The Golden Sword (29 page)

“It is Jaheil, and I did invite him,” said Chayin, relieved, surprised, and obviously pleased. “But he said he would not come.” He peered closer at the screen. “It seems that the chandor of Dordassa found not only a yra of jiasks, but recruited some of my own tiasks, also.” And his eyes upon me let me know he saw my hand in that.

I grinned at him. Sereth looked between us.

“That is all I need!” Sereth said very quietly. “More tiasks. Where am I going to put them?” He caressed the board into darkness. The images did not fade; they were simply gone, the room suddenly acquiring walls of milky gray.

“Seems to me,” said Idrer, who seldom spoke, “that they’ll find couch to suit them, as did the first batch. Those tents of theirs lasted half the first night!” He was smirking. I had wondered about that, when I went to the lake. There I had seen no appreis risen on the grass, no sign of the forty-two Parsets Wiraal and Pijaes had brought. I wondered what couches the tiasks had found—outlaws’, jiasks’, or one another’s.

“We had twelve wounded,” reminded Sereth, “before they settled down.”

“Twelve you heard about,” muttered Chayin. “Do you want me to recall the fifty mounted at the cavern’s mouth?” Idrer asked.

“No. Send them out to meet this Jaheil, cahndor of Dordassa. Have them mind their manners.”

Idrer snorted. Sereth eyed him bleakly. “Then have them pretend. I will have no infighting!”

When Idrer left, still chuckling, Sereth darkened the room itself. “Old habits die hard, with us all,” he said, touching me lightly. “Your friend Lalen hamstrung a tiask the night before last. Something about an old debt.” We left the darkened room, and the corridor light seemed very bright.

“I miss your meaning,” I said to him.

“I might like his sword beside mine.”

“I would count him as a friend, nothing more. But we have no bad debt between us, if that is what you want to know.”

“Something like that,” he admitted. “Chayin, what say you?”

“I hardly know him. There are many crells in Nemar.”

“That is my point,” Sereth said, serious. “Ask him.” Chayin shrugged.

“I will. What of this Jaheil? Do we need what is now close to one hundred of your men—and women—for this? I had thought more like fifty.”

“Let us see what Jaheil knows that we do not, of Hael and what he plans. Jaheil’s sword is worth ten lesser blades, his loyalty unquestionable.”

“I see,” said Sereth, and took a turning that would lead us to the kettle room. “I want a map from you, Estri, of Well Astria, every room and passage.”

“And the tunnels beneath her, perhaps? Would you have any interest in such as secret passages, or long-forgotten access to the undertunnels from above?” I asked him.

“Anything you think might be of interest,” he answered me, thoughtful. “We also have access to those tunnels here.”

“So I assumed,” I said.

“You could never get a threx down there.”

“Are your men so far removed from the Slayers’ ways that they can no longer fight upon their own two feet?” I wondered.

“Whose sortie is this, yours or mine?” he growled, but pulled me against him as we turned into the kettle room, crowded with men at sun’s meal. Many stood with their bowls in hand; so full was the archite green chamber that they could not sit.

“Yours and Chayin’s,” I retorted. But I am your instrument, and must perform creditably.” Chayin laughed, raising his hands as if to defend himself.

“Not me! The ebvrasea, upon the square of overriding purpose, uses the threx and man to his ends,” he informed me. I made a face and stuck my tongue out at him. “Hale is not here to keep us abreast,” he added. “You should read the
Ors Yris-tera.”
We
took up bowls from the pile of them in one corner and got into the line waiting to be fed.

“I do not need to—I have you for my daily dose of obscurity,” I answered him, as we all took three steps forward, then stopped with the line while another was served. Sereth’s eyes roamed his men, acknowledging individuals among them, speaking now with one, now with another as they drifted to him. I wondered how he kept them all straight, and their concerns matched with faces. It was a strong bond between him and these men, who had left so much behind upon principle.

He excused himself from us, handing me his bowl, and crossed the room slowly, for everywhere men’s hands reached out to stay him. And he would wait patiently and answer each one, and smile or touch, and then move on. And I saw whom he sought, before he reached him. Lalen, sitting cross-legged with the room’s far corner at his back, hunched meditatively over his bowl, his large blond head bowed.

Sereth threaded his way toward him—crouched down. I found I could get a good sense of what passed between them; Sereth’s direct questioning, Lalen’s level, thoughtful answers. When Sereth rose, the massive blond rose with him.

“I believe,” said Chayin when they reached us, “that we have never really met,” and he held out his hand to Lalen, who took it in his larger, pale grasp almost shyly. He wore no longer the Parset clothes I had bought him, but had availed himself of Sereth’s fitters’ skill.

“It is good to see you, Estri, where you wanted so desperately to be.” He turned his gaze upon Sereth. “In the shock of first bondage, she was most concerned with you and what had befallen you. I found such loyalty remarkable in a woman.” And I flushed, embarrassed, wishing I had never bent my hand to free him.

“And you,” I rejoined, “in a position more suited to your skills.”

“I did not mean to offend you,” he apologized, his pale brows raised.

“Then in the future, be more careful with what might be offensive.” And I found I had learned that manner of Sereth’s of putting menace and chill in a lowered voice.

“Stop it, you two,” Sereth enjoined us, terse. “Friendship, indeed!”

I turned away, and found myself before the kettle master, who served me a portion. It saddened me to see the bitterness toward women Lalen carried. I doubted that I would ever understand a man’s sense of fitness. I resolved to be careful of him.

While we ate, standing, Sereth questioned the larger blond man of Carth, who had been upon the same chain. Lalen knew little. But he knew other things, he said, from the crellpits, that might be of interest. Lalen then asked Chayin, point blank, if he should refrain from speaking lest the cahndor be offended. The cahndor bade him speak. It seemed that the romance between Hael and Liuma, built for the seas of adversity, foundered upon the shaols of triumph; their secrets had poured raging from Liuma’s mouth in a final effort to extort control upon Hael, suddenly uncontrollable. The amount of detail Lalen held within him of Hael’s actions gave them, then and there, their first plan. Chayin allowed that, since only a few men were needed, he would set Wiraal’s yra off by threx, this very day, to see to it. Celendra could not refuse to serve them, for as long as they paid well-price, they must be couched. If I had been Celendra, and so soon after the death of my father a whole yra of the conqueror’s jiasks appeared at my gate and made known their intention to stay, I would be nervous. And when those men made it clear that they awaited others, I think I should have, if I were Celendra, broken out trembling. And rightly so, for upon the second seventh of Amarsa, one set from this day, the two, of Wiraal’s men, who would have reserved and couched the Well-Keepress the night before, were to do three things. One of those things necessitated delaying Wiraal’s departure until I could draw up an appropriate map. We hastened to Sereth’s quarters, where I made a fast sketch, which Chayin took from me, that he might start Wiraal upon his way, and be back in time to greet Jaheil.

“I still do not understand,” I complained to Sereth when Chayin had taken leave of us.

“Nor I,” admitted Lalen, leaning against the color-swirl wall of Sereth’s keep.

“Good. Then perhaps Celendra and Hael will not understand. One good plan is about all I can manage.” Sereth leaned over my shoulder, where I worked upon the floor at a larger, more detailed map.

“Celendra has a number of Nemarsi in her Well, and she cannot get rid of them until they move against her. They let it be known that they are expecting reinforcements. Celendra demands Slayers’ aid, against what she will then be sure is a plot to fall upon her from within and without. To move against Parsets, the Slayers must have Day-Keeper authority. I wager they will get it, about the time Hael comes storming, battle-ready, across the plain, that he might catch Chayin upon his way out of a ravaged Well Astria with Celendra. All Parsets look alike to Slayers. Neither force is likely to wait to be introduced. The Slayers fall upon Hael’s men, thinking them to be us. We, meanwhile, have come up through the undertunnels. We free Wiraal’s men, if they need us. We overwhelm those within the Well. We go back into the undertunnels, with Celendra, and whatever else we are pleased to take. Hael cannot possibly survive.”

Sereth fell silent. Lalen rubbed his chin with his hand. Then he whistled softly between his teeth.

“What if Hael decides to hide in wait, or is late arriving?” I asked.

“From the rear, certain of my men, who excel at such skills, will provide stimulus, if it is needed. We might even, if it is necessary, give Hael a few threx riders to chase.” Lalen was now nodding vigorous agreement.

I finished my map of the Well and sat up as Sereth’s eyes caught mine.

“It is, of course, only a plan,” he said.

“I had the impression,” I remarked, “that Chayin wanted to confront Hael personally. Has he agreed to this?”

“Yes, with certain contingency schemes.”

“Then, though it does not match my sorting, I cannot gainsay it.” I handed him the finished drawing. Lalen cleared his throat, restless. Sereth’s eyes held me bound in ice.

‘You trust his judgment, where you will not trust mine?” He spoke barely above a whisper. I leaned over and touched his face, where the muscles jumped in his jaws.

“No. That is not what I meant. I know too little to have a valid opinion, that is all. You have not even told me how Celendra came to rule in Astria.”

“That is true,” he said. Lalen rose and wandered the keep’s expanse, stopping long over Sereth’s racked weapons, his unease evident in the set of his frame.

“Was she this contrary, even as a crell?” Sereth asked him.

Lalen turned to face us, the taste of a smile upon his lips.

“Even as a crell,” he confirmed.

“And how was she as a woman to you?” queried Sereth in a careful, even voice.

Lalen laughed. “Contrary also. Stiff and contentious. I was to breed her, and she would have none of me. The crellkeep had to all but stand over us. I thought her just untalented, but that cannot be true. She kept Chayin’s interest. She has yours.” He bent his blond shaggy head and picked something off the floor. It was my Astrian chald.

“I have always disliked blonds,” I said apologetically. Untalented, indeed.

Sereth was amused. Lalen inspected my chald, and I saw that the weight of it was not lost upon him. With a twinge, I reminded myself that I no longer bore that weight.

“She was your mistress for a time, was she not?” Sereth asked him.

“Yes,” said Lalen, and threw the chald casually onto the rack against which he leaned. “But only nominally,” he added from under his pale brows, the words a growl in his throat. I wished I were elsewhere. What had Sereth to gain from this?

“How can one be ‘nominally’ enslaved?”

“She was busy with Chayin. I ... she ... I do not know what you want me to say,” said Lalen, his head hunched between his shoulders. “I was hurt, convalescing. She neither used me nor abused me. She set no work upon me.”

“Then she was a good mistress?” Sereth continued his inquisition.

“Yes,” said Lalen, every muscle in his body taut. “But you do not feel indebted to her for that?”

“No.”

“Stop it!” I demanded.

“Be silent!” Sereth instructed me. “You do not, in fact, bear any debt to her, though she freed you, though she directed you here, into a situation that suits you.”

“She did what pleased her!” The words burst from Lalen’s tight lips.

“If I asked you to take your sword and kill her now, would you do so?”

“Gladly.” Lalen drew his blade, and the shifting wall colors played upon it.

I froze where I knelt upon the floor. Lalen moved purposefully toward me. In three strides he would reach me. In two.

“Wait!” snapped Sereth, rising. I looked up at them, at the blade poised in Lalen’s pale grip. “Sheath it!” Lalen did as he was bid, shaking his head back and forth as if to clear it.

“Thank you,” said Sereth, and touched the blond man’s arm. Their eyes met. “No man,” said Sereth to me, “would behave any differently. A man whose life has been in a woman’s hands can feel no gratitude. He does, however, feel other things.” He turned to face Lalen.

“Can I put you in the face of what you feel, to protect her?” he asked.

Lalen stared at Sereth. “I seek your service,” he said finally. “In truth, I did not know the bitterness in me until you bade me kill her. How sweet the thought.” He laughed, without humor. “I will keep her alive for you.”

“I have no doubt that you will,” said the Ebvrasea. “Make your gear ready. You will leave with us, mid-meal tomorrow. I will find you, if I need you before then.” And Sereth walked Lalen to the door.

I still knelt where I had crouched under Lalen’s blade. My limbs shook and my mouth was tear-fouled.

“I hope,” said Sereth, squatting upon the balls of his feet beside me, “that you took my meaning. He is a good man.”

“I took it,” I said numbly.

“Now,” he said, stretching himself out upon the resilient floor, “if you wish, I will tell you how Astria went from Jana’s hands to Celendra’s.”

I lay against him as he talked to me of Astria. I hardly listened. My tremors and fears would not leave me. I learned that my name had been written upon the Day-Keepers’ Roll—that I was legally dead. Jana’s name appeared there also, for it had been more than the two years required since she had disappeared. Celandra had simply demanded the Well, as ranking keepress on the planet, directly after my uncle Rathad’s death. That death, Sereth said, could not be attributed to any violence, nor was there sign of any unfair play. He had not been ill, he had simply died, leaving none of our blood in Astria. Celendra appointed no adviser, but attempted to run both Port Astrin and Well Astria herself.