The Deed of Paksenarrion

by Elizabeth Moon

  “Where’s Duke Phelan’s Company?” she asked one of them.

  His mouth was full of sausage, but he pointed toward the keep gates. Paks made her way out into the streets.

  “There you are,” said Vik. He had a green velvet cap with a feather atop his helmet. “Have you had breakfast yet?”

  “No.” Paks yawned. “Have you? I wish I could sleep.”

  “Here—” Vik handed her a roll and a hunk of cheese. “I tried some of the food from their kitchen, but this is better. What’d you find in there—anything good?”

  Paks nodded, her mouth full of bread.

  “We’re supposed to clear the northwest quadrant today, but what we find goes to the common store, worse luck.” Vic shook his head, then grinned. “Though I’ve as much as I can carry now.”

  Paks swallowed noisily. “I’ve got some jewels, and money, and this—” She indicated the strip of silk. “Did you see those militia?”

  “Furs and things? Yes—well, they have baggage wagons to go home in. How do you like my new hat?”

  “Ummm.” Paks thought it was as silly as a lace shawl, but didn’t want to say so.

  “It’ll travel well, rolled up,” he said seriously. “Except for the feather, and any barnyard cock will give me a new one.”

  “Yes—well—it’s nice, Vik.” Paks yawned again and ate the cheese. She emptied her water flask. A haze of smoke hung over the city; the wind had dropped. “When do we start—?”

  “When the captain gets back. Gah—I’m sleepy too.” Vik settled against the wall and put his head on his knees. After a moment Paks squatted beside him. She looked around. Maybe a third of the Company was visible along this stretch of wall; most slumped against it or each other, and looked asleep. Some were chatting quietly. Bundles wrapped in a variety of unlikely things—curtains, bed linens—lay among them. Paks had not thought of that.

  She did not realize she’d fallen asleep until Captain Dorrin’s voice woke her. She yawned again as she pushed herself up. She was stiff and cold; others looked worse than she felt. She was glad she hadn’t been drinking all that ale and wine.

  Unlike the chaos of the night before, the day’s sack was systematic and careful. Paks worked with a squad of ten, assigned to go through buildings along one street. They began with a house, smashing its locked door, and opening every door of every room from cellar to garret. When they knew what it contained, they reported to a sergeant, who told them what to load in which order.

  Paks carried out one armful after another. Bed linens, cook pots, clothes from clothes presses, a roll of fine wool from a room with a loom in it. Her companions brought the loom, a sackful of scrolls, dishes and spoons, shoes and boots and hats, a patterned carpet, a trunkful of uncut velvet—everything they could move. As the rooms emptied, they thumped the walls, listening for any sign of a secret hideaway. Paks felt strange, rummaging around in someone else’s clothespress, carrying away a stranger’s empty garments.

  In a small room under the eaves, Paks found a string of tiny bells under the short bed; when she shook them, they gave a faint musical chime. A child’s toy. She looked out the window, across the street, and saw a bolt of blue cloth unwinding as it fell. Erial shouted from below, angry. Paks turned away. She felt a vague pain in her head, and wondered if it came from the smoke still hazing the city.

  Down in the cellar someone found a hollow-sounding panel and smashed it. Behind was a row of wine-casks, and a little iron-bound coffer. With much grunting and heaving they got these up the stairs. Erial ducked into the house to check it and came out nodding. They passed to the next building, and the next. Not all were as rich as the first, but by midday they had piled two wagons full of loot. Other companies were clearing their assigned sections, and wagons were lined up coming and going from the different camps.

  All afternoon the work went on. Houses, shops, and warehouses, with a few craftshops. Paks found a secret passage in one shop, following it to a vault full of fancy leathers and fabrics. In the next house along, Paks heard a thin wail behind a wall on the third floor. For a moment she thought of saying nothing about it, but her squad leader had heard it too. Behind the false wall a thin girl of perhaps fourteen clung to an infant less than two months old; she wore only a rough shift, and an iron ring circled her neck. Her eyes were blank with fear.

  “Just a slave,” said Aris, the squad leader, in disgust. “Come on out, we won’t hurt you.” The girl shivered, but did not move. “Come on.” He reached for her arm, and the girl threw herself at Paks, holding up the baby, who began to cry. Aris gave Paks a wry grin. “Your problem now, Paks. Take her to the captain.” He turned away. Paks reached gingerly toward the baby, and the girl let go so fast that Paks almost dropped the child. It screamed louder, and the girl cried out in a strange language and fell to her knees.

  “It’s all right,” said Paks, convinced that it wasn’t. “I won’t hurt your baby. Here, you take—” she tried to hand the baby back, but the girl was kneeling, and would not look up until Paks touched her shoulder. Even then, she would not stand, and Paks had to fold the girl’s arms around the child before she would take it. “Now come,” said Paks softly, and tugged her shoulder; the girl started crying. “Look,” said Paks, “I won’t hurt you or your baby, but you must come.” The girl kept crying, and made no move to reply. Paks straightened to ease a cramp in her back, and glanced around. By just so much the crossbow bolt missed her as it passed over the kneeling slave to stick quivering in the wall. A crack showed in the back of the recess. Paks stared a split second as it widened, then yelled as she swept out her sword and charged.

  Behind her she heard the girl shriek, and the clatter of boots as her squad came to her aid. Her sword smashed the half-open panel, and she grabbed the crossbow lefthanded, jerking it away from the dark-robed man who stood in a second recess. She freed her sword from the shattered panel as he reached to his belt for his dagger. Huddled beside him was a woman in a silk gown, and behind were a youth and a girl, both richly dressed.

  “Come out of there,” said Paks grimly. The man shook his head, and said something she could not make out. He had the dagger out, and held it as if he knew how to fight. Paks did not like the cramped space; she started to step back. The man spoke again, and a blow from behind knocked her off balance as a thin arm crooked around her neck. At once the man struck. Paks deflected the blow with her sword, feeling a sting on her knuckles, as the four of them rushed her. She heard a shout from behind, then a scream. The weight fell from her back; the arm no longer choked her. She half stumbled backwards; two of her squad were beside her, swords drawn.

  “What happened?” asked Aris.

  “Crossbow, from a concealed panel behind the first recess,” said Paks, gasping a little. She did not take her eyes from the man in front of her. “Just missed me, while I was trying to get that slave to move. I saw the opening, and found those behind it. She jumped me from behind—I think he told her to, but I don’t know the language—and they all tried to spit me.”

  “Damned northern war crows!” the man burst out. “May you all die strung from the walls like the carrion you are.”

  “Come out, or I’ll call pikes,” said Aris calmly. The man muttered in the unknown tongue. “Now,” said Aris. The man stood still, as if considering, and the girl behind him began to cry. For some reason this made Paks angry.

  “Stop that noise,” she said roughly, and the girl looked at her and was still, tears still running down her face. The man glared at Paks.

  “I should have killed you. Two times, you great cow, and you still live.” He spat at Paks, but it fell short. She felt her companions stiffen, and Aris’s voice roughened.

  “Drop that knife and come out, or we’ll kill you all.”

  The man looked at the knife in his hand, then reversed it and threw it spinning at Paks’s chest. She jerked her shoulder aside, and it bounced off her corselet, but again the four rushed forward. She thrust her sword into the man’s robe.
His weight bore her back; when she tried to step back, she tripped over the slave’s body. The silk-clad woman had pulled out a dagger to slash at the soldier before her; she too was cut down. The youth had a short sword, which he had held hidden behind the man, and fought the soldier on Paks’s left with surprising skill. The girl, no longer crying, had a slim stiletto with which she attacked the soldier fighting the boy. Paks grabbed her arm, and the girl struck at her face. Almost in reflex, Paks thrust in her sword, and the girl folded over with a cry. At the same time, the soldier got past the youth’s guard and sank his sword into him. The boy’s weapon fell with a clatter. Paks took a breath and looked around. Aris met her eyes.

  “That was a new one. Sorry, Paks; I didn’t know—”

  Paks shook her head. “I shouldn’t have gone between them, not after the crossbow. Is the slave—?”

  “Dead. Sim stuck her when she was choking you.”

  “It wasn’t her fault.” Paks looked for the baby, but it too was dead, having caught a stray bladestroke. No one knew whose, and no one cared to guess. They wiped their blades on the man’s robes, and examined the inner recess, but found nothing more.

  “They’ll have something somewhere,” said Aris. “Let’s check ‘em over.” The man was dead, but the woman and the two younger ones were still barely alive. At Aris’s nod, the other soldiers gave each the death-stroke, and began to search the bodies. Paks, suddenly shaky about the knees, leaned on the wall. She could not get out of her mind the frightened face of the slave, kneeling at her feet. Her knuckles burned; she looked at the shallow cut—from the man’s dagger, she supposed. She glanced at the window. Nearly dark, now—no, that can’t be right—we couldn’t see in here—She realized she was sliding down the wall.

  “Paks. Paks, what’s wrong?” Aris had her arm. She felt very strange.

  “I think this dagger’s poisoned,” said someone from a distance, and someone else added, “So’s this sword, if the stain on the blade means anything.”

  “Paks—did that dagger cut you?” Aris seemed to be yelling very softly. She held up her hand, and felt it taken and turned. Someone cursed; boots clattered over the floor and into the passage. Paks opened her eyes again, and found that everything seemed a strange shade of green. She blinked, tasting something vile, and tried to think what had happened. Someone pushed the edge of a flask against her lips and said, “Swallow.” She did. For an instant or so she thought a whirling wind was loose inside her, and then her vision cleared. Sim held the daggers, stiletto, and sword; Captain Dorrin peered at their blades.

  “This sticky orange stuff is almost certainly some kind of poison—either weak or slow-acting, to judge by its effect on Paks. Put these aside, carefully, and we’ll let the surgeons see them.” Dorrin glanced at Paks. “You better?” When Paks nodded, her face relaxed, and she offered a hand up. “You keep pushing your luck, Paks, and you won’t have any left.”

  “Sorry—Captain.” Paks still felt remote, but that sensation cleared quickly. The others had found several small pouches in the dead family’s clothes, and the man’s belt had a long packet sewn in, which bulged suggestively. Under his outer robes he wore a massive silver chain with a curious medallion. As Kir slid it out, the captain swore. Paks peered at it, wondering what was wrong. As big as a man’s palm, it looked like a silver spider, legs outstretched on a web.

  “Drop that,” said Dorrin harshly, as Kir started to touch the medallion itself. Startled, he obeyed. The captain drew her sword and slipped it beneath the chain. The chain and medallion let off a pale green glow and slithered away from the sword point, which was also glowing. “By all the gods and Falk’s oath,” said Dorrin. “It’s a real one.”

  “Isn’t that the—the Webmistress’s sign?” asked Sim nervously.

  “Yes. Don’t any of you touch it. It’s the right size for one of her priest’s symbols, and they’re dangerous.” Dorrin touched the point of her sword to the medallion. Green light flared upward, and a rotten stench filled the room. The sword’s glow was clearly visible now, blue and steady against the pulsing green. Dorrin pulled the sword back, and both glows faded. “Well, that’s that. We can hardly leave it there. We need a cleric to counter it. Paks—” Paks jerked her eyes away from the medallion: was it moving slowly? The captain nodded when their eyes met. “Go find the Duke, and tell him we need a cleric. Don’t tell anyone else. Wait—do you have Canna’s Girdish medallion?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “You’re wearing it?”

  “Yes, Captain. Isn’t that all right—?”

  Dorrin gave her a long look. “Seeing it probably saved your life, I would say it’s all right. It’s well known St. Gird has no love for Achrya Webmistress. But let’s see—take it out.”

  Paks fished the medallion out of her tunic. Dorrin took it and let the chain slip through her fingers until it hung above the silver spider on the floor. Again the green glow rose from the spider, but the crescent above did not change. Dorrin handed it back to Paks.

  “Yours is the weaker one, or at least it doesn’t reveal any power. Still, you’re alive and he isn’t.” She nudged the dead man with her boot. “Go on—find the Duke. And the rest of you search these bodies carefully. We might find more mischief.”

  Paks tucked Canna’s medallion back into her tunic as she jogged down the stairs. By the time she had found the Duke, and carried his message to a tall man in black armor in Vladi’s camp, a Blademaster of Tir; it was dark. She was both eager and afraid to see what he would do, but Dorrin met her on the stairs and sent her back to camp.

  “It’s priestwork now, and none of ours,” she said firmly. “We’ve much to do tomorrow, and much to guard tonight. You’re on second watch; get some food into you and rest before you’re called.”

  The next day brought no such excitements, but more work, as they cleared the rest of their sector. Paks could not begin to guess how many bales of cloth, rolls of carpet, boxes, bags, and trunks of moveable treasure, copper, bronze, and iron pots, dresses, gowns, robes, tunics, shirts, shoes, boots, buckles, combs, scrolls, daggers, swords, shields, bows, bowstrings, arrows, war hammers and wood hammers, battle axes and felling axes, reels of yarn and fine thread, needles, knives, forks, spoons of wood and pewter and silver and gold, figurines carved of wood and ivory and stone, harps and horns and pipes of all sizes they had taken and packed in wagons. The very thought of all those things made her tired. What could people use it all for? A well-stocked larder or armory made sense, but not all the rest. In one house she had seen shelves of little carvings: horses, men, women, fish, leaves of different shapes, birds—what could anyone do with those but look at them? No one worshipped that many gods. She had run her hands over fine silks and velvets, furs of all colors, and handled lace so fine she feared it would tear in her fingers. And these were beautiful. But—Paks thought again of the militia around the bonfire in their stolen finery—they weren’t for her. Not now.

  More to her mind was the captain’s sword and its blue glow. She wanted to ask about it, but she was with a different squad, and she did not know Dorrin’s people that well anyway. Had she imagined it? Could it be a magical weapon, like those of old tales and songs? Paks remembered Dorrin’s scars—those any soldier her age might carry—and thought not. Yet she worried the question, in the back of her mind. She had heard of the Webmistress, Achrya, though around Three Firs they called her Dark Tangler, or the Dark One. But she had never seen any evidence that Achrya was real until that spider medallion reacted to Dorrin’s sword. She had thought of Achrya as another name out of old stories—something in her grandfather’s time, perhaps, when orcs attacked Three Firs—not a present danger. Now she had the uneasy feeling that she might not know as much as she’d thought. She pushed that aside and asked her new squad leader about the plunder they were packing.

  “What do we—what does the Duke—do with chairs and tables and old clothes? The gold I can understand, but—”

  “He sells ‘em; eithe
r down here, or back north. There’s a good market for good things—even partly worn things. You’ll see.”

  They built another mound north of the city, and with the Halverics held another memorial celebration to honor those who had died as Siniava’s prisoners or in taking Rotengre. The Guild League cities each sent a representative, but their militias stayed away; Paks was glad. After that, the heavily laden wagons of plunder followed the Company north and west to Valdaire along the Guild League route. It was later than usual, already winter, as Aarenis knew winter: cold and unpleasant enough. Their elation at breaking Rotengre drained away the closer they came to their winter quarters, for every day on the road they marched with the ghosts of the slain.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  When they reached Valdaire, Arcolin took the remnant of his cohort and assigned them the same quarters as the year before. Paks almost wished he had left them with the others; alone in a barracks meant for a hundred or more, they were achingly aware of their losses. Even the winter routine of training and work could not distract them. Every night Paks faced the rows of empty bunks, and looked aside to meet eyes as unhappy as her own. They had been told the Duke would replace the missing—he had already ridden north—but this was no comfort. Who could replace Donag? Or Bosk? She would not let herself think of Saben and Canna. Day by day she and the others grew even more silent and grim.