The Reluctant Swordsman (22 page)

The shrewd old eyes twinkled. “That may be the way you are to be guided, my lord.”

“A miracle? That boy?” Wallie said, scoffing.

“That is just the way She works miracles—unobtrusively! You found him near the water—the powers of the Goddess are always most evident near the River, and this is a branch of the River. I am not surprised to hear that he is an unusual young man.”

Wallie was courteously doubtful. “I shall have to test his swordsmanship, then,” he said.

“His swordsmanship is bad, but he has a very good memory,” Honakura said, concentrating on a last fragment of cake. After a moment he glanced up to study the effect he had produced.

“He is the only redhead in the guard?” Wallie was not sure whether he was reacting as Wallie, amused, or Shonsu, furious.
 
The priest nodded. “You do not take offense? That also is unusual of you, Lord Shonsu.”

Wallie ignored the needling. “What else did you learn about Nnanji?” “I know nothing about his honesty. His former mentor raged about his swordsmanship, but could not seem to do much to improve it. He was not going to be promoted to Third until it did improve. He is not very popular with the other men—although that may be to his credit, of course.” The old man was looking smug. Swordsmen did not talk about one another, and the barracks staff seemed to be all retired swordsmen, likely bound by the same rule, although perhaps not as strongly. That meant that Honakura’s spies gained their information from another source.

“Is he popular with the women, then?” Wallie asked and saw a flash of appreciation to indicate that he had scored.

“They give him high marks for enthusiasm and persistence, low marks for finesse,” the priest retorted, eyes shining with amusement.
 
“Just like his table manners!” Wallie said. Mention of women reminded him of Jja. “Holy one, you recall the slave woman who attended me in the cottage?” Honakura’s smile vanished at once. “Ah, yes. I have been meaning to do something about that girl—she deserves better—but I have been too busy to get around to it. Do you want her?”

So he had thrown away a precious sapphire buying a slave he could have had for the asking.

“I think she is already mine,” Wallie replied. “I sent Nnanji to buy her this morning.” Now he could see that he had been more stupid than he had realized. He had displayed wealth in front of Tarru, who would surely suspect that there were more jewels where those two had come from so readily, and who now knew that Wallie had casually given away Hardduju’s valuable sword.
 
The old priest was studying him thoughtfully. “I hope you did not pay too much,” he said.

Wallie was thunderstruck. “Yes, I did,” he admitted. “But how did you guess?” Honakura looked smug. “You told me that your master was generous. I can guess how he pays.”

“You can?”

“He is the god of jewels.”

“Jewels?” Wallie had not mentioned those.

“Yes indeed.” Honakura paused, looking puzzled and oddly uneasy. “He is usually associated with the Fire God, not the Goddess. Now why should that be, I wonder?
 
Jewels are found in the sands of the River.”

Wallie said, “In my world, we believed that most jewels were formed by fire and then spread by water.”

“Indeed?” The priest found that interesting. “That would explain it, then. He is normally seen in the form of a small boy. A prospector who finds a good gem will say, ‘The god has shed a tooth for me.’ ” Wallie laughed and emptied his wineglass. “I like that. As I like the nightingale. You are a poetic people, holy one. Explain to me the god’s stick with the leaves?”

Honakura snorted and lowered his voice. “Dramatic effect, I should think. Gods have their little vanities, too. I hardly expect that he needed a mnemonic.” “A who?”

Again the old man sighed and shook his head. “You are a babe in arms, my lord! I should not doubt the wisdom of the Goddess, but I cannot see how She expects you to survive here when you seem to know nothing at all! A mnemonic—an aid to memory. Don’t you have public speakers in your dream world? They take a twig and make a mark on each leaf to remind them of a point they want to make, then they tear off each leaf as they go. It can be very effective when it is well done.
 
And what else do you use if you want to memorize a long sutra?” “We have other devices, holy one. But about Jja . . . how does one go about freeing a slave?”

Honakura was more astonished by that than anything he had heard yet. “Freeing a slave? One doesn’t.”

“You mean that slavery is for life?” asked Wallie, aghast. “There is no escape?” The priest shook his head. “A slave is marked at birth. If he serves well in this life, he may be born higher on the ladder next time. You were planning to free this girl?”

Wallie had confided so much to the old man that he could hardly hold back now.

So he told how he had lost his temper.

“If I had any thoughts in my head at all,” he said, “then I was thinking that I would buy the girl and free her. She was kind to me,” he protested. “And of course she may have saved my life when the priestess came hunting for me.” “She was also a damned good lay?” the priest asked and cackled loudly. “No, do not glare at me, swordsman! I saw her. Were she of free birth, her brideprice might be many gems, but you have bought her, and she is your slave. You can give her away, you can sell her, you can kill her, but you cannot free her. Indeed, if it amuses you to burn her with red-hot irons, no one will stop you, except perhaps the Goddess, or a stronger swordsman if it offends his sense of honor.
 
Which it probably wouldn’t. You should realize, Walliesmith, that a swordsman of the Seventh can do almost anything he wants. But he cannot make a slave into a free lady, and he cannot marry her. Not unless he wishes to become a slave himself, of course.”

Wallie regarded him glumly. “I suppose you think this is another miracle?” The priest nodded thoughtfully. “It could be. Her action to protect you in the cottage was very unusual. The Goddess has perhaps chosen some companions for your journey, and that girl may have some small part to play, apart from providing you with enjoyable exercise. Never underestimate joy, it is the wages of mortality!” He was still astonished. “You can free slaves in your dream world?”

“Where I come from we have no slaves,” Wallie retorted hotly. “We regard the owning of slaves as an abomination.”

“Then of course you will send her to the auction block?” the priest asked, chuckling. “I hardly think that Priestess Kikarani will give you back your gem.” For a moment the Shonsu temper stirred, and Wallie stamped it down. Anger against the gods was futile. He had been tricked.
 
Honakura was studying him. “May I offer a morsel of advice, my lord? Do you know the secret of success in owning slaves?”

“Tell me,” the swordsman growled.

“Work them hard!” Honakura sniggered, and then cackled loudly at his own wit.

†††††

In the marble splendor of the barracks entrance Wallie met the old commissary and asked if Nnanji had returned.

“Oh yes, my lord,” Coningu said, with a look affirming some secret amusement, too precious to spoil by telling.

Wallie, therefore, must not show undignified haste, so he took his time mounting the great staircase. But he hurried up the second stairs and raced along the passage. Silent on his bandages, he crossed the first room to the door of the second, whence came the sound of laughter.

There were three people there, and they were all on the floor, on a sunlit rug.
 
On the right was Jja, posed like a Copenhagen mermaid, as graceful and desirable as he remembered, and it was she who was doing the laughing. On the left was Nnanji, down on knees and elbows with his scabbard sticking up behind him like a tail, generally resembling a dog trying to dig out a rabbit. He was tickling the belly of the third person, a brown, naked, giggling baby.
 
For a moment the tableau held, one of those scenes that burn into the mind to become instant memories—in the end, what is a lifetime made of but memories?
 
Then they saw him. Jja rose, crossed to him, and dropped on her knees to kiss his foot in one flowing movement. She did not seem to rush, but she had done it before Nnanji had scrambled to his feet in pop-eyed embarrassment. He said, “I didn’t know if you wanted the baby, too, my liege, so I brought it. You did say belongings. Kikarani says she will take it back if you don’t want it.” Wallie cleared his throat. “The baby is fine. Would you offer my respects to Master Coningu and ask if he could spare me a moment?” Nnanji disentangled himself from the baby now climbing his leg and left quickly.

Even the backs of his ears were pink.

Wallie looked down at the girl kneeling at his feet and stooped to raise her. He smiled at her, seeing again the high cheekbones that gave her face such a look of strength, and the wide, dark, almond eyes that had fascinated him before. No slender elf-maiden she: tall and large-boned, deep-breasted and strong, yet graceful in her movements and bright-eyed. She was younger than he had thought, but he saw again the corrosion of slavery—chapped hands, and her black hair roughly hacked short. Given a fair chance she would be a great beauty, and he knew that she could be tender. If a swordsman must have a slave, then this was the woman to choose.

She looked in alarm at his face and then down at his other bruises and marks.
 
“Welcome, Jja,” he said. “I have acquired a few scrapes since we last met. I sent for you because you are so good at caring for damaged swordsmen.” “I was very happy to hear that I am to be your slave, master.” Her expression was attentive, yet so guarded that he could not guess at her thoughts.
 
The baby was crawling rapidly toward the door, following his new friend. “Bring him over here and sit down,” Wallie said. “No, on the chair.” He sat on a stool and studied her. “What’s his name?”

“Vixini, master.” The baby had a slavestripe on its face.

“And who is his father?”

She showed no embarrassment. “I don’t know, master. My mistress swore to the facemarker that his father was a blacksmith, but she had never sent me to serve under a blacksmith.”

“Why? What’s special about a blacksmith?”

She obviously thought he should know. “They are supposed to be big and strong, master. A blacksmith fathermark brings a good price.” Wallie thought a few silent oaths and struggled to adjust his thinking. To buy a slave and free her was one thing; to buy her and keep her and use her was something which only that morning he had defined as rape. Yet the sight of her and the memory of their night together was already arousing him. To own her and not use her would insult her, and was probably beyond his self-control . . . how did one conduct an employee interview with a fixed asset?
 
He said, “I want you to be my slave, Jja, but I don’t want an unhappy slave, because unhappy slaves do bad work. If you would rather stay with Kikarani, then please tell me. I shall not be angry, and I shall return you. I won’t ask for the money back, so you won’t be in trouble.”

She shook her head slightly and looked puzzled. “I shall do the best I can, master. She never had cause to beat me. She charged a higher price for me than for the others. She did not sell me when I conceived.” Wallie decided that she did not understand the question—a slave could not choose between owners, or have a preference.

“You were very good to me when I was sick. And I enjoyed . . . ” He wanted to say “making love,” but of course it translated into “making joy,” which stopped him. “I enjoyed that night with you more than I have ever enjoyed a night with a woman.” He could feel his face burning as he stammered. “I would hope that you would want to share my bed in future.”

“Of course, master.” Why else would he want her? What choice did she have?
 
Wallie was feeling more and more guilty, and consequently getting angry with himself. The sight of that silksmooth skin and the curve of her hips and breasts . . . He struggled to suppress the guilt and deal with the World on its own terms.

He asked after parents, lovers, and close friends, and she continued to shake her head. That was a relief. He smiled at her as reassuringly as he could. “Then you will be my slave. I shall try to make you happy, Jja, because then you will make me happy. That is your first duty—to make me happy. And your second will be to look after that beautiful baby and make him grow up as big and strong as ever any blacksmith ever seen. But you will make joy with me, and with no one else.
 
There will be no other men.”

At last he got a reaction. She looked both astonished and pleased. “Thank you, master.”

Another problem: “I shall be leaving here in a few days.”

No reaction.

“We may never return.”

Still none.

“Yesterday I got Nnanji as my protégé and I gave him a present. What can I give you? Is there anything at all that you want?”

“No, master,” she said, but he thought he saw her arms close more tightly around the baby on her lap.

“I shall give you a promise,” he said. “I promise never to take Vixini from you.”

It was so pathetically easy! She slid to her knees and kissed his foot. Angrily he rose and lifted her and saw that she was weeping.
 
“You surprise me, though,” he said, forcing a smile.

“Surprise you, master?” she asked, wiping her eyes.
 
“Yes. You are just as beautiful as I remembered and I didn’t really think that was possible.” The baby was on the floor now, so he could take her in his arms and kiss her. What had been planned as a friendly greeting became instantly an affair of tongues and clenching arms and fingers pressing into her flesh. Desire exploded within him; he burned, then released her quickly and turned away, ashamed, fighting for control. When he looked around she had removed her tattered dress and was sitting on the bed, waiting for him.
 
“Not now,” he said hoarsely. “First we must discover whether I can keep a slave in these quarters, and we must find you some better clothes and make arrangements for Vixini.”