The Death of Nnanji: The Seventh Sword Book Four

by Dave Duncan

  “Their heads were returned in bags of salt, my lord.”

  Annoyed that he had not been told of this additional atrocity sooner, Wallie said, “No ambiguity about that answer.” Heralds, like priests, were supposed to be inviolable.

  “It sounds as if Lord Nnanji was lucky to reach even as far as Quo,” Dorinkulu said.

  Endrasti glanced at Wallie and received a nod. “I may be able to explain that, my lords. There is an overland shortcut from Rea to Thoy, so the couriers would all go that way. Lord Nnanji still had too many men with him—he couldn’t have rented enough mules or horses, so he’d have had to make several trips. Also he’d have had trouble finding adequate shipping at Thoy, whereas we still had two good ones at the Rea end. We came by—”

  Wallie cut him off. “Thank you. So he came by a different route. Another possibility would be that the liege’s party was simply too strong to attack. Gentlemen, we have an assembly scheduled for Sailors’ Day, at which time we must announce our response to these acts of war.”

  “What will our response be?” Zoariyi snapped.

  “Whatever we decide tomorrow. Think about it overnight, and meet again here at the second bell. Just before it, rather. I shall summon Lord Woggan for that hour to explain to us why thunder weapons have returned to the World.”

  “And if the sorcerer ignores your summons?”

  “Then we shall go and get him,” Wallie said. “Meeting adjourned.”

  After the worst day he could remember in years, he was very late getting home. When he did so, he found Thana there, waiting for him in a screaming fury, wanting to know where her son was. Jja’s mood was little better, as she had endured two hours of Thana’s ranting.

  “He is no danger,” Wallie insisted. “I have six men watching over him.”

  “Six men? If he’s in no danger why does he need six men to guard him?”

  “He’s in no danger because I have those men there. When you learn what he’s been doing, you will be very proud of him.”

  “Why should I be proud of him if he’s in no danger?”

  “Because he’s spending the night in more discomfort than you have ever known in your life, swordsman. He knew what he was getting into and he was eager to help. I am going to let him finish the job he took on and I will not shame him by letting his mother drag him away for bedtime. Addis is growing up, Thana! He will come out of this as a man with achievements to be proud of. Jja will show you out. Goddess be with you.”

  Jja did so, flashing danger like a looming thunderstorm. Wallie poured himself a glass of wine and flopped into his favorite chair. She returned and stood over him.

  “You treated Thana contemptibly!”

  “It’s what she needed,” he said wearily. “I’m a safe target for her to sharpen her claws on. She’s worried sick about Nnanji and she can work it off on me.”

  That terrestrial logic would have bounced off most of the People like frozen peas, but Jja had lived with him a long time and had a lot of perception of her own. “And Addis? You’re letting him prove his manhood?”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “You don’t sound too sure.”

  Wallie drained his goblet and stood up. “Addis is showing his mettle, yes. But whether he’s showing it to me or the gods or his father… That I’m not sure. Maybe just to himself. He’s being tested. I’m being tested. These are testing times. Let’s go to bed.”

  She slid her arms around him. “Just don’t expect me to let you go to sleep for a while yet.”

  Chapter 3

  Addis was certain that he hadn’t slept all night. The noise, the cold, the stink, the hard stone under a thin layer of straw—not to mention the fact that he was cuddled up with a complete stranger—how could he possibly have been asleep? Yet he seemed to waken with a start when the screaming started.

  He remembered where he was. He sat up much too fast, being reminded of all the bruises from yesterday. It was almost dawn; the sky bright, the air cold. The screaming was because men were being dragged out of cells and this was Torturers’ Day, which was one of the special days on which criminals were put to death. Nowadays they were just hanged. He’d been told that executions used to be much more entertaining, but Lord Shonsu had stopped the fun years ago.

  He’d lain with a girl. All night. He knew how the older boys talked about that with longing, mostly just hiding ignorance and apprehension, but all he could remember was the two of them shivering in unison. Nothing else had happened—and wouldn’t, according to Vixini, for at least a year yet. Addis wasn’t so sure it would take that long. But now a dozen or so men were being hauled away to be hanged. Lucky them. He huddled small against the cold. He was thirsty and he needed to pee. There was a bucket for that. He would have to turn his back and sit on it.

  “What time do they serve breakfast in this inn?” he asked.

  No answer. He wasn’t supposed to know her tongue had been cut out.

  “You’re not very friendly, are you?”

  He decided peeing could wait. When the woman went, he looked away.

  He wondered if Dad had made it through the night.

  He wondered what would happen to him if Dad hadn’t. He’d promised Dad he would swear to the swordsmen and hunt down the —gulp!— killers. If Dad died, then Uncle Shonsu would be leader of the Tryst again. The swordsmen didn’t like him as well as they liked Dad. It had been right after Addis had made that promise to Dad that Shonsu had sent him on this jail mission. Maybe Shonsu didn’t want the son of Nnanji in the Tryst?

  No, Shonsu wouldn’t leave him here to rot. Shonsu would never do anything so horrible. And Addis had promised to get information out of the prisoner. So the sooner he could, the sooner he could go home to a hot bath and a good meal.

  She was a few years older than he was. Pretty face, but very skinny. She did have breasts, not melons, but what Vixi called a nice pair of pears. She ought to be wearing clothes, instead of just an all-over coat of dye, which was streaky and patchy now. Vixi had told him how she’d climbed up the wall of Shonsu’s palace. That would take a lot more nerve than most men had.

  The shouting was starting up again, inmates yelling insults at the slime, demanding water, or clean buckets, but no mention of food. He was going to die of hunger. Shonsu had warned him it might be days before the girl broke down and began telling him things.

  From time to time the slime patrolled, walking past the cage fronts in pairs. Quite often they stopped and jeered at the two “girls”, threatening to put a few male drunks in with them, or come in and teach them how to be nice to slime.

  Addis decided to try again. “How come you don’t have any facemarks?”

  She pointed to her forehead and then his, raised her eyebrows. That meant How come you don’t? At least she was communicating. And he had an answer ready for that.

  “My dad wanted me to swear to the courtesans, and I wouldn’t. So he and my brothers beat me up and threw me out.”

  She snorted in disbelief. She pointed at his crotch and wiggled her index finger. You’re a man.

  How did she know that? Better not to ask, or even think about it.

  He wiggled his pinkie: Just a boy.

  She smiled. He grinned back. He decided this honest approach was a lot better than trying to fool her. He wasn’t good at lying.

  “My name’s not really Brota. It’s Addis. What’s yours?”

  Shrug.

  “So it’s true that somebody cut out your tongue?”

  He’d been ready to shudder when she showed him, if she ever did, but he didn’t have to fake his horror at all. The white slug of scar tissue in her mouth was much worse than he’s expected. He almost retched.

  “Ugh! That’s horrible. Who did that to you?”

  Hand at the back of her head: Ponytail.

  “A swordsman?

  Three. Rape. Cut off tongue.

  “I don’t believe it!” he said. “Not swordsmen sworn to the Tryst, anyway. My— the liege lord wou
ldn’t allow it. They hang swordsmen for rape, just like other men.”

  Disbelief, sneer.

  “It’s true! Liege Lord Nnanji doesn’t allow it.” Seeing her continued skepticism, he insisted. “Don’t you know his story? At about my age he was sworn in to the temple guard in Hann, the men who protect Her most holy temple anywhere, the guard that should be the best swordsmen in the whole World. As soon as he won promotion to Second, he was horrified to discover that they were bad. They took bribes! They stole offerings, bullied pilgrims, even raped them sometimes! When they were supposed to put criminals to death, they took bribes to let them escape. Then the Goddess sent Shonsu of the Seventh to clean them up, and he picked out my—picked out Apprentice Nnanji as the only honest man in the guard, because he needed a second when he killed the reeve. And the two of them fought off the whole guard at an ambush and… Haven’t you ever heard the minstrels sing about that battle?”

  From the way her eyes rolled, she obviously hadn’t and didn’t want to.

  “Well, it really happened! And then the Goddess called the Tryst and soon Nnanji became a Seventh and the best swordsman, so he became its liege, and ever since then he’s been cleaning up the whole craft. So even if the men who, er, abused you were swordsmen, they certainly weren’t swordsmen sworn to the Tryst. It didn’t happen in Casr?”

  Head shake.

  “Mm. Could you recognize them again if you saw them?

  Hands over eyes.

  “Blindfold? Oh… Dark?”

  Nod.

  Nothing he could promise about finding justice for her, then, but he was making progress. Had she really been raped and mutilated by three swordsmen, or had those been hooligans hired by the sorcerers to make her hate swordsmen?

  The one-sided conversation was interrupted then, because the slime came around with food, except it didn’t look like food or smell like food. The girl hurried over to the bars, kneeling there with her hands cupped, as if begging, so Addis did the same, and in a moment a jailer appeared with a cart holding two huge pails. Another slime ladled out a double handful of mush for each of the prisoners; then they moved on to the next cage.

  It was cold, smelled bad, tasted worse. Addis decided he wasn’t hungry enough to eat any of it—not yet and maybe never.

  “Here,” he said. “You want mine too?”

  She shook her head, so he tipped his helping into the slop bucket and then, reluctantly, wiped his hands on some of the bedding straw. He returned to the back of the cage and sat there, feeling miserable. It wouldn’t be so bad if he thought he had any chance of learning anything at all from the assassin. He ought to hate her because of what she had tried to do, but mostly he just felt sorry for her. He could get out of here any time he wanted. Or at least he hoped he could. She was here until they took her away to declare her guilty and hang her.

  When she had finished licking her fingers, he said, “Here,” and untied his wrap. “You need this more than I do.”

  She looked surprised, but she took the filthy thing and put it on. He had felt uncomfortable in it, and he was quite used to being naked, but a naked boy locked up with a girl would be unusual. Not all the slime could be in on the plot. Suppose they decided to drag him away to another cell? Or take her away?

  Of course all he had to do was shout, “Tomisolaan!” and he would be rescued at once. Wouldn’t he? Of course he would! He mustn’t worry about that. But telling himself not to worry just made him worry more.

  “This isn’t much of a chat,” he said. “Can you read and write? I can. You could trace out letters to tell me things.”

  She took her ears in her fingers and wiggled them: You’re a spy.

  He shrugged. “Yes. I was put here to see if you’d let things slip.” He certainly hoped that this was really why he’d been put here, and that he could really get out of the horrible place anytime he wanted to quit. “I know you tried to kill Lord Shonsu. Vixi… That’s my friend, apprentice swordsman Vixini, Lord Shonsu’s oldest son. He told me how he found the hook you used to climb up the wall. That was really brave of you! I couldn’t do that.”

  She pulled a face and looked away. She didn’t want to talk to him any more. He was a swordsman spy. At least she wasn’t trying to strangle him.

  “One of your friends tried to kill Lord Nnanji the same night,” he said.

  After a moment she turned back towards him, wanting more.

  “She was killed. Lord Boariyi killed her.”

  Shrug. We knew the risks.

  “He’s very badly hurt. He may not live.”

  Smile.

  “He’s my dad,” Addis said. “I’m Addis, son of Nnanji the swordsman. That’s why I’m here. I wanted to help.” Suddenly there was a lump in his throat and a prickling under his eyelids, and he couldn’t talk any more.

  Jja was very skilled at drawing the poison out of her husband’s soul when that was necessary, but even after her expert ministrations, Wallie had slept badly that night. It was not thoughts of more assassins that disturbed him, but the fear that he had been put in Nnanji’s place in order to fight a war. Nnanji was a perfect leader for the World’s swordsmen. They related to him, almost worshiped him. He believed in honor and the sutras and the will of the Goddess, and with those he had built an empire as large as those of Genghis Khan or Suleiman the Magnificent. He had done it with a bare minimum of bloodshed.

  But he had never heard of Iwo Jima, Cannae, or Gettysburg. Nnanji was perfectly capable of lining up a thousand swordsman and charging the sorcerers’ guns.

  So the war that had so worried Wallie fifteen years ago had now arrived, and the Goddess had put Nnanji out of action. Wallie Smith was no soldier. In truth he was no swordsman, either. His fencing skill had come from the original Shonsu and been given him by a miracle. In the World’s terms, Wallie Smith was much more a renegade sorcerer. He had spent the night wondering just what part he was expected to play. To organize the Tryst to cast bronze guns and extract saltpeter for gunpowder would take years, and he did not have years. He must solve the problem quickly, else the Tryst would either fall apart or depose him and go charging bullheaded against the sorcerers’ fortress at Kra.

  All of this made sense, except that, according to Endrasti, Nnanji himself had recognized it, and had intended to turn the war over to Wallie anyway. So why had Nnanji been so horribly put out of the game?

  What message was the Goddess sending?

  Had Wallie made a fearful error in reading Her instructions about Addis? Wallie was the equivalent of godfather to the boy, yet instead of comforting him in his terror, he had locked him up with a would-be killer who had absolutely nothing to lose. The boy’s eagerness to take the job was no excuse. Yet Addis could still pass for a girl. He was certainly stronger than the prisoner, and knew just enough about street fighting now to defend himself if she turned vicious. He was supremely motivated, had no facemark yet, and was literate. No one else could possibly have all those qualifications just when they were needed. In the World of the Goddess, coincidences were usually instructions.

  He went down to breakfast without waiting for Jja. He was surprised to find Sharon there already, eating a disgustingly juicy mango-type fruit, dribbling down her chin. Sharon was his eldest, if one did not count Vixini, and due to be sworn to a craft very soon. She wanted to be either a midwife or a dancer. Wallie thought midwifery was too stressful and doubted that she had the agility required for dancing, but Jja was arranging for her to be assessed. She was named after Wallie Smith’s mother, but “Sharon” was a respectable local name also.

  Even more surprising was Vixini on the other side of the table, gnawing on a drumstick. Although the red rims around his eyes suggested that he had not yet caught up on his lost sleep, he was alert enough to notice the sapphire on the sword hilt beside his father’s ponytail. He frowned and bit his lip. As soon as informal greetings were finished, he said, “How is Uncle Nnanji?”

  “He’s recuperating from a wound. Heralds will be an
nouncing this regularly all day in the lodge.”

  Vixini said, “Mm?” thoughtfully. “Um, mentor?”

  Wallie knew what was coming next. “Yes, protégé?”

  “You have always instructed me that a man isn’t ready for third rank until he’s been a swordsman for at least five years.”

  “That’s true as a general rule. A Third exercises the authority of our craft, and kids can’t usually manage that. But there isn’t a Third in the Tryst who’d have much of a chance against you with foils; you’d even beat some Fourths. I don’t want to be accused of creating a sleeper.”

  Vixini could not hide a glow at such tribute. “Yes, but the sutras…”

  “I have given strict orders that you are not to be favored in the sutra tests in any way. I told Filurz to pick out examiners who will not pander to me as liege lord.”

  Gnaw, chew, swallow… “Don’t see this. You want me to fail the sutra test?”

  “Certainly not. I very much want you to pass. I will be ashamed and deeply disappointed in you if you fail the sutra test. I am sure Adept Filurz understood. There are plenty of lickspittle swordsmen in the Tryst who would try you with a couple of real easy ones and then declare you qualified. Filurz will do what he’s told, choose men who have a grudge against me and will deliberately try to fail you, to get back at me. How many of the sutras are really difficult? I mean long, dull, and non-associative brutes?”

  Vixi shrugged broad shoulders. “Six… maybe eight, I suppose.”

  “Right. Sharon, when are you meeting with the dancers?”

  “One on Bronze Casters’ Day and two on Sailors’ Day. Can you come with us? I mean…” She put on her wounded-fawn expression.

  “You mean you want me there to overawe them. No, I’m afraid I’ve got too many serious problems to deal with while your Uncle Nnanji is sick.”

  She pouted, but a very broad smile had taken over a certain young swordsman’s face. He muttered, “Thanks, Big Bear,” and reached for another drumstick.

  Recalling his stepson’s still-unripened ambition, Wallie decided that two solid days of memorizing sutras might require more motivation in his case. “And besides, there’s going to be a war.”