The Swordsman's Oath

by Juliet E. McKenna

  “That’s what you’ve been doing, is it?” Vahil was clearly amused.

  “That and consoling the cook, who’s been planning something with eggs but the hens have gone off lay, convincing people they can manage on their water ration if they don’t use it for laundering their linen and dealing with a handful of petty disputes a day.” Guinalle shared a rueful glance with Temar.

  “I leave that kind of thing to my father,” laughed Vahil. “My main problem’s boredom.”

  Temar was not displeased to see faint vexation in Guinalle’s eyes, but felt honor bound to support his friend to some extent.

  “I know I’ll be glad when we make a landfall and we can get on with the business of setting up the colony. You’ll have plenty to do then, Vahil.”

  “True enough,” groaned Vahil with mock dread. “Look, there’s a trail heading through that dip; with any luck the noise of the camp won’t have spooked the game through there.”

  “You’d better go in the middle.” Temar gestured to Guinalle. “I don’t suppose there are beasts of any size on a place like this but we might as well be careful.”

  “Thank you, Esquire,” she said demurely, pushing carefully through the bushes after Vahil who was showing just how quietly he could move when he chose to.

  Temar followed, his shirt soon damp from the moisture on the leaves and with sweat from the warmth of the day. They passed through the dip and began a careful descent into a shallow valley, rich with strange, glossy-leafed plants in a myriad shades of green and dotted with a few spicily scented blooms.

  “There’s a clearing ahead.” Vahil paused to speak softly to Guinalle, who passed the word back.

  Temar had to restrain an impulse to brush a sticky tendril from her damp forehead but happily answered Guinalle’s smile of frank enjoyment with one of his own.

  “There!” Guinalle froze and sank down, taking an arrow from her quiver and nocking it carefully.

  Temar and Vahil followed her gaze and saw a scatter of furry creatures grazing peaceably on the long grass in the center of the clearing. They exchanged a nod and moved stealthily to take up positions for themselves. Temar glanced across to Guinalle and, when she gave the nod, let fly. His second arrow found its target as well, but by then all the animals had vanished into the concealing forest, a few shaking leaves the only sign of their panicked flight. They rose and crossed to see what quarry they had taken.

  ‘What do you suppose these are?“ Vahil shook his head in mystification as he expertly removed his quarrel from the expiring creature.

  Temar used his knife to open the mouth of his kill, cautious in case it was not quite dead. “It’s got teeth for grass and fruit, I’d say, so it should be good eating.”

  “It’s certainly heavy enough, for the size of it.” Guinalle had pulled back the blunt-nosed, squarish head to slit the throat of the one that Temar’s second arrow had not quite killed clean. “I’d say it’s a hare that has ambitions to be a deer.”

  Temar laughed. “That sounds about right.”

  “Let’s find somewhere else to gut them,” Vahil suggested. “We could try waiting for the rest of them again tomorrow, if we don’t leave too much blood.”

  Five of the densely muscled beasts between them was no slight burden and Temar was glad to let the two he carried slide from his shoulders when Guinalle sat down on a scatter of rocks a little way above the stream running through the base of the valley.

  “I’ll cut some poles.” Vahil headed for a stand of springy young growth and Temar began gutting his animals, pleasantly surprised to see Guinalle doing the same with reasonable skill, if not the speed of any long practice. They worked in companionable silence until all the prey was cleaned, the entrails buried to baffle the flies and Vahil had uncorked the wineskin he had thoughtfully picked up before leaving the camp. Temar coughed at the smell of blood clogging his nostrils and picked some sprigs of a low growing, purple-tinged thyme. He handed one to Guinalle, who accepted it with a composed smile, faint color kissing her cheeks.

  “Den Fellaemion said he’ll be looking to set up a permanent anchorage on these islands, you know, when the colony’s established,” Temar observed, looking idly around to stop himself gazing too obviously at Guinalle.

  “I can think of worse places to live,” commented Vahil. “Nice climate, plenty of timber, game for hunting and room for farming.”

  “You won’t be the first, if you do settle here,” said Guinalle unexpectedly.

  “No, there are no people here.” Vahil shook his head. “Den Fellaemion told me; they checked all five of the islands when they first found them and they’ve been back several times since. There’s been no sign of anyone living here; he wouldn’t have let us go off like this, if he wasn’t certain.”

  “Yes, I know.” Guinalle’s tone betrayed a certain irritation. “I spent most of yesterday using Artifice to make absolutely sure. What I’m saying is that there were people here once.”

  Vahil opened his mouth to argue but Temar waved him down. “How do you know?”

  “Look around you.” Guinalle rose from her seat on a boulder and swept round, arm outstretched. “There were huts here; can’t you see the circles, where the hearths were?”

  Temar looked but with the best will in the world couldn’t see what she was indicating.

  “Here.” Guinalle paced around a wide circle and suddenly Temar saw it, an almost invisible depression in the rough grasses with a clump of spite-nettle in the center.

  “Yes, I see.” He looked at her, a little daunted but still impressed. “You have good eyes!”

  Guinalle shook her head with a deprecating smile. “Well, I did get a clue from this.”

  She held up a shard of crude pottery and tossed it to Temar. He turned it in his hands; black on one side from use in a fire, it was coarse and gritty stuff, still bearing the thumbprints of its maker.

  “They were an uncultured people, I think. They hunted in the forests, gathered fruit in season, that kind of thing, not farmers in any real sense, as we understand it. They had music though, pipes and drums and storytellers; they weren’t complete savages.”

  “A bit of broken pot can’t tell you that much, surely.” Vahil was trying politely to hide his skepticism, Temar could tell, but merely sounded patronizing.

  “Artifice can.” Guinalle’s eyes were distant as she turned another potsherd over and over in her hands. “I can pick up echoes, sort of, from things like this. It was a long time ago, though.”

  “What happened to them?” Temar was fascinated.

  “I can’t tell.” Guinalle frowned slightly. “There are flames in the destruction of this pot, distress too.”

  “That could just mean some woman dropped it in the fire and ruined the dinner,” laughed Vahil. “Either that or she threw it at her husband and missed!”

  “It’s more than that.” Guinalle looked more than a little piqued but Vahil seemed oblivious as he finished the wine.

  “Just what sort of things can you tell from something like this?” Temar held out a hand and tried to fit the two pieces of weathered crock together without success.

  “It depends on many different factors—on how old something is, how valued it was by its owner, the strength of emotions involved.” Guinalle’s tone became slightly didactic. “Of course Artifice can be used to deliberately instill memories in an item as well, visions that an Adept can retrieve.”

  “Saedrin’s stones,” said Temar without thinking, wondering what possible use that sort of thing could have.

  Guinalle didn’t seem to notice the vulgarism. “It’s a difficult thing to achieve, and it’s something that has been subject to misuse in the past. It can have rather unexpected effects on some people,” she sighed. “I’m afraid certain Masters of Artifice haven’t always been as scrupulous about the use they have made of their talents.”

  “I bet they haven’t!” Vahil grinned with inappropriate humor as he reached for the carrying pole. “Come on, let�
�s get this meat back to camp in time for dinner. Even if there’s no time to hang it properly, no one will thank us for it if it gets flyblown.”

  Guinalle followed closely behind Temar as they followed the narrow game trail back down to the shore, but carrying the laden pole made it impossible for him to talk to her.

  “You know, I would like to know more about Artifice,” he puffed when they reached the camp and he was able to hand over his load. “Could you tell me about it?”

  “I could, if you are serious in your interest.” Guinalle’s expression was one of good-humored skepticism.

  “Oh, I am. I think it could be very valuable for the colony.” Temar realized somewhat to his surprise that he meant what he said. Not that the thought of spending time alone with Guinalle wasn’t a considerable inducement, but if he was going to be responsible for a crowd of clients he would need all the resources he could muster.

  “I am a little surprised that you haven’t had some basic instruction,” commented Guinalle, her eyes softening a little.

  Temar shrugged. “My family was very hard hit by the Crusted Pox,” he said shortly. “My grandfather rather lost any confidence he might have had in healers and acolytes after that.”

  “I am so sorry.” Guinalle laid a gentle hand on Temar’s arm, her face concerned.

  He slapped his hands together briskly. “Look, I stink of blood and dirt. I must get a bath before dinner. I’ll see you later.”

  Chapter Six

  A letter discovered amongst the effects salvaged from an Aldabreshin galley wrecked in the Gulf of Peorle in the 278th Year of the Freedom of the City of Col

  Segalo Ria greets Imir Sazac with loving respect by the hand of her body slave Cathu

  We are all curious to learn of your trip to the mainlanders at Col and cordially invite you to visit us upon your return. If these foreigners are any less predatory than the vermin of the Relshaz mud flats, the dangers of such a voyage will be worthwhile. It is a matter of no little concern to us that you had scant opportunity to deal with mainlanders before the grievous passing of the esteemed Iru Sazac elevated you to the honor of First Wife. Please allow us to impart some of the experience we have garnered over recent years.

  You are accustomed to hear all mainlanders stigmatized as thieves. This is not merely based upon the recurrent thefts of spice plants and the subsequent dishonorable diversion of that trade by the men of the leeward coasts, you will find all plead to be allowed to visit your domains and, should you allow this, they will ask repeatedly who owns every item in your residence. Although such a question is meaningless to a person with any honor, reply that everything is the personal possession of Sazac Dega, otherwise these mainlanders purloin anything not actually nailed down.

  Make sure that your triremes are well in evidence when your galleys reach Col, a visible display of Sazac Dega’s might. Leave them in no doubt that any attempts at incursion into your domain will leave their boats burned to the waterline, else you will find their clumsy vessels sniffing around your lands, stealing your crops and slaves, attempting to inveigle themselves into your trade.

  There is no place for beauty or honor in their notions of exchange. All they want to do is assign a number of little metal tokens to any and every object and then attempt to trade for as few of these as possible. Do not, for example, agree a trade and then offer an additional, superior gem to show your appreciation of politeness, as you would with an Islander. These mainlanders will not understand this, merely taking it as a sign to attempt to extort further gems from you. Also, do not give them any sizeable or noteworthy jewels; they will cut up and facet whatever they get, having no appreciation of the natural forms of the stones.

  Be extremely careful to assess the quality of the gold and silver they offer you. Much is badly adulterated with base metals, but you have to understand this is so commonplace as to be openly accepted and not the disgrace it would be among a civilized people. The best metals are worth keeping for turning over to your jewellers and craftsmen but much of the rest is only fit for ballast. All you can do is use it to simplify trading for slaves, which does at least get it off your hands.

  Make sure you keep Denil with you at all times and that he knows to keep his blades sharp. Mainlanders virtually leash and muzzle their females and feel entitled to offer insult to any woman not so constrained. We would certainly advise you not to seek recreation with any mainlander; they have simply no idea how to conduct themselves. Their customary use of liquors and narcotics curdles any sense of decency.

  Nevertheless, we await news of your trip with great eagerness and wish you every success.

  The Palace of Shek Kul,

  the Aldabreshin Archipelago,

  5th of For-Summer

  I stood, leaning against the wall for as much support as I dared, and felt the sweat trickling down between my shoulder blades. Although 1 was trying not to move, I must have somehow betrayed my discomfort and that earned me a swift glance of displeasure from Laio’s dark eyes. I tried to concentrate instead on the rhythms of the little fountain playing in a broad ceramic basin set into the middle of the white marble floor. An insect whined somewhere and I tried to spot it, not wanting the bastard to add to my already impressive collection of itching bites.

  “So you see, my lady, there is no consistency to the thread. It jams on the loom or breaks, the quality of the cloth shames me greatly.”

  The weaver was an old man, white-haired and skinny, wearing only a crisply laundered loincloth, kneeling in abject supplication in front of this girl young enough to be his granddaughter.

  Lucky bastard, I thought, my shoulders aching viciously from most of a day spent standing around in chainmail, doing nothing more useful than looking war-like for the benefit of Laio’s workers. Still, at least I was standing upright.

  “I understand your problems and there will be no penalties,” Laio interrupted the old man’s complaints, as well she might. We’d been hearing the same thing all day in various forms; I could have told her myself what he was going to say.

  Her brisk and efficient manner still struck me as incongruous, as she sat there in a filmy silk dress that left few of her charms to the imagination. Bright paints all but obscured her face and she was adorned with more jewels than the entire House of D’Olbriot at a Sieur’s wedding.

  I closed my ears to their conversation and stared out of the open shutters, across the lush grounds of Shek Kul’s palace compound. Precisely tended gardens surrounded the central residence, slaves’ dwellings beyond them and, looming over those, the high black walls patrolled day and night by keen-eyed sentries, always with double-curved short bows to hand. I looked at the green pennant lazily flickering in the breeze above the tower over the main gate and, in the far distance, the dark green hills of the next island in the domain, hazy in the moist heat. So far I’d found as little prospect of getting beyond those gates alone as stepping through a rainbow to meet an Eldritch-man.

  Dark clouds were boiling up above the steep conical peaks of the far islands and I wondered when the rains that Laio had been promising for days would actually arrive. Would it get any cooler? I was just about getting used to being covered in a permanent film of sweat. As long as there was some breeze, it was tolerable, unless I was wearing this cursed hauberk, that was. On those days or when the air hung still and heavy, I felt as if I were walking around wrapped in a warm, wet blanket and I found myself dreaming about fresh, salt-scented winds off the ocean at home.

  A knock on the door brought me back to my present duties. I opened it to reveal Gar Shek, her golden eyes dancing with delight, Sezarre impassive as always behind her.

  “Laio, my dear, I have some wonderful news for you,” Gar smiled sweetly, her customary expression concealing whatever mischief she was trying to foment. “The pigeon-master has just brought me a message from Kaeska. She arrives home on the afternoon tide. Isn’t that perfect; she’ll be here for the birth!”

  Laio looked up with a wide smile of
untroubled pleasure. “Thank you for letting me know so quickly.” She glanced at the complicated arrangement of toothed and interlocking metal wheels that I had been startled to learn served her as some kind of calendar. The senior wife, Kaeska, hadn’t been due back for a couple of days.

  Gar nodded and then looked at the weaver, who was kneeling, forehead to the floor, in what I had learned was the appropriate manner and very hard on the knees.

  “Are your workers still having trouble with that yarn you traded from Tani Kaasik?” asked Gar, all innocent concern and missing no opportunity to remind Laio of her lapse.

  Laio shrugged. “It’s of no consequence and I had to do something for the poor girl. With that amount of overproduction, she was at her wit’s end.”

  Perhaps, but the youngest Kaasik wife had still had the wit to offload the poorest quality cotton on to Laio. I recalled the meeting where Laio’s eagerness to increase her own production and reap the attendant benefits had got the better of her good sense. She had failed to check the yarn for herself and I had garnered a severe slapping when Laio had discovered her error and come looking for an outlet for her frustrations.

  “I’m sure you will find a way to resolve the situation,” smiled Gar warmly.

  “I have a market in mind for the cloth,” Laio assured her confidently. I would have been completely convinced if I had not seen her storming around her chambers the previous day, volubly lamenting the fact that she had no such thing.

  Gar smiled sweetly once again, turned on her heel and swept lightly down the corridor, Sezarre clinking softly behind her. For all that she never missed a chance to needle Laio, I had recently heard Gar assuring some noble visitor that Laio had known exactly what she was doing, generously helping the hapless Tani Kaasik out of the difficulties stemming from the girl’s deplorable inexperience. In the course of a day, I reckoned an Aldabreshi lady wore more different faces than an actor in a Soluran masquerade.