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

  “They aren’t of the Church, these priests, I take it.”

  “No, sir. No, these native priests are nothing but political firebrands, sir. They’ve no other function.”

  “And you think there’s one here?”

  “Yes, sir, I do. Magryn denies it, tells me it’s no matter. I think he’s afraid, in truth. If we kill a priest it’ll turn the village folk against him. That’s his thinking. The fool. Easier to deal with an open uprising than this quietness, I’ve told him that. And I’ve told him if we do nothing they’ll rise against us anyway.”

  “But you’ve no proof.”

  “Sir?”

  “You’ve no real proof one of these renegade priests is here.”

  “Ask Magryn,” Verio said. “Ask him of the priest, watch his face. Watch the way he reacts. Proof enough. He’ll deny it, of course, because of his people. But ask him, and watch his face.”

  “You think he’s right here in the village, this priest?”

  “Maybe. Or one of the outlying farms. No way of knowing, sir. It might be any of them.”

  He turned that over in his head, carefully. “Outlying farms,” he said. “How many farms are there outside the village?”

  “Five, six. Up close to the Outland, some of them.”

  “You run patrols through there?”

  “Yes, sir. Corporal Aino takes the patrols out. He’s one of their kind. He knows the country.”

  “I’ll take the patrol out tomorrow,” Tyren said.

  Verio said, smiling, “The garrison commander doesn’t go out on routine patrols, sir.”

  “Maybe my presence will make it clear to these Cesini I’m serious about dealing with their rebellion,” Tyren said.

  * * *

  So the next morning he led a patrol up along the edge of the Outland. Verio came too, to show he wasn’t above it—couldn’t let the stripling outdo him. They rode up the western slope of the valley, following the water channel into the trees. Eventually they’d make a wide loop to the north, riding at a parallel to the mountains, and come round and return to Souvin by way of the Rien road. The sun was shining in a clear sky but a brisk wind was whipping down from the mountains and even with the thick woolen uniform cape pulled tight about him Tyren was cold. He didn’t want to think about what this place must be like in wintertime. He gritted his teeth and said nothing of it. He felt Verio was watching him, waiting for him to complain. He didn’t look at Verio. He kept his eyes on the mountains. He knew now why the Empire had never been able to root out this Cesino rebellion decisively. Too easy for the rebels to hide in this country, and you could lose a lot of men here, even in summertime, if you hadn’t been trained for mountain warfare. Too many trees, too many sheer-sided valleys, too much raw terrain that was indistinguishable under the coverlet of the forest. In wintertime it wouldn’t even take armed rebels to kill you. Draw you in here and this terrain would do the work readily enough.

  They turned north after a while; they’d go no further into the mountains. They rode at the foot of a tall, tree-clad hill, on a beaten-down path winding through the long grass under the ever-present black pine. On their right-hand side, eastward, the land fell steeply away back down into the valley. Verio, riding at Risun’s flank, pointed down into the trees.

  “That’s the farm of the Muryni, sir,” he said.

  There was a little clearing cut among the trees, stone-walled pens for sheep and cattle, a wheat field beyond. The farm house was built simply of gray flag-stone and the stable, adjoining it, was a low, round, earthen building with a roof of straw thatch. Chickens strayed in the unkempt yard. Tyren could see the family out in the field, weeding the wheat rows.

  “Why not farm the land closer to the village?” he wondered aloud.

  “These are all old-blood Cesini, sir,” said Verio. “They’ve been working this land since before the time of the Varri, before the village was built up. They’re stubborn about it.”

  Yes, a stubborn people, the Cesini, Tyren thought. That was one word to describe them.

  One of the men said, “Sir, there’s a rider coming.”

  He turned his eyes away from the little farm and looked up through the trees on the hill. He could hear underbrush crackling. They waited, watching. It was a young woman, and she wasn’t riding, but was leading a small, sturdy, shaggy-coated mountain horse by the reins; there were leather paniers slung across the saddle. She had dark hair bound up tightly in a plait on her head, sun-browned skin, was dressed plainly in a loose brown wool tunic belted at her slim waist with a length of braided leather cord. She saw them before she came down onto the path. Her steps slowed. Then she lifted her chin to show defiance and turned the horse to walk down the path ahead of them.

  Verio gave orders immediately for some of the men to detain her a moment. She stopped when they’d formed a half circle round her, the fingers of her right hand curling tightly round the cheek-strap of her horse’s bridle. She looked up to Tyren and Verio with poison in her gray eyes. It was a pretty face. Not beautiful, the bones a little too prominent, the lips thin, the chin and nose too long and sharp. But pretty, if it hadn’t been tight and hard with anger.

  “You’ve no right to detain me,” she said, in Vareno.

  Verio dismounted. “That isn’t how you speak to the garrison commander, girl. What’s your name?”

  “Maryna,” she said.

  “Your family’s name,” said Verio, impatiently.

  She didn’t say anything to that for a moment. Then she tilted her chin up further, her gray eyes sparking. “Nyre,” she said. “Maryna Nyre.”

  “I know the Nyri,” Verio said. “Your people are village folk. What are you doing up here in the hills, then?”

  She spoke in a mocking voice, smiling coldly as she spoke.

  “Maybe I was taking word to the rebels a patrol would be passing this way,” she said.

  Verio took her by one elbow and pulled her towards him so sharply that she stumbled. He raised his free hand to deal a blow.

  Tyren said, “Lieutenant.”

  Verio looked up to him. He hesitated, swallowing. Then, reluctantly, he dropped his hand to his side and let go the girl’s arm. He went to her horse and unstrapped the bags from the saddle and threw them to the ground, prodding each one in turn with a booted foot. Then he let out his breath in a short, humorless laugh. He lifted the saddle flap and stood aside so Tyren could see.

  “Explain this,” he said to the girl, who was standing a little way away from him now, her thin arms folded against her ribs, silently watching.

  There was a knife concealed under the flap. It was steel-bladed, double-edged. Its leather-bound haft was burnished and darkened from long use. It was good-sized; the blade was as long as Tyren’s hand from fingertips to wrist, as wide, at the cross-guard, as his forefinger and middle finger together, tapering towards the point. A serviceable tool, equally serviceable as a weapon.

  The girl’s face was blank.

  “I already told you,” she said. “Maybe I’m with the rebellion. I’ve no other reason to carry a knife, of course.”

  “A steel-bladed knife,” Verio snapped. “A weapon. Not some farm tool.”

  “It’s mine,” the girl said. Her voice was just as forceful and sharp as Verio’s. “It was my father’s. It came to me when he died. I use it because it’s what I have.”

  “What use has a farm girl for a steel blade?” said Verio.

  The girl lifted her shoulders a little. The cold smile came back to her lips. “I carry it for my own protection, lord. You know better than I the Outland can be dangerous.”

  Verio let the saddle flap fall. His face was ugly with anger. He took a step towards the girl. The girl made no other move than to unfold her arms.

  A man and a woman were coming up towards the path from the wheat field at the little farm below. The woman was a little way ahead, half running, holding up the long skirt of her wool tunic in one hand so she wouldn’t trip over it.

  �
�Is there trouble, lord?” she said, breathlessly, when she’d come onto the path. She stopped a short distance from the horses. She looked to Tyren first, then to Verio, as if uncertain who to address. She was young, though older than girl. She was plain in a pleasant way, snub-nosed and sunburnt, kind-faced though her eyes were careful. The man—Muryn, Tyren supposed—came up to stand beside her. He looked at Tyren directly. He was older than the woman. His were keen, solemn eyes with a deep calmness in them—brown eyes, Tyren noted, not the gray of the mountain people, like the woman’s eyes or the girl’s. Somehow, despite the callouses on his brown hands, the muscles in his arms and shoulders, he didn’t strike Tyren as looking much like a farmer.

  Verio had paused in mid-step to turn his attention to the farm wife. “This is none of your concern,” he said, shortly.

  She smiled. “It might be, lord, if you’re wondering why she was coming from the wild. I sent her to gather some things for me. She has the skill for it, lord. She’s our healer.”

  Verio looked back and forth from the farm wife to the girl. The girl met his look evenly, coolly, her eyes half-lidded.

  Verio jerked his chin towards the bags on the ground. “Open them,” he said.

  The girl’s lip curled. She knelt down slowly and deliberately, not taking her eyes from Verio. She reached to pick up one of the bags, holding it in her lap while she unlaced it. She turned it over so its contents came spilling out onto the path: berries, mostly, and various herbs, and several roots of a kind Tyren didn’t recognize. Verio looked down at it and said nothing.

  Tyren shifted his weight in Risun’s saddle. He was tired of this, suddenly.

  “Enough,” he said. “Take the troop ahead, Lieutenant. I’ll join you again presently.”

  Verio looked up at him a long moment without moving. Then he took his horse’s reins and mounted up again and ordered the troop to fall in behind him, curtly. They moved off down the path. Tyren waited until they’d gone out of earshot. Then he looked to the farmer.

  “You’re called Muryn?”

  The farmer said, “Bryo Muryn—yes, my lord.”

  He spoke Vareno without a trace of the usual Cesino accent, the odd tendency to soften the consonants and draw out the vowels—spoke it crisply, purely, the way Tyren had heard some of the oldest Choiro nobility speak. It took Tyren aback. He gaped, stammering a little over his own words.

  “My—my name’s Risto. I’ve just taken command of the garrison here.”

  “An honor to have you in Souvin, Lord Risto,” said Muryn.

  They looked at each other in silence. Muryn’s gaze was steady, unblinking. He might have been amused, from the way the corners of his eyes were crinkled. But his face was blank.

  Finally Tyren tore his eyes away. He looked down to the girl. He’d almost forgotten she was kneeling there.

  “My apologies for this,” he said. “A misunderstanding, nothing more.”

  The girl didn’t say anything. Muryn said, in a bland voice, “It’s no matter, my lord.”

  “I hope to avoid this kind of misunderstanding in the future. From now on none of you are to go up into the mountain country unless it’s done with my prior knowledge and consent. Those who refuse to comply will be considered belligerents and treated accordingly. Do you understand?”

  “It won’t happen again, lord,” said Muryn.

  “You,” Tyren said to the girl. “Do you understand?”

  She lifted her face to him and he saw the hard steel glint in her eyes.

  “I understand you,” she said.

  He took Risun on ahead, leaving Muryn and the women on the path behind him. He caught up to the troop in a little while and Verio slowed his horse to ride alongside him.

  “That was no reason for her to be in the Outland,” he said. His back was still braced in anger. “Or to be carrying that blade.”

  “You think she and the farm wife have dealings with the rebels?”

  “I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility, sir.”

  “If they’re aiding the rebellion,” Tyren said, “the girl wouldn’t have said so, even in jest.”

  He wasn’t sure he believed that himself. She’d been impudent enough—impudent enough to admit the thing openly, because she figured they were Vareni and too witless to think it might be the truth. It was possible. Likely, even. But he said none of that to Verio. He wasn’t really thinking about the girl. It wasn’t the girl who concerned him. It wasn’t the girl who’d made uneasiness settle like a cold lump in the pit of his stomach.

  The rest of the ride went uneventfully. They finished the circuit and returned to the fort a little after noon, and when the meal was done he sat alone at the desk in his office to write his first report in the log book. He’d keep a close eye on the outlying farms, patrol the circuit more regularly and with sharper attention, learn more about the Nyre girl. Standard precaution, all of it, enough to keep Verio occupied. That part was simple enough.

  This man Muryn complicated things.

  Clearly he was no stranger in Souvin, no newcomer, even if he wasn’t of the old blood—Verio had known his name, known his farm. And there’d been nothing particularly remarkable about the woman, his wife. But just as clear he was no common farmer. That much had been plain from his bearing, from the way he’d met Tyren’s eyes, even before he’d opened his mouth.

  Verio hadn’t seen it. No doubt Verio thought of all Cesini alike, unworthy of consideration unless they posed a direct threat—couldn’t see anything outside that convenient mold he’d made for them. Tyren had no inclination to explain it to him now. Verio had no sense of subtlety. One hint, one word of suspicion, and Verio would jump to settle it by force, no more questions asked—typical Vareno. But that would accomplish nothing. There’d be opportunity for that later, if necessary. Always too much opportunity for that. Right now he wanted answers.

  * * *

  He spent all that evening trying to figure out how he might make it back alone to the little farm. But as it turned out there was no need to come up with some excuse to go. He met Muryn on the Rien road the next morning.

  He’d taken Risun out before the sun was up, riding out from the village so he could run the horse freely. He saw, as he returned, walking unhurriedly at Risun’s head in the gray half-light, that Muryn was coming down on foot to the road from the pine wood which lay between the patrol path, a half-hour’s ride to the west, and the village. The Cesino saw him and inclined his head to show respect. They walked together towards the village with some distance and an uncertain silence between them.

  He sounded out words in his head as they walked, trying to figure out how best to break the silence—whether it were better to do it in a casual manner or to come to his questions directly. There was sudden nervousness roiling in the pit of his stomach. Easier for us, Verio had said, if these people were openly hostile. That was certainly the truth. Easier if it were beyond question. Easier to deal with weapons than words.

  He said, finally, “You’ve business in Souvin, Muryn?”

  “I do, Lord Risto,” said Muryn. There was no surprise in his voice, no hesitation. He spoke as if he’d been expecting Tyren to speak.

  “Early in the day for it.”

  “Regrettably early, my lord. But there’s work to be done later, and our mountain days go quickly.”

  “How’s the crop this year?”

  “It’ll be a good year.” Muryn seemed amused. His voice was dry. “You’ve much interest in farming, lord?”

  “I can’t say I’ve much interest in it. No.”

  “Your people aren’t farm folk—the Risti.”

  “No.”

  “It’s unusual to see a nobleman assigned this post,” Muryn said. “What does a Risto have to do to be sent to a place like Souvin? Or perhaps the better question: what doesn’t a Risto have to do?”

  Tyren’s steps slowed. It took him a moment, when the startlement had passed, to catch up to Muryn again, another moment to find his tongue.

&n
bsp; “Bold words,” he managed to say.

  “For a simple Cesino farmer speaking to a Risto?”

  “I’ve my doubts you’re a simple farmer.”

  Muryn smiled. “I’ll disappoint you, then. I’m a farmer, Lord Risto.”

  “Are all farmers in Souvin so free with their tongues?”

  “You think too little of farmers, my lord,” said Muryn.

  Tyren said nothing. He was more stupefied than angered by the rebuke. There were powerful Vareni who wouldn’t speak so rashly to a Risto.

  They walked a while without speaking. He was laying things out in his mind, piece by piece. No—Muryn was no farmer, no matter what he might say. He spoke too well, too readily, and all of it in that pure Choiro dialect that made Tyren’s own words sound unpolished, thick.

  “When were you in Choiro, Muryn?” he said, at length.

  “You think I’ve been to the capital?”

  “Or else you learned to speak Vareno from one of Berion’s own household.”

  “A long time ago,” Muryn said. “Twelve years, fifteen. I forget how long exactly. The years start to run together. You find years aren’t as important here in the mountains, here among farm folk. I could count by harvests, maybe.”

  “What business had you in Choiro?”

  “My own,” said Muryn.

  “Answer me,” said Tyren.

  Muryn didn’t look at him. He was looking straight ahead, his eyes narrowed as though he were bringing some distant thing into focus.

  “I’d business with the Church,” he said, at length.

  “What manner of business with the Church?”

  The dryness had crept back into Muryn’s voice. “The usual manner,” he said.

  “I was told you native priests had broken with the Church,” said Tyren.

  There was heavy stillness between them a moment, silence except for bird songs and the rustle of wind in the pines above the road. Tyren waited. The nervousness in his stomach had sunk and settled in a cold, solid lump.