Arms-Commander (Saga of Recluce)

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Something else that needs to be forged. Would there ever be an end to what they didn’t have, or what they didn’t have enough of?

  “…thinks we ought to add some of that coarse high grass to their feed in the winter… says that eating the rough grass seems to keep ’em warmer in cold weather. It also might keep their teeth from getting too sharp when they can’t graze. Leastwise, might not have to float their teeth so much.”

  “That might be useful. The young ones could gather the grass just before the snows hit. Anything else?”

  Duessya frowned for a moment, as if trying to search her memories. “Lot of little things. When he heard the stables were stone, he did say that it might be better if the mangers were set so that the hay or feed didn’t touch the stone.”

  “Condensation,” mused Saryn. “Cold stone catches the dampness, turns it into little rivulets. If there’s anything left in the bottom, the water that collects on the stone could drip down and spoil the hay or anything above…”

  “Oh…”

  “We should give him a try here once his leg is healed more.” Saryn paused. “Thank you for talking to him. Once he can walk, you’ll have to decide if he’d be a help.”

  “Anyone who’d be interested in the horses besides riding them would help.” Duessya shook her head.

  As she left, Saryn studied the stone runoff channel. It definitely was running higher.

  Her steps were long and quick as she headed back down to Tower Black to catch Istril after her afternoon blade session with the older guards. Between trying to work out a plan for teaching Temple and accelerating arms training for the inexperienced young and newer guards, and all the other minor and continual items brought to her attention, Saryn hadn’t seen Istril except in passing in days. She was striding past the smithy.

  Istril was leaving the practice field but stopped and waited at the edge of the road once she saw the arms-commander. “You’ve been running everywhere lately.”

  “No more than you,” replied Saryn. “How is Suansa doing with that arm?”

  “It’s healing. Likely be harvest before she’ll be close to having any real strength in it.”

  “What about the Gallosian?”

  “He’s as bad as some other people I know.”

  Istril’s voice was even, but Saryn could sense a certain amusement. “Go on.”

  “I had to spend some time explaining what he could safely do and what he couldn’t and why.” Istril began to walk down the road toward the causeway and the tower beyond.

  Saryn glanced at the water in the stone runoff channel beside the road, then back to Istril. “Did he tell you that he wants to learn the basic arms exercise and training?”

  “He did. I told him he shouldn’t try even the basic exercises for another eightday, except for the simple arm-strengthening ones that he can do sitting down. He really doesn’t need those, but I gave him some of those crude weights you had Huldran forge years back. I said they’d build up his arms more. That might keep him from doing what he shouldn’t.”

  “Duessya thinks he knows a lot about horses. She didn’t say it quite that way, though. What do you think about him as a person?”

  “He’s very polite. I think you should talk to him regularly. He might say more to you.”

  “If he won’t talk to you…”

  “That’s not what I meant. It could be Llyselle, or Hryessa, or Ryba, but every so often he should have direction from someone who’s an authority figure. You’re definitely that.”

  “You have something in mind, Istril.”

  “I do. The same thing you do, if you want him to fit in. You just can’t dump a man, especially a wounded one, into Tower Black without someone occasionally reinforcing the chain of command and the fact that women run things. Healers aren’t in that chain.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “More than every few eightdays, I’d suggest.”

  Saryn shook her head. “I don’t even know that I like him… but he’s young enough that he just might be able to adjust.”

  Istril nodded.

  “All right. I’ll talk to him.” After Istril said nothing, Saryn added, “As soon as I can.”

  “Thank you, Commander.”

  Once Saryn reached Tower Black, she found Dealdron sitting on a bench in the carpentry shop, watching as Vierna and an apprentice turned over a broken trestle table to replace the center pedestal legs.

  The young Gallosian looked up at Saryn. “Ser?”

  “Istril tells me that you’re trying to do too much and that you’ll hurt your leg more if you do.”

  “I feel useless… ser.”

  “You’ve been working in the carpentry shop, and you’ve made several bunks.”

  “Mostly. There are things I cannot do on one leg.”

  “It’s better to concentrate on what you can do and not what you can’t. That way, some things of value actually get done.”

  “They aren’t what I do best.”

  “No. They probably aren’t,” replied Saryn. “But they’re things that need to be done, and someone needs to do them. Everyone in Westwind ends up doing some things that they don’t do as well as they do other things; but if you keep at the distasteful jobs, you can get better so that you don’t spend as much time at them.” She added, “If you want to prepare yourself for arms training, you could also exercise with the weights.”

  “I can lift them.”

  Saryn realized that the idea of weight-training repetitions wasn’t one with which Dealdron was familiar. “Of course you can. But how many times in a row can you lift them?”

  The Gallosian frowned.

  Saryn walked over to the nearest wood bin and rummaged through it until she came up with a length of oak close to the size of a short sword.

  She carried it back to Dealdron, then thrust it at him. “Hold it as you would a blade—one-handed.”

  “It is but wood.” His face wrinkled in puzzlement as he took the billet.

  “Just hold it.” Saryn watched. Before long, she could see his arm begin to tremble. Unlike pine or spruce, oak was heavy. “Keep holding it.”

  Tiny beads of sweat began to appear on Dealdron’s face, then the wood billet began to droop.

  “Keep holding it,” Saryn said calmly.

  Finally, Dealdron had to lower the oak. Frustration warred with puzzlement on his face although he did not speak.

  “Iron is heavier than oak,” Saryn pointed out. “You could only hold that perhaps a tenth part of a glass. Do you think battles are over that quickly? What would happen to you if your arm got tired when someone was charging at you?”

  The young man did not reply.

  “What would happen?” Saryn asked again.

  “I’d get wounded, or I’d have to get out of the way.”

  “And what would happen to the guard behind you? Or her mount? Or the formation and the other guards?”

  Dealdron just looked stoically at Saryn.

  “You’ve seen Westwind. We can’t afford unnecessary casualties because someone doesn’t want to train hard enough. That’s why there were twenty-one dead Gallosians down in the vale and only one dead guard. Working with the weights will strengthen your arms so that you’ll be better able to handle a blade when your leg heals. The healer will show you how to use them. Listen to her.” Saryn managed to keep her voice level, but she could sense the unseen darkness swirling around her. That wasn’t good. She needed to keep the flow of forces even.

  “I am sorry, Commander. There is much that is new to me.”

  “There’s much that is new to everyone who comes here. Those who learn are those who remain and who survive.” What else could she say to him?

  Abruptly, he lowered his eyes, if but for a moment. Then he said, “I will do as you say.”

  She understood that his words were not so much a capitulation as a statement that he would try what she said… and hold her responsible for the results, if only in his own mind.

>   “And as the healer tells you. You will not improve if you do not learn the proper way to lift the weights, just as a rider cannot improve when she rides improperly.” She offered a polite smile. “I will talk to you later, and I will check with the healer as well.”

  Then she turned and headed toward the stone staircase. Again, she could sense Dealdron’s eyes on her back as she left the carpentry shop.

  XIX

  When Saryn walked toward the arms practice field on oneday, she saw Dealdron standing at the back of the least experienced guards, his crutches laid on the hard ground beside him. Saryn frowned, wondering how he could do even the upper-body exercises without losing his balance. Then she saw a tripodal frame that the Gallosian had strapped to his leg at midthigh. He couldn’t move much that way, and if he did, the movement was bound to be painful. Still, the frame did allow him to work on some of the exercises without losing his balance.

  Saryn couldn’t help but admire the young man’s determination. Once she reached the field, she slipped into the exercise formation on the side closest to the road. She’d run through three exercises when Ryba appeared and joined in, effortlessly matching Saryn, movement for movement. Saryn found it hard to believe, again, that Ryba was ten years older than she was.

  Once the group warm-up was over, Ryba turned to Saryn. “I need to spar.”

  “I could use a round or two,” admitted Saryn.

  “How about left-handed?” asked Ryba, producing a pair of weighted wands.

  That was fine with Saryn. For years, when she sparred with anyone besides Ryba, she used her left hand and worked mainly on technique and how to anticipate moves from the slightest indications. Even so, she never sparred against the Marshal with real blades, even blunted ones. The killer instinct of an ancient Sybran warrior-queen was all too strong in Ryba.

  Saryn took one of the wands, then stepped back.

  A number of the older guards stopped to watch. The juniors weren’t allowed that choice, and Siret broke them into instructional groups where—also with wands—they were drilled in basic skills.

  Ryba took her position, then waited. So did Saryn, knowing that Ryba was willing to wait to see what her opponent would do first. After several moments, Saryn flicked the wand just a touch, and Ryba moved to the right. Saryn slipped the thrust that followed, but had to dart sideways to avoid the counter. She moved in quickly, so that Ryba had to circle away.

  As always in sparring between the two, there were few even grazing blows, no matter what either attempted, because both had seen and survived so much and because each reacted so quickly. In the end, after both were sweating and breathing heavily, Ryba stepped back.

  As Saryn did the same and blotted her forehead with her forearm, she saw Dealdron standing to one side, from where he had clearly been watching. Beside him Aemra had just finished telling Dealdron something.

  Saryn looked directly at Dealdron, but the young man quickly looked away.

  “You’ve been practicing. Left-handed, I mean,” observed Ryba. “Walk with me.” Ryba turned toward the road, heading up toward the smithy.

  Saryn gestured to Llyselle, indicating she was leaving. The se nior guard captain nodded. Saryn hurried to catch up to the longer-legged Marshal.

  Ryba said nothing until the two were well out of earshot of the other guards. “It’s time for you to leave for Lornth. Immediately.”

  “Why now?” Saryn recalled her sole other visit to Lornth, the large town that was effectively the capital of what amounted to a city-state, not even truly a nation. While its borders were not surveyed down to the nearest kay, the area controlled by Lady Zeldyan as regent ranged some seven hundred kays north to south and six hundred east to west. “Control” was a relative term because allegiance was often token in places distant from Lornth. Then, with the loss of the port of Rulyarth and the surrounding area several years before, control of lands some two hundred kays by three hundred had shifted back to Suthyan rule.

  “We’re going to need more saltpeter and sulfur, and there’s nowhere else to get them. I don’t like it any better than you will,” replied the Marshal.

  “We can’t forge enough firearms, even if we could keep the white wizards from exploding the powder.”

  “Leave the weapons development to me. You’re the only one with enough se niority and experience who can also survive the spring and summer heat down there.”

  “That may be, but what do I have to offer them in return?” Saryn asked.

  “The Suthyans gave us that. They don’t want us to trade with Lornth. You point out that we’d prefer to be on good terms with our immediate neighbors and that we’re not exactly enamored of the Suthyan approach to dealing with women in power—”

  “I can only mention that to Zeldyan personally. Her father won’t take that well, nor her cousin Kelthyn.”

  “Especially Kelthyn. Young as he is for a regent, he holds the old attitudes.”

  “He’s a tool of the older lords.”

  “Tools can be used by others than those who created them,” Ryba pointed out.

  That may be, but discovering how can be costly. Saryn only said, “That’s sometimes possible.”

  “You’ll find a way.”

  What ever the cost, but we never speak of that.

  “Just remember this. Everyone is a captive of the social structures of their past. They believe that men and women have different places in society, as do foreigners. Call it ‘place-ism,’ if you will. All the locals in Candar, at least all those we’ve encountered, believe that a woman’s place is childbearing and at the hearth. Only if her husband or consort is dead or notoriously weak can she be accepted in a position of power and authority, and only as an exception for a short period of time. That’s until her male offspring is old enough to take his place as the one in control. Zeldyan’s facing a loss of power within years. She knows that will be a catastrophe because all the pressures on her son, Nesslek, will force him to repudiate her and her policies, and he’ll end up repeating the follies of his sire and grandsire.”

  “Because to continue the wiser course of his mother would brand him as weak and as Zeldyan’s tool?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And I’m supposed to use that to get her to support us?”

  “It’s one tool. If you can find others, be my guest.” Ryba stopped, gestured toward Tower Black, then toward the low but growing walls of the far larger new keep and barracks. “Westwind will endure. We just have to assure that future is as strong as possible.”

  Ryba’s tone left no doubt that she intended to let nothing stand in her way to that goal, and Saryn merely nodded.

  “How many guards will you need?”

  “A squad should be sufficient if I can take Hryessa as well.”

  “Llyselle can handle things here, and Murkassa can act as captain of second company while you’re gone. She’ll be taking over the new third company anyway, and that will give her more experience.” Ryba paused. “All of Hryessa’s first squad are proficient with the bows. You’d best take enough to arm them all.”

  “When do you expect me to leave?”

  “As soon as possible. You’ll be gone at least two eightdays, and that’s if the weather and the Lornians cooperate.”

  That was hardly likely, given the ever-changing weather around and over the Westhorns, especially in spring and early summer.

  “I’ll need several days to set things up.”

  “Whatever it takes. You’re not one to procrastinate.” Ryba stopped. “That’s all I had for now. Just let me know when you have everything arranged.”

  “I will.”

  “I know.” The Marshal nodded, then began to run uphill, as she did most mornings.

  Saryn turned and headed back toward Tower Black. Once she was abreast of the practice field, she spent almost a quarter glass observing and making mental notes. Then she walked to the causeway and across it into the tower, where she made her way down to the lower level.

>   There she waited until Istril finished replacing a dressing on a young guard, and the woman left.

  “What happened there?”

  “Carelessness with the grindstone in sharpening a blade,” replied the healer. “She isn’t the first, and she won’t be the last.”

  “Some of them only learn when they get hurt.”

  “More than some, but less than if they were men.” Istril offered a crooked smile.

  “Speaking of men, I saw that tripod device that Dealdron was using.”

  Istril nodded. “He brought it to me, and we ran through which exercises he could do and which he shouldn’t. It can’t hurt, so long as he’s careful, and it’s bound to improve how he feels. Also, he can use it in the carpentry shop, and Vierna says that he’s been quite a help there, especially with simple pieces—the ones like bunks and straight wardrobes and bunk chests.”

  “Why is he pressing so hard?”

  Istril laughed. “He may not be educated, but he’s far from stupid. He watched a squad of guards destroy his outfit with only one fatality, while you dispatched three of them, and you’ve told him that his life depends on how well he acts. He’s clearly a survivor, and to survive means obtaining your approval and the Marshal’s. For him, that means doing things of value. I think your approval means more to him, though.”

  “Mine?”

  “He asks more about you and whether you’d approve.”

  “But Ryba makes the final decisions.”

  “For this culture, she seems too high for him to impress her. He also sees that you make the day-to-day decisions.”

  “What about Adiara?”

  “She’s not a problem.”

  “Are you suggesting that Dealdron could be?”

  Istril shrugged. “I don’t know. On the positive side, Aemra likes him, and she’s got a good feel for people.”