The Reluctant Swordsman (42 page)

“You are quite sure?” Wallie asked.

“Certain!” Honakura snapped, although he was still very shaky. “One mule trip is two too many.” He chuckled. “Also I have a professional interest in miracles, and they follow you like flies follow cows.”

“We have a sad ceremony to perform before you depart, my lord,” Imperkanni told Wallie, nodding to where his men had laid out eight naked bodies on the jetty.
 
“Mm?” Honakura said. “Perhaps I should be a priest again for just a minute?” He tottered along to the bodies and pulled off his headband.
 
The expression on Imperkanni’s face when he counted the facemarks gave Wallie considerable satisfaction.

Thus Wallie’s last deed on the holy island was to attend a funeral. The free swords knew how such things should he done. Not wanting to show his ignorance, he went off to relieve himself, and by the time he returned they were all lined up, and his place was obvious. Twelve swordsmen stood in a line along the edge of the jetty, Katanji the smallest and youngest and most junior at the far end, Imperkanni on Honakura’s right in the center. Wallie slipped into place on his left and drew his sword in salute with the rest.
 
“Honorable Tarru,” Nnanji said as the first body was dragged forward by the slaves. Honakura recited the words of farewell:

“Tarru of the sixth rank, we return you now to the Great Mother of us all, for your journey in this world is ended.

“You go to Her, as we all shall, bearing dust and stains from the road, and those She will wash away; bearing hurts and sorrows, and those She will comfort; bearing joys and honors, and these She will welcome.
 
“You go to Her to be restored and to be cherished until, in Her own time, She sends you forth to travel once more.

“Tell Her, we pray, that we are mindful of Her, and that we also await Her call; for from waters we come, and to the waters must we all return.” The body hit the water with a splash . . . and the water boiled, exploded in a wild eruption that rapidly became a silvery foam, turned crimson and hissed as the air in the lungs surfaced, and then died away to a faint pink stain, drifting slowly downstream. It was all over in moments, but the corpse had vanished. Wallie was so shocked that he almost dropped his sword.

From then on Wallie was ready for it, but he found that cold shivers ran through him every time and he was hard put to stop himself from trembling visibly. What he had escaped! From the depths of Shonsu’s vocabulary came a word . . . it floated around and around in his head until at last the translator found an approximate equivalent: piranha.

Now he understood the verdict of the trial. The will of the Goddess took precedence over the sutras, and She had made Her will known. Only Her champion could have reached the jetty alive by that route, so She approved of his actions. No human court would overrule her. Now he understood Nnanji’s shocked reaction when he had once suggested crossing the River, he understood why the word for “swim” applied only to fish, why the priests by the pool had been so reluctant to get their feet wet, why the skinner watered his mules at a trough, why it had been so easy to outflank Tarru. Little wonder that he was being regarded with superstitious awe, after an act of such faith and courage.
 
He stared out over the miles of calm water to the last blush of evening. He thought how wonderfully soothing a swim would be to his jangled nerves, his filthy and weary and saddle-sore body. But there would be no swimming in this lifetime for him.

The gods perform miracles when they choose, never on demand.

The ferry was a whaleboat with fore-and-aft rigging. It could have carried perhaps two dozen passengers on its thwarts, but most of those had been removed by the swordsmen. With straw-filled mattresses spread over the gratings there was ample room for seven passengers to sprawl in comfort and chew at the provisions provided—cold fowl, stale bread and cheese, and flagons of warm beer.
 
Eased along by a barely perceptible breeze, the ferry slid through the lazy ripples without a sway. There was enough food to feed a regiment of Nnanjis, so they shared it with the potbellied, obsequious captain and the loutish boy who formed his crew.

The night was warm and silent and glorious, the arc of the Dream God spectacular among the stars, brighter than a full moon on Earth, painting the boat in silver and gray, on black and silver water.

The rugmaker’s sons and Cowie had settled amidships, the crew by the tiller.
 
Wallie sat on the bow thwart with Jja beside him and Honakura cross-legged at his feet. Vixini had been forcefully restrained all day, screaming for freedom to move around. Now he had his chance, so he rolled up in a ball and went to sleep.

As soon as the boat was away from the jetty Wallie turned to Jja and kissed her.

She returned the kiss as a well trained slave should.
 
A slave, but not a friend. He smiled encouragingly at her and tried not to show the hurt he felt. Yet how else could it be? She had witnessed him in a rampage of slaughter. He could hardly bear to think about it himself, so how could he expect her to forgive, and overlook, and understand? If he had lost her love, then the price of victory had been higher than he had been willing to pay.
 
He was miserably conscious of the nosy little priest beside him, who would listen to anything he said. He wished he could take her away and talk, yet he did not know how he would put his feelings into words.
 
Jja almost never tried to put feelings into words, but she returned his look with a long, searching gaze, her expression unreadable, and finally said, “We are both slaves, master.”

“What do you mean?”

A very faint hint of a smile crept into her face in the silver dimness. “I must please my master. My master must please the gods.” He tightened his arm around her. “Very true, my love.”

“This was what they wanted of you?” she asked softly.

He nodded. “Blood! Ruthlessness. Ferocity.”

“Wallie or Shonsu?”

“Wallie!” he snapped. “Shonsu had it already.”

She was silent for a while as the boat seemed to pick up speed. “It is easier for me,” she said quietly. “My task is to give you pleasure, and that gives me much joy also.”

“Killing will never give me pleasure,” he growled.

She shook her head. “But you will obey the gods, master?”

“Yes.” He sighed. “I suppose I will. They reward me greatly.” Then she put her arms around him. They kissed with lovers’ fervor, and he knew that their love had not been lost, it had been strengthened.
 
He broke off the embrace before his glands went totally out of control and sat for a minute, breathing hard and feeling much better.
 
“I was just thinking,” Honakura remarked to the night sky, “that boats are greatly superior to mules.”

“That was not what you were thinking, old man!” “Yes, I was,” the priest replied with a chuckle. “How could you kiss her on a mule?”

Later, when Wallie had finished his meal, he dropped the scraps overboard, piece by piece, watching in horrified fascination as the piranha swarmed on them. This close to the water he was able to make them out if he watched carefully—momentary flickers of silver in the black water, no larger than a man’s little finger, but able to appear instantly in, unlimited numbers.
 
“You did not have piranha in your dream world, my lord?” Honakura asked, leaning back against the gunwale and watching him with quiet amusement. Wallie started guiltily.

“Not normally,” he admitted. “If the demigod left me in such ignorance of the World, then he must make himself responsible for guiding me.” The priest smiled. “I suggest that you do not attempt that maneuver again, now that you know.”

“I have already made a vow to that effect,” Wallie said. “Explain the temple pool to me?”

“Even there, sometimes,” said the old man. “But they avoid fast water, it is said, and that may be why the pool is usually safe. I would not walk in it from choice, though.”

Wallie wondered what other horrors the World might have in store for him.
 
Jja lay down beside Vixini and went to sleep at once. Wallie was too jumpy to try yet. The light was brighter than moonlight, but strangely diffuse, throwing double shadows. A mist was forming over the River. It was hard to make out much at a distance, even as close as the vague figures of Cowie, Nnanji, and Katanji amidships.

Nnanji, a few minutes later, came scrambling forward to kneel in front of Wallie and, incidentally, Honakura. He was still licking his fingers, and his face was a blur in the darkness under its coat of grime. He had not removed his sword, which seemed odd, but doubtless he had one of those strange swordsmen reasons for it.

“My lord?” he said. “May I swear the second oath to you now?” Wallie shook his head. “It can wait until morning, surely? You didn’t want a fencing lesson in the boat, did you?”

White teeth showed in a grin. “No, my lord.” Then there was a silence . . .
 
“Let me guess,” Wallie said. “You want to know why the gods approved of all those abominations?”

“Yes, my lord.” Nnanji sounded relieved.

“Perhaps our venerable friend can explain,” Wallie said. “Why should the Goddess have permitted so many abominations? We assume that She does not approve of abominations. Correct, holy one?” He looked down at the tiny, huddled shape beside him.

“I’m not a holy one any longer,” Honakura said pettily. “But, yes, that is a fair assumption.”

“And I do not approve,” Wallie said, “of mentors beating protégés, But I butchered you very thoroughly once, my young friend.” Nnanji’s eyes showed gleaming white in the dark. “That was to break my curse, my lord.”

Suddenly Wallie became aware that something unexpected was happening amidships.
 
He tried not to stare too openly, but it looked as though Katanji had moved very close to Cowie. Nnanji was kneeling with his back to them.
 
“I think that the gods were trying to break my curse, Nnanji.”

“You did not have a curse, my lord!” Nnanji protested loyally.

“Oh, yes I did! I told you, once—I don’t like killing people.”

Nnanji’s mouth opened and then closed.

“The god ordered me to kill Hardduju. I did it—but only because I had been specifically told to do so. The only other order I had been given was to be an honorable and valiant swordsman. An honorable swordsman of the Seventh should not have tolerated Tarru and his sleazy tricks for an instant. I butchered you and taunted you, until you lost your temper and turned on me. The gods forced me into a corner until I started shedding blood and showed that I could be a killer. The same process.”

“It’s like testing a sword, isn’t it?” Nnanji said. “You bend it, to see if it snaps back or breaks?”

“Yes!” said Wallie, surprised. “Very good comparison!”

“But,” Nnanji persisted, “even if the gods planned all this . . . ”

His conscience was still bothering him.

“We committed no abominations, either of us. The temple guard was a gang of recreants. Imperkanni acquitted us. Do you agree with his verdict, old man?” “Oh, yes! Obviously you were forced,” said Honakura. “The gods chose the two of you and—” “Two of us?” Nnanji said.

Katanji was making progress. He was getting no cooperation, but neither did he seem to be meeting resistance. In Katanji’s world, evidently, all those not opposed were in favor, and obviously this was one scratcher who would not have been in need of Wild Ani’s evening classes.

“If you will swear the second oath to me, Adept Nnanji,” Wallie said, “and I hope you will, for I shall be proud to have you as a protégé again, then there is another oath that I would swear with you also.” “The blood oath? Of course, my lord,” Nnanji said eagerly.
 
“Never!” Wallie said. “I think that oath is an abomination, even if the Goddess did make the sutras. I have had enough of the third oath to last two lifetimes.
 
No, I speak of the fourth oath.”

Nnanji looked wary. “I never heard of any fourth oath!” Honakura claimed to know nothing about swordsmen’s oaths, but he was peering curiously at Wallie in the gloom.

“You could not have done,” Wallie said. “First, it is contained in sutra eleven forty-four.”

“Ah!” said Nnanji.

“The last sutra. Only a candidate for Seventh would ever hear of it, unless a Seventh deliberately told him, as I am going to tell you. Secondly, it is restricted . . . ”

“Oh!” said Nnanji.

“But we qualify, you and I. It may only be sworn by those who have saved each other’s lives, and that can happen only in battle, not in the ways of honor. I think, friend Nnanji, that that was why the gods sent us into battle today. I saved you from Tarru, and you saved me from Ghaniri. Obviously it is a very rare oath, and I think maybe it is not much talked of, anyway.” Nnanji’s eyes were shining in the dark. Secret signs and fearsome oaths were the very essence of the swordsmen’s craft, so a secret oath was double pleasure to him.

“Tell me the words, and I will swear,” he said.
 
Katanji’s explorations were coming along very well now. He had removed Cowie’s wrap and was still progressing. Nnanji was clearly very fond of his young brother, and his attitude to sex was astonishingly casual, but could it possibly be so casual that he would loan his new slave even before he had tried her out himself?