His Own Good Sword (The Cymeriad #1) (25 page)

He dismounted and stood a while just inside the gate, looking round.
He’d never been here in the fort itself before and he was
dumbstruck at the size of the place, the splendor. He’d gotten
used to the plain cement and damp, mossy flag-stone of Souvin. He
came back to himself, finally. He gave over Risun’s reins to an
orderly and went on foot across the yard to the headquarters, trying
to hide the limp. Another orderly met him on the headquarters steps.
Tyren showed him the letter with its seal and the orderly bowed and
led him into the headquarters and round the atrium to the commander’s
office.

He’d met Marchin Ruso before—that same dinner, almost
five years ago now, at the villa of the Marri. Ruso came of good
family, old Choiro stock, and Tyren had the feeling he’d gotten
this command more because he was personally loyal to Lucho Marro than
because he had any real skill at soldiering. You didn’t need
real skill at soldiering to be posted to Rien.

Ruso hadn’t changed much in five years that Tyren could see,
his close-cropped coppery hair still working its way haphazardly to
gray, his eyes the same weak, watery blue, his skin pale and pasty
and slack as though he’d never once set foot out-of-doors. He
was at his desk when Tyren came to the office. There was another man
with him, standing at the open window. Tyren didn’t recognize
the second man. A younger man than Ruso, lean and tall, his features
sharply angular, his skin tanned and thick as leather, the deep
silvery furrow of an old scar creasing his brow above the right eye.
Obvious he was a soldier, or had been one once, but he wasn’t
in uniform. He stood easily, his shoulder-blades braced comfortably
against the window frame, his brown arms draped in loose folds over
his ribs, long legs stretched out lazily—had none of Ruso’s
officious Rien decorum.

Ruso acknowledged Tyren’s salute with a short nod. The other
made no move, just looked at him.

“Risto,” Ruso said. “You can sit.”

He crossed the room and sat down carefully in the cross-legged chair
before the desk. Both men watched him move. Ruso said, “You
were wounded, Commander?”

“Just a scratch, sir,” said Tyren.

“The ride didn’t help, I’ll wager.”

“I’ll be all right, sir.”

“Wine?”

“No, thank you, sir.”

“Too early in the day, perhaps.” Ruso nodded. “I
read your report, Commander. Congratulations on the victory. I
daresay it’s the sort of reminder the Souvini needed. A sound
thrashing every now and then does these mountain tribes some
good—keeps them tolerably humble.”

Tyren said, “I’m glad to be of service to the Empire,
sir.”

Ruso leaned back in his chair and gestured with his right hand
towards the man at the window. “This is the legate Alluin
Senna, Commander. He’s been inspecting the garrison here.”

Tyren jerked his head up, startled, his jaw springing open. He
snapped it quickly shut and started to get to his feet again, looking
back over to the window as he did so. He found himself looking
directly into Senna’s eyes. Cool, keen eyes, though they were
flickering with amusement now. Senna’s thin, harsh mouth
quirked in a quick grin.

“No need for that, Commander. Give the leg some rest.”

He eased himself back down, slowly. “An honor to meet you,
sir,” he said.

“I know your father, Commander,” Senna said. “Know
him pretty well. A good soldier—a good commander. I served with
him at Tasso a while. I was sorry to lose him to the life of a
politician. It happens to too many of us.”

“He’s spoken of you before, sir,” Tyren said.
“Always with great respect.”

Senna smiled. “You’ve earned a good deal of respect
yourself, Commander. I extend my own congratulations to you. I didn’t
realize, until I spoke with your father this past week, that you’d
been posted to Souvin. A lucky thing for us, it turns out. I know how
ugly these native uprisings can be, how quickly they can escalate. No
small feat, that victory. It took nerve and a level head both.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Tyren.

“I apologize for the suddenness of this summons,” Senna
said. “I’m the one to blame, Commander. It was my own
personal request Commander Ruso bring you back here. You’ve
shown some great ability. I’ve use for that kind of ability.”

Tyren said nothing while Senna came over to pick up a sealed scroll
from Ruso’s desk, brought it round and held it out to him.

“Your new commission, Commander,” Senna said.

He reached for it, slowly. He took it, held it in his hands with some
hesitation. “Thank you, sir,” he said.

“Go ahead and open it,” Senna urged him.

He broke the seal obediently and unrolled the papyrus and read it. He
read it twice over before he lifted his head to look at Senna again.
“Sir—”

“A post more befitting the Risto name, I think,” said
Senna. “I trust you find it satisfactory, Commander?”

“I—it would be a great honor, sir. I’m not entirely
sure it’s merited by—”

“The Empire honors those who serve it well,” Senna said.
“You’ve merited it, Commander.”

The words came spilling out thoughtlessly before he could stop them.
“I don’t wish to accept it, sir. I—can’t
accept it.”

There was a stretch of silence. Ruso was staring at him open-mouthed.
But Senna looked at him steadily, his angular face blank, his eyes
very keen.

“Explain yourself, Commander,” he said, at length.

“The work at Souvin isn’t finished, sir. A good many of
the rebels escaped. I believe the lord Magryn is one of them—the
native lord, sir, who had our support and turned traitor. I don’t
think we should underestimate him, sir. It isn’t just a matter
of numbers—how many armed men are still available to him. He
has the loyalty of every man, woman, and child in Souvin now he’s
taken up arms against us. He’s their true lord again. That’s
real power among the Cesini, sir. It’ll take more than one
battlefield victory to overcome it, more than our force in
retaliation. It’ll take time—and most of all someone who
understands these people, understands the mountains.” He
struggled to keep his voice steady, smooth, to mask the sudden
desperation gnawing away inside him. “I wouldn’t be
fulfilling my duty to the Empire to leave the work undone, Lord
Senna. I certainly wouldn’t be fulfilling it by accepting a
post in Choiro. It’s my responsibility, sir. Let me finish it.
Let me go back to Souvin and finish it.”

Ruso said, “You forget yourself, Risto.”

But Senna, not taking his eyes from Tyren, shook his head. “No,”
he said. “No, there’s enough of that attitude in the
Empire, Commander Ruso—propriety before duty, as though the
former means anything apart from the latter. No, that’s the
very reason I need you with me, Risto. I need a man with your
clarity, not one weakened, corrupted by the capital. Trust me, Risto.
You’ll be able to accomplish much more for the Empire as my
adjutant than as a garrison commander, putting down some native
rebellions from time to time. I’m asking this of you because
there’s real need for you in Choiro—because the Empire
needs you more urgently there. I wouldn’t have taken you from
Souvin if it were otherwise, I swear it to you.”

Tyren said nothing. Senna, seeing his hesitation, went on after a
moment. “I’m familiar with the man who replaced you,
Risto. I can assure you he’ll handle the command competently.
No, you’ve done your duty. You needn’t worry the work is
unfinished. You’ve done your duty there, and the Empire needs
you elsewhere now.”

Tyren said, slowly, “I understand, sir.”

“Trust me, Risto,” Senna said again.

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“I’ll be returning to Choiro in a fortnight. You can
accompany me then. Until then I want you to rest, get the leg healed
up. Commander Ruso can see to your lodging, I trust?”

Ruso said, “Of course.”

“I’m in your debt, Lord Senna,” said Tyren,
quietly.

* * *

They put him up in the officers’ barracks, with attendants to
see to the wound and to his meals, and he spent the next few days as
Senna had ordered, resting, letting the knee heal fully. When he
wasn’t sleeping he sat on the cot with his back against the
wall, the leg stretched out straight before him, and he read or he
wrote letters to ease the boredom. He wrote to Vessy, first of all,
to inform his father of the new commission. He hadn’t written
home since Torien’s own letter had come to Souvin, nearly a
month ago now, informing him the betrothal had been broken off. He’d
had too much of his own stubborn Risto pride to try to apologize
then. But Torien would be pleased with this commission.

When the knee was sound enough he went out to the stables to spend
time with Risun, exercising him in the stable-yard and afterward
brushing out the dappled gray coat until it gleamed. That was in the
mornings. In the afternoons he idled away time in the baths, or he
went walking unhurriedly, aimlessly through the lower city, among the
market stalls and the shops. He bought new quills and ink and papyrus
one day, sealing wax and scarlet cord the next. Once he took Risun’s
bridle down to a leather-worker to have a worn cheek-strap replaced.
On the way back to the fort he bought a palla of thin flame-red silk
off a seller from Tasso: he’d send it to Challe with the letter
to Torien.

In the evenings, when most of the other officers were at dinners at
the patrician villas all round the fort, or were amusing themselves
in the wine cellars and inns down in the lower city, he usually found
himself alone on the gate-wall with the city spread out below him
like a gold-thread weaving, looking westward to the mountains, to
Souvin, a tightness in his heart, a sourness in his mouth. He hated
this place, Rien, hated the emptiness of it, the lie of it. Knew he’d
hate Choiro in the same way. Easier, maybe, if he hadn’t gone
to Souvin—easier to be content here, now. But he’d gone
to Souvin, and right now he wanted nothing more than to tell all
these people the truth of it, how weighty it was, this thing they
took for granted and treated so carelessly—to scream it at
them, to shake them from their apathy. Or to show them, if words
weren’t enough—to show them the graves of his men in the
black earth back at Souvin, the burning pyres of the Cesino dead, so
they’d know what kind of price had been paid for it, so they’d
know the Empire was something more than their ignorance, their
indifference, their dinners and amusements; that it meant something
more, after all; that it was something to be fought for and won
dearly, a thing to be paid for in blood.

* * *

He was summoned again to Ruso’s office the evening before he
and Senna were to leave. Senna was there as before, and a third man,
dressed in the uniform and black-lacquered harness of the Guard,
stood at Ruso’s elbow behind the desk. Belatedly Tyren realized
the third man was Luchian Marro. Luchian had changed in three months’
time. There was a lean hardness to his face, a hollowness in his
cheeks, a distance in his cold blue eyes. He seemed older, graver;
the weight and responsibility of command had done that.

They looked over each other in silence a moment. Then Tyren gave his
attention to Ruso and saluted. “You sent for me, sir?”

Ruso had a length of papyrus scroll spread out before him on the desk
and he didn’t immediately look up from it. “How’s
the knee, Commander?”

“Healing well, sir.”

“Your accommodation’s been comfortable, I trust?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, good.” Ruso lifted his head, finally. He looked up
briefly to Luchian before he brought his eyes to Tyren. “You
know Commander Marro, of course.”

Tyren said, “We’ve met, sir,” and he heard Senna,
at the window, let out a low, quick, hissing breath through his
nostrils. He wondered, though he didn’t dare look Senna in the
face, how much Torien had told him about what had happened at Vione.

If Ruso had caught the edge in his voice he paid it no mind. He said,
“There’s a question Commander Marro hopes you may be able
to answer for him, Risto.”

“Yes, sir?”

“You heard rumors there was a priest in Souvin, a Cesino
priest?”

He was taken aback. He had to fight the urge to turn his head to
Luchian, force himself to keep his eyes steady on Ruso, his face
blank.

“I—heard rumors of it, yes, sir.”

“You never found out for sure, I take it.”

He said, “No, sir. There’s been trouble?”

“No, no need for concern, Commander.” Ruso shook his
head. “Commander Marro’s Guardsmen have been assisting
Rægo with the punitive work in Souvin. There’s been word
here and there of a native priest, that’s all. Rumors, as you
say.”

Senna spoke up. “It’s no great matter, Risto. Commander
Marro had only hoped you might know something more—careless
words dropped by the village folk, something of that sort.”

“No, sir,” Tyren said. “If there’s a priest
in the village, sir, they weren’t careless in keeping it from
me.”

Ruso nodded. “That’s all, then,” he said. “You
can go, Risto.”

But Luchian came quickly after him, out into the corridor. “Risto,”
he said.

“What is it?”

“Spare me a moment, Risto. I’d wanted to speak with you
alone.”

He slowed his steps so Luchian could catch up to him.

“That was the truth?” Luchian said, coming alongside him.

“It was the truth. I heard rumors. I’d no definite word.”

“This man Muryn, then.”

He looked over to Luchian sharply, startled. “What?”

“The man named Muryn. You know him?”

“A farmer.”

“He came to the fort to speak with you after the battle.”

“He was worried for his land, his crop—worried we’d
be indiscriminate in our reprisals. He wanted to make it plain to me
he hadn’t raised a hand to aid the rebels.”

“You knew him well?”

“I’d met him before. On patrol. His farm—”