by Chris Bunch
I pushed my body to the limits, running, swimming, climbing, paying no attention to the tear of muscles and silent scream of exhaustion, but forcing myself to go one more hill, one more lap across the pool, one more hour of sitting, shivering, in the blind with my sling beside me while rain seeped down and the geese did not appear.
One thing came naturally: I loved and understood horses. Perhaps at one time I have been one, since when I was first taken to the stables as a babe, and my father held me up in his arms to see the great beast, I called out, as if recognizing an old friend, and, I was told, the animal nickered a response, trotted across the yard, and nuzzled me.
I don’t glorify the animals particularly. I know they aren’t terribly intelligent, but what of that? I don’t consider myself a sage, either, and some of the finest men I’ve had serve under me, serve to the death, would be hard pressed to remember today what their lance-major told them last week.
Riding was another part of my schooling, being able to ride a horse bareback, with a saddle, or with the bare blanket and rope bridge someone said the nomads of the distant south preferred. I learned how to make a horse obey without having to use the cruel curb bit, and my spurs had balls on their tips instead of spikes. Some horses became almost my friends; others, while not quite enemies, were not ones I’d readily choose to saddle up for an afternoon’s outing.
It was graven into my soul that your horse always comes first: It’s watered, fed, groomed before its rider dares provide for his own comfort, or that man is less than a beast himself. I was cursed later by my men for driving them to their currycombs and feedbags, but my regiments would still be mounted long after other units were afoot, their horses foundered, cut into the stewpot, and they themselves stumbling along as common infantrymen.
I spent hours in my father’s stables, learning everything I could from old grooms, knowing my fate as a soldier might depend on these beasts. I learned to treat their minor ailments and even, when one of our horses fell desperately ill and a seer would be called, I found a place to lie atop the rafters so I could watch what medicines he compounded, and what spells he cast. Of course, since I have not a single trace of the Talent, when I tried them nothing happened, but at least I was learning how to pick a true magician from the crowd of charlatans that crowd around an army on campaign.
Isa, god of war, who some say is an aspect of Saionji herself, also gave me talents. I grew tall and strong, with a voice other boys listened to and enough brains so they would follow me.
I loved to hunt, not for the kill, although that is the satisfaction the gods give for a task performed well. I would take bow, arrows, a small knife, tinder, and steel, and set out into the jungle. I would be gone a day, or a week. My sisters and mother would worry, my father pretend unconcern. If I were to be eaten by a tiger, then the sorcerer had been wrong and it was the tiger’s lifeline that stretched long.
Far away from our estate and the surrounding villages, I learned the real skills of soldiering: to be content while alone; to be unafraid, or at any rate to stay calm when night closes down and the forest noises are very dangerous, even though most of them come from creatures that would fit in the palm of your hand; not to be choosy about your food and to be able to live on raw fish, partially cooked meat, or the fruits and plants around you; to be able to sleep when drenched to the bone and the monsoon pours. Most important of these is always to think of the next step — to be aware that if the rock you jump to is slippery and sends you sprawling, you could be crippled, far from any help. Or that the cave that looks so inviting a shelter from the thundershower may hold a sun bear, and what then, my lad? All of these things I learned well, and they saved my life many times in the years that followed.
There were two other “skills” that are commonly thought of as soldierly that my father spoke little of, but I also familiarized myself with. One came naturally, but I failed at the other.
The latter was drinking. All men know soldiers are sponges, sops around anything fermented or distilled, and I fear it’s more than true for most. But not for me. The smell of wine or brandy turned my stomach as a lad, which is hardly uncommon. But the smell or taste never became more attractive as I aged. When young, hoping to learn the skill, I forced myself to drink with my fellows, once as a boy when we found a wineskin that had fallen off a merchant’s cart beside the track, and the second time at the lycee, when we cadets finished our first year of studies. I never made a boisterous ass of myself as others did, but became very sick early on and crawled off to be rackingly ill, and then had a sour gut and a huge drum in my head for two days as reward. Of course I never say I do not drink, since the world pretends to respect but actually feels uncomfortable around an ascetic, but I will carry a single beaker of wine for an entire evening without anyone noticing that I but touch it to my lips. I drink small beer by choice, and even water when I’m assured of its purity. There have been a few times as an adult I’ve gotten drunk, but they were the exception and even more foolish than when I was a boy.
The other soldierly virtue or vice is, of course, whoring. Sex came early to me, and was the hidden blessing of my tiny house in the jungle, since I was alone with no nurse, mother, or busybody of a servant to keep me chaste. Perhaps my father knew this when he gave me those two rooms whose memory I still treasure.
Village maids, more likely infatuated with the idea of bedding the son of the lord than having a real lust for me, would creep into my quarters at night and teach me what they knew. After some time and several girls befriending me, I was able to return the favor of instruction.
There would also be the girls and young women of the caravans. Once trading was finished, there would be a feast, and as often as not the end of the evening would find one of them slipping into the shadows with me.
I remember one such night when a young woman came out with me. Her husband, a great oaf of a silk merchant, had inhaled three wineskins and subsided into a snoring, blubbering pile not long after the sun went down.
She told me, and it might well have been a lie, she’d been sold to him against her will. I said nothing, for such was and unfortunately still is the custom in too many parts of our land.
She asked if I knew what could be done with silk, and I laughed and said I might be from the country, but was hardly that much of a fool. She smiled privately and suggested perhaps there were uses I was still unaware of, such as for wall-hangings and, she ran her tongue over her lips, other places in the bedchamber.
I expressed interest, feeling my cock stir against my loincloth. She disappeared into her wagon, and came out in a few moments with a pack.
No one noticed as we left the village square and went to my cabin, being deep in their own vices. She was, of course, telling the truth — there were many, many uses for the silkworm’s death I wasn’t aware of. I did know how coarsely woven veil, showing more than it conceals of brown flesh, with only a candle to illuminate, can dizzy the mind.
But I knew nothing until that night of the touch of a silk whip, nor how silken restraints can send a woman’s passion into flame.
We were resting, curled around each other’s bodies, sticky with love, when the tiger coughed.
Her body tensed against me.
“Can he get in?” she whispered.
To be truthful, I didn’t know. There were iron bars across the windows, and I knew those to be impregnable. The door was heavy cross-braced lumber, and barred, but I’d seen a tiger kill a bullock with one smash of its paws, then effortlessly pick the beast up in its jaws and leap a nine-foot fence.
But I knew enough to lie.
The woman’s breath came faster as we heard the tiger pace around the walls. My cock came hard, and I rolled atop her, her legs lifting as I rammed into her, thrusting as she pumped her hips against me, back arched and hands pulling at my buttocks, the beast outside, and its scream against the night, silencing the monkeys, burying her cry as our sweating bodies became one and I poured into her.
W
e waited until dawn before I took her back to her wagon, and carried a cudgel with me. We saw the tiger’s pugmarks in the mud, but he was long gone. She stopped me when we came in sight of the caravan, and giggled. “We don’t need to tell them just how you fought the tiger,” and pointed at my body. I saw the nailmarks and bites on my chest, and knew there were others hidden under my loincloth.
She laughed once more, kissed me, and was gone.
I spent the day away from my family in the jungle. I sometimes think of that woman, and wish her well, hoping Jaen made her happy and has given her a long life, and her husband many wineskins for blinders.
So love has been a fine friend, but the soldierly pastime of going into rut anytime there’s a female of any age within a league, no. I’ve not only avoided embarrassments, but disease as well. My father once said, in one of his few references to sex, after making sure neither my mother or sisters were in earshot, “Some people will put their cock where I would not place the ferrule of my staff,” and he is certainly correct.
I’ve also heard it said when a man makes love all the blood rushes to the lower half of his body, thus explaining why men cannot fuck and think at the same time, which sounds quite logical. Jaen knows I’m hardly innocent of that charge. But enough of that.
If it sounds as if I have been bragging, I do not mean to do so, for I have many weaknesses, which should be obvious, considering my present position here on this lonely island as an exile who can expect only death to improve his lot and give him a chance to return to the Wheel and expiate his deeds in another life.
I am but a poor reader, and have little patience with the pleasures that come from listening to the sagas, scholarly debate, or seeing dancers portray the deeds of men. Painting, stone-carving, all these things I can praise, but there is none of the heart’s truth in my words. Music alone of all the arts touches me, from a boy tootling on a wooden whistle to a single singer accompanying himself on a stringed instrument to the intricacies of a court symphony.
Philosophies, religions, ethics, all these things are for wiser heads than mine.
At one time I would have said my greatest talent, though, was one Laish Tenedos said was the most important of all. I was gifted with good luck, something all soldiers must carry with them.
Now?
That proud claim has surely been proven a joke, one that would make the monkey god Vachan, god of fools, god of wisdom, shrill laughter and do backflips in wicked glee.
One further thing I learned from my father was always — always — to obey the family credo: We Hold True. When I swore an oath of fealty to Laish Tenedos within my heart, long before I placed the crown on his head, it was to the death. It is ironic that my vows to him were never equally honored. But that is as may be, and Tenedos is answering for that sin.
I knew, when I approached seventeen, I would enter the army. I assumed I would travel to the nearest recruiter, and take the coin as a common soldier. If I worked hard and mightily, I might be fortunate enough to find a commission and perhaps end my days at the same rank my father reached. This was the highest I dreamed, at least that I’d admit to. Of course there was always the grandness of somehow leading a forlorn hope, coming to the notice of a general and being promoted on the battlefield. But truthfully I knew my most likely fate would be to end my days as a hard-bitten sergeant, such as I met from time to time in the villages. Still more likely was that I’d be taken by Isa on the battlefield in blood, or in barracks from one of the diseases all armies carry along with sutlers and whores.
In theory, I should have been able to apply for one or another of the lycees that produce officers, since our family is more than noble enough to qualify. But the old proverb applies, and my family, and in fact the entire district of Cimabue, was far out of sight and mind of the powerful ones who ruled the army from Nicias.
I didn’t care. I suppose this must be counted another of my failings, that I’ve never been one to think highly of someone merely because the Wheel’s turnings makes him the son, or her the daughter, of a grand family. In fact, in spite of my former titles, and my marriage, being around such people makes me a bit nervous, although I’ve learned to disguise it.
I’m far more comfortable in a barracks, tenting, on the hunting field, or in a common tavern and with the people of those places than in a palace with the grand.
So the thought of being one more spearman or archer didn’t disturb or shame me, although I thought I could prove myself a good enough horseman to be allowed into the cavalry.
But once again luck intervened.
My father may not have had a priest, but someone did owe him a favor, a retired domina named Roshanara, who’d been my father’s regimental commander at Tiepolo. I do not know what deeds my father did that day — he would never tell tales of his exploits — but evidently they were memorable.
One day, not many months before I was to take the colors, a messenger arrived at the estate. He carried an elaborate scroll that, once its wax seals had been broken and we scanned it, offered me an appointment at the Lycee of the Horse Soldier, just outside Nicias.
This is considered the most elite of the various service schools, attended only by the sons of the noble rich and descendants of particularly well-connected and high-ranking officers.
None of us had any idea how this could’ve come to pass. My father said at one time there were five cadet postings made available by lot to all applicants, but since I’d sent no letters to the lycee that was an impossibility.
The explanation, of course, was Domina Roshanara, and his letter came in the next post. He said he’d not only named me for consideration to the lycee since he had no children of his own nor friends’ children he took seriously enough to propose, but he’d also set aside a sum sufficient to see me until graduation. I could see my father’s mustaches begin to bristle, but he read on, through Domina Roshanara’s rather weak explanation that he’d heard the harvests had been exceedingly bad in Cimabue, and this was to be looked at not as charity, but as one way to make the army they both so loved stronger.
My father looked very unconvinced, and was, I thought, about to explode and growl something about that would be the last damned time he saved any damned superior’s sweetbreads, when my mother took him into another room. I know not what she said, but when they came back my attendance at the Lycee of the Horse Soldier was settled.
The school would commence after the Time of Dews, when soldiers would return from the field, campaigning during the ensuing Time of Births and Time of Heat not being common practice. That was not long distant, and I would need considerable time for travel, since Nicias is far from Cimabue. I spent the short time left with my father, learning all the details of lycees he could remember. Even though he’d not been able to attend such a lycee, but had gone through a training college in our own state, he’d heard many many tales from officers who had, and, he added wryly, still seemed to think their happiest days had been spent there.
Then the time came due and I rode off on the mare I’d chosen, Lucan. She wasn’t my favorite, but was quite young, just five, and I hoped to be able to keep her for a great part of my career. I took another mare, Rabbit, named for her over-long ears and thankfully not her behavior when I was astride, and two mules with my gear.
I rode to the curve in the road, and turned to wave my farewell and take one last look at my home. It was hot, but the blur in my eyes was not from the sun. My father … mother … sisters … all the family’s servants, and my friends from the village, all were there. I fixed them in my memory, as if I were an artist taking a final look at his models before he hurries to his easel, as if I’d never see any of them again.
And in truth, that is almost how it has been.
I have only returned to Cimabue twice, for the funeral rites for my parents. Sometimes I was half a continent away, other times impossibly busy, and later it became unwise to do so for my sisters’ safety. That is not the complete truth — there were more than enough long
leaves when I could have gone home instead of elsewhere.
But I did not and do not know why.
Perhaps it would be like returning to a dream only to see what a threadbare fancy it actually was.
FIVE
THE LYCEE OF THE HORSE SOLDIER
My two years at the lycee began in a roar, as hardened ex-cavalrymen, all former lance majors, troop guides, or regimental guides, chosen for iron bowels and lungs and eyes that could see a speck of dust on a uniform or a dot of manure on a horse’s hoof from across a parade ground chorused loudly, obscenely, and thoroughly about my shortcomings.
Eventually we were shattered enough to be given grudging acceptance, and the army began to rebuild us in the desired image.
I worked hard in the classroom, but never ranked higher than the middle of my class. Some of the required courses made my eyes cross, such as Military Etiquette and Parade Ceremonials. These would be crucial to a successful career dancing attendance as an aide to a general, but that was hardly how I wished to spend my life. I did acceptably well at mathematics, as long as the instructor could show me its use in the field. I can still figure, within an inch, the height of a mountaintop I must assault given its distance and the angle to the top, but as for reveling in the joys of pure numbers that supposedly express our relationship with the universe, well, I think that’s no better than what the priests prattle, and I leave such importances for temples.
One course I remember well now was Battlefield Sorcery. It was taught not by a magician, which I found odd, but by a staff officer, which suggested we should not nap through his lecturing, nor harass him with uncomfortable questions unless we wished our first posting to be the Isle of the Forgotten, which all knew to be somewhere between Lost and Nowhere. He explained on the first day that he had a touch of the Talent, and had been selected for that reason. He further explained that the army deemed it important that a “realist” teach the course, rather than some fuzzy-brained scholar who’d fill us up with useless theory and pointless wand-waving.