Two-Bit Heroes

by Doris Egan

  At last we were there. I slid off into someone's arms— Lex na'Valory's, as it turned out—and my knees buckled as I tried to stand.

  Ran reached my side at once. "I got in before you," he said.

  "What were you doing?"

  "I was on another dominant mod." He supported me halfway to the main hall of the fort, until I felt I could take a few steps on my own. "I brought in twelve head of cattle. How many did you bring in?"

  "The hell with you, then," I said, and continued inside under my own power.

  Stereth smiled an evil smile when I entered. He was pulling off his boots and his jewelry, dropping a long gold chain onto a crimson cloth beside his mat—Stereth liked to sleep in the main hall, though he and Cantry would disappear now and again for privacy. "Out courting tonight, Tymon? Did you have an interesting time?"

  "You could have warned me about how I was getting home."

  "I thought you and your sweetheart might enjoy a surprise."

  "We barely know each other, Stereth."

  "Yes, so he's said."

  Cantry came out of one of the smaller rooms, stretching. She wore a mint green robe and bare feet. Apparently she'd been asleep.

  I said, somewhat testily, "You missed an active night, Cantry." Subtext to Stereth: Do you play favorites with your lovers when it comes to handing out the unpleasant tasks?

  Stereth got it at once. He said mildly, "My wife usually rides the chief steermod home. It takes a lot out of her, I thought she deserved one raid off."

  Cantry herself was quiet, as usual. He said, "She's a tiny barbarian, like you. Suited to the job."

  "You had Sokol ride one, too, and he's not a tiny barbarian."

  He smiled again. "I thought it might help loosen him up. How about it, Tymon, do you think he'll start to be reasonable? —But I forgot. You hardly know him. How could you possibly judge."

  I was going to start grinding my teeth if I stayed here much longer. "I'm going to bed," I stated, and walked, or rather staggered, toward the jumble of mats on the women's side.

  "Good night," said Cantry.

  "Pleasant dreams, cattle-thief," said Stereth. He didn't say it mockingly. He said it affectionately.

  If I dreamed, I don't remember it.

  Chapter Seven

  A hand on my shoulder woke me around dawn. For a second I was completely disoriented, not even knowing what planet I was on, or which I should be on. Then memory flooded back in a wave of relief—there was the crumbling stone wall, the pile of blankets; this was where I'd been kidnapped to.

  There was still order in the universe. My life since childhood had been defined by being in places where I had no intention of staying.

  Ran was bending over me, a finger on his lips. I looked around the hall; everyone else seemed to be asleep. I'd bedded down a little away from the other women, probably a reflection of my psychological state, so I ought to be able to move without catching anyone's notice. The room was still dark. The fire was making that start-and-flicker that meant it was dying. I got up very quietly, leaving my sandals, and followed Ran out.

  The valley was cold and dark, and the grass was damp against my feet. I noted that Ran was not carrying his pack, just a blanket rolled under one arm. I said, "You're not thinking of running away, I hope."

  "A feasible opening has not yet arisen." I knew that tone of voice, and he had a pleased look on his face for someone who was admitting a lack of control over the situation.

  "Then why are we out here?" He dropped the blanket and put his arms around me.

  "Because we haven't had one minute of privacy for what seems like years."

  Good heavens.

  "Are you sure this is a good ide—"

  Ran kicked the blanket open.

  A while later I said, "Weren't we taking a chance?"

  Ran said smugly, "Nobody's visible to the night lookout until they get at least a hundred meters from the main building. I checked."

  "Not very efficient."

  "It wouldn't be, in a prison, but the place was built for defense. You've got dirt on your cheek. Hold still."

  He rubbed it off with his thumb. I said, "And after the hundred meters, the whole band would be after us. We'd have to leave without alerting the lookout."

  "I know."

  I waited for further comment, and when it didn't come I said, "There's not a lot of point in being kidnapped with a sorcerer unless he can use magic to get you away."

  He sighed. "I have been thinking about it, Theodora. First, there's the lookout—"

  "A seeded illusion. Non-grounded to our persons, aimed at just one target. Those don't take massive preparation."

  "I'm glad to see your studies continue. All right, I've considered it, and there are risks… but if we know who'll be on duty on a particular night, it'll up the percentages in our favor."

  "So—"

  "Well, where do we go after we leave this valley? I hope you have some idea, because I don't."

  I was afraid he'd say that. "I was hoping you had some trick I hadn't gotten to in the texts yet."

  "I'm sorry, but you've had the full survey course. The rest is just detail."

  How depressing. I spoke from my scholarly past: "We need to gather more data."

  He checked them off on his fingers. "Nearest towns, roads, friendly and unfriendly areas. Or rather, this being the Northwest Sector, neutral and unfriendly areas. Maybe we can get to a farm and pay off one of the people there to travel to Shaskala and call for help."

  "Huh. Let's hope they're willing to work on credit. Stereth's got all our cash."

  "And he's a lot nearer. Easier to turn us over to him, if he's looking. And from what I hear, these Sector farmers stay pretty close to home. If there's a drivebeast, he's prob-

  ably needed on the farm. So would everybody else in the family be, too. But at the moment, it's the only thing I can think of."

  And we didn't even know where the good water was. But we were both aware of that, so I didn't say it. I turned my head and saw Ran looking thoughtfully past his toes at the beaten grass path that led to the lip of the valley. Gloomy though our conversation was, it was comforting to have him there. I hated to have us break up and deal with the outlaws on our own. "I suppose we'd better get back inside," 1 said, not very forcefully.

  "It's barely dawn, you know. They won't start rattling the waterjars for another couple of hours."

  I turned on my side and rested my head on one elbow. "Tell me about when you were young," I said, since he almost never talked about it. And I suppose I didn't want to think about the Northwest Sector for a while. "Tell me what it was like growing up in Cormallon."

  Ran stirred underneath the blue outer robe he'd put over us. "You really want to hear about that?"

  "You never talk about it."

  "I didn't think you were interested."

  We were lying in a niche between the side of the fort and the stone gutter that ran around the inside of the old defense wall. The valley was becoming gray in the distance, the hills visible. I felt guilty suddenly, because I'd always thought it was Ran who wasn't interested in that kind of thing.

  I said at random, "Did you know this used to be a monastery of fighting monks?"

  "Yes. The Torasticans. They're extinct now."

  "Why are they extinct?"

  "Monks shouldn't fight in obvious ways."

  Whatever that meant. Sometimes Ivory felt as close and familiar to me as my first private bedroom; and then I would run up against these alien bricks.

  He said, "This is the rectory wall we're lying against."

  "Tell me about when you were young," I said.

  "Well, for one thing, there were more people in Cormallon then. My parents were still alive and my mother's sisters were always coming to stay with us. I had a thousand aunts."

  "You did? Where are your aunts now?"

  He thought about it. "They stopped coming when my mother died. I could still visit some of them, I suppose."
/>   I snuggled closer. "Tell me about your thousand aunts."

  So he did. One story brought up ten others, and the valley turned greener. It was a clear morning, as the plateau went. We still had plenty of time before the others would be up. I listened to golden childhood days, days blessedly ignored by all the grownups but for a few of the servants. He told me about the afternoon in the midst of the spring rains, when the goldband Evina had stripped the covers off all the tables and cushions and bedding and hung them outside, because there was a story that spring rain was especially pure.

  "She wasn't supposed to do it," he said. "But Kylla and I were thrilled. We wandered the halls all day, looking at this new country. Cormallon seemed totally different, all the rules suspended. We made noise everywhere and ignored the aunts who told us to stop because—after all— everything had changed. And the rain kept hitting the roof like an army of arrows."

  He stopped suddenly and said, "I didn't mean to make it sound like an oasis of sanity. There were plenty of bad spots, even in Cormallon."

  "I don't believe there are any islands of sanity for children. Each generation warps the next into something like those trees over there."

  Ran looked at the pair of grotesques on the valley's horizon. "They're beautiful trees."

  "They're not happy trees, though."

  "No, they're not happy trees." A gust of wind made a violent dance around the corner of the rectory, and Ran pulled his cloak more tightly over me. "Considering the few things I've heard you drop about your childhood, I'm amazed you turned out as relatively normal as you have."

  I looked at him with some surprise. I didn't remember mentioning anything at all about my childhood, certainly nothing significant, and in any case it never crossed my mind that he would remember it if I had. Ran's concerns were circumscribed by Cormallon, or so I had always believed.

  I pulled the robe up around my neck. "Tell me more about your aunts."

  "Umm. Did I ever tell you about the time my Aunt Se-gunda went to Veerey in disguise and fell in love with a jabith player? Well, she claimed she fell in love—" fell into madness, is the literal Ivoran term, "—but it turned out she just wanted to learn to play the jabith. You see, my father went crazy whenever there was music in the house—"

  So far, all Ran's stories of his eccentric aunts and cousins tracked back to his father in the end. I wondered if he was aware of this, or if it was a pure coincidence. I'd seen a picture of Ran's father in a room in Cormallon: A stocky man with a white-gray beard, standing with a stiff grace beside one of the Cormallon horses. He wore an old-fashioned lace inset on his inner robe. The dark eyes looked out with formal reserve, giving nothing away.

  It occurred to me suddenly that Ran never gave anything away either. This was a little alarming, but after all there was no need to read too much into it, Ivory being the place it was. How would Ran look with a beard? Facial hair was a rarity here, the Cormallons must be a throwback.

  I realized with a start that Ran was still talking. "… the konoberry tree along the walkway in the courtyard. You've seen that tree, Theodora, remember it? Near the pool? Those dark purple berries would fall down onto the pavement and then they'd be ground under the heels of everyone passing by. Every year the walkway would be covered with purple stains—they'd fade little by little with every passing rain, and usually the last of them would be gone by Anniversary Day. My Aunt Sella was obsessed by it; she wanted the walk kept clean for some reason, I guess it offended her sense of order. She'd always be stooping down picking them up—I can still see her, she was a skinny little woman with a green outer robe, with her hair coming out from its pins—and she'd pick them up one by one and put them into a little bag and give them to the cook. Ko-noberries are poisonous, you know."

  "So the cook had to throw them out."

  "No, the cook had to boil them down and put the essence into the poison vials we keep in the basement preserve room. Stacks and stacks of konoberry poison we had, and whoever uses it?"

  "Poor cook," I said, snuggling closer under his arm. "Was that Herel?"

  "No, Herel came the next autumn. This was a regular cook we hired from the capital. We found Herel while she was running off to the Sector for strangling her landlord, didn't I ever mention that?"

  "Great Paradox, no."

  "I could have sworn. Anyway, one year my father caught Aunt Sella's obsession and said that this summer, by heaven, we would not have a purple walkway. We all had to tiptoe around the clumps of berries and we were forever sweeping them off into the flowerbed—surreptitiously, of course, as my father didn't believe in Cormallons handling brooms."

  "Your father sounds a little unpleasant."

  Ran seemed surprised. "Does he?"

  "Every context you've ever mentioned him in was disagreeable."

  "He was… difficult to live with. It's true we were all more comfortable when he was away, which was most of the time, come to think of it. Although, he was a very friendly man when he was drunk. That's why we loved holidays."

  The earnest way he said it made me start laughing. He said, "What? Come on, tymon, what's so…" Not getting an answer, he rolled over on top of me and tried to change the subject.

  A voice said, "Well, well. Talk about overactive!" We pulled apart hastily and sat up. Clintris na'Fli stood about three feet away, her hands on her hips, her usual look of faint condescension in her eyes. "Keep this up and you'll get my vote for Couple of the Sector."

  You haven't really experienced all the ups and downs life has to offer until you've been caught in the act by Clintris na'Fli. Her solid body was planted there as though she were ready for attack, and now she folded her arms like an unhappy schoolteacher. Our local bluestocking raised her head and called, "Well?"

  Gods of scholars protect us. Stereth was at the end of the rectory wall, and the others from the band were emerging from the fort, looking sleepy but highly interested.

  Ran jumped up, taking the outer robe with him, and I quickly adjusted my clothing. Go on, Ran. Explain this.

  "Ah… Stereth. I didn't know you took this interest in your band's private quirks."

  "It's a small place," said Stereth, who was clearly starting to enjoy himself again at our expense. "We gossip." Damn, he wasn't even bothering to hide his smile. "No personal relationship, Sokol? Barely know each other, Tymon?"

  The company gathered around us in a circle. I'd wondered occasionally what it was like to be the focus of attention of a whole group of people… now I knew. It makes you think about throwing up. Not that they appeared liable to violence; on the contrary, they were far too amused.

  "It's the first time we've done anything like this," said Ran, although it would probably have come across better if he weren't fastening up his robe while he said it. "It must have been the stress of being kidnapped. We're really just casual lovers."

  "Ha!" said Clintris. "I listened to you talking about an aunt. Casual lovers don't spend time discussing their relatives."

  Ran's temper started to show. He said, annoyed, "How would you know what casual lovers do?"

  Clintris' brown face went a shade darker, and somebody snickered. She lunged forward, slapped Ran in the face, and turned and walked very quickly out of the circle.

  Ran's hand had gone up with automatic swiftness when she slapped him, but it hung there, frozen. He dropped it slowly. Then he turned to Stereth and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that as a reflection on her sexuality—just her spontaneity."

  Stereth rested one booted foot on the side of the stone gutter. "I'll try to broach the subject with her delicately, should the opportunity arise." He gestured toward the low wall. "Care to sit?"

  Ran spoke warily. "Are we going to be here long?"

  Stereth just kept his hand out in the direction of the wall, and Ran sat. Cantry came around the corner of the rectory then, holding her green robe with one hand and something else in the other. She handed Stereth his spectacles. The bandit leader breathed on the glasses, rubbed them
on the arm of his jacket, and placed them on the bridge of his

  nose. "Now," he said, in his precise voice, "this is what we're going to do."

  "I'm not—" said Ran.

  "You'll have your chance to talk in a minute. Since neither of you seems willing to approach the pool of truth even at gunpoint, we'll skip the issue. Fine—you don't know each other."

  A voice said, "Does this mean I can court the barbarian?"

  "Shut up, Des." His glance didn't even waver. "Now we're going to come at this problem from the opposite angle. Tymon."

  I looked away from Ran, startled. "What?"

  "I'd like you to do a job for us."

  "I'm not a sorcerer."

  "You don't need to be. We've got twenty head of cattle in the outbuilding. If we keep ten to slaughter as needed, that leaves ten to dispose of. I want you to take them to Kynogin Market Town and sell them for us."

  "You want me to sell stolen cattle? I wouldn't know how to go about it."

  "Carabinstereth will fill you in. She did it last time."

  I thought about all the reasons why this was a bad idea, and the pause lengthened. Apparently he was going to keep us all standing here until I gave the right answer. I said, "I wouldn't know how to control ten head of cattle to get them anywhere—"

  "Carabinstereth will fill you in."

  I didn't know whom to sell them to, or for how much, or whom not to approach, or what to say… I knew the reply to those objections, too. "Will somebody come with me to help?"

  "No. You'll be alone." I opened my mouth and Stereth added, "Sokol will stay here."

  Ah. Stereth's little way of letting us know that he understood the situation—that I'd have to come back if he kept Ran.

  Still, that wasn't to say he would kill Ran if I tried to leave the Sector. He wanted a sorcerer, after all, and maybe I could get to a Net link and call for help… I looked at Stereth, standing there calmly. How many people had he killed already in his career? Then I looked at Ran, and