The Reluctant Swordsman (15 page)

“Go to him now,” Wallie said. “Do not salute! Then say, ‘Lord Shonsu sent me with this message.’ Keep your right arm at your side with the fist closed, your right foot forward, and your left hand flat on your chest. Show me.” Nnanji did as he had been instructed, frowning with concentration. The lack of salute was the insult, of course, but the other was the sign of challenge to a Fifth. Nnanji might guess what it meant, but he must not be told its meaning, nor what rank it addressed.

Wallie nodded. “That’s it. Remember—no salute! If you find him alone, then go and get a highrank witness first. And don’t answer any questions. He may say that he is coming, but that’s all.”

Nnanji nodded solemnly, his lips moving in silence. Then, unexpectedly, he grinned a huge and juvenile grin—he understood.
 
“Off you go, then!” Wallie gave him a cheer-up smile.
 
“Yes, my . . . at once, my liege!” Nnanji shot off across the shingle with his long legs flailing.

Wallie watched him for a moment. It would be unfortunate, but understandable, if the kid just kept on going through the temple grounds, through the town, up the hill, and over the horizon.

Then Wallie turned to stare at the two slaves slouching under the meager shade of an acacia. They flinched slightly. He chose the larger.
 
“Strip!” he said. The man jumped in alarm, ripped off his black loincloth, and kicked off his filthy sandals. “Scram!” Waffle said, and both men scrammed. He dressed with relief, tired of wearing nothing but bloodstains. The hot sun had already dried him.

He crunched up the beach to step onto the fiery flags of the courtyard. He had forgotten how very large it was—a city block wide and at least twice that in length. The priests and healers from the beach were strung out across it in order of age, with the youngest and fittest halfway up the steps beyond. Nnanji was still going, past the sixties and fifties, closing in on the forties.
 
Pilgrims and priests were lined up four or five deep along the top, their backs now to the Goddess, studying the drama unfolding at the water’s edge. Those vast steps looked like one side of a stadium. That seemed very appropriate under the circumstances. A pity that he could not sell tickets.
 
Then he identified Hardduju, starting down from the temple arches. With him were four other swordsmen. Nnanji had reached the steps and was angling up toward them.

Wallie recalled with guilt his first impressions of the temple. He had thought then of megalomania, a rapacious priesthood aggrandizing itself from an impoverished peasantry, but that had been when he was an unbeliever. Today he had talked with a god, and now the temple seemed a magnificent tribute raised by generations of faithful worshipers. Magnificent it certainly was, although its architectural style was alien to him; the columns perhaps from Karnak, with Corinthian capitals supporting Gothic arches and, above those, baroque windows and, ultimately, reaching for the very sky itself, Islamic minarets of gold.
 
Undoubtedly the builders’ plans must have been changed and revised many times over centuries of construction, yet the disparate elements had aged into one harmonious, splendid, and reverent monument of mossy, weathered stone.
 
Nnanji and Hardduju had met. Wallie wondered if the lad would have enough breath left to give his message. Apparently so, for he turned and started bounding down the steps again, returning to his liege. Please don’t break a leg, young Nnanji!
 
Now, would the reeve accept the invitation to a challenge, or summon reinforcements, or advance with his present force? Good—he was coming down with a single Fourth. The other three were following more slowly. The shoot-out was about to begin.

Nnanji was down to the courtyard again, running back through the waves of heat that now danced above it. Somewhere in Wallie a small voice of conscience was complaining that thou shalt not kill, being told that a god had commanded this killing, grumbling back that at least you shouldst not be looking forward to it.
 
For Wallie was very conscious that his pulse was speeding up and he was relishing the coming fight. Bastinado? I’ll show the bastard! It helped when a god had told you that you were going to win.

Spectators were still spilling from the temple and spreading over the top of the steps like mold. Anxiously Wallie scanned the courtyard, wondering when the rest of the guard would start arriving.

Nnanji was back, shining a over and barely able to speak.

“He is coming, my liege,” he panted.

“Well done, vassal!” Wallie said. “Next time I’ll find you a horse.” The boy grinned and kept on panting.

Hardduju was following at a leisurely pace. He must be a very puzzled man—how had the prisoner obtained a sword? The most obvious answer would be treachery in the guard—the condemned man had not been taken to the Judgment at all. Was this stranger an imposter as he had appeared, or a swordsman? The signal that Nnanji had given him must have come from a highrank swordsman, therefore Shonsu. If he was not an imposter, then why had he behaved like one in the temple? Yes, Hardduju must be very puzzled. Of course he might suspect something close to the truth, a miracle. Now Wallie could see why the demigod had only partly cured his wounds—Hardduju had seen him just the previous day, and a visibly miraculous cure would be a clear sign that there was divine intervention at work.
 
Wallie stood his ground and let the reeve advance to normal conversation distance. The florid face was redder than ever in the heat. The beefy belly was as sweaty as Nnanji’s ribs. The man was out of condition, and his weight would slow him. But some of the sweat running down his face must be from fear, and Wallie found that idea very pleasant.

Nnanji moved to Wallie’s left, the Fourth to the other side. Wallie smiled, paused a moment for the tension to grow. Now he knew the rituals. As the younger and the visitor, he was expected to salute first. Then he drew. He spoke the flowery and hypocritical words, flashing his wonderful sword in the gestures. He sheathed it and waited.

Yes, there was fear. The reeve’s eyes flickered around too much. He was delaying his response, knowing what must follow as soon as the preliminaries were over.
 
Wallie went ahead anyway and made the sign of challenge—not challenge to a Seventh, but public challenge.

“Just a moment!” Hardduju said. “You were under sentence of the court. You didn’t get that sword at the Place of Mercy. Until I’m satisfied that the sentence has been carried out, I do not recognize your standing.” Wallie made the sign a second time. A third time would not require an answer.
 
Hardduju glanced behind him, then looked at his second. “Go and fetch some guardsmen,” he barked. “A prisoner has escaped.” The Fourth gaped at him.
 
He had brought the wrong henchman, thought Wallie; he had not worked out a strategy in time. Nevertheless, he must not be allowed to delay this contest any longer, or he might manage to evade it somehow.
 
“Go!” Hardduju shouted at the Fourth.

“Stay!” Wallie barked. “Lord Hardduju, will you return my salute in the ways of honor? For if not, I shall denounce you and draw anyway.” “Very well,” the reeve snapped. “But then you will explain that sword to me.” He drew and began the response—and then lunged. He would have fooled Wallie, and probably nine out of ten swordsmen, even Sevenths, but Shonsu was the tenth. His instincts had been watching Hardduju’s left shoulder. When it started to swing away from him, he threw back his own left foot and drew, the superb blade bending like a bow to give him a few precious milliseconds. He parried quinte, but he was off balance, and his riposte failed. Yet it was Hardduju who backed off.

He stared narrowly at Wallie for a moment; this was no imposter. Then he lunged again. Parry, riposte, parry—for a few seconds the metal rang, and again it was Hardduju who recovered, but he guarded quarte, too low for Wallie’s advantage in reach and height. One mistake is enough. Wallie cut at the outside of the wrist.
 
It was an unusual move. Had it been parried successfully, it could have left him open. It was not parried. Hardduju’s sword clanged to the ground, and he clutched at his wounded arm.

“Yield!” shouted the Fourth, although he should have waited for an offer from Nnanji. Nnanji had remained silent as instructed, so the yield was invalid.
 
Wallie saw the horror in his victim’s eyes, and his resolution wavered. Then he remembered the power of the little god as it had been revealed to him. With more fear than hate he carried out his orders, ramming the god’s sword into Hardduju’s chest. It slid free easily as the body crumpled.
 
The fight had taken about half a minute.

Wallie Smith was now a killer.

††††††

The clashing of swords was succeeded by Hardduju’s death rattle, a brief drumming of heels on flagstones—and then silence, broken by a shrill whoop from Nnanji. He started to come forward, then froze when no one else moved. Wallie, not daring to take his eyes off the Fourth, made the acknowledgment of an inferior. The Fourth swallowed a few times, looking back and forth from the dead man to this nemesis from the River. For a few more seconds the issue hung in the balance—would he accept this as a fair challenge under the rules, or shout for the guard and die? There were grounds for dispute, for the rules had not been perfectly observed, but the errors had not been Wallie’s, and the man knew it.
 
He drew his sword and made the salute. Wallie responded. It was to be peace—for the moment.

Now Nnanji could stalk forward to pick up the dead man’s sword. In proper form he dropped to one knee and proffered it to Wallie, marring the solemnity of the ritual with an ear-to-ear grin. To be dragooned into service by a naked unknown intruder was one thing; to be suddenly on the winning side in a notable passage of arms was something else entirely.

Wallie hardly glanced at the sword being offered to him. It was a gaudy weapon with too much elaborate filigree on the hilt to be properly balanced, but it was now his and would be worth a great deal of money. It would also be a much better sword than Nnanji’s, and by custom the winner in a duel gave an honorarium to his second.

“You can keep that,” he said. “And see that that thing on your back is returned to the kitchen where it belongs.”

“Devilspit!” Nnanji said, astounded. “I mean thank you, my liege!” Wallie wiped his sword on the dead man’s kilt in the traditional sign of contempt. “We’re not done yet,” he said. “Who were Lord Hardduju’s deputies?” “Only Tarru, my liege, of the Sixth.”

“Honorable Tarru to you, spot. Can you lead me to him?” “He’s coming now, my liege.” And Nnanji pointed to the three men Hardduju had left on the steps. One green kilt and two reds—a Sixth and two Fifths. They were halfway across the court. More swordsmen were streaming down the temple steps, and others into the court from both ends.

“Then let’s go!” Wallie led the way, leaving the Fourth to dispose of the body, one of the duties of a second. There could be more trouble. Tarru might seek to avenge Hardduju. As acting reeve, he might even be justified in using the whole temple guard against an intruder, although that was unlikely under the code of the craft. Reaction had set in, and Wallie was feeling incredibly weary.
 
They met and stopped in silence. Tarru was a scarred and gray-haired veteran, but his slight body was wiry and his eyes were sharp. His green kilt was clean and smart—he sported no jewels or finery as Hardduju had done. Deeply etched lines on his face made him appear weathered and seasoned. He might be a rank lower than Wallie, but he would be no pushover and he was in much better trim than his superior had been.

He raised his sword in salute, and Wallie responded.
 
The two of them studied each other for a long moment, and those sharp eyes flickered to the sword hilt with the sapphire and then down to the blood-soaked sandals. There was no call of honor if Hardduju’s second had accepted the duel as a fair fight, but the lure of that sword was too great, just as the demigod had predicted. Kill a cripple and win a fortune—it must seem like a good gamble.
 
Greed won; Tarru made the sign of challenge.

“Now!” Wallie roared, and the swords flashed out.

Nnanji and one of the Fifths sprang into position as seconds.
 
Tarru cut at sexte, and Wallie parried—and then pulled his riposte just before he killed his opponent. Again that blaze of fury? Tarru parried much too late and tried a lunge, a very slow lunge. Wallie turned it without difficulty.
 
Seeing that he was in no danger, he relaxed and kept parrying those incredibly obvious strokes, directing the next wherever he wanted, making no effort to riposte.

Tarru danced forward and back. Wallie rotated slowly to face him, the seconds edged around like planets. A crowd was gathering, and the other Fifth kept shouting to keep them back.

Boots slapped on the stones and raised dust. Metal rang. Cut . . . parry . . .
 
lunge . . . Tarru’s breathing became loud below the furnace sky, and his face grew fiery also.

Wallie was discovering how it felt to be the greatest swordsman in the World: it was fine sport. He need hardly move his battered feet, and his arm could keep this up all day. Tarru was a fair Sixth—so Shonsu’s eye told him—but there was no upper limit on Seventh rank, and Shonsu might well be an eight or nine on the same scale. He utterly outclassed the older man. He dare not look away, but he knew that there were swordsmen among the gathering spectators and he wondered how Tarru was feeling. The effort was telling on him, his breath starting to rasp. He had been the challenger—by not being able to get close he was appearing ridiculous. What emotion had succeeded his greed—anger? Fear? Humiliation?
 
At last Tarru backed off and stood gasping, obviously beaten, eyes wide and almost glazed. Wallie pretended to smother a yawn. A few sniggers and one very faint boo emerged from somewhere in the crowd.