His Own Good Sword (The Cymeriad #1)

by Amanda McCrina

  “You knew him well?”

  “I’d met him before. On patrol. His farm—”

  “You’d spoken with him?”

  “Once before. Yes.”

  “A well-educated man for a farmer,” Luchian said.

  Tyren said nothing. His thoughts were darting wildly on and on—so Luchian knew, somehow. It didn’t matter how. He knew, that was what mattered.

  Luchian said, “You must have known, Risto. Even if you didn’t know for sure—you might have guessed. But I think you knew.”

  There was a heavy silence between them. If he’d had his sword he might have considered putting it to use then and there; the corridor was empty save for the two of them. But he had no sword, and Luchian was fully armed, and Luchian could best him in a fight anyway. You didn’t get picked for the Guard on name alone, even if you were a Marro. Luchian’s skill as a swordsman was renowned.

  “Treason, Risto, if you knew and did nothing,” Luchian said.

  His mouth was dry. He couldn’t get words out. He looked at Luchian silently, stupidly, his jaw clenched, his throat tight.

  Luchian smiled, though his eyes didn’t show it; they were ice-bound, dead. “No, there’s no need to worry, Risto. To accuse you of treason now is to admit I’ve had you watched these three months, to admit I knew of the priest too. And you’ve the legate on your side.”

  So Luchian had had an informer in Souvin.

  For some reason it didn’t really surprise him—he couldn’t muster much reaction to it, at least. Surprising, perhaps, it hadn’t been Verio—Verio, who was common-born, power-hungry, resentful he’d been passed over for the command, getting the chance to win the favor of the Marri. But it couldn’t have been Verio, because Verio had been dead before Muryn had come to the fort.

  He said, through shut teeth, “What do you want, Marro?”

  “I want to know what you’ll do, knowing I intend to deal with the priest when I return to Souvin tomorrow, now you’ve sworn before Ruso and Senna you’d no knowledge of him.”

  “You think it makes a difference to me what you intend to do?”

  Luchian said, “He has family, does he not, this Muryn?”

  Tyren said nothing.

  Luchian lifted his shoulders. “Very well—if it makes no difference to you,” he said. “That’s what I wanted, Commander. I’ll see you in the capital sometime.”

  He stood frozen there in the empty corridor a long while after Luchian had left him. Finally he made himself start walking. He went out from the headquarters and across the yard to his own quarters, walking slowly, numbly, heedless. There was a ringing in his ears. The thoughts came frantically, half-completed. Panicked coward’s thoughts at first: it didn’t matter, let Luchian do as he wished. The thing was out of his hands now. Nothing concerned him now except this commission, except Senna, except Choiro. Weighed against all that Muryn meant nothing. He’d protected the priest as best he could for the time he was in Souvin, but it was out of his hands now and he couldn’t be faulted for it.

  In his quarters he sat down on the cot and leaned back his aching head against the wall and closed his eyes. Possible Luchian had meant only to test him—would let the matter go now, having gotten no reaction. Or possible he’d done it in jest.

  But that was only possibility, desperate, fanciful possibility, and even were it probability he couldn’t wager Muryn’s life on it. He couldn’t make himself believe Muryn meant nothing—couldn’t pretend it, even a moment. Muryn meant everything: everything he’d fought for at Souvin, everything that made this Empire worth the blood price he’d paid. If Muryn meant nothing then this Empire meant nothing.

  He sat there a long time. He hadn’t bothered to light a lamp and the room turned slowly blue and black with night shadows. Eventually he heard the guard on the wall calling out the hour. Two hours until midnight. Eight hours until he rode out with Senna and left this thing forgotten behind him. Easy enough to let it go like that, to do nothing, to let the hours slide by until morning, until it was impossible to do anything. Easy enough to let it go like that. And in truth, went the voice of cold reason in his head—in truth there was nothing else he could do.

  No, there was more he could do.

  There was Senna himself. If no one else he could go to Senna. Senna was reasonable, had led the soldier’s life, surely knew how complicated things could be when you got away from the comfort and ignorance of the city. Senna would understand, would see the truth of the matter, would be willing to deal sensibly with it.

  And if not through Senna there was another way still.

  Senna’s own quarters were across the barracks courtyard: a study and a bedchamber, with smaller adjoining quarters for his personal guardsmen and his slaves. There were two guards posted at the doorway, sitting down bored-faced and slack-legged against the wall with their spears propped up beside them. The languidness was pretense: they got up quickly to their feet when Tyren came, saluting him, measuring him head-to-toe while they did so. One of them sidled smoothly round to stand behind Tyren while the other stepped into the doorway, directly in his path.

  “Yes, sir?” the latter said.

  “I need to speak with the legate. Tell him Commander Risto asks to speak with him. Tell him the matter’s urgent.”

  The guardsman looked him over and saluted again. “I’ll tell him, sir,” he said.

  He’d been afraid of rousing Senna from sleep, but Senna was dressed still, was at the desk in his study, a lamp lit at his elbow, a length of papyrus spread out before him. He put down the quill in his hand when Tyren came into the room.

  “Risto,” he said.

  “I apologize for the late hour, sir.”

  “No matter. It was urgent, you said?”

  Tyren didn’t speak for a moment. Doubt washed over him all at once, made the words lodge in his throat.

  “Sir, I—wasn’t entirely truthful, earlier,” he said, finally. “In Ruso’s office.”

  Senna’s tanned face showed nothing. He leaned back in his chair, keeping his eyes on Tyren. “Go on,” he said.

  “There’s a priest in the village, sir—in Souvin. A Cesino named Muryn. I met him, spoke with him. I decided he was no threat, sir. He gave me no trouble and I—I let him alone.”

  “Bold of you to tell me that, Risto,” Senna said, quietly.

  “I apologize I didn’t speak of it earlier. I should have spoken earlier, sir. But Marro—the Guardsman—”

  “No, it was prudent to wait,” said Senna, and he smiled a little.

  “Muryn isn’t one of these firebrands preaching the return of Tarien Varro, sir, I swear it. I swear he’s innocent of treachery. I’m asking that he be given protection—that Marro not be allowed to lay hands on him.”

  Senna shook his head. “I can’t grant that, Risto.”

  “Sir—”

  “You must understand the nature of their doctrine, Risto. Inherently, inextricably, it’s bound to the idea that Tarien Varro’s throne will be restored, that we’ll be driven back over the mountains and the Cesini will have their independence again—else there’d have been no division between our priests and theirs after the war, do you see? Theirs is an entirely different doctrine from ours now. Their priests are political leaders, not religious ones. Otherwise they’d answer to the authority of the Church.”

  Tyren said, stiffly, “He doesn’t preach rebellion, sir.”

  “Listen to me, Risto. Marro has a grudge against you—I’m aware of that, I’m not blind. And it’s more than petty rivalry left over from some mess-hall squabble at Vione. He means to ruin you, Risto. He wanted charges brought against you for the murder of your own adjutant.”

  Something icy-cold and aching spread out from Tyren’s heart, traced its way slowly through his chest to settle in his gut. “Lieutenant Verio’s death wasn’t murder, sir,” he said.

  “I know that, Risto.” Senna’s voice was calm. “I looked into the matter myself. I know the circumstances. There’ll be no char
ges. You’re no traitor, no matter what Marro might claim. You wouldn’t have had this victory otherwise; you wouldn’t have been so eager to continue the work. No—naïve, maybe. But naïveté isn’t treachery even in Berion’s Empire. You’re no traitor. Let this go now. Trust me, Risto. The priest is dangerous, and his death will be enough to satisfy Marro you’re loyal.”

  “He deserves better justification than that, sir.”

  Senna was silent a moment. He seemed to be weighing something in his head. “Listen to me, Risto,” he said, finally. “There’s more afoot here than some restless natives and a renegade priest. I need you at my side—for your own sake, and far more than that. Do you think you were in Souvin on Luchian Marro’s whim? You were there because you were a threat. You had to be eliminated—you, and all others who still believe there’s a place for honor in this Empire. Marro understood that. But killing you outright wouldn’t have served his purpose. No—he gave you the opportunity to destroy yourself instead.”

  “I’ll go with you to the capital, sir.” Anger was straining at the back of his throat. He spoke through clenched teeth to keep it from tearing loose. “Anything you ask of me—I’ll do it, and gladly. But I won’t let an innocent man die for my inaction.”

  Senna’s eyes were cool, unblinking. “Raise a hand, Risto, and you sign your own death warrant.”

  “If that’s what it takes, sir,” said Tyren.

  Unexpectedly Senna laughed. “They told me truly,” he said. “You’re your father’s son.”

  Then his face sobered again. “No, Risto. I need you with me in Choiro, and for that I need you alive.”

  Tyren said nothing.

  Senna stood, came over, put his hands on Tyren’s shoulders. “Listen to me, Tyren. Let it go. Don’t let the bastard ruin you over this. What would it accomplish? He’d kill the Cesino anyway, and you’d be hanging from a gibbet for nothing. So long as you live you’ve the chance to do some real good. But I could never face your father again if I let you die for this—die to no purpose.”

  He inclined his head. He couldn’t look in Senna’s eyes. “Yes, sir,” he said, quietly. “Forgive me.”

  Senna’s hands tightened on his shoulders. “Get some sleep, Commander. It’s late. I’ll see you at first light in the morning.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tyren said again. “Thank you, sir.”

  There was cold determination inside him now, a strange, deep calmness with it. He went back to his quarters unhurriedly. He buckled on his cuirass in the dark when he got there, buckled the sword-belt on his hip. His bags were readied by the cot in preparation for the morning. He took them up, put them over his shoulder. Then he went out into the corridor again, out to the columned portico adjoining the yard, and he followed the portico down to the stables.

  The stable-yard was mostly empty because of the hour and none of the stable-hands paid him any mind. He found Risun in the stall row and opened the door and put down his bags in the corner of the stall so he could do the saddling work. When it was done he took the reins in his right hand and turned to lead Risun out into the row.

  The edge of Luchian Marro’s sword blade came to rest across his throat as he turned.

  “Thought you might try this,” Luchian said.

  For a moment he didn’t move, didn’t speak. He stood there dumbly with the cold steel against his skin, trying to think, to look for Luchian’s weakness.

  Luchian said, “I’m arresting you for treason, Risto. You can explain before a court martial you’d no intention of riding to Souvin.”

  He lowered his hands, dropping Risun’s reins, relaxing his muscles as though he intended to yield. Luchian shifted his weight in response and Tyren took that moment to bring up his left arm and push away Luchian’s blade with his vambrace. He fumbled for his own sword, got his fingers round the hilt, but Luchian recovered quickly, brought the blade sharply back towards him, and the tip of it caught him just under the lower edge of his cuirass, above the hip-bone. He stumbled backward, lost his balance, landed heavily on his back on the stall floor and lay there a moment blinking up at the ceiling, feeling the hot blood spread out over his tunic and trickle down his trouser leg.

  Luchian came close, knelt beside him, bent over him to loosen his sword from his fingers.

  “Fool,” he said.

  Tyren took his belt knife in his left hand and thrust the blade up into Luchian’s belly while Luchian was still reaching for the sword. Luchian made a strangled noise deep in his throat. He dropped his own sword, reaching with both hands to take Tyren’s wrist, and Tyren shoved the knife forward and let it go. Then he pushed himself backward across the floor with his heels. He found a handhold in the stone wall and pulled himself up unsteadily to his feet, keeping his left hand pressed to the wound. He left Luchian kneeling there and limped over to Risun. He managed to drag himself up into the saddle with his right hand caught in the black mane, sucking in his breath as he got his weight settled, leaning forward, eyes shut, teeth clenched, as the pain washed over him. Then he pushed himself up again, reaching for the reins. He dug his heels into Risun’s belly and took him out into the yard.

  The gate guards saluted him and opened the doors for him without question. He rode out onto the gate-path and down through the city to the western gate, then onto the southwest road, towards the mountains, towards Souvin. When they were free of the city he leaned forward over Risun’s withers and kicked him into a hard run. They ran until the lights of the city were nothing but a faint yellow glow in the night behind them and thick black-pine forest was hemming the road round them.

  The pain was pulsing through him with every hoof beat by then, blackness closing round the edges of his vision. The blood had gone all over his tunic beneath the cuirass, had soaked his trouser-leg down to the boot. He could feel Risun trembling beneath him—knew he couldn’t run the horse much further without resting. He reined him in, slowing him to a walk, and Risun’s head dropped low and the reins ran slackly through Tyren’s hands and he found, suddenly, he didn’t have the strength to pull them taut again. They slipped to the ground and he could do nothing but grasp frantically at Risun’s mane, swaying, trying to hold himself upright. The world slid round him. Then it was still, and sharp pain was going all through him, and he realized after a moment he’d fallen from the saddle, was lying on his back in the middle of the road. He managed, with effort, to lift his head from the wet dirt. He saw Risun stumbling, going down heavily to his knees a short way up the road—the road itself going on beyond, west and south through the black pine, bright in the moonlight. Numb exhaustion spread over him. He lay back against the earth and let the blackness come.

  XV

  It took him some time, when he woke, to determine where he was, because the light was harshly white and his head was spinning. There was stiffness in his limbs, a thick, heavy pressure behind his eyes. Pain seared through him when he tried to move. He squeezed his eyes briefly shut and swore through closed teeth—remembered the wound then. He lay there carefully motionless, looking up at a low stone ceiling, while the rest of it trickled slowly back: Senna and Ruso, in Ruso’s office; Luchian, afterward. Muryn.

  He was lying on his back on a thin woven-reed mat, bare stone walls round him, a low iron-bound wooden door set in the wall across from him. One of the rooms in the guard-house back at the Rien fort, he supposed. A water jug sat against the wall at the foot of the mat, a necessary pot in the far corner. Otherwise the room was empty. From the light coming through the slit in the wall above him he judged it was early afternoon, but he’d no way of knowing how many days had passed. The wound had been treated, bandaged. He might have been lying here a week.

  There were booted footfalls outside the iron-bound door after a while—low voices, the jangling of keys. He thought he recognized one of the voices though he couldn’t immediately place it. The door came open and he saw the black and silver of a Guard uniform and his first, muddled thought was that it was Luchian Marro. Then he saw the face more clea
rly: gray eyes, not blue.

  He said, thickly, dazedly, “Aino.”

  Aino said, “So you’re awake.”

  He tried to push himself up on one elbow. He gave it up after a moment and lay back. “How long has it—how long have I—”

  “Lieutenant Seian’s troop found you two nights ago, found you on the road about fifteen miles outside the city. I was surprised you’d made it so far, with that wound. Your horse was ruined.”

  “Luchian.”

  “Commander Marro’s alive. He’ll recover readily enough, provided there’s no infection. If the blade had gone much higher he wouldn’t be so lucky.”

  Tyren ran his eyes over the black uniform tunic, the silver unit badges clasped on the shoulder-straps of Aino’s black-lacquered cuirass.

  “You’re Cesino blood,” he said, unsteadily.

  Aino raised his eyebrows a little. He pushed the door shut behind him. He didn’t say anything.

  Tyren said, “I don’t understand.”

  Aino crouched down on his heels a short way from the mat. “How I came to be in the Guard, you mean? They find me useful. Mostly for that reason—no one expects a Cesino to be a Guardsman.” He smiled.

  “You don’t have the scar.”

  “I haven’t sworn the oath. Not yet. I was supposed to prove myself first. Souvin was my chance.”

  “It was you, then. How Luchian knew.”

  “Of the priest, yes.”

  Tyren lifted his right hand and pressed the fingers against his eyelids, struggling to clear the dizziness from his head, to pin his whirling thoughts down.

  “Listen to me, Aino. You’ve no reason to harm him. Luchian has what he wants now. He needed something to hold against me and he has it now. That’s all he wants, all that matters to him. There’s no reason to harm the priest. You know that, Aino.” He was too sick-hearted to care he was begging. “Please, Aino. You know he’s innocent.”

  Aino brought his chin up. “There’s nothing I can do now, Risto. Lieutenant Seian took the word to Souvin yesterday morning.”