His Own Good Sword (The Cymeriad #1) Page 5

  IV

  He spent the night under a fat old oak tree a little way from the road, maybe two or three miles beyond the city’s western gate. He’d slept out often enough on the journey home from Choiro and he didn’t mind it. It was cool in the nights but not cold, now summer was here, and with the saddle at the back of his head for a pillow and the heavy woolen uniform cape over him it wasn’t a bad way to sleep. In the morning, while Risun nosed at his feed-bag, he refilled his water-skin at the thin stream running noisily past the tree and ate a breakfast of flatbread and raisins from his packs. He was out on the road again by the time the sun was above the treetops to the east.

  Past Rien to the west was the wilder part of Cesin. The only Vareni coming through this country were soldiers of the mountain garrisons, or traveling merchants—slavers, mostly—or troops headed to and from Carent, which was another fort town three days’ ride south and west of Rien, in the part of Cesino territory that ran like a peninsula a little way into Varen. Very little civilian traffic; that was confined mostly to Rien’s southern road, which led eventually to the port city of Arondy, on the Eastern Sea. There were still farm villages as you went west, but the people here were of the old Cesino blood, largely unmingled with Vareno blood, and few of them spoke the language of the Empire and most of them harbored a quiet but deep-seated hostility for the Vareni that the more practical Cesini, or perhaps the less noble-minded ones, had long ago put aside. Sometimes now, in the dark, mossy hollows by the roadside, there were the crumbling ruins of old Cesino statues, the likenesses of tribal kings from before the time of the Varri even, broken down and overgrown with vines, blackened by age, stone eyes staring gravely. Altars to the past, or else cynical reminders Cesin had been independent once, had thought to defy the might of the Empire—and this is what happens to those who defy the might of the Empire.

  The road narrowed as he went on and by noon of that day, after he’d crossed the Carent road and left all other traffic behind, the paving ended and the road was nothing more than a faint beaten track on the long green grass, and the ground was climbing up beneath Risun’s hooves, and in the distance, above the black pine, he could see the blue heads of the mountains, the tallest peaks crowned with snow, crisply white in the sun.

  He came to Souvin in the evening of the second day out from Rien. The sun was falling slowly down behind the mountains and the little valley and the village were washed in blue twilight. The southern end of the valley was bordered by a sheer, forested hillside, and the floor of the valley sloped up westward to the hills, and eventually the sheer hillside and the valley floor came together in a seam at the valley’s western end, under thick pine forest, and then the forest went on and on, always westward, until the heads of the mountains broke out of it to stand starkly against the sky. That was the Outland and it was dangerous country. The village lay below, a scattering of squat flag-stone huts and outbuildings, some walled fields for livestock—sheep, mostly, and some cattle—and then open fields for wheat and barley. The road ended at a wide, flat plot of grassy ground at the heart of the village—the public square, he supposed, though without the merchants’ stalls and the paved assembly places of a Vareno town’s square. A smaller gravel track led from the common to the fort, which lay at the western end of the valley, towards the Outland. The fort itself was very Vareno-looking to be in that green, earthy place: a broad, rectangular, columned compound with an open yard in the middle, roofs of smooth reddish clay tile, the fiery Imperial sun blazing on the great banner hung from the gate-house.

  He sat in Risun’s saddle at the northern end of the valley and looked down at the village and the fort and the sheer hill country round it. His new command. The village was quiet; it was nearing meal-time and there was no sound apart from the wind and a bird singing somewhere in the pines above the valley. It wasn’t so bad. At least it wasn’t the city. It wasn’t exactly a command you could be proud of, the Imperial garrison at Souvin, but at least it wasn’t the noise and grime of Choiro—the scheming, the incessant politics. He’d hated Choiro.

  He touched his heels to Risun’s belly, slowly, and rode down into the valley, keeping the horse to a walk. Red firelight spilled out into the dusk from the huts in the village and he heard voices speaking in Cesino, occasional laughter. He rode on through the village and over the common and then down the smaller road to the gate of the fort, and one of the guards atop the gate-wall saw him coming and shouted an order, and the gate was pulled open for him, and he rode into the yard. A runner had dashed across the yard from the gate, had gone up the steps of the building on the far wall—the headquarters, Tyren guessed; it was the only building in the compound with broad flagged steps leading up to a columned portico and heavy wooden double-doors. The runner must have gone to fetch the acting commander. Tyren dismounted in the middle of the yard and stood holding Risun’s reins while he looked round. Stables and storerooms to his left, along the south-facing wall. Barracks and mess and infirmary to his right. Perhaps sixty soldiers assigned to this place, quite possibly less, and then there’d be the various others who worked in the fort’s service: surgeon, stable-master, cook, their various assistants. Not more than eighty men altogether.

  A man wearing the scarlet lieutenant’s braid on the shoulder of his uniform tunic was coming down the headquarters steps and across the yard to meet him. A few others followed him: a junior officer, a handful of curious regulars.

  “Commander Risto,” the lieutenant said, when he’d gotten close. “An honor. They sent word from Rien you’d be coming.”

  He was older than Tyren by quite a few years, more or less in the region of thirty. He had a hawkish, tight-lipped, leathery face, bronze hair washed out to yellow by the sun, already thinning at the temples. He saluted, measuring Tyren with small, shrewd eyes while he did so.

  “Verio,” he said. “Remin Verio.” He looked at Risun, looked to the gate as if he expected to see someone else riding in. Then his eyes darted back to Tyren. “You came alone, sir?”

  Tyren returned his salute. “I came alone,” he said. “You’ve been in command, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir. Two months now. Our previous commander died quite unexpectedly and Rien—well, it takes some time for Rien to get around to us, sir.” Verio gestured sharply with his right hand to a couple of the regulars. “You—take the horse. The bags go to the Commander’s quarters.”

  Tyren let go Risun’s reins. He took off his gloves as he and Verio walked towards the headquarters steps.

  “You come from Vessy, I believe, sir?” Verio said.

  “Yes,” Tyren said.

  “Much trouble on the road?”

  Tyren said, “No.”

  “We’ll be eating shortly, sir. I can arrange for a meal to be brought to your quarters, let you rest—”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Tyren said. “I’d like to meet the officers.”

  “Certainly, sir,” Verio said.

  Inside, the headquarters was laid out simply: a small vestibule opening into the atrium, and his office adjoining the atrium, unfurnished save for a plain desk of walnut wood and two cross-legged chairs. Down the corridor from the atrium were his private quarters: a single room opening to the corridor through a curtained doorway, furnished sparsely with a cot, a wash table, a smaller desk for his own personal use, wooden shelves on the walls, a stand for his cuirass. A low doorway led back into his office and a small, shuttered window on the rear wall, the western wall, looked out across the garden, which was nothing more than a swath of unkempt green grass with a wizened old laurel tree at its center. The door leading to the officers’ mess was set in the wall across the corridor from his quarters. The mess lay perpendicular to the headquarters itself, along the northern wall of the compound, and a covered portico led from it to the barracks.

  He looked round the place, listening while Verio described it, saying nothing but approving of it inwardly. Not so bad. It wasn’t the mud-pit they’d made it out to be in Choiro. It was a
simple place, but he didn’t mind that. If the men were good this wouldn’t be a bad command at all.

  He took leave of Verio a while, asking to be informed when the meal was ready. He went back to his quarters to wash and to unpack his bags. He hadn’t brought much with him: a spare uniform tunic, an extra pair of boots, quills and ink and papyrus for writing, a few scrolls of verse for his spare time. The room still looked bare when he was done and he found himself wishing he’d brought something from the house at Vessy for a memento, though he didn’t know what. He put up his cuirass on the stand, his sword on the wall-rack above it, and he changed into the fresh tunic, and by the time he’d finished Verio’s voice was coming through the curtain—meal’s ready, sir—and he didn’t think about Vessy anymore right then.

  There were only three men in the officers’ mess, besides himself: Verio, who was to be his adjutant, and two junior officers, Regaro and Aino. Aino was Cesino-blood, smaller than the others, gray-eyed—a traitor to his people, some Cesini would say, for serving in the Empire’s military, especially as an officer. Tyren was the youngest man there by several years. He saw them note that, hide knowing smiles behind politely blank faces. He ignored it and sat down at the head of the table with Verio at his right hand.

  “How many men in the garrison?” he said to Verio as they ate.

  “Fifty-eight on the current muster list, sir,” Verio said. “That’s not counting the officers or the civilian labor.”

  “You’ve been here long, Lieutenant?”

  “Four years this summer, sir,” Verio said.

  “You know this country pretty well, then.”

  “Yes, sir.” Verio’s voice was flat, suddenly. “We all know this country pretty well.”

  Tyren said nothing to that. He understood what the man’s tone meant. We know this country pretty well, sir, and you know nothing at all. No use here for some rich politician’s whelp who’d lost a dice throw or bedded the wrong senator’s daughter.

  He concentrated on his food after that, finished it quickly, told them he was worn out from the road and would be retiring early. They stood when he left, dutifully, wishing him a good night in near unison. He went back to his quarters and drew the curtain shut and went over Verio’s words in his head while he undressed. The man had reason to be hostile. Four years in this place and nothing more than lieutenant. He should have had the command by now—and he had had it, for two months, and most likely they’d all gotten used to that, and now this unseasoned stripling comes riding in from the parade-grounds with a slip of papyrus freshly signed and sealed by some fat legate in Choiro. Four years in this place only to be passed over for the command in favor of a coddled patrician’s son. Yes, Verio had reason to be hostile.

  Well, it just meant he’d have to earn their respect, show them he could learn this country too, show them his upbringing didn’t matter. Hadn’t really expected anything different, had he? He was glad now he’d brought nothing from Vessy. That was another world. Two different worlds that couldn’t meet. He wouldn’t think about Vessy again.

  * * *

  In the morning he rode with Verio round the little valley, learning the lay of the land, listening as Verio talked about the village folk—wheat and barley farmers, most of them, but there were some hunters and a tanner and a smith (the garrison has its own farrier, Verio said). There was also the village lord, a Cesino named Magryn, who was of the old-blood mountain people, descended from some tribal chief or little king who’d ruled this black-pine country before the rebel Anien Varro had united all the tribes under his own banner—before Taigo Berion, the first of the Berion emperors, had brought his army across the mountains to cow the Cesini into submission. There’d been many of that sort of tribal lord in ancient Cesin, but the Magryni, unlike most of them, had survived the great war, had held onto their lands and titles, because they’d swallowed their pride, and agreed to swear allegiance to Berion, and still paid heavy tribute each year to Choiro. Traitors, if you thought about it like that, but they’d survived the war. Survived, and were powerful.

  Verio took him to meet Magryn, whose flag-stone hall lay across the water channel on the the southern side of the common. It was a thoroughly Cesino-looking place, the ancient hall of the Magryn lords. It had a crumbling stone gate arch and a close walled yard overgrown thickly with ivy, and hall and outbuildings alike had low, mossy thatched roofs and narrow, unshuttered slits in their age-blackened stone walls for windows. Tyren disliked Magryn almost immediately. He was short and sturdy, dark-haired like all the mountain people; laughed loudly and readily, was eager to please—greedy and therefore weak, Tyren thought, certainly untrustworthy. He wore a thin silver circlet on his dark head, a heavy seal ring on the forefinger of his right hand, an ornate silver brooch set with garnets on the shoulder of his tunic. Tyren and Verio sat at the table in the smoky great room while he poured them wine in carved wooden bowls. He bowed as he gave it them and stood until Verio told him he could sit. Then he took his seat with another bow and a murmured ‘my lord.’

  “This is Lord Tyren Risto,” Verio said to him as he sat. “Our new commander.”

  Magryn looked up quickly to Tyren’s face. His gray eyes were sharp, appraising.

  “Risto,” he repeated. “Your father’s the governor, Commander?”

  Tyren looked back at him evenly. “Torien Risto,” he said. “Yes.”

  “A great honor to have you in Souvin, Commander Risto,” Magryn said. “I didn’t think they posted governors’ sons to places like this.”

  There was silence a moment. Verio was amused, though he was trying not to show it, looking down intently into his wine bowl.

  Tyren said, “I serve the Empire as it has need of me, Lord Magryn. My father’s name should make no difference to that.”

  “Of course not, Commander,” said Magryn, smoothly. “Forgive me. I spoke only in jest.”

  He could tell Magryn was guessing at the reasons, putting things together in his head. A Risto didn’t get sent to a place like Souvin unless it were punishment for some misdeed. Magryn would know that well enough.

  Laying that thought aside, he said, “I can count on your help, Lord Magryn, to ensure cooperation between the garrison and the village folk?”

  “Certainly, Commander,” Magryn said. “I’m at your service, I and my household.”

  “I’ll be glad to have dealings with someone who knows these people well,” Tyren said. He didn’t bother to hide his contempt. “Thank you, Lord Magryn.”

  He went with Verio back out to the yard, to their horses.

  “That’s the kind of Cesino I dislike the most,” he said as they mounted.

  “He has his uses occasionally,” Verio said.

  “A man who sucks the lifeblood of his own people so he can sell himself to Choiro?”

  Verio shrugged. “He’s a Magryn. That’s what matters. He has their respect. Makes our work a little easier—he has their loyalty, we have his. You’ll find he’s useful.”

  “They fear him because we prop him up,” Tyren said. “I doubt they respect him.”

  They’d come back into the heart of the village now—low thatch-roofed stone huts scattered here and there across the grass as if they’d just sprung up that way.

  “How’s their attitude towards the garrison?” Tyren asked, looking round. There were few people directly about. Most of those he could see were out in the grain fields below the northern hillside. The village itself lay still and silent except for the sound of the wind moving through the grass and the distant ringing of metal from the smithy.

  “Quiet,” said Verio. “Mostly quiet. But the trouble is, sir—the trouble is most of these people here, they show themselves to be dutifully obedient, swear their allegiance to the Emperor—and underneath it all, in their hearts, they’re loyal to the rebellion. Easier for us if they were openly hostile—easier to deal with. But instead they’re quiet about it, and that’s harder to root out.”

  “So there’s a resistanc
e movement in the Outland.”

  “Yes, sir. Small but persistent. Usually nothing more than ambushing our supply trains or the pay wagon. Occasionally something bigger. Last year they attacked a troop headed from Rien to Carent.”

  “I didn’t hear of that,” Tyren said.

  “In Choiro? No, in Choiro they keep the whole thing shut up, probably. An embarrassment to admit something like that. Some legate’s head would be off.”

  Tyren said nothing. Verio glanced at him sidelong, decided perhaps he’d said too much, and spoke quickly of something else.

  “Ten years ago they thought they’d stamped out the rebellion once for all. They caught the leader. Did you hear of that?”

  Tyren smiled. “I’d have been nine years old,” he said.

  Verio said, “Well, sir, they captured the leader. Here in the village—a man named Sarre, Rylan Sarre. One of these damn fools going on about the restoration of the Varri—of Tarien Varro’s line.” He glanced over again. “You know the tradition, I’m sure, sir.”

  “I know it,” said Tyren.

  “They made an example of him. Before my time, but they told me about it. They executed him, and he’d a woman and a brat they sold down in Rien. You’d think that would be the last of their resistance, but it didn’t work that way. All these people here—if they didn’t support rebellion before, they did then. We lost some good men putting out that fire.”

  “I see.”

  “The garrison—I think they’ve learned to ignore us. They hate us, maybe, but they ignore us. But I don’t think it’ll always be that way.”

  Tyren looked at him curiously. “You think they’ll rise against us?”

  “It’s been too quiet lately, sir. Yes, I think they will.”

  “They’ve a leader again, then?”

  Verio’s lip curled. “A man who’ll lead them in a fight? I don’t know. But I think there’s a priest here, sir.”

  “A priest?”

  “They’re a cultish lot, sir, these mountain tribes. It’s always their priests who are the goading stick behind the rebellions, preaching Tarien Varro will come back from the dead to defeat us, drive us out. Except for the priests I almost think these people would’ve forgotten there was ever an independent Cesin.”