Deeds of Honor

by Elizabeth Moon

  Deeds of Honor: Paksenarrion World Chronicles

  Copyright © 2014 by Elizabeth Moon

  All rights reserved.

  Collected for the first time in this ebook by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc., in 2014.

  Cover design by Tara O'Shea.

  ISBN 978-1-625671-12-7

  1. Point of Honor - originally published at Suvudu.com, copyright © 2010 by Elizabeth Moon.

  2. Falk's Oath - originally published at the Paksworld blog, copyright © 2011 by Elizabeth Moon. It has been updated for this collection.

  3. Cross Purposes - originally published at Suvudu.com, copyright © 2010 by Elizabeth Moon. It has been updated for this collection.

  4. Torre's Ride - originally appeared at the Paksworld blog, copyright © 2011 by Elizabeth Moon. It has been updated for this collection.

  5. A Parrion of Cooking - an original story for Deeds of Honor, copyright © 2014 by Elizabeth Moon.

  6. Vardan's Tale - originally published at the Paksworld blog, copyright © 2009 by Elizabeth Moon. It has been updated for this collection.

  7. Those Who Walk in Darkness - originally published in Lunar Activity, copyright © 1990 by Elizabeth Moon.

  8. The Last Lesson - an original story for Deeds of Honor, copyright © 2014 by Elizabeth Moon.

  For the latest updates about Elizabeth's novels, and everything related to The Deed of Paksenarrion, Paladin's Legacy, The Legacy of Gird, Vatta's War, and The Serrano Legacy series, as well as her standalone novels, visit the Paksworld blog (www.paksworld.com).

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Point of Honor

  Falk's Oath

  Cross Purposes

  Torre's Ride

  A Parrion of Cooking

  Vardan's Tale

  Those Who Walk in Darkness

  The Last Lesson

  Also by Elizabeth Moon

  Point of Honor

  Vérella

  * * * *

  "I didn't cause this mess," Arvid Semminson said to the group of thieves crammed into a small back room above a weaver's workshop, two hands of days after the paladin had escaped alive. "But I may be able to get us out of it." He polished the dagger he held with scrap of silk, turning it to catch the light as if to be sure no speck marred it.

  "You!" The speaker was the tallest of the group, a heavy-shouldered man Arvid knew had led the local guild's rougher members. "You never been around Vérella that much. I don't know anything about you. How do we know it's not all your fault?"

  Arvid smiled. "You don't know me because I was Guildmaster Galin's appointment." Galin, who had died four years before, supposedly of a fever. Arvid had his doubts. Galin had been an orthodox follower of Simyits, the traditional patron of thieves, not Liart the Bloodlord. His successor, the late—and by Arvid unlamented—Terin, had welcomed the red priests and their Horned Chain symbol. It would not be the first time a Guildmaster was killed by someone who wanted his position. "I collected accounts due the Guild all over Tsaia," Arvid said. He blew on the tip of the dagger, and smiled over the blade at the others.

  "You're the enforcer!" said one of the women. "I heard about you." She was a plump, motherly woman and the best pickpocket in the city; street boys learned from her. Arvid had learned from another much like her.

  "The senior enforcer," Arvid said. "And, at the moment, the man you most want to be Guildmaster." There it was, his reason for being in the city at all.

  "I'm the ranking member left," the tall man said. "Harsin Gnadsson. I was thirteenth in line from Terin Guildmaster; Galat there can vouch for it. If the books hadn't burned—"

  Galat nodded. "S'true," he said. "But them others was caught and killed."

  "Interesting," Arvid said. Though he could imagine the burly man killing another to gain a rank or two, he doubted Harsin had killed them. Many thieves died the very night the paladin's torture ended, for the Girdish had stormed the underground hall barely a ladyglass after the pledge was redeemed. More since, in the scouring of the city. He ran his thumb along the dagger blade. "And what would I find if I slit your shirt below the waist, Harsin? Is there by any chance a Horned Chain tattoo just there at the small of your back? Or is yours lower down?"

  Harsin paled. Right now, in this city full of angry Girdish Marshals, the merest rumor of a Horned Chain tattoo would lead to arrest and discovery...and death.

  "You wouldn't," Harsin said. "Thieves' honor—"

  "We are all thieves here, are we not?" Arvid said. He slid that dagger into his boot, drew another from his sleeve. "And among thieves, loyalty to the Guild is our first duty, is it not?"

  "Yes..." came mutters from them all.

  "Then of course I would not betray one of us to the Girdish. But at this time, friends, we need a Guildmaster who has—if not the favor, at least the tolerance—of the law. And I, having saved their paladin's life—"

  "Why was that?" asked Harsin. He did not sound the respectful. "Why bother with her? Because you fell for her yellow hair two or three years ago in some country town? What was she like in bed, that you risk the Guild—"

  Arvid moved so suddenly that the flat of his alley blade—five fingers wide, two handspans long, sharp both edge and point—was against Harsin's throat before anyone else moved. The man could not even swallow without cutting himself. "Because I foresaw that Terin Guildmaster's plot would fail, that allying the Guild with the Horned Chain cult was stupid and would, at some point, have exactly the result it did—exposing the Guild to the Girdish and getting most of us killed. Saving her proves thieves are not all Horned Chain, and it is service done. Their law is part gnomish; they will give service for service."

  Without looking away from Harsin's eyes, now white-rimmed with fear, he said to the others, "Either you accept me as Guildmaster, because I am wiser than Terin and also have at least some tolerance from the Girdish, or I will leave you all here to be hunted down as the others were—the Girdish have not exhausted their anger yet—and go to a place where the Guildmaster is not a fool."

  Harsin blinked in the thieves' code for Your lead. Arvid stepped back, shifting his grip on the alley blade to the ritual position for accepting obeisance, point toward them all.

  "Do you then accept me as your Guildmaster?" he said to Harsin.

  Harsin swallowed, nodded, and then knelt, both knees thudding on the floor. Arvid hoped no one but the weaver was downstairs to hear. "I, Harsin, master thief, formerly thirteenth in rank to former Guildmaster Terin, accept Arvid Semminson as Guildmaster of Vérella, and to him swear obedience and loyalty. On my honor as master thief."

  Arvid held out the blade; Harsin nicked his left thumb with the tip, swiped blood on the upper half, and then kissed it. The others quickly followed, one by one kneeling—more silently than Harsin—drawing their own blood, kissing the blade, making their oath. Finally Arvid nicked his own thumb, rubbing his blood into the marks made by theirs, and then wiping the blade clean with another square of silk, this one white so the stain showed.

  "By this blood, we are agreed," he said. "I am Guildmaster, and you are my people. Obey me, and I will see you safe, to the last drop of my own blood. Honor among thieves; deceit to our enemies."

  "Aye, Master," they all said.

  Arvid looked them over: the fourteen women, the six men. A finger of the hand the Guild had been in this division of the city; the situation was as bad everywhere, he knew. And yet, he had now been proclaimed Master in more than half the divisions. He had won. He sliced the bloodstained cloth into fragments with the same blade they'd sworn on and gave a piece to each, folding the rest carefully and tucking it in his belt-pouch.

  "So," he said. "Now we get to work. Harsin, I choose you first for this
division, and may choose you my second overall if you please me this next tenday." Harsin nodded. He must know that Arvid did not trust him wholly; he would soon show whether he was loyal or not. "We must find you all safe lodging," Arvid went on. "Our weaver friend is like to be discovered if there's too much traffic here."

  "A new Guildhouse?" Harsin asked.

  "Eventually," Arvid said. He pulled out coins from his pocket. "This should feed you for a few days; send but one to market, and all must be purchased honestly." Harsin nodded again, and handed the money on to the motherly pickpocket.

  Later, in his comfortable room at the Silver Bells, Arvid pulled out the alley blade and looked at it thoughtfully. Everything had gone very smoothly, all things considered. Paks had said Gird might have a use for him—might care about the Thieves' Guild. Surely it wasn't Gird who had made it so easy to take over...surely it was Terin's stupid alliance with those fiends of the Horned Chain...he shuddered at the memory. Thieving and killing and even a spot of scaring the fools who didn't pay their Guild dues was nothing like what they'd done. But he could despise torturers like the Horned Chain without changing himself...couldn't he?

  Maybe.

  The word came from nowhere and made no outward sound, but in his head the voice was that of a man used to command. His skin pulled up into gooseflesh as if someone had poured a mug of cold water down his spine. No. He was not listening to any voices. Not now, with a Guild chapter to manage. Even if it was...what that paladin had said, even if becoming Master of the Vérella Guild was some kind of reward for saving her, that was the most it could be. Gird had no use for thieves and killers; his past protected him from any demand that he be...try to be...good. He shrugged his shoulders, rammed the alley blade back into its sheath, and went downstairs. A good hot meal and a mug or two of mulled wine would ensure a good night's sleep with no bothersome thoughts.

  Maybe.

  The End

  Author's Note on "Point of Honor"

  When Arvid Semminson, the dapper enforcer for the Thieves' Guild first met the not-yet-paladin Paksenarrion in Sheepfarmer's Daughter his life and hers were already on the slippery slope of change, though neither realized the cliff they'd fall off, or that they would meet again… and again. Neither did I. Arvid was conceived as a minor character, an urban, sophisticated foil for a rural town full of provincial rustics with whom my protagonist felt at home. But there he was again, almost two books later, toward the end of Oath of Gold, clearly the only person in a position to sneak a supposedly dead paladin out of a torture chamber. Some twenty years later in real-time -- in book-time much less -- he showed up in Kings of the North as someone much closer to the cliff-edge of decision and radical change. How did he get from the Arvid of Oath of Gold to the Arvid of Crown of Renewal? It began with this little story, in the days immediately after he had saved Paksenarrion's life, the first time he heard that voice.

  Falk's Oath

  Falk was the youngest of seven princes in a kingdom that was not particularly rich. The three eldest went out on a ritual quest in hopes of finding wealth and honor, but on their way home, having indeed found both wealth and honor, they fell into the hands of an evil king who imprisoned them, claiming they'd committed a hideous crime. Some say each of the princes had done something foolish, and some tell it that they had done nothing at all. This evil king, it is said, had told his officers to accuse any wealthy traveler of serious crimes, that he might enrich himself thereby, stealing their possessions and—when chance allowed—demanding a ransom to free them.

  A prince—certainly three princes—suited this king's ambitions. He was certain he could wring substantial ransom from their father. So word was sent to their father that vast sums must be paid, hundreds of gold pieces for each, or the princes would be enslaved for the rest of their lives. With great difficulty, Falk's father collected almost the sum demanded, and sent Falk (not wishing to risk the next eldest brothers) to pay the ransom.

  Falk was then just of age to be knighted, a youth of handsome mien and very popular for his gracious manners and his generous nature. As the youngest, he had no pride of place, and—his mother having died at his birth—he had never been indulged, but rather blamed for her death, as sometimes happens. He loved all his brothers, though they were—as elders can be—sometimes less than loving to him. He did imagine that he might do great deeds someday that would impress his father and his brothers, as any youth brought up on ideals of honor and courage might, but on the whole he did what he was bid day by day without complaints. So he took the gold, which he knew was not enough, and hoped to convince the evil king to free his brothers anyway.

  When he arrived at the evil king's palace, and was announced, he was brought before the king, and there on one side were his brothers, half-naked and bound in chains, gaunt, with the marks of ill-treatment on them. Falk would have gone to them and embraced them, but the king prevented him, saying "Have you brought the ransom?"

  "I have," Falk said. He could not bring himself to lie. "As much as my father could gather," he added. He handed over the bags of gold, and there before the king one of the king's men counted them out, lip curled scornfully that not all were the large gold pieces, but many were silver or even copper. And the count was short, as Falk knew it would be: ten full gold pieces short.

  "How dare you!" the wicked king said. "You waste my time with this! You have coins in your wallet, I daresay."

  And Falk did, money to feed himself and his brothers on their way home. But at the king's wrath, and though he knew it would still be too little, he emptied wallet and pockets of everything he had, and stripped the birth-ring from his finger, and the king's man counted this too. It was still short, by eight gold pieces and two silvers.

  "You waste my time," the king said again. "If I were not a merciful man, I would imprison you as well and take this gold for my time you have wasted, but it is enough to ransom some of you. Choose who will go free."

  "Let them go, and take me," Falk said, looking at his brothers. He could not imagine going back to his father without all of them. He could not imagine leaving one behind.

  "What, and then he will send another without the right ransom again, and I will have the feeding of you all that time?"

  "No," Falk said, though he felt the cruelty in that king's gaze, and knew that the "feeding" would be all too little, if the king agreed. But he was young and thought he could endure it better than his brothers. "No, I will swear to serve you as you please for a term of years—a year for each?—to make up the missing ransom for the one."

  "And your own," the king said, stroking his beard. "A year for each is not enough." Looking on Falk's youth, the king took pleasure in the thought of spoiling his life, and the joy of his brothers and father as well. "I do not know what your work is worth, certainly not near eight gold pieces a year. My serfs are not worth so much. Let me think—you are one of seven brothers. Two years for each of you—fourteen years, are you willing?"

  "Yes," said Falk, though he felt a great hollow inside at the thought. How could that be fair, when three of his brothers had never been prisoners here? And could he survive fourteen years of servitude under such a man? Yet other men did; some were slaves for a lifetime. Surely he, a prince bred and trained, could stand it if they could. "Free them," he said, as if the order were his to give.

  So there in the king's hall, the king's men stripped Falk of his princely clothes and threw them to his brothers to wear, and he was put in chains and led away, not allowed even one parting embraces or touch of his brothers' hands. The youngest of those, who had been Falk's favorite, called out "We will keep your place for you!" and a guard hit him across the face. Then the brothers, afraid to curse the evil king for fear of what he would then do to Falk, took their leave and struggled home, hungry and exhausted, for they had no money; they had Falk's horse, but sold the horse halfway home, for food.

  When they arrived, the eldest begged his father to raise an army to invade and free their brother
, but the king refused. "His mother died to birth him; if it comes to that, he owes a life to the crown." Then the king announced a celebration for the brothers' return. He sought for them beautiful wives, and one by one they married and had children, and they did their best not to think of their brother's fate, who had bought their freedom.

  Falk's suffering under the evil king can well be imagined: hunger and thirst, beatings and hard work, day on day and into the night, season after season. He did every kind of hard and dirty work the king could think of, under the king's hardest taskmasters, for the king enjoyed seeing his humiliation. It galled the king that Falk did not complain; he fainted sometimes, from hunger or overwork, but never refused to work until he dropped. The king had him punished unfairly, sure that would make him complain, but it did not. Falk held to his oath, and to the knowledge that he had freed three of his brothers from prison and three others from the need of trying to rescue them.

  As the years passed, the work and ill-treatment took their toll on Falk's body, but not his spirit. No longer the handsome, princely youth, now he looked like any mistreated serf, scarred, stooped, stiff of joint. He forgot the flavor of fine foods, the feel of soft cloth, the comfort of a soft bed and warm blanket in cold, or a cooling bath in summer.

  And yet, now and again, unbidden and beyond the evil king's control, some comfort came: the scent of wild plum in spring, of roses in summer, the sound of birds singing: all those came over the walls behind which he lived. The other servants gradually came to admire him, where first they had mocked, and now and then one slipped him an extra nubbin of cheese, or spoke a kind word to him. He cherished these as gifts of the gods, as proof that he was right to have sworn that oath, and right to keep it, and he did what he could to ease the anguish of others from the nothing that he himself had.

  At last the years of his servitude were up, though he had lost track of the time himself, and it was only by the king's accountant mentioning the matter that the king was reminded. He had long grown tired of the game anyway—though he would not have loosed Falk sooner for that—for Falk as a scarred, crooked man looking older than his years was no sport now. So on the morning of that fourteenth year's completion, Falk was bidden to the king's hall for the first time since he had left it fourteen years before.