The Death of Nnanji (9 page)

“And now you’ll be leading that army?” Jja said coldly.

“I must, dear. It doesn’t matter whether they swore the blood oath to me or to Nnanji, he is my oath brother, so his oaths are my oaths, my oaths are his oaths, and they were my vassals. I must avenge them.” That was so obviously his duty that he couldn’t even hesitate. And he knew that Jja knew it too, even if she didn’t want to accept it.

A small voice said, “If I swear to the swordsmen, Uncle, can I come with you?”

Of course not. He would be a novice, a First, and they were never allowed anywhere close to real fighting. But if Addis, son of Nnanji, had seriously entertained ambitions to become a sorcerer, they were forgotten now.

BOOK TWO:

HOW A SWORDSMAN WENT FORTH

Chapter 1

Addis had never known a day as bad as that one. There could never be a worse. Yet it had not been all bad. Getting Uncle Shonsu on his side in the upcoming fight over his swearing had been good. Being called
pretty
had been extra-putrid, because he knew it was true. He was pretty, or he had been until Helbringr began mashing him. Every day he cursed his extra-curly hair. What sort of swordsman ponytail would that ever make? He needed a few scars!

Helbringr was taller, wider, and thicker than he was, and she had treated him like a medicine ball until he got mad enough to want to hurt her. Then he’d kicked her knee and chopped at the side of her neck, tricks that Uncle Tomiyano had taught him when he went voyaging on
Sapphire II.
After that, the lesson had become more serious, and she’d taught him all kinds of nasty stuff. Not what a swordsman would need, but he’d still been planning to be a sorcerer or a sailor at that time.

Anyone who called him pretty from now on was going to lose an eye or two.

Then the terrible news about Dad.

Things got patchy after that. He felt blurry and couldn’t think straight. Shonsu probably fed him. And talked a lot while Addis was eating, but saying nothing he heard. Couldn’t think of anything except Dad. Wounded. Likely dying. Shonsu wouldn’t have hinted at that if it weren’t likely. Grandma Brota and Uncle Tomiyano and all the rest of Mom’s family were weeks away on
Sapphire II.
They would have to be told. Of course it was two years since he’s seen Dad… looking forward to hearing him say how much he’d grown… not looking forward to hearing him say of course he’d have to be a swordsman. Now that wouldn’t matter the tiniest bit. He’d happily be anything at all that Dad wanted him to be. Nothing would matter if Dad could even just know him, which Shonsu was hinting he might not.

The fog lifted a bit when he was riding in a carriage, wrapped up in the sort of short, hooded fur cloak that kids were allowed to wear in cold weather. It wasn’t cold yet, but Shonsu didn’t want anyone to see him yet, for some reason. Mum was home now. And Dad. Going to see Dad. The coach kept bouncing, reminding him of all his bruises. He looked down at his legs, sticking out under the fur, all covered with filth and streaks of blood, scraped and bruised.

“Uncle!” he whispered. “I gotta clean up! Can’t let Mom see me like this. She’ll erupt, all smoke and lava.”

Shonsu chuckled and steadied him with a big hand on his shoulder. “Addis, you’re a very brave and very tough lad. You showed that today. I never expected Helbringr to batter you that hard, and she wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t seen that you could take it. Would you do a job for me?”

“What sort of job?”

“That’s the right answer! A very unpleasant and even dangerous job. Definitely not the sort of thing I would ever dream of asking you to do normally. If you’re willing, I’ll want you to stay just as horribly dirty as you are now, maybe even worse. But it might help us find out who was behind the attacks on me and your dad. That would be a huge help.”

“Really? Me?”

“Really you. It won’t be the sort of thing you’ll ever want to brag about, but I think you could do it as well as anyone could.”

“Then I’ll do it.”

“Look, we’ve arrived. Don’t mention the job idea to your Dad or your Mom. I’ll tell you all about it later, and you can decide then.”

“I said I’ll do it!” He’d do
anything
!

Someone took the cloak off of him as they went in. The guards and the house slaves all stared at him, but it wasn’t any of their business why the young master was muddy and bloody, bruised and battered. Some of them were red-eyed, but he was the liege’s son and he wasn’t going to weep, not ever. He held his head up as he walked at Shonsu’s side across the great hall and up the grand staircase. They had to wait a moment outside the bedroom while one of the guards went in to say that they were there.

Then Mom came out, and there was even more smoke and lava than he’d expected: where had he been, what had he been doing, who had done that? But her caterwauling was really aimed at Shonsu, and the big man just stood there like a rock when the wind blew spray over it. He said nothing until she had run out of breath. Then, “How is he?”

“Breathing. Starting a fever already. Addis, run and get cleaned up at once.”

“Let him be,” Shonsu said. “He’s going to do a job for me, maybe, and I want—”

“What sort of job?”

“Sh! Tell you later.” He urged Addis forward.

Addis shook off his hand and Mom’s, too, when she tried to take his. He walked in through the door, keeping his chin up. It was dark in there, past sunset now, and with only two lamps burning. A couple of high-rank healers were whispering together in a corner, and some nurses were doing something with jugs and bowls on a table.

He went over to the bed and looked down at the dead-white face on the pillow, framed in red hair. This was
Dad
? He looked so
small
!

“Dad? Dad, it’s Addis.” He was aware that Shonsu and Mom had followed him in.

The dying man’s eyelids flickered. “Addis?”

“Sorry you’re hurt, Dad.” What else could he say:
Please don’t die?

A word that might have been, “Big.”

“Yes, I am big, and I’m going to swear to the code of the swordsmen tomorrow and then I’m going to help find the people who did this to you and kill them. I don’t care if it takes me the whole of the rest of my life.”

Dad smiled and nodded.

“And you’ve got to get better, Dad, because we need you: me and Nnadaro and Tomi. And the Tryst needs you. And Mom does.”

“I will,” Dad whispered.

“Soon! Because I need you to teach me how to fight with a sword.”

Mom took his arm. He shook her off again. Shonsu clasped his shoulder and they walked out of the room together. The lamps were all starry.

“Keep looking up at the ceiling,” the big man whispered. “That makes eyes behave themselves.”

Half way down the staircase, Shonsu stopped him, went down two more steps so their faces were level, and glanced around. There was nobody else near.

“You did that very well, Nephew. What you said to your dad was just exactly right. I’m proud of you. Now, about that job. What I want to do is throw you in jail for a few days. How does that sound?”

This would not be a joke, not tonight. “With the woman who tried to kill you, Uncle?”

“Goddess, you’re quick! Very well done! Yes. But think hard before you agree. You’ll be shut up in a cell with a murderer, or at least a would-be murderer.”

He must have smiled, because his face hurt. “But now I know how to defend myself!”

“That was not why I sent you for those lessons, I swear it wasn’t! I didn’t think of you for this job until I saw all your scrapes and bruises. She’ll be less likely to suspect you in that condition. You don’t have to do this, Addis. It’s entirely up to you. You’ll be sleeping on straw, eating prison food, being chewed up by fleas and lice. It’ll be cold, boring, and probably noisy. We’ll see that you are watched over, but we can’t be too obvious about that, and there is a slight chance that something will go wrong and some rough types will be dumped in the same cell you’re in. Then you might get some serious trouble before you’re rescued.”

If it looks scary, don’t stop to think about it, just do it.
So Dad had told him often.

“I said I would do it, didn’t I? Swordsmen don’t go back on their word, do they?”

“No they don’t”

Dad wouldn’t. He’d said he’d get better.

Shonsu had to go and attend a meeting of the council. He smuggled Addis into the lodge in the fur cloak, then left him in the care of Adept Filurz and Swordsman Helbringr. Filurz was good, a great fencer, even if he was shorter than Helbringr, and Addis trusted her after the day’s lessons. They were both officially off-duty after dark, but now there was a war on and that didn’t matter.

They looked him over by lamplight.

“She made a very convincing mess of you, boy,” Filurz said. “And you don’t have a facemark. Your left eye is so swollen that your mothermark doesn’t show. We’ve got some stuff to cover up your fathermark. Now… Oh, you tell him, swordsman.”

Helbringr said, “The prisoner is going to be suspicious if we put a boy in with a woman…”

“Not that it never happens,” Filurz said, “but you’ll pardon my saying this…”

“But I’m not a likely rapist yet? What are you trying to tell me? That you want to dress me up as a girl? Well, I’m not a swordsman yet, so I don’t have to challenge you for suggesting it. Shonsu says this will help him and Dad fight the sorcerers, so I’ll do whatever it takes. But if you ever tell anyone else I tried to pass as a girl, then I
will
challenge you, both of you! And cut your tripes out.” That was one of Dad’s favorite threats.

“Son of Nnanji,” Filurz said, “I swear by my sword that I will never tell!”

“And I the same,” Helbringr said. “I really admire you for doing this. I couldn’t believe it when the liege told us to ask you. Here’s what we found.”

It was a filthy cloth that wrapped around him under his arms and reached to his thighs. It had once, maybe, been white, apprentice color.

“I need tits.”

“Can’t help you there, son,” Filurz said. “Take deep breaths.”

“If I’m clothed, why don’t I have a facemark?”

“That’s good, Shonsu says. Prisoner doesn’t have one either. We think she’s a sorcerer because of that, and she ought to think the same of you. She can’t ask you, ’cos she can’t speak, so you don’t have to say so. But if you whisper that she’s going to be rescued, she might believe you’ve come to help her.”

“Suppose I tell her they’re going to cut her head off, or boil her alive?”

Helbringr blinked and looked at Filurz for an answer.

“Might work,” he said. “Shonsu said we’re not to give you orders about what to do when you’re in there. It’s your mission, and we don’t know how she’ll react. But here’s what Shonsu suggested: All we know about her is that her tongue has been cut out and she hates swordsmen. If she finds out who you are, she might try to kill you. You can ask questions and she can nod or shake her head. If she knows how to write, she can shape letters with a finger… We want to know who sent her. We want to know if there will be more attempts on the liege’s life, or anyone else’s. And anything else that comes up in the—I was about to call it a conversation, but it’ll be a strange conversation. And it may be days before her nerve breaks and she starts to trust you.”

“We have a rescue ready for you,” Helbringr said. “Whenever you’ve had enough or she gets dangerous or you think you’ve learned enough, shout your brother’s name, Tomisolaan. I know it’ll sound funny, yelling for a toddler to come and save you, but you won’t forget the password if things have gotten wild. We have three men in the next cell who will take turns listening for you, day and night, and they have keys to the doors. They’ll be there in a flash.”

Oh, sure. Addis had heard plans like that before and they usually didn’t work. Didn’t matter. He was doing this for Dad and he knew how to defend himself now.

“You don’t have to do—”

“Stop telling me that!”

“What name are you going to use, prisoner?” Filurz asked. “Some woman’s name you won’t forget.”

“Brota,” Addis said. “And I’ve got an idea. Swordsman Helbringr showed me how to fall, didn’t you, swordsman? So tell them not to baby me. When they put me in the cell with her, they should throw me in, maybe kick me or spit on me. Be real!”

“Great Goddess!” Adept Filurz said. “He really is Rusty’s son, isn’t he!”

The jail was a courtyard with cages all the way around it. The walls between cages were made of stone, and the fronts of bronze bars. Most of the cages seemed to be packed tight with living bodies. The stench was awful, and so was the noise, with the inmates screaming at one another, or cursing the “slimes” and “prongs”. That was town slang: slimes were jailers and prongs were swordsmen. Dry wood burning in a brazier in the middle of the yard shed some light, but not much, so no one was going to recognize anybody later, after this job was done. Or so a man must hope, anyway.
Dressed as a girl!

Two slimes marched “her” in, holding “her” arms painfully tight, and another marched ahead with a key and a club. They took “her” to a cell with a single inmate, who was curled up on a heap of straw in the corner but made no effort to escape, so the club wasn’t needed. The gate was opened, and the new prisoner was thrown in as “she” himself had suggested. He tried to land as he’d been taught that morning, but Helbringr had never thrown him as hard as that, so he tripped over his own feet and landed a lot harder than he expected, banging an elbow and biting his tongue.

“Filthy stinking shit-eating slimes!” he yelled, meaning it.

The gate clanged shut and the lock clattered.

He sat up, rubbing his elbow. The air was foul, cold, and damp, and the ragged wrap they’d given him was thinner than mist. The assassin was still curled up, but looking at him. She didn’t have any clothes on at all. There wasn’t enough light to see any details, which was good.