The Paladin Part 21

She smiled at his gift, and tied them in with the first, and gave him a worried look, as if she was not sure she did not look the fool.

He smiled. Her eyes lightened.

So he walked off and mounted up, before a word could start another argument.

The day warmed and the road went smoothly, two ruts of silken yellow dust between the low growth of wild, late-summer gra.s.s. "Will you ride awhile?" Shoka asked finally, but Taizu shook her head and wiped a little trail of sweat from her temple. "No," she said. "Thank you, master Shoka. I'm all right."

"Jiro can carry the bedroll."

"No," she said cheerfully, light-hearted, even. She hitched the bedroll higher. "One isn't so much."

He had not once today said that they should go back. She had not spoken a cross word since morning.

It was a seductive peace. It tempted a man to let it go on, at any cost. But because the cost was Taizu he had no such intention.

There had been ruts in the road since yesterday, in the yellow dust; distinct and with the weeds and overgrowth crushed down here and there, broken, but not yet brown.

"There's someone ahead of us," Taizu said eventually.

"I wondered when you'd notice."

She turned and frowned at him.

"They could have said, in the village."

"We didn't ask, did we?"

"It would have been friendly of them to say!"

"I suppose. But I'm a lord of Chiyaden. Who talks to lords about such details? That's why we have retainers. There's a hierarchy of such things."

She scowled. "Well, then, lords must not know much that's going on, must they?I'd have said, and I'm a peasant.I'd think it was polite to tell somebody what was on the road."

"Of course you would," he said. "You'd run right out to a lord's stirrup and tell him."

"Huh. No. I'd let himand his horse fall through a bad bridge or meet up with strangers. If I didn't like him, I would."

Shoka smiled. "You would, too."

"Of course I would."

"Is that the manner in Hua?"

"We never let our lord fall through a bridge. We'd come and say, lord Kaijeng, you should fix that. Lord Kaijeng, strangers went through here."

"Lord Kaijeng was a good man."

"Did you know him?"

"Not half well. I met him a few times. He never attended court except the year of the floods. Then he was there to ask help."

"I wasn't born yet."

Shoka thought about that and gave a rueful shake of his head. "Well, I was in court then. It was in the old Emperor's reign. Lord Kaijeng came to report to the Emperor. I was impressed with him. He was a frugal man. He asked remission of his tax for that year. He bought six wagon-loads of rice and cloth and sent it back to Hua to his tenants, so, he said, the farmers could keep their strength up: there was a lot ofrebuilding to do and if the land was torn up, a well-fed people were like troops to a campaign. That was his reasoning. It impressed the Emperor so much he sent ten wagon-loads of cloth and rice himself; and Hua sent back a hundred percent of its taxes the next year, and sent a gift of its best to the Emperor's table."

"I heard about that."

He could not see her face. The tone was easy. It was virtually the first time she had been able to talk about Hua. He did not want to press it too far.

"Pays to be reasonable with people," he said. "A lady should remember that."

Thatgot a scowl, Taizu walking half-sideways to glare at him past the bedroll and the sword and bow and quiver slung to her shoulders. "Don't you tell them lies about me!"

"What do I tell them? Excuse me, good sirs, but I'm Saukendar of Yiungei, escorting this farmer-girl back to Hua so she can kill lord Gitu and marry me. I'm sure."

She shut her mouth and glared.

"Well?" he asked. "I think you'd better be my wife, so far as the people we meet know. n.o.body thinks anything strange as long as you're decently married."

Taizu faced forward again, in time to avoid a large weed. "If I didn't have you along," she said nastily, "I'd lag back till night and then go past them in the dark."

"And get shot."

"Widepast them. Without making a racket. I'd be perfectly all right on the road."

"I'm sure you would, but I thought we agreed we weren't going to argue on that."

"I didn't agree. You did."

"That isn't the way I recall it. -See there?"

There was a dark spot on the farthest horizon, where the road made a turning around the riyerside. Taizu looked, walking on tiptoe a moment and stretching to get a better vantage.

"Farmer-folk or traders," she said finally. "Wagons."

"Traders, I think. No few wagons. We're going to be all day working up to them, I think, catch up to them toward dark-"

"They won't like that."

"I certainly wouldn't blame them."

At least ten, eleven, Shoka decided, as the rolls of the land slowly concealed and revealed the caravan-which by late afternoon was surely watching them with some anxiousness. The river Hoi was on their left. The hills to their right hove up bare-flanked, too steep and rocky for trees: the Barrens, thelocals called this place, which lay on the edge of Hois.h.i.+ and Hoisan, an anxious place to a soldier's eye-or a trader's, who doubtless, bound into the Empire, had wagons full of raw jade and maybe iron and precious metals.

So it was not surprising the caravan-guards lagged back to the rear, and faced them as they came, guards armored and mounted on wiry steppes ponies, with bows in their hands and arrows nocked.

"Go carefully," Shoka said, and lifted his hand to show it empty.

The guards made no such gesture. He expected none.

"We can go wide," Taizu said. "Just pull off from them, for the G.o.ds' sakes. They won't want us pa.s.sing by their wagons and spying on them."

"It's our road, much as theirs."

"I don't want to get full of arrows!"

"And I don't want Jiro's feet bruised. It's rotten ground out there."

"You don't want Jiro full of arrows, either. He's a big target. You're on him. I'm beside you."

"Steady, steady. I thought you weren't afraid of anything."

"Arrows," Taizu muttered. "I don't like arrows."

"Well, they're not shooting, are they?" He kept riding, one hand held aloft. The caravan halted, one of the riders racing up the column; and soon enough a different man came riding back, a man in reds and grays.

"That'll be the caravan-master," Shoka said as two of the guards rode out from the halted wagons, a sedate pace, matching their own steady advance. "Let's act friendly, shall we?" And aloud: "h.e.l.lo! We're fellow travelers. We'll pa.s.s you, by your leave."

The riders came scarcely within talking-distance and stopped as Shoka reined in.

"Travelers on the same road," Shoka said. "We'll ride past, by your leave."

"You're of Chiyaden," one of the guards hailed him back.

"That I am. Shoka of Tengu province. This is my wife, Taizu. And your master?"

"Master Yi. Master Lun Yi of the kingdom of s.h.i.+n."

The speaker bowed; Shoka bowed; Taizu did.

So they gained leave to ride with the guards along beside the wagons, while the wagons stayed halted, and the caravan-master rode out to meet them.

There was tea, themselves and the caravan-master sitting on mats while the caravan-master asked themnews.

"I have very little to tell," Shoka said. "My wife and I have been in living in seclusion on the edge of Hois.h.i.+, since the trouble in my homeland. I have no particular desire to go back, except my wife is homesick. So-" He shrugged, with no glance toward Taizu. "What can a man do? An unhappy wife or an unhappy journey."

The caravan-master slid a glance toward Taizu, and whatever he might have suggested for a nagging wife, died stillborn; his mouth went shut firmly, and a breath later he shrugged and said, "Well, I havefour wives. And I have all of them to feed or I'd not risk this road myself, and that's the truth."

"Bad, eh?"

"Bad." Master Yi waved a bony hand at the road and the land around. "Five attacks on this road this year. I travel with professional guards. You can see." Another wave of his hand, toward the caravan, the halted wagons, the caravaneers sitting in the shade the wagons offered, resting. There were at least fifteen guards, Shoka noted, who looked like hire-ons, by the plain, random style of their gear. "Costs me a fortune," master Yi said. "And it's not just in Hois.h.i.+. Allalong the road, from here as far as Ygotai.

Bandits. Outlaws. You ride along fine as you please and whisst! arrows out of the brush. I tell you, I'd be nervous about traveling alone hereabouts."

"One worries," Shoka said. "As far as Ygotai, you say."

"Andfurther! I tell you, bad times.Bad times. Time was, there was law up and down the roads.

Nowadays you're on your own the moment you leave a town. Don't look for the local lord to keep up his highways! He's sent allhis levies to Cheng'di."

"To the Emperor."

"To wherever the Emperor sends them. Mercenary guards everywhere. And no law. Good for trade in the capital. But terrible in the provinces. And a smaller caravan would be in serious danger. I tell you, you should have a talk with your young wife. You should have a serious talk, sir. Homesick is one thing. It's a very dangerous road. Very dangerous. If you'll take my advice, you'll go back to Mon and not spend another night on this trail, for your young wife's sake."

"We're all right," Taizu said sharply.

The caravan-master's eyes slid toward Taizu and lingered, carefully, with a little of apprehension as he took in details, one of which, surely, was the scar; and another of which was, perhaps, the overall look of her, in armor, with her little knot of ribbons and her hair shorter than a woman's ought to be.

He cleared his throat.

"We're honest," Shoka said. "You don't have to worry, master Yi. We're not spies. Ask me what you like about Cheng'di and I can tell you-but all old news. We've been away for a long time; and we're anxious for whatever you can tell us."

Another slide of the trader's eyes toward Jiro, who stood grazing beside their baggage-one point in their favor, Shoka reckoned: Jiro's expensive accoutrements and his own accent and his costly if worn armor fit the story of a displaced gentleman-gone-rustic, andthat fit the pattern of political troubles, while Taizu's scar, her diction-which had undergone some change under his teaching, but which still was notpure heartlands-and her unusual and very businesslike gear-meant, perhaps, something other than bandit , but still something worrisome.

If they were both men, one might say-mercenary. Professional. And one might worry about the smaller one with the scowling face as one of the crazy sort, the sort that might mean fights in camp and bloodshed before all was done.

Which madehim crazier than his wife was and the both of them possibly more dangerous than bandits.

"What about the roads east of Ygotai?" Shoka asked.

"Good as far as Mandi. Then chancy. Is that where you're going? Where is your wife from?"

"Hua."

"Hua!"

"How is it there?" Taizu asked. Her fists were clenched on her knees. She bowed, being polite. "Please."

"I can't say. I don't know." Master Yi bowed too. "Everything I know is from rumor. But they say it's very bad everywhere east and north of Mandi. You'd be advised to listen to your husband. People are killed every day on these roads. Terrible things happen."

Master Yi fell silent, locked stare to stare with Taizu. He gave a twitch of the shoulders then.

"The regency is still in power?" Shoka asked.

"Oh, yes. Oh, yes. That doesn't change." Another odd look.

"We've been very isolated," Shoka said, and held up his cup as the caravan-master's boy poured more tea. "Thank you. -You've traveled this road recently then?"

"Twice this year. Our last trip before the snows. But we met with a caravan in Shothai-" The master had his cup filled. "And they plainly warned us. It's profit. Profit. There's shortage in Chiyaden. Where there's shortage, supply sells. That's my politics. That's all my politics."

"Prudent man. G.o.ds prosper you, master Yi. We wish you well."

"I'll tell you," master Yi said. "If you won't take good advice and go back-you'd be safer far to travel with us. For a likely man like yourself, for your wife, no charge, seeing you bring your own gear and I suppose, your own food. Out of the goodness of my heart I offer it."