Seventh Sword - The Reluctant Swordsman Part 25

"Cowie, my liege," Nnanji said.

He seemed irritated that Lord Shonsu should find that name so inexplicably funny.

Time dragged along. Nnanji wanted to take his new toy off to a convenient pile of straw and play; Wallie spitefully forbade it. He explained about Tarru and his nets, then reluctantly mentioned that he had killed Janghiuki, but without saying how. Nnanji went as black as the cellar itself and hunched on a stool, scowling. Vixini awoke fretting, hungry and bored. Katanji sat on the straw and stared, probably wondering if this was what a swordsman's life ought to be, perhaps scared of this murdering Seventh. Cowie just sat.

How to escape from the barracks, from the temple grounds, from the town, from the island?

Wallie wanted to stand up and pace, but in that squalid hole he could only crouch, so pacing was impossible. He was cornered. Tarru had driven him by inches, like a gangster a.s.similating a neighborhood, or a Hitler swallowing a continent, relentlessly taking advantage of a peace-lover's reluctance to resort to force.

Shonsu had known what was happening. So had Wallie Smith and he had let it happen. He had told himself he was playing for time, when time had been helping his opponent more than him. His mind squirmed and twitched in its predicament as he tried to think of an escape. He could not find one, except the slim hope that Honakura might yet have some cards in hand.

Nnanji seemed to grow grimmer and grimmer. He might be blaming Tarru for corrupting the guard, or he might be reconsidering the man who had said he did not kill unless he must. A guest slaying one of his hosts? Who had started the abominations? Was preparing a trap an abomination, or did the abomination come only when the trap was sprung? Was following a guest around permissible behavior?

Wallie noted his poisonous expression and wondered if the killer earthworm might now return. Nnanji must be feeling betrayed a second time -- first by the guard and now by Shonsu. Tarru was not the only one with morale problems.

At last the door creaked, and Ani's vast shapelessness floated in. She came to a stop in front of Wallie and shook her head sadly.

"Lord Honakura?" the swordsman demanded, but he could tell from her expression that he had fallen to a lower level yet.

"No, my lord," she said. "He is in jail."

*BOOK FIVE:*

*HOW THE SWORDSMAN FOUND HIS BROTHER*

*1*

Murderous noon; the birds were silent in the trees, the gardening slaves moved listlessly, staying out of the light, and even insects were silent. The line of pilgrims kneeling on the temple steps melted and groaned under the lash of a s.a.d.i.s.tic sun. Only the River continued to move and make noise as the World endured, praying for evening.

The parade ground was deserted and hot as a griddle. Three people came around the corner of the barracks, past the fencing area. With every man in the guard now searching for Lord Shonsu, there was no one there to notice the trio. They marched unseen across the parade ground toward the jail, floating on their shadows in the white glare.

The man in front was a swordsman of the Fourth, resplendent in a very new orange kilt. His ponytail was inky black. So was the expression on his face. He had very nearly mutinied against his sworn liege lord and had spoken not a word since the slaves had smeared his hair with lampblack and grease.

The man at the back was a short, dark-haired First. With awkward gait, sword tilted, facemark swollen, kilt sparkling white, and much-too-short hair, he was an obvious scratcher. Even the stunned look in his dark eyes proclaimed that. He clutched a rope, whose other end was knotted about the neck of the captive being brought in.

She was huge and very ugly for a woman. Her black hair was much too long for a slave's -- loosely flopping curls, still smelling of hot iron. Her black, all-enveloping garment might have belonged to the infamous Wild Ani, and it bulged oddly, as though the wearer were deformed.

The heat inside the pillows was incredible. It was dangerous, Wallie knew. Even if he did not collapse from heat prostration, he was weakening steadily. He could hardly see for the sweat running into his eyes and he dared not wipe them, because he must pretend that his hands were tied behind him. No sane swordsman would ever expect Lord Shonsu of the Seventh to dress like that. He had refrained from faking a facemark, partly out of consideration for Nnanji's feelings, but also because if anyone got that close to him, the pretense would be over. Apart from his size, though, he could pa.s.s as a slave at a distance. He kept his stride short, he crouched -- and he sweltered.

Before the jail had been fitted with a new roof, it might have been possible to rescue a prisoner without the guards' knowing, but now the only entrance was through the door, and that led into the guard room. The door was open. The newcomers marched straight through.

Briu of the Fourth was playing dice at a table with two Seconds. Three slaves were sitting on the floor in a corner, picking lice out of clothes. They looked up and saw swordsmen bringing in a new prisoner.

Katanji, in his so-brief career, had been taught only one piece of swordsmans.h.i.+p. This was a maneuver that no other swordsman had ever been taught. He performed it now, twirling around and kneeling down with his head bent. The female slave pulled the sword from his scabbard, and put the point at Briu's throat before he could draw.

"It would have to be you, wouldn't it?" Wallie said. "Keep your hands on the table and order your men to do the same."

Briu's impa.s.sive face hardly changed expression. He glanced over Wallie, took in Nnanji with a hint of surprise, and then placed his hands on the table. The Seconds followed suit without being ordered; they looked stunned.

"Why is it always you that I damage?" Wallie demanded. "I had no quarrel with you, yet every time I do anything I mess up Adept Briu. You are Tarru's va.s.sal?"

"I refuse to answer that question."

"He's hunting me down. He plans to torture me to make me tell him where the sword is. Do you deny it?"

"No. Nor do I confirm it."

"How does a man of honor feel about this?"

Briu's eyes narrowed. "What makes you think I am a man of honor?"

"Nnanji said so, about two minutes before you challenged him that first morning."

"He was lying."

"I don't think he was."

Briu shrugged. "Any crime committed by a va.s.sal is laid to the account of his liege. If I am Tarru's va.s.sal as you claim, then I am sworn to absolute obedience, and my honor is of no account."

"Why would you swear that oath to such a man?" inquired Nnanji's soft voice from behind Wallie's shoulder. He sounded bitter.

"I might ask you the same question, adept," Briu said.

Nnanji made a choking sound, then said, "You saw Shonsu go into the water. You, better than any, know that his sword was a miracle!"

Briu stared at him stoically. "I did not do a good job of instructing you in the third oath when I was your mentor, adept. Let us see how I did otherwise. If a commander is corrupt, whose duty is it to do something about it?"

After a moment, Nnanji whispered, "His deputy's."

"How? What should he do?"

"Challenge, if he is good enough. Else go and find a stronger force." It was a quotation. He sounded like Briu as he said it.

Briu nodded. "Yet your Lord Shonsu let Tarru live, when he was obviously guilty."

That, Wallie knew, had been his first error. The G.o.d had told him that harsh measures would be necessary. At their very first meeting, he had warned that an honorable swordsman would feel it his duty to kill Hardduju and to restore the honor of the craft. He had even dropped a broad hint when he mentioned Napoleon, for Napoleon _had_ been king of Elba, briefly. By sparing Tarru, Wallie had betrayed the honest men in the guard. He should have killed Tarru out of hand, taken charge, and put the Fifths on trial right there, calling for denunciations ... but he had not.

"I admit the error," Wallie said. "Nnanji almost pointed it out to me right afterward, on the temple steps. But since then I have been Tarru's guest."

Briu ran contempt over him like a blowtorch. "You had plenty of chances, and excuses. He swore Gorramini and Ghaniri by the third oath, and set them on Nnanji. Then he went to work on the Fifths. Did you not know?"

A Seventh should not take this from a Fourth, but Wallie was feeling too guilty to be a.s.sertive. "I suspected."

"So?" Briu demanded. "If you had done something and called for help, do you think the rest of us would have stood idly by? We wanted leaders.h.i.+p! We wanted our honor back! None of us was perfect, but..." He paused, and then looked down at the table. "There was one. If the rest of us had been half as honorable as he, we would have mutinied years ago."

Wallie's excuse would never pa.s.s a swordsman -- he had been trying to prevent bloodshed. He had spared Tarru, one man. When Nnanji had mentioned the stables, he had recoiled from the thought of killing three men. Yet every delay had raised the price. If somehow he could escape now, then the cost in lives must be much higher.

Before he could speak, Briu looked up again, red-faced and glaring. "Even this morning! Gorramini was betrayed! Yet you did _nothing_!"

"I am doing something now," Wallie said firmly.

Briu looked again at the slave costume and spat.

Shonsu's temper flamed. Wallie suppressed it with difficulty. "You have a priest here, and I am going to take him. Then I am leaving." How? "The G.o.ddess will attend to the honor of Her guard. It was not the task She gave me."

Briu shrugged and went back to brooding over his hands on the table.

"Why did you swear the third oath to Tarru?" Nnanji asked again.

"My wife had just given birth to twin sons, adept," Briu said. "She needs to eat, and so do they. When you are older, you will understand."

Swordsmen were addicted to fearsome oaths, but they were human.

"Briu," Wallie said, "my story is too long to explain here. But I admit my error. If I get a chance to correct it, then I shall. I do have a task for the G.o.ddess. I need honest men to help. Is your wife well enough to travel?"

Shonsu, Nnanji, Katanji, plus Briu and his family ... seven, if one did not count slaves.

"No, my lord. And neither am I."

Wallie told Katanji to take the men's swords.

The new roof made the jail hotter than ever, and smellier. His head swam as soon as he went in, and he wondered how long a frail old man like Honakura could survive in it. There were four prisoners there, all tethered by one ankle only, but Wallie was too bitter now to feel satisfaction at that small improvement. He headed over to one tiny, shriveled form.

Honakura cackled with amus.e.m.e.nt when he saw his rescuer. Then he slipped his tiny foot out of the stocks and accepted a.s.sistance to stand up.

Wallie pulled a black cloth from his padded bosom.

"You will be a Nameless One, my lord. There is a headband in the pocket. Better dress upstairs, it is cooler."

Still chuckling, Honakura tottered toward the steps. Wallie made the slaves pin the swordsmen in the stocks, and then pinned the slaves as well.

"Good-bye, adept," he said to Briu. "We are none of us perfect."

Briu sighed. "No. And I suppose we must keep trying to do better."

Wallie held out a hand. After a pause, Briu took it. "I do hope some man tries to rape you on your journey, my lord."

Still laughing at that unexpected humor, Wallie went back up to the guard room. He handed Katanji back his sword and then had to help him put it in his scabbard. Honakura had dressed himself in the black garment, and Nnanji was tying the headband on for him.

"We are in serious trouble, my ... old man," Wallie said. "How we are going to get out of it, I don't know. But we had better get back to the barracks as soon as we can."

"The barracks?" Honakura said innocently. "Why not out into the town?"

"And how do you propose..." Wallie began, then glared at him. "h.e.l.l's knuckles!. There is a back door, I suppose?"

"Of course," Honakura said. "Did you think the priests would not have a back door? You never asked me."

He cackled in shrill glee.

*2*

Once away from the jail they rearranged themselves, putting the two swordsmen in front and the two black robes behind. Honakura stumbled along, holding up his too-long gown and hurrying as much as he could. Wallie was not much more agile himself, his half-healed feet starting to chafe at the slave sandals he wore. And a slow pace was advisable anyway; it was too hot to rush. The few people they pa.s.sed paid no attention to them.

The old man directed Nnanji in asthmatic gasps. They traveled downstream almost to the end of the grounds, then along a wooded trail close to the great wall.

"We shall need a shovel, I suspect," he wheezed at one point, and the G.o.ds directed them past a deserted wheelbarrow of tools. Wallie had only to take two steps out of his way to collect a shovel. Then the priest said, "Is it all clear?" and they turned into the bushes.

Well hidden in the undergrowth, an ancient and weathered dovecote stood hard against the perimeter wall, its stones lichen-coated and half-rotted with age. The door was small and decrepit. It yielded easily to Wallie's shoulder, and a great explosion of wings sounded inside.

The interior was gloomy and dark, rank and filthy. Thick piles of guano on the floor crawled with beetles. Curtains of spiderwebs shone in the light filtering through a hole in the roof. Surprised white birds peered down from the pigeonholes that lined the upper walls.

"Unless we were seen," Wallie said, "we are safe here. Obviously no one has been in here for years."

"For generations!" Honakura retorted. "I only hope that the route is still open. It probably has not been used for centuries. Perhaps never before." He sneezed. "The other end may be bricked up."

"Cheerful!" Wallie said. "I think Katanji should go for the others, don't you, Nnanji?" Nnanji, still gloomy, nodded.

"We need someone to close up behind us," said the priest.

"Then bring Jja, Cowie, and Ani," Wallie ordered. The boy grinned and headed for the door. "Walk slowly! If anyone asks, you're Adept Briu's new protege, on an errand for him ... you can refuse to discuss what it is. And bring my boots!"

Katanji departed.

Honakura chuckled. "And who might Cowie be?"

"I suppose she's number six," Wallie said in a growl, looking around the fetid obscenity of the dovecote. "Nnanji bought a slave."

"And I make seven."

Wallie turned to him in disbelief. "You? With respect, holy one, it will kill you!"

"I expect so," Honakura said calmly, "if by that you mean that I shall never return. It may also kill you, young man, and you have a great deal more to lose than I have. Moreover, you have a good chance of returning."

"What do you mean?"

"You have to return the sword, remember? I don't know what that means any more than you do. But it could mean that you have to bring it back to where you got it."

The doves purred disapprovingly while Wallie pondered the idea of a man of incredible age, accustomed to luxury and easy living, setting out on an unknown mission of hards.h.i.+p and danger. "I don't want to take you."