Arms-Commander

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Nothing that I could say, ser.”

  Saryn wasn’t going to get any more out of Hryessa. When the captain didn’t want to say more, she didn’t, and nothing changed that.

  “Do any of the younger ones make plays for Daryn?” she asked, more to indicate she wasn’t about to press than to seek information Hryessa wasn’t about to provide.

  “Not more than once,” replied the captain with a laugh.

  If so many of the guards hadn’t been so badly beaten and abused, or disliked men in general, the problem would have come up even sooner. In a way, Saryn was surprised, in hindsight, that it hadn’t surfaced before, but then some of the emotional scars were fading, and some of the junior guards had come to Westwind as young girls with their mothers. They’d been young enough that they didn’t have quite the same level of negativity as the older guards.

  All that just reinforced Istril’s concerns about the need to change matters with regard to men, and that was likely to result in more tension between Saryn and Ryba. Yet Istril was right, and Hryessa’s comments just reinforced that concern.

  Still, there wasn’t anything Saryn could do at the moment, either about Dealdron or men in general. She had to admit, for all of her initial skepticism, that Dealdron seemed to be a good person…but there was something about the way he looked at her when he didn’t think she was watching, not that she felt anything wrong or negative…but…still…

  She shook her head, then scanned the road ahead, but she sensed no others besides those from Westwind.

  XXII

  By mid afternoon on twoday, Saryn and first squad were out of the hills, past the smaller hamlets, and riding down a gentle grade between meadows and recently planted fields. Just before Saryn and Hryessa rode Xanda, one of the junior guards. She carried a standard bearing a parley flag since Saryn didn’t want anyone thinking the squad was the forerunner of an invasion force, especially with the possibility that the Suthyans might have spread that sort of false rumor. She just hoped that the locals recognized the white banner with the blue circle for what it was.

  Ahead was a kaystone rising out of the green early grass that would brown under the summer heat. Saryn had to squint to make out the words once engraved in the stone and almost weathered away. HENSPA—3 K.

  “Ayrlyn said something about this place.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “Good.”

  “Let’s hope it’s still that way.”

  Just beyond where the road flattened out ahead was a low hill on the right side of the road. On the mostly level ground between the road and the slope rose a holding of some sort, with a large barn and several outbuildings, and three small houses. Beyond the holding, the road curved to the northwest around the hill. Two men and a boy were working on a stone wall of a corral beside one of the smaller outbuildings. The boy pointed, and the men turned. Then one said something, and the three watched, stone-faced, as Saryn and the guards rode past.

  Once they were halfway around the curve, Saryn could see where the brown clay road straightened and led into the town. A scattering of huts or cots, set almost haphazardly on small plots of land, flanked the road for about a kay. Beyond them were more regularly placed stucco dwellings. Once most likely white, the houses were tinged a brownish tan, with gray-tile roofs.

  “More of the black sheep.” Hryessa pointed to a small flock to the right of the road, tended by a small barefoot girl and two scruffy dogs.

  Closer to the town proper, under a porch of slanted planks on a rough timber frame, a graying woman struggled with laundry in a wooden tub held together with woven bark strips. Several chickens pecked in the dirt beside the hut. The light breeze carried various smells to Saryn, and she wouldn’t have wanted to look into the source of any of them.

  No one actually closed shutters, and that did happen, Saryn had heard, although she hadn’t seen it on her one previous trip to Lornth. Two bent and graying men, standing outside a smithy, stared. From inside came the sound of a hammer on metal, and the faint odor of hot iron and charcoal drifted around Saryn.

  The square in the center of Henspa was anything but impressive, with a modest pedestal and a weathered statue in the center, surrounded by a low brick wall that needed so much repointing that it appeared likely to collapse in a strong wind. Of the buildings around the square, the only two that had received much care were the chandlery, where the two crossed candles had been recently repainted yellow, and the inn, the next building west of the chandlery. The inn boasted a signboard with the glossy black image of a well-endowed bull. By comparison, the cooperage across the square from the inn and the chandlery was so dingy that Saryn couldn’t even tell what sort of finish might once have graced the plank siding and the drooping shutters. Even the pair of display barrels flanking the door were stained from rust oozing from their hoops.

  “Angels!” boomed a loud voice. The man who stepped out from under the shade of the inn’s porch was a giant, but his mahogany hair and well-trimmed beard were tinged with streaks of gray. He looked directly at Saryn, who signaled for the squad to halt.

  “You’d be one of the angels, I take it?”

  “Yes. We’re traveling to Lornth to meet with the regents.”

  “I’m Essin. I run the Black Bull here. My ma, it’s half hers, she said anytime any angels came to town, she wanted to talk to ’em. Been that way ever since…well…a good ten years. Be a good thing, especially now. We don’t have enough rooms for all of you, but you can have the stable, and you and the other angel there, you can have the big room.”

  “We couldn’t pay for all that,” Saryn said with a smile.

  “Oh…there’d be no charge for the rooms, just for any meals.”

  Saryn sensed the man’s honesty, but she didn’t understand why he’d make such an offer.

  “Not my idea. It’s Ma’s, and she pretty much still runs Henspa.” He shrugged. “I do as she wants. Anyway, you spend time talking to her, and you get the stable and the rooms.”

  Saryn offered a smile. “That’s the best offer we’ve had on the whole journey.”

  “You really headed to see the regents?” His eyes moved to the parley flag.

  “Yes. They need to know some things.”

  “As if that’d be anything new.” Essin shook his head. “If you’d have the stable, it’s behind the inn. Take the lane there.” He pointed. “Once you’ve got your…folk…settled, if you’d not mind, Ma would enjoy talking with you here on the porch.”

  Saryn turned to Hryessa. “If you and the squad would check out the stable…”

  “Yes, ser.”

  For a time, neither Saryn nor the innkeeper spoke.

  “You don’t see many of the local lord-holder’s armsmen here, do you?” she finally asked.

  “Haven’t seen any of Lord Jaffrayt’s men in years, except for the ones that come every harvest with the tariff collector. Pretty much leave us alone, and we like it that way.”

  “What about traders?”

  “Not many. We get some factors around harvesttime, looking for spare grain or cattle, or black ewes. Not interested in much else that we have here. Except there were some Suthyans here an eightday or two back. Only one trader and a bunch of armsmen. Talked to a few folks, and Ma, then left.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Ma would have to tell you. I wasn’t there.” Essin shook his big head. “Don’t much care for traders in fancy clothes. Means they cheated someone.”

  “So what pays for the inn?”

  “Didn’t say we didn’t get travelers. Mixed bunch. Enough. Sometimes not enough, but Ma put enough aside for the rough times, what with the rents from her other lands.”

  “How do people make a living here?”

  “Like folks everywhere. Some farm. The bottomland west of the river fetches up good maize, and the higher land does oats and wheat-corn pretty good. Wool from the black sheep brings a fair price, and we got a tin mine a bit south. Slow going there, but it helps.”<
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  At that moment, Hryessa rode back from the lane and reined up. “Looks good, ser.”

  Saryn nodded to Essin. “You’ve got a deal, innkeeper. How much for supper?”

  “Two coppers each, with one lager. Another two coppers for the second lager.”

  “And fodder?”

  “A silver for oats, and that’s a cup for each mount, and all the hay they can eat.”

  Almost a gold. Saryn couldn’t have afforded that every night, but with only two more days, three at the most, to Lornth, they had enough, and the mounts could use the fodder. “Agreed.” She nodded to Hryessa, then dismounted and handed the gelding’s reins to the captain. “I’ll be with you in a while.”

  Saryn climbed the three wooden steps to the porch, keeping a bit of distance from the overlarge innkeeper, out of habit.

  “Ma! Got your favorite guests.” A rolling chuckle followed Essin’s words.

  Favorite guests? Saryn couldn’t sense any menace in the man, but his words bothered her because they suggested a certain familiarity.

  A woman a good head taller than Saryn opened the front door of the inn. Holding to her arm was a white-haired woman.

  The older woman moved slowly, if steadily, but her brown eyes were bright and centered immediately on Saryn. “I’m Jennyleu. You’re one of the real angels, aren’t you? Could tell it right away. Something about all of you.” She settled into the straight-backed wooden chair, then released her grip on the strong forearm of her young escort. “Sit down over on the bench, Lessa.”

  The woman smiled, her eyes turning to Saryn before she settled onto the backless bench.

  The commander sensed that Lessa had seen angels before.

  Essin picked up the other bench and set it down in an easy movement right in front of the chair. “You might as well be comfortable.”

  Although she seated herself, Saryn wondered how long she could take the hard wood after all the riding.

  Jennyleu continued to study Saryn for several moments before speaking. “It was ten years ago, almost to the day, as I recall. Two angels rode in. One of them was carrying a child in a pack. No-good cousins, Gustor and Buil, went after ’em with blades. The one angel fellow, he wasn’t all that big, tried to warn ’em. Buil tried to stab him in the back. Next thing I knew, both of them were laid out in the road—right out there—dead as a pair of slaughtered oxen. He took care of them with those little swords, threw one of them right through Buil.”

  Saryn nodded. She’d never heard the story, but it had to have been Nylan and Ayrlyn.

  “You know about that?” asked Jennyleu.

  “I never heard the story, but I know who they were.”

  “What ever happened to him?”

  “He was the one who destroyed the Cyadoran army when they attacked Lornth. After that, he headed to the Great Forest.” That was what Nylan had called it.

  “He was the mage that turned the skies black and toppled all the cities in Cyador and drowned two or three of them?”

  Those were details Ryba hadn’t passed on. Finally, Saryn said, “That was Nylan. Ayrlyn helped him.”

  “Seemed like nice folks,” said Jennyleu.

  “They were,” murmured Lessa. “I saw how good he was with the boy.”

  “Grandchildren are worse than children,” snorted Jennyleu. “They know everything.” Her eyes returned to Saryn. “You know any more about them?”

  “He sends messages occasionally. Cyador, he says, pretty much fell apart.”

  “That’s what we heard here.” Jennyleu shook her head. “I told Wister and his boys not to mess with him. Coulda told the Cyadorans the same thing. They were always a nasty bunch, anyways. Never satisfied with what they had. Always trying to grab more. The Suthyans are sorta like that, too, except they want to buy everything cheap.” Her eyes twinkled.

  “Your son said some Suthyans came through here a few eightdays ago.”

  “Fancy-dressed fellow spouted nonsense about you angels killing a fellow at supper.”

  “We did. That was after he tried to poison the Marshal, then went for her with a blade. The Marshal turned the rest of them out in the darkness.”

  “Figured it might be something like that.” Jennyleu nodded. “Sneaky bastards, those Suthyans. Told ’em to go on their way. Not before I got Essin to tariff ’em double for the feed and fodder.” She laughed softly.

  Essin laughed. “They don’t count that well, either. Overcharged them, and they never caught it.”

  “Some people in Lornth might believe the trader,” suggested Saryn.

  “Not real folk, they wouldn’t. Even the lord-holders wouldn’t believe ’em.”

  “What do you think about the regents?” asked Saryn.

  “What is there to think? Anytime Lady Zeldyan wants to do something that makes sense, the lord-holders start making noises like they’d make her boy overlord now and be his regents rather than her. Mostly, it’s the menfolk causing problems, ’less they listen to a good woman.”

  Saryn laughed. “You and the Marshal agree on that.”

  “We haven’t seen many raiders since she started patrolling the Roof of the World, not for long, anyway. That’s more than the lords and regents in Lornth ever been able to do.” She paused. “You didn’t say why you were going to Lornth.”

  “We wanted to talk to her about the Suthyans. They tried to buy off the Marshal—before they tried to kill her. We thought Lady Zeldyan should know.”

  “Like as not, she knows how treacherous the Suthyans are. Making that young idiot Kelthyn understand is another thing. He likes being regent more than doing what he ought.”

  “Was Lord Sillek like that?”

  “No. One reason why he’s dead. He kept trying to keep the old lord-holders from warring with Westwind. His mama, Lady Ellindyja, wanted revenge ’cause you angels killed her consort. A course, even if he was overlord, Lord Nessil wasn’t any better than his lord-holders. He was just meaner. She kept stirring up trouble…you all know what happened.”

  “How do you know all this?” asked Saryn.

  Jennyleu laughed. “Haelora. She’s my niece. Vernt’s, really. She and her consort, they’ve got an inn off the square in Lornth. The Square Platter. Vernt staked ’em, years back. She writes good letters. Not all that often, but the gossip’s good.”

  As she listened to Jennyleu, Saryn couldn’t help but find herself liking the straightforward old woman and wishing that dealing with the regents would be that direct.

  XXIII

  Despite Jennyleu’s comments about the Suthyans and Saryn’s worries, travel for the next two days was uneventful, past hillsides filled with inhospitable ironwoods and hamlets populated by Lornians who were neither friendly nor unfriendly—just wary. On fiveday morning, under a clear green-blue sky and less than a glass after setting out from their camp on the hillside lands of a halfway-friendly herder, Saryn caught sight of a rider in brown, stationed on a rise nearly a kay ahead. Abruptly, he turned his mount, but before he disappeared, she caught the glint of sunlight on metal—armor of some sort, she thought.

  “You think that was a scout, ser?” asked Hryessa, easing her mount along beside Saryn.

  “He was a scout. He wasn’t wearing purple or blue. Those are the Lornian colors.”

  “Local lord-holder, then.”

  “That’s the best option.” Saryn certainly didn’t want to run into Jeranyi or Suthyan forces, since that would have proved the regents had no control away from the capital city.

  Almost half a glass passed before Saryn caught sight of a kaystone ahead on the right, one newer and considerably more elaborate than any they had passed earlier. The oblong stone sat on its own pedestal and bore the name DUEVEK in elaborate Anglorat lettering. The name was framed by a sculpted frieze depicting sheaves of grain.

  Saryn blotted her forehead, already damp in the still air. “Of course, the road’s down here where it doesn’t catch the wind,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone.
/>   Past the kaystone, the road turned more due west, toward the town proper, but to the northeast of the town was a flattened hilltop on which stood a walled villa, and a wide road leading down from it to the main road. While there were scattered cots on the left, with small plots and outbuildings, the lands on the right were empty of habitations, with just wide meadows and tended fields. Farther away were orchards.

  “These have to belong to the local holder.” Saryn gestured to the left. As she did, she caught side of the dust on the road down from the villa—and she began to sense…something.

  She turned to Hryessa. “That scout told the local lordling we were coming. Have everyone ready arms and string their bows, all of them. We’re about to be stopped. We couldn’t outride them. Their mounts are fresher. I’d like to talk them out of anything foolish, but I’m not counting on it.”

  “No, ser.” Hryessa eased her mount to the side. “Guards, to arms! String all bows!” Then she rejoined Saryn.

  The two—and Xanda, still bearing the parley flag—continued to ride toward the town ahead, followed by the thirty Westwind guards. As they approached the point where the road from the villa met the main way, Saryn concentrated on the armsmen. The local armed riders were uniformed in brown, and had taken a position across the road. There was also another group of riders hidden behind a small orchard to the right of the road.

  “We’ll play stupid,” Saryn said quietly. “We’ll stop, but with enough distance to use the bows, if necessary. We probably will, because there’s another group behind that orchard there.”

  “We could just ride the ones here down and kill them,” suggested Hryessa.

  “We have to let them see the parley flag and give them an opportunity to do the right thing. We just won’t give them much of a chance to do anything else.” Even with the local lord-holder’s forces more than half a kay away, Saryn could sense the hostility. “We’ll halt a good thirty yards out. Have the archers ready to take out the leader and the first rank at my command.”

  “Yes, sir.” Hryessa let her mount drop back, then turned and began to convey Saryn’s orders. Before all that long, she rejoined the commander. “They understand. They’ll take care of the first rank and as many others as they can if they attack.”