The Paladin

by C. J. Cherryh

  Maybe he was supposed to do like the saints in the stories and cut her head off, and ride back to virtuous solitude.

  But that was not what his flesh wanted to do and that was not what he had the fortitude to do and not what he had the conviction to do, not if she suddenly turned into the demon the village thought she was—if she suddenly turned about with fangs and staring eyes he would temporize with her and hope she would turn back again to Taizu. That was how bad it was with him.

  He began to believe in demons after all, that she was one, come to carry off his soul and ruin him.

  And he kept seeing her walking among the dead in the sunrise, cold as a devil's heart, prodding one and the other, turning a corpse to look for valuables—

  No crime in that. It was only practical.

  But she should have shown some remorse. Some fear. Something as maidenly as her modesty.

  Damn, if she came to his bed with fangs and all he would want her. He could not understand how he had come to this state of affairs, or why living or dying would not matter to him, without her.

  Possibly because it had not mattered for a long time before that.

  That was a grim thought. But it seemed true.

  He sighed, and splashed himself with cold water to wash the blood off from the night before and the sweat and the dirt off from today.

  Damned mess, indeed.

  * * *

  They shared a little smoked venison, and a bit of sausage; Taizu hoped for a proper supper tonight, and she would, she said, cook up a bit of rice they could roll in leaves and have on the trail tomorrow when they got hungry.

  "We're through the worst," he said, "till we get to Ygotai."

  "Maybe," she said hoarsely, "bandits will give up on us."

  "Don't count on it," he said. "But we might have convinced them to think twice about us."

  "You always worry."

  "I always worry. I served the Emperor. It's a habit."

  She cut off a piece of sausage, and nodded soberly. "I worried. That's how I got this far. I thought you'd teach me so I wouldn't have to. That was stupid to think."

  "It was a kid's way to think. You're doing much less of that."

  She looked at him a long moment. Finally: "Those men weren't much."

  "Did you expect them to be?"

  "What about Gitu?"

  "Much better than that. Much better than that. Gitu's studied. He's also ten years older than I knew him. He might have gone soft. But, I've told you, you can trust his guards haven't. Much better than those fellows back there with master Yi. Much better than the bandits. Don't expect otherwise. —Are you ready? Are you fit for more walking?"

  "Yes," she said, and wrapped up their lunch; and gathered up their gear.

  * * *

  The land flattened out again and the road crossed over the little river at a shallow spot, up to Taizu's hips: she took her armor off and led Jiro across, using her bare feet to test the soundness of the bottom, while Shoka, astride, carried everything.

  She went in up to her waist at one point, slipped and went in over her head. Jiro snorted and threw his head as Shoka kept him tight-reined and knew a heart-stopped moment till the river spat her up again soaked and outraged.

  "Damn!" She still had Jiro's reins. And she added mildly: "Slick."

  She led Jiro around. Shoka came across dry-shod, feet tucked up at the deepest part, and the girth wet. But Taizu was a mess.

  Interesting view, too. He gave her the appreciative stare it deserved as she passed him up Jiro's reins; she looked down and pulled her wet shirt away from her body.

  "Don't you ever think about anything else?"

  He grinned. "Not with a sight like that in front of me."

  She thought it was funny, then. A grin spread slowly, bright as sunrise and disquietingly wicked, before she laughed and swaggered up the bank to the flat of the road.

  With a decided sway of her hips.

  Like she had just found out her sex had a certain power—

  —with a certain self-restrained and honorable fool.

  The world would teach you otherwise, girl.

  No, the world's already tried, dammit. She's not fragile.

  Memory of her naked, pale dancer and bright steel, beset by shadows. Of her armored and blood-spattered, plundering the dead.

  Of her arms and her body around him—

  Of her going tense and panicked at the damnedest times—

  And she walked now in her wet clothes with a deliberate twitch of very visible hips.

  A girl trying out womanhood, trying out a sense of amusement about the mysteries and the to-do people made of it— Of course. With Taizu things were grimly serious—or not. Honesty—was grimly serious. And she would not, he thought, not deliberately cheat him.

  I'm not your wife, it's because I'm scared and I don't like being scared, so I do it until I'm not. . . .

  Fool. The girl warned you what she's doing. What does it take?

  This morning she was a demon, Now she's a—

  —damned tart.

  She's—

  —a kid. A scared kid who trusts me to treat her decently.

  —Master Shoka—

  He hurt. That was what. He had better sense than she did. He saw where they were going and he foresaw her lying dead on the road, foresaw himself giving a fair account of himself against whatever nest of trouble they had met. But himself lying on the road thereafter. And the farmers nearby saying: Well, there goes a fool. And the nobles in Chiyaden sighing and saying: With a peasant girl. Whatever can he have intended to do?

  And others saying: Maybe he went a little crazy, living off on that mountain.

  * * *

  Boiled rice for supper, a decent fire, a good dinner. And Taizu fell asleep afterward, just—nodded off sitting there, her back against the rock, her rice-bowl empty in her lap.

  It wouldn't be much good, Shoka thought; she had walked so far and run so hard; and she looked so damned innocent like that—

  He put their mats by her, he said: "Taizu," and waked her before he took her in his arms—safest. "Lie down, you'll get a stiff back," he said, slipping his arms around her. She put her arms around him and muttered something, and nodded off against his shoulder.

  Damn.

  * * *

  "Mmm," she said later, stirred and shifted over. He was not asleep, not quite. He had not dared in this place.

  "My turn to sleep," he said muzzily. "Can you stay awake awhile?"

  She brushed her fingers through his hair.

  "If you do that," he said, "you're going to wake me up."

  "I'm sorry," she snapped and shoved at him. "Go to sleep, then."

  He blinked, rolled onto an arm, rubbed his eyes. "Don't ask profound philosophy of a man in the middle of the night, out of a sound sleep. What are we doing?"

  Perhaps he embarrassed her. There was a long silence.

  Damn, she had thought she was being seductive.

  He fumbled down her arm and found her hand. "Sorry." She let him do that, so he reached further and rested his hand on her shirt, on her stomach, just friendly.

  She took his hand in hers and put it up under, against her heart.

  Which was all right for a while. Then the shirt went; and his did; and the breeches.

  He took his time. And when he slumped down close to her ear and said, with all the deliberate timing of a courtesan: "Be my wife."

  "O gods—" she breathed. And eventually, shortly: "No."

  He muttered an army obscenity and sank off to the side, disappointed, discouraged, but not defeated.

  A few more breaths. "You say I'm your wife. I sleep with you. What more do you want?"

  He knew the answer. It was plain to him as day and night. But it was hard to say to a hostile woman. So he said nothing.

  "What would your wife have to do?"

  "I suppose what you do now. I've had no luck stopping you."

  "Then why do you want me to marry you?"


  "Because," he retorted, "if you don't they can cut your damn hand off for carrying that sword!"

  "Well, you lie about it all right! I don't know why you couldn't lie to a magistrate!"

  Caught, he said: "I suppose I could."

  "So you don't need to marry me."

  "I don't need to marry you."

  "Then why? What would be different? That you'd tell me what to do?"

  He asked himself that, not for the first time. "I wouldn't stop you."

  "Well, why, then?"

  He traced a line down her shoulder. And did not find it any easier for being down to his last excuses. "Because it'd please me. Because—" Because after two Emperors and someone else's wife, I'd like to know someone loyal to me, as well as the other way around.

  She said, angrily: "It's stupid! You've gone crazy!"

  She had her own hurts. He allowed that. His own pained him at the moment, sharp as the old wound when it ached, and he was not willing to get into an argument.

  "Master Shoka?"

  That hurt.

  He turned his back to her. But she grabbed him by the shoulder and leaned over his arm. He was angry enough to have thrown her clear to the riverside.

  But she said: "I just want to know."

  It took forty years worth of self-control to be very calm and say: "Because it's decent."

  "What does decent have to do with it?" she hissed. "Because master Saukendar doesn't like to be sleeping with his student, but his wife is all right?"

  He took several careful breaths. He did not hit her.

  "I just want to know why," she said.

  "It's decent for people to make promises to each other, and keep them. I want—" Once to have someone promise me something, and mean it. "—to go to sleep. You wear me out, girl."

  "Wear you out! I'm the one carrying the baggage!"

  There was no romantic instinct in the girl. None.

  She threw her arms around his neck, knelt there and rested her head against his shoulder. "I'm a peasant," she said. "The first time you see the ladies in Chiyaden you'll hate the sight of me."

  "Damn if I will." He turned over and clipped her chin by accident. "Taizu, for the gods' sake—" He touched the offended chin.

  "You will."

  He was pushing too hard, trying to compel her. That was no good. It had nothing to do with the loyalty he wanted. "No," he said. "No." And sighed and gathered her into his arms, determined to go to sleep. "Let it be. Let it be. You don't believe me. And that's the end of it."

  "What would I have to do? Do what you say?"

  "Hush, go to sleep."

  "Why do you want me to marry you?"

  "Because I love you," he said. It was more complicated than that. But it shut her up for a while. Maybe she was thinking. Everything Taizu did was tangled.

  Finally she said: "Are you going to say I have to do what you say?"

  "No," he said, weary of this endless dicing of the matter; but patient. It took that, with Taizu. He knew her mind. They would be arguing when they got to Hua.

  She was quiet a long time. He was half-asleep when she said, her head pillowed on his chest: "Can I think about it?"

  He tousled her hair. "Do that." And tenderly combed it, since it had gotten leaves in it. "Don't sleep without waking me. Understand?"

  "Mmnn," she said.

  * * *

  But he waked with the crack of a branch in his ears and the sun on his face.

  "Dammit!" he said, and rolled over with his heart pounding, grabbing after his sword.

  But she was there in the dawn breaking twigs for the fire.

  He let his head down on his arms and got his breath.

  "I didn't go to sleep," she said. "I couldn't sleep."

  "Well, a hell of a lot of time we're going to make today." He got up and went off to the bushes, and came back and washed and shaved at the riverside.

  She had breakfast ready when he sat down at the fire.

  So he ate, watching the riverside and watching the light on the water and thinking on as little as he had thought about in mornings at the cabin.

  Except he missed the cabin. He wished he was there. With her.

  He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. And patiently combed it and put it up before he set to putting his shin-guards on.

  Taizu came and squatted in front of him, in shirt and armor-breeches, arms between her knees.

  "Do you remember what you said last night?" she asked.

  "What do you mean, what I said last night?"

  She bit her lip, ready to take offense.

  "I mean," he said, "I damn well remember what I said last night! What do you expect?" Damn, he had upset her. He was not his most diplomatic in the mornings. He threw the second shin-guard down and looked at her, at a very off-put Taizu, who had her jaw clamped. "Oh, hell!" Cross-purposes again. "It's not two merchants haggling over a load of salt, girl. It's not a financial arrangement. I've got nothing to give you—" He thought then, as he had not thought—what would happen to her if he were the one killed, and she were left, his wife, with his enemies, and that was enough to upset his stomach. "Not a damn thing I haven't already given."

  "Can't you not swear at me?"

  "I don't want to swear at you. Gods know I don't. All right, don't. Dont promise me anything." He picked up the shin-guard again and fitted it, beginning the ties. "It's all getting too complicated. I'm not trying to stop you."

  "Then why are you trying to marry me?"

  "O—gods." He rested his head against his hand. Looked up again with all the calm and patience he could muster, into two puzzled, earnest eyes.

  "I want to know! You're asking me to do something, I want to know!"

  Not surprising he made no sense to her, he thought. He made none to himself, nothing he wanted to bring into the light.

  "What do you want out of me?" she asked.

  He made the ties. He worked his arms into the armor-sleeves and tied the cords across his chest.

  And she never said a thing to him. She just waited, arms on knees. Peasant-like.

  So master Saukendar could get the lump out of his throat and get his balance back and manage some dignity. He hated being coddled.

  Which was, he thought, close to what he was asking. Once in his life.

  "I'm used to people loving me, girl. The whole world loved me. Love's damn cheap. You can buy it in the market and the court, two a penny."

  She looked shocked.

  "I'm too old for you," he said. "I was too old when you were born." He got up and felt the old pain, the way he felt it at every such move, always there. I'm not coming back, he thought again. Not from this one. Why all this thought of permanency?

  "Master Shoka—"

  Plaintively. Sharp as a knife.

  He picked up the body armor and fitted it on, walking over to fetch Jiro.

  "You're not old!" she yelled at his back.

  And ran and grabbed at his arm, but he interposed a hand and a foul look, at which she was wise enough and respectful enough to stop.

  So they took the road again, no different than they had begun.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The land became lower, the land became level, and rice-fields and dikes marked the beginning of farms, the tributaries of Ygotai.

  And among the dike roads a pasture and a tolerably decent few horses.

  "They belong to the judge," a farmer said.

  "Stay here," Shoka said, and took the locket, the gold they had gotten, and the coins which he had, in the foolishness of their first acquaintance, proposed for Taizu's dowry.

  And leaving Taizu to sit and guard their baggage by the dike-side, he rode to the judge's gate.

  "My name is Sengi," he said, leaning an elbow on Jiro's saddlebow and looking down at the gatekeeper. "Captain Sengi, to see the judge—I understand he has horses for sale."

  The magistrate was, thank the gods, not a man he knew or ever had heard of, a fat old man very nervous to find a mer
cenary captain at his gate; but a good deal happier to see that captain rattle a heavy purse and announce that he had given his remount to a friend and looked to acquire a serviceable animal—with tack.

  So he left Jiro tied in the shade—calling out loud and friendly salutations to one of the judge's mares and generally giving grief to the judge's grooms—and walked out to the small pasture with the judge, to look at several fine mares, to admire their fine points, to talk horse-breeding, a passion of the elderly judge, and to agree with the judge's wisdom absolutely—which he figured might lower the price within his reach.

  So one sat in the shade of the judge's garden, one sipped beautifully prepared tea—

  —One remembered gentler times then, and felt a little pang, and felt the years shift back and forth in insane depth—

  A garden, a path, a shade and a pool with an arching bridge.

  His own house.

  But it was forfeit. Confiscated.

  "This is what I have." Shoka laid out the gold locket and the rings. And added a couple of coins. "I appreciate a fine horse. I'm afraid I know too well what they're worth. But the sorrel with the white foot. . ."

  "Brood mare potential. You should have seen her sire. . . ."

  "Certainly. But I couldn't possibly afford the bay . . ."

  It took the whole damned afternoon. He imagined Taizu fretting and fretting out there on the road. He imagined a whole troop of imperial guards coming along and asking questions Taizu could not answer.

  But there was no way to evade the old man, who asked him about affairs further north.

  "M'lord, I've come in from Mendang. I've no idea. How are things in Hoishi?"

  At which the old man temporized: "About what they have been."

  "Cheng'di?"

  "About the same. How in Hoisan?"

  Cagey old wretch, Shoka thought.

  And wished to hell he could get something current out of him.

  But if he asked how were the crops, then the old fox would suspect something—a mercenary captain who went asking . . . might have banditry in mind; and the village judge was not the person to rouse suspicions with. So he drank the tea and talked over horses past and present.