“It’s an important victory you won here, Risto,” Rægo said to him.
“I’m honored you should think so,” said Tyren.
“The beginning of a larger work in the Outland, maybe—that’s my hope.”
“Maybe, yes.”
Rægo said, “We need more officers like you, Risto. I know too many men who’d have been content to leave things as they were—to let little things slide for comfort’s sake. That’s why the Outland has been a breeding ground for this kind of native rebellion, I think. It starts as a little thing, an insignificant thing, and is ignored. Then it goes out of control.”
“You’re familiar with the Outland, Commander?” Tyren said.
Rægo didn’t seem to notice the sourness in his voice.
“I’m familiar with these mountain tribes. I know the kind of things our people ignore, the things that flame so easily into rebellion. The things we laugh at. These superstitions of theirs—the idea Tarien Varro will come back from the dead, come down from the mountains to drive us out of Cesin. We laugh at it. These Cesini will die for it.” Rægo looked over to Aino. “You’d agree with me, Lieutenant?”
“Some Cesini will die for it, sir,” said Aino, in a mild voice.
“It’s unusual to have Cesino officers,” Rægo said. “You’re from this region, Lieutenant?”
“From Rien, sir, originally.”
“How long have you served here?”
“I was posted here this past winter, sir,” said Aino.
Tyren was irritated all at once. “Enough of this, Commander. He’s a capable officer.”
“I didn’t suggest otherwise,” said Rægo, shrugging.
When the meal was done Tyren mustered the men in the yard and formally transferred the command into Rægo’s hands. He took his leave and went to his quarters afterward, with the excuse he’d be leaving early for Rien. He finished getting his bags together and set them down by the doorway in readiness for the morning. Then he lay down on the bed without undressing. He slept only fitfully. He woke at midnight when the guard changed, woke again with the change at the fourth hour. He got up then, slid his feet into his boots, buckled on his cuirass and his sword. He picked up his bags and went out through the atrium to the yard, across the yard to the stable. He saddled Risun in the stall row. Aino came in before he’d finished and stood there silently, watching him.
Tyren said, over his shoulder, “The black colt’s yours.”
“He’s better suited for Rien than for Souvin, sir,” said Aino.
“Keep him, Aino.”
“If you wish, sir,” said Aino.
There were no more words between them after that, but Aino walked with him out to the gate and gave the order for the opening of the doors and stood by to salute him as he rode out. He took Risun out onto the fort road and then to the common, turned north on the Rien road. He kept his eyes fixed upon the small square patch of oncoming road between Risun’s ears, letting numbness seep all through his thoughts, hardness build up like a brick wall round his heart. He didn’t spare a sidelong glance for the westward embankment—forcefully willed down the near involuntary twitch of his hands to pull the reins to the left. It was done; delaying would only make it harder.
Before him the road curved broadly away to the east. He took the turn, leaving Souvin behind him in the gray half-light.
* * *
It took him until the morning of the third day to come to Rien. He spent the second night at a little inn maybe ten miles from Rien’s western gate—reached it late and decided against trying to make it to the city that night, mostly because of the knee. The gash had opened up again with the two days of riding and it was stiff, sore, thickly crusted with dried blood. He had one of the inn slaves wash it and bind it up for him. In the morning, after taking the meal in his room, he dressed in full harness and rode on to the city.
It was three months now since he’d been in Rien with Mægo and he’d nearly forgotten the look and feel of the city: the close, brick-faced buildings and the traffic-choked cobbled streets of the lower city, the fountains and gardens and gleaming white marble of the upper. The fort lay at the heart of the upper city. The guards at the gate saluted him in file as he rode up the cypress-lined gate path, and a shouted order came down for the opening of the great bronze-plated doors, and he took Risun at a walk into the yard.
He dismounted and stood a while just inside the gate, looking round. He’d never been here in the fort itself before and he was dumbstruck at the size of the place, the splendor. He’d gotten used to the plain cement and damp, mossy flag-stone of Souvin. He came back to himself, finally. He gave over Risun’s reins to an orderly and went on foot across the yard to the headquarters, trying to hide the limp. Another orderly met him on the headquarters steps. Tyren showed him the letter with its seal and the orderly bowed and led him into the headquarters and round the atrium to the commander’s office.
He’d met Marchin Ruso before—that same dinner, almost five years ago now, at the villa of the Marri. Ruso came of good family, old Choiro stock, and Tyren had the feeling he’d gotten this command more because he was personally loyal to Lucho Marro than because he had any real skill at soldiering. You didn’t need real skill at soldiering to be posted to Rien.
Ruso hadn’t changed much in five years that Tyren could see, his close-cropped coppery hair still working its way haphazardly to gray, his eyes the same weak, watery blue, his skin pale and pasty and slack as though he’d never once set foot out-of-doors. He was at his desk when Tyren came to the office. There was another man with him, standing at the open window. Tyren didn’t recognize the second man. A younger man than Ruso, lean and tall, his features sharply angular, his skin tanned and thick as leather, the deep silvery furrow of an old scar creasing his brow above the right eye. Obvious he was a soldier, or had been one once, but he wasn’t in uniform. He stood easily, his shoulder-blades braced comfortably against the window frame, his brown arms draped in loose folds over his ribs, long legs stretched out lazily—had none of Ruso’s officious Rien decorum.
Ruso acknowledged Tyren’s salute with a short nod. The other made no move, just looked at him.
“Risto,” Ruso said. “You can sit.”
He crossed the room and sat down carefully in the cross-legged chair before the desk. Both men watched him move. Ruso said, “You were wounded, Commander?”
“Just a scratch, sir,” said Tyren.
“The ride didn’t help, I’ll wager.”
“I’ll be all right, sir.”
“Wine?”
“No, thank you, sir.”
“Too early in the day, perhaps.” Ruso nodded. “I read your report, Commander. Congratulations on the victory. I daresay it’s the sort of reminder the Souvini needed. A sound thrashing every now and then does these mountain tribes some good—keeps them tolerably humble.”
Tyren said, “I’m glad to be of service to the Empire, sir.”
Ruso leaned back in his chair and gestured with his right hand towards the man at the window. “This is the legate Alluin Senna, Commander. He’s been inspecting the garrison here.”
Tyren jerked his head up, startled, his jaw springing open. He snapped it quickly shut and started to get to his feet again, looking back over to the window as he did so. He found himself looking directly into Senna’s eyes. Cool, keen eyes, though they were flickering with amusement now. Senna’s thin, harsh mouth quirked in a quick grin.
“No need for that, Commander. Give the leg some rest.”
He eased himself back down, slowly. “An honor to meet you, sir,” he said.
“I know your father, Commander,” Senna said. “Know him pretty well. A good soldier—a good commander. I served with him at Tasso a while. I was sorry to lose him to the life of a politician. It happens to too many of us.”
“He’s spoken of you before, sir,” Tyren said. “Always with great respect.”
Senna smiled. “You’ve earned a good deal of respect yourself
, Commander. I extend my own congratulations to you. I didn’t realize, until I spoke with your father this past week, that you’d been posted to Souvin. A lucky thing for us, it turns out. I know how ugly these native uprisings can be, how quickly they can escalate. No small feat, that victory. It took nerve and a level head both.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Tyren.
“I apologize for the suddenness of this summons,” Senna said. “I’m the one to blame, Commander. It was my own personal request Commander Ruso bring you back here. You’ve shown some great ability. I’ve use for that kind of ability.”
Tyren said nothing while Senna came over to pick up a sealed scroll from Ruso’s desk, brought it round and held it out to him.
“Your new commission, Commander,” Senna said.
He reached for it, slowly. He took it, held it in his hands with some hesitation. “Thank you, sir,” he said.
“Go ahead and open it,” Senna urged him.
He broke the seal obediently and unrolled the papyrus and read it. He read it twice over before he lifted his head to look at Senna again. “Sir—”
“A post more befitting the Risto name, I think,” said Senna. “I trust you find it satisfactory, Commander?”
“I—it would be a great honor, sir. I’m not entirely sure it’s merited by—”
“The Empire honors those who serve it well,” Senna said. “You’ve merited it, Commander.”
The words came spilling out thoughtlessly before he could stop them. “I don’t wish to accept it, sir. I—can’t accept it.”
There was a stretch of silence. Ruso was staring at him open-mouthed. But Senna looked at him steadily, his angular face blank, his eyes very keen.
“Explain yourself, Commander,” he said, at length.
“The work at Souvin isn’t finished, sir. A good many of the rebels escaped. I believe the lord Magryn is one of them—the native lord, sir, who had our support and turned traitor. I don’t think we should underestimate him, sir. It isn’t just a matter of numbers—how many armed men are still available to him. He has the loyalty of every man, woman, and child in Souvin now he’s taken up arms against us. He’s their true lord again. That’s real power among the Cesini, sir. It’ll take more than one battlefield victory to overcome it, more than our force in retaliation. It’ll take time—and most of all someone who understands these people, understands the mountains.” He struggled to keep his voice steady, smooth, to mask the sudden desperation gnawing away inside him. “I wouldn’t be fulfilling my duty to the Empire to leave the work undone, Lord Senna. I certainly wouldn’t be fulfilling it by accepting a post in Choiro. It’s my responsibility, sir. Let me finish it. Let me go back to Souvin and finish it.”
Ruso said, “You forget yourself, Risto.”
But Senna, not taking his eyes from Tyren, shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, there’s enough of that attitude in the Empire, Commander Ruso—propriety before duty, as though the former means anything apart from the latter. No, that’s the very reason I need you with me, Risto. I need a man with your clarity, not one weakened, corrupted by the capital. Trust me, Risto. You’ll be able to accomplish much more for the Empire as my adjutant than as a garrison commander, putting down some native rebellions from time to time. I’m asking this of you because there’s real need for you in Choiro—because the Empire needs you more urgently there. I wouldn’t have taken you from Souvin if it were otherwise, I swear it to you.”
Tyren said nothing. Senna, seeing his hesitation, went on after a moment. “I’m familiar with the man who replaced you, Risto. I can assure you he’ll handle the command competently. No, you’ve done your duty. You needn’t worry the work is unfinished. You’ve done your duty there, and the Empire needs you elsewhere now.”
Tyren said, slowly, “I understand, sir.”
“Trust me, Risto,” Senna said again.
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“I’ll be returning to Choiro in a fortnight. You can accompany me then. Until then I want you to rest, get the leg healed up. Commander Ruso can see to your lodging, I trust?”
Ruso said, “Of course.”
“I’m in your debt, Lord Senna,” said Tyren, quietly.
* * *
They put him up in the officers’ barracks, with attendants to see to the wound and to his meals, and he spent the next few days as Senna had ordered, resting, letting the knee heal fully. When he wasn’t sleeping he sat on the cot with his back against the wall, the leg stretched out straight before him, and he read or he wrote letters to ease the boredom. He wrote to Vessy, first of all, to inform his father of the new commission. He hadn’t written home since Torien’s own letter had come to Souvin, nearly a month ago now, informing him the betrothal had been broken off. He’d had too much of his own stubborn Risto pride to try to apologize then. But Torien would be pleased with this commission.
When the knee was sound enough he went out to the stables to spend time with Risun, exercising him in the stable-yard and afterward brushing out the dappled gray coat until it gleamed. That was in the mornings. In the afternoons he idled away time in the baths, or he went walking unhurriedly, aimlessly through the lower city, among the market stalls and the shops. He bought new quills and ink and papyrus one day, sealing wax and scarlet cord the next. Once he took Risun’s bridle down to a leather-worker to have a worn cheek-strap replaced. On the way back to the fort he bought a palla of thin flame-red silk off a seller from Tasso: he’d send it to Challe with the letter to Torien.
In the evenings, when most of the other officers were at dinners at the patrician villas all round the fort, or were amusing themselves in the wine cellars and inns down in the lower city, he usually found himself alone on the gate-wall with the city spread out below him like a gold-thread weaving, looking westward to the mountains, to Souvin, a tightness in his heart, a sourness in his mouth. He hated this place, Rien, hated the emptiness of it, the lie of it. Knew he’d hate Choiro in the same way. Easier, maybe, if he hadn’t gone to Souvin—easier to be content here, now. But he’d gone to Souvin, and right now he wanted nothing more than to tell all these people the truth of it, how weighty it was, this thing they took for granted and treated so carelessly—to scream it at them, to shake them from their apathy. Or to show them, if words weren’t enough—to show them the graves of his men in the black earth back at Souvin, the burning pyres of the Cesino dead, so they’d know what kind of price had been paid for it, so they’d know the Empire was something more than their ignorance, their indifference, their dinners and amusements; that it meant something more, after all; that it was something to be fought for and won dearly, a thing to be paid for in blood.
* * *
He was summoned again to Ruso’s office the evening before he and Senna were to leave. Senna was there as before, and a third man, dressed in the uniform and black-lacquered harness of the Guard, stood at Ruso’s elbow behind the desk. Belatedly Tyren realized the third man was Luchian Marro. Luchian had changed in three months’ time. There was a lean hardness to his face, a hollowness in his cheeks, a distance in his cold blue eyes. He seemed older, graver; the weight and responsibility of command had done that.
They looked over each other in silence a moment. Then Tyren gave his attention to Ruso and saluted. “You sent for me, sir?”
Ruso had a length of papyrus scroll spread out before him on the desk and he didn’t immediately look up from it. “How’s the knee, Commander?”
“Healing well, sir.”
“Your accommodation’s been comfortable, I trust?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, good.” Ruso lifted his head, finally. He looked up briefly to Luchian before he brought his eyes to Tyren. “You know Commander Marro, of course.”
Tyren said, “We’ve met, sir,” and he heard Senna, at the window, let out a low, quick, hissing breath through his nostrils. He wondered, though he didn’t dare look Senna in the face, how much Torien had told him about what had happen
ed at Vione.
If Ruso had caught the edge in his voice he paid it no mind. He said, “There’s a question Commander Marro hopes you may be able to answer for him, Risto.”
“Yes, sir?”
“You heard rumors there was a priest in Souvin, a Cesino priest?”
He was taken aback. He had to fight the urge to turn his head to Luchian, force himself to keep his eyes steady on Ruso, his face blank.
“I—heard rumors of it, yes, sir.”
“You never found out for sure, I take it.”
He said, “No, sir. There’s been trouble?”
“No, no need for concern, Commander.” Ruso shook his head. “Commander Marro’s Guardsmen have been assisting Rægo with the punitive work in Souvin. There’s been word here and there of a native priest, that’s all. Rumors, as you say.”
Senna spoke up. “It’s no great matter, Risto. Commander Marro had only hoped you might know something more—careless words dropped by the village folk, something of that sort.”
“No, sir,” Tyren said. “If there’s a priest in the village, sir, they weren’t careless in keeping it from me.”
Ruso nodded. “That’s all, then,” he said. “You can go, Risto.”
But Luchian came quickly after him, out into the corridor. “Risto,” he said.
“What is it?”
“Spare me a moment, Risto. I’d wanted to speak with you alone.”
He slowed his steps so Luchian could catch up to him.
“That was the truth?” Luchian said, coming alongside him.
“It was the truth. I heard rumors. I’d no definite word.”
“This man Muryn, then.”
He looked over to Luchian sharply, startled. “What?”
“The man named Muryn. You know him?”
“A farmer.”
“He came to the fort to speak with you after the battle.”
“He was worried for his land, his crop—worried we’d be indiscriminate in our reprisals. He wanted to make it plain to me he hadn’t raised a hand to aid the rebels.”
His Own Good Sword (The Cymeriad #1) Page 19