The Sword of the Lady c-3

by S. M. Stirling

  The central attacker?s body flexed loosely as the point approached, as if he was moving backward even before it struck. When it did he swayed like a whip being snapped, and looked down for an instant at the narrow thirty-inch shaft transfixing him just beside the breastbone.

  He?s not going to stop, Ritva knew.

  Then he did, but the fixed smile on his face did not alter as blood run neled out his nose and hung in threads from his lips. ? Not-yet-to-rule-so-many,? he said.? Soon. We-will-be-abroad-and-loose.?

  And collapsed forward. The others continued their herky-jerky advance. Ritva bounded back frantically, her soft elf-boots gripping at the roof ridge as she dropped her bow and the longsword hissed out in the two-handed grip. ?Lacho Calad!? she cried.

  There was a wheeze of relief in it too, for Mary was moving as well, the ball and hook whirling on the ends of the length of fine chain she unwrapped from her waist. ?Drego Morn!?

  Her sister completed the Ranger war cry. Flame Light! Flee Night!

  TheSwordoftheLady

  CHAPTER NINE

  EMERGENCY COORDINATOR?S RESIDENCE CHARTERED CITY OF DUBUQUE

  PROVISIONAL REPUBLIC OF IOWA SEPTEMBER 14, CHANGE YEAR 24/2022 AD

  ?Sure, and I don?t think your Majesty should be unguarded,? Rudi said, shifting uneasily with the prickling feeling along his spine.

  Kate Heasleroad came back into the room at that instant, and Rudi breathed a sigh of relief, at least in the privacy of his mind. Her husband looked at her with annoyance, as if he?d been hoping she?d stay in the nursery. And he?d been dropping very pointed hints that Odard and the Mackenzie should leave, once his genuine interest in the conversation about heraldry had died.

  And not hinting that Matti should leave, Rudi noted. Sure, and it will be a great inconvenience if I must snap the man?s neck after all the trouble we?ve gone to, conciliating him. Still, better than leaving it for Matti to do. Hmmm. Given surprise we could probably cut our way to the docks… ?Tommie?s sleeping soundly now, darling,? Kate said.?Annette?s with him.?

  These rooms were part of the Emergency Coordinator?s chambers; in the terms Matti?s people used, where the Count of Dubuque usually had his apartments, that worthy being turned out now for his liege-lord?s convenience.

  Or his lord?s convenience and his own inconvenience, he thought wryly, nodding pleasantly at Kate.

  One of the ways Sandra Arminger dealt with difficult vassals or ones she suspected of disloyalty was to visit them. With the whole court in train, until the hospitality drove them to the brink of bankruptcy, swallowing the resources that might otherwise be spent seditiously. The best part of that jest was that they couldn?t do anything but profess delight at the honor and spend on feasts, tournaments and entertainers as if money were water. Juniper Mackenzie had been heard to say that Sandra knew more ways of killing a cat than drowning it in a bucket of cream.

  Rudi didn?t think Anthony was bright enough to come up with that idea on his own, but…

  But it is interesting to see that another ruler could stumble on something of the sort by accident. I?ll have to be keeping that in mind, if Edain is determined I?m to be High King.

  He tried to make the thought light, as if it was a joke, but he had a sinking feeling that was what the Powers-some of them, at least-really had in mind.

  And I was afraid of the burden of being Chief of the Mackenzies alone! Hmmmm, though. A High King of Montival would have to visit about much of the time, wouldn?t he? With so many different peoples, and them separated by wilderness and of such different customs and Gods and laws, he?d have to show himself. But not so as to be a burden

  … unless there was some bad and wicked person of note that called for it… later, later. ?And a charming young lad your Tommie is,? Rudi said, with a smile that was sincere enough.

  Children that age usually were, like puppies or kittens; it was how they made people put up with the nuisance and hard work they entailed. Rudi hoped the boy would have a more normal childhood than his father, and come out of it more of a man-not to mention more of a ruler.

  Kate Heasleroad smiled back at him, almost involuntarily; at least Tommie would have her.

  Behind her Matti mouthed: You?re being charming again, dammit!

  Rudi?s eldest half sister Eilir was deaf; he?d learned lipreading from her, and it was a useful skill whether you could hear or no.

  The Coordinator?s quarters were elegant, in a cool style of pastel fabrics and muted colors and blond wood that was not at all the Bossman?s usual taste, judging by what he remembered of the throne room in the State Capitol; the modifications that had turned this whole second floor into one were skillful, arched ways linking large rooms. ?And for his sake as well as your own, you should have more guards about you,? Rudi said. ?There are plenty of guards,? the Bossman said.

  He waved a hand and knocked over a glass on the side table beside him. A servant stepped forward noiselessly and swept it away, mopping up the spilled wine and vanishing again.

  Rudi had lived several months a year in Portland and Castle Todenangst and other holds of the Protectorate for much of his boyhood and youth; he was used to personal service, if not overfond of it. But while lowly household folk in Portland?s territories were sometimes treated roughly by their lords, they weren?t expected to be invisible. Their presence was part of an Associate?s consequence.

  This self-effacement put his teeth on edge for some reason. It was as if they were trying to mimic the vanished machinery of the ancient world, that produced the fruits of work without human hands and will.

  Aloud he went on:?To be sure, but the guards are not here within arm?s reach. A dozen yards away can be far too far, if you take my meaning, my lord. I don?t think those men from Corwin are to be trusted.? ?I don?t trust anyone,? the Bossman said, his voice careless and a little slurred.

  The which is probably true, and makes you as helpless as a babe. The whole secret of the thing being to know who you can trust, as well as who you cannot. ?And I don?t like having men in iron shirts clanking about in the same room. Besides, this place is secure,? the Iowan went on.

  There was something to that. The windows facing out a story over the street were broad, intact pre-Change plate glass panels that ran on grooves set in little wheels, but the wrought-iron scrollwork over them was more recent. It was ornamental, flowing designs of vines and flowers, but it also gave no space wider than a man?s arm, without blocking too much of the light in daytime, and it was set very solidly indeed into steel plates bolted around the openings.

  All the windows in this building were like that, except the ones on the ground floor; they?d been bricked in until they were narrow slits, and there was nothing on that level but storage and guardrooms, workshops and kitchens and armories. It wasn?t quite a fortress, but it would do fine against a rioting mob, particularly with people shooting crossbows through the openings at anyone on the ground outside.

  The Bossman?s voice was slurred and his plump face was flushed and sweaty, despite the coolness of the damp air that came through the open panels. ?Always guards,? he said, and there was suddenly a wistful note in his voice.?Gotta have?em. Must be nice not to have to, like you guys. Just going where you want, doing what you please.? ?Oh, sometimes I?d have been glad of a few guards,? Rudi said cheerfully.?And there are drawbacks to being footloose and fancy-free, your Majesty. Why, I remember-?

  Thock.

  The sound was faint, but Rudi recognized it instantly; an arrowhead or crossbow-bolt striking in bone. The breath hissed out between his teeth; that was not part of the plan. The Cutters should have been stopped outside, with Rudi?s friends-and the Heuisinks, Ingolf?s allies-doing the stopping and the State Police swooping down to halt the brawl. Then the Bossman would wash his hands of them and expel both…

  Something went wrong, Rudi thought, as his hand went to the hilt of a sword that wasn?t there. But as Sir Nigel says, something always does. Or as Sam Aylward puts it, sodding pear-shaped is the shape to expect. ?Your Majesty, I thin
k you?d better call those guards of yours,? he said quietly, but his voice was pitched to the level of command. ?Call them now.?

  Anthony Heasleroad was no fool; Rudi had reluctantly come to that conclusion some time ago.

  But if those who had the raising of him had set out to ruin him, they could have done no better. If I was a Christian, I?d attribute it to the sins of the fathers. Or if I were a Buddhist like the good Rimpoche Dorje, I?d conclude he must have been a monster in some previous life.

  He watched the warning sink through layers of drink-fuddled incomprehension, and then through a gauze of arrogance deeper still. ?Butler!? the Bossman called.

  Then as Rudi began to move:?What the hell are you doing, you red-haired beanpole??

  A long scream came from below, where the stairs gave on the main hall. Then a shattering clash of steel on steel, and the sharp hard banging of blades on the leather of shields, and a war cry that made his lips peel back from his teeth: ?Cut! Cut! Cut!?

  And another scream: not of pain this time, but of horror, an animal cry of disgust rising into the squeal a rabbit gave when the talons closed on it. Rudi leapt to the door and struck it with his shoulder. There was no time for subtlety now. It crashed open, and revealed a man falling backward with his arms flailing; he met another at the head of the stairs and both tumbled down them.

  Rudi?s hand moved with blurring speed, sweeping their swords out of the rack the guardsmen had been standing sentinel over and leaping back in a ten-foot bound from a standing start. By then Odard and Mathilda were by the door themselves, slamming it shut again and shooting home the bar; the baron of Gervais whirled a heavy chair over and jammed the top home beneath the brackets. Anthony Heasleroad was looking at them blank-faced, then with a dawning suspicion.

  The bundle of weapons in Rudi?s hands included the Bossman?s shete. It had a good deal of silver and niello filigree on the sheath, and jewels set in the guard, but the blade was steel as good as any Rudi had ever seen. He tossed the weapon at the Iowan ruler, still in the scabbard. The heavyset young man gripped it clumsily, staggered back into his chair and rose again, drawing the weapon with a flick of the wrist that showed some skill.

  Though I?d swear he lacks the endurance to use it for more than one or two strokes. But at least it?ll convince him faster than words that we?re not out to kill him. ?What?s the meaning of this?? he said as Rudi followed the throw by handing the two Portlanders their blades, then raised his voice: ?Guards! Guards!?

  The sound of fighting had died away, far faster than it should have; the sudden coppery smell of blood was shockingly strong. The prickling along Rudi?s spine intensified, and his scalp crept, as if his hair was trying to bristle as did a lion?s mane before battle. Everything looked normal, but he could feel gaps about him, as if bits and pieces of the world were vanishing from the edge of sight, only to reappear when his eyes moved in that direction.

  I?ve felt something a little like this, he thought. On Samhain, and in some of the rites.

  Not often, and never so strongly. He was no great loremaster, for all that the Otherworld had touched his life often. He knew little more than any Initiate.

  But this feels wrong, so it does. Someone is using Art, but without any thought for the order of the world, or the Law of Threefold Return. That will fall upon him in the end, but before then what evil may it do! ?The guards-? he began.

  A crash came from the door. That barrier wasn?t the massive fortress-style portals that closed the exterior of the building. Carved panels splintered under the blows of heavy blades-at this moment you remembered that the shete had started out as a chopping tool a mere generation before. The steel flicked through in glimpses of brightness against dark oiled ornamental walnut. When the upper panel was a sagging mass of splinters a man?s helmeted head completed the ruin, butting through the remains.

  Heasleroad cried out in relief.?Captain Butler! What is going-?

  The guardsman looked at him, smiling through the gashes the splinters had cut in his flesh; one eye leaked clear matter down his cheek, running in thick threads through the red of blood. ? Kill,? he said, his grinning teeth wet.? Kill-them-all. Kill? ?Happy to oblige,? Odard de Gervais snarled, and struck.

  He was a man of middling size, but strong and very quick. The longsword blurred down in a silver arc; there was a heavy wet sound, and underneath it a crack of parting bone. ?Haro!? he shouted, and then the war cry of his House:?Face Gervais, face death!?

  The head sagged free, held by only a shred of flesh. Blood spurted out into the room, but for one long instant the body?s hands scrabbled beside the severed neck, trying to enlarge the hole through the broken wood. Then it went limp, and other hands pulled it back.

  A billhook smashed through; Odard cut again, but this time the blade skidded with a shower of sparks off a sheath of steel wire wound around the wooden shaft behind the business end of the polearm. The weapon jerked back and then probed at him, thrust two-handed with a savage, skillful snap. He skipped back just in time, or a little later than that; the sharp point of the spike touched his breast, and a dark stain spread on the colorful cloth of the jupon. ?Here!? Mathilda cried.

  She tossed him a shield; there were two, done up for Anthony Heasleroad?s amusement in the Lidless Eye of the Armingers, with the baton of cadency across one, and the mon symbol of the House of Liu-the Chinese ideograph for Poland, for his father?s mother, silver on red on black on the other. There hadn?t been any reason to make the shields genuine, but there hadn?t been any reason not to, either, and Mathilda had taken full advantage of the Bossman?s expense account.

  So these were the real article, elongated triangles four feet from rounded point to curved top, made of plywood and bullhide and covered in thin sheet metal, with the padded loops on the inside parallel to the length. ?Bless your foresight, Matti!? Rudi said.?Flank me-not in plain sight of the door!?

  The two Associates took up the stance Portlander men-at-arms used for fighting on foot; left fist at chin height, which put the upper edge of the shield just under the eyes and the point at shin level, and swords over their heads with the hilts forward. Rudi had no protection but the little buckler clipped to the side of his longsword?s sheath. He took that in his hand, some part of him wishing they had all their fighting gear at hand; with a western knight?s head-to-toe panoply the three of them could hold the doorway in turn, and only be badly hurt by accident.

  You fight with what you have, when you have to, he thought.

  Rudi crouched and duckwalked towards the door, keeping below the level that could be seen through the ruins of the upper panel; it wasn?t easy to stay low when you stood six-two in your stocking feet. The billhook pulled back, and pulled a chunk of the splintered wood free with the curved hook on its rear.

  The Bossman of Iowa moved forward, with the shete in his hand. ?Get back, you fool!? Rudi barked.

  Even then there was some remote corner of his mind that felt a relief at the frank words, like the bursting of a boil. ?There?s nothing you can do here! Look to your woman and your son!?

  Kate Heasleroad added her voice to his; a little to Rudi?s surprise it wasn?t shrill with fear at all. She was in the far corner of the room near the entrance to the nursery corridor, with an upturned table sheltering her and her own body between the edged metal and the path to her child. Her eyes were wide with fear and her fair skin turned milk pale, but it was controlled fear, and she kept them fixed on the doorway to follow the action there. Her husband?s face was crimson, flushed with rage as much as with drink.

  So he?s no coward, Rudi thought. What a time to develop the virtues!

  Mathilda acted where Rudi couldn?t; she leapt forward just as a bow snapped on the landing outside, and threw herself in front of the Iowan. There was a hard crack as the point punched into her shield. It hit at a slant, penetrating shallowly and giving a malignant whine as vibration damped itself in metal and wood. She hit the Bossman under the short ribs with the pommel of her sword to stun resistance, threw him back wi
th an expert heave of shoulders and legs, and used the motion to whirl herself back out of the line of fire. Only then did she snap the arrowhead off with another blow of the hilt, and the inch or two of shaft that had followed it through the shield. ?Haro, Portland!? she cried in a valkyr shout as she took stance again.?Holy Mary for Portland!?

  Two more arrows plowed through the space she?d vacated; they went over Rudi?s head with a vicious whissst of cloven air like angry yellow-jacket wasps, and slammed into the wall to stand quivering. Rudi came off the floor in a long lunge in the instant they blurred past, leg and arm in perfect line and the blade of the longsword lashing out into the hole in the broken door. The point drove home in meat and bone, and a bill clattered through the broken wood to lie spinning on the floor.

  Hands gripped the blade of his sword, naked flesh against the metal. He stripped it backward with a wrench, and fingers fell away from the edge of the layer-forged steel. Another bill rammed close, probing for his life as the wielder crowded among the figures thronging the landing. ?Morrigu!? Rudi screamed.

  It was half war cry, half desperate appeal. He was used to fighting brave men, but not those who cared for wounds and pain and death no more than so many windup automatons. ? Morrigu! Come to me, Dark Mother! I am the Lady?s Sword!?

  The Crow Goddess had sent Raven to him long ago; not in dream and vision, but in the light of common day. He bore the mark of the bird?s flint-hard beak in the small scar between his brows. That pain had been brief. It flared again for an instant. Then what filled him was agony and fire, ecstasy beyond bearing, joy and horror at once. The world vanished and reappeared with jeweled clarity, and he understood . Every beat of his heart linked him to all that was, and he saw those threads.

  His dropped the buckler and his hand closed on the bill?s shaft behind the head, wrenched it free, slammed it back so that the butt cap cracked a skull. His sword thrust back and forth like the needle in a treadle-worked sewing machine. There was no rage behind the strokes, only a love that encompassed even the snarling faces behind the weapons that reached for him, a vast piteous determination.