The Paladin

by C. J. Cherryh

  He came up the hill to the smell of cooking, he sat down on the porch in the twilight as he had gotten very accustomed to doing, and had his tea and a bowl of savory rice and greens and rabbit.

  And had the girl's not unpleasant company, as she talked about the woods and asked him what sort of mushrooms grew there and compared them to the mushrooms in Hua province. She named plants and asked if they grew on his mountain and he confessed he did not know all the answers.

  "It was not part of my study," he said, "in Cheng'di or in Yiungei. I know the common names, and the mushrooms, and the ones to avoid."

  She made a sound past a mouthful of rice. "I know. I can do that for you too."

  Meaning that he should not send her to the nuns or to the village. So she was still eager to stay, even considering the work he heaped on her—

  "It's good," he said, tapping the bowl. "Very good. You're an excellent cook."

  Her face darkened, as if that had made her remember something or someone; and he thought desperately, searching for something to draw her away from that:

  Ask her what? About her family?

  Gods, no.

  Her marriage prospects?

  None.

  "You did very well today."

  She nodded.

  Damn. One ploy down.

  "You've hunted before."

  A second nod.

  "Gods, girl. Talk."

  She stared at him, puzzled and disturbed.

  "What," he asked her, "did you hunt back in Hua?"

  "Rabbits. Mushrooms."

  "Elusive and treacherous things. Who taught you to stalk?"

  "My brothers." Her jaw knotted. "They're dead now."

  Damn, again. There was no way to talk to her without touching something dark. Or maybe there was nothing but that, inside her, around her. He felt the coming night a little colder.

  "So far," he said, between bites, "I haven't seen any reason to take you to the nuns. So far, I don't intend to."

  "You said you'd show me how to make a bow."

  "I don't recall I said that."

  She stared at him, slowly chewing.

  "For one thing, you don't haggle it. If there was any long grain in that piece of wood you ruined it. What did you use, an axe?"

  She nodded.

  "Where is it?"

  "Lost it."

  "Where?"

  "Threw it at this man."

  "Who?"

  "On the road."

  "I didn't ask where, I asked who."

  "Man came up on me in the woods."

  Piece by piece. "A man could get tired talking to you. Can't you tell a story, for the gods' sake?"

  "You want me to say?"

  "Entertain me."

  "It was muddy and I got wet: I was going to make a place to sleep; but this man came up across the stream, and I couldn't talk, he might know I was a girl; so I grabbed up my stuff and I was going to leave, but he told me stay. So I said keep away. So he came across the stream and I flung the axe at him and I ran. I was afraid to go back for it. I figured he could be behind me carrying it."

  He nodded. "Why not the bow?"

  "It was wet. It was raining."

  He sighed, rested his chin on his hand, his empty bowl in his lap, and looked at her, while she looked at him as if he had totally bewildered her.

  Gods, what is this girl?

  "He was going to come at me," she protested.

  "I don't doubt."

  She looked at him with misgivings then, as if confusions had piled up on her; she ducked her head and hunted a last few grains of rice on the side of her bowl.

  "Girl," he said, "I don't know what happened back in Hua, but bandits have rarely bothered this place. You don't have to be afraid."

  "I'm not afraid."

  "You can't right every damn wrong in the world, even when it's your own wrong. Take that from me. People have come to me, asking me to come settle some grievance or another. All the stories are sad. But you know I can't help them? That's the greatest wisdom I've learned up here on this damn mountain. Manage your own troubles. Live peacefully. The sunrise and the sunset are more important than the rise and fall of Emperors. That's my whole philosophy. I give it to you."

  She frowned and stared at her empty bowl.

  "You understand me?" he asked her. He was not sure, sometimes, with her accent, that she did understand the language he spoke, or the words he used. He tried to keep things simple.

  "I hear you."

  "I didn't ask if you heard me, I asked if you understood."

  "Teach me to make a proper bow. Teach me the sword. That's what I want."

  "Girl, there are a lot of things I can teach you...."

  She shot him a wary, worried look under one brow, the kind of warning the man might have gotten before she flung the axe.

  "Among them," he continued doggedly, "the gentleness a man ought to use with a woman."

  She scrambled up to her feet, disappeared inside and came out with the bucket they used for drinking water, to set it on the porch the way she always did before her evening run up the hill.

  "You can leave that off," he said.

  "No," she said.

  "I said to leave it off. Dammit, it's dark under the trees. You've hiked all through the woods; you can run tomorrow."

  "I said I would run it."

  "I say you won't." He put his feet down on the ground beside the porch, got up and walked up the three steps, a little stiff: he always was when he had been sitting cross-legged. "You also said you'd do as you're told; and you're not running in the dark." He saw the fear in her eyes, and lowered his voice. "Do I worry you? You needn't worry. Because a man says he'd like to show you a little kindness, do you think it's cause to run away from him?"

  The fear did not go away. She only looked at him as if she were caught between choices, each one terrible.

  "Girl, I wasn't celibate before I came up here; and if you think you look like a boy, and if you think I can share a cabin with a woman after nine years on this mountain and not have certain impulses, you've got a damn sight more to learn about men."

  "You took me for your student, master Saukendar. What kind of man would lay hands on his student?"

  "You're a girl! You don't change that!"

  "Your word didn't say anything about that. You agreed. That's all of it."

  "You listen to me, girl. You don't change nature. What you ask isn't reasonable!"

  "You swore it."

  "I was humoring a lunatic!"

  "But you swore it. And it's your honor, isn't it, if you break your word the gods will remember it. You swore you'd take me for a student, and that you wouldn't lay a hand on me. Are you going to break your oath?"

  "Fool! You won't last it out. There was never any hope of that. High time you realized it and started thinking about how you're going to provide a living for yourself."

  "All you have to do is teach me. And I got here, master Saukendar, I got here on my own and you say yourself I'm good in the woods. I set a trap you walked right into, didn't I? And I've done everything you've set me to do, so you don't have any cause to complain about me. You teach me the same way you would a boy, and I'll learn the same as any boy."

  "The way you run the hill?"

  "The way I run the hill."

  "Oh, come, girl, don't lie to me. You've never finished that course."

  "I do!"

  "Damn, you've never even seen the top of the hill. You sit down when you get winded, you rest till you think it's time and you run down, don't tell me you're going all the way to the top."

  "Then follow me."

  That stung: he could not run that hill himself, not with his lame leg, and he was sure she knew that and that she was deliberately making the point. He folded his arms and gave her a hard look. "Girl, you're trying me."

  "I'm not a cheat."

  He gave her a long, long stare. "You maintain that you're going all the way to the top. That you're not waiting it ou
t. You're not lying to me."

  "No."

  "A truth for a truth: I expected you not to get halfway. Now tell me that you didn't, and I'll call it even and nothing will change. Students have pulled tricks like that since the sun was spawned. But by the gods if you lie to me eye to eye and I catch you in it, all agreements are off—and I will catch you, understand me?"

  "I'm not lying!"

  "Last chance."

  "I'm not lying. "

  "Stay off the hill tonight. Get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow you'll need it. Or you'll tell me you've lied. Because if I find out you have—I'm free of anything I ever promised you. That's the end of it."

  * * *

  Jiro laid his ears back when the blanket and saddle went on; and he pricked them up again as Shoka led him out into the daylight where Taizu waited, sitting on the fence.

  "All right," Shoka said, as Jiro worked the bit and rugged at the reins close-held in his fist. "I'll give you a head start. Down to the far end of the pasture and up again."

  Taizu looked in that direction, the long slope of the shoulder where an old burn-off had left very few trees, part of the hill clear of woods had grown over with grass and weeds. He had hewed the saplings of the regrowth, burned and cut the stumps; used the trimmed trees for railing; and widened the pasturage year by year. Now it compassed all of a broad downward slope before it dropped away suddenly at the end and sides.

  Taizu nodded and set off at a jog toward the railing of the pen, ducked under and set out at an easy pace across the pasture beyond.

  He led Jiro over to the gate, opened it, led him through and swung up to the saddle as Jiro worked the bit and started to move.

  "Faster!" he yelled at the girl.

  She quickened her pace; and he let her get a good long start across the pasture before he gave Jiro his head.

  Jiro snorted and fought for more rein. Shoka held him in, feeling Jiro's uneasiness, seeing the way Jiro's ears came up with the girl a distant figure framed between them.

  Faster and faster, Jiro fighting to break loose of the rein, the gap between them and the girl less and less. Jiro's ears went back. The warhorse knew one purpose to a chase and he had no compunction at all in a fight.

  "Faster!" Shoka yelled.

  The girl did not look back. She put on a burst of speed and Jiro ducked his head, fighting to get the bit.

  "He'll knock you flat!" Shoka yelled. "Keep ahead of him!"

  She dodged around one of the few standing trees and Jiro needed no rein to veer around and keep after her. The horse kept fighting for the bit, trying all his tricks as the girl reached the fence, hit the top rail with her hands, and dived back the other way, halfway through her course.

  The horse fought to turn and cut her off, and Shoka took him wide, complete turn about, while the girl lit out on the uphill slope of the meadow.

  Damn, she was not winded yet.

  He put Jiro to a faster pace; and the girl took a dodge through a series of three standing trees, in and out among a handful of small, sharp stumps he had not yet cleared.

  "All right, girl," he muttered to himself; and loosened up on the reins a bit, letting Jiro take the weaving course at a faster pace.

  But the girl suddenly sprinted all out for the stable fence higher up the hill.

  Damn, she was going to make it.

  He gave Jiro his heels then, a full-tilt course uphill, to cut in between the girl and the fence at the last moment.

  She veered off as Jiro's shoulder all but brushed her and Jiro spun on his own, coming up on his hind legs as Shoka reined back and then let up again.

  Jiro dived after the girl, and the girl ran all out, for the side fence, this time, then as Jiro closed that distance, cut across and tried to double back to the stable fence.

  "No, you don't!" Shoka yelled at her, and pulled Jiro across to cut her off a second time, nettled and amazed that there was so much speed left in the girl.

  She changed direction again for the side, a sudden sprint and a dart down the pasture, and he herded her back again; another sprint toward the uphill, and he cut that off.

  The girl was drenched in sweat now; and reeled back as Jiro came close with his shoulder, reeled back and darted opposite to Jiro's right-hand cornering, shot straight for the fence; but Shoka put his heels to Jiro and Jiro stretched out in a run, cut between her and the fence, hard-breathing and snorting as he turned.

  She dodged back almost under Jiro's rump: Jiro kicked and Shoka reined him aside, which Jiro took for a full-about signal and dived again to head her back.

  She turned again, stumbled this time; and kept running, while he took Jiro about and spun him into a full turn to get Jiro under control before he dived after the girl again; and the girl dodged back toward the fence, stumbling now, while he reined circles around her.

  He did not expect the final sprint that flung her for the rails. She grabbed the fence, tried to go over it and collapsed on her knees in the dust there, clinging to the rail. She bent helpless for a moment, coughing, gasping after breath, then shook back her sweaty hair and stared sidelong up at him, one eye in eclipse under the mop, the other glaring reproachfully up at him what time she was not coughing.

  Daring him to say that she lied. And he knew now in his heart that she had not. She had run that damned mountain, beyond any doubt.

  He hated to be caught in the wrong. And doubly hated, even considering that she was a fool and worse for everything she wanted, to have asked the impossible and pushed her as far as he had, twice over, to end up with her in the right and himself very conspicuously the villain in the exchange.

  Damn. And he had put his word on the outcome.

  "All right," he said finally, from the height of Jiro's back, "I'll teach you as far as you can go. But wherever you fail, you fail, and I'll hear no excuses."

  She tried to straighten up. She hauled herself up against the railings and hung there.

  "You'll cramp like hell if you don't cool down slowly," he said. "Walk up to the house, wrap up, I'll put some water on to boil."

  She nodded, just that single move of her head. She climbed awkwardly through the fence and staggered off across the stable pen.

  Damn, damn, and damn.

  But he found himself seriously considering that she might make a student after all. She was fast enough and strong enough to learn far more than he had reckoned; and perhaps—one hoped—she would listen to good sense along the way.

  Chapter Four

  He did not sleep well that night. He kept thinking of Chiyaden, for reasons that he could not understand.

  Perhaps, he thought, it was that he contemplated teaching, and teaching, he had to remember how he was taught and the things he had learned, and the learning of them had been in Chiyaden, and in his youth, and at his father's hand and at old master Yenan's, in the court at Cheng'di.

  A great many of those memories would have been pleasant to recall, except he knew what his father's plans had come to. His father had set him, before he died, to serve the old Emperor in the Emperor's waning years—and, in his father's place, he had tried, earnestly tried, he had sacrificed everything he could in a personal way, he had defended the old Emperor against assassins, he had taken every precaution he could to preserve the Empire and the peace. But no martial skill had availed against the wilfulness of an heir who had conspired in the execution of his appointed caretakers and who had intended with everything that was in him, to see that Saukendar followed them to disgrace.

  There was no wisdom that might have saved Chiyaden, except to wish that the Emperor had brought up a better son; except to wish the old Emperor had taught Beijun more, indulged him less when he was young, used a stronger hand to separate him from bad companions....

  Gods knew what would have served: he had tried to advise the old Emperor regarding his heir and his companions: his father before him had given the same advice, all disregarded. Maturity will change him, the old Emperor had said of his son. Responsibility will
change him. Give him time.

  In his nightmares he saw his friend Heisu under the axe; and the sensible lady the young Emperor had married—

  —that he should have married, except the Emperor decreed Meiya for his son—

  —Meiya sitting at the garden window with the poisoned cup in her hand, fragile porcelain, elegant as everything about her.

  Damn, damn, and damn! Damn Beijun for a fool and himself—

  Meiya had thought to the last, perhaps, that he would arrive in time; that he would cleave his way to her rescue. But no one had told him: the order was signed and sealed by the Emperor and the killers were on their way when she had drunk that cup, while he himself was two days away from the capital on a fool's mission the young Emperor had assigned him.

  It could not have been the young Emperor's planning. Ghita's, beyond a doubt; Shoka had had nine years to live with that reckoning, that he had been caught for a fool, that if there was any adultery with the lady Meiya—

  —at least of the heart—

  He clenched his fists and twisted on his mat, and stared into the dark where Meiya's gentle countenance did not have the substance she did in his memories.

  You have a duty, his father had counseled him, when the old Emperor had proclaimed his wishes regarding his son's betrothal to the lady Meiya; the welfare of the Empire comes above every other thing. Think of your oath.

  Shoka had rebelled against that decision: he had served the Emperor—and this was the reward of it, Meiya given to a fool, because the Emperor, in his slow dying, knew that his son needed strong advisers; and chose Meiya and through Meiya, her father lord Peidan; and besides Meiya, lord Heisu of Ayendan; and Saukendar, heir to Yiungei province, not least in that number.

  His father had counseled him wisely in everything but this, that he give his devotion in due time to the new Emperor as to the old; that he persuade Beijun slowly to good sense; that he trust Meiya and Heisu and his own influence could take a self-indulgent, stupid boy and make an Emperor out of him.

  This much was true, at least, that if he had arrived in time and carried Meiya away to exile, Ghita's assassins would never have given up; and that if Meiya had been with him on the road he would never have gotten this far.