Lace and Blade 2

by Deborah J. Ross

  “Well, it won’t be me,” I said. “I’ve only been out there twice.”

  “You never know,” said Carne. “Damned good warrior, you are.”

  We walked on. The moon was nearly day-bright, and on the blossom-hung walls, black shadows danced. To my left, one suddenly loomed tall, flickered and sprang. Up above something bent the frail branches. The shadow slid down the wall, steadying into a cruciform shape, as if a sword had been plunged point first into the ground. Without warning, the misery of wanting Michalla gripped me.

  “I’m in love,” I said. “As never before.”

  Carne said: “The Great Court’s free most evenings. Will you practise tomorrow?”

  “With pleasure. At the seventh hour.”

  “Don’t be late.”

  I dreamed of her. She led me smiling to her bedchamber. I was making love to her, yet some sadness halted the act before it had begun. I dreamed of lying between her thighs, kissing the soft black heart of fur that she had threaded with diamonds, but it changed into a cluster of dark dead leaves blown away by the wind.

  I had the foul taste of hopelessness in my mouth. I knew now I should never have her, the dream had told me. Lord Moustache would never let me near her. My father’s words came again: “The boy will never amount to anything.”

  I looked forward to crossing blades with Carne, sweating out my melancholy in the Great Court.

  After the seventh hour, Carne had not arrived. The evening had turned to the purplish warning of storm. I walked the length of the Court, marking the lozenges on the floor. I leaned my brow against the far wall. A sharp thunder split my nerves like a knife. That was the moment when I turned and saw him again.

  Beautiful he was.

  The radiance seen in the pitch black alley was muted, yet it still lifted the thunderous gloom and limned every feature, so that I saw him in his sublime perfection. Very tall, slender, almost fragile, with rich gold hair, the red gold seen in the most ancient coin of the East; it dressed his shoulders, covering his neck and back like folded wings.

  Slowly he began to come to me, treading the tiles on his long light feet, and again I saw the eyes of dark olive with the tiny warming fire in the deep cold well. Eyes of a saint, a lover, a victim of love.

  I stood against the wall, where his eyes had nailed me.

  His voice seemed to come from someplace apart, although his lips moved gracefully. He came walking on, deliberate, almost soundless, and stopped.

  “My name is Luce,” the lips said, though the voice was thrown back from whence he had come.

  And now I could smell him. Fresh, hot, musk-sweet man smell, and even semen, as evanescent as a blown feather...yes. I sniffed, and the faint, bitterly exciting odour was in my nostrils, my brain. His eyes endured on mine.

  My bones became wax, under that gaze.

  “How I love you,” he said.

  His hand, long delicate lily, moved to his groin.

  Fear of the foreign grabbed me. He was unbuckling; his

  eyes shone dark red, they left mine and I could look down. He had freed his sword from its belt; that was all.

  It was a fair weapon indeed, not like the sabre or the rapier or even the epée, but something perhaps hammered in an angelic forge, so frail and clever was its character. There was a fine diamond set into the hilt.

  “Show me your sword, Captain,” he said, softly and tenderly. “Let us compare.”

  His scent grew stronger; it was now like the almond scent of the gorse blossom. My eyes closed as if a hand pressed on the lids. I saw blackness.

  He had made us naked together. I felt his slim taut body, his hard silky member risen against me, and my essence burst forth like a haemorrhage.

  I opened my eyes. He had not moved. He stood, still clothed, a fair distance away. But inside my garment was the evidence: a slick of wasted seed, and I was trembling.

  “Give yourself to me,” he whispered.

  I shook my head.

  “I would never hurt you.”

  In all these moments I had been unable to utter a word. He said: “Believe me. It is not so different from what you know. Only far, far sweeter.”

  Oh, he was a seducer.

  Tears in eyes, now. Beautiful eyes, wet olives, the fire unquenched.

  He was also a phantasm, and I knew I must be ill.

  Yet again, he was real. His burning flesh had been sweet as cream.

  “Meet me,” he said. “Meet me on the third bridge. I will take you to my home. It is not far. I will take you to paradise. I will fill you with honey. You will taste of my gold. You will weep with joy in my embrace. Tomorrow.”

  “No,” I said. “Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

  “In three days then.” The soft voice was fading away. “I will love you like no other could. I will be on the third bridge, at the tenth hour.”

  Oh, he was a seducer.

  I did not even remember seeing him leave the Court, only some of the light went out of it, and a storm broke with great ferocity. Carne never came, which was as well.

  On the third bridge, at the tenth hour. In three days’ time, he had said.

  I should never see Michalla again.

  And what harm, from such beauty? He could not force me into any activity without my consent. And I wanted above all to examine the strange frail sword, the thin strong blade with the jewel.

  Then came something terrible.

  I was riding back to quarters at the head of my suite, in the rear of a mounted detachment from another of the Red companies. We had had much rainfall after the storm, and the river Milesa was in full spate. We were approaching the last of the seven bridges before turning for the barracks. Behind me, the cadets were on foot and the mounted detachment had gone ahead. No one else noticed what I saw in the water.

  At first I thought it was an animal, then realised it was a struggling boy, about six years old. He was holding on desperately to a stone projection under one pier of the bridge. His hair was plastered to his face, his eyes forced shut by the water. Now and then, he sank and thrashed about and surfaced, each time a little weaker. The river roiled about him, but he continued doggedly to grip the stonework. Someone was leaning far over the parapet above, a long pole in hand, a saviour come to hook the child out like a fish. I recognised beautiful Luce, red-gold hair streaming down, slender fluent body hanging low in an effort to reach the child. Then, while our company trotted swiftly by, I saw the horrifying truth.

  The tall man was using the point of the pole to strike at the boy’s hand, prodding and jabbing until the water turned bloody, and the fingers began to weaken. The boy’s face sank beneath the flood and rose with a noiseless cry. The point of the pole stabbed viciously; the hand let go at last. The current sucked at the child and spat him out. He whirled and vanished and the millrace had him.

  Beautiful Luce stood up on the bridge. He was laughing without a sound, mouth stretched wide, as at the best joke in the world. He convulsed, clasping himself, bending double with mirth. Then our company turned the corner and he was lost to my sight.

  I am certain he did not know I had witnessed this. He had been far too absorbed in a cruelty that was as casual as that of a man drowning kittens. I felt deep sorrow, and guilt, as if somehow I had been a party to his awful act.

  I could tell no one about it. Even when Carne came, bright with a message, my joy was tempered. “I told you so,” he said, helping himself from my decanter. “The General’s sending word today. They’re saying some damn good things about you. Just the man to whip Bearfoot, and so on.”

  There was to be a war council, and then a crack detachment of Red Rose Royals would hunt the bandit chieftain down. Under my command.

  “You’ll doubtless get a medal afterwards,” said Carne. Eventually my spirits began to lift at the prospect of major action. I had seven days in which to bring my people up to peak performance. I knew just how to do it.

  They were good men; the cavalry rode like demons and the foot sold
iers would charge through flame on command. After three days of intensive training. I was so confident I dismissed the troops well before dusk. I intended to fulfill the assignation of the tenth hour.

  It would have been easy to break the appointment, but I wanted to show my honour, to let Luce see that his ways were, in the most moral sense, not mine. This summer night, there was not a soul abroad. As I approached the third bridge, I thought for a moment he had not come. And then he morphed out of the fading sunset, enhancing it with his own radiance. He seemed to be on fire. When he saw me coming his face flamed with joy. He held out his arms.

  I halted at what I hoped was a safe distance.

  “My beloved,” he said, in the soft voice like an echo. The sweet man-smell of him came again to permeate my skin.

  “Let us not delay, not a moment longer,” he said. “There is so much I want to teach you, my beloved.”

  He came nearer, and I stepped back off the bridge on to the road. He towered above me on the curve of the bridge, one long pale hand on his sword-hilt, which I now saw was hung with tassels like braids of filamented gold.

  I was a professional warrior, an officer, yet he made me tremble.

  I said: “I am afraid I cannot see you again. Ever.”

  I was looking down at the road. Above my head, I heard him laugh gently. He said: “Of course you can. Why else are you here?”

  “I was curious to see your sword. That is all.”

  He laughed again. A darker, knowing laugh.

  “Oh, you shall see my sword. I promise you. You shall see everything. Now, let us go to my home before night comes.” His smile glittered.

  I could command men. I could command this.

  “No, I have told you. I shall not meet you again. That is all.”

  His smile vanished. Large tears began to gather in his eyes, the fiery little spark in their darkness moved, flames under dark water.

  “You are angry with me, beloved.”

  His tears threw me into chaos. And even now I was so shaken by his crime that I couldn’t speak of it. The mere mention would defile me.

  “It is,” I said clearly, that he might understand, “more in sorrow than in anger.”

  He came down off the bridge and without even seeming to move, placed himself behind me, barring my path. I whirled to face him. He looked down at me musingly.

  “My love,” he said, hand caressing the sword’s jewelled pommel. “My fine soldier. You look so pretty in your new uniform. Sweet boy.”

  This was mockery, experienced. I suddenly knew he was, awesomely, far older than I had thought him. I watched his hand, alert.

  “No,” he said. “I would not draw a weapon on you. You already know that I need only touch you with my mind.”

  Night was coming down, fast. I put up my hand at him and he stepped aside. I walked away quickly. I did not turn round, but I heard his voice, fading under the sound of the racing river.

  “Little Rudek,” he said. “My darling. Now you are dead.”

  ~o0o~

  Once again, my mind was refreshed by the oath I had taken to fight for the Opal Kingdom. Even if the fight was to be against some inbred tribe with pretensions, it was a day to seize. I was excited by my first real command, proud of my turnout, and my horse, a swift fighting bay, was the best. A clear day for our shining, tough company: flowing Lion-banners, pennoncelles undulating as if they swam in air, mounts and men and archers in top order. Seasoned sergeants in charge of my flanks. And all as quiet as any disciplined army can move, coming down over Knife Pass on to the yellow plain.

  I had sent out scouts and knew what Bearfoot was doing. They had recently despoiled a village and were celebrating. Drunk, they were dangerous, but off guard. They still had hideous weaponry; cutlasses, spiked maces, stone clubs and crossbows. For their revels they were using the old gold mine workings, but Bearfoot’s main camp where he lived with his warriors was a little way west up the pass, and it was there he would be returning. I had a keen young lieutenant riding with me. After our stealthy descent to the plain I was certain Bearfoot had no inkling of our presence.

  “When d’you think they’ll move out, Captain?”

  I said: “He’ll want to get back to his manor before dusk. As soon as we see him appear we charge and cut him off before the pass. Any stragglers can be taken by our flanks in a pincer. All of you only have to wait for my signal.”

  I had spread us out among the rock outcrops and barrows of the ancient plateau. The archers had longbows, the spears were wielded by hill-men on fast ponies. There was my proud cavalry troop. I had assessed this manoeuvre with precision.

  I nodded encouragingly to the boy bugler, who lobbed a preparatory wad of spit at the ground. My heart began to beat a fraction faster. Had I known that the General was following my campaign from one of the higher canyons I might have been more nervous, especially as with him, acting as an observer, was the legendary Captain Tallis, with a contingent of Red Royals.

  I whispered to the lieutenant: “Pass the word. Nothing moves before my signal. Not one horse or man.”

  The orders went down the line. They looked so good, my men.

  The sun was westering, building shadows under the big rocks but it was still quiet. The horses’ jingling and snorting was muted on the little dry wind.

  I might be killed. A hero!

  I shared a drop of water from the lieutenant’s canteen. The minutes went on. I had no idea how long this attrition was lasting, but it seemed now like a dream, where everything has been taken care of long ago. Within the next half hour, I thought, it will all be over. Don’t be too confident, said a strange voice in my head, and then, alarmingly: “The boy will never amount to anything.”

  From the foot of the mountain arose a great jubilant roar, almost inhuman. Following came bursts of laughter, not like the merriment of Lepo and his friends, but so crude and raucous it could have carried its own smell—of bad drink and carcasses and blood and the wounded viscera of the raped. Bearfoot’s people had had their party. This was confirmed when a scout, wriggling like a serpent through dry yellow grasses caught my stirrup and whispered.

  “He’s coming out. And others after him.”

  The lieutenant’s leg nudged mine. “Soon now?” he whispered. The little bugler clenched his fist round silver. I had my men deployed, static as chess pieces. I gazed towards the cave and saw Bearfoot.

  He’s more a troll than anything. Enormous, his head grazes the cave roof. He fills the opening. He was roaring, belching some foulness at others of his kind who shoved past him to get to the air, and he lurched, cursing them as they emerged in droves. He wore a bearskin, totem of the tribe, and thongs on his massive legs. His filthy hair streamed to his waist, and in his hand the skull of some unfortunate foe served as a drinking cup.

  Now. This for Taratamia. Bearfoot begins to waddle west where I know the pincer movement waits on my command. The sergeants will not stir without it.

  This is my day.

  The lieutenant was waiting. The bugler’s eyes rolled, the horn an inch from his lips. Now. The moment has come.

  I could not move. I could not speak.

  I could not lift my sword.

  I could not lift a finger.

  My horse shifted under me, distressed.

  The lieutenant began harshly, urgently whispering at my side.

  Bearfoot grinned and pranced at the heel of the mountain.

  “Sir! Will you give the order! Sir!”

  I could not stir one molecule, one atom, one cell, one eyelash. My blood was stilled. I was without form, and void.

  I was breathing, but only that. Dead, I breathed.

  ~o0o~

  From the high barred window, I could see the cadets drilling in the square below. I stood against the wall. At first, it had been difficult for me to lie down on the cot; I had forgotten how to bend my legs. My servant came in and out. He fussed around, changing my clothes, showing me how to wash when I had forgotten. Day had r
olled over into night more than once.

  “The adjutant will be visiting you soon, sir.”

  I could not answer. I dared not try.

  I was in civilian clothes. The prison was very quiet; jackdaws rattled about on the windowsill outside, and distantly I heard prisoners shouting for their lawyers, or to be let out.

  There were vast blanks in my recall. It was not like being drunk, the aftermath of which I had known and recovered from quickly. This was more like an amnesia of the soul.

  Gradually I became able to speak and hear and almost understand.

  I drank water, but did not touch the food they brought me. I was beginning to know that something terrible had occurred, something that would rebound not only on my own honour, but on the whole of my beloved homeland. When I closed my eyes, the hideous troll-face of Bearfoot came close, as if he were in the cell with me and with it a rush of garbled memory, and I began to talk. I did more than talk, I raved for hours and in the end they sent two of the medical corps, who said I could be heard in the square. Their potions gave me sleep—and awful dreams of being trapped in a cave with Bearfoot who was preparing a pot to roast me in, and I woke, in a state.

  “You were shouting again, sir.”

  They brought sugar rolls, fruit and coffee. My clothes were hanging on me. I took a small piece of food. I cannot describe the disgusting taste—troll excrement might come close to it. I have seldom wept, but now the griefs of my life whirled out of me, like the drowning child in the river.

  I wept because I had worked for my promotion; I wept for my arrogance, and for the men who had doubtless met death through my failed leadership. If I were to be court martialled and hanged, it would be just. Better that, than to be invalided out for some mental aberration. I was no coward, and yet I wept for the cowardice that was making me weep.

  Was it treason?

  Did they count it cowardice?

  Did I have a seizure of some kind? Something not unknown in the field, even among great commanders?