His Own Good Sword (The Cymeriad #1) Read online

  His Own Good Sword

  Amanda McCrina

  Letters of Transit

  Atlanta

  Copyright © 2013 by Amanda McCrina

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

  reproduced or retransmitted in any form, or by any means,

  without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Excerpt from William Tell by Friedrich Schiller,

  translated by Theodore Martin, courtesy of Project Gutenberg.

  Map by Amanda McCrina

  Cover design by Fly Casual

  amandamccrina.com

  fly-casual.net

  To Angela and Mat, comrades-in-arms

  Contents

  Map

  Character List

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  A Note on Pronunciation

  About the Author

  Character List

  In Vessy, capital of the Imperial province of Cesin

  Tyren Risto, newly commissioned in the army

  Torien Risto, his father, the provincial governor

  Tore Risto, his brother

  Chæla Risto, his mother

  Challe Risto, his sister

  Juile Risto, Tore’s wife

  Anno Rovero, the steward

  Sere Moien, captain of the household guard

  Vaurin, a guardsman

  A new slave

  In Rien, a fort town in central Cesin

  Lucho Marro, the regional governor

  Luchian Marro, his son, newly commissioned in the Guard

  Recho Seian, his son-in-law, Luchian’s adjutant

  Marchin Ruso, commander of the fort

  Alluin Senna, a legate

  In Souvin, a village in western Cesin

  Remin Verio, interim garrison commander

  Aino, a corporal

  Regaro, a corporal

  Sælo, a soldier

  Rian, a soldier

  Nevare, a soldier

  Bryo Muryn, a farmer

  Ayne, his wife

  Their sons

  Maryna Nyre, a healer

  Magryn, the native lord

  Ryn, his oldest son

  His wife and other children

  Maurien Rægo, an army officer from Rien

  Daien, his adjutant

  Morlyn, a rebel

  Bryn, a rebel

  Ceryn, a rebel

  In Choiro, the Imperial capital

  The Emperor Berion

  The Senate

  Chion Mureno, an army officer

  Chæso Rano, head of the Rano family

  Michane Rano, his daughter

  Elsewhere

  Juilin Viere, governor of Chalen

  His wife and children

  When the oppress’d for justice looks in vain,

  When his sore burden may no more be borne,

  With fearless heart he makes appeal to Heaven,

  And thence brings down his everlasting rights,

  Which there abide, inalienably his,

  And indestructible as are the stars.

  Nature’s primæval state returns again,

  Where man stands hostile to his fellow man;

  And if all other means shall fail his need,

  One last resource remains—his own good sword.

  Friedrich Schiller

  William Tell

  I

  In truth he’d rather not go to Vessy.

  He’d considered just sending a letter from the post-station at Chælor. That would be the easiest thing, for himself and his father both. Certainly for his mother. But if he didn’t go now there was no telling when he’d have the chance to go again and it was two years already since he’d last been home. No—better to go, to break the news in person. Harder, maybe, but he owed them that much. This was the last time in what would probably be a very long time he’d see either of them. Harder, in person, but it was the right thing to do.

  At the crossroads at Chælor, where most of the big roads in this northern part of the province came together, he took Risun onto the eastward road leading to Vessy. The road ran close along the shore of the lake Morin and for most of the way it went on pilings because the ground was reed beds and soft green marshland that flooded in the springtime. Vessy itself, the ancient Cesino capital, was built on a hillside above the lake. The oldest part of the city was at the base of the hill, below the causeway: fishermen’s huts and ships’ housing and rows and rows of mossy weathered mooring stones. The younger part, above, was Vareno-built, and the buildings stood out starkly from the old Cesino buildings below—walls of white marble rather than flag-stone, roofs of clay tile instead of straw thatch.

  The villa of the Risti sat on the very crown of the hill because Torien Risto, Tyren’s father, was the most powerful man in Cesin, and one of the more powerful men in the Empire.

  For the entirety of the hour’s ride from the crossroads to the villa at the top of the hill Tyren rehearsed in his head what he’d say to his father. He knew, in the back of his mind, it was best to tell him plainly, straight out, without excuse, because excuses were weakness, and if there were anything Torien Risto might hate more than some tarnishing of the Risto name, it was weakness, especially weakness showing forth in one of his sons. Best to tell him plainly and quickly. The longer he delayed the harder it would be. Maybe he wouldn’t say anything at all, just hand his father the commission and let him see it for himself.

  The villa had changed very little in two years. Probably it had changed very little in the nearly two hundred years since it was built. It had been built very soon after the war was won and it had been built in Vareno fashion: a square walled yard, the house at the far right-hand corner, stable at the left; slaves’ quarters and storehouses and the guardsmen’s barracks elsewhere round the perimeter; a fountain at the yard’s center. Most likely that original Risto lord had meant it more as a symbol of his power than anything else, an inexorable reminder to the Cesini in the old city below: what are your mud huts compared to this great thing of marble, after all? Because it had always seemed more a mausoleum than a home—a hushed and frigid place where you never talked above a whisper and the whispers ran coldly along empty corridors and porticoes until they died away into stone. A house of death, and those didn’t change.

  The guards on the gate-wall recognized him, raised their hands in greeting and sent a runner right away to the house to take word of his coming. Tyren rode through the gate and up the cypress-lined white gravel path very slowly. The sick sense of dread that had settled in his stomach back at the crossroads was coiling tighter with each hoof beat now. There should have been joy in this homecoming. He’d been gone two years and by every right there should have been joy in this homecoming. But there’d have been little enough joy even if the circumstances were changed, if things had gone according to plan. If the commission had been according to plan. No, the only way for this to be a joyous homecoming would be if somehow his name weren’t Risto, and his father’s name weren’t Risto, and home were some other place than this white-washed tomb.

  He dismounted in the yard, stiffly—too long in the saddle—and looked round while the servants swarmed about him to take the horse and his bags. He discerned
Anno Rovero, his father’s steward, coming towards him down the steps at the doors of the house. So his father wouldn’t even come to greet him; apparently the steward was enough. He was irritated, suddenly. He’d been hoping to see Torien right away. Delaying would make it harder.

  Rovero, coming close, said, “Good to have you back from the capital, Lord Risto.”

  Tyren was mud-spattered from the road, hadn’t really bathed since he’d crossed the border two days ago. He could see the mild distaste in Rovero’s smile.

  “Is my father here?” he said, shortly. Impolite to ignore the greeting, but Rovero had only spoken by rote, and there was no point carrying on the pretense. Rovero had never spared him much regard. He was the second son and politically inconsequential.

  “Not at the moment, no, sir. They brought up the yearlings this morning.”

  Torien Risto prized horses. He kept a fine stable and he took care to inspect his young horses personally. He’d be spending the day with the handlers, learning which colts had promise for racing, which for breeding, which fillies to add to the broodmare stock.

  “Let me know immediately when he gets back,” Tyren said.

  “Of course,” Rovero said. “I’m sure your father will want to congratulate you personally on your commission, sir.”

  Tyren made no answer to that. He wondered, with a sudden clenching tightness in his heart, if Rovero knew. If Rovero knew then doubtless Torien knew and his coming to Vessy was to no purpose after all. But there was nothing in Rovero’s face—no irony, no malice. The tightness eased away again. No, the news was still his to break, whatever comfort that was.

  Inside, as he remembered, the house was cool and quiet, the thick marble draining every bit of warmth from the mid-day sun. His bags had been deposited in his old rooms on the north-facing wall of the house. The rooms were bare now, though kept free of dust, and he’d no sense of fond memory when he saw them. He’d been glad enough to leave, four years ago, when he’d gone to the capital to train as an officer—glad enough he was the younger son of the Risto family, bound by long tradition for soldiering, and not the older, the heir, to be rooted in this place forever. It hadn’t been a bad childhood, maybe, to be raised with all the privilege of the Vareno nobility, but it had been a loveless one, strangled by duty, by pride. The army was the place for that—not here, not between family. At least in the army your name meant nothing. Here the name was everything.

  He opened the shutters of his bedroom window to let in some light. From the window he could see across the yard to the small stable for the saddle horses, and he kept an eye on it while he washed up, but Torien didn’t come. The rustle of silks out in the anteroom announced his mother’s presence. He turned to see her standing imperiously in the bedchamber doorway, one hand on each jamb. Two of her serving-women hung back behind her at the entrance to the anteroom, their heads dutifully bowed.

  “You might have sent word you were coming,” she said, “and given me the time to prepare things properly.”

  “I saved you the trouble,” he said. He hid his distraction, went to her and put his arms round her, and she stood up on her toes to lay a cool kiss on the side of his face.

  She was beautiful, his mother: tall and long-limbed, her skin the color of sunlit heather honey, her face proud and strong yet fine-boned, her arching dark brows delicate. Her black hair was styled simply, pulled back smoothly and severely to the crown of her head and then let down in loose, glossy ringlets over her shoulders; anything more was unnecessary, would somehow detract from her beauty, which was natural and effortless. They still talked about her in Choiro, her birthplace—Chæla Risto, the most beautiful woman in the Empire. She might have had any man she wanted in her younger days, and there were those who said she did, and for the first few months of his own time in the capital Tyren had won some fights and lost some fights concerning that. But she’d married Torien Risto. It was love for Torien, back then. He’d been admired and celebrated enough, and the Risto name respected enough, that he might have married much better, married into one of the great Choiro families, if he’d wanted. Chæla wasn’t noble blood. She’d been a commoner, the daughter of a cloth seller. For Torien it had clearly been love. You couldn’t say so much for Chæla. By marrying Torien Risto she became not only the most beautiful woman in the Empire but one of the most powerful, and that would have been reason enough for any woman.

  “Tell me about Choiro,” she said. “Tell me what I’ve missed.”

  He said, “Choiro hasn’t changed.”

  She laughed, lightly. “You and your father. Too provincial. You’re never going to get used to the city, are you?”

  “Probably not,” he said. He tried to sound careless. “But I wasn’t in the city much—the city itself. They kept us out at Vione for most of it.”

  “You did see Michane from time to time, I hope?”

  “A few times.”

  “I hear she’s quite the beauty now.”

  He said, “Yes.”

  His mother said, “Your father hopes to have the wedding before the summer’s out.”

  He said nothing. His tongue was tied, suddenly.

  His mother was irritated by his silence. “I don’t know why you have to act this way about it. The girl’s beautiful. She might have been a sow. You might have been stuck with a fat sow for a wife. You’ve no reason to act this way.”

  “I know,” he said. “Forgive me.”

  “You’ll feel better,” his mother said. “You’ll feel better about it, once it’s done. And you’re tired now.”

  Rovero was coming down the corridor.

  “My father’s back?” Tyren said to him.

  “He and your brother have just returned, sir. They’re in the stable.”

  “I need to speak with him,” Tyren said to his mother.

  She shook her head. “It won’t do any good to speak with him now. He’ll be thinking about horses. He went to look at the yearlings. You can speak at dinner. You need rest.”

  “I need to speak with him now.”

  She stood back from him to look up into his face, realizing something belatedly. “What’s wrong?” she said.

  He didn’t answer her. He left her standing there and went outside, wishing Rovero were not hovering behind him, too dry-mouthed nervous, all of a sudden, to say anything to him. The stable was a long, low, tile-roofed building of whitewashed limestone, with a walled yard of its own and living quarters at the far end, adjoining the guardsmen’s barracks, to house the stable-hands. The light was dim inside and it took a moment for Tyren’s eyes to adjust. When they did he could see his father and his older brother standing a little way down the stall row with the stable-master, who was holding a wax tablet and a stylus and was illustrating something for Torien on the tablet.

  Torien had been a younger son himself, had been a soldier. He’d made a name for himself in the fighting at Tasso—made a name for being foolhardy and arrogant and madly brilliant, Mureno had said to Tyren, shaking his head and smiling when he’d said it. Any other young commander would have been recalled, gotten safely away to some quiet, comfortable, meaningless post, before he could lead his men into disaster for his recklessness. But Torien had always had the luck, and he’d ended up a hero for it. A long time ago now, all of that, but he hadn’t lost the look of a soldier, or any of the pride.

  He’d seen Tyren come in and he dismissed the stable-master with a quick wave of his hand.

  “Tyren. Rovero told me you were here.”

  “I just got back, sir.”

  “Any trouble on the road?”

  “No, sir.”

  His father looked him over, looked at the gold commander’s braid on his left shoulder, nodded his approval.

  “I’ve something to show you,” he said.

  Tyren followed his father down the row. A slave was brushing down a long-legged black colt before one of the stalls. Torien stopped a short distance away and indicated the colt to Tyren with a lifting of his ch
in.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  It was a handsome animal, well-built, with a tapering face and wide, intelligent eyes and an arching, high-crested neck. It was of the Tassoan stock Torien especially prized, taller and leaner and lighter of foot than Vareno stock. Tyren couldn’t help but admire it and his father, watching him, was obviously pleased at his admiration.

  “Magnificent,” Tyren said. “Will you race him?”

  His brother, Tore, who was three years older and who was Torien’s heir, had come up behind them. He made a sound in his throat that might have been laughter, might have been disgust.

  “So you think we should race him,” he said.

  Torien said, “He’s yours.”

  He was too startled to say anything, at first. Then he said, stupidly, “I’ve got a horse already.”

  “Consider this my gift to you,” his father said.

  He looked from his father to the black colt and back again. “Thank you, sir,” he said.

  Tore said, under his breath, but loudly enough Tyren could hear, “Far too good a horse to waste on a soldier.”

  “Enough,” said Torien, sharply. “The horse is yours, Tyren—and the slave. In honor of your commission.”

  He hadn’t really even noticed the slave at the colt’s side: a Cesino, two or three years younger than himself, small and dark-headed and high-cheekboned and coldly gray-eyed like the old-blood mountain people from the western part of the province.

  “It isn’t necessary—” he started to say, but Torien cut him off.

  “You’re an officer, not a common foot-soldier. Time you had a decent horse and an attendant.”

  Tyren said, “Thank you, sir. But I need to speak with you alone.”

  There was silence a moment. Torien’s eyes, fixed on Tyren’s face, had gone suddenly sharp and cold. It took effort to meet that gaze. Tyren swallowed, fighting the urge to duck his head away.

  Torien straightened.

  “Put the horse up,” he said to the slave. Then he jerked his chin to indicate Tyren should walk with him further down the row. There was an empty storeroom a little way down, with a narrow, unshuttered slit of a window opening to the stable-yard, and when they were both inside Torien shut the door and stood to face him with his arms crossed.