The Paladin Part 6

"Isay you won't." He put his feet down on the ground beside the porch, got up and walked up the three steps, a little stiff: he always was when he had been sitting cross-legged. "You also said you'd do as you're told; and you're not running in the dark." He saw the fear in her eyes, and lowered his voice. "Do I worry you? You needn't worry. Because a man says he'd like to show you a little kindness, do you think it's cause to run away from him?"

The fear did not go away. She only looked at him as if she were caught between choices, each one terrible.

"Girl, I wasn't celibate before I came up here; and if you think you look like a boy, and if you think I can share a cabin with a woman after nine years on this mountain and not have certain impulses, you've got a d.a.m.n sight more to learn about men."

"You took me for your student, master Saukendar. What kind of man would lay hands on his student?"

"You're a girl! You don't change that!"

"Your word didn't say anything about that. You agreed. That's all of it."

"You listen to me, girl. You don't change nature. What you ask isn't reasonable!"

"You swore it."

"I was humoring a lunatic!"

"But you swore it. And it's your honor, isn't it, if you break your word the G.o.ds will remember it. You swore you'd take me for a student, and that you wouldn't lay a hand on me. Are you going to break your oath?"

"Fool! You won't last it out. There was never any hope of that. High time you realized it and started thinking about how you're going to provide a living for yourself."

"All you have to do is teach me. And I got here, master Saukendar, I got here on my own and you say yourself I'm good in the woods. I set a trap you walked right into, didn't I? And I've done everything you've set me to do, so you don't have any cause to complain about me. You teach me the same way you would a boy, and I'll learn the same as any boy."

"The way you run the hill?"

"The way I run the hill."

"Oh, come, girl, don't lie to me. You've never finished that course."

"I do!"

"d.a.m.n, you've never even seen the top of the hill. You sit down when you get winded, you rest till you think it's time and you run down, don't tell me you're going all the way to the top."

"Then follow me." That stung: he could not run that hill himself, not with his lame leg, and he was sure she knew that and that she was deliberately making the point. He folded his arms and gave her a hard look. "Girl, you're trying me."

"I'm not a cheat."

He gave her a long, long stare. "You maintain that you're going all the way to the top. That you're not waiting it out. You're not lying to me."

"No."

"A truth for a truth: I expected you not to get halfway. Now tell me that you didn't, and I'll call it even and nothing will change. Students have pulled tricks like that since the sun was sp.a.w.ned. But by the G.o.ds if you lie to me eye to eye and I catch you in it, all agreements are off-and I will catch you, understand me?"

"I'm not lying!"

"Last chance."

"I'm not lying. "

"Stay off the hill tonight. Get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow you'll need it. Or you'll tell me you've lied.

Because if I find out you have-I'm free of anything I ever promised you. That's the end of it."

Jiro laid his ears back when the blanket and saddle went on; and he p.r.i.c.ked them up again as Shoka led him out into the daylight where Taizu waited, sitting on the fence.

"All right," Shoka said, as Jiro worked the bit and rugged at the reins close-held in his fist. "I'll give you a head start. Down to the far end of the pasture and up again."

Taizu looked in that direction, the long slope of the shoulder where an old burn-off had left very few trees, part of the hill clear of woods had grown over with gra.s.s and weeds. He had hewed the saplings of the regrowth, burned and cut the stumps; used the trimmed trees for railing; and widened the pasturage year by year. Now it compa.s.sed all of a broad downward slope before it dropped away suddenly at the end and sides.

Taizu nodded and set off at a jog toward the railing of the pen, ducked under and set out at an easy pace across the pasture beyond.

He led Jiro over to the gate, opened it, led him through and swung up to the saddle as Jiro worked the bit and started to move.

"Faster!" he yelled at the girl.

She quickened her pace; and he let her get a good long start across the pasture before he gave Jiro his head.

Jiro snorted and fought for more rein. Shoka held him in, feeling Jiro's uneasiness, seeing the way Jiro'sears came up with the girl a distant figure framed between them.

Faster and faster, Jiro fighting to break loose of the rein, the gap between them and the girl less and less.

Jiro's ears went back. The warhorse knew one purpose to a chase and he had no compunction at all in a fight.

"Faster!" Shoka yelled.

The girl did not look back. She put on a burst of speed and Jiro ducked his head, fighting to get the bit.

"He'll knock you flat!" Shoka yelled. "Keep ahead of him!"

She dodged around one of the few standing trees and Jiro needed no rein to veer around and keep after her. The horse kept fighting for the bit, trying all his tricks as the girl reached the fence, hit the top rail with her hands, and dived back the other way, halfway through her course.

The horse fought to turn and cut her off, and Shoka took him wide, complete turn about, while the girl lit out on the uphill slope of the meadow.

d.a.m.n, she was not winded yet.

He put Jiro to a faster pace; and the girl took a dodge through a series of three standing trees, in and out among a handful of small, sharp stumps he had not yet cleared.

"All right, girl," he muttered to himself; and loosened up on the reins a bit, letting Jiro take the weaving course at a faster pace.

But the girl suddenly sprinted all out for the stable fence higher up the hill.

d.a.m.n, she was going to make it.

He gave Jiro his heels then, a full-tilt course uphill, to cut in between the girl and the fence at the last moment.

She veered off as Jiro's shoulder all but brushed her and Jiro spun on his own, coming up on his hind legs as Shoka reined back and then let up again.

Jiro dived after the girl, and the girl ran all out, for the side fence, this time, then as Jiro closed that distance, cut across and tried to double back to the stable fence.

"No, you don't!" Shoka yelled at her, and pulled Jiro across to cut her off a second time, nettled and amazed that there was so much speed left in the girl.

She changed direction again for the side, a sudden sprint and a dart down the pasture, and he herded her back again; another sprint toward the uphill, and he cut that off.

The girl was drenched in sweat now; and reeled back as Jiro came close with his shoulder, reeled back and darted opposite to Jiro's right-hand cornering, shot straight for the fence; but Shoka put his heels to Jiro and Jiro stretched out in a run, cut between her and the fence, hard-breathing and snorting as he turned. She dodged back almost under Jiro's rump: Jiro kicked and Shoka reined him aside, which Jiro took for a full-about signal and dived again to head her back.

She turned again, stumbled this time; and kept running, while he took Jiro about and spun him into a full turn to get Jiro under control before he dived after the girl again; and the girl dodged back toward the fence, stumbling now, while he reined circles around her.

He did not expect the final sprint that flung her for the rails. She grabbed the fence, tried to go over it and collapsed on her knees in the dust there, clinging to the rail. She bent helpless for a moment, coughing, gasping after breath, then shook back her sweaty hair and stared sidelong up at him, one eye in eclipse under the mop, the other glaring reproachfully up at him what time she was not coughing.

Daring him to say that she lied. And he knew now in his heart that she had not. She had run that d.a.m.ned mountain, beyond any doubt.

He hated to be caught in the wrong. And doubly hated, even considering that she was a fool and worse for everything she wanted, to have asked the impossible and pushed her as far as he had, twice over, to end up with her in the right and himself very conspicuously the villain in the exchange.

d.a.m.n. And he had put his word on the outcome.

"All right," he said finally, from the height of Jiro's back, "I'll teach you as far as you can go. But wherever you fail, you fail, and I'll hear no excuses."

She tried to straighten up. She hauled herself up against the railings and hung there.

"You'll cramp like h.e.l.l if you don't cool down slowly," he said. "Walk up to the house, wrap up, I'll put some water on to boil."

She nodded, just that single move of her head. She climbed awkwardly through the fence and staggered off across the stable pen.

d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n, and d.a.m.n.

But he found himself seriously considering that she might make a student after all. She was fast enough and strong enough to learn far more than he had reckoned; and perhaps-one hoped-she would listen to good sense along the way.

Chapter Four.

He did not sleep well that night. He kept thinking of Chiyaden, for reasons that he could not understand.

Perhaps, he thought, it was that he contemplated teaching, and teaching, he had to remember how he was taught and the things he had learned, and the learning of them had been in Chiyaden, and in his youth, and at his father's hand and at old master Yenan's, in the court at Cheng'di.

A great many of those memories would have been pleasant to recall, except he knew what his father's plans had come to. His father had set him, before he died, to serve the old Emperor in the Emperor's waning years-and, in his father's place, he had tried, earnestly tried, he had sacrificed everything hecould in a personal way, he had defended the old Emperor against a.s.sa.s.sins, he had taken every precaution he could to preserve the Empire and the peace. But no martial skill had availed against the wilfulness of an heir who had conspired in the execution of his appointed caretakers and who had intended with everything that was in him, to see that Saukendar followed them to disgrace.

There was no wisdom that might have saved Chiyaden, except to wish that the Emperor had brought up a better son; except to wish the old Emperor had taught Beijun more, indulged him less when he was young, used a stronger hand to separate him from bad companions....

G.o.ds knew what would have served: he had tried to advise the old Emperor regarding his heir and his companions: his father before him had given the same advice, all disregarded. Maturity will change him, the old Emperor had said of his son. Responsibility will change him. Give him time.

In his nightmares he saw his friend Heisu under the axe; and the sensible lady the young Emperor had married- -thathe should have married, except the Emperor decreed Meiya for his son- -Meiya sitting at the garden window with the poisoned cup in her hand, fragile porcelain, elegant as everything about her.

d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n, and d.a.m.n! d.a.m.n Beijun for a fool and himself- Meiya had thought to the last, perhaps, that he would arrive in time; that he would cleave his way to her rescue. But no one had told him: the order was signed and sealed by the Emperor and the killers were on their way when she had drunk that cup, while he himself was two days away from the capital on a fool's mission the young Emperor had a.s.signed him.

It could not have been the young Emperor's planning. Ghita's, beyond a doubt; Shoka had had nine years to live with that reckoning, that he had been caught for a fool, that if there was any adultery with the lady Meiya- -at least of the heart- He clenched his fists and twisted on his mat, and stared into the dark where Meiya's gentle countenance did not have the substance she did in his memories.

You have a duty, his father had counseled him, when the old Emperor had proclaimed his wishes regarding his son's betrothal to the lady Meiya; the welfare of the Empire comes above every other thing.

Think of your oath.

Shoka had rebelled against that decision: he had served the Emperor-and this was the reward of it, Meiya given to a fool, because the Emperor, in his slow dying, knew that his son needed strong advisers; and chose Meiya and through Meiya, her father lord Peidan; and besides Meiya, lord Heisu of Ayendan; and Saukendar, heir to Yiungei province, not least in that number.

His father had counseled him wisely in everything but this, that he give his devotion in due time to the new Emperor as to the old; that he persuade Beijun slowly to good sense; that he trust Meiya and Heisu and his own influence could take a self-indulgent, stupid boy and make an Emperor out of him.

This much was true, at least, that if he had arrived in time and carried Meiya away to exile, Ghita'sa.s.sa.s.sins would never have given up; and that if Meiya had been with him on the road he would never have gotten this far.

But Shoka had heard the news too late for any such chances. In the years since her betrothal to the young Emperor, he and Meiya had grown apart, so that, far from thinking first of her when he had heard about her pa.s.sing among the other deaths that terrible day, Meiya had seemed less in importance than Heisu and her father.

Later he had realized where his grief was. The soldiers like Heisu, the scholars like Baundi, the loyal guard and the retainers-they had run risks and most of them had had weapons and at least a chance to defend themselves. For Meiya of Kiang, immured in the palace, trusting to her wits, so gentle in her upbringing she could not have lifted a hand in her defense, there had been only the cup-a recourse delayed to the last moment that she had any choice.

It was that gesture that haunted his nights, the suspicion that, lacking any reasonable prospect of mercy from her husband, she had still hoped in someone; that, and the fact that he had not even thought of her first among the dead. Lady Meiya had sat with the deadly cup in hand, watching by the garden window that looked out on the southern road; and hoped to the last for a lover she had given up fifteen years before.

They had put lord Heisu on trial for adultery in the same hour they had invaded his apartments and dragged him out; and Ghita's hand-picked judges had found Heisu guilty on the evidence of lady Meiya's suicide. That was the shape of justice in the new court, with the old Emperor's ashes not yet cold. They had struck off Heisu's head and mounted it at the north gate of Cheng'di, the gate that looked toward Heisu's province of Ayendan.

Shoka had known when he had heard the news, that returning to the capital was hopeless, that there were no allies to draw on: the plot was too thorough, the Guard and the army itself subverted with gold and promises: the order was out for his arrest as well, as Heisu's accomplice in treason in plotting to seize the throne. So the rot he had seen in the court had festered and burst, and there was no rising of indignation among the lords or the people, just a general scramble to find a safe position in the regime-to-come.

That was why he had run for the border. That was why he had saved his own life, after he had so badly misjudged how for the young Emperor would go: the young fool Beijun had quitted the court in a fit of anger and run to Ghita for shelter from him. The young Emperor had sought shelter fromhim , that was the fact, and that Beijun was Chosen of Heaven and anointed by the priests put a sanct.i.ty about him that, even in that hour, Shoka had respected all too much.

Fool, he thought now. But when he considered who else might have sat the throne, or who would have had the force to hold it-there was no one... not after the brutal example of lord Heisu; and not in the opposition of the priests, the hired ones and the simple-minded ones who simply, doggedly, upheld the Chosen of Heaven, even when he was a fool. It was the will of the G.o.ds that the Empire was to suffer. It was the will of the G.o.ds that murder was done. Was not the Emperor the arbiter of right, the interpreter of the divine, the Bridge to Heaven?

As the priests went, so went the people, who hoped in the G.o.ds, and mostly hoped to be let alone: least of all would they fight against the priests. Shoka had understood that the first time a band of peasants tried to collect the reward on his head. He had spent his life thinking first of his obligations and his Emperor; he had defended the law; he had given up everything for the sake of Chiyaden and the Emperor in Cheng'di; and Chiyaden, in the end, had betrayed him. So what do I have to teach you, girl? Wisdom? I've found none here either.

I had a dozen lovers. There was one love. I gave that up. I honored my father, she honored hers, we were fifteen: what do children know?

He could not forget the cup, lady Meiya, and the window, the way the stories told it-that solitary perfect image, as if he had been there, in that room, in that moment that she gave up hope-even though their converse in later years had all been plotting how to extricate the heir from his wild-living friends, how to circ.u.mvent lord Ghita and his cronies, how to persuade the dying Emperor to take at least some action to protect himself against a.s.sa.s.sination....

If she had been his wife- But Meiya had chosen duty too.

So she was dead and he was in lifelong exile, plagued now by a young fool of a peasant girl who thought that she could right the wrongs her family had suffered, that blood would account for her people's blood, or that the ghosts would not cease then to trouble her sleep.

One could not advise fools. Fools, old master Yenan had been wont to say, have to mend their foolishness before they can listen. They have to know what truth is.

So that was the first thing-for a girl who did not want to be a girl, for a fool who wanted revenge that would profit her nothing.

That was the first thing that had to change.

G.o.ds, he wanted to hit her. And he could not understand the why of that either, except that she was a fool.

That he wanted to sleep with her-with a scar-faced pig-girl-seemed like an exorcism, a coupling with a creature as rough and ungentle as he could imagine. Shoka's choice, not Saukendar's. Shoka's consolation. Not the woman he could have had.

d.a.m.n, better a woman who could take care of herself in the place he was condemned to live in, better a woman as real as the dirt and the summer heat.