A gloved hand pulled the tent flap open. A soldier stuck his head in. He wore a haubergeon of bronze loops woven into a leather tunic. “My lord?”
“What is it?”
“Priests, my lord. Loegrian priests, come under a flag of truce. They ask to speak to you,” the soldier said.
“The chirurgeon said you’re to rest, my lord,” Morag insisted.
“If they come to discuss peace, that’s worth getting a bit tired. Summon Brandolf, Aillig, and Goraidh, then bid these Loegrians come, lad.” As the soldier left to fetch them, the general ordered Morag. “Help me sit up. I can’t receive foreign envoys lying down like a child taking a nap!”
“The chirurgeon said—”
“I can’t appear weak before these Loegrians. Always negotiate from a position of strength, especially if you aren’t strong,” Lord Stiofán retorted.
Grumbling, Morag helped him sit up, arranging pillows to help prop him up. She fussed over his shoulder, checking the bandages. There was no stench of infection, and no fresh blood stained the linen bindings.
A few minutes later, three Dalraidan captains came to the general’s tent. No sooner had Stiofán finished greeting them than a soldier escorted two men in gray robes to the general’s tent. “Father Fritwald and Father Didan, my lord, come under a flag of truce to meet with you.”
“Are we to wait for the general here?” the younger priest asked.
“I am General Stiofán,” Lord Stiofán spoke up.
The two Loegrians seemed surprised. Perhaps it was because the general wore a nightshirt rather than a uniform and medals. Perhaps it was because his tent was only slighter larger than any other soldier’s, and had no carpets or tapestry, just a plain canvas tent with some battered folding camp chairs.
“Come and be welcome,” Lord Stiofán bid them. “Forgive my not rising to greet you; I am recovering from a minor wound.”
The two priests bowed, very slightly.
“I am Frithuwald of Bernicia,” the elder of the pair said, enunciating his name clearly. He was a brown-haired man in his late thirties or early forties. He nodded at his companion, a blond perhaps five or ten years younger. “My colleague, Didan of Eynsham.”
“May I present Captains Brandolf, Aillig, and Goraidh? And this is Morag, who honors me by acting as my scribe. Wine for our guests, Morag, please,” the general requested.
The priests frowned at her.
Morag dipped the shadow of a curtsy to the Loegrians. She owed them that much, out of respect for their holy office. Loegria and Dalraida worshipped the same God and read the same scripture, although the two nations disagreed so much on matters of doctrine and interpretation that they might as well have been separate faiths. She set down her quill and fetched a clay jug of wine. She removed the lid and poured, filling five goblets. She handed them out to the priests and the captains. Then she poured a half goblet full of wine for Stiofán.
Stiofán gave her a dirty look, but accepted the goblet without a word. In public, the general and his scribe kept up appearances, however much she might nag or he might tease in private.
Aillig unfolded the camp chairs and passed them out. Morag sat again on the pillow.
Father Frithuwald took a sip of wine. He looked at Morag. “Lord Stiofán, we have come far to treat with you, but what we have to say is not for women’s ears, nor for women to gossip about. It would be best to dismiss your concubine.”
“Concubine?” Morag’s eyes flashed.
“You insult the lady and flatter me,” Stiofán said. “Morag is my scribe, and the wife of one of our pipers. She must stay if we are to have a record of our discourse. My hand knows a sword hilt better than a quill.”
“But she’s pregnant,” Father Didan muttered.
“I write with my hand, Father, not my belly.” Morag picked up her quill.
“It’s true, then, that Loegrian women are forbidden to read or write?” Goraidh asked snidely.
“Not forbidden, but so few women are capable,” Didan said.
Morag bit her lip to keep from retorting ... or snorting. She’d heard that literacy in Loegria was limited to a rare few. In Dalraida, every plowboy and dairy maid could read and write enough to study the holy scriptures. Were that not so, she wouldn’t have had to write so many condolence letters.
“You have come, I hope, to talk of peace between our nations?” Stiofán hastened to get the discussion back on topic.
“We want nothing more than to end this war, Lord Stiofán,” Father Frithuwald said.
“Then let us begin our discussion with a blessing, Fathers, if you would be so kind,” Lord Stiofán requested.
“May the One, Whose greatest gift is peace, end the suffering and the bloodshed.” Frithuwald placed his hands together in front of his face, palm to palm, then separated them, bringing them together again at chest level to make a circle.
Didan and the Dalraidans all copied the mark of respect. The circular gesture indicated the sun, the symbol of the One.
“If the war is to end with honor, the border must be respected,” Captain Brandolf said.
“Odd, our king said the same thing,” Father Frithuwald raised his left eyebrow, “when he was discussing your raiders who continually cross the border.”
“There are raiders on both sides of the border,” Lord Stiofán acknowledged, “and always have been. We speak of the acts of your king and his sworn men, not the actions of bandits.”
“It is easy to claim that raiders are bandits,” Frithuwald retorted.
Morag sat with two papers on her desk. On one paper, she jotted down the initials of who spoke, and a few words summarizing what they said. On the other paper, she wrote another condolence letter. As there was a great deal of talking without much actually being said, she almost caught up on finishing the condolence letters as the men spoke of honor and vengeance and old wrongs.
“This war harms both our nations,” Lord Stiofán said. “Let us keep our tempers, gentlemen, and try to seek peace.”
“We want nothing more than to end this war. And once rid of the chief wolf, the rest of the pack will scatter like the dogs they are,” Frithuwald predicted. He nodded to Didan.
Both reached to pull out necklaces from beneath their robes. Not prayer beads or religious icons, but magic amulets. Frithuwald’s amulet was silver, Didan’s was brass, but both bore a jeweled seven pointed star.
Morag recognized the mark at once. “Sorcery!”
“Be silent,” Frithuwald commanded, and to Morag’s dismay, she found she could not speak.
“Hold them,” Frithuwald ordered Didan, “while I take care of the general.”
The two sorcerers babbled something incomprehensible. It might have been nonsense syllables; it might have been some ancient, long-forgotten tongue. But whatever language the incantation was, it was successful. None of the Dalraidans could move.
The captains tried to reach for their swords, but could not move their hands.
Morag struggled against the spell. Sorcery, she’d always been told, was a matter of willpower. She remembered the basic instructions given to all camp followers when she and Elshander had joined the army: this is how to hold a sword; this is how to bend a bow; with enemy sorcerers, distract them; if they are distracted, they can’t cast a spell, and the best way to distract a sorcerer is with an arrow in the chest. If she could distract these Loegrians, she might be able to break their spells.
Frithuwald stopped chanting. He grinned maliciously.
Stiofán’s face twisted in pain.
“Once I’ve stopped his heart, we’ll slit the others’ throats. Then we’ll put a knife in the wench’s hand and make it look like his concubine killed them,” Frithuwald said.
Didan turned away from her to face his colleague. “But she’s pregnant.”
“A Dalraidan cub. No loss,” Frithuwald said. “Can you hold them while I look for his seal?”
The general’s face grew paler.
Didan nodde
d. He returned to his chanting.
Frithuwald began rummaging for Lord Stiofán’s seal, sealing wax, and his coin-purse.
Every grimoire agrees strong emotion strengthens willpower. Fear for her baby and herself filled Morag. Worry for the general, and what would happen to the war if Dalraida lost its best commander. But the apple that overflowed the bushel was the insult of she, a respectably married woman, being called the concubine of a man she regarded with avuncular affection! Morag was a redhead, with a redhead’s temper. Rage broke the spell that held her in place.
“Concubine!” Morag’s lips formed the word, although no sound came from her mouth. She dropped the quill. She reached for the general’s wooden leg and whacked Didan with it across the knees.
He stumbled and fell back on his rump.
She tried to yell for help, but she was still silent. She scrambled awkwardly to her feet. Her right hand swung the wooden leg again, forcing Frithuwald to dodge. With her left hand she grabbed the wine jug and tossed its contents at the tent wall. Then she kicked the oil lamps.
The tent started smoldering.
Stiofán gasped. The captains, able to move again, rushed the sorcerers. Furious, Brandolf and Aillig went after Frithuwald with their bare hands. Goraidh drew his sword and approached Didan.
Morag jabbed with the wooden leg, as though it were a pike, and almost hit Brandolf.
“Fire!” she heard someone yell. “The general’s tent is on fire!”
The tent flap opened. A bucketful of water was tossed in. The sorcerers were drenched.
The soaking broke the last vestiges of the sorcerers’ concentration.
Two soldiers rushed in, with more buckets of water. They tossed the water without bothering to look for targets first.
“Seize them,” Stiofán ordered between coughs.
“The priests?” asked a guard with an empty wooden bucket. More guards with water buckets followed him into the smoky tent.
“They’re no priests,” Brandolf snarled. “Assassins, violating a flag of truce. Sorcerers.”
Stiofán coughed again.
“Bind them,” Morag ordered, pointing to the Loegrians, “and carry the general into the fresh air away from this smoke. You, fetch the chirurgeon. Run!” she added, when the guards didn’t obey her instantly.
Her stern tone and angry visage were sufficient to make the soldiers forget she had no authority to order them about.
Two soldiers doused the tent with water. Four grabbed the Loegrians and bound and gagged them under Brandolf’s supervision. Two more took the general’s cot and carried it out of the tent with him still on it.
“Two sorcerers against one pregnant woman with ink-stained fingers and a piece of pine.” Stiofán shook his head. “The poor fools had no idea how badly they were outnumbered.”
Frituwald glared at her. Didan hung his head, abashed.
Stiofán looked at Morag, his wooden leg still in her hand. “I’m not going to get that back, am I?”
Four Paws to Light My Way
Deborah J. Ross
Here is a story that is very much about choices, especially the ones made after the initial belief that there is no choice.
Deborah J. Ross writes and edits fantasy and science fiction. Her most recent books include The Children of Kings (with Marion Zimmer Bradley); Lambda Literary Award Finalist/Tiptree Award recommended list Collaborators (as Deborah Wheeler); and The Seven-Petaled Shield, an epic fantasy trilogy. Her short fiction has appeared in F & SF, Asimov's, Star Wars: Tales From Jabba's Palace, Realms of Fantasy, and previous volumes of Sword and Sorceress. Her work has earned Honorable Mention in Year's Best SF, and nominations for Gaylactic Spectrum Award, the National Fantasy Federation Speculative Fiction Award for Best Author, the Nebula Award, and inclusion in the Locus Recommended Reading List, and Kirkus notable new release list. Her editorial credits include Lace and Blade, Stars of Darkover, Gifts of Darkover, and Across the Spectrum. When she's not writing, she knits for charity, plays classical piano, studies yoga, and rehabilitates service dogs.
The curse lay heavy on the Shining City. Jian could smell it in the dust and the sourness of the leaves of the ginkgo trees that lined the approach to the royal palace. They fluttered unseasonably to the ground and crunched under her feet. Here and there, the paving stones, once so level and smoothly joined that she had felt as if she were walking on glass, had buckled. From time to time, Dog nudged her knee in one direction or tugged on the heavy leash in the other, guiding her along the crowded streets.
Dog didn’t like this place. Jian could tell from the stiffness in his muscles, the staccato tapping of his nails on the stones. He preferred bare earth or the windswept hillsides around their home, where wild cattle grazed. Jian did not allow herself the luxury of an opinion; she came when the Emperor commanded, and she would continue to so until he released her from her oath.
The quality of air and sound changed as they passed the outer gates. Here was naked wall, there the many-times-lacquered wood of the gate, here the density of living flesh. Guards would be posted, watchful and still.
Dog slowed, a slackening of the leash. Jian bowed. The guards did not ask her name. How could there be two of her—a blind woman dressed in patched and faded soldier’s garb, a sword in its battered sheath tucked into her sash, a scarf of imperial silk tied around her neck? At least, they were not so foolhardy as to suggest she leave Dog outside the palace.
“Forward,” she said, and Dog guided her inside.
Footsteps on the raked dirt of the courtyard came nearer, then stopped in front of her. She paused, nostrils flaring even though she lacked Dog’s keen sense of smell. There was something familiar about that stride... but she’d been sighted when she’d last heard it.
“Never thought to see you here.” The voice, husky and baritone, brimmed with humor.
“Masou!” He would be as gray now as she, for they’d fought side-by-side until the curse swept through the ranks. The curse took everyone differently; she wondered what it had taken from him. Not his laughter, that much was sure.
“That dog of yours looks better than you do,” he said by way of compliment.
“Hell,” she said, “he looks better than both of us combined.”
“Thought you couldn’t see.” There it was, the words spoken.
“You old goat, I meant how you used to look.”
His answering chuckle wasn’t audible, only a ripple on her skin. The tension in her shoulders eased. “Why am I here?”
“That a philosophical or a tactical question?”
“Where’d you learn philosophy?” Another shared silence. Of course, no answer. “You always knew more palace gossip than any ten courtiers put together. Why did he send for me?” What does the Emperor think a blind sword fighter can do that a sighted one cannot?
Warmth on her face, a whisper of breath: he’d moved closer. “Here’s the drill, Ji. You present yourself, courtiers go oooh-aaah, everyone sees you’re unfit for duty—”
Unfit. She restrained herself from snorting. Blindness had sharpened her other senses and not a day had gone by without hours of sword drill.
“—so no one takes notice when you see him private-like.”
Jian considered this. Masou was hardly a courtier, but he was exactly the right man when stealth—and dirty tactics—were required. “See you later? Buy you an ale?”
“See you later.” He hadn’t taken her up on the drink. That in itself made her take notice.
The massive, carved doors groaned open. Inside the great, towered complex, the air tasted even more lifeless than in the courtyard. It smelled of decay overlaid with the ashes of sandalwood. Dog brushed against Jian’s knee. His fur was thick, double-coated. She brushed it every evening to help her sleep. As for her own beauty, she had never claimed any, and Dog did not care. Her vanity lay in the precise dance of her sword, the strength and balance of her body. The curse had taken these from her, but only for a time. She knew herself to be l
iving proof that the curse was not absolute.
Dog angled a shoulder in front of Jian’s knee, the barest movement but enough to signal Jian to halt. Jian halted. Dog sat. Murmurs rippled around the periphery of the chamber where the nobles sat, except for directly in front of Jian: the Emperor, silent as a toad on his gilded throne.
“Jian the Faithful,” the Emperor greeted her.
“I come as summoned, according to my oath,” she said. “How may I serve?”
“You were ever the most forthright of my warriors.”
Jian inclined her head. Her fingertips touched the top of Dog’s head.
“Then I will be blunt, as well. The curse tightens its grip on the Shining City. I require all able-bodied warriors to protect the city’s inhabitants as we relocate across the Greywater.”
The Emperor’s words hung in the flat stillness of the throne room. The courtiers too had gone silent; she wasn’t sure they were even breathing. So Emperor intended to abandon the city? He must be desperate indeed. The territory south of the great river, although traditionally part of the Empire, had been independent in all but name since the curse struck. After that, the Emperor had needed all his resources to maintain his capital city.
“Any warrior who cannot perform to his utmost under these conditions will impose an additional burden, one I cannot afford,” the Emperor said. “You are hereby released from your oath, on condition you do not attempt to join the relocation and thereby divert resources that should go to the able-bodied.”
Thanks to Masou’s warning, Jian took no offense, but the court, with its intrigues and veiled insults, was no place for an honest swordswoman. Dog, get me out of here! And felt a tug on the leash like a lifeline.
She found Masou in the courtyard outside, or rather, Dog did. Dog liked Masou, which confirmed her trust in her old comrade. He’d found her a room in an inn where Dog was welcome and no questions asked. The old woman who ran the inn brought a trencher with chunks of bread, cheese, and apple, food easily eaten with the fingers, and a bowl of meat scraps for Dog. Not long after they’d finished, when the fall in temperature heralded the oncoming night, Masou came back for her.
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