Arms-Commander

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Like Gerlich and Narliat?” While Saryn thought the veiled reference was to the two who had deserted Westwind, only to recruit locals to try to overthrow Ryba, she wanted the Marshal to make it clear that she wasn’t referring to Nylan.

  “Exactly. The engineer worked hard. I’m not that petty, Saryn.”

  “I’m sorry.” How am I ever to know? Sometimes you are, and sometimes you’re not.

  “I have to be hard, Saryn, but I try not to be petty or small. You will see, in your time. When a woman leads, even other women, anything less than firmness is weakness. Westwind cannot afford any impression of weakness. Arthanos thought we were weak because we had not shown great power in close to ten years. Power must be exercised to be believed, especially in dealing with men.” Ryba’s voice softened. “That will be hard for you, because you try to be fair, and fairness can also be viewed as weakness, especially in this world.”

  “I’ve seen that.”

  “You have, but you will come to feel it as well. It can make you bitter and force you to question the worth of what you do. Do not let the questions overwhelm you.” Abruptly, the Marshal smiled, and her tone lightened as she spoke. “I sound like a Rationalist preacher. I didn’t mean to. I’ll see you later.”

  “Yes, ser.” Saryn nodded as Ryba turned and began to walk, limping, uphill toward the road and the stables.

  After keeping the guards exercising at arms for a bit longer, Saryn dismissed them to their duties, then headed down the road and across the causeway. When she strode into Tower Black, she nearly ran into Istril, who was carrying a basket of dried herbs, possibly brinn.

  “You look like you’re headed to battle or an execution…but don’t worry,” offered the healer, “Ryba’s already left for the ice fields.”

  “I know. I hadn’t planned to talk to her.”

  “Well…” said Istril with a smile, “if you’re looking for Dealdron, he’s already up at the quarry. He always walks straight up there after arms practice.”

  “Is he still sleeping in the carpentry shop?”

  “You haven’t looked?”

  “I’ve been occupied.”

  “What do you have against him?” asked Istril gently. “You’re the one who saved him.”

  “He looks at me as if…I don’t know.”

  “As if he’s grateful? As if he’s trying to prove to you that he was worth saving?”

  “Something like that,” Saryn admitted.

  “Little Adiara accepts him, without reservations, and she lost her family to the Gallosians he was ostler for. Why can’t you?”

  Saryn didn’t have an answer. Finally, she shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s…something there.”

  “Well…he is handsome in his own way,” Istril pointed out with a mischievous smile.

  “I know, but it isn’t that.”

  The healer nodded. “He’ll be able to do without that splint in another few eightdays.”

  “And?”

  “That’s all.” Istril smiled again.

  Saryn couldn’t read what lay behind the smile, not with the shields that the healer had raised, and that bothered her. “Thank you.”

  When she left the tower, Saryn walked directly up the road past the smithy. She glanced to her right as she did, seeing a good half score of guards working on setting and mortaring stones on the barracks wall, under Daerona’s direction. She paused. From where had the mortar come? Dealdron? At that thought, her vision vanished.

  She took several deep breaths, then walked more carefully. After perhaps ten yards, she could see again. Once she reached the quarry, she found Siret busy dressing stones, but the stonecutter and healer stopped and motioned Saryn toward her.

  “How is Aemra coming with her sculpture of her mother?” asked Saryn.

  “She’s polishing it. It should be finished by full summer.” Siret paused. “He’s over at the other end, setting wedges.”

  “He’s helpful, I take it?”

  “Good enough that I can spare Daerona to do the stone-setting and mortar on the barracks walls. Aemra helps up here with the stone dressing.”

  “Where did the mortar come from?”

  “Where do you think it came from?”

  Saryn shook her head, ruefully. “How is the stonecutting coming? Will you have enough to finish the new barracks before winter?”

  “If we don’t run into trouble. We’ve got almost enough for the rear wall now. Daerona claims she’ll have three courses set all the way around by the end of the eightday. After that, things will slow because we’ll be out of mortar.”

  “He’ll have to go down to the canyon and make more. That will slow the quarrying.”

  “For now. He’s working with a couple of the Analerian women who are strong enough to handle the quarrying. By midsummer, they might be some real help.” Siret nodded.

  Saryn understood. She was just slowing Siret’s work. “Thank you.” She turned and walked to the west end of the quarry.

  When Dealdron saw Saryn standing there, he set down the heavy sledge and walked to meet her. “Arms-commander.”

  “Were you the one who made the mortar while most of the guards were gone?”

  “It was not that hard.” Dealdron shrugged. “No one was using the kilns, and there is a thin layer of limestone in the lower cliffs. It is almost buried under the other rock. Many stones were cut and waiting to be placed in the barracks walls. Without mortar, the walls could not be built. The girls helped me cut the wood. It would have been better to make charcoal first, but it can be done with green wood. I showed them how.”

  Saryn tried to sense what he was feeling…and discovered that trying to do so was like trying to peer through mist. Why? He wasn’t a mage, and he didn’t have unseen darkness clinging to him the way Istril and Siret, or even Ryba, did, although the Marshal’s talents did not seem to run to manipulating order or chaos. Was it just that he was what he claimed to be, a simple ordered man? And that simplicity and order made it hard for Saryn to sense his feelings? Or was there just a hint of order-darkness?

  “Ser?” prompted Dealdron. “Have I offended you? Or failed in some way?”

  Saryn realized that she’d just been looking at him, saying nothing, and she forced a pleasant smile. “No. You have worked very hard. Even the Marshal has said that you have made yourself very useful, and from her, that’s high praise.”

  “I have tried to follow what you told me.”

  “You’ve done well,” Saryn admitted. “I should have told you that sooner, but I…my thoughts have been elsewhere.”

  “You were worried about Arthanos.” His words were but a statement of fact. He smiled. “I did not think he would prevail.”

  “Why not?” asked Saryn, genuinely curious.

  “No one in Candar, perhaps in all the world, can stand against you and the Marshal. That I have seen.”

  Even through the sense-mist that was not quite an order shield, Saryn could make out the conviction and belief behind the words. “We’re not that powerful.”

  “The guards said you tore down the side of a mountain and flung it at Arthanos’s men.”

  “It wasn’t exactly like that,” Saryn tried to explain. “There was already a crevice in the rock, and we used explosives…and other skills…to weaken it so that it fell and rolled down the mountainside and over the Gallosians.”

  Dealdron frowned. “Could anyone else have loosened part of a mountain and let it fall on an army?”

  Saryn forced a laugh. “I wouldn’t know, and I don’t think I’d like to find out.” After the briefest pause, she asked, “How is your leg?”

  “The healers say that I will not need the brace before long.”

  “You’ll still have to be careful.”

  “I will take care. I haven’t done anything the healers told me not to do.”

  “Good.” Again, she paused. “That’s all I wanted to talk to you about. Just keep up the good work.”

  “I can do no less, Arms-
Commander.” He inclined his head politely.

  Saryn sensed there were words not spoken, but she did not press. Instead, she turned, but she could feel his eyes on her back as she began the walk back to the smithy, where she needed to check with Huldran on the progress in forging replacement arrowheads for all those lost in fighting the Gallosians.

  XL

  Over the next eightday, matters remained quiet on the Roof of the World. The air warmed into summer, and Dealdron headed down into the lower canyon with the trio and other guards to make more lime for mortar. The less-severely-wounded guards resumed their duties, and progress on the new barracks, which would be, in time, the lower level of a much larger complex, continued. Saryn had very few losses of vision, and only for a few instants. Just after midday, she was standing outside Tower Black, enjoying the sunshine and taking a break from what she had been doing—sharpening blades.

  “Saachala had a little girl this morning,” said Istril as she joined Saryn.

  “How are they?”

  “Both are fine.”

  “Ryba will be happy with that.”

  “So is Saachala. She still wishes she could have ridden against the Gallosians.”

  Saryn could understand Saachala’s hatred, considering the reason the young woman had come to Westwind pregnant. “She’ll have years of dealing with them.”

  “How long do you think they’ll behave?” asked Istril.

  “Another ten years, fifteen if we’re fortunate.”

  “You’re as cynical as the Marshal.”

  “Realistic,” countered Saryn. Even in the UFA, she’d seen the subtle discrimination against women. Had a man accomplished what Ryba had done as commander of the Winterlance, he would have been a flotilla marshal at the least, and the UFA was almost chauvinism-free compared to Candar. But then, Candar hadn’t had to deal with Sybran warrior-women, and the UFA had. “Cultures don’t change easily, sometimes never, unless great force is applied, and Ryba can’t do that yet, except once in a while.”

  “You mean you can’t. She couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “Let her take the credit.”

  “Or the blame?”

  “Either way.”

  Abruptly, Istril gestured. “The road patrol is bringing someone in under a parley flag.”

  “Gallosians, you think? Who else would need a parley flag?”

  “We’ll see.”

  Almost a quarter glass passed before the riders reined up on the causeway outside Tower Black. There were but four men, three armsmen and an older man in a more formal uniform.

  Klarissa was the squad leader at the head of the detachment, and she inclined her head. “This is Arms-Commander Saryn, second only to the Marshal in Westwind.”

  Saryn straightened.

  The officer, whose brown beard bore traces of white, bowed his head to Saryn. “Commander, I have a message from the Lord-Prefect of Gallos for the Marshal of Westwind.”

  “I’d be happy to present it to her,” said Saryn.

  “I have been ordered to wait for her response, Commander.”

  Saryn looked squarely up at the officer and smiled politely. “I will tell her that, as well.”

  His eyes widened as he met her gaze, and he quickly extended a sealed parchment envelope, lowering his eyes ever so slightly when she took it.

  Saryn crossed the yard or so to the tower entry and stepped inside. She took her time climbing the stone steps to the uppermost level of the tower, thankful she didn’t have to ride into the heights of the ice fields to find Ryba.

  The Marshal was seated at her table, with the door open to her study, writing in some sort of ledger, which she closed as she saw Saryn. “Yes?”

  “You have a message from the Prefect of Gallos.” Saryn stepped forward and handed the envelope to the Marshal.

  Ryba took it. “From the Gallosians? I saw the parley flag.”

  “The officer wore a Gallosian uniform. He said he’d been commanded to deliver the message and wait for your response. He was nervous and telling the truth.”

  “We could make him wait, but that wouldn’t inconvenience Karthanos at all and would just alienate the poor officer, who was probably sent because he’d upset his mightiness or whoever is running Gallos for the Prefect.” Ryba slipped out her belt knife and slit the envelope, then extracted the single sheet of parchment within.

  She read it and handed it to Saryn without comment. Saryn scanned the short document.

  Marshal:

  Continued conflict between our lands is less than practical or advisable.

  Therefore, in the spirit of conciliation and friendship, the land of Gallos accepts your offer and reaffirms its commitment to respecting the previously established boundaries between Gallos and Westwind. Gallos will continue to respect the rights of travelers and traders to cross freely those boundaries, subject to what ever tariffs each jurisdiction may impose.

  Under the bottom line was simply the seal of Karthanos, Prefect of Gallos.

  Saryn looked to Ryba. “That’s as much of a concession as you’re going to get, unless you invade Gallos and sack Fenard.”

  “That will do.” Ryba shook her head. “It has to.”

  “It isn’t signed, only sealed. Do you think that’s because Karthanos is too sick to reply, but someone fears we’ll do worse if they don’t reply?”

  “Does it matter? The seal offers the commitment. Besides, what would we do if they try again? Drag out this communiqué?”

  “You’ll reply in similar terms?”

  “Slightly more graciously, and with polite words suggesting that it would be a shame if similar devastation had to be wreaked on either land in the future.”

  Saryn nodded, although she shared Ryba’s judgment that Gallosian forbearance would lapse with time…or with a new ruler.

  “How are you feeling?” asked Ryba.

  “Fine. What about you?” Saryn couldn’t help but glance down, although she couldn’t see the leg brace that had replaced the splint on Ryba’s leg.

  “It’s still uncomfortable, but it wasn’t a break, more like a hairline fracture. I worry more about you. You were looking fairly washed-out after the battle…for more than an eightday.”

  Saryn started to say that what she had done had taken a great deal of effort. Instead, she just nodded. “I think everyone was tired afterward.” Those who weren’t dead.

  “What do you intend to do about your pledge to the Lady Zeldyan?”

  “Nothing now,” Saryn replied. “I said I would offer my personal help, if requested, after we dealt with Gallos. That doesn’t require me to volunteer to run down to Lornth immediately.”

  “You were rather generous with your offer, as I may have noted before, Saryn. What if you are needed here?”

  “I thought it necessary, Ryba. If we did not obtain the saltpeter and sulfur, I felt we could not defeat the Gallosians. If we could not, I would not be…available to help the Lady Zeldyan. I had nothing else to offer.”

  “What else did you offer?”

  Saryn shrugged. “Only as many guards as you would spare and who would choose to go.” Again, that wasn’t precisely what she had said, but it was close enough. “The only absolute was my personal assistance.” That was perfectly true.

  “If she requests you, that will weaken us more, even if you take only two squads.”

  “That’s possible, but anything that leaves the regents in control of Lornth will strengthen Westwind.”

  Ryba nodded. “She will ask…sooner or later. Let us hope it is later.”

  From what she had seen in Lornth, Saryn feared it would be sooner.

  The Marshal nodded. “Go offer the Gallosians modest refreshments and water for their horses, and tell them that I will have a reply shortly. You may return for it after they are fed.”

  “Yes, ser.” Saryn turned and headed down the stairs.

  Had Ryba already seen that Saryn would have to go to Lornth with two squads? How much else had sh
e seen? Saryn certainly wasn’t about to ask.

  XLI

  More than two eightdays passed, and Saryn regained control of her vision and all of her abilities to sense order and chaos flows. The road patrols reported travelers returning to the Westhorns; a trader in leathers even came to Westwind. Dealdron returned from the lower canyon with kegs filled with lime, and Aemra told Istril that Dealdron had showed her everything necessary to create the lime and the mortar. The last of the horn bows were set in their frames for their long curing. More Analerian women appeared, asking for refuge, and some even brought goods and tools and small wagons, and a horse or two. The walls of the new barracks continued to rise, and the foundations of the larger keep planned by Ryba took shape.

  And Saryn kept worrying, wondering when she would hear from Lady Zeldyan.

  On the fourth threeday of summer, in late afternoon, as Saryn made her way back down from the smithy to Tower Black and the armory, where she anticipated more work in sharpening newly forged short swords, she saw three guards riding down the road from the ridge to the north of Westwind, accompanying two unfamiliar riders. Although neither rider bore a banner, the purple-and-green uniforms announced their purpose clearly enough.

  Saryn reached the causeway well before the riders did and stood there waiting as they neared, then reined up.

  “Commander,” offered Haesta, “the Lornians have a message for you.”

  The younger courier eased his mount forward and extended his gloved hand…and an envelope on which was written in ornate script: Saryn, Arms-Commander of Westwind.

  Saryn looked at the envelope again, then up at the courier. “Thank you.” She turned to the guards. “See that they are fed and their mounts taken care of.”

  “We’ll take care of your mounts. Then you can eat,” said Haesta. “This way…”

  Once the guards escorted the riders back across the causeway and onto the road up toward the stable, Saryn slit the envelope with her belt knife and extracted the single sheet of parchment.

  Dear Arms-Commander—

  On behalf of the Regents of Lornth, I would like to invite you to meet with us, at your earliest practicable convenience, to discuss in what manner your assistance might be most valuable.