The Sword of the Lady

by S. M. Stirling

  ″Does your sword only cut those with faith in it?″ he said, in tones more human. ″You have pledged and taken the fruits. Now all is demanded.″

  Sorta human, Ritva thought. Sorta-kinda.

  Denson bristled. ″I never took anything from you!″

  The laugh sounded again, and Ritva fought an impulse to drop the glasses and jam the heels of her hands over her ears.

  ″We have no need to buy men′s souls. You give yourselves to Us. And you have listened to our counsel for a very long time.″

  ″Fuck you, you lunatic!″

  The Seeker shrugged. ″What is that you wear around your waist, man?″ he asked.

  ″It′s what I use to hold up my pants and for my shete, when I′m not pointing it at some asshole I′ve suddenly decided needs killing,″ the secret policeman said, his voice gone hard.

  He waggled the long curved horseman′s weapon, the point rising until the razor-edged six inches on the back of the blade hovered near the Cutter′s throat.

  ″You may have lost the concept out in Montana along with regular baths and brushing your teeth, but it′s called a belt in this part of the world,″ he went on. ″Anymore questions about civilized fashions?″

  ″You lie,″ the High Seeker said casually. ″It isn′t a belt; it is a giant rattlesnake. What a fool you are, to wear a deadly serpent around your body!″

  Denson started to laugh himself. Then Ritva saw his face shift, as one hand dropped to his midriff. He gave a single high shriek and dropped his sword. He struck convulsively at himself before the steel rang on the pavement, scrabbling and pounding . . . and then pitched to the ground, twitching. Her own breath caught as she saw his purple, distended face and the foam on his lips. Then her throat clenched tighter still, as her eyes dropped to his right hand.

  It bled, where the palm was pierced by the loosened pin of his belt buckle.

  ″Thiach iluuvea gail, Heru Denson,″ Mary observed, dropping back into Sindarin.

  ″No, he isn′t very bright. Wasn′t.″

  ″He wouldn′t listen to us, and now look what it got him. And us.″

  ″And there goes our crucial delay. Well, maybe Denson′s retainers will attack them—″

  The men behind Denson wavered, got a good look at their commander, then threw away their weapons and took to their heels. From the sounds they were making, the State Police troopers didn′t intend to stop until they hit the Mississippi—or Nebraska, if that street led west. She very much doubted they planned to stop and inform the authorities of what had happened . . . not that anyone would believe them in time if they did.

  I don′t know if I believe it myself, she thought in some corner of her mind. There are stranger things in the Histories, but this is the Fifth Age of the World. Or maybe the Sixth!

  All the Cutters except the Seeker formed into a column, quick-timing down the night-empty street in a harsh clatter of leather and hobnails on pavement. The Corwinite priest stayed a moment and raised his arm until it pointed at the two Dúnedain, where they should have been invisible in the blackness.

  ″There—is—no—escape—for—one—they—have—touched.″

  Mary nodded. ″Uh-oh,″ she said, very softly.

  ″I know what uh-oh means,″ Ritva replied. ″It means we′re fucked.″ A tile grated under a foot behind them, where the grapnel holding their climbing rope was hooked into the roof′s gutter.

  ″Kill,″ the High Seeker said.

  Then he turned and walked after the troopers of the Sword of the Prophet. The two Dúnedain whirled, as the trio of men swung up onto the edge of the roof. Curved knives gleamed in their hands, and the moonlight glittered from the steel and from eyes empty of humanity. Those eyes blinked in perfect unison. They weren′t Seekers, just Corwinite soldiers of the Sword, but something of the red-robed magus was there in those blank faces. A nullity that was less than emptiness, one that hungered for existence and hated it at the same time.

  It′s as if they′re contagious, somehow.

  Ritva had a sudden flash of memory. Long ago she′d been on her belly behind a fallen fir tree in the mountains east of Mithrilwood, watching a pair of scrub jays feeding their nestlings. Something had made her turn her head, and a rattlesnake as long as her forearm had been there, behind the same sun-warmed log. It had turned its long patterned head and looked into her eyes. Looking into the eyes of the Church Universal and Triumphant′s men was like that . . .

  Except that she had a feeling that if their eyes stayed locked long enough the same reptile gaze would be on both ends.

  ″Varda and Manwë aid me!″ Ritva said. Then: ″Im suu ei thiach men!″

  Sweat suddenly drenched her, but she felt better: I fart in your general direction might not be as dignified as a call on the Lord and Lady, but it helped.

  Beside her Mary was still, motionless with something beyond Ranger training, as if she was once more in the Seeker′s grip as she had been that day the eye was cut out of her head. The bow in Ritva′s hands came up. If she had thought about the action it would have stopped, but she forced her mind not to consider it. Ten thousand hours of practice had graven the movement into brain and bone and muscle, as much as breathing or walking. There was the slightest creak, as yew and horn and sinew bent and flexed and stretched.

  ″Kill,″ they whispered through identical smiles, their voices overlapping so that the sound was a sibilant blur: ″Kill/kill/kill/Kkkiiiillll.″

  And attacked. Their movements were jerky, but perfect and unerring on the irregular surface of the curved tiles. Behind them something moved, planes of shining jet that receded into infinity, as if constructs greater than worlds squeezed down to interact with the tiny space of the planet, of this rooftop in one place and time. The soot-covered laurel-leaf arrowhead touched the cutout through the riser of her recurve, right above the black-gloved knuckle of her left hand. The fingers on the bowstring seemed locked, but she breathed out and let the waxed linen cord roll off the pads.

  Snap.

  The string lashed at the bracer on the inside of her left forearm. Ach ingly slow, the arrow began its flight; she could see the way the fletching rippled, and how the slight curve in the fashion the feathers were set to the cedarwood made the whole spin as it flew. She couldn′t be seeing it move; the distance was less than thirty feet, and the shaft would be traveling at two hundred feet per second. In this darkness it should be a blurred streak at most.

  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!

  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 h
e′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 think 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 tim
e 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.