns. “At first, with the sabre training, we’d best pad the blades to begin with, at least until the younger ones know which side has an edge and which does not.”

Helkyt nods his head up and down slowly, then takes out a piece of squarish cloth and blots his forehead.

Lorn ignores the gesture and continues. “I’ll meet with you and with the men you’ve chosen first thing tomorrow.” He looks at the next item on his handwritten list. “The pay chest is the next thing. There’s much of that payroll that seems to have disappeared. I’m sure that if you looked, you could find some of it. We’re going to need it.” Lorn smiles at Helkyt. “I’m also sure that if a good portion of the missing silvers and golds turn up and we accomplish what the Majer-Commander has in mind, he wouldn’t want to bother himself with sending more officers here.”

Helkyt nods slowly. “There are perhaps somewhat less than a hundred golds in the chest in the strong room, and some two hundred silvers. I might be able to find some others, placed elsewhere for safekeeping, now that we know what the Majer-Commander has in mind.”

“I’m certain you will do your best.” Lorn smiles briefly. “Now, how does our payroll get here?”

“We get a chest every other eightday,” replies the senior squad leader. “I take the travel chest to the Emperor’s Enumerators, and they fill it, and the guards and I bring it here and put it in the strongroom until we pay the men on sevenday.”

“When you do next receive that payroll?”

“The day after tomorrow.”

“Good. From now on, each time you do that, we’ll count it here in the study, and we’ll both sign a record showing how much we received.” .;

“Yes, ser. I’ll talk to the enumerators.”

“That’s a good idea. They should know what the Majer-Commander has in mind, too, especially before they provide the next payroll.”

“I would think so, ser.”

“I’ll have to meet with them. Perhaps we should do it together.”

“Ah… yes, ser.”

Lorn smiles again. “I want to make sure that we’re supplying them with the services they need.”

“You said your consort was the head of a trading house, ser?”

“Yes. I’ve learned a great deal from her.”

Helkyt smiles. “I am certain the enumerators will wish to learn that the commander has some understanding of trade and merchanters.”

“You might send them a message to that effect, but I think we should meet with them tomorrow, as early as possible.”

“Yes, ser.”

Lorn glances at his handwritten list again. “The north wing of the barracks. We’ll need to hire a cart or a wagon and carry all the junk off. Is there a rag-picker here in Biehl that might pay us something for the cloth and the wood?”

Helkyt’s face blanks.

“You need to find out if there is. Also, we’ll need to see about whether there enough cuprite for the coppersmith to pay us…”

Lorn stops as Helkyt’s eyes begin to glaze over. “I’ve offered enough for now. Why don’t you start on working out who can do the training?” He stands. “We’ll talk later.”

Helkyt lurches to his feet. “I will have those names for you shortly, ser. Most shortly.”

The smile does not leave Lorn’s face until the senior squad leader closes the door behind him.

XIV

In the spring evening, sitting at the desk in his quarters’ study, Lorn examines the payroll and expense-draw figures once more. He shakes his head. Without additional golds, he cannot afford both mounts and saddles for two full companies, even if he does not recruit the second new squad until midsummer. He may be able to draw upon the District Guards. He shakes his head once more, then jots an addition to his list. He needs to send a message to the District Guard Commander, and then visit the commander, for another aspect of his duties is to ascertain and verify the numbers and capabilities of those guards-something that has not been done in years. He sets aside his list and picks up the payroll figures again.

After yet another series of mental calculations, he sets aside the reckonings, knowing that unless he can obtain good horses more cheaply or saddles or… something… he will not reach his goals, and so many of those goals are but within his own mind. Knowing what he must do, he tries not to dwell on the audacity required. Yet, without audacity his future is dim indeed. And without knowledge as well, he reminds himself.

He laughs to himself. Still… he assumes that a man can make the times, when it is not at all clear that such is possible, or even that the times make the man. He will see; he must see.

He slips the chaos-glass from the single drawer and sets it on the polished wood. While Lorn knows that he must be successful in using the glass in order to survive and prosper, it has been difficult enough to follow those in the glass with whom he has little connection. Yet a chaos-glass would prove most useful as a battlefield tool-if only to see where the barbarians-or any enemy-might be riding.

Lorn concentrates. This time takes longer, far longer, than when he has sought individuals he has met or known about, before the silver mists clear and display a view of riders. The image displayed is that of a raider band. Lorn’s only problem is that he has no idea where the barbarians might be, or what might be their destination.

After releasing the image, he takes a deep breath. Will he have to use the glass to map the northwest section of the Hills of Endless Grass? Or perhaps if he tries to call up an image of Jera?

He concentrates once more-and is rewarded with the vision of a town that appears much as Biehl must from above-except Jera appears to be on the north side of the River Jeranya. The sparkling in Lorn’s eyes slowly turns into needles, then narrow stilettos that stab at the back of his eyes as he tries to make out individual sections of the town in the glass.

When he finally releases the image, his head is pounding, and tiny knives continue to jab through his eyes and into his skull. He sits with his eyes closed, well into the darkness, massaging his forehead, trying to rub away the throbbing that follows extensive use of the chaos-glass. Finally, Lorn opens his eyes, slips the glass into the drawer, stands, and lights the lamp. Then he takes out the pen and a fresh sheet of paper and begins to write, slowly, carefully. First come the letters to his parents and Jerial, then a shorter one to Myryan, and finally, the one with which he would have preferred to have begun. But had he started with it, the others might not have been written.

When he is finished with the last letter, the one to Ryalth, he looks over the scroll he has written-drafted most carefully, since he has no way to send a scroll through merchanters he can trust and thus must dispatch this scroll through the normal firewagon/courier system.

My dearest,

The trip to Biehl was itself most uneventful, but coming here has been far different from anything either of us could have imagined. To begin with, there was no one to relieve, since the previous overcaptain was an older officer who died over a season ago. As result of his untimely death, even more has been required than I had first thought because much has been neglected. The city, rather more of a large and old town, sits on the west side of the River Behla, to the south of the
Northern
Ocean
… When the winds blow, it can be chill indeed…

It appears as though my duty here will also require recruiting and training young lancers so that I may provide trained men for service elsewhere, as required by the Majer-Commander. This is in addition to refurbishing the compound and providing lancers as necessary for the Emperor’s Enumerators, who have done without such support and presence at least since the death of the previous overcaptain.

With quarters far larger than I ever could have imagined, and even suitable for a consort-at least to visit, although they are ornate in the old style, I do have some space in which to think, and to read in quiet. And I have a serving woman, consorted to one of the older lancers, who cleans and also cooks my evening meal. Although her meals are simple and plain, they are far better than the food at my earlier duty assignments… Because all has been so busy in dealing with the unsettled situation created by the untimely death of the previous overcaptain, I still have not had a chance to spend much time in the town itself or to determine what wares might be unique… but I have not forgotten that such is necessary…

I do miss you, and trust that all continues well with you.

He sets the scroll aside to dry, and sits back for a moment in the ancient and not terribly comfortable chair. Somehow, the quarters remind Lorn of the silver-covered book, almost as if they call up the time of the ancient writer. Biehl is an old town, and it is possible that the compound walls may date from the early years of Cyador, but the quarters date back perhaps three generations, certainly no longer.

With the scrolls still drying, Lorn picks up the slim silver volume, as unmarked as when Ryalth had first pressed it upon him, despite its being carried back and forth across Cyador. He opens it and fingers his way through the pages, until he reaches one of the more enigmatic verses.

I hear the lonely Magi’i

imprisoning their chaos-souls

in the corridors of their quarter,

forging firewagons, ships, and firespears

to ensure an old world never reappears.

I hear the altage souls lifting lances

against what the future past advances,

while time-towers hold at bay

the winters of another day,

what we would not face

what we could not erase…

until those towers crumble into sand

and Cyad can no longer stand.

Lorn frowns as he pages through the book and finds the other verse, the one that shows Cyad as far more. He reads the first two stanzas out loud.

In this season, the stones are sharp and clear,

from decisions once made in hope and fear,

those traditions grafted from stars long lost,

distant battles fought without thought of cost

lands wrenched from the grasp of order’s dead hand,

that refugees could build a fruitful land.

Cyad, from your green and streets of white stone

will come the first peace this poor land has known.

From the Rational Stars and the three ways

will follow hope and justice for all days…

Lorn murmurs the rest of the poem’s words to himself once. The same writer, and in one case he has written of the greatness of Cyad, and in the other, of its inevitable fall. Lorn frowns. Cyad must not fall-not in his life.

He closes the book slowly. The writer had felt all those years ago that the towers would fail, and yet he had persevered. Lorn frowns. Had he? The book offers no guarantee of such. There are no verses saying what became of the writer, nor any hints as to how the slim volume came into the hands of Ryalth’s mother.

Lorn glances out the window into the darkness that has fallen on the compound. He is trying to rebuild the garrison and compound. Can it be done? Can Cyad be re-formed to retain its greatness without firewagons, without fireships, without firelances? Will it remain Cyad?

And what is Cyad? He wonders, still without an answer to his father’s question, not one that satisfies him. All those questions, and the melancholy words of the ancient writer, bring up once more the other question, simple enough, yet also without a simple answer. Do the times make a man, or can a man make the times? Was the ancient writer produced by the pressures of creating Cyador, merely reacting to those pressures? Or did he direct them? Since Lorn knows not who the man was, he has no answers, and the words of the writer offer no absolute assurances of either.