The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition) (58 page)

"Sir—" My voice was so dry that I had to stop to swallow, and this gave Radley time to cut me off.
"Lieutenant," he said, his voice thinning to a whine, "I know that you have a difficult time understanding orders, but this one is clear enough: Leave."
I swallowed again and said rapidly, "Sir, I am sorry, sir, but I really must speak. I have additional information that may affect my ability to complete the mission, sir."
There was a long pause in which the loudest noise in the tent was my heart, which sounded like a Marcadian war drum. Then Radley said, "Very well. Make it short."
I knew he would not stand for a long explanation, so I tried to compress a month's worth of lessons about Koretian customs into two sentences. "Sir, when I left the village, I broke a blood vow I had made to my family. In the eyes of my people, I am god-cursed, and because of that, there is not a man in the village, not even my own father, who would not capture me the moment he saw me and turn me over to the priest for execution."
Radley looked at me through thin-slitted eyes. "I see. Well, lieutenant, I will offer you a choice. Either you go on this mission as ordered, or you can deliver to the army court summoners my request for your summoning on the charge of disobedience to an army official. Such a charge would be entered into your records and, if you were found guilty by the army judge, you would be sentenced to up to thirty lashes. Which action do you prefer to take, lieutenant?"
It was a warm day, and the sun streamed in brightly through the tent flap, but the day suddenly seemed very cold and dark. Almost, I thought, I could be sitting in a cave, watching snow whirl to the ground. And if that were the case, I would be listening to myself speak certain words that were more powerful than any blood vow.
"I will obey your orders, sir," I heard myself say.
A smile crept onto Radley's face. "I knew that you were lying," he said.
"Sir?"
"I was testing you, Koretian spy; you fell right into my trap." Radley leaned back in his chair, folding his hands together in a satisfied manner. "I do not know what your true reason is for not wanting to return to your home, and I do not care. You had your chance to tell me the truth. I know that what you said was a falsehood, because if you really feared for your life, you would not be scared at the idea of being beaten instead."
I felt a painful hollowness in my chest, as though a great weight of stone was lying upon my ribs. I knew that it would be of no use to speak further, but I said, "I was telling the truth, sir. I just do not wish to disobey your orders."
"I am sure that you can come up with an explanation for what you did." Radley leaned forward again and took up his pen. "I have no intention of wasting my morning listening to your pathetic Koretian deceits. I am finished with you, lieutenant. You may go."
"Yes, sir." I doubt that he heard me; my voice came out as no more than a whisper this time. I turned and walked stiffly to the tent entrance; then I looked back. Pulling my dagger from its sheath, I held it flatwise against my face for a moment before sheathing it once more. Radley did not look up.
Four hours later, Carle said, "By the law, I'm glad that you're still here. I thought that you would have left me by now."
I didn't look up as he sat down next to me, both of us leaning back against the exterior of the inner palace wall. My eyes were fixed on a mountain near the horizon. I said, "Do you think that you'll be buried in your family's graveyard, Carle?"
"I expect so. What makes you ask?"
"I was thinking that must be nice, to have your whole body in a place of rest like that. I like it better than the Koretian custom of burning bodies."
"What gloomy thoughts for a beautiful day! Here, have this to cheer you."
I took the bag automatically from his hands; then I saw what I was holding and was startled out of my thoughts. "Where in the name of the dead Charas did you get these, Carle?"
Carle chuckled as I stared down at the nuts. "That's what took me so long: I was driving a long, hard bargain with a Daxion merchant at the city market. I managed to bring him down to a price that did not deplete
all
my savings. No, keep them," he said as I began to hand them back. "They're for you – they're a birthday present."
I gave him a blank look.
He misinterpreted my look and laughed. "Did you think I'd forgotten what day it is? I remembered you had said that you'd like to try Daxion nuts some time. Look, are you headed back to Koretia on a mission?"
"Yes," I said faintly.
"Good!" Carle laid his arm over my shoulders. "Because I have news that I want our old unit to hear. I'll tell you first, of course, but I'd rather tell you when we reach the patrol – or rather, when they reach us. They've grown so good, I doubt that even you or I could slip by them if we were trying to break our way into Emor."
"Well," I said, my gaze returning to Carle's home near the horizon, "you don't have to do that. You can return to Emor any time you want."
"Your command of the Emorian tongue is slipping, lieutenant – watch the number of your pronouns. Come on!" Carle jumped to his feet. "Let's start back, and you can tell me all about your new mission."
I stood up, my look lingering on the northern Emorian view. "I'll tell you tonight," I said. "We can exchange confidences, and then we can try those nuts and see whether they're as good as they're supposed to be. Thank you for buying them for me."
"I'd thought of waiting till next year, when I'll have more money," said Carle, springing down the hillside ahead of me. "But then I thought, Why wait? Life is too short. —Adrian, you're becoming slow in your old age; I'll race you to the gate."
I watched him for a moment, leaping forward with his light, smooth rhythm. Then I began to run also, and in the end, I beat him to the goal.
It was an odd journey to the mountains that day. I remained silent most of the time, but Carle scarcely noticed. He was chatting away about rank, about even the least important men in the empire contributing to the empire's welfare. It was the sort of topic we had discussed many times before, and I wondered what had brought the subject fresh to his mind. In an odd way, I found his words comforting, especially when he said, "You know, even the smallest duty is worth fulfilling. You never know how a tiny job you do will link itself up in such a way that you bring glory to the Chara and his law."
I nodded, unable to trust myself to speak.
Quentin, though, did not need speech to read me. He was on his way out with the night patrol when we arrived, so he would ordinarily have done no more than exchange a greeting with me, but I saw his gaze rest on me as Carle began to offer the others his friendly insults about how lax they had become in their performance since our departure. After a minute, Quentin said, "May I have a word with you, lieutenant?"
I nodded, and he waved ahead the remainder of the night patrol, taking me outside of the hut to stand by the tunnel. Nearby, the day patrol was starting to build a fire.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked without preliminary.
My head had been slightly bowed – I told myself that this was only in order to keep my eye on my step – so that my gaze rose with what must have been a sudden jerk. For a moment I stared at Quentin; then I realized that he had no more than a vague notion that I was in trouble.
Well, he was only a lieutenant, and we were not even under the command of the same captain. Telling him would do no good, but would only distress him. "I don't think so," I replied. "It's something I'll have to deal with alone, I think."
Quentin tilted his head. Even at this moment, his eyes were scanning the horizon, and I knew that he was hearing more than I was. "Can Carle help?"
I stared at the ground again. "I'm not sure."
Quentin turned his head suddenly, and a moment later there came the low sound of a whistle rising, then falling again. Quentin lightly touched the hilt of his sword and began to slide away from my side. Then he stopped and placed a hand on my arm. "Ask him," he advised quietly. "I know he'll help you if he can." He paused, unsheathed his sword, and saluted me. "Good hunting."
With no more sound than a soft breath, he was gone.
Carle was over by the fire, beckoning to me. As I came forward, he showed me two flasks. "Wall-vine or wild-berry?" he asked with a quirk of a smile.
I wondered whether, if I asked for wild-berry, he would be startled out of his obliviousness. "Wall-vine, please," I said, and took the flask he offered me.
The others were sitting on the rocks within the hollow, but Carle gestured me closer to the fire, where we would not be heard over the fire's rumble. The nut bag was awaiting us there. I picked it up and handed it to Carle, saying, "You first."
Carle rustled around in the bag until he had found a nut that satisfied him. He cracked and peeled off the shell, popped the meat of the nut into his mouth, and chewed on it for a while, his face adopting a look of careful judgment.
"Well?" I said.
"Fairly good. In fact," he added with a grin, "if I had a nobleman's income, I might want to eat these all the time. Now you."
He offered the bag to me, but I shook my head, saying, "Let the others eat their share. I'll take whatever is left."
"Generous man," commented Carle, claiming another few nuts out of the bag. "You'll regret it, you know. Hold a bit—" He got up and went over to where the others were sitting.
I stayed where I was, staring at the tongue-red flames before me. For some reason, it was the thought of fire that bothered me most – having my corpse burnt, being eaten by the Jackal. Then another thought came into my mind: perhaps they wouldn't wait until I was dead before they brought the fire. This had all begun with a young man burning alive; perhaps they would consider it fitting to end it that way as well.
I huddled my arms around my knees. The autumn winds had already begun in the mountains, and I was without a cloak.
Not fire,
I thought.
Please, not fire. Let it end with a blade.
A shadow fell over me: it was Carle, standing above me with a wine flask in his hand.
"So tell me about this mission," he said, settling himself beside me again.
I hesitated. He was smiling so easily that I did not want to see that expression end yet. "Tell me your news first," I said. "Does it have to do with your visit to the council quarters?"
He nodded. "By the law-structure itself, what a place! We didn't see the half of it when we sneaked in last time. We didn't even see the law library."
"The library?" I said in an automatic manner, fiddling with my flask as something to do. "The council has books, then?"
"Books! By the wisdom of the Charas, Adrian, you have never seen so many books in your life! They told me to wait in the library when I first arrived there, and I had the place to myself. I was just trying to figure out whether the Chara would place me under the High Doom if I touched any of the books when in walked a man – one of the council workers, I assumed – and asked me what my favorite law was."
"Just like that?" Somehow, I managed a smile.
"Just like that, no preliminary. I figured that, in a place like the Chara's palace, this was as conventional a greeting as asking a person's name. So I told him, of course, that the Law of Vengeance was my favorite, and we talked for a while about why, and we exchanged bits of gossip about the latest law cases, and we even discussed the tutoring I'd received from Fenton, and what fine handwriting he had, and it took me an entire
hour
to figure out why the man named Godfrey was asking me all these questions."
My mouth slid open. I think I had entirely forgotten everything but the tale I was hearing. "Carle!" I said. "You don't mean—!"
"Fool, fool, fool!" Carle slapped his forehead three times, grinning broadly. "As though I hadn't made enough of a fool already with the Chara, I had to go and make a fool of myself with the High Lord! I can't imagine why he decided I was worth it in the end."
"Worth what?" I practically toppled Carle over, grabbing his tunic. "Carle, what did he want?"
"Oh, nothing important." Carle suddenly looked sheepish. "A council scribe suddenly quit, without warning, and the council has a new set of documents that need to be scribed this week, and not enough scribes with which to do it— Adrian, you're strangling me!"
"I knew it!" I flung my arms around him. "I knew that you'd end up working for the Great Council!"
"For love of the Chara, Adrian, it's only a scribe's job." Carle's face had turned deep red, and he was avoiding my eye. "A tremendous honor for someone such as myself, of course, but I'm the lowest of the low. —No, no, listen, here's the important part. I assume that the Chara must have mentioned me to the High Lord – how else would he have learned of my existence? – and I suppose that I must have chatted on endlessly about you as well, because the first thing the High Lord said after he offered me the job is that he wants you working for the council as well! He said the only reason he didn't hire you this week was because Captain Radley said he was about to send you out on an important mission, but the next time a scribe's job is open, the High Lord will offer it to you. Isn't this
wonderful
, Adrian?"
I was silent, all of my joy doused by the cold water of my memory. The Chara, yes – he had no doubt played a role in my hiring, but it was likely that the High Lord remembered me and Carle because of the conversation Lord Godfrey and I had held in the council chamber. Because of Carle's arrest, I had never given Carle more than a brief summary of that talk.
I remembered the High Lord saying, "A lover of the law, are you?" And I had replied, "I try to be, High Lord."
How could I go to the High Lord and say, "I am a law-lover, but I refused to follow my official's order because I feared for my life"?
Carle hadn't noticed my silence. "Just think of it, Adrian. You won't have to stay a scribe forever. There are opportunities for elevation within the council. You can rise in rank, and someday – someday, I swear, you'll sit in the chamber of the Great Council. Someday you'll be a council lord."
I said nothing. Across the fire, the day-patrol guards chatted and laughed. An autumn wind made its way down from the cold mountain peaks and sent me shivering.
Carle, nudging my hand with the wine-flask, said, "Here, drink up. You look cold. What was your news? I know that it will be an anti-climax to mine, but still . . ."