The Paladin Part 26

"Maybe he wasn't."

"-Or, maybe-" The mare went dancing a few steps sideways and Taizu brought her back. "Maybe they've been watching for you to leave your mountain."

"All these years? That's crazy." He looked over his shoulder again, more and more regretting the strongly marked horse. "I'm a fool. I shouldn't have taken that d.a.m.n horse."

Badly marked, the old man had said. But look at her lines, not the markings. I can't sell her for the price she ought to bring. No gentleman like yourself would ride a horse so-irregular, and I don't want thosemarkings pa.s.sed down. . . . But for your purposes ... to see her go to a gentleman's retainer. . .

"Don't get attached to that mare. We can trade her off up the road. In the meantime we use those good legs of hers to put distance behind us."

"All right," she said, looking back herself. "She'sin no trouble. It's Jiro I worry for-"

"We old men can manage, girl." He touched Jiro with his heels and Jiro had no trouble deciding he was going if the mare was. And vice versa.

There was a twisting way around Ygotai, by levies and dike-roads, among a few shabby buildings on Ygotai's outer edge-a town of some ten thousand souls, as Shoka recalled it from the Emperor's census; but the extent of the ramshackle buildings that he did not recall seeing, and the poverty-disturbed his sense of what should be. "These people weren't here," he said to Taizu as they rode, two mercenaries through the town slums; and people huddled under woven-work porches around their cooking fires-stopped their suppers and stared with bleak, worried eyes. Children did not chase them, therewere no children, except those sitting close and inconspicuous by their elders. There was only a single impudent pack of dogs, and those were starved-looking, yapping and chasing the horses, but not far.

Mostly the people looked beaten and afraid.

"They're scared ofus ," Taizu said in a quiet tone. "We look like soldiers."

The houses were so temporary a strong wind would demolish them. The street was rutted, dried mud in some places, a stinking mora.s.s in others where G.o.ds-knew-what habitually ran. And always the stares, the desperate, mistrusting stares.

What's wrong in this place? Where did these people come from?

What's happened here?

We look like soldiers. What in h.e.l.l does that mean?

"There's not much place for a camp," he said, looking over the land of dikes and rice-fields beyond the town. Easy for a supposed boy afoot-all too conspicuous for a gentleman, his retainer, and two horses.

"We'd scare farmers," Taizu said, "Mercenaries."

"Like we scared the townsmen," Shoka said as they crossed another bridge in the dusk. "I'd as lief be through this, far out into the country again."

"The road's safer. Stay out of the dikes on a horse, if we're thinking about stopping."

Dead ends. A maze of dead end paths. The farmer did not have to tell the soldier that fact.

So it was a grove of mulberries well after dark, where an orchard road gave them a little recess off the highway; and a bed under the trees, where no one might notice. The sky had turned nasty toward dark, a leaden gray that killed even the sun-colors, down to a pewter twilight and a starless dark. And with the prospect of a drenching they shared a cold supper of rice-b.a.l.l.s and sausage and a little tea, with a quick, small fire of stolen mulberry leaves and twigs.

"Why were they afraid?" Shoka asked then, in the dim light of that fire.

"Ofsoldiers ," Taizu said, as if it were simple sanity, and he were very dense.

"Soldiers."

"Of the Emperor."

He shook his head. "You're dealing with a man who was past twenty when you were born, girl. Who was in exile when you were scarcely aware of the world. In my time soldiers weren't to fear. Not-at least-within the towns and villages, no credit to a little rowdiness about the camps-that's always been.

But this wasfear ."

"The troops do what they want. The mercenaries do. They have papers from the Emperor. They're the law. ..."

"The law my rear. Thecourts are the law, girl. . . . TheEmperor doesn't hire mercenaries...."

"Thelords are the law."

"On their land, yes. Town taxes go to the Emperor, town problems go to the-"

"-Emperor's judges. But if you haven't got money you can't pay the fines and they take your pigs; or your house; or maybe the Emperor's soldiers just feel like a joke so they flatten your house and kill you.

There's n.o.body going to tell who they were, n.o.body'll care to find out who did it if you don't belong to some lord-he'llget mad and go to the courts, but you don't go to the court if you haven't got money-"

He listened. What she was describing was not the country he had left. But it was plausible, if an Emperor were a d.a.m.nable fool.

"-because that judge back there, either he's crooked and he's taking money, or he knows what could happen tohis farm if he got afoul of the soldiers. That's the way it is, out here in the country. That's the way the law is. And if you're a peasant and you've got somebody like lord Kaijeng, they tax him till he and his lady could hardly keep the place up and they raid his farms, and they march all his men away to the border wars, and finally they just come in and kill him, and you don't expect the Emperor did anything about it."

"Does the Emperor really doanything? "

"I don't know," she admitted. "They say the Emperor does this and the Emperor does that, but other people say he just puts his name on things and he spends all his time with his concubines and his birds."

"Birds." Cages . . . cages of exotic birds, an immense garden where birds flew free, and fine mesh nets secured them from the sky. Plants and birds imported from nameless places, at risk of lives. The boy had spent a lot of childhood hours there, dodging out on his weapons-drill and his court duties. Not an evil boy. A spoiled, self-centered, soft-minded boy, f.e.c.kless as the sparrows. Who murdered. Who cold-bloodedly schemed with Ghita to be rid of his wife, his advisors, his tutor- Because he was a d.a.m.nedfool , whose wishes and whose desire not to think were more real to him than the b.l.o.o.d.y result of his scheming- d.a.m.n him! d.a.m.n him for it!

Taizu had worked herself into a rage. He had, even thinking about it, for different reasons. So it was a long while before he said: "Is that the reputation he has?"

"Everybody says he's a fool. Spends all his time with his birds. Lords give them to him, if they want anything. There was one bird cost this lord thousands. And it died inside a week and after that the other birds in the garden got sick and a lot of them died. The Emperor said it was poisoned and it put a spell on the rest. Ghita had that man arrested and they took his lands-Tenei was his name, lord Tenei, up north-I think it was P'eng."

"That d.a.m.n dog-"

"They came in to arrest him and his wife committed suicide, but he hadn't the nerve so his friend killed him and killed himself."

"Who else are the lords? Can you name them off to me?"

She leaned back against a mulberry tree, a shadow in the dark, and ticked them off on her fingers.

"I don't know who's in Hua, if it isn't Gitu. He's also got Angen, of course. Shangei, that's lord Mendi.

"My G.o.ds."

"I don't know anything about him. Except it was lord Heisu's place."

"Mendi's a dithering fool. Go on."

"Yiungei-" There was a little tremor of anxiety in her voice out of the dark. "That's lord Baigi."

"Ghita's lapdog. I knew that."

"Mengan district, in Yiungei, that's-"

"Jeidi?" It was his own district she spoke of, his own lands.

She shook her head. "Jeidi's dead. Peiyan."

"Not all the bandits are in Hoisan. Who in Taiyi?"

"It used to be Riyen. He died. It's some cousin-"

"Kegi." "That was it."

"Just a name to me. Who are the best lords?"

"I don't know. Lord Mura. He was a friend of our lord. His name is Meigin. And lord Agin of Yijang, he was all right for a neighbor."

Two still alive. "Tengu?"

"I'm not sure. I didn't-care much then. I didn't care about lords. -I know Kenji: that's Mida."

Another one he knew, not a forceful man, a scholar.

"Hoishi is lord Reidi," he said, "last I heard. Much that you ever hear of him. I can't say I can complain of him as a neighbor, but I never crossed his borders. Now I have." He shook his head, feeling the same sense of desperation that had been with him down this road, too like-all too like-what he had felt ten years ago. "If Jiro could stand it, I'd say we should keep moving, but I won't break him down running, d.a.m.ned if I will."

"I wish you'd gone back!"

"It's too late now. There's no safety there-not for me, not for anyone with me. Not for the village if I go back there. This way it's on my head, and that's all they notice. Listen to me. I want you to listen to me very sensibly, Taizu: if soldiers do come on us, if there's no way to run, you leave me and you ride till that mare drops and you get off and walk-"

"No."

"Listento what I'm saying, dammit! If they should call out the soldiers on us, I'm not saying itwill happen-but if it does, it's because they've recognizedme , not a kid from Hua-and there's no way in h.e.l.l I can do anything at that point but make trouble for them. Most would stay with me-one or two might chase after you-you can outride them, you're lighter and that's a d.a.m.n good horse, that's why I wanted her, other considerations aside. You can get clear. I haven't got a hope of it. So let's be sensible.

They don't know you, they don't know what you intend. IfI'm back in the Empire, they'll make only one supposition, and your only danger is getting caught in my company. Now, that's sense. If something happens to me, things are going to be stirred up for a while. You get out, get to the south, hide out till it's quiet-"

"You're making all this up, it's not doing any good, because I'm not going to do it. I'm not leaving you!"

He sat there quiet a moment, thinking:I wanted loyalty .

d.a.m.n her, does she ever do anything but when you don't want it?

He was scared, more scared than he had been since he could remember. He hadknown the first caravan to go behind them from Mon to Ygotai would carry the news of his having crossed the border: he had planned for that, planned to stay ahead of that rumor, even to use it: they would expect Saukendar to go due north to Cheng'di or into Yiungei, not to Hua. But what had seemed possible in Mon seemed less so in Ygotai, and the desperate look of the people and the evidence of profound changes in the land-made it all seem more desperate and more difficult. And there was, since Mon, since he had breached the peace, no safety in return.

"You think the judge might call the soldiers," Taizu said, "and have them look out for my horse?"

"For your horse, for Jiro-a big red horse with a man of my description. I'm not much less conspicuous, and the Emperor's birds are more than show. A message can fly from here to Cheng'di-d.a.m.n fast."

"So. So-we just go fast, that's all."

"Where's the judge tonight? Where have his messengers gone? Where are the nearest soldiers and how fresh are their horses, against Jiro?"

"Do you know that?"

"So we hide! We hide until they think the judge is crazy."

"Where?"

"I'll find a place. There's hedges. There's thickets."

"We're dealing with two horses, for the G.o.ds' sake. You said yourself, if we get into the paddies, there's no way-"

"You listen to me, master Saukendar, you from the Heavenly City: I got out all right, didn't I? This is the country. You see this orchard. You see that road? It's not fast. We'll have to wade. But I'll bet the soldiers won't do it. We get back among the paddies and back into Taiyi province-"

"There's a river. Jiro's carrying armor."

"Well, if we cross by dark and we split up his tack and let my horse carry half-"

He sat there thinking about his reputation, about a single, sharp fight on the road, a way for a man to go out with some credit and some satisfaction on his enemies- And thinking with a little rise in his spirits-what Shoka-the-fool would have done in his youth, and risked everything for-having no hero's reputation to lose. Right through the rice-paddies, the fox's way-if he had a guide who was more than wishful thinking- "You think you can find a way through to Taiyi?"

"I know I can."

"They'll track us.Horses don't come and go down the paddy roads."

"That's fine. Water covers a lot. Horses can wade the same as we can."

"Then let's do it by dark. Before the rain starts."

There was a moment of silence as he got up. A pitiful small grunt as Taizu gathered herself up. There was more than that from Jiro, who stamped and shied around at being saddled up-and at being loaded this time not with a rider, but with the armor and the packs.

Shoka carried the armor when it came to climbing the main dike. He handed it up to Taizu, who set it on the ground, and he climbed the bank himself and pulled on Jiro's reins. After which Jiro came up in a rush and knocked him flat.

"Dammit!" he breathed, on his back on the ground, in the mud of the dike-side. And he turned and struggled to his feet and up the slope with his leg shooting pain up the inside.

Taizu tried to help him at the last, a shape in the dark that loomed up at the top. He shoved her. She was in his way, it hurt, and he shoved her. Then because he knew he was in the wrong he got angry at her.

"Dammit, don't get in front of me!"

It was misting rain. It was wet, it was slick. Jiro was exhausted and panting with the treks through mud, they had scarred the flanks of more than one dike in a trail a child could follow, and the turns along the roads, every choice of paths-their zigging and zagging along the dikes, sometimes a long arm, sometimes a short one, sometimes simply where they could manage the climb, became a nightmare of moonless, starless choices.

He picked up his sodden armor from where Taizu had dropped it, while she was picking her gear up and putting it back on the mare's saddle. His leg hurt, G.o.ds, it hurt. He piled everything back on the saddle and tied it, thank G.o.ds for the cord they had gotten from the bandits.

"We've got to go down again," Taizu said suddenly in a hoa.r.s.e and shaky voice.

"What do you mean we've got to go down again? We just cameup this side."