Two-Bit Heroes

by Doris Egan

  but didn't we agree you would start filling me in on things?"

  "I'm telling you now," he pointed out.

  Well, that did it. "Ten thousand provincial troops outside, we're all going to die, and you're telling me now. Great Paradox! Do you have to treat every single thing that happens to you like a state secret? Do we need to keep a torturer on retainer to get the day's news out of you when you come home? I should be privileged you chose to mention it at all!"

  "Theodora, sweetheart, you're not taking this the way—"

  "I'm not taking it at all! What the hell could I have been thinking? I could be peacefully doing research on Athena— library research. No translations, no interviews—let me tell you, primary sources are overrated!—"

  I would like to point out here that the entire situation of that night was not conducive to rational appraisal. Let's cut out about ten minutes:

  "—and I can only thank the gods that, if we live through this, we'll have missed three-quarter night."

  "What?" I'd gotten his attention.

  "Tonight's three-quarter night, my friend, and it looks like the wedding is off."

  He blinked. He seemed to take this information in slowly. He groped around for words: "Uh, we could exchange tokens instead of cakes. It's all symbolic anyway. We could consider them spiritual cakes."

  "We could consider ourselves as unmarried."

  Making a major mistake, he said, "Dying unmarried would be a disgrace to my family."

  Clearly he was speaking one of the first thoughts that sprang to mind. It wasn't the most flattering statement he'd ever made. I got up, not trusting myself to sit next to him with all the physical aggression Carabinstereth's classes had set to boiling, and went to watch Stereth watch the card players.

  I played a few hands of Thistle, drank till my legs felt shaky, and lay down on a large cushion beside Des, Komo, and several of the newer people. I started to feel better, or as better as anyone could feel under the circumstances. The night was far advanced by then.

  An unnatural calm had settled over the company, I'd

  wondered about Stereth handing out liquor to people who might be fighting tomorrow—one-sided though that fight might be—but perhaps he'd known what he was doing. That out-of-control, slightly manic despair that had gripped us earlier in the evening was gone. I listened as the people beside me talked about wine, sex, the army, and anything but their families. Komo told the story of how he and Paravit-Col had returned to the Shaskala Road to cut Ran out of the cage.

  "Really, Komo?" asked one of the newcomers. "I thought you'd pulled the cage off somewhere else first."

  "Too difficult. There was a manager in charge of drive-beasts who refused to let us touch them. So we just cut him out, then and there, right in the middle of the road."

  "No soldier stopped you?"

  "Hell, the soldiers were all off chasing Sokol in the hills. Plenty of vendors and Sector folk there, though. None of them tried to stop us."

  "Ooh," said the boy—nearly as young as Paravit-Col— and in spite of everything before us this night, still starry-eyed over hearing a story from one of Stereth's original band.

  The talk moved on to traditional bandit topics.

  "They'll behead Sembet, and probably Sokol, too, with his accent."

  One of the older newcomers made this contribution. Beheading is considered more dignified than hanging, and is the required method for executing nobility. Of course, none of the Six Families ever stepped forward to claim any of its wayward members found on the killing block, but it was always possible that someday they would lodge a complaint after the fact. The sentencers were generous in the matter, and gave almost every prisoner the benefit of the doubt. The most ragged and ill-spoken dreg in Stereth's army could claim noble blood and get an ax rather than a rope.

  As a result, there was a fair amount of speculation among Sector outlaws as to which form of death was preferable. Those two farmer boys on the Shaskala Road were nothing to a bunch of interested bandits on a slow night. It generally went something like: "I dunno, Tibbie, with the ax at least it's over quick. None of this twisting around forever while your face turns purple."

  "So you say, but I saw a

  chop in Skeldin Market Town where the executioner had to hit the woman six times before he got a clean stroke. And I swear, my friend, her mouth was still screaming afterward."

  "You imagined it, Tibs, it was in your head. How could she scream without lungs?"

  "Your own damned head, brother. My uncle Vatherin was hanged, and except for a few seconds of kicking, it was over."

  This popular topic was debated again that night in the fort, while the wind gathered to a howl and the room grew smoky from hearthfire and bredesmoke. But this time Des Helani said to the man who'd brought it up: "I don't think we should talk about it in our sister's presence." And he nodded toward me.

  "Why not?" asked the man.

  "She won't get a choice, mush-head. She'll be hanged."

  I said, "Thanks, Des." Always considerate.

  I got up, restless, and paced the hall. They'll behead Sokol, too, with his accent. Where was Ran? He'd been over by the rug pile when I'd seen him last-when was that? Hours ago?

  I looked into the smaller rooms off the back of the hall, interrupting two trysts. Well, I would have interrupted them if they'd taken any notice of me. No Ran. This was ridiculous—there weren't that many places he could be. We were confined to one building, after all.

  One building. But the north edge of the roof met the roof of the shed we'd made to house the stable equipment and the stolen tah, and that met the conical edge of the roof of the cookhouse.

  No, I couldn't believe it. Not our careful, prudent Ran. But even a prudent man can do stupid things on the night before he's due to hang—or get chopped—I ran up the stairs to the roof, opened the trapdoor gingerly, and crawled to the parapet wall on the north edge. I very slowly peeped my head over the side.

  There was smoke coming from the roof of the cookhouse.

  I put my head down again and leaned against the side of the wall, consumed by guilt. He couldn't be doing anything this stupid just because I'd said to forget about the wedding!

  Yeah? said the voice in my head. What else is he doing

  out there? Is he going to emerge with a carving knife and take on the militia single-handedly?

  No, the man was in the cookhouse making marriage-cakes. We were all halfway to execution, and even now the smell of vanilla and cinnamon was being carried to me on the wind.

  I wondered with detached interest if he'd found all the ingredients, or he'd had to make substitutions.

  Finally a figure detached itself from the opening in the cookhouse roof and started toward the shed. Under the cloudy, muffled light of the moon-and-a-half I could see that Ran was wearing the red and white robes he'd worn in Shaskala; not the sort of thing I'd advise climbing rooftops in. Then I saw he'd pulled the robes up and tucked them in his belt and was scrambling bare-legged over the stone as though wading in a stream back in Cormallon. There was a pack slung on his back.

  He bent, hugging the crest of the shed, and made his way toward the wall of the main building. I moved back, not wanting to startle him as he climbed over the parapet. His head appeared, then his shoulders, then one foot was on the top of the wall. The other slipped slightly and he cursed and then got it planted on top as well, though not securely. He raised himself further, straightening his legs to strengthen his balance. The wind blew out the sleeves of his outer robe like great snowy wings streaked with blood… and all at once the picture from the card I'd read in Shaskala came back into my head.

  Beware of heights.

  Without thinking, any more than I'd thought when I jumped into Juvendith's fight earlier that day, I launched myself toward the wall. I was still running when I saw Ran's right foot step on the inner edge, and the stone give way beneath it. His arms went out frantically, trying to regain his balance. He was tipping over ba
ckward when I grabbed his waist and pulled him down on top of me.

  I got a nasty blow to my back when we both landed on the stone of the roof. Of course, having my slight barbarian frame there to absorb the shock made it a bit easier for Ran.

  "Theodora?" He rolled off me and put his hands on my shoulders. "Theodora, are you all right?"

  I couldn't talk. The wind had been knocked out of me, and not for the first time that day. There was a time on another planet, I'd like to point out, when the hardest exercise I had all day was turning pages—and that all things considered, I find that mode of life superior.

  "Theodora! Answer me! Did you hit your head?"

  I knew I wasn't hurt, but it would be a few seconds before I'd be able to answer him, a few seconds that he filled by continuing to call my name in a tone that suggested he was genuinely frightened. I might have been pleased, in a way, but I felt badly about scaring him. Kanz, I thought, it's not enough I have to wait on a rooftop and save the boy's life, now I have lie here helplessly with the responsibility of easing his mind!

  A couple of eternal seconds later I managed a grunt. This delighted him and took some of the pressure off me. I hate responsibility of any kind.

  Finally I managed to sit up and whisper.

  "What?" he said.

  "What… the hell… are you doing in that damned robe?"

  "Oh. This. Well, to be honest, I didn't really think I'd make it there and back. And I refuse to die wearing provincial trousers."

  I started to laugh, which made my back hurt. So he helped me rest against the wall and took off his outerrobe and put it behind me as a cushion, and showed every indication of wanting to be of service in the nicest possible way, and to sum it up, I could hardly continue to resent him for this stunt. Not that I considered it the wisest thing he'd ever done. Of course, arguing with him on what was probably our last night together hadn't been an admirable move on my part, either.

  He opened his pack and took out two well-wrapped marriage cakes. Apparently my body had cushioned their fall, too, since they were cracked but not actually in pieces. He passed me his, and I bowed and put it in front of him. Then he bowed and placed mine in front of me.

  "You know," I said, "on Athena we'd go to a Justice of

  the Peace, and the whole thing would be over in twenty minutes."

  He pulled a piece out of his cake, put it in his mouth, and said, "You appreciate it more if you have to make an effort."

  "Is that one of the things your grandmother used to tell you?"

  He swallowed. "Not in those words. But I'm sure Grandmother would agree that I did the right thing tonight."

  She probably would, too. She'd been a great believer in duty, Ran's grandmother.

  I finished my cake and knelt so that I could just see over the wall. The hills around the valley were rimmed with campfires. It would have looked peaceful if it weren't so disheartening.

  He joined me. "So ends the story of Stereth Tar'krim."

  "Not even our story."

  "Well, you never know. We might come in for a mention."

  Given how much Ivorans loved their legends, it might well be so. Would tales be drifting around a hundred years from now about Sokol and Tymon and Des Helani and Carabinstereth?

  "You know what we've become, tymon?" asked Ran, watching the flickers on the horizon. "We're classic heroes."

  He'd used the high-theater term. I sniffed. "More like two-bit heroes."

  "In any case," he said, "we're heroes with half a night still to go."

  We both lay back against the silk of his outerrobe and I settled in the crook of his arm. A blast of light shot across the sky, as it did occasionally all through that night: Nor Atvalid keeping us aware of our place. "I don't suppose there's anything you can do personally," I said. It was the first time I'd backed up Stereth's attempt to draft him.

  His voice was noncommittal. "Let me point out that at this stage they have sorcerers traveling with them. I'm sure they've got mirror-spells on the soldiers and the weaponry. Anything I did to them would hit me."

  From Ran, that wasn't necessarily a refusal. Besides, he hadn't had me studying the Red Book of Sorcery for two

  years for nothing. "Don't you always tell me that it's not the spell, it's the intelligence of the person placing it?"

  I could almost feel him smile.

  I said, "I'd stack you up against a gang of provincial sorcerers any day of the week." This was the simple truth.

  He held me closer, which was comforting, and when he still didn't answer I said, "You know what'll happen if you do nothing."

  Of course he knew very well. He was imagining the same sort of scenarios I was: Des and Cantry in the Imperial torture chambers, Mora and Juvindeth lying on the Shaskala Road, their skulls split open like messy fruit.

  "Theodora," he said finally, lightly, "your inappropriate friendships make my life very difficult."

  I said nothing. If it made him feel better to pretend the bond was all on my side, let him. An answer like that was good enough to last me through till the morning.

  So that was how we spent three-quarter night: on the roof amid intermittent gunfire, with no lovemaking, just what comfort we could take from closeness and warmth under that huge, cold, late-summer sky.

  Chapter Twenty

  Have I told you about shujenifs, classic heroes? There aren't that many really famous ones in the history of Ivoran high-theater. They're the tragic protagonists, who personify a theme that they work out according to the rules of classic drama. They are introduced, they take action (or not), they praise or rail against fate in poetic language, and then generally they die. And that's the end of the play.

  Two-bit heroes, on the other hand, are done in installments—you can go to a play and see #143 in the story of One-Eyed Lenn and the pole pirates. They never really end, they just dribble on and on. Nobody feels the responsibility to treat them with respect that they feel toward the great shujenifs like Oedipus and Melara—no obligation to round out their lives with the imposed structure of drama, as handed down through the ages. When two-bit heroes play, the serious climax in act four is followed by a banana-slip in the epilogue, as the players and audience feel inclined.

  And if you missed installments one through 142, it doesn't matter; there'll be another bunch of minor heroes along when the next troupe of players comes through. There are too many two-bits to keep track of all their names.

  As for me, I used to collect stories. Folk tales and things, that I picked up from people along the way and wrote down for posterity, or to keep myself occupied—to be honest, it was hard to tell. But when I'd finished the collection I'd begun to realize that one of my motives in making it was this longing that I have for a beginning, a middle, and an end.

  Well, everybody has an end. But with shujenifs, and proper stories, the end comes at the right time and every-

  body learns something. Not the messy and pointless way it comes in real life.

  As I lay there on the roof there was a break in the clouds and the full moon and a half streamed through, wasting their glory on two people whose stories would be over tomorrow—one of whom, I saw as I turned, was already asleep.

  I must have gotten some brief sleep myself, though I wouldn't have believed it before, because when I looked at the sky next it was whitened with the beginnings of dawn. My gaze traveled down toward the door and stopped.

  Stereth was standing there, fully dressed, freshly perfumed, and wearing a pistol in his belt.

  I nudged Ran. He shifted, opened his eyes, and froze.

  From the look on Stereth's face, you wouldn't have known that dawn and death were overtaking us all. He said calmly; "Now that you've discharged all this sexual tension, perhaps we can talk rationally."

  For once he was wrong about something. Nevertheless Ran sat up easily, as though it were a late morning at home in bed, and rested an elbow on one knee. "What is it you want?" His voice sounded almost charitable.

  "N
ot knowing what's possible, it's hard for me to say. May I sit?"

  Ran indicated the stone floor beside us. Stereth sat.

  "Not that I mean to press you," he began, "but I've divided our force into two groups, under the direction of Komo and Carabinstereth. They're going to take everyone outside, with their arms raised in surrender. When the At-valids get here, Carabinstereth will give a signal and we'll fight."

  I said, "What do you think that will accomplish?"

  Stereth pushed up his glasses. "Most of us will be killed in the fighting, which will be better than Imperial torture, and in the confusion one or two might actually escape. Although that's doubtful."

  One or two. There were over thirty people in the fort that day.

  "You could threaten to burn the tah," said Ran. "The Emperor would be upset."

  I said, "Nor Atvalid doesn't care what we do to the tah."

  "So speaks our Tymon," said Stereth. "She claims to understand something of our Governor's state of mind. Besides, they have to get close to us to hear our threats… which would mean close enough to shoot us. You see why I'm interested in hearing your ideas, sir Cormallon."

  That Cormallon was twisting the knife a bit. Come on, Ran, I thought; for once in your life, give a little.

  Ran said thoughtfully, "I suppose my name will be on everyone's lips by the end of the day?"

  "Certainly not. I told you, I would never betray a loyal member of the company."

  He said this with a straight face, and to my surprise, Ran burst out laughing. "A man who makes such polite threats deserves all the help he can get. Don't raise your hopes, though, Stereth. They've got at least two sorcerers with them, and I'm not omnipotent."

  "I never raise my hopes." That I could believe. Stereth rose to his feet, checked his pistol, and said, "Tell me what you want."

  There was a noise at the door to the stairs, and Lex appeared. Stereth motioned for him to keep quiet. Ran moved to the parapet and scanned the horizon. He swallowed nervously. I saw that he was sweating. "Tell them to take off anything yellow."

  "It's a trick!"

  "Shut up, Lex." Stereth regarded Ran. "What do you mean by anything yellow?"