The Spark

by David Drake

  I wondered what strategy Baran’s buddies were offering. It seemed to me that all he had to do was keep up what he was doing already. He was wearing me down, and before long I was going to stumble as I backed away. It was all over then.

  The trumpeter sounded his two-note call. I got to my feet. My thighs ached, my calves ached, my knees ached. I shook my right arm as Welsh stripped the towels off. The elbow bent normally; I hadn’t been sure that it would.

  “Come on, Buck,” I said, knuckling his spine between the shoulders. He lurched to his feet as I picked up my shield and weapon.

  I felt dizzy as I straightened, but the feeling passed while I worked at staying upright. I saw Baran staring at me. I raised my arms up to head height, then grinned at him.

  Baran growled a series of words at me, ending with bastard. “Bastard” was true, but the adverbs he’d put in front of it weren’t. I lowered my hands and equipment, continuing to grin.

  God knows I wasn’t feeling cheerful, but Baran wasn’t God. I figured that if he thought I was as fresh as I’d been to start with, he was less likely to repeat the sledgehammer attack that had almost beaten me at the start of the second round.

  Baran came at me hard, swinging hard and trying to close. I fended the blows off without great trouble. My right arm wasn’t showing any immediate danger of giving out on me, which I’d been afraid it might.

  On the other hand, Baran had recovered also. By closing he couldn’t take full swings, but I was going back faster.

  I worried about backing away under pressure. I didn’t have any choice, but a stumble would be the last mistake I made. The field was in good shape, but it wasn’t a dinner table. A divot or a gopher hole could kill me.

  I knew we were getting close to the east edge of the field, though I didn’t dare glance around to make sure. I wasn’t sure what happened if Baran forced me across the limed boundary. Perhaps we just turned around, but it could mean that I forfeited the bout. It hadn’t occurred to me until now to ask about that.

  I decided to play safe by shifting around to my right. I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to manage that, but I needed to try. The trumpet might sound time at any moment…but “might” meant also “might not.”

  Baran pushed forward and swung. I took the blow overhead and shuffled right.

  Baran shouted and swung down again, moving sideways also to block me. I guided the stroke away to my right.

  Buck yelped and I was no longer in his mind. The world showed in full color through my own eyes. Buck writhed on the ground, twisting to reach the stump of his severed left hind leg.

  It’s my fault!

  And it was, but I’d be joining Buck soon, so it wouldn’t be on my conscience long.

  Baran had injured Buck by accident. He might have done a number of things next. One of them was to send away his own dog and fight me as equals again. That would’ve been an act of high courtesy that would have him talked about with approval in romantic accounts of the fight.

  And maybe on another day, in other circumstances, Baran would have done that. I didn’t like the man, but he was a respected member of the group closest to the Leader. That wouldn’t be true if Jon and Clain thought he was dishonorable.

  But Baran really hated the Consort, and he thought she’d murdered his friend. Also I’d scared him, pushed him hard when he’d come into the trial expecting to brush me out of the way. He wasn’t concerned about his fame in years to come. He was going to end the fight.

  Using his dog’s agility, Baran came at me from my left quarter. I couldn’t get my weapon around in time to meet an attack from that angle. All I could do was raise my shield as I turned widdershins. Baran brought his weapon down in another of his smashing overhead cuts.

  I had just time to shift my shield slightly before Baran’s weapon met it. He rocked me back and I felt a surge of heat, but my shield held.

  “For Buck!” I shouted. I swung down at Baran’s head, a blow just like his. His shield was high to cover him. My weapon struck at the top center, and Baran’s shield blew itself apart in a white flash and a shower of burning fragments.

  Baran’s wolfhound yelped and pirouetted away, snapping at bits sizzling on his white fur. Baran fell onto his back, trying to fling away the ruin of his shield. Some of the device had melted onto his flesh.

  “Yield!” I shouted. “Yield or I’ll bloody kill you!”

  Baran rolled forward and came up on his feet. He lunged toward me, raising his weapon. I stepped into the attack, swinging. My weapon caught him at the base of his neck and slanted deeply down into his chest.

  Baran toppled backward. He was still in one piece, but his head and right arm were dangling loose on tags of muscle.

  “Yield!” I said again, but my world was turning gray. The gray darkened into black. I was toppling also, and that was the last thing I knew for quite a while.

  CHAPTER 36

  Life Goes On

  Bright sunlight was coming through the glass of the windows, but for a moment all I was sure of was a white blur through which ghosts drifted. I shouted in surprise and sat up for an instant.

  I hurt all over, but what really threw me down again was the rush of nausea. I turned onto my side and stuck my head over the edge of the bed. Thank goodness, the spasm passed as soon as I got my head down again.

  “Here you go, boss!” Baga said. “I’m getting you some wine!”

  My stomach roiled again. I wanted to object, but I was afraid to open my mouth.

  “Baga, you get Master Guntram now!” Maggie said. “And you stay there with Buck until he comes back.”

  Then, apparently to somebody in the doorway, she added, “Yes, he’s awake, but nobody can come in except his friend Guntram, you hear?”

  “How’s Buck?” I croaked. I didn’t lift my head, but I turned it so that I could see something besides the floor. That was covered with rugs instead of the replaceable straw mats that I’d seen in most rooms of the castle.

  “Master Guntram is caring for him,” Maggie said. She held a cloth so that I could see it; water dripped from the corner. “Would you like me to wipe your face, milord?”

  “Please,” I said. I was feeling enough better that I lifted my torso slightly, though I didn’t try to sit up again.

  “Master Guntram said that you would want Buck to have the couch rather than you,” Maggie said as she mopped my cheeks and brow carefully; she kept her left hand under the cloth to catch drips. “The Leader’s doctor gave you something on the field so that you’d sleep, and he poulticed your arm.”

  Then she said, “It was terrible the way they cut your wonderful tunic off. It was a crime.”

  I closed my eyes again. “I can get another tunic,” I said. “I’m glad Guntram’s taking care of Buck.”

  It was a relief to learn that Buck was alive. Seeing him injured had…well, it was good that I’d had a way to let out what I was feeling.

  I remembered Baran’s shield failing and smiled. I remembered Baran dying also; I remembered killing Baran. I didn’t smile at that, but I was glad that Jolene was safe.

  “Where am I, Maggie?” I asked, lifting myself till I was sitting. I was on a feather bed; I’d have liked something firmer. My stomach stayed where it ought to.

  “You’re in the Consort’s apartments, milord,” Maggie said. “She insisted, she did. You’re in the room of one of her ladies who left her a bit ago.”

  I felt my face stiffen, but then I smiled. “Was the lady named Ziga, Maggie?” I asked.

  “I really don’t know, sir,” Maggie said. “I can ask one of the girls if you like. I told them all that Baga and me were going to take care of you because it’s our rightful duty.”

  “I’ll have a little of that wine, Maggie,” I said. Since I’d come away from Beune, everything I’d seen was people in pyramids, somebody at the top and everybody else scrambling to get on top instead. Or at least to get off the bottom. “And don’t bother asking about whose room it was. It doesn�
�t matter.”

  “Sir?” Maggie said from the serving table near the door. “There’s beer too, a little cask. Lady May brought it, in case you’d rather?”

  “You know,” I said, “I think I will have the beer if it’s there. And I probably wouldn’t turn down a mug of soup.”

  “At once!” said Maggie. She placed a silver goblet of what turned out to be ale carefully in my left hand, then scurried out of the room. I heard her giving orders to people outside.

  I looked around the room. The walls were hung with velvet tapestries showing women dancing with wild leaps and arm gestures. The figures were simplified and woven in pastels which contrasted sharply with the dark green background.

  I wondered what sort of woman Ziga had been. If this was even her room, of course.

  The door opened. Guntram came in. I started to get up but caught myself and instead said, “Guntram! How’s Buck doing?”

  “Quite well, considering,” Guntram said. “The leg is reattached, but he won’t be able to use it as well as he did in the past.”

  “You put the leg back on?” I said in amazement. I’d been relieved when Maggie told me that Buck hadn’t died on the field—been put down, most likely. I hadn’t dreamed that he wouldn’t be three-legged for the rest of his life.

  “Well, the couch did,” Guntram said. “The muscles were burned back some distance on both sides of the cut. The damage is being removed but it can’t be repaired. Of course, without the searing, all the blood would have drained out.”

  “I’ve known plenty of people who limp,” I said. “I’m glad that Buck’s in that good of shape. It’s cheap at the price, I suppose.”

  I thought about the fight. I had a few vivid memories—the time I’d almost missed catching Baran’s stroke and his weapon had swept down within a finger’s breadth of my right elbow; how I felt as I saw Baran’s weapon start to descend the third time as he tried to smash me flat—but I didn’t have a connected memory of the whole trial.

  “It wasn’t Buck’s fight, though, you know,” I said. “He shouldn’t have to pay for it.”

  Guntram shrugged. “It wasn’t your fight either, Pal,” he said. “You’re certainly paying for it, though. And you could have been killed.”

  “I chose it, though, Guntram,” I said. “It was for justice.”

  Guntram smiled. His smiles always looked sad to me. He said, “Dogs don’t need philosophies, they just fight. It seems to me that men do the same, though they usually come up with reasons. Justice is a good one.”

  “I wouldn’t have come to Dun Add if I didn’t believe in justice,” I said. I wasn’t arguing, just sorting out how I felt.

  “I’m glad you did come here, Pal,” said Guntram. “I wasn’t bored—who could be bored with so many wonderful things to find?—but you certainly brought me out of the pattern I had been living in.”

  I thought about the fight as I drank more of the ale. I said, “Oh, Guntram? The way you changed my weapon, you and Louis, saved my life. But can you change it back before I go out again?”

  “Yes, you’re not going to have to fight Lord Baran again,” Guntram said, smiling slightly. “And in fact Louis is already working on it. I’ll look over what he does, but I don’t think there’s anything I could do with fighting tools that Louis couldn’t do better and faster.”

  Guntram shook his head. “I don’t think you realize how hard it was for Louis to adjust your weapon as we did, Pal,” he said.

  “I bloody well do know how tricky that was,” I said. “I’m not much of a Maker beside the two of you, but I hope I’m good enough to judge that.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean,” Guntram said. “Of course that was a task, but it was easy enough to see what had to be done when we were in the weapon. The problem for Louis was to be willing to do that to an artifact which he considered a nearly perfect balance of factors. Your life depended on it, but I’m afraid that—”

  Guntram’s smile was as broad as it ever got.

  “—while Louis likes and I think respects you, Pal, he’s really more committed to his art than he is to any human being. I don’t mean to offend you.”

  I laughed. “I’m not offended,” I said. “Louis wouldn’t be as good as he is if he didn’t—care about good workmanship. And I’m glad he’s changing the weapon back to being the way it ought to be.”

  I looked at the window—there was nothing for me to see out it from my angle—and said, “Guntram. Thank you and Louis. I couldn’t have fought Baran without the way you adjusted my equipment. You beat Baran, not me.”

  “That’s a little strong, don’t you think?” Guntram said mildly. “If we’d laid the equipment on the field, it wouldn’t have beaten Lord Baran. And if you’d been even slightly less skilled, Baran would have killed you anyway. I was watching, remember. Besides—”

  He smiled again.

  “—Baran would have been much less effective if he hadn’t been using what Louis assures me is as good a set of equipment as he’s ever made. He’s amazed and not altogether pleased that you overloaded Baran’s shield with that last blow. Though he’s happy about the result, of course.”

  He pursed his lips and said, speaking to the memory rather than to me, “Your next to last blow.”

  Someone tapped on the door. I called, “Come in,” expecting Maggie to appear with the soup.

  The door opened. It was a pottery mug of soup, but the Leader was carrying it. He saw Guntram and said, “Hello, Master. Louis tells me that we have you partly to thank for the good result in the trial.”

  “Partly, yes,” Guntram said, getting to his feet. “Pal, don’t push yourself for a few days. Right now, I’ll get back to Buck. Jon, things are well on your end?”

  “Never better, Master,” Jon said, bowing to his foster father. From the Leader’s expression, if “never better” was the truth, things for him were usually very bad.

  When Guntram went out, Jon turned to me. I set the empty goblet on the floor and took the soup in my left hand.

  “How’s your right arm?” Jon asked, frowning.

  I held it out to the side and wriggled the fingers. “It’s bandaged to the shoulder so the elbow doesn’t bend very well,” I said. “Other than that, it’s all right. It sort of throbs when my heart beats, you know.”

  “I’ll send Master Melchior over to change the bandage when I return,” Jon said. “I’m surprised you’re not on Guntram’s healing couch. There’s still some who’re afraid of it, but you’ve used the couch before, haven’t you?”

  “The couch is occupied,” I said. “I don’t need it and he does.”

  I didn’t explain who “he” was. To me—and maybe Guntram, or else he was just doing what he knew I’d want—it seemed the right choice, but I wasn’t sure anybody else would think giving the couch to a hurt dog made sense.

  I drank some of the soup, beef and vegetable. It was warm, but not so hot that I had to be careful about how fast I drank it.

  “Well, you know best, I suppose,” Jon said. His tone meant that he thought I was a fool. “I assure you that my Consort is very grateful to you. She has property of her own, you know, and I believe she intends to transfer something to you—but I shouldn’t have spoken, she’ll want to give you the details herself.”

  “Sir, tell her that’s really not necessary!” I said, louder than I wished I’d been when I remembered I was talking to the Leader. More calmly I said, “Look, tell her another nice suit like the one I ruined in the fight, that’d be wonderful.”

  “I believe there will be a suit. Suits, in fact,” Jon said. His expression was as close to cheerful as I’d seen it since I came back to Dun Add. “My understanding is that each of Jolene’s ladies is sewing one, and there’s something of a competition going on.”

  I closed my eyes. “My Lord,” I muttered. “Sir, I was just standing up for Lady Jolene for justice’s sake. Nothing else.”

  Jon snorted. “I believe you,” he said. “I don’t know how many o
ther people will, but Master Guntram raised me. He does things because they’re the right thing to do, in his mind. Nothing else matters to him. Eh?”

  “Yessir,” I said. “That’s Master Guntram.”

  I’d been wrong to think that everybody I knew was trying to climb a pyramid. Guntram wasn’t that way…and I surely wasn’t.

  “Well, Master Guntram sees right and wrong as being a great deal clearer than a ruler is able to,” Jon said. “I respect him for it, of course.”

  He’d been frowning down at the back of his hand when he spoke. He raised his eyes to me and said, “I suppose you see things that way too, Lord Pal?”

  “Yessir,” I said. “I suppose I do.”

  He shook his head, looking down at his hands again. “Well, the Commonwealth needs people like you two,” he said. Looking up abruptly, he said, “Lord Clain is back, by the way. I’m afraid the business of government hasn’t been kept up to date in the absence of my Chancellor. It’s my fault, but I couldn’t seem to concentrate.”

  Jon cleared his throat and went on, “He and my wife are trying to put things in order right now. I’ll join them shortly, but I wanted to see you as soon as you were awake and thank you. I’m sure Jolene and Clain will be up to see you before long. Clain arrived in the middle of the trial. He was most impressed by your performance, Lord Pal.”

  “There wasn’t much to be impressed by,” I said. “I just kept deflecting Baran’s strokes. I didn’t swing at him until I’d lost my temper.”

  “Lord Pal,” Jon said in a harder voice; the voice of the Leader. “I have no idea how Makers like you and Louis and Guntram work. And I realize you may think that I’m a fool in certain ways—”

  “Sir! No sir!”

  “—and it may be that you’re right,” Jon continued. “But I am a warrior. It was Clain and me and nobody else worth mentioning who cleared Dun Add of the bandits all those years ago. We were just boys, then, but we did it.”

  “Yes sir,” I said.