In that moment, he understood what they meant to do.
He fought. He tore away from the hands holding him and struggled to his feet, fumbling for his belt knife. Someone snaked a strong arm around him, pulling him close, pinning him. Fingers pried his fingers from the hilt and loosed the knife from his belt and flung the knife away across the sand. They kicked his feet from under him and put him back down on his knees. They jerked his head up and forced his arms apart. He continued to struggle, twisting under their hands, trying to push up on his ankles from his knees, to wrench his head free, until from sheer exhaustion he fell still, trembling from frustration and anger, sobbing for breath in his thick throat, blinking through hot tears.
He was sick again before it was done. This time they did not pull him up from the sand but let him lie. He lay on his stomach, his face buried in his arms, his fingers clutching sand. He was in too much shock and pain now for tears. He waited. It seemed to be very much later when they got him up to his feet and pushed and jostled and kicked him along to a horse and shouldered him against the saddle and indicated with many rough hands that he should mount.
The sky had cleared. The moon had set, and the air was bitter cold. The Wolf still shone brightly enough that he could see the bodies of the signi where they had fallen at the foot of the dune. He watched dully while they tied his wrists with bowstrings to the saddle-horns. Someone prised his seal ring from his finger. When they were satisfied with the knots at his wrists, one of them raised a spear and smashed the butt into his face.
He woke in daylight and with the wind on his face.
He was on his stomach on cool, shaded sand and he thought, for a thick-headed moment, that he had come awake at the foot of the dune. He said, “Alluin.” He twisted against the sand, trying to rise. He struggled for a while and came very slowly to the realization that his hands were tied at his back. His ankles were tied. He was barefoot and stripped to his tunic. With movement came pain. There were needles pricking at his left shoulder, at his elbow and wrist, down to his fingertips. There was a smith’s hammer pounding nails behind his eyes. He eased himself back down against the sand and lay still, his head throbbing, teeth clenched. He blinked into morning sunlight.
He was in a tent, and the sunlight was streaming through the open flap, which faced east. Out through the flap—if he squinted his aching eyes nearly shut against the light—he could see in silhouette two spearmen standing guard, and the desert running flat and empty to the horizon. They had come away from the dunes in the night. It was close on the seventh hour, judging by the angle of the sun. He could feel early heat on the wind through the flap.
Shadows fell across him. With his cheek against the sand, he had a glimpse of sandaled feet. Someone jerked his head up by the hair and dragged him up to his knees, sliding heavy arms over his shoulders and across his throat. He closed his eyes. His head throbbed as though it would burst.
A voice floated, disembodied, far above him. The tongue was unfamiliar, quick and harsh, but he knew the words must be meant for him, because the arms wrapped around him jostled him impatiently when he did not answer, snapping his chin up and down. The voice rang in his ears. He said nothing, because he knew nothing to say and because of the pain, and this time at his silence he was shoved face-first into the sand, his arms twisted up in their sockets, his bounds hands wrenched over his head. He writhed, gasping. A spear butt dug between his shoulder-blades, pinning him flat against the sand. His left arm popped in its socket and he screamed once and then bit his tongue until it bled to keep from screaming again. Finally his arms were let go. He lay shivering against the sand, sucking breath through his teeth, while a bout of unintelligible discussion went around the tent above him.
He was hauled up again to his knees. Something heavy was flung down against him; someone that was not him drew a low, quick breath in pain. He opened his eyes. He looked dumbly, blinking, into a blurred face. It was a bruised, bloody face and for a moment, tight-hearted and desperate and stupid with pain, he thought it was Alluin’s face, but though there was blood in ribbons over the tanned skin there was no furrow splitting the brow. The right cheek was torn open to the bone. There were patches of new, dark stubble where the scalp had been shaven.
The signo from Puoli said, “They want to know why he sent you, Lord—why the C-Commander sent you.” He was bent forward at the waist, trembling visibly with pain or exhaustion or the effort of speaking. His eyes were fixed on the ground at his knees.
Torien could not speak. He stared at the signo. His throat was tight, his tongue a dead weight against his teeth.
The signo shifted on his knees. He did not raise his head, but Torien saw him lick his cracked lips and swallow. “They know you are n-noble-born, Lord. They want to know why the Commander sent you out with s-signi.”
Torien shut his eyes. He poured his concentration into forming words. He said, “What do they care?” He had intended it to come out coolly and firmly. It came out instead in a clotted whisper, as though it had been cut from him with a knife.
He listened while the signo spoke in Mayaso—it must be Mayaso, he thought, or perhaps Mayasi and Asani spoke the same tongue and it was all of it Tassoan; he did not know. It seemed suddenly an incredible failing not to know. It seemed one in a long line of failings that had led here to this place in this moment.
The signo said, “They want to know if he’ll ransom you—if he c-cared so little as to send you out with—”
Anger pushed the pain from his mind. He opened his eyes. The words came in a rush. “If it was for ransom, they were stupid to kill Alluin. Tell them that, signo. If it was for ransom, they should have staked you out for the jackals and let Alluin live. Tell them how much your life is worth.”
The signo swallowed again. “They know what my life is worth, Lord.”
The anger in him went suddenly clear and cold. “I’d forgotten you were theirs.”
“It was proof of their resolve,” the signo said, “what they did to the Lieutenant. That was why they—m-made you watch, so you’d know—”
“Tell them there is no ransom.”
“They say you’d best p-pray there is.”
Torien laughed. “Tell them go ahead and send for it, then, if they’ve a particular desire to die. I don’t care.”
“I’m to ride back to the fort at sundown,” the signo said. “I’m to give your seal to the Commander. They have—demands which the Commander is to meet. If he refuses to meet them, they’ll send you back to him piece by piece on the Road until he changes his m-mind.”
“All this provided you can make it back alive to the fort in the first place. Am I to pray for that, too?”
The signo said nothing. Torien watched his face. “As long as they’ve got me, Espere won’t lay another hand on you—is that what they think? Or does it not much matter to them what he does with you?”
The signo was studying the ground. “They’ve p-promised me fair incentive, Lord—to go.”
“Worth another month or so in Tarrega’s keeping?”
The signo looked up, blankly. “Poison. Venom of a sand viper. If I wish to have the antidote, I must return with the Commander’s sealed pledge of good faith. Of course it d-doesn’t matter to them if I return, but they think they’ve m-made sure I go, at least.”
Torien realized, in that moment, that the signo’s wrists and ankles were bound as his own were.
The anger shriveled up in shame. His throat was tight. “They think?” he said, quietly.
“It takes two days to kill—the venom. You are vomiting blood by the end.” The signo did not look at him now. “For most people, it wouldn’t be a mercy.”
Through the morning and into the afternoon, they were alone in the tent. The flap was closed and it was mercifully dark, but without the wind through the flap the air grew heavy and hot. Torien lay on his stomach, keeping his weight off his bound hands, pressing his forehead into the sand to relieve the pain be
hind his eyes.
Across the tent floor the signo lay carefully on his side, his face turned onto his undamaged left cheek. His sunken eyes were closed, but from the way he breathed Torien knew he was not sleeping. The silence was worse torture than the rest. In the silence, his thoughts kept going back to the foot of the dune—back to Alluin, who would not be dead yet unless the jackals had come at dawn, who would be dying slowly now of thirst and the heat. Possibly, if only possibly, he might be found alive. They had not been so far off the Road. There would be trains passing by, if not this morning then tonight. Alluin was strong. He could last so long. God knew he could last the hours until darkness.
There would be carrion birds gathered for the dead.
Torien squeezed his eyes shut against the sand. “Signo,” he said.
There was no answer. He had not been expecting one. He went on, anyway, because it was easier to talk than to think. “Tell me what they really wanted of you—Espere, Tarrega. Espere told me it was because the Mayasi had bought you.”
The signo said nothing. Torien opened his eyes. He turned his chin and looked at the signo across the sand. “Who was he—this Asano you killed?”
The signo’s eyes had drifted open. He was silent and very still, his shoulders hunched. He had drawn a barely perceptible breath and was holding it as though by doing so he hoped to go unnoticed.
“One of their nobility,” Torien said. “That’s what Espere told me. An important ally.”
The signo said, “I don’t know his name, Lord.” He did not look at Torien. He was looking away to the far side of the tent at nothing in particular. His voice was low, but steadier than earlier. In the signo’s voice now Torien could hear the Vareno hill country so clearly that closing his eyes he could see it: broad oak woodland running up to dry brown hills, and the young Breche in its stony bed coming down from the mountains. He had not seen Puoli, but he had gone hunting in the hills above Civiparro, close by.
“So that part of it was true,” he said.
The signo said nothing.
“Why did you kill him—if not for Mayaso coin?”
“If it ever mattered to you, Lord,” the signo said, “it does not matter now.”
“Why shouldn’t it matter now? Maybe it matters the most now.” He was talking simply to talk, and he imagined the signo knew it. “Tell me why you killed him.”
The signo said, not looking at him, “Maybe I’ve forgotten, Lord, without the encouragement of a cattle iron.”
Torien grinned, bitterly. “Does it still matter that you call me ‘Lord’?”
“I don’t know how else to call you, Lord, unless you wish me to call you by rank. But we’ve been—instructed not to speak as if we’re soldiers.”
“Espere makes you call him ‘Lord,’ then? He’s not noble-born. He could lose his head for that.”
“Only if I were a citizen, Lord.”
“True.” With signi, as with slaves, Espere could do as he wished. Torien was silent for a moment, considering. “You’ve a predilection for killing nobility, signo?”
“Lord?”
“It must have been nobility you killed in Puoli. Else they wouldn’t have stripped you of citizenship. Peasants killing peasants is nothing particularly remarkable. They’d have put you to road-mending for a month.”
The signo said, “Yes—nobility.”
“Why? Or does it not matter now?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“What was his name? I might have known him in the capital. Though if I had I suppose I’d have heard he was murdered by one of his peasants.”
The signo said nothing.
“You understand I’m just talking, signo,” Torien said.
“Yes, Lord.” The signo’s eyes were traveling blindly around the tent. “I understand.”
“What’s your name?”
The signo looked at him now.
“Your name,” Torien said, “your family. Tell me about Puoli. Tell me about home.” There was an ache in him that had nothing to do with his head or his shoulder or the ropes at his wrists and ankles.
“My lord is just talking?” the signo said.
“I’d like to know.”
“They are dead,” the signo said, “my family.” He spoke with studied detachment. He might have been speaking of a failed beet crop.
Torien examined the signo’s face. “Part of your punishment?”
“Dead of the Fever. My father and mother first. Then my sister. I lived.”
“When you were young?”
“It was the winter I was full-grown.”
“Three years ago?”
“If my lord says so.”
“According to your register, you’re eighteen.”
“There are no seasons here,” the signo said. “I do not know.”
It was a farmer’s way of reckoning things: by seasons, not by calendar months. Torien said, “Tenant farmers, your family? Or hired hands?”
The signo shifted on his side and turned his head down into the sand, but not before Torien saw an odd spasm go over his face. “My father’s farm, Lord,” he said, in a hollow voice. “Three hundred and fifty stadia for his service and his wounds in Volenta.”
“Your farm, once he was dead.”
The signo swallowed against the sand and said nothing.
“You worked it yourself?” Torien said.
“In a good year we hired help. We’d no slaves.”
“I mean when your family were gone. Did you work it alone that year?”
The signo said, “Alone.” His voice was tight. “Please, Lord. I have tried to forget.”
He had not meant to cause the signo pain. He said, “I’m sorry.” He rested his forehead against the sand and shut his eyes and said, “Signo.”
The signo said, “Lord.”
“When they took you. Last night. You were conscious?”
“Yes, Lord.”
“You and I are the only ones they took alive?”
“Yes, Lord.”
“And none of the rest made it away?”
“If they did, Lord, I did not see it.”
“You saw what they did to—the Lieutenant?”
The signo said, “Yes, Lord.”
“You could find the place when you go tonight?”
The signo was silent, for a moment. Then he said, “Yes, Lord.”
“If he’s there,” Torien said, “if he’s not already dead—if there’s no other way.” He could not finish it.
The signo said, “I will do it if I can, Lord.”
It was not yet dark when the tent flap opened. The heat swept in like a blast from a bellows. From the shadows across the sand outside the flap, he thought it might be the sixteenth hour. They had been alone in the tent all day, except for briefly when one of the spearmen had come in bringing water a little past noon. Hands turned him over now onto his back. He blinked up into a dark, veiled face. The Mayaso sat down cross-legged at Torien’s feet and slipped a knife from his belt.
Sudden panic twisted Torien’s stomach. He tried to push himself away with his bound hands, arching his back, thrashing his legs. The Mayaso ignored his efforts and leaned over him and held a bracing arm across Torien’s ankles while he cut the ropes. He flung the ropes away and returned the knife smoothly to his belt. Torien lay still and watched the Mayaso put his feet into boots. He recognized his own hobnailed boots. The Mayaso drew the laces around Torien’s ankles and knotted them. He stood. He took Torien’s elbow and dragged Torien up to his knees, indicating with a prodding foot that Torien should stand. Across the tent, another Mayaso was lacing sandals on the signo’s feet. Torien stood, slowly. The Mayaso slipped a hood over his head and shoved him toward the tent flap. Torien stumbled out blindly onto hot sand. The heat rose into his face through the hood and pushed against him like a living thing.
They walked over open sand. He did not know how long or how far, but they mo
ved quickly, and the Mayaso shoved him impatiently forward each time he stumbled. His head was spinning. The pain, which had subsided very slowly over hours in the darkness and stillness of the tent, was stabbing fiercely now at his temples. Abruptly, the Mayaso pulled him back by the elbows. Through the hood, he heard voices and the jingle of horse-harness.
The Mayaso held him by the neck with one hand, loosing the ropes from his wrists with the other. He took Torien’s hands and spread them apart and placed them over saddle-horns. He nudged Torien’s ankles with one foot and said something in his own tongue.
Torien explored the saddle under his hands. His fingers were numb and trembling, but he knew it was his own saddle, the four-horned army-issue saddle, and—running a hand over the horse’s shoulder—he knew it was his horse. He knotted his fingers in the mane and pulled himself up, awkwardly, letting out a burst of breath through shut teeth. His legs dangled against the horse’s belly. The horse danced sideways beneath him, and he had to seize the horns to keep from falling. He got his right knee over the horse’s back and lowered himself into the saddle, collapsing against the horse’s neck. He lay still, biting the insides of his cheeks against the pain behind his eyes. He heard voices as from a great distance. Someone was tying his wrists to the saddle-horns. There was another horse saddled at his right knee. He turned his head against the horse’s neck. “Signo.”
There was a stretch of silence before the signo said, from beside him, “Lord.”
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