Oath of Fealty

by Elizabeth Moon

  The wagons did indeed contain bales of silk, boxes of painted tiles, and barrels of oilberries, goods worth aplenty in more northern markets—but while riding around the first wagon Arcolin smelled something the merchant had not declared. He flicked his fingers to Devlin and again when the second wagon yielded another smell that did not belong. He said nothing aloud, but had the wagons unloaded there in the street, his troops keeping back curious villagers, who might well want to snatch a few oilberries.

  Devlin found the latch to the false bottom in one wagon; Vik found it in the second. One held sacks of unground southern grains, sides of dried salt meat, dried salt fish … though packed round with herbs, the smell could not be hidden. The other held weapons … more of the curved swords, short-stocked crossbows ideal for use in wooded areas, hardened leather armor, some strengthened with metal plates or mail.

  “Well,” he said, looking at the merchant, now fishbelly white and trembling. “This looks like smuggling, not trading. Who are these for?”

  “I don’t know,” the merchant said. “I—I didn’t know about that. I swear it; I’m an honorable member of the Guild. One of the guards must have—”

  “I wonder what the courts in Cortes Vonja will say,” Arcolin said. “They do not look kindly on those in league with their enemies.”

  “Enemies!” The merchant nearly squeaked. “There is no war—there are no enemies—you—it can’t be treason—” That last in a wail. Arcolin looked down from his horse until the merchant collapsed in a heap, shaking. Then he dismounted, drew his sword, and walked over to the wretch.

  “You know I could kill you here, and tell them in Cortes Vonja I executed a traitor and they would give me gold.”

  “Please … I have a family …”

  “Then, for your family’s sake, tell the truth. Who hired you to bring these things here in secret?”

  “I—I can’t. He’ll kill me; he’ll kill us all.”

  “That may be,” Arcolin said. “But I will surely kill you if you do not. You follow Simyits, do you not?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Then chance comes as it comes. Your chance now is life, if you tell me who hired you, or certain death, if you do not. What does Simyits say about chance?”

  “It was by following chance that I ended here,” the merchant said, raising a tear-stained face.

  “You could always change your allegiance and choose a better god,” Arcolin said. “There are many.”

  “Don’t let them hear,” the man said. He looked at the villagers. “Make them go away.”

  “Why? Is one of them a spy who will tell your master?”

  “It could be. Please … I will tell you, but not here.”

  “Get him up,” Arcolin said. Two of the soldiers pulled the merchant to his feet and half dragged him away, closer to the cohort. “Now,” he said to the merchant.

  “The Duke,” the merchant said. “The new Duke of Immer.”

  “Alured, you mean,” Arcolin said. “Once pirate, then brigand, now Duke?”

  “Who’s your assistant? Your choice or his?”

  “My nephew Harn. I wanted my son, but he—the Duke—has my son hostage. Harn isn’t … he isn’t very smart, sir. Captain.”

  “When were you due at the Guild Merchants’ Hall?”

  “A hand of days, sir.”

  “Where did you offload the supplies to the brigands?”

  “Next village north, sir. Well, just south of it. There’s a sort of old barn there, and a thicket grown up around it. We camp there overnight; they come and take their supplies. They’re honest, at least; I’ve never lost a thing to them, though I take my hard coin into the village and have dinner with the headman and leave them to it.”

  “How often do you come through with supplies?”

  “Me? Three times a year: Sibili to Cortes Vonja, Cortes Vonja to Sorellin, then down the Immerhoft Vale to the coast, Aliuna or Immerdzan, then west to Sibili. But there’s others, I was told. I don’t know who they are.” He looked back at the wagons and villagers then lowered his voice even more. “Look here, Captain—I’ll give you every coin I have, I swear, if you’ll only let me go …”

  “After the village has seen what you carry and what we would be letting go by—do you think that secret would last?”

  “Last long enough for me to get home and take my family away, aye.”

  Arcolin shook his head. “It would never work. And I don’t break contracts. No, you must go to Cortes Vonja for judgment. If you tell them you were coerced, they may show mercy.” He doubted that, and was sure the merchant did too, but it was the only good outcome.

  “You will ruin me,” the merchant said, gasping. “The Guild will strike me from their rolls; even if the courts are kind, I will be ruined—marked forever—”

  “I am not ruining you,” Arcolin said. “You are the one who chose to deal dishonestly. Now quit sniveling and get back to your wagons.” He followed, signaling Burek to his side. “We need to get these wagons and their cargo to Cortes Vonja. The brigands know it is their supply train; we can expect them to attack, even though their numbers are reduced. If indeed this is a widespread plot, as it seems, they may be able to call on neighboring bands. My first thought was to split the cohort and send you back with twenty or thirty … but it’s a solid three days with these wagons, if you push the pace, and there are too many places where wagons are easily ambushed.”

  “So we’re all going?”

  “Yes. The question is what to do with those guards.” He nodded to the little group under the tree. “Very likely one or more of them are part of the conspiracy, told to watch the merchant for any attempt to inform on it. The others may be honest or may not. I do not like killing men without cause just because they work for someone dishonest. Hunger drives men to many deeds they would not do if they were not ruled by their bellies. But the cohort is my first responsibility; a traitor among them puts all at risk.”

  “Are you asking me?” Burek said.

  “I am thinking aloud,” Arcolin said. “And you may have some ideas I have not thought of.”

  “Disarm them, bind them in the wagons?” Burek said.

  “Disarm them, of course. Bind them … I had thought to have them walk, but then they could still call out to the brigands, if that was their intent. I don’t want them in the wagons; they know where the secret compartments are, and they could rearm themselves.”

  “Wait—the poison they used on my horse—a little of that would make a man weak and slow, the surgeon said. Would a little of it in food do the same for them? Make them drowsy, even put them to sleep?”

  “It might.” Arcolin nodded slowly. “I’ll speak to the surgeon on the way. We need to get these wagons reloaded and make a start—the longer we wait, the more chance of attack. I’ll speak to the village headman.”

  The headman in this village was a stout gray-haired woman with arms that looked strong enough to handle a pike. Arcolin introduced himself.

  “I thought you lot were the tax collector again, and we just paid the spring tax three hands of days ago,” she said.

  “No, we’re here to deal with brigands, give you some value for that tax you paid.”

  She spat sideways into the street. “Value! The only value them in Cortes Vonja cares about is what lines their pockets.”

  “Tell you what,” Arcolin said. “I must take the contraband with me, but I think some of it might spoil by the time it would reach Cortes Vonja. It’s my choice, under my contract. Could you make use of some salt pork and a sack of grain?”

  “We could make use of all of it,” she said, staring at the stack of grain sacks and meat.

  “I’m sure you could,” Arcolin said, “but so could my men.”

  “What you want for it?” she asked.

  “Nothing more than you’ve done,” Arcolin said. “Maybe, some other day, some information on brigands in your area.”

  “What’ll they do if they finds we tooken it?”
/>   “I don’t know,” Arcolin said. “If you want, we can take it all with us.”

  She looked around at her villagers, whose expressions made it clear what they thought.

  “We’ll take it and thank you,” she said at last.

  Arcolin put two sacks of grain and most of the meat aside. “If I were you,” he said, “none of this would look like what it is, by dark.”

  “Trust me for that,” she said. Then, to his surprise, she bent and kissed his hand.

  Soon the reloaded wagons were on their way north at the best pace the mules could manage on the soft road, the unhappy merchant perched on the driver’s seat of the second. For the time being, the five guards, disarmed and hands bound, walked behind the wagons, closely followed by the rear guard.

  Four wagons, two of them heavily loaded, made a mess of the road, which here was scarce more than a lane. At every turn of the glass, they had to rest the mules and horses. By nightfall they were abreast of the previous night’s campsite. Arcolin shook his head and pushed on. That open field was too easy, when the brigands now knew its secrets. A few hours north, the road would firm again, even after the rain, and he hoped the brigands would be waiting, instead, at the place they usually got their supplies.

  The jingling harness and grunts of the mules and horses, and the creak of wagon wheels made more noise than the soldiers afoot; Arcolin blessed the sharp breeze that came up just after sunset and blew the sound away west, where he hoped the main mass of brigands weren’t. Moving at night was risky, but it was as risky for the brigands, and every distance he made north improved their chances of reaching Cortes Vonja without an attack.

  Before the middle of the night, he halted them on the road, now firmer, to rest until dawn. Stammel came to him after they halted.

  “Captain, that tall caravan guard, Kory—”

  “What about him?”

  “I think I know him; I think he’s that bad recruit who poisoned Corporal Stephi, the one Captain Sejek had branded and whipped. That scar on his forehead could’ve been a brand. His name was Korryn then. Kory’s close enough.”

  Arcolin had never seen the man; he started to say that there were many tall, lean black-haired men with scars, but this was Stammel. “Are you sure?”

  “Almost, sir. None of ’em talked much, but he said nothing at all. He never looked straight at me, but little glances out the side of his eyes, like.”

  “Well … after he left he’s none of our concern. If he’s satisfied his employers—”

  “That’s true, sir, but I wonder who his employer really is. Not that merchant, I’ll wager.”

  “He harmed Paks, I remember that—but now we think it was Venner who gave Stephi the drugged ale, not Korryn.” Stammel said nothing. Arcolin sighed finally. “What do you think he’s doing, then?”

  “Nothing good, sir. And loose, he’ll be eager to hurt us, for that punishment. There’s hate in his eyes when he looks at me. Devlin thinks the same.”

  “He was there too, wasn’t he?” Arcolin sighed again. “We can tell the Vonjans what we know of him, but we’ll need proof. It’s been—what?—five years or so?”

  “Sejek used the sea-ink dye on the stripes, sir. Made sure it was in deep. It should show.”

  “Well. I’ll tell the Vonjans, when we get to the city.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Dawn revealed familiar country, thickets and brush to the east along the line of the stream, and rising ground, rough pasture, to the west. Arcolin allowed the cooks to make a hot breakfast; he drank his sib in the saddle, watchful. The five guards had caused no trouble so far, making no attempt to escape when taken to the jacks; they ate their porridge without comment. The surgeon had advised against dosing them, so Arcolin had their hands bound again for the day’s march.

  On the firmer ground, and after a rainless day, the road withstood the wagons’ passage reasonably well; they passed the old night shelter by midmorning, and came to the village outside which they’d first camped. Suddenly a figure appeared, running for the woods; Arcolin waved his mounted scout on and sent Burek to follow. Shortly they came back with a bound captive, blood running down his face from a clout on the head.

  “You criminals!” the man said. “You can’t do this!”

  “Evidently, we can,” Arcolin said. Up close, he recognized the village headman. “You know who we are; you had no business to run from us—except to signal the brigands in those woods over there.”

  “I wasn’t—I just saw a—a loose cow.”

  The scout—Arñe, today—sniggered audibly. “Didn’t see a cow, Captain.”

  “You scared it into the bushes with that horse,” the man said.

  Arcolin dismounted, walked up to the man and leaned into him; the man flinched. “You are a liar,” he said. “I have authority from Cortes Vonja to depose any village official I find in league with brigands. You lied to me before; I let it go, out of mercy, but this time—no. To Cortes Vonja you go for trial, and I do not think you will return.”

  “My—my wife—my children.”

  “You should have thought of them before,” Arcolin said. “You have put your whole village in peril.”

  “They gave us half a ham once,” the man said, hanging his head.

  “I just gave sacks of grain and six hams to a village that stayed true,” Arcolin said. The village hadn’t been true, exactly, but at least they hadn’t lied to him.

  The villagers, creeping to the doors of their huts, hissed in wonder; the man groaned. Arcolin looked around; the whole village was probably complicit, but hearing of reward for good behavior, maybe they could find one honest man or woman.

  “Truss him well and put him in the wagon,” he said to Burek, then remounted. They were moving again shortly, and in another two days had reached the outskirts of Cortes Vonja without incident. Arcolin left Burek in command of the camp outside the city, and with a small escort rode in to deliver the news to the Council.

  When he came back, he found a troop of Cortes Vonja militia drawn up outside the camp, their commander arguing with Captain Burek.

  “What’s this?” Arcolin said.

  “We’re here to take charge of the merchants’ wagons and any prisoners,” their captain said. “Your junior officer is refusing to hand them over, on threat of force.”

  “Quite right,” Arcolin said. “Captain Burek has done what he ought. It is for the Council to decide who takes charge—”

  “It’s our duty,” said the Cortes Vonja captain.

  “Not this time,” Arcolin said. “I’ve just been to the Council; their orders are that we escort the wagons into the city, to the Merchants’ Guild Hall, for the legitimate cargo to be recorded and readied for delivery or transshipment.”

  “You don’t trust us?” The captain bristled, turning red and gripping the hilt of his sword.

  “I have no opinion of your trustworthiness,” Arcolin said. “I but transmit the orders of the Council, as given to me but a half-glass since. Would you argue with your own Council?”

  “I—no, but any levy on illegal cargo is ours, by right.”

  “That is a matter between you and the Council,” Arcolin said. “As the contents of my contract with the Council is between the Council and me. Here—see the Council’s seal on this?” He nudged his horse up to the other captain’s mount and pulled out the freshly written and signed orders. The man scanned the page, scowling.

  “It is most irregular!”

  Arcolin shrugged. “I would not know. What I do know is that my orders came from the Council, as did my contract, and I am bound to follow them.” He looked at Burek. “Burek, I want two tensquads for escort into the city, all veterans, and Stammel for sergeant. You will command the camp. I will send the escort back as soon as the wagons have been unloaded at the Merchants’ Guild Hall—none of our men have leave to carouse. I should be back by nightfall, after reporting to the Council again.”

  “Yes, sir,” Burek said. Stammel, close behi
nd him, was already choosing his people.

  Arcolin turned back to the Cortes Vonja captain. “We will not need your help,” he said. “But I thank you for the offer.”

  “It is no matter of mine,” the man said, “if the Council chooses to use foreign rabble instead of its own loyal troops.” He turned his horse rudely, rump toward Arcolin.

  “At least they can count on us not to run away,” Arcolin murmured, remembering a particular battle that spawned at least two songs popular with mercenary companies.

  “That was the Vonja militia, not Cortes Vonja,” the man said over his shoulder.

  “My pardon,” Arcolin said, bowing slightly. “I misheard the story.”

  “You—!” But he legged his horse into motion, forcing his way through his own troops and calling “Follow me!” One near Arcolin rolled his eyes and shrugged. Arcolin grinned at him.

  “They appeared as soon as you were through the city gates,” Burek said. “Demanded the cargo, demanded the prisoners. I didn’t know for sure—they were in the city uniform—”

  “Cortes Vonja is not overfond of paying its debts,” Arcolin said. “Duke Phelan had trouble with them a few times. I learned a lot about writing contracts as he revised his with them. Pler Vonja’s as bad; Sorellin’s actually reasonable, for a city run by merchants. Anyway—if their militia take charge of the merchandise and contraband, the count would be … different, let’s say.”

  “They’d steal it?”

  “They or the Council proper. Say that half those swords didn’t appear … the Council has the use of them, either for their troops or as raw steel to be reforged into the pikes they prefer. They’re not likely to short the count of the actual merchandise, as our merchant is a Guild member, and at any rate it is not due us.”

  “What is due us?”

  Arcolin grinned. “After much argument and complaint, I followed Kieri’s lead and had the contract specify that all contraband weapons are ours, and five eighths of any other contraband … but everything taken from brigands is ours, without limit.”

  “Ready, sir,” Stammel said. The merchant’s wagons were hitched and loaded; Stammel had placed two on the driver’s seat of each, two at the rear, with the rest surrounding the wagons on foot. The merchant, the five guards, and the headman from the village, all with hands bound, were on foot between the two wagons.