His Own Good Sword (The Cymeriad #1) (16 page)

Muryn met him in the doorway. There was weariness in his eyes and in
the way he stood, but he smiled. “Tyren,” he said.

“I apologize I couldn’t come sooner. I can’t stay
long. But I brought medicine.”

Inside, Muryn’s wife was spinning wool thread beside the
hearth, her fingers moving swiftly, deftly, rolling the wooden
spindle across her knees and dropping it and snatching it quickly up
through the air again. She said nothing to him but she smiled a
little and bowed her head in greeting. Tyren put the saddlebag on the
table and looked down to the Cesino, Mægo, while he took off
his cape and his gloves. Mægo was sleeping. His eyes weren’t
so sunken as they’d been yesterday, his face not so sickly
pale. There was another woman sitting on the hearth beside him,
holding his limp left hand tightly in her right. She looked up to
Tyren. He recognized her, remembered the sharp, sun-browned face, the
fierce gray eyes: the girl from the patrol path. She just looked at
him a moment, her mouth hardening. Then she looked accusingly to
Muryn.

Muryn said, in Cesino, “It’s all right, Maryna.”

“This is the garrison commander,” Maryna said.

“He’s come to help,” Muryn said.

Tyren knelt across from her with Mægo between them.

“How is he?” he said over his shoulder to Muryn, speaking
in his own tongue.

Muryn said, “There’s no infection. He was awake
earlier—ate something and spoke to us.”

Tyren reached a hand to peel away the dressing from the wound.

The girl said, in Vareno, “Don’t touch him, bastard.”

“I’m trying to help him,” Tyren said.

“He doesn’t need your help, Vareno. He wouldn’t
want it, were he awake. Your people have done enough to him.”

He paid no attention to that. He unwrapped the bandages slowly,
gingerly. A poultice had been bound underneath and he pulled it away
to look at the wound. The girl watched him all the while, unmoving,
her lips pressed in a thin, tight line, her eyes hard and sharp as a
steel blade. Beneath the poultice the gash was still raw at the edges
but there was no swelling, no heat, no redness to indicate infection.
He stared down at it, dumbfounded. He hadn’t expected the thing
would heal so well, so readily. There was always infection with this
kind of wound.

He managed to say, at length, “Who made up the poultice?”

A cold half smile touched the girl’s mouth very briefly. “It
was mine,” she said.

“It was well done.”

She let go Mægo’s hand and slipped down onto her knees to
bind up the wound again. “I said he doesn’t need your
help,” she said.

Mægo moved as she worked, his eyes drifting slowly open, his
breath quickening, and the girl bent down close to his ear to say
something to him in a low voice, putting a hand on his shoulder so
he’d lie still. He lay there looking up at her, swallowing to
keep from making any noise at the pain. Then, turning his head, he
saw Tyren, and Tyren saw the recognition kindle all at once in his
eyes.

They looked at each other in silence a long moment. Then, almost
frantically, Mægo struggled to sit up, pushing away Maryna’s
hand from his shoulder. The effort cost him. The color drained from
his face; he clenched his teeth and sucked in a sharp breath. Then he
groaned and put his hands to the wound.

Maryna said, “Mægo—”

“Lie still, fool,” Tyren said.

Mægo looked up to Muryn, who stood silently against the end of
the table, his arms folded, watching. Then he brought his eyes to
Tyren again. He lay slowly back down against the hearth, his chin up,
his jaw tight, keeping his hands pressed to his side.

He spoke, with effort, in Vareno. “Listen to me, Risto. These
people are innocent. Whatever business there is between you and
me—these people are innocent.”

Tyren shook his head. “I come peacefully,” he said. “I
mean you no harm, any of you.”

“He’s been here yesterday and today, Mægo,”
said Muryn.

“No harm, Vareno?” said Maryna. There was sudden hot
color in her cheeks, anger in her voice. “You and your people
did this to him. And you, Bryo—there’s a price for
treachery, you know that.”

Mægo said, “Maryna.”

He hadn’t taken his eyes away from Tyren’s face. His brow
was furrowed a little, the gray eyes narrowed, as though he were
working something out in his head. Tyren met the look without moving.
They studied each other closely, carefully. It was the first time
they’d seen each other true, Tyren thought. It had been
pretense before, pretense until the Outland. Pretense until blood was
shed to strip it away. This was the reckoning that mattered.

“So you’ve earned Bryo’s trust,” Mægo
said, at length. He seemed amused at something, though his eyes were
cold, hard, humorless.

Muryn said, “Yes, he has my trust, Mægo.”

“Thought you would’ve learned the lesson by now, Bryo,”
said Mægo. “Thought you would’ve learned what
Vareno friendship means.”

Anger rose all at once in Tyren’s throat. “You think
that’s why I’m letting you live? So I can gain your trust
and then betray you?”

Mægo laughed. “Letting me live. Should I be groveling in
gratitude for your mercy, Risto, is that it?”

“If I intended to betray you I’d have done it already.
You think I don’t know what it means, that he’s your
priest? Or that you’re Rylan Sarre’s son?”

Muryn looked over to him quickly, sharply; the woman too, lifting her
head a little, though she didn’t stop her spinning. Mægo
didn’t move. There was the ghost of a smile at the corners of
his mouth but he said nothing. Silence had settled over in the room
in that moment and in the silence the snapping of the fire grew very
loud.

Tyren got up slowly to his feet. He didn’t look at Mægo
again. He spoke to Muryn.

“I have to go back,” he said. “There’s acetum
in the bag, to fight the infection, if need be. And some wine, and
bandages. It’s as much as I could bring.”

Muryn came with him outside. They stood a little while at the
northeastern corner of the house, beyond the patch of firelight at
the doorway, looking out over the night-blackened field and the trees
beyond. An owl hooted softly somewhere out in the darkness. He didn’t
speak right away. He watched the wood and waited for the anger to go
out of him.

Muryn spoke first. “So you know,” he said.

“I know. Or I guessed, yesterday. I had word it was Sarre’s
son killed Magryn. It was guesswork.”

Muryn smiled. It was a faint, solemn smile, the corners of his eyes
creasing as though he were in careful thought. “I admit I
didn’t trust you enough to tell you that,” he said.

“You were right not to trust me. Mægo was right.”

“Maybe,” said Muryn.

It was a complicated word, empty and weighty at once. But if Muryn
had meant something by it he didn’t explain himself.

“The wound’s healing well,” Tyren said. “There’s
no need for me to be here. You and the girl have done more for him
than I could do. It’ll only turn him against you, my being
here.”

Muryn said nothing for a moment. Then he said, in a quiet voice, “I
fear for him, Tyren.”

“I’ll grant him safe passage when he heals. Wherever he
wishes to go. There are some of his people in the Outland still.
Dispersed, for now, but they live. My people won’t lay a hand
on him, I swear it to you.”

Muryn shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. There’s
a great deal of hatred inside him, a great deal of bitterness. He
wants vengeance for what was done to him—and for what was done
to his father, most of all. I’m afraid for that.”

Tyren shrugged. He was still stiff with the anger and he didn’t
want Muryn to see, so he pretended carelessness. “I don’t
know I can fault him for it. I’d want vengeance if I were in
his place, if it had been done to me.”

“And you’d tell yourself you had the right to it,”
said Muryn. “Yes—the mountain people have told themselves
that for two hundred years now, since the war. But what does that
accomplish? It’s never enough to fight only for vengeance.
Rylan Sarre had a cause worth fighting for, at least.”

Tyren glanced over to him. He was amused, but it was a cold, harsh,
tight-hearted kind of amusement. The words came out more mockingly
than he’d intended.

“So you think the throne will be restored, Muryn? That Tarien
Varro will come back from the dead to drive my people out of Cesin?
Is that what you think worth fighting for? You told me differently
that day on the road.”

Muryn said, “That isn’t what Rylan Sarre fought for, or
what he died for.”

“They executed him for stirring up rebellion against the
Empire.”

“That’s the word that was spread afterward. Rebel and
traitor to your people, hero and martyr to mine. One thing or
another, as they needed him, until the truth was gone. He was no
rebel, Tyren.”

“Was he a hero?”

“He wouldn’t have called himself so,” said Muryn.

“But you’d call him so.”

Muryn’s voice was steady. “Yes,” he said. “I
would.”

“You don’t deny he rose in arms against the Empire.”

“He took up arms against injustice. There’s a distinction
to be made.”

Tyren was silent a while. “Give me your side of it, then,”
he said.

“Lord Magryn had taken land by force from certain of the
farmers and pledged a portion of the harvest yield to the garrison,
thinking to ease his own burden of tribute. Rylan was among those
whose land and crop were taken. He went to hall with his grievance,
then to the fort. Both turned him away. He took up arms then, rather
than see wife and child dead from hunger. He went up into the
mountains with a handful of men who’d suffered the same loss
and he took to raiding the supply carts on the Rien road. As far as
possible he did it without violence, without bloodshed, swearing all
the while he’d lay down his weapons and reaffirm his allegiance
to Magryn, if Magryn would give him recompense for the land. Magryn
made him that pledge, finally. He offered peace, and Rylan showed
himself willing to abide by it. He came down to the hall to give his
allegiance just as he’d sworn. He’d no thought for Cesino
independence, for the restoration of the throne. He wouldn’t
have dealt with Magryn if that had been his cause. No, if Magryn had
given him justice from the first he wouldn’t have taken up arms
at all.”

Tyren said, dryly, “You fail to mention Magryn betrayed him and
the garrison put him to death. You make your point too well, Muryn.”

Muryn smiled again, but his eyes were serious. “I haven’t
yet given up hope,” he said.

“For justice under the Empire?”

“For peace. Not pretended, not forced. Real peace between your
people and mine. And that comes of justice, yes.”

Tyren said, “If Mægo worsens, Muryn, find a way to bring
word to me. Otherwise I won’t trouble you again.”

VIII

It had been the Marri behind the murder attempt, Torien had no doubt
of that. But there seemed no way to prove it. The dead man had kept
no correspondence, had no family that any of Viere’s household
knew. There was nothing among his scant belongings to indicate he’d
taken payment for the work. Of course Viere pledged he’d keep
up the investigation, still deeply ashamed the thing had happened
under his own roof, determined to redeem himself of that. But in
truth there was little more to be done. Torien knew that and he was
sure Viere knew it, for all his fervor. No—the thing would go
unsolved, unpunished, like all the rest of it.

Another letter came from Choiro, a week or so after he and Tore and
Moien had returned from Chalen to Vessy. This time it was from Chæso
Rano and Torien knew, before he’d opened it, what it would say.
He opened it anyway and ran his eyes over the long-winded words until
he came to the heart of it: the betrothal was broken off. He put it
aside with a sourness spreading in his mouth, a bleak, ugly humor
welling in his heart. Let Rano go back on his word; what did it
matter? He’d never thought much of the girl anyway. He’d
never wanted her for Tyren. A Choiro whore like all the rest of them,
loyal only so far as it might be counted in coin. Let all the Choiro
alliances go to Hell. Let this governorship go to Hell, even, and let
Tore rail against him for it. He wouldn’t go on living this
life of lies—wouldn’t go on smiling, pretending, sitting
down at banquet tables with the very men who’d ordered Tauren
Risto’s death and pretending he didn’t know, or had
forgotten, or didn’t care.

But he always tried to push those sorts of thoughts away, to remind
himself this governorship was his duty. Tore was right about that
part of it, at least. It would be defeat to let the governorship pass
from his hands, from the hands of the Risti. That was what the Marri
wanted, after all. That was the real reason his father and his
brother had died.

He got up from the desk and went to stand at the window of the study.
He stood there with the clenched fingers of his right hand pressed to
his chin, his left arm tight against his ribs. He could see the
little walled field for the saddle-horses from this window. It sloped
away from the stable on the eastward side of the villa, down to the
vineyard at the bottom of the hill. Challe had her roan mare out on
the hill. She rode easily, skillfully, and he found himself just
watching her after a while, enjoying her joy, thankful to let it
distract him. She’d always loved to ride. It was, he thought, a
part of himself in her.

Chæla came in to stand with him, sliding her left arm lightly
about his waist, resting her head in the hollow under his chin. He
put his right arm across her shoulders in response and they stood
together in silence a while.

“Rovero told me you’d had word from Choiro,” Chæla
said, at length.

“From Rano, yes.”

“And—”

“He’s broken off the betrothal.”