The Swordsman's Oath Read online

  “I’m loyal to my friends, not some canting words and a tarnished kennel-tag,” snapped Livak, stabbing a finger at my medallion. “I value my freedom too highly.”

  Smarting, I clenched my fist on a handful of kindling and felt a splinter pierce my palm. “Freedom to die penniless in a ditch? No sworn man with an injury like Halice’s would be left hanging on the charity of their friends! The Sieur takes his responsibilities seriously.”

  “He doesn’t take any of the risks though, does he?” retorted Livak, turning her back to cross the yard again. “That’s not what I call responsibility.”

  “And you’d know all about that, never staying more than half a season in any one place!” I set my jaw against my anger. I could only suppose it was the lack of sleep that I never seemed to quite make up on that was making me so uncharacteristically quick to anger. Pulling the sliver of wood from my hand, I sucked at the scratch for a moment. When I had myself in hand I found Livak collecting eggs from the long grass beneath a knot of fruit bushes. The pig trotted into his run, breath fetid as he snuffled up over the wall, ears flopping with palpable disappointment when he realized we were not bringing food.

  “I should never have let Shiv talk me into going with him last year, Drianon rot his eyes,” Livak muttered to herself. “I knew Halice was hurt; he said he had a friend who’d take care of her. I’d like to cut his stones for slingshot!”

  “The Emperor’s apothecary in Toremal couldn’t have done much with a break like that,” I objected. “You can’t blame Shiv, or yourself, come to that.”

  Livak looked up at me. “I remember telling you the same about Aiten.”

  “That’s different!” I snapped before I could help myself.

  “Is it?” Livak started pulling the first shoots of spring from a neat vegetable batch, an appetizing prospect. The new growing season at home had given me a taste for early greens before Messire’s commands had sent me north again, where the cold earth still waited for Larasion’s smile.

  “Can you just stand still for a moment?” My words came out as a furious demand rather than a request and Livak looked at me, eyes stormy as a winter sea. I got myself in hand with no little effort. “We need you, Livak—”

  “We need you?” she mimicked, mocking, “I need you? You sound like a bad Soluran ballad, Ryshad, noble knight wooing lady fair!”

  This unexpected shift wrongfooted me utterly.

  “I had been hoping you might have come to find me on your own account,” snapped Livak, “not just because Planir whistled you up. What’s your next move? Try and coddle me into coming with you, like some trooper showing a housemaid a few tricks with his polearm? Forget it, that’s how my mother got caught!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I thought you valued me on my own terms. Come and meet your family, that’s what you were saying last year.”

  “You’re the one who said goodbye!” I objected. “I asked you to come to Zyoutessela with me for the Solstice, you’re the one who refused!”

  Livak shook her head. “How long would it have been before your mother started embroidering hair ribbons, asking me to help darn the linens? If I wanted to be someone’s maidservant, I’d have stayed at home!”

  “Well, make up your mind!” I had had enough of this and it must have shown in my face.

  “Never mind, forget it.” Livak blushed scarlet and pushed her way past me to go back to the house. Biting down on a few choice retorts, I followed, breathing heavily.

  We entered to find Halice deep in conversation with the two wizards.

  “There are a few things we’ll need to sort out before we leave tomorrow.” Halice limped to the dresser to fetch a slate. “We should be able to sell the pig easily enough but it might be better to kill the chickens and cook the meat.”

  “What are you talking about?” Livak glared at Halice.

  “I’m going with these wizards.” Halice had evidently served in those mercenary corps that specialize in storming defenses. “If they need a thief and you’re not willing, there are people in Relshaz who will help for the right purse.”

  The bowl of eggs fell to the clean-swept flagstones and shattered. Livak ignored it, railing furiously at Halice. “Why on earth do you want to get mixed up with wizards? You know what happened, I ended up halfway across the ocean on islands no one’s ever heard of with some evil bastard trying to push my mind out through my nose with a magic no one knows anything about. Ask Ryshad how he liked it. Does Shiv know how they did it; I’ll bet Planir and all his useless mages still haven’t worked it out. That lad Geris was tortured to death; have you forgotten what I told you? I only came out alive because Drianon spared me three seasons’ luck! I’ve been making offerings at her shrines ever since and you know I’m not religious—”

  Livak ran out of words or breath and there was a long pause before Halice spoke in a low tone of studied calm though she would not raise her gaze to meet Livak’s eyes. “What I remember is you telling me how Shiv got his arm broken. A sword blow that shattered the bone clean through, you said.” Her voice was hard beneath her level words. “Most surgeons would have taken it off at the shoulder,wound-rot wouldn’t be worth risking, not for an arm that couldn’t be used even if it was saved. Those wizards had a way to save it, didn’t they? He was using an axe with it earlier, Livak, not just chopping morning-wood but splitting logs. I’ll work with them to track down these thieves and they can pay me back by mending my thigh bone.”

  The wizards and I sat motionless, knowing full well the dangers of getting between two women having a row.

  “Two sound feet aren’t worth that kind of risk, Halice! Believe me, I know. These Ice Islanders are killers, butchers—” There was savage anger in Livak’s voice now and I heard wrath rising to meet it in Halice’s tone.

  “You have no idea what I’d risk to get two sound feet again, Livak, no idea at all! Have you any idea how I hate being stuck here? A goat would have more conversation than that slattern down the lane, and she’s the brightest one for leagues around. Try and talk to anyone in the village about anywhere more than a day’s walk away and they look at you like you’re a singing pig. You and the brothers go off and have a good time separating idiots from their purses while I do piss all and have to sit like some crippled old grandma and just take it when you three hand me a quarter-share. I was the one who got you into your first game in a hiring camp and now I have to sit and listen to you telling me all about the latest plans in the compounds, which corps-masters are taking contracts, who’s putting together a raiding troop, and all the time I know I’ll never be able to go back to it, not now my leg’s more twisted than a claim to the Lescari throne! I’d almost rather green-rot had booked me passage with Poldrion.”

  Livak turned on her heel to storm out of the room, face scarlet with fury and hurt. There didn’t seem any point in following her this time so I stayed where I was and looked down at my amulet, the bronze gleaming against the linen of my shirt. Shiv pushed his chair back with a scrape on the flagstones and picked his way past the mess of broken eggs and greens to fetch the wine. I went with him and found some earthenware goblets on the dresser, thinking now about the undeniable justice of what Halice had said; that kind of crippling injury is something that we sworn men fear more than a clean death and quick passage to the Otherworld.

  “You’ll do that, mend her leg for her?” I demanded of Shiv in a low tone.

  “Of course; Saedrin shut me between this world and the next if I don’t.” Shiv spread his hands, all innocence.

  He had just laid a weighty oath upon himself so I judged that should keep him honest.

  “I hope you have a decent bag of Planir’s coin with you, Shiv, because we need to buy a light carriage,” Viltred spoke up suddenly.

  “What for?” asked Shiv doubtfully.

  “Because I can’t sit a horse until you get my leg straightened,” Halice spoke with a commendable calmness, given the circumstances.


  “I don’t want to be tied to the high road with a vehicle.” Shiv shook his head. “And what about changing horses? No, we need to move fast and—”

  “If we need a carriage, we need a carriage,” I said firmly, catching Halice’s set expression. “The Elietimm’ll be having to keep to the high roads themselves as well at this season. Apart from the local routes to the markets, every other track will be thigh deep in mud.”

  Shiv’s thin lips betrayed his annoyance. “I don’t see—”

  “I can’t ride all the way to Relshaz with my back the way it is.” Viltred waved his hand peremptorily at Shiv. “Do as I tell you, Shivvalan.”

  I handed around wine, managing to avoid catching Shiv’s eye. As I did so, I noted how swollen Viltred’s knuckles were with joint-evil and wondered how much pain his back generally gave him.

  “Oh all right.” He capitulated with ill grace. “If you think you’ll find anything suitable round here.”

  “I know a few people to try, especially if we offer them the pig as part payment,” Halice assured him.

  A flare of grease falling into the fire reminded us of the browning chicken and we ate in silence. At one point, Shiv looked as if he wanted to speak to me but Viltred’s narrowed eyes and shake of the head silenced the younger man.

  “Thank you for an excellent meal.” Viltred laid his spoon in his plate, wiped his knife clean and stood to make Halice a little formal bow. “Now, if you will excuse us, Shivvalan and I will attempt to scry for our quarry outside.” Viltred’s voice brooked no argument and Shiv shut his mouth on his objections.

  Halice turned her attention to the floor, kneeling awkwardly.

  I fetched a pail. “What will Livak do if you come with us? Stay with these brothers you were talking about?”

  Halice took the cloth out of my hand. “I doubt it. They want to go off after the Draximal paychest. It was all they could talk about, last time they were here. Sorgrad has found out which corps will be collecting it and where to enlist.” Resentment darkened Halice’s voice. “He was saying what a shame it was we couldn’t all go after it with them since no commander would take me on with my leg like this, and the only way Livak would get taken on was as a featherbed, which he couldn’t see her going for. She’ll dress the whore to bluff her way into a camp but she knows it’s too cursed dangerous to play the part for long without being willing to lie down for it.”

  I only hoped Halice was right but reminded myself that I had other loyalties to bind me, especially if Livak was going to take such an uncompromising stand. Dast scourge the woman, why did she have to be so cursed contrary? No matter, advance information of this kind of plot would be valuable for Messire, wouldn’t it? “Which corps are collecting the pay-chest?”

  “The Ironshod, on their way down to secure the border for the Duke of Triolle.” Halice shook her head. “I don’t want anything to do with it, I had their commander, Khys, serving under me a few years back; I owe him better than that.”

  Halice’s mercenary career hadn’t been all foot-slogging in the mud then, not if she had friends like that. Most corps last a couple of seasons before they fall apart over rows about booty or because they’ve been stamped into the gurry once too often. There can’t be more than a handful of troops as good as the Ironshod, who’ve been striking sound coin out of Lescari misery for more than seven years now. “How do these brothers expect to take a pay chest on their own?”

  “I don’t know.” Halice rinsed her cloth in the pail, eyes taking my measure. “I can manage here, why don’t you go and do something useful toward getting us on the road?”

  I took the hint. “Is there a scribe round here who might have a reasonably up-to-date set of itineraries he’d be willing to sell?”

  “Innel, lives next to the Reeve.” I left Halice to prove her independence by cleaning up without assistance.

  Finding Innel the scribe easily enough, after a little conversation I decided could trust him with a letter for Messire, to be sent onto Lord Adrin with a request that he forward it through the Imperial Despatch. I double-sealed it but I wasn’t too concerned about anyone reading it since I’d written all the sensitive sections in the southern Formalin dialect of the ocean coast, the everyday tongue of our home city of Zyoutessela. If anyone within a hundred leagues could understand it, I’d eat my sealing wax still hot. I wrote my favorable assessment of Lord Adrin in formal Formalin however, just in case curiosity got the better of his sense of honor. Innel turned out to have several useful volumes to sell which I compared carefully until I was satisfied they agreed well enough. I’m always cautious about charts made outside Formalin; too often the map-maker’s information is out of date or just plain invented. These were almost good enough to be Toremal drawn.

  While I was in the village, I made a quick survey of the inn, the shrine, the women selling their produce around the buttercross. Livak was nowhere to be seen, nor had she returned to the longhouse by the time I got back. Shiv went out to buy a horse and vehicle while Viltred showed Halice the auguries. She watched the horrors impassively, the stillness of her face unmoved but a catch of breath here and there betraying her shock. I did not need to watch again, needing no reminder of my duty, whatever attitude Livak might choose to take. Shiv came back some while later with a neat gig and a long-nosed harness horse with a winter-rough, light bay coat, which I helped him stable.

  “Did you get a good deal?” I asked him with a faint grin as I spread straw in the byre. “Planir’s not too badly out of pocket?”

  “It was a fair price, pigs seem to be a favored currency around here,” Shiv assured me, his good humor apparently restored.

  I looked at the horse, which seemed a little overdocile to me and wondered about that. Livak still hadn’t returned by the time we went to bed and this time it was frustration keeping me awake long into the night. What could I do when the one woman we wanted was dead set against joining us, and the one who promised every chance of being dead weight in the water was determined to come?

  Chapter Two

  Taken from the Library of the Caladhrian Parliament,

  being a true copy of the letter sent to the Lord of each fiefdom

  by Eglin, Baron Shalehall,

  later First Preceptor of the Parliament,

  generally dated to the 7th year of the Chaos.

  I write this appeal in the hope that Caladhria may be saved from the calamities that beset our poor land on every side. Daily I hear the lamentations of the hungry, the despair of the beaten and the grief of the dispossessed; I can bear it no longer. Saedrin sees the woes of the common people and remembers, just as we take their fealty, so we take on an obligation to defend them against such misery; I have no doubt that he will ask some hard questions before some of us are allowed to enter the Otherworld. Yet all I hear from my peers are fruitless hand-wringing and divisive argument about which pattern of governance we should copy from those around us.

  There are those who would step back a generation and set up an Emperor or King, but what would that achieve? How is such a man to be chosen? What qualities would we seek in a man to be entrusted with so much power? I for one, fear the shades of my forefathers would petition Arimelin to plague my dreams with demons, were I to deliberately submit to a tyranny that they struggled so long and hard to throw off. Are we perhaps to ape the self-proclaimed Dukes of Lescar and let the strongest seize what they may until no one dare challenge them? Their Graces’ wealth and fine palaces may look very well now the grass has grown over the battlefields, but let us not forget they established themselves in a manner little different from bandits laying claim to a forest hideout. They work hand in bloody hand to carve up the bounty of Lescar like poachers portioning out a stricken doe. I hear you ask me; are we then left only with the prospect of the division and strife that plagues Ensaimin? Will our sons and daughters life only to see our beloved land disintegrate into a patchwork of petty kinglets and greedy cities, squabbling among themselves like a litter of starvin
g mongrels? By Misaen’s hammer, I will not have it so and I call on all honest men to help me.

  Why are we looking beyond our borders for an answer? Let us look to ourselves, to the wisdom of our ancestors. Before Correl the so-called Peacemaker sent his cohorts to trample our land beneath the nailed tread of Tormalin rule, we were a peaceful and decently governed people. Our forefathers knew the dangers of placing too much power in the hands of one or even a few men and ruled themselves, fairly, through the Spearmote. All men of property could speak, all men of goodwill could work together for the common good. No tyrant, great or small, could hope to stifle the liberties that are all men’s birthright, that our fathers won anew for us when they threw off the rusted iron hand of the House of Nemith. We have managed to restore much that was lost to us. Let us come together once more in the Spearmote and take charge of our own destiny.

  On the River Road,

  heading south,

  Lord Adrin’s Fiefdom,

  Caladhria,

  12th of Aft-Spring

  Livak turned up in the morning as Shiv and I were discussing our route and Halice was harnessing the horse in the gig, ignoring Viltred’s peremptory instructions. It was a bright morning, fine high cloud in a clear blue sky.

  “What have you got there?” she demanded without preamble.

  “Itineraries.” If she didn’t want to discuss her decisions, neither did I. Finding the volume that showed the closest stages of the River Road, I unfolded the long sections of map.

  “They’re not Rationalist drawn, are they?” she challenged, “You’ll soon get lost if they are. All the distance and detail will be twisted to fit their notions of order and balance, you do know that?”

  “No, they’re fine.” I wasn’t about to rise to this lure, pointing to an area marked with a stand of thick-branched trees. “What do you know about this place, Prosain Heath?”

  Livak looked over my arm. “It’s where Lord Adrin’s lands meet the territories of these other Lords, Thevice and Dardier; they manage the forest between them as a hunting preserve.”