Two-Bit Heroes

by Doris Egan

  of everybody getting drunk at the same time, apparently, and this rule was iron.

  Carabinstereth handed me a stack of priceless painted winebowls. I laid them out beside a pile of battered wooden spoons and some cracked stewplates. "I don't get it," I said to her. "Can't the party be postponed, given the state of emergency?"

  "It's the emergency that brought on the party, Tymon. This is the way we decide things. More efficient than a provinicial city council."

  I looked at the growing pile of winebottles, bredesmoke bags, and general unidentified drugs. "Whoever's still on their feet at the end of the evening gets to vote?"

  She laughed. "What a delightful thought. This sort of thing is too important to vote over—though I'd be interested in seeing the results of that kind of poll, Tymon. Zero votes, if I know my brothers and sisters."

  "Then why the blow-out? A final kick of the heels before we all get arrested?"

  "Keep your voice down when you say things like that. There are those who'd be mad at you for bringing bad luck."

  Grateth Tar'briek joined us and gave me a quiet smile. "Though I wouldn't be one of them, little Tymon." His strong soldier's hands pulled the corks of three winebottles in succession, and he began pouring into the bowls.

  "Supper's not ready," said Carabinstereth.

  "So much the better," he replied. He ran a hand through his cropped hair, took a few swallows of wine, and said, "Ah." He pushed one of the bowls toward me.

  "Thank you, but if you knew my pathetic tolerance you'd ask me to wait for supper."

  "As you wish. But this is the way we settle problems, Tymon. Everyone who can, gets drunk. We talk about the problem… if we feel like it. Maybe we talk about the best vintage of Ducort red, or our past sexual histories—"

  Carabinstereth made an exaggerated yawn.

  "—or anything else we feel like. Sometimes very late at night a couple of people will start talking about how long it's been since they've seen their families, and we have to throw them out. We just talk. And then we all pass out."

  Carabinstereth grinned. "And then, in the morning—"

  "—when we're all feeling like kanz that's been left out in the sun—7"

  "—and we really don't even want to know—"

  "—Stereth will get us together and say he's got an answer."

  I looked at them both. "You're not joking with me?"

  "It never fails," said Grateth Tar'briek.

  "He's a genius," explained Carabinstereth.

  "I see," I said a little blankly. Then I considered my two informants and said, "You both get along extraordinarily well."

  "Old army grunts," said Carabinstereth fondly, linking her arm through Grateth's.

  I said, "Lex na'Valory's from the army, too, and nobody seems to like him."

  "Nobody ever liked Lex," said Grateth. "Not even his old outfit, from what Komo says."

  "Not even his mother, from what Komo says."

  "I believe Komo," said Grateth earnestly. Carabinstereth laughed, and he raised his winebowl to her lips and tilted some into her mouth. Clearly they were very, very old friends.

  Suddenly I imagined what would happen if Ran and I got away, and Stereth's troop was captured by the provincial militia. I'd heard of flashbacks, but this was flash forward: A picture sharp as noonday sun on the capital streets, of Carabinstereth with the rope around her neck; then the pull, the changing color of her face, the uselessly kicking heels. Grateth watching, next on line.

  I put my hands on the makeshift table. "What's the matter, Tymon?" I heard her say. "You look like a ghost. Grateth, help her to sit down."

  I felt his arms around my waist guiding me over to the cushions. I let him help me down. Carabinstereth was at my side a minute later with a new bowl. "Water's in this one," she said. "You've had a long day, sweetheart. Somebody should have said what a fine job you did with the cattle. Drink up, now."

  I drank. It was good water, from the well outside. On Ivory when you bring up well water you make a sign to propitiate the ghost of the well. That's not some kind of nature spirit, they don't believe in that sort of thing; it's

  the ghost of the person who will one day foul the well by committing suicide there, or being murdered. It's a future ghost, and the propitiation is to keep it farther in the future.

  Besides, any ghost born of suicide or murder would be dangerously far from na' telleth, the proper spiritual state of not-caring. As I was myself.

  Besides the people on guard duty, Ran was the only person who did not get drunk that night. Clintris na'Fli took a guard post voluntarily; she enjoyed disapproving of her fellows far more than she would have enjoyed drinking with them. Grateth and Komo played flute and tigis-drum. Halfway through the night, Cantry got up and began a slow dance with Paravit-Col while Stereth watched. Paravit-Col was the youngest in the band, and his movements were awkward but enthusiastic. The dance got pretty close in places. I was sitting in a corner trying to be an impartial observer, or as much as I can be on unmixed wine, and I was just a little bit shocked. This was not the custom anyplace I'd been outside the Sector. I kept glancing at Stereth, but he didn't seem anything but mildly interested— although I was beginning to realize that with Stereth it was hard to tell.

  The fiutesong and drumming finished and Cantry pushed herself back from Paravit-Col, sweating and bright-eyed. She'd already had several bowls of wine. I saw Stereth raise his own empty bowl and Cantry walked over, hooked up a bottle from the table as she passed, and poured him some more. She hadn't even been looking in his direction when he gestured. Then she gave him a kiss as strong as the unmixed stuff we were drinking, bending down to do it as though it were a continuation of the dance.

  This was a relationship I was not going to figure out. Not that I was in any position to pass judgment.

  When Cantry's head went up, Stereth said, "Tymon."

  I was startled. "What?"

  "Come here and sit next to me."

  I went warily. He patted the pile of brocade cushions beside him. He said, "How many bowls have you had?"

  "One."

  "Have another." He handed me the bowl Can try had just brought over.

  "Uh, thank you." I took a sip.

  My eyes found Ran across the room, sitting with his arms across his knees on his bedding. He was watching us.

  Stereth said, "What did you think of the speech today? I've heard from Des and Sembet."

  I wondered how much he'd heard from Des. If Des had reported on Ran's first name, Stereth would already be working on finding out his last. I said, "The Governor seems pretty serious about this."

  "It's been festering for a while," he said. "What about the new Steward?"

  "He looked young and uncomfortable."

  Stereth gave a distant smile. At the other end of the hall the fire crackled. The air was full of bredesmoke, making it hard to think. He said, "Your Sokol isn't the most friendly and outgoing of men."

  My gaze went to Ran, and on its return I looked with some fondness to where Des lay sprawled on his back contemplating the roof. Apparently he was still conscious, just noncommunicative. He'd already brawled with three male outlaws, propositioned every female member of the band he'd run into, including Cantry, and defended Clintris na'Fli to his disbelieving friends, saying that she would be quite attractive if she'd only take her hair down from that net and wear some decent clothes. One of the men he'd punched earlier stepped carefully around his outflung arm. "He's no Des Helani," I agreed. "But I think he'll stay the course longer than Des would."

  "If I may be forgiven the question, what is it you see in him, anyway?" A heavy cloud of bredesmoke lazed by, and Stereth coughed. Behind the spectacles his eyes were red.

  I smiled. "Well, he's considerate, when it occurs to him to be… are you all right, there, gracious sir?" He was coughing again. "You've already gone through a whole pipebag. Maybe you've reached saturation point."

  "Go on," he choked out.

  "He's a t
rue partner. When times get hard, he doesn't whine or blame it all on somebody else. He takes me for granted."

  "You consider this a positive trait?"

  "He takes for granted that I'll be as competent and as loyal as he is. He's got a nicely honed sense of irony, though you have to watch for it. And he never forgets an obligation."

  "Ah." Stereth picked up a discarded pipe, drew in the smoke meditatively, and this time he didn't cough. Then he said, "That's it? That's everything?"

  "Well, not quite." I hoped my pale barbarian skin wasn't flushing, though it probably was. "What does Cantry see in you?"

  His lips quirked. "I don't have to guess, I've been told. Cantry fell in love with me the moment I bashed my head on the underside of a table in the county records office in Shaskala."

  A few hundred questions came to mind, such as what were you doing under a table in the county records office? But what I asked was, "You mean you were injured and she felt sorry for you?"

  "No, no. I was hiding from a contingent of Shaskalan cops, and when they'd left the room I miscalculated and put my head up—and bam. Just a little bump due to my own clumsiness. Cantry was watching, I felt like an idiot. She told me later that her heart left her body and flew straight to me at that moment."

  "Because you bumped your head."

  "Apparently. She said she'd liked me before, but this was the thing that pushed her over the edge."

  He held out his pipe and I took it. "Relationships are strange things."

  "You have the right of it there."

  "One of the old storytellers—the lady Murasaki—says there are those moments, moments that aren't visible to other people, when 'a person whom you at all times admire suddenly seems ten times more beautiful than they were before.' "

  "Of course. You haven't felt that? —Just breathe in the smoke and hold it in your lungs. Don't work at it."

  I exploded in a series of coughs. "No, I've never—never felt—damn—" There didn't seem to be any oxygen left in my body. Stereth took the pipe away.

  "Never mind," he said kindly, and I didn't know if he was referring to my failure with bredesmoke or my emo-

  tional life. "Some other time you'll have more luck." He slipped the pipe into a pocket. "Was the Governor's son wearing the blue hat when you saw him?"

  I blinked, disoriented. My own eyes must be turning red by now. "Yes."

  "Then he's already entered officially into his post. Surprising we haven't felt the repercussions before this."

  "Maybe you have. Maybe the provincial militia are lining up outside even now."

  He smiled. "That much I would have heard about."

  Ran had stretched out on his pallet and was pretending to sleep. He still faced in our direction.

  Stereth said, "So let me have the tymon's opinion on how we should proceed."

  I was surprised. "I don't know anything about the Sector. Only the folk stories."

  "The story of Annurian and the Purple Band? Annurian and the Dragon Rumor? It's good to know at least one person escaped his sentence, even if he's a legend."

  "He used to say those stories were exaggerated."

  There was silence, and I looked up from my empty winebowl and realized that I hadn't meant to say that.

  "You know Annurian?"

  It's not that it's a secret, but there's no point in bringing it up. I still wear Annurian's bluestone pendant. On the whole I'd rather not discuss it, if you don't mind.

  "I knew him in retirement. He's dead now."

  "He talked to you about the Sector."

  "A little. I had questions about what I'd heard. I always need to know how stories come out."

  I was surprised that Stereth believed me, and impressed. It wasn't a claim you would necessarily believe, based on the facts, and given Stereth's position he must be used to lies in all forms. This thief and murderer must have an extraordinary degree of sensitivity to know who was telling him the truth.

  He was quiet. After a moment he said softly, "So, then, did he tell you how the stories came out?"

  "Some. The ones I asked him about."

  "I can tell you how this one will come out." I looked at him. His face was blank behind the glasses. "We're the most successful band in the Sector. We've stolen more cat-

  tie, more tabals, more transportable wealth than… anyone now living. But we're not working toward a goal, a pardon, some kind of imagined prosperity. We're postponing death. No one here will see their families again."

  The wine was making me feel sick. Stereth's voice was low and none of the others heard him; there was laughter and singing in the room. I felt as though I were trapped in some bubble of silence with a condemned man. With a condemned prophet. It was too heavy to bear, but following this path of logic would lead to Ran lending his talents to the band, our only exit closed.

  I said, "Other people have escaped the Sector. It happens every now and then."

  "It's happened three times, not counting Annurian."

  Students of history are rare on Ivory. His voice went on, inexorably clear. "Three revolutions have started in the Sector. They all started with outlaw bands who grew into small armies. After they took everything they could take on the plateau, they marched on Shaskala and on the towns in Tuvin Province, and started down the coast. Three times in nine hundred years."

  Down the coast means toward the capital. In each case the Emperor panicked, or did the expedient thing, depending on your point of view. On Ivory, revolutions never topple governments and institute democracies; when they become a threat they're bought off by the Imperial Government. Nobody ever celebrates the date some army liberated its first city… because the armies have always turned around happily and gone home as soon as the money and favors were heaped on them. And nobody has ever started a revolt yet on this planet that was based on an actual conception of the rights of humanity; it was always their particular rights that held their attention.

  Venn the Pirate was the last before Annurian, and he was six hundred years ago. He was more immediately successful than Annurian, too. He didn't bother negotiating for his men and stepped right into a ministership.

  I laughed. "Maybe Ivory has the right idea. Anywhere else there'd be fighting in the streets and general massacres. You know you've won on this planet when the Emperor sends the Prime Minister to ask what it is you want."

  "I don't think he's on the way to ask us, Tymon."

  "But it can be done. Annurian got a pardon and the prime ministership, in the end."

  "Annurian was a martial sort of man. A general. I'm no Annurian."

  "Battle isn't the only means of waging war. I mean, there's politics. Public opinion. The point is really to annoy the Emperor anyway, not kill people. Look at the Water-Margin Heroes. The smugglers of Tarlton."

  "I've never heard—"

  "And of course, Robin Hood."

  "Robin Hood?"

  "Talk about a public relations triumph. He robbed all the time, and people loved him. He didn't even have to pay them to help. They wanted to because he was a hero. And even if it didn't happen just the way the stories tell, the fact that the legend has had such a hold on people's minds—"

  "Wait, wait." He poured me more wine. "Start at the beginning."

  I looked down at the bowl. "I shouldn't. Everybody here has more body mass than I do."

  "Never mind about that. I want to hear about Robin Hood."

  I took another sip. "Oh, you like folk stories, too?"

  "I can't hear enough of them," he said, in a tone of absolute seriousness.

  But my mind went back to the alcohol. "You're doing so much better than I am. Although you did give your last bowl to me. How much wine have you had?"

  "None."

  I considered that. "But you went through a bag of bredesmoke."

  "Other than making my eyes red, bredesmoke has no effect on me. It's some kind of biochemical eccentricity."

  "Wait a minute. You're the only one at the party who isn't drunk."
I said it accusingly.

  "Sokol isn't drunk."

  "No," I said slowly. "That's true. And do you know what? Sometimes I think you and Sokol are alike. I'm not sure how you're alike, but I don't think… I don't think it's in a good way."

  "Robin Hood."

  "What?"

  "You started to tell me about Robin Hood."

  "Oh, yes. Well, it starts in a beautiful greenwood called Sherwood Forest, where it never seems to get wet or snowy… which considering the geographical location, I consider most improbable." And I told him about Robin Hood. I'd done three papers on Robin Hood back on Athena, and I had him down cold, regardless of how much wine I'd put away.

  I don't remember passing out. In justification, I must say that I think the bredesmoke clogging the air had something to do with it. And I slept the sleep of the stoned and the innocent, having no idea what Stereth would do with this harmless little story.

  This is what happens when an outlaw kidnaps a scholar of myths and legends.

  Chapter Ten

  They did try to wake me at some point in (I think) the morning; but I resisted, and after some distant discussion I was permitted to enjoy unconsciousness for a few hours more. When I finally got up, I found the fort busy, without the aimless conversation and cardplaying that were the usual custom between robberies. I stopped Carabinstereth, who was hauling a large sheet of glass with colored lines on it, and said, "What's going on?"

  "Can't talk now, Tymon," she said. "Got to get this up."

  Ran was nowhere to be seen. I washed and wandered outside to see if there was any food to be had. The day was gray and cloudy, with pockets of mist hiding the trail that led to the hilltop. As I stepped outside, a wagon drew up from the mist, with Clintris na'Fli in the driver's seat. It was an open wagon, a canvas cloth covering a mass of objects in the back; Clintris dropped to the ground with a thud, nearly skidding on the wet grass. She saw me and followed my glance to the wagon. "Where's Stereth?"

  "I don't know. I just got up."

  A raised eyebrow expressed her opinion of my lack of discipline. I said, "You were on guard duty. You didn't drink as much as I did."