“Muryn’s life didn’t matter so much to you.”
Aino was silent a moment.
“I regret the priest’s death, Risto,” he said, at length. “There’s nothing I can do for that now. But at least I’ll not have to regret yours.”
“You’ll have enough else to regret. It won’t take Ruso long to figure out who did this, and it won’t go well for you when he does.”
“Ruso will be looking after his own neck. They were his men on guard duty.”
“And Luchian?”
“I told you that was my concern,” said Aino.
Tyren shook his head. “There’s no need for this, Aino.”
“No, listen to me, Risto. This was the only way. You were to stand before the court martial tomorrow, and there’s no use waiting for Vessy to protect you now. Torien Risto’s dead.”
He looked over to Aino in the darkness. “What?”
“Killed as he rode here, three days ago. Your brother’s work. He sent word to Lucho Marro that it was done, that he’s taken your father’s stead as governor. Thinking to prove his own untarnished loyalty, maybe, by preventing your father from securing your release—knew you’d be a political liability to the family.”
“My father,” said Tyren.
He said it stupidly, not comprehending—seized onto it out of the flood of words sweeping all at once through his head. Words only, all of them, disjointed and incoherent and meaningless; he was too stunned for any of it to settle into reasonable thought. There was a sudden deep emptiness in his chest and stomach, the windedness that comes after a physical blow. He tried to picture Torien in death: white-faced, glassy-eyed, his proud body broken and bloody. But the image slid away from him like water between his fingers, oil chasing away across a hot pan. He’d nothing but the words, and they were empty, useless—broken shells when the life has flown.
He’d let the reins go slack in his daze and the colt, sensing his inattention, had wandered lazily, aimlessly to the side of the road. Aino brought his own horse close, reaching with his right hand to take the colt’s head.
“Listen to me, Risto. You can go west, stay hid in the hill country until the searching’s ended.”
He said, in a thick, harsh voice, “No.”
“Don’t be a fool. Torien Risto had friends enough among the army command. Some of them will be willing to help you if you can keep yourself alive long enough.”
He struggled to bring his scattered thoughts together.
“No,” he said again. He tried to say it more firmly this time. “No, I’d rather stand trial than run, Aino.”
“This is just politics, Risto. You know that. You accomplish nothing by staying here.”
“Aino—”
Aino leaned in towards him to speak low and swiftly at his ear.
“You think that’s what your father would want? Or Muryn? Think, Risto. They’d want you to live. A court martial in Rien and then it’d be to Choiro for a public execution. You know that. You think either of them would want that for you?”
Tyren said nothing.
Aino let go the colt’s bridle and straightened again in his saddle.
“Listen to me, Risto,” he said again. He spoke less sharply now. “Your father and the priest both. They died for nothing if you stay, if you die.”
He looked at Aino in silence. Then he turned his face away and pressed his heels to the colt’s belly. He was too exhausted, too numb to put together the words for an argument, to explain himself in a way Aino would understand. Maybe if there were more time, if he’d the clarity that would come with time. Right now there was nothing left in him but dumb weariness, defeat.
They kept on through the city, down towards the western gate. When they’d come within sight of the gate-wall Aino reined up his horse and turned in his saddle so he faced Tyren directly.
“There are provisions for a few days in your saddlebag,” he said. “Not much, but the best I could do. Enough to last you into the hills. You’ll want to avoid the road.”
He bent down and loosened the sheathed sword that was strapped across the fore-horns of his saddle. He held it out to Tyren, hilt-first. “You’ll need this,” he said.
Tyren made no move at first. Then he knotted the colt’s reins together and let them go and reached with his freed left hand to take the sword. He moved it to his right hand when he’d taken it. He held it a moment, testing the weight, the balance. There was a sudden dryness in his mouth, a keen tension in his muscles. The numbness had fled away at the familiar feel of the grip against his fingers.
Aino, watching him, seemed amused, though he was sitting his saddle stiffly now. “Are you going to use it?” he said.
Tyren didn’t immediately reply. He sat there with the fingers of his right hand tight round the grip, his left hand ready on the sheath, and he warred with himself inside a little while. Easy enough to do the thing. Aino had no other weapon ready, wouldn’t have the time to react if he made a move now. Easy enough to do. They wouldn’t even know it up on the gate-wall in all likelihood: the shadow of the gate-house was deep and black here. And what else was there to use this freedom for? He could have his vengeance, at least. It wouldn’t matter then whether he stayed or ran. At least he’d have accomplished that.
Do it, he thought, savagely. It’s what he expects of you, after all. Do it because there’s no difference between your way and his, in the end—no use pretending there’s any difference. Do it because it’s the easiest thing, because you’re too much a coward to do otherwise. Spit upon what Muryn lived for and do it.
He loosened his fingers from the grip. He held the sheathed blade across his saddle while he unwrapped the belt. Then he buckled the belt on his hip. He gathered up the colt’s reins again and looked back to Aino.
“Not like that,” he said.
“I can’t promise you another chance,” said Aino.
He shook his head tightly. “That doesn’t matter.”
Aino was silent a moment. Then he said, “Due west into the mountains, Risto. Luck and you’ll have five, six hours of an early start. I wouldn’t count on more than that.”
He’d backed his horse away and turned to ride back eastward, to the fort, before Tyren could reply. Tyren didn’t watch him go. He took the colt on down to the gate. When the doors had been opened—again without challenge, because the watchmen knew better than to challenge a Guardsman—he took the colt onto the west road and ran him on the road until the torch-light from the gate-house had faded to darkness round them. Then he reined up and dismounted and rid himself of the black-crested helmet in the long dry-yellow grass edging the road. Afterward he took the colt over the northward embankment and into the green woodland that swept up eventually to the hills.
XVIII
Much of the first part of that ride from Rien westward passed in a blur. It was raw, wooded land, this, for miles and miles past the city—the farms and little flag-stone villages were all clustered tightly along the road, south of him, and he was careful to avoid those. He headed west and a little north. He ran the colt when the ground permitted it, but that wasn’t often. The footing was rocky, uneven, the trees too close. For the most part they walked, and the only comfort was the thought that pursuit would have to do the same. He rested every so often to let the colt graze or drink, and to ease the pain flaring up in his side—knew, at length, he must have opened up the newly healed gash again; he could feel hot wetness seeping through his tunic. He reined up the colt and slid from the saddle and sat a while against the bole of a tree with the saddlebag in his lap. He found bandage cloth after a short search and wrapped up the wound tightly. Then he mounted again, gritting his teeth against the pain.
There was a bitterness growing inside him now. For a moment there, under the gate with Aino, he’d had clarity—had had the sudden fierce desire to live, to find something worthwhile to live for. That had cooled now, faded into the darkness round him. Anger and frustration had settled in its place. He should have ended
it—should have killed Aino and ended it there. At least there’d have been clear, immediate purpose to that. Now he’d nothing except the vague aim of keeping west, losing himself in the hills—no real point or reason to it except to survive, to exist. Better if he’d ended it there in Rien.
When morning finally came he was in unfamiliar hill country. There was a heavy mist lying in the low places between the hills and the sun was not yet out and it was briskly cold. He rode leaning forward across the colt’s withers, holding a hand against the wound, unable to keep himself fully upright. He stopped the colt on the bank of a thin, icy-cold mountain stream and got down stiffly from the saddle and knelt on the black-sand bank to drink from his cupped hands. He rinsed the wound afterward, gingerly, wincing a little at the cold. He bandaged it with a fresh cloth. Then he stood and leaned heavily against the saddle while the colt drank, looking across the wild timber country to the snow-capped mountains. More than a full day’s ride still. Less and less likely he’d make it. The bleeding hadn’t stopped, and the pain had worsened; the old bone-deep soreness had started again in the knee.
He mounted again, when the colt had drunk his fill, and he rode forward along the stream with his head bowed.
By noontime the air was wet with drizzle and rain clouds were thickening overhead. The rain came softly at first, then strong and steady. His cape was soaked through, and his tunic and leggings beneath, but in truth he was glad for the rain—it would help hide his trail.
He rode in the rain until the last of the daylight had gone in the overcast sky. It was probably quite early still, maybe the eighteenth hour, but he knew he couldn’t make it further without some rest. The stream was still rushing noisily east-to-west alongside him. There was a sheer-faced cliff along the opposite bank, smooth rock blackened by the rain, and a long, low cave at its base—a dry place, room enough in which to lie down. He could get a few hours’ sleep, at least. He couldn’t afford more than that.
He crossed the stream and tethered the colt on the pebbly bank outside the cave and took down the saddle and crawled under the rock face with the saddle and the bag. The cave opened up a little further in; he could sit upright with his back against the curving cave wall. He put down the gear and took off his cape, spreading it out so it would dry. Then he unbuckled the sword and propped it up beside him. The pain from the wound was gnawing at him but he ignored it long enough to eat a supper of some bread and dried figs from the pack. Then, strengthened a little by the food, he opened up his tunic to look at the wound. The bandage was soaked through with blood and he groaned aloud as he pulled it away from his skin. The wound itself was hot, swollen—had been irritated by the rubbing of the bandage as he rode. Blackness pressed at the corners of his eyes. He blinked it away and wet a cloth with water from his water-skin and dabbed at the wound carefully, clenching his teeth as he did so. He rinsed it with some wine from the bag afterward and bound it up again and pulled his tunic back on. Then he lay stiffly down on the cape and closed his eyes and slept.
* * *
He knew, when he woke, that he’d slept more than the few hours he should have allowed himself: morning light was already trickling in through the cave mouth. Knew, too, from the bitter coldness of the air, the aching in his temples and his throat, the thing must have progressed to fever inside him. For a little while he just lay there, thick-headed, unwilling to make himself get up. Then realization sharpened inside him. He wasn’t alone: there were the ashes of a small fire a little way across the cave floor, and packs which weren’t his sitting against the far wall. And the sword—when the sudden panic had made him struggle up to see—was gone from beside him.
“Easy,” someone said to him, lazily.
The speaker was an older man; there was silver-gray scattered freely through his dark hair and his close-trimmed beard. He’d spoken the word in Vareno, but he was Cesino clearly enough: he had the frost-gray eyes of the mountain people, was dressed in tunic and leggings of rough brown wool, with a short wool cloak draped round his shoulders and clasped on his left shoulder with a pin of carved bone. He was sitting cross-legged at the fire-pit and there was an old Vareno cavalry sword slung across his back, a flint knife sheathed at his belt.
“Easy,” he said again. “I’ve dressed that nick for you. You’ll set it to bleeding again, moving like that.”
Tyren settled back stiffly against the cave wall with a hand pressed to the wound. “Who are you?”
“Morlyn. My name’s Morlyn. But surely that doesn’t mean much to you, Lord Risto.”
“You know my name?”
“I know your name,” Morlyn said. “I know a good deal about you, Tyren Risto. Mægo told me a little. The rest, I’m proud to say, is my own work.”
Tyren’s mouth went dry as dust, his heart cold and heavy as a lump of iron in his chest. “You were in Souvin? With Sarre’s rebellion?”
“I was there,” said Morlyn.
There were footsteps on the gravel outside the cave and another Cesino ducked in through the cave mouth. A young man, this one, near to Tyren’s own age. He looked at Tyren coolly, sticking out his chin a little as he did so. He spoke to Morlyn in Cesino. “Can he move, then?”
“If it’s necessary,” answered Morlyn, in the same tongue. He spoke with the same lazy patience in his voice. “The wound is nothing bad—or it’ll be nothing bad, once it’s treated properly. Though it would be better if he rested a while longer. There’s some fever.”
The other shook his head, once, impatiently. “No, we need to move now. They’re beyond us for a little while, following the trail I left, but they’ll circle back quickly enough.”
Morlyn said nothing for a moment. Then he nodded. “Very well,” he said. “Get him up. I’ll do the work here, cover the tracks.”
The young one came over to Tyren and took him by the left elbow and hauled him up. Tyren didn’t resist it—was too sluggish with the fever and with the pain in his side to resist it, to try to run.
“Better to tie his hands,” said the young one to Morlyn.
“No need for that,” said Morlyn. He’d knelt and was carefully covering the ashes of the fire with the pebbly black sand of the cave floor.
“Don’t be a fool,” said the young one, through shut teeth.
“Use a bow-string, then, if it’ll put your mind at ease,” said Morlyn. “No need for it, though. He has no weapon now and he won’t be trying to run.”
The young one let go Tyren’s arm and went to the packs and took out a bow-string and brought it back. He held Tyren’s hands in his right hand while he looped the bow-string round Tyren’s wrists with his left—in and out and round again, firmly, but loosely enough the blood might flow. When he’d finished he took Tyren by the elbow again, took him out through the cave mouth to the bank of the stream. Tyren blinked and stumbled in the sudden bright daylight, the blood pounding in his head, and the young Cesino prodded him forward impatiently. The colt was still tethered there on the bank and the Cesino pushed Tyren over to him, indicating with a sharp gesture of his right hand that Tyren should mount. He did so, looping his bound hands round the far horn of the saddle, bending dizzily forward over the withers when he’d gotten up, and the Cesino took the colt’s reins, and they walked along the bank a while, westward, until the cliff face had run down. Then the Cesino took the colt to the left, south, into the trees. Morlyn came after them at a short distance, moving slowly so as to cover their tracks. The ground sloped upward going away from the stream. That afforded them a good view as they went on. Tyren looked back over his shoulder. He could see dust rising over the pine trees on the far side of the stream. Three, four miles away; further, supposing the wind had carried it along.
The young Cesino laughed at his looking.
“Your people have no skill with tracking, Vareno,” he said.
He was speaking in his own tongue still; quite possibly he didn’t know Vareno. Morlyn did. He spoke up from behind them and the words were meant for Tyren.
&nb
sp; “He thinks you were with the pursuit, searching for us—thinks you got yourself separated from your troop. I’m not so sure. It’s been Souvin at our heels, not Rien. But that leaves the question, Lord Risto, of what you’re doing in the Outland.”
Tyren didn’t say anything. The words confused him. Did Morlyn mean there’d been no activity at all from Rien? Surely there’d have been pursuit by now. Surely Luchian would have ordered pursuit the moment he learned of the escape—Aino had hinted as much.
Morlyn said, “Give me the truth of it, Risto. You were running, I know that—and not from us. Tell me why.”
He kept his mouth shut, his teeth clenched. Morlyn didn’t press him. They went on in silence a while. From time to time Morlyn veered from their trail and went off into the heather and bracken on his own. He seemed to be searching for something. He squatted on his haunches here and there to look at the ground, searching through the underbrush with his hands. He must have found whatever it was, at length. He stood up, depositing something into the pack under his arm as he did so. He caught Tyren’s eye as Tyren looked back to him. He smiled.
“Comfrey,” he said, coming up behind the horse again. “It’ll make a good poultice.”
When they’d gone a little further Morlyn said to the young one, “We’ll rest here.”
The young one held the colt’s head while Tyren dismounted. Then he took Tyren by one elbow and pushed him down against the base of a tree trunk and crouched beside him, warily. Morlyn laughed as he took down his pack from his shoulder. “Calm yourself, Bryn. He’s no threat now.”
“You should have dealt with him when we found him,” said Bryn. There was sudden raw anger in his voice. “He’s the one who killed Mægo, Morlyn. You should have opened his throat when we first found him.”
“That isn’t my decision to make,” said Morlyn, quietly. “You know that.”
He came close and held out a water-skin to Tyren. “You need to drink, Risto,” he said, in Vareno. “To bring the fever down.”
His Own Good Sword (The Cymeriad #1) Page 23