Five days beyond this one and that bridge at Lungan had damned well better be open. He knew no way, this side of the river, to get one of the men back to Reidi in time to say otherwise, and he wished to hell he could, now, strongly suspecting, by everything he had heard from the Fittha, that Ghita was well warned and prepared to draw a battle-line at the bridge at Lungan.
That said something about the north, that Ghita reckoned the Imperial Province well in hand, so that he could hold at Lungan, without worrying about anything coming at his back. So much for the hope that the Imperial troops in the province might mutiny, that some wave of rebellion might come in from the borders, at least sufficient uncertainty to make a difference: in that case Ghita would pull back behind Cheng'di and across the Chaighin, to his own land in Kenji and Angen, where he could virtually section off Ayenden, Shangei, P'eng and Yijang, where the mercenary forces were thickest and where his supporters held lordships—a slow, nasty kind of war, but better than fighting it out in the heart of Chiyaden.
But Imperial troops had evidently not defected, the Hisei and not the Chaighin was the line of defense Ghita chose, and the Emperor and the capital were firmly in Ghita's hands.
Decidedly not what he had hoped for.
* * *
The sparse traffic on the Lungan road had a desperate look, a few traders, anxious gentry in fancy, flower-painted carriages and countryfolk in plain farm carts, or just poor townsmen walking with baskets and bundles. When they saw soldiers they pulled over to the edge of the road and inched along, or stopped altogether and made respectful bows from which they did not look up at all. Taizu just rode coldly past them, watching, watching all the while, wary as he had taught her to be, sharp eyes above the mask of filthy bandage, while the men, some of them, rode silent and avoided looking at the people: ashamed, Shoka thought; or feeling too much.
Himself—he tried to figure out what he felt, who—he could not shake the feeling—might have come earlier, might have planned better, and, by the gods, on his side, might have had a damn lot more help from these same people—if any number of them had been willing to take matters in their own hands. He was not sure whether he loved them in the aggregate or wanted to do them violence; or wanted simply to ride off and let them talk their way out of their disaster, the way they had talked the emperor to the throne and Ghita into power and himself out of favor and then turned around and deified him right into the mess he was in, his whole life carried one direction and another on the breath of the people; and all the virtue he had went to refraining from what they deserved—
—except Taizu was one of their number. And he could not forget that, whenever he saw some poor soul struggling along with a basket or bundle, all that was valuable, all that was possible to save out of a lifetime. The lords fought, the banners flew, and the gray lines of desperate people trekked the roads, with their meager world on their backs.
Taizu believed less in gods after knowing him. She began to know what the people's heroes were made of—exaggeration, desperate wishes and superstition—and still stayed with him, caught in the same nets, while at the bottom of his heart he was terrified that she would get up sane one morning and see an ordinary, lame, forty-year-old man with a nasty disposition and too little patience with people.
He hated power over people. He truly hated it. And sometimes he hated them, that was what he was profoundly ashamed of, hated them because they thrust off all the virtues they admired on some poor idol, and stopped expecting them in themselves.
He wished he did have a visible god or two to shove matters off on—but if the gods were accessible, it seemed only fair not to do to them what he complained about in others: as well, then, to shut up and carry matters on his own as far as he could. Then the gods might be happier about coming through in a pinch. That was the sum of his religion, and he was thinking earnestly about it this afternoon, on the way to getting all of them killed.
Well, Celestial Lord, I'm not sure this mess is solvable. Ghita's invited the foreigners into the heart of the Empire. He's a fool. Of course the foreign kings are helping him, while Chiyaden's army fights their wars. But there are far too many of them, aren't there, Ghita's gotten himself into a trap he has to understand by now—too much unrest to trust the army home, so much he needs the foreigners to keep order, and he has to know if they find a leader of their own, it won't be a border war any longer. So he has to keep the border war going not only to keep the army officers busy, but keep things stirred up so his foreign allies need Chiyaden's army. He can only do that so long, before the whole stack of bricks falls down.
Chiyaden will pay for what he's done, down the years. We've shown the barbarians too much about us. They know our foolishness. Mend that, Celestial Lord, and save us from our own short-sightedness: that's what we can't do ourselves.
It was the only conversation he had had with the gods in ten years; but this afternoon he was down to that. He had no notion yet what to do, what they were going into, what their enemy's preparations had been—
And all along the road they were passing people who might have that information, who had come out of Lungan or its surrounds. The refugees, he thought, the people who shied off from them on the road—knew things that were life and death to them; and might, if he told them the simple truth, carry that rumor back to mercenary units on the road behind them.
He watched one cart on its way to disaster, a girl with a baby, a young boy, an old man—the cartwheels squealing under the misaligned load of household goods and the old horse working hard to make headway.
On impulse he blocked the dray's path with his own, and, seeing the fugitives panic, bowed in the saddle, courteous and not crowding them himself, but his anxious company drew close on the side and behind him.
"It's all right," he said in soldier patois, and held both hands in plain sight. "We just have a question or two about the road ahead. Come all the way from Lungan?"
Heads nodded.
"Is the Regent at Lungan?"
Terrified stares.
"Where's lord Ghita?"
The eyes hardly blinked. Only the old horse moved, restless under the stressed shafts.
"Dammit, answer me!"
"Lungan, lord. In Lungan." From the grandfather, who looked fit to collapse. "All the soldiers are there."
"Fortified?"
"Yes, lord, fortified."
"Where?"
"The camp, lord. Around the camp."
Too much fear. Too little knowledge. Anything they said might be a lie, they would agree to anything he suggested, whatever would please him. "Go on," he said, and reined out of their way. He added, sorry for them: "I'd go wide of Anogi if I was you and I'd spread that word up and down the road. There's a garrison there. I just wouldn't be in that town, if things get bad. The mercenaries are apt to loot and run straight down to Mandi. Pass the word. Go north of Anogi, keep to the country roads. You'll be a damn sight safer."
Still the huge-eyed stares. The baby cried and the girl put her hand over its mouth, hugged it against her.
"Go on," he said.
They started the horse up. The cart rolled past.
"And throw a third of that damn junk off," he yelled over the squealing of the wheels. "You may need that horse."
There was no likelihood they would take either piece of advice. He staring past his shoulder at tragedy on an unstoppable course.
"Can't depend on anything they say," Taizu said, walking her horse up beside him. "They're too scared. They'll never talk to a soldier."
"Damn fools."
He knew better than what he had just done. He felt angry with himself, angry with them, for reasons varied and too scattered to make sense of.
If you were there, Taizu had said to him a long time ago, you'd set things right.
Of course I would.
Like climbing a cliff. It was the looks down that took a man's stomach, the occasional realization where he was and what he was doing and what he had to work with.
Of course conscript the young men out of the central provinces, especially from regions around the capital, especially from the towns and cities, where discontent fomented and young men gathered in taverns and tea-shops.
And damned if those that were left were going to risk their precious exemptions. So they would do nothing, dare nothing; but one could panic, accosted by soldiers, one could turn out to have a weapon.
So it was one of the women he rode down on of a sudden, when they next came on a knot of refugees—the hindmost, who struggled along under a bundle too large for her, and who had no hope of running. She looked up when he reined across her path. It was a tolerably pretty face. Or at least it might have been, except the dirt and the sweat and the fear. "Girl," he said, holding his fretting horse still, and saw out of the tail of his eye that the next to last straggler of the little group had delayed, an old man with the cart who looked as if he wanted desperately to do something—and was not sure how much a moral act was worth.
"Girl, just a few questions." In a cultured accent this time, pure courtly language. "I won't delay you, I won't hurt you. Who commands in Lungan?"
"Lord Ghita," she stammered.
"Is he there, personally?"
A definitive nod. Fear in the eyes, but a re-estimation, too. Who are you? that look said, scared, but with perhaps the sudden notion that she was not talking to a mercenary.
"Who's attacking him?"
"Lord?"
"Who's attacking Lungan?"
A hesitation. The horse pulled at the bit, and he held it hard, waiting for his answer.
"They say the lords south."
"Who's leading them?"
"They say lord Saukendar. They say there's demons. They say—"
"What, girl?"
"He's come with their help." A quick swallow, as if too many words had gotten out. Her mouth trembled and she clamped it hard, her face quite pale.
"Where's the Emperor right now, do you know?"
A desperate move of her head. No. She looked at him, at his hands, at his face again.
And the old man still lingered, at the edge of his vision.
"That old man yonder looks like he'd like to help you. Do you know him?"
A frantic glance. "No. No. I don't."
"I'd travel with him if I were you. He's worth something."
"Lord?"
But he let the horse go then, and it walked on, his waiting company closing around him at that pace, a long day, tired horses.
"Ghita's in Lungan," he said, "and they know I'm involved in the south. The rumors have gotten north."
"M'lord," the squad leader said. Which was about all the conversation he usually had of the men. But they were steady and none of them were slow-witted. Not one of them made a suggestion. They talked, when they rode close to each other or when they stopped for a rest, in quiet voices, sometimes with looks his way or Taizu's. Sometimes they looked a great deal worried. They did now.
Wondering what we're doing? Shoka thought. Wondering how we're going to get into Lungan and what we're going to do and what they're along for?
So am I, man. I'm working this out as I go. Or maybe I have an affinity for women with baskets.
* * *
There was a wall and a hedge for shelter in the last of the dusk, an old shrine, which the men thought lucky: they made sacrifice of a little rice, a little wine, and paid their respect to the gods and their ancestors with more fervency, a couple of them, than might be likely in foreigners.
Asking the gods for help, maybe. Or for the welfare of wives and parents they might not see again.
But no one was there to see: the refugees had thinned out to a very few after dusk, and no one stayed near them. No refugees and no sign of other units, which was the thing he had worried most about—running into some other squad, real mercenaries inbound or outbound from Lungan. None so far, and either they had hit the pace that might keep them isolated on the road, or inbound troops were getting very few now and no one was coming out again.
So it was a plain, decent supper, a camp with a little leisure to sit and catch breath instead of falling straightway to sleep. "We could gain a little time," Shoka had told them when they stopped, "but I know this road we're on and I know Lungan, gods know I know it. We can stop now, get some sleep and get there by noon tomorrow, and if there's any traffic coming in at all, that can help us. I'd just rather not answer close questions if we can avoid it; and if we have to, better we do it on a good sleep. Take a little wine. Whatever lets you rest. All right?"
"Yes, m'lord," the squad leader said. His name was Chun.
"I don't think I've ever served with better," Shoka said after a moment; and the men looked shocked for a moment, then, with Chun, made deep bows, murmuring, "my lord," one and all of them.
There was fervency in the look they gave him, in the dark, in the light of their little fire. He usually hated looks like that. But not at the moment. It came from both sides, he thought. That was the difference. Chun. Eigi. Jian. Panji and Nui, cousins. Liang and Waichen, Yandai and Wengadi. They did not, thank gods, look to him for miracles, just sane orders. And they tried, they kept trying—maybe because there was a woman in their midst, even if she was a demon.
"Um," he said after a moment, clearing his throat, and got up and walked away, wishing then he had not said anything. It was a trap. They had no reason to be impressed with him. He had no right to use them. He forgot, forgot, dammit, the sense he had gotten to, to keep himself away from people, not to attract their attention, not—with the little virtue he had attained—to make them into instruments. Not to be used, himself; and not to use others. And not to make them love him.
Dammit.
Why can't I learn? What makes me do such things?
Taizu stood by him. Taizu touched his sleeve. "Master Shoka."
It stung. He took his arm away.
"Master Shoka." Again the touch at his arm, urging him toward the shadows of the hedge.
He drifted that way with her, into the dark, and stopped there, with no present inclination to talk, even to look at her. But he put his hand on hers where it touched his arm.
"Is everything all right?"
"Of course it's all right." He kept his voice down. I have no idea what I'm doing. I have no plan. I have no idea where our enemy is. I've led you all into a damn mess I can't see out of. Of course things are fine. But that would scare Taizu, and scared, she might make a mistake, and making a mistake, die for it. There was no sanity anywhere.
She put her arm around his. She rested her head against his shoulder. That was all. And he thought about the bridge, sorting through images and memories, every crossing he had made of the Lungan bridge, every detail he could recall of its construction, whether Ghita would go so far as to dismantle it—at least the center. Or how many Imperial troops Ghita had at his disposal, and how far down the ranks he had replaced officers with his own men. . . .
"Can we sleep together?" she asked.
He drew a ragged breath, thinking about the men back there, about people too close to him, people tearing him apart. Taizu hugged his arm.
Never since the willows. Not a single chance. They had been sleeping together, right enough—stinking of blood and dirt and horse and smoke, so exhausted they fell unconscious two breaths after they lay down and waked stiff with whatever position they had fallen into; and he h
ad felt apt to the same kind of collapse tonight, until she said it and he reacted—to a woman muffled to the nose in blood-caked bandages and sweaty armor.
He hugged her against him, same as hugging a rock. And said, fingering dust-rough, tangled hair and a bandaged cheek—"We can't unwrap this. We'd never get the dirt back right."
"Just let's do it."
"Scared?"
"No." Short and sharp. She shivered in his arms. Hard. "Dammit."
He knew that reaction. He held her a moment. He walked her along by the hedge, into the deeper shadow of a mulberry and the old wall. He set her down and they started undoing ties. "We can't undo all of it."
"That's all right," she said; and: "Oh, damn," she said, when sleeves and armor got in the way.
"Simple tactical problem. Patience. Patience always wins, that's what my master used to tell me. ..."
There was no finesse in either of them: short, fast; and afterward, he felt his heart fluttering, the whisper of the leaves a thin, surreal sound over Taizu's hard breathing. He felt her touch on his cheek.
In case there was no more time. Because it warmed the body, occupied the mind, blotted everything out. And she was too smart to cozen with assurances. Or to come to him with any. She was just there, and he could think again, if he were not too far gone with exhaustion.
He shut his eyes. He was home again. The leaves whispered overhead like rain on the cabin roof. "Remember the winter," he murmured into her ear. "The monkey and the daughter."
"I remember." Muffled through the bandages and thick with sleep.
"I wish I could tell you I've got a plan. I haven't. We're going in to figure one out. That's what you're along for."
She said nothing for a while. Then: "We can get Ghita."
Straight and simple, putting it together the same way he had. Nine men whose lives were expendable—hands and backs and swords when they were needed. Themselves—minimal force, straight to the balance-point.
That was granting they got through the gates.
Chapter Nineteen
The Paladin Page 29