The Reluctant Swordsman

by David Duncan

  The old man seemed surprised. "If you mean the swordsmen, my lord, then they will respect the outcome of a formal challenge. Most of them, I am sure, are men of honor. Then, when you have been invested as reeve, you can punish the recreants, provide proper protection for the pilgrims, and hunt down the brigands."

  "I see." He fell silent and sat staring at the floor. A mule train came clattering by, hooves staccato on the cobbles, the riders making relieved noises at seeing their destination so close at last. A single horse trotted up the roadway. The sun god was very low, the patch of light on the wall fading to pink. Flies buzzed. The swordsman - waved them away idly, once in a while snatching one out of the air and killing it.

  Then he frowned back at the priest. "All right, where is this?"

  "This is a cottage for the use of pilgrims," Honakura said.

  "Where?"

  "Just outside the town."

  "What town?" The swordsman's voice was growing deeper and dangerous.

  Patiently the priest answered. "The town by the temple, my lord. The temple of the Goddess at Hann."

  "Hann? Thank you," said the swordsman. "Never heard of it. What... Which..." He growled in frustration and then said with an effort and in a sudden rush, "What large-body-of-land-surrounded-by-salt-water are we on?" He seemed as surprised as they were.

  "Salt water?" Honakura blurted. He looked at Jja, as if even a slave might give him support. "We are on an island, my lord, between the River itself and a small branch of it. But the water is not salt." Then he added hurriedly, to forestall any more questions, "The small branch has no name of its own, although it is sometimes called the River of the Judgment."

  "And what is the big branch called?"

  In a despairing voice the old man said, "Just the River. There is no other, so why should it have a name?" After a moment's silence he added, "The River is the Goddess and the Goddess is the River."

  "Is she, though?" The huge young man rubbed his chin for a moment, thinking. Then he demanded, "What day is this?"

  "It is Teachers' Day, my lord," the priest said. He frowned at the look he received and snapped, "The third day of the twenty-second week in the year 27,355 from the founding of the temple!"

  The swordsman groaned and said nothing more for a while.

  The patch of light faded out and the cottage grew dim. He rose and walked over to rest his elbows on the windowsill, staring out at the road. His bulk made the gloom deeper. Jja could see the passersby faintly through the beads over the door-workers heading home from the fields, a few pilgrims being led along to cottages by her fellow slaves. Then a horseman went by, and the big man jerked back with an oath.

  He turned and leaned against the wall between the door and the window, so that his face was in shadow. He folded his arms-arms thick as most men's legs-and spoke to the priest again.

  "It's an interesting tale," he said, his deep voice very quiet. "There is one small problem-I am no swordsman. I wouldn't know which end of a sword was the handle."

  "My lord," Honakura bleated, "you are still disturbed from the exorcism and the blow on the head. I will send a healer to you again... after a few days' rest you will be restored."

  "Or dead, according to you."

  "It is true," the old man replied in a sad voice. "The danger is greater now, for if the reeve finds you in a vulnerable state, then he will certainly challenge. It would be his only hope."

  "No, it wouldn't." The big, deep voice was still strangely soft. "Let me explain. You do not exist, Lord-is that right?-Lord Honakura. Nor, I regret to say, do you, beautiful Jja. You are inventions of a sick mind, both of you. Truly I am Wallie Smith. I've been ill. I had... oh, hell! Words again! I got an insect in the brain..."

  He looked at their expressions and uttered a deep bass laugh. "That wasn't right, was it? A bug? That means small insect, too, doesn't it? I did get bitten by an insect, and it gave me a fever in the brain. It made me sleep a lot and have strange... dreams." He rubbed his chin again, pondering. "I think that name 'Shonsu' came into them. Anyway, I was very ill. Obviously I still am. That's why you don't exist. I'm imagining all this."

  He frowned at the expression on the priest's face. "I think I'm not expected to live, because my sister flew in from... Oh, never mind that bit!"

  In diplomatic tones Lord Honakura said, "You have had a bang on the head, my lord. Just like a fever; a head injury may cause strange dreams, or even allow minor demons to penetrate. We can try another exorcism in the morning."

  "In the morning," the swordsman said, "I shall wake up back in the... house of healing. Or perhaps I shall die before that. I am still very ill. But no more exorcisms. No duels. No swordsmen."

  There was a long silence.

  "I wonder..." The holy man wiped his lips. "When I was a boy, about two lifetimes ago... One day a swordsman came around looking for a recruit. Of course we lads all wanted to be sworn as swordsmen." He chuckled. "So he tested us. You know the test he gave us, my lord?"

  "No," the big man growled. His face was shadowed.

  "He made us try to catch flies."

  "Flies? With a sword?"

  The old man chuckled again and glanced at Jja to see if she had noticed also. "By hand, my lord. Very few people can catch a fly. But you have been sitting there doing it, without even seeming to look at them."

  Then the big man chuckled very slightly also, in the shadow. "Whereas you, I think, could talk them down out of the trees, Lord Honakura. Let us discuss it again tomorrow, then-if you still exist."

  The priest rose, looking even older and more shriveled than he had before. He bowed and muttered a formal farewell to the swordsman, then pushed out through the curtain and wandered off down the hill. And Jja was alone with the swordsman.

  ††††

  "Flies!" the swordsman snorted. "Are you hungry, Jja?"

  She was starving. She had not eaten all day. "I could fetch food from the kitchen, my lord. It isn't very good-for one of your rank, my lord."

  He swept up the hamper and laid it on the bed, where he still had some light. "I'm hoping this may help," he said. "Yes!" Then he started to lift out great silver dishes wrapped in linen cloths, muttering in astonishment as he laid them on the wobbly little table. "Ruddy fortune in bullion! If we do get invaded by brigands, we'll throw these at them, right? And enough forks and spoons for a whole gang of them. Can you fight off the brigands with a fork while I run for help, Jja?"

  She was perplexed and uncertain. She ought to be setting out the food for him, not the other way around, but she had never seen such dishes or smelled such savory scents as those that now drifted through the cottage. And he had asked a question, obviously a joke, and jokes were difficult for a slave to handle. "I could try, my lord, if you were quick."

  He grinned, white teeth flashing in his faintly visible brown face. "Here's a candle," he said. "Do you know how to light it? I don't."

  She fetched a flint from the shelf and lit the candle, and the whole table sparkled with many little flames.

  "Candlelit dinner for two," he said. "Pardon my informal dress. Now you sit there and tell me what you think we should start with."

  "My lord..." she protested. She must not sit at table with a free man.

  He paused, standing by the table with a bottle in his hand, his face and chest shining in darkness, lit strangely I from below by the flickering light and its myriad reflections. "When your mistress, this... Kikarani? When she gave you orders about me, did she say what you were to do when I awoke?"

  "Yes, my lord." She looked down at her hands.

  "And what were those orders?" She could hear amusement, but no anger or threat.

  "I was to do anything you said, my lord."

  "Mmm? Anything?"

  She nodded to the floor. "There are a few things I don't have to do for the pilgrims, my lord, even if they ask. But she said... she said, 'In this case do anything at all, anything, just keep him there.' My lord."

  The man cleared hi
s throat harshly. "Right. Well, here are my orders. First, stop 'my lording' me and call me Wallie. Second, forget you are a slave and pretend that you are a beautiful gentlewoman. I expect most swordsmen with seven swords have a beautiful lady at home in a castle somewhere?"

  "I don't know, my,.." It made her forehead prickle with sweat, but she managed to say, "Wallie."

  "Neither do I," he said. "But let's pretend that I'm a great swordsman and you are a great lady. Now,, tell me what you think of this wine, Lady Jja."

  She had never tasted wine before. She had never eaten off silver dishes. She had never sat with a lord. But she was ravenous, and the food was the best she had ever tasted-meat in rich sauce and tender vegetables and fluffy white bread that she knew only by hearsay.

  He did most of the talking, sensing perhaps the strain she was under and knowing that conversation was beyond her means. "You are very lovely, you know," he said. "You should have long hair, but of course this is a hot climate. Laundry work, I expect? Yes, your hands..."

  "Black is not your color," he said later. "Blue, I think. I did a very good job of imagining beauty, but I should have imagined you in a long blue dress... no sleeves, shiny light-blue silk, cut low in the front and clinging... You would look like a goddess...

  "This wine isn't too bad, is it? And this looks like a fruit pie for dessert. There was a jar of cream somewhere. And here's a cake! Eat up, there's lots... "

  It was a dream, she was certain, sitting in the warm dark with a single candle flaring off silver and shining on a great lord smiling at her, teasing a little. Not a handed old stonemason of the Third making a pilgrimage to beg the Goddess to cure his cough, or a toothless gray shepherd of the Fourth wanting his herds to prosper, but a very large and very handsome young lord, flashing white teeth in that big smile and sparkling at her.

  A dream that might come in a dream.

  And he cared. She knew men-she could see the man-interest in his eyes when he looked at her. For once, she was enjoying that. She tried very hard to be a good slave, to make amends to the Goddess by doing her duty conscientiously, but sometimes it was not easy. Tonight she thought it would be quite easy, although it was strange that he had not even handled her yet.

  At last they had both finished eating, and her head was spinning from the wine. Now, surely, he would give her the usual orders. She waited for them with a strange excitement that she had never known before, but they did not come. He just sat, holding a goblet, gazing sadly into the candle as moths crazed wildly around it.

  Then he seemed to remember her. He jerked out of his sadness. "We could dance," he said. "If I could just imagine up some musicians! Do you dance, Jja?"

  She shook her head. "I don't know how... Lord Wallie." Not wanting to disappoint him, or perhaps because of the wine, she added rashly, "I can sing a little."

  He was pleased. "Sing me a song, then."

  And even more rashly, she sang a little slave song.

  "In my dreams I hear me calling,

  Hear me calling here to me,

  From a life I've left behind me,

  Or a world I've yet to see."

  "Someday when the Goddess calls me,

  I will find that other me:

  Handsome lord or lovely lady,

  Once again I shall be free."

  He asked her to sing it again, listening to the words carefully. "That's your explanation, is it?" he asked. "You think Shonsu lived in one world, and Wallie Smith in another, but they were the same person? The same soul? And somehow they got mixed up?"

  She nodded. "That is what they say dreams are, my Wallie. Your other lives."

  He considered the idea carefully, not dismissing it as slave nonsense. "Reincarnations? I can see why you would like the idea. But surely one enters a world by birth and leaves by death?" Then he smiled, but as though it were an effort. "If I'm a newborn baby, Jja, how big am I going to be when I grow up?"

  "I... don't know, my lord."

  "Sorry! I shouldn't make fun of... I know you're trying to help, and I'm grateful. Why are you a slave?"

  "I was very wicked, my lord."

  "In what way?"

  "I don't know, my lord."

  "In a previous life?"

  She nodded, perplexed. Why even ask such things?

  He scowled. "So the priests tell you to be a good slave in this life? Bah!"

  He fell silent again, brooding. Greatly daring, she said, "The Goddess will care for them."

  "Who?"

  She had been wrong, she sensed. "Your womenfolk... sons..."

  For a moment the sparkle of man-interest was back in his eye. He shook his head. "None of those! No one special... Were you wondering?" Then his mood went bitter. "And why only mention sons? If I had daughters, would I not care for them also?"

  She stammered. "I thought... a swordsman.."

  He sighed. "I'm no swordsman, Jja. Not in this world nor any other. And I never will be!"

  "The Goddess can do anything, my lord."

  He smiled again, ruefully. "I doubt if She could make me into a swordsman! Fencing must take years of practice, Jja..." he paused. "Please listen carefully. I don't want to make... joy... with you tonight, although I'm sure you expect me to. But you mustn't think it's because you're not desirable-the sight of you makes me shiver and makes my flesh rise. It isn't that, you're gorgeous."

  She must not let her disappointment show.

  He was looking down at the candle again. "And it isn't because I know that you have to do it with a lot of men. I can guess that that's what happens, isn't it?"

  Perhaps he had sworn an oath? "Yes, my lord... Wallie. If they pay my mistress."

  He bared his teeth at the candle. "So you have no choice, and therefore I do not think less of you because of it. So it isn't that, either, you see... This may be hard for you to understand. Where I come from we despise people who own slaves. If I said lie down, you would have to lie down, and that isn't the way it should be. A man and a woman should do that thing because they love each other and they both want to do it. So I'm not going to."

  "I do want to, my lord!" Oh, no! Where had she found the courage to say that? But of course, this was only a dream.

  "Because it is your duty! No, Jja."

  It must be the wine... she had to fight down a desire to explain how she fetched the highest price, how Kikarani therefore saved her for the older men, the ones most likely to have the most money, how it was the older, uglier women who got the young men. Could he not guess why she had thought to hide him from the spying priestess in the way she had? Or even guess that she had wanted to weep with frustration because he was not able to respond, while at the same time she had been terrified that he might wake up and find a slave lying on top of him?

  She said, "My lord," bowing her head.

  "You sleep on that side of the bed, then." He rose, not looking at her. "And I'll sleep this side. Now, where do I go to..."

  "Outside, my lord," she said in surprise.

  He grinned around at her-that strangely boyish grin that came and went very suddenly, making him look very young and happy. "I wasn't planning to do it inside! Anywhere's okay, huh?"

  He stepped out through the curtain into the warm tropic night. She tidied the table. There was plenty of food to be saved for tomorrow, so she fished out a few moths that had fallen in, covered the dishes, wrapped them again, and packed the hamper. Finally she pinched out the candle and the cottage was dark, only a trace of a silver glimmer from the Dream God glistening through the window.

  Then she heard him, and went out to see.

  He was leaning against the wall by the door, his head on his arms. His whole body was shaking with sobs. A swordsman weeping? That seemed very strange, but already she knew that this was no ordinary swordsman.

  Again, it must have been the wine that gave her the courage to put an arm around him, to lead him inside and over to the bed. He said nothing. The bed creaked loudly as he lay down. He buried his face and contin
ued to sob. She took off her wrap and went around to lie on the other side of the bed as she had been told. She waited.

  Finally he choked off his sobs and said in a whisper, "That light in the sky? What is it?"

  "It is the Dream God, my lord." He did not reply. She waited, but she knew he was not asleep.

  It was the wine... "The god of sorrows and the god of joy are brothers, my lord."

  After a moment he rolled over and said, "Tell me, then. "

  So she told him, as she had been told once, long ago, by another slave, a young man she would never see again. "The god of sorrows and the god of joy are brothers. At the time of the unrolling of the World, they both courted the goddess of youth. It was the god of joy she chose, and they loved greatly. In time she bore him a son, the most beautiful baby that even the gods had ever seen, and the father delivered the baby himself and held him up for his mother and the gods to look at."

  "But the god of sorrows was jealous and greatly enraged at the sight of the child-and he hurled his wrath and killed him."

  "Then the god of sorrows was terrified at what he had done and fled away, but all the other gods wept. They went to the Goddess Herself and besought justice. And so She decreed that ever after the god of joy might deliver from the goddess of youth the most beautiful of the gods, but he would always be a baby, and he would only live a few moments. But although he would be only a baby, he would be stronger than his father, and the god of sorrows, the most terrible of the gods, would not stand against him and would flee from him always. That is why only this smallest god, of all the gods, can put to flight the god of sorrows."

  "And what is the name of this smallest god?" asked the man in the darkness.

  "He is the god of ecstasy, my lord," she said.

  He turned to her and took her in his arms. "Then let us seek this little god of yours together," he said.

  She had thought a swordsman might be brutal, but he was the most gentle of men. He was patient and strong and untiring and considerate in a way no man had ever been to her. Together they summoned the little god many times, and the god of sorrows was driven away.