Seventh Sword - The Reluctant Swordsman Part 24

The Epigram A kill without honor destroys two swordsmen.

*7*

Anasi returned, accompanied not by his mother but by another male slave, one previously unknown to Wallie. He had many more wits about him than Anasi. The n.o.ble lord was in danger, he said. Honorable Tarru had set up an ambush in the guest suite, men with clubs and nets. Lord Shonsu must not return to his room.

Then Nnanji must be sent for, Wallie replied, and he needed a place of concealment.

They led him down to the cellars, and anywhere less like his own quarters he could never have imagined.

The roof was so low that he could not stand erect, even between the ma.s.sive beams that supported the ceiling. It would be a fiendishly impossible place for him to fight. It was low and very long, like a tunnel. Small barred openings dropped puddles of reluctant light on piles of dirty straw, on cobwebs and filth, and on variegated patches of fungus in the corners, on sc.r.a.ps of broken furniture long since discarded by rightful owners. Precious h.o.a.rded rags dangled from pegs. A couple of ramshackle part.i.tions had been constructed to make a pretense of small private areas, but they only made the whole place darker. It was the male slaves' dormitory, a human stable reeking of centuries of unwashed bodies.

The wonder was not that old slaves were sent to the Judgment when no longer useful, the wonder was that any of them lived that long.

Wallie sat slumped on a wooden chair that had lost its back and he brooded. Jja had been informed. Anasi had returned to his gardening duties. Janghiuki had been left under a bush and was doubtless already attracting attention from insects.

Murder! What he had done would be first-degree murder on Earth and it was murder in the World. He could have killed Janghiuki quite legally had he wished. Challenge, draw, lunge, wipe sword -- five seconds' work for Shonsu, and no one would have raised an eyebrow. But he had tried to be merciful and now he was a murderer.

Janghiuki of the Third ... he had done no wrong. He had been obeying orders -- follow Shonsu. Spying on a guest was not in itself a breach of hospitality, although poor manners. The lad's only error had been to swear the blood oath without due cause being shown, and undoubtedly Tarru or Trasingji or one of the other highranks had been standing by, with sword already drawn. The kid would have had no real choice. Probably Tarru had given him a plausible excuse anyway: "Lord Shonsu has purloined the G.o.ddess' sword, and we must retrieve it." Believable enough, when disagreement meant death.

Sooner or later, Tarru was going to realize that Shonsu was not returning to his room. The hunt would begin. Janghiuki's body would be found. Then Tarru's morale problems would be solved at once. Then the hounds would bay.

Slave owning, idol worship, capital punishment, flogging ... all were things that would have filled the old Wallie Smith with horror. Now he had added murder. Morals don't change, he had told the little boy that first morning. The demiG.o.d had said that was something else he must unlearn. But he couldn't.

Shonsu would have killed Janghiuki without scruple, doing it by the sutra and feeling no guilt afterward. He would have dismissed the hospitality problem by quoting some sutra or other, and no one could have questioned his interpretation. Wallie Smith could never learn to think that way. He had promised to try to be a swordsman, but he was not going to succeed.

The G.o.ddess would have to find another champion.

Something rustled in the straw behind him. He jumped, but whatever it was, it was not human.

He wondered if Honakura had ever seen slave quarters like these, and what he would say to them. Probably he would only gabble about slavery being punishment for misdeeds in a previous life. Tough to be punished for something you could not recall doing! But Wallie had promised not to tell the G.o.ddess how to run Her World.

There were hundreds of slaves. There were hundreds of swords in the armory. As he had done several times before, Wallie toyed with the thought of a slave army. He rejected it as he always did. The sutras allowed a swordsman to arm civilians in an emergency, but the wording specifically excluded slaves. That would be both crime and abomination. More important to Wallie, though, was the certainty that it would be a ma.s.sacre. Swordsmen would be infinitely more deadly, no matter what the odds, and he would not save himself at the cost of innocent lives. Furthermore, he was certain that the slaves' friendship would not go so far. They would understandably fear retribution. No slave-owning culture could ever tolerate a slave revolt, no matter who organized it. If Shonsu tried to be Spartacus, he would unite the rest of the World against him.

What to do? Wallie straggled to unravel Tarru's thinking. He must be feeling pressured. Forcing men to swear to him for a dishonorable cause was an abomination. Ordering them to keep the third oath secret was another. There were limits to how long he could hope to keep his illicit army together, and how far he could even trust it. So Tarru had felt his hand being forced. He must find the sword soon and depart. His only lead to it was Shonsu, who, even if he truly did not know where it was, must know who did. Nets were an obvious tactic if a Seventh was to be taken alive.

The penalty for failure, the demiG.o.d had said, was death ... or worse. Tarru was planning torture.

The door creaked and Jja slipped in, with Vixini on her back. Wallie rose, unable to straighten, and kissed her, then pulled over another broken chair so that they could sit close.

Jja smiled rea.s.suringly at him and squeezed his hand.

Wallie was astonished at how relieved he was to see her. By not taking Jja hostage, Tarru had overlooked a winning strategy. But no normal swordsman would mortgage his heart to a slave as Wallie had done, so Tarru could not have known.

He tried to explain that to her, and she seemed as surprised as Tarru would have been.

"I am not doing very well, Jja."

She studied him for a while. Was his guilt so obvious? Did he now have _Murderer_ written on his brow?

But no. What she said at last was, "Do you know what the G.o.ds want of you, master?"

There was the nub.

He nodded. "I do know. And I don't want to do it. You are right, my love. I must learn obedience." He went back to staring at the floor.

"Ani is coming, master. Honorable Tarru and his men are still waiting in the room. Kio has gone to find Adept Nnanji."

"Who is Kio?"

Jja's white teeth showed in the gloom. "His favorite. He could not afford her before, until you gave him so much money. She has taken half the sword already, the women say."

Wallie smiled and was silent. It was hard on Nnanji to drag him back into the shark pool, but that was his duty. In any case, he must be warned, and danger to his liege would surely bring Nnanji running anyway.

What orders had Tarru given? Nnanji might well die at the gate.

Vixini began fussing. Jja untied him and put him down. He set off on a voyage of exploration like an eager brown bug.

The door creaked again, and this time it was Ani, huge in a black muumuu. Only her big ugly face was truly visible, floating just below the ceiling, with the black patch over her left eye like a hole in it. Her hair was pulled back in a bun, and a thin line of silver framed her face, undyed roots from ear to ear. She bobbed respectfully to Wallie, yet she was trying to hide a smirk at the absurdity of a lord of the Seventh cowering in a slaves' cellar. Her son might have little more intelligence than the plants he tended, but Ani had cultivated men. She had a primitive native shrewdness and also a strange aura of authority, as though she were Queen of the Slaves.

"I am grateful to you, Ani," Wallie said.

"And I to you, my lord. You were kind to a fat old woman that evening. Few would not have taken offense."

"I have been drunk myself," he said. "But I may never get another chance, I fear. What word of Tarru?"

With a sideways twitch of her head she spat on the floor. "He has ordered a search, my lord. He will not look here. If he does, we can move you around these cellars. You are safe here."

That would not be true if Tarru ever suspected that the slaves were fighting against him. The d.a.m.ning corpse lay close to a slave entrance, and Tarru was no fool. Slaves could move the body elsewhere, of course, but only at great risk to themselves. Wallie decided not to mention Janghiuki.

"I need to get word to Lord Honakura," he said. "He is the only one who can help me, I think."

Ani pouted meaty lips. "Not easy, my lord."

Of course. No slave could just walk up to a man like Honakura and start a conversation -- not without starting a riot. Wallie reached in his money pouch. "Would this help?"

Ani's eye glinted at the sight of gold. "It might."

Wallie handed over coins and dictated a brief message. Ani parroted it back at him in preliterate fashion, then rolled away to see what could be done.

He sat down and sighed. The cellar was hot and fetid and hateful. "Being my slave gives you plenty of variety, Jja, does it not? The royal guest suite ... and now this?"

She smiled obediently. "The women's quarters are a little cleaner, master, but much the same."

He thought of the women's quarters and was puzzled. They were not ostentatious, like his own accommodation, but they were airy and comfortable...

"What do you mean?" he demanded. "Not the rooms upstairs, where Janu..."

She shook her head, smiling slightly. "Only when you came for me, master."

She meant _slave women's_ quarters, of course. He had been thoughtless. "You mean that when you weren't with me, you were down in some hole like this?"

She nodded. "Most of the time."

He took her hands in his. "I had not realized!"

She started to say that it did not matter, and he cut her off. "Yes, it does! Jja, if we get out of this mess, I shall keep you by me always. We may find nothing better than this, but we'll find it together." She dropped her eyes before his gaze. "Jja ... I love you."

He thought she colored, but the light was too dim to be sure. What could such a statement mean, when made to a slave? "I would marry you if I could, Jja."

She looked up then, startled.

"I would give you anything, do anything for you," he said. "I told you that you would make joy with no other men and now I promise you that I..."

She put her fingers over his lips and shook her head.

"I mean it!"

She hesitated, reluctant as always to put her thoughts into words. "Wallie is sure. Lord Shonsu will not let him keep such a promise."

He started to protest, and again she stopped him. Then she shivered. "Do anything for me, master?"

"Yes."

"Drive away the G.o.d of sorrows?"

Vixini had curled up on some straw and was sleepily sucking his thumb.

It was a tempting prospect -- it might be his last chance, ever. "Just being with you is comfort enough, my love. You don't have to drag me into bed to please me. You're much more to me than just that sort of partner."

She dropped her eyes and was silent.

"What's wrong?"

"Forgive me, master."

"Forgive you for what?"

"I was not trying to please you. I was asking you to please me."

Was she being honest? He never could read her thoughts. It did not matter. Two weeks before, she would not have said even that much. Such progress should be rewarded.

"There will be bedbugs," he warned. But she smiled happily and raised her lips to his, and he quickly decided to risk the bedbugs.

The G.o.d of sorrows was unusually obstinate. He was driven away several times, and each time he returned in haste. He won by sheer persistence. When Nnanji appeared at last, the two fugitives were clothed once more and slouched limply on the wobbly wrecks of chairs, hot and weary in the smelly heat.

Nnanji ducked in under the rafters, looked around with a scowl, and then beamed at Wallie.

"My liege, may I have the honor of presenting my protege, Novice Katanji?"

Courage, Wallie recalled, had been defined as grace under stress. He rose to accept Katanji's salute, using hand gestures because of the lack of headroom. The boy wore a b.l.o.o.d.y facemark, a brilliant white kilt, and a surprised expression. Nnanji's old hairclip clung grimly in his short black curls, unable to make a ponytail no matter how hard it tried. He looked absurdly young.

He ought not to be there, of course. Wallie should have guessed what Nnanji had been plotting, but it was too late now to stop the oath.

Novice Katanji? Perhaps he was a sign from the G.o.ds, that the expedition was still going ahead. Number five had just boarded.

"I bought him a new sword instead of my old one," Nnanji announced, producing the weapon.

If he had gone up to the room for the old one...

But Nnanji had dried up in embarra.s.sment, which was rare.

"And you want me to give it to him?"

"If you don't mind kneeling to a First..." Nnanji muttered, meaning: _Yes, very much_.

"I shall be honored," Wallie said. "I'll still be taller than him, anyway."

Novice Katanji grinned at that. His mentor scowled at him and told him to remember what he had been told and not to cut off Lord Shonsu's thumbs.

Wallie knelt to offer the sword with the appropriate words. Katanji took it carefully and made the reply, but he did not look nearly as solemn or impressed as Nnanji did. There was a cynical glint in those dark young eyes.

"Nnanji, you were not followed here -- you are certain?" Wallie asked, easing back to his chair.

"Quite certain! You told me how, my liege!"

So Nnanji had been using the spy-story sutra.

"In fact," Nnanji said, "Popoluini and Faraskansi were on the gate. They tried to warn me not to come back in." He frowned. "I said it was a matter of honor. Then they promised not to have me followed."

Wallie tried to imagine that conversation and gave up. But it confirmed his belief that the swordsmen were reluctant opponents. They would obey Tarru's orders to the letter and do no more.

Then he noticed a third person, standing in the background. He had a.s.sumed that it was Kio, the favorite barracks girl, but it was no woman he had ever seen before. Nnanji grinned and beckoned her forward into the light.

"I bought this, too," he said proudly. "We have all those things to carry -- foils and spare clothes -- and Jja has the baby..."

Wallie was emotionally jangled and physically satiated, yet he felt himself react. She was voluptuous, clad only in a sort of lace wisp to emphasize her attractions, and they were emphatic enough in themselves. On Earth he would have a.s.sumed that such stupendous b.r.e.a.s.t.s were the work of an unethical plastic surgeon. In the World only a miracle could be holding them up like that. Her bare arms and legs were sensational. Cascades of light-brown wavy hair framed a perfect face -- perfectly blank -- with rosebud lips locked in a meaningless smile, big eyes dull as pebbles. A moron.

Oh, _h.e.l.l_! In the excitement of being promoted, Nnanji had run amok. First his brother, and now this. She was incredibly exciting and incredibly wrong, for he would tire of such an imbecile in a couple of days. She belonged in some pampered corner of a rich old man's mansion, not in a swordsman's wandering life. This could never be the preordained sixth member of the team! Never!

"I suppose I should have asked, my liege..." Nnanji had noticed the reaction.

"Yes, you should!" Wallie snapped. He sank back on to his chair in black depression. Everything was coming unraveled. As soon as he thought he had hit bottom, he found another layer. "_What_ did you call her?"