His Own Good Sword (The Cymeriad #1) (11 page)

“I was aware of that,” Tyren said.

“You’re aware of what the day is to the Cesini?”

He looked up to Verio and said nothing. Verio said, “It’s
a day of remembrance for them—the day they had their victory
against Varen.”

“Under Anien Varro,” Tyren said. He remembered now. “So
they celebrate it?”

“They celebrate it. Some use it as an excuse to work some
mischief, some of the hotheaded ones. It’s one of the more
interesting days we get.”

“There’ll be trouble?”

Verio shrugged. “There’s been violence before,” he
said.

“Serious?”

“Nothing that can’t be contained, of course—no,
sir. But better, maybe, if they know from the start any gestures they
make will be useless.”

“What are you suggesting I do?”

“In the past,” Verio said, carelessly, “the
commander would hang a man. That was always an effective deterrent.”

Tyren stared at him. “Hang an innocent man? That’s what
you’re asking me to do?”

“None of these people are innocent, sir. They swear their
loyalty to the Empire and support the rebellion anyway.”

“You’ve no real evidence any of these people support a
resistance movement.”

“The very fact there’s still a resistance movement after
all this time is proof they support it. Not just on principle,
either. Not just in their heads. Have you ever seen a mountain
winter, Commander Risto?”

He said, “No.”

“You couldn’t last a winter in these mountains without
food, without medicine. There isn’t enough game—you
couldn’t hunt enough to feed five men, much less twenty,
thirty. But these rebels survive. They get their food and medicine
somehow. Maybe you’ve not yet caught these people in the act,
sir, but logically—”

“I’m not prepared to execute a man for treason until he’s
been caught in the act, Lieutenant,” Tyren said, tightly.

Verio’s face hardened.

“You have to show yourself strong in this place, sir,” he
said. “If you do nothing you’re only inviting violence,
inviting them to test us. And they’ll test us, sir.”

“I didn’t say I’d do nothing. Post men in pairs
across the village to stand guard, change out the shifts every three
hours. Have Aino ride patrols along the western rim. Make a show of
force. But I will not allow any mistreatment of these people and I
will not execute an innocent man. You told me about Rylan Sarre
yourself, what his death did here.”

“Rylan Sarre wasn’t an innocent man,” Verio said,
sharply. “Sir.”

“Then the death of an innocent man will turn these people
against us even more. Do you understand me?”

“I understand you,” Verio said. This time he neglected
the ‘sir’ entirely.

“Inform Aino,” Tyren said.

He was angry, when Verio had gone, and he just sat at the desk with
his jaw clenched, cursing Verio and Vareno stupidity in his head. It
surprised him a little, the anger. He hadn’t felt this way
before—hadn’t felt so strongly about it. But little
wonder these people hate us. It wasn’t the concept of empire,
not the concept itself. The Cesini had had their own kings, after
all, and when you got down to the principles of the thing the Varri
had been no different than the Berioni—had come of the same
stock, even. No, it was the way the concept was realized in this
place. We lash out with violence and they retaliate with violence, or
the other way round, all in an endless cycle. No chance for the
building-up of trust, for real peace. There were those who couldn’t
understand that and there were those who understood it well enough
and didn’t care.

He knew Verio thought him weak, soft; knew it would be difficult to
earn the man’s respect after this. But in the morning Verio saw
to the posting of the guards, and sent Aino out on patrol, and said
nothing of what had happened in the office yesterday.

He rode out on Risun through the village at mid-day. The place was
quiet, nothing out of the ordinary, though there was a tight-faced,
wordless hostility among the village folk because of the presence of
so many garrison troops, uneasiness hanging heavy on the air. But the
day passed without event. When evening came the villagers were in
their houses; it was a night for feasting, and the uneasiness gave
way a little, and there was laughter again, Cesino voices, native
songs. Aino returned from a last patrol of the circuit at the
twentieth hour and they had their own quiet supper in the officers’
mess. When it was done Tyren went out to stand at the gate, leaning
against the post, looking out across the firelit village and the
common. The smoke of the cook-fires was drifting on the night air,
and with it the pungent, bitter smell of roasted chestnuts, and he
wished very briefly there were no division here, no tension between
garrison and village folk—that you might have a night like this
without deep-seated hatred and mistrust and fear on both their parts.
Verio stood with him, a little way back, his arms folded tightly
across his chest.

A red light sprang up across the village to the north. Verio started,
unfolding his arms.

“Bonfire,” said Tyren, lazily.

“We should take a look, sir,” Verio said, trying to be
off-handed.

“All right,” Tyren said. He wouldn’t mind taking a
look. It was something to do besides stand here pensively at the
fort.

A stable-boy brought out their horses and they mounted and rode out
from the gate and through the village to where the fire had come up,
one of the fallow fields that hadn’t been used for planting
this year. They sat back on the road, out of the ring of firelight,
and watched the Cesini pile kindling on the flames, catching bits and
pieces of the words that drifted on the air with the smoke and ash.
Youngsters, most of these.

Verio said, “What are they saying?”

Tyren glanced over to him. “You don’t speak Cesino,
Lieutenant?”

“Not much, sir,” Verio admitted.

Tyren didn’t say anything else right away. So Verio had been
four years in this place and couldn’t speak the native tongue.
No real need, perhaps—certainly there were Cesini enough who
could speak Vareno, the language of the Empire. But surprising, just
the same.

He said, “They intend this for the fort one of these days.”

Verio looked to him quickly. “You’re saying—”

He smiled. “No, it was in jest.”

“What are they really saying?”

“The girl thinks they’ve let it grow too big, thinks her
brother should put it out before it carries to the trees. The little
one wonders whether they see it in Carent. They will if it catches
the wood afire, the taller one says—they’ll think we’ve
lit a beacon as the mountain forts used to do in times of war. The
other—”

Verio had turned his face away again. “I understand, sir,”
he said.

“I’m going back,” said Tyren.

They rode back to the fort in silence; Verio seemed too embarrassed
to say anything. Regaro and Aino, the junior officers, were waiting
for them in the torch-lit yard, a mounted regular with them. They
saluted and Regaro said, “Commander Risto, we’ve men
missing.”

He said, “Missing?”

“Yes, sir. Our two men posted at the western end of the
valley—Sælo and Rian. They weren’t at their post
when the shift changed just now. No sign of their horses. We were
preparing to send out searchers, sir.”

“You’ve men at the post now?”

The regular spoke up. “Yes, sir. I came back to bring the word,
sir, but Nevare is still there.”

“I’ll go,” Tyren said. “And Verio, and Aino.
Regaro, you’re in command here.”

“Yes, sir,” Regaro said.

“Bring a light,” Tyren said to Aino.

When Aino had mounted up they rode out from the gate and turned to go
west, riding uphill towards the patrol path, following the water
channel, the flickering light from Aino’s torch painting the
dark water red. They came eventually to the little seam where the
valley floor and the southern hillside met to become level footing.
They dismounted and the regular, Nevare, came out from the dark trees
to meet them, resting the palm of his right hand on the pommel of his
sword, shaking his head when Verio asked him if he’d found any
sign of the missing men. Aino lit another torch and gave one to Tyren
and took the other and they spread out to look, Nevare going with
Aino, Verio coming behind Tyren, calling the names, getting no
answer. Tyren knelt down to have a look at the ground, holding the
torch in one hand. Verio stood behind him, looking round, his mouth
tight.

“They’d have been heard if they’d called out for
help,” he said.

“Unless they didn’t call for help because there was no
reason to call for help.” Tyren sat back on his heels. “For
all I know they’re getting drunk down at the hall.”

“Commander Risto,” Aino said.

He’d gone some distance away, further up into the trees. Tyren
stood up and went to look. He knew, before he got there, from the
expression on Aino’s torch-lit face, the kind of thing he’d
see. He made himself look anyway. Sælo was there, dead,
sprawled on his back so Tyren could see his throat had been slit. He
hadn’t been dead long. The blood was still wet, glistening in
the torch-light. His sword and belt knife were gone. His helmet was
off, upturned on the ground beside him. Rian wasn’t there, but
another helmet lay in the grass some distance away.

Tyren stood there and looked down at the body without moving, his
mouth dry as dust, a tightness in his heart and throat. Behind him,
Verio swore softly. Aino and Nevare said nothing.

After a little while he went over to where the body lay and knelt
beside it, unsteadily.

“What’s the mark?” he said. His voice didn’t
sound like his own; he heard it from a distance.

The mark had been cut roughly into the skin of Sælo’s
right cheek: two crossed lines within two concentric circles,
spreading from ear to nose, eye socket to jaw.

“The old Cesino sigil,” Verio said. “It’s
been their sigil since before the Varri.”

Aino said, quietly, “The rebels use that sigil.”

“So this is the work of the rebellion.”

“It seems that way, sir,” Verio said.

“Rian isn’t here.”

“He might have tried to run,” Verio said, “or he
might have been taken alive. Hard to tell in this damn dark.”

Tyren stood, indecisive, his thoughts running too quickly.

“They must still be close, sir,” Aino said.

“We won’t be able to track them tonight,” Verio
said. “They know these woods, know the mountains—”

“You,” Tyren said to Aino. “I want you to return to
the fort and bring up a troop to search for Rian and take the body
back down. The lieutenant and I and Nevare will stand guard. Do you
understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Aino said. He gave his torch to Nevare and
ran to his horse and mounted up and went riding back down towards the
village at a hard gallop. There was silence after he’d gone.
Verio crouched down on his heels and rubbed his face with his hands,
blinking his eyes. Nevare stood a little way away, tensely, his hand
still ready on his sword-hilt. Tyren looked round. The wood lay quiet
about them. A mist was rising, clinging wetly to their clothes. No
sign of the attackers he could discern, no sound except the trilling
of a nightingale somewhere off in the dark.

“What are you going to do, sir?” Verio said to him, after
a while, in a low voice.

“Go after them. Not tonight. Useless to try it tonight. I don’t
want to be ambushed in the dark. But at first light tomorrow, while
there still might be a trail.”

“They’ll have gone into the Outland.”

“You needn’t come, if that worries you,” Tyren
said.

Verio laughed at him.

“This isn’t Choiro, Commander Risto. This isn’t
some lesson in a Vione schoolroom. You do things here because they
must be done, not because you want to do them or because you think
they’ll make you look good in the capital. This is the
wilderness, not a parade-ground. You do things here because they must
be done.”

“I’m doing what must be done.”

“You’re being a damn fool.” Verio’s voice was
harsh with sudden impatience, startlingly loud in the silence. “The
Outland is their ground.”

“Then tell me what must be done,” Tyren said, coldly.

“These people need to learn there are consequences for this. If
they realize what happens every time they make a move against us, if
they realize there are consequences, hard consequences—they’ll
turn against their own. You’ll defeat their rebellion without
losing another man.”

“You think I should punish the village folk for this?”

“If you wish them to learn,” said Verio, shrugging.

“So I punish innocent people rather than ride out to meet the
men responsible. What exactly does that teach them, Lieutenant?”

“None of these people are innocent, Commander Risto,”
Verio said.

“I’ll tell you what I think,” Tyren said. He was
angry, suddenly. The words spilled out almost of their own. “I
think you’re as much a coward as the bastards who did this. I
think you’re content to sit in the village, waving your sword
to frighten the farm wives, because if it came to a real fight we’d
all see you’re words and nothing else.”

There was silence between them. Verio sat without moving a muscle,
his eyes narrowed, the torch-light snapping on his face. Nevare was
staring at them open-mouthed. In the distance there were the hoof
beats of Aino’s troop coming up from the village.

“Another thing,” Tyren said. “No matter your
opinion of me—my age or my upbringing or the way you think I
handle this command—I’ll always be addressed as ‘sir.’
You needn’t bring my father’s name into it. I’m
your commanding officer and you’ll address me as such, do you
understand?”

“Yes, sir,” said Verio, very quietly.

“I’ll be leading a troop of horse up into the Outland
tomorrow and you’ll be riding with me. We leave at first light.
Twelve men of your choice. You may return to the fort now and begin
making the arrangements.”