The Death of Nnanji (11 page)

“We carried the bodies to the River and sent them back to Her,” Endrasti said. “The liege decided that, as we were clearly in a war and had lost two score men in less than two weeks, we needed reinforcements before approaching Nolar and Plo. Back at Fo, on Shipwrights’ Day was when he sent Lord Mibullim and an entourage to Casr with orders to bring you up to date, Lord Shonsu, and ask you to organize a stronger force.”

“That seems curious,” Zoariyi said. “There are thousands more swordsmen strung along the River itself than there are here. Why come all the way back to Casr to recruit?”

“Probably for gold,” Katanji suggested wryly. “Fighting a war would be expensive.”

They all looked inquiringly at Endrasti, as if inviting him to change his story, which he did. “As far I recall his exact words, my lords, he said, ‘Shonsu knows a lot more about fighting sorcerers than I do, and it’s time I went home and gave my wife twins.’ My lords.”

The remark about twins could not be funny while Nnanji might be on his deathbed, and the suggestion that he did not feel as competent as Wallie to wage this war was so shockingly out of character that for a moment no one said a word. Wallie was less surprised than the rest of them, though. Knowing of Wallie’s past life on Earth, which he called his dream world, Nnanji would at least have wanted to consult him on the best way to tackle the crisis.

Knowing there was still more to come, Wallie prompted Endrasti to finish his story. Nnanji had withdrawn downstream with care, warning the city garrisons of potential trouble and in most cases reinforcing them from his diminishing troop. On Slaters’ Day he had sent Adept Hazenhik off with dispatches. He and his companions were also missing.

“A week later, on Jewelers’ Day, we set off for Casr ourselves. We were down to a mere score of men.”

That score of men was the most surprising thing about Nnanji’s reaction, though. His usual response to an emergency was to take off like a startled hare, traveling with only one or two companions, because that was much faster. A small group could always sail on the fastest ships, even if they had to sleep on deck, and could almost always acquire horses for the land crossings, buying them outright if necessary. Wallie thought of those madcap junkets as the Nnanji express. Like Julius Caesar, he would often turn up unannounced where he was least expected. This time he had chosen the safe way. Either the danger had seemed extreme, or he was starting to feel his age at last.“Thank you,” Wallie said. “About a hundred days later, when the liege had reached Quo, he was attacked in his sleep, on the same night I was attacked in Casr. Moreover, three courier parties have failed to arrive and must be presumed lost: Honorable Ruderedispatched from Arbo, Lord Mibullim from Fo, and Adept Hazenhik from… where did you say?”

“Rea, my lord.”

“Rea.” Wallie folded his arms and looked around the distressed faces. “Add it all up, and we lost three score swordsmen, some of them women. Does anyone deny that we— yes, master?”

Endrasti was fidgeting for attention. “Begging your pardon, liege, but there were two heralds, also. After Lord Nnanji withdrew to Arbo, he sent a herald to the elders of Nolar and another to the king of Plo, proclaiming that he had been attacked and would retaliate in force unless he received submission and compensation.”

“What happened to those heralds?” asked Zoariyi.

“Their heads were returned in bags of salt, my lord.”

Annoyed that he had not been told of this additional atrocity sooner, Wallie said, “No ambiguity about that answer.” Heralds, like priests, were supposed to be inviolable.

“It sounds as if Lord Nnanji was lucky to reach even as far as Quo,” Dorinkulu said.

Endrasti glanced at Wallie and received a nod. “I may be able to explain that, my lords. There is an overland shortcut from Rea to Thoy, so the couriers would all go that way. Lord Nnanji still had too many men with him—he couldn’t have rented enough mules or horses, so he’d have had to make several trips. Also he’d have had trouble finding adequate shipping at Thoy, whereas we still had two good ones at the Rea end. We came by—”

Wallie cut him off. “Thank you. So he came by a different route. Another possibility would be that the liege’s party was simply too strong to attack. Gentlemen, we have an assembly scheduled for Sailors’ Day, at which time we must announce our response to these acts of war.”

“What will our response be?” Zoariyi snapped.

“Whatever we decide tomorrow. Think about it overnight, and meet again here at the second bell. Just before it, rather. I shall summon Lord Woggan for that hour to explain to us why thunder weapons have returned to the World.”

“And if the sorcerer ignores your summons?”

“Then we shall go and get him,” Wallie said. “Meeting adjourned.”

After the worst day he could remember in years, he was very late getting home. When he did so, he found Thana there, waiting for him in a screaming fury, wanting to know where her son was. Jja’s mood was little better, as she had endured two hours of Thana’s ranting.

“He is no danger,” Wallie insisted. “I have six men watching over him.”

“Six men?
If he’s in no danger why does he need six men to guard him?
”

“He’s in no danger because I have those men there. When you learn what he’s been doing, you will be very proud of him.”

“Why should I be proud of him if he’s in no danger?”

“Because he’s spending the night in more discomfort than you have ever known in your life, swordsman. He knew what he was getting into and he was eager to help. I am going to let him finish the job he took on and I will not shame him by letting his mother drag him away for bedtime. Addis is growing up, Thana! He will come out of this as a man with achievements to be proud of. Jja will show you out. Goddess be with you.”

Jja did so, flashing danger like a looming thunderstorm. Wallie poured himself a glass of wine and flopped into his favorite chair. She returned and stood over him.

“You treated Thana contemptibly!”

“It’s what she needed,” he said wearily. “I’m a safe target for her to sharpen her claws on. She’s worried sick about Nnanji and she can work it off on me.”

That terrestrial logic would have bounced off most of the People like frozen peas, but Jja had lived with him a long time and had a lot of perception of her own. “And Addis? You’re letting him prove his manhood?”

“I suppose I am.”

“You don’t sound too sure.”

Wallie drained his goblet and stood up. “Addis is showing his mettle, yes. But whether he’s showing it to me or the gods or his father… That I’m not sure. Maybe just to himself. He’s being tested. I’m being tested. These are testing times. Let’s go to bed.”

She slid her arms around him. “Just don’t expect me to let you go to sleep for a while yet.”

Chapter 3

Addis was certain that he hadn’t slept all night. The noise, the cold, the stink, the hard stone under a thin layer of straw—not to mention the fact that he was cuddled up with a complete stranger—how could he possibly have been asleep? Yet he seemed to waken with a start when the screaming started.

He remembered where he was. He sat up much too fast, being reminded of all the bruises from yesterday. It was almost dawn; the sky bright, the air cold. The screaming was because men were being dragged out of cells and this was Torturers’ Day, which was one of the special days on which criminals were put to death. Nowadays they were just hanged. He’d been told that executions used to be much more entertaining, but Lord Shonsu had stopped the fun years ago.

He’d
lain with a girl
. All night. He knew how the older boys talked about that with longing, mostly just hiding ignorance and apprehension, but all he could remember was the two of them shivering in unison. Nothing else had happened—and wouldn’t, according to Vixini, for at least a year yet. Addis wasn’t so sure it would take that long. But now a dozen or so men were being hauled away to be hanged. Lucky them. He huddled small against the cold. He was thirsty and he needed to pee. There was a bucket for that. He would have to turn his back and sit on it.

“What time do they serve breakfast in this inn?” he asked.

No answer. He wasn’t supposed to know her tongue had been cut out.

“You’re not very friendly, are you?”

He decided peeing could wait. When the woman went, he looked away.

He wondered if Dad had made it through the night.

He wondered what would happen to him if Dad hadn’t. He’d promised Dad he would swear to the swordsmen and hunt down the —
gulp!
— killers. If Dad died, then Uncle Shonsu would be leader of the Tryst again. The swordsmen didn’t like him as well as they liked Dad. It had been right after Addis had made that promise to Dad that Shonsu had sent him on this jail mission. Maybe Shonsu didn’t want the son of Nnanji in the Tryst?

No, Shonsu wouldn’t leave him here to rot. Shonsu would never do anything so horrible. And Addis had promised to get information out of the prisoner. So the sooner he could, the sooner he could go home to a hot bath and a good meal.

She was a few years older than he was. Pretty face, but very skinny. She did have breasts, not melons, but what Vixi called a nice pair of pears. She ought to be wearing clothes, instead of just an all-over coat of dye, which was streaky and patchy now. Vixi had told him how she’d climbed up the wall of Shonsu’s palace. That would take a lot more nerve than most men had.

The shouting was starting up again, inmates yelling insults at the slime, demanding water, or clean buckets, but no mention of food. He was going to die of hunger. Shonsu had warned him it might be days before the girl broke down and began telling him things.

From time to time the slime patrolled, walking past the cage fronts in pairs. Quite often they stopped and jeered at the two “girls”, threatening to put a few male drunks in with them, or come in and teach them how to be nice to slime.

Addis decided to try again. “How come you don’t have any facemarks?”

She pointed to her forehead and then his, raised her eyebrows. That meant
How come you don’t?
At least she was communicating. And he had an answer ready for that.

“My dad wanted me to swear to the courtesans, and I wouldn’t. So he and my brothers beat me up and threw me out.”

She snorted in disbelief. She pointed at his crotch and wiggled her index finger.
You’re a man.

How did she know that? Better not to ask, or even think about it.

He wiggled his pinkie:
Just a boy.

She smiled. He grinned back. He decided this honest approach was a lot better than trying to fool her. He wasn’t good at lying.

“My name’s not really Brota. It’s Addis. What’s yours?”

Shrug.

“So it’s true that somebody cut out your tongue?”

He’d been ready to shudder when she showed him, if she ever did, but he didn’t have to fake his horror at all. The white slug of scar tissue in her mouth was much worse than he’s expected. He almost retched.

“Ugh! That’s horrible. Who did that to you?”

Hand at the back of her head:
Ponytail
.

“A swordsman?

Three. Rape. Cut off tongue.

“I don’t believe it!” he said. “Not swordsmen sworn to the Tryst, anyway. My— the liege lord wouldn’t allow it. They hang swordsmen for rape, just like other men.”

Disbelief, sneer.

“It’s true! Liege Lord Nnanji doesn’t allow it.” Seeing her continued skepticism, he insisted. “Don’t you know his story? At about my age he was sworn in to the temple guard in Hann, the men who protect Her most holy temple anywhere, the guard that should be the best swordsmen in the whole World. As soon as he won promotion to Second, he was horrified to discover that they were bad. They took bribes! They stole offerings, bullied pilgrims, even raped them sometimes! When they were supposed to put criminals to death, they took bribes to let them escape. Then the Goddess sent Shonsu of the Seventh to clean them up, and he picked out my—picked out Apprentice Nnanji as the only honest man in the guard, because he needed a second when he killed the reeve. And the two of them fought off the whole guard at an ambush and… Haven’t you ever heard the minstrels sing about that battle?”

From the way her eyes rolled, she obviously hadn’t and didn’t want to.

“Well, it really happened! And then the Goddess called the Tryst and soon Nnanji became a Seventh and the best swordsman, so he became its liege, and ever since then he’s been cleaning up the whole craft. So even if the men who, er, abused you were swordsmen, they certainly weren’t swordsmen sworn to the Tryst. It didn’t happen in Casr?”

Head shake.

“Mm. Could you recognize them again if you saw them?

Hands over eyes.

“Blindfold? Oh… Dark?”

Nod.

Nothing he could promise about finding justice for her, then, but he was making progress. Had she really been raped and mutilated by three swordsmen, or had those been hooligans hired by the sorcerers to make her hate swordsmen?

The one-sided conversation was interrupted then, because the slime came around with food, except it didn’t look like food or smell like food. The girl hurried over to the bars, kneeling there with her hands cupped, as if begging, so Addis did the same, and in a moment a jailer appeared with a cart holding two huge pails. Another slime ladled out a double handful of mush for each of the prisoners; then they moved on to the next cage.

It was cold, smelled bad, tasted worse. Addis decided he wasn’t hungry enough to eat any of it—not yet and maybe never.

“Here,” he said. “You want mine too?”

She shook her head, so he tipped his helping into the slop bucket and then, reluctantly, wiped his hands on some of the bedding straw. He returned to the back of the cage and sat there, feeling miserable. It wouldn’t be so bad if he thought he had any chance of learning anything at all from the assassin. He ought to hate her because of what she had tried to do, but mostly he just felt sorry for her. He could get out of here any time he wanted. Or at least he hoped he could. She was here until they took her away to declare her guilty and hang her.