The Paladin

by C. J. Cherryh

  THE PALADIN

  C. J. CHERRYH

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright (c) 1988 by C.J. Cherryh

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  260 Fifth Avenue

  New York, N.Y. 10001

  First printing, July 1988

  ISBN: 0-671-65417-9

  Cover art by Gary Ruddell

  Printed in the United States of America

  Distributed by

  SIMON & SCHUSTER

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, N.Y. 10020

  WE DIDN'T KNOW—

  WE ONLY BELIEVED—

  NOW YOU'VE COME BACK

  "Does it seem reasonable to you that a Regency continues—into an Emperor's thirtieth year?"

  "No, m'lord," Shoka said.

  "Not to us, either. Not to many of us. We were ready to make that objection—when lord Gitu overran Yijang and Hua.... Assassinations, elsewhere. Hired killers. Bands of mercenaries traveling under imperial orders. The Emperor's seal, and the Regent's orders. How do we stop such a thing? How do we prevent it—when every lord able to lead is apprehended, assassinated, when they strip us of men, even boys out of the fields—go to Saukendar, some said. Go to Saukendar. They urged me to send to you. This time he has to listen, they said. But if I had sent—and Ghita had known—you understand—" Reidi gave an uncomfortable twitch of the shoulders. His horse shifted again. "I had no true hope that you'd come. You'd indicated to the villagers—that you had no wish to hear from anyone. That you would refuse any such petitions—"

  "You were watching me."

  "It's my village, m'lord—as the Regent pointed out to me again and again, and threatened my life should you leave that mountain. Of course the word came to me. I tried to get a messenger down the road to you when I knew you'd left Mon.... We believed you'd come back to deal with Ghita and his partisans."

  Shoka felt cold, cold all the way to the bones.

  "There are men ready to follow you, lord Saukendar. There are men who've committed their lives to this— We didn't know the hour. We only believed. Now you've come back ..."

  "It's gripping drama, tightly focussed and inexorable as Taizu herself. Read The Paladin and you'll never settle for another ordinary sword-wielding female."

  —Faren Miller LOCUS

  Prologue

  They were haunted hills. The villagers of Mon said that, trying to warn the young traveler. They warned of vengeful ghosts who would lead a boy astray, demons which could appear as foxes and owls, and dragons which could take human form. Most persuasive in their estimation—the boy's quest was useless: the master took no students. Rich men's sons had come to beg to be Saukendar's disciples, and come down from Saukendar's mountain again, refusing to speak to the villagers or to linger there. Lords' messengers had come to see Master Saukendar to plead causes with him, and returned unhappy and unanswered. Monks had come to ask the swordmaster for his secrets, and left unenlightened, for the master turned all inquiries away. Twice each year a boy from the village would go up to the cabin on the mountain to bring the salt and the tea and the small things that the master needed and to take the master's request for rice and straw which they would leave at the appointed place. The village gave those things, with small gifts as well, fruit in season, a few good apples or pears, or fresh vegetables, because the fear of the master drove away the bandits. This was the only converse the master allowed himself with the world.

  Emphatically, the master took no students... and certainly no students as ragged as this—so small and so starved and so evidently some yeoman farmer's son, no different than any of their own.

  The traveler wore a quilted coat that had been blue once; black rough-spun breeches flapped ragged ends about his skinned knees; a red, healing scar ran from cheek to chin to neck and down beneath the grimy collar. He carried a badly made longbow for a walking-staff, and had a quiver of white-feathered arrows slung at his side, the kind of weapons a farmer might legally carry on the road against bandits and brigands.

  There were troubles in the east. In a hoarse, low voice the traveler told them news from the heart of the Empire; told of farms burned in Hua province and Yijang; of livestock slaughtered; of whole families murdered, his own among them.

  But all that was far away, the village assured the boy. It was safe here. The bandits who lived over the hills in Hoisan province stayed out of this valley safely within the borders of Hoishi, under the rule of good lord Reidi; and the beneficent gods and fear of the master kept the troubles far from the village of Mon.

  "I have a place on my floor for a pallet," widower Gori said wistfully. Gori had all daughters, six of them. "I have a garden to keep. I could find a permanent place for an honest boy who'd work for his keep."

  But the traveler—he could hardly have been sixteen—who squatted barefoot in the shade by the well and drank an offered cup of water, thanked the widower in a low voice and gave back the cup, then tied his reed hat under his chin, thrust his arms again through the woven-rush ropes that held the barrel-sized basket, struggled up with the unstrung bow for a staff and walked away, ant-like under his ungainly burden, virtually obscured by the hat, the towering basket. Only the legs showed beneath, ragged breeches, skinny calves, dust-caked.

  The villagers shook their heads, especially Gori.

  "He'll be back," Gori's neighbor said.

  * * *

  The road that had been broad and friendly and sunlit down in the valley, dwindled to a track and finally to a narrow slot among the rounded boulders and the tree-roots of the forest, and wound in steeper and steeper climbs into the hills.

  The ragged young traveler hitched the pack up against the rake of branches and the angle of the trail and kept going, using the bowstaff for balance in the climb.

  It would have been wiser, perhaps, to have slept in the hedgerows another night, and attempt the hill path by morning; but Taizu was beyond fear of ghosts and demons, and the only dragons Taizu thought worth fearing always walked in human form.

  The sun sank below the hills now, throwing the path beneath the trees into deep shade. Not far, the villagers had said; but if that estimation was wrong, then Taizu reckoned the villagers were right in at least one thing, these woods were safe from bandits: the bandit was a fool, who would hunt on Saukendar's mountain.

  And that was greater safety than Taizu had known in weeks.

  So Taizu climbed in the forest shadow, struggling with the basket-pack in the clutch of branches, until the scent of smoke and horse came on the wind; until the shape of rustic buildings showed in the twilight: pen and pasture and a sun-edged shape of a man carrying water to a bay horse whose coat shone brilliant red in a sudden glimpse of sunset. There was a storm passing to the north, clouds like a slate-gray wall above the hills. Red light from the waning sun edged everything in fire; the horse, the edges of the buildings, the man.

  Taizu did not breathe for a moment. Saukendar seemed less real in that moment than he had been all the weeks since Hua province—less real and more godlike. But a man who had renounced the world could not be reckoned like other men. Saukendar had turned his back on the court, his great wealth and high station, and escaped the Regent and the Emperor who had betrayed him. He had come here, beyond the limits of the kingdom, to perfect his art and to perfect his soul in the solitude of the mountains. Saukendar had come close as any man to that perfection when he was in the world—the old Emperor's right hand, the one honest man in a court increasingly corrupt
and full of wicked men. Saukendar had defended the law and the old Emperor, upheld the poor against the rich, and upheld the honest lords against the flatterers while the old Emperor grew weaker and died.

  But Saukendar had not been able to stand against the foolishness of the boy-heir Beijun, who had allied himself with lord Ghita of Angen province and accused his father's appointed Regent lord Heisu of conspiracy and adultery with his wife.

  That was how lord Ghita of Angen came to stand behind the throne, and how lord Heisu and the Empress Meiya both went under the axe, and how five hundred men of the Imperial Guard had hunted Saukendar to kill him; but Saukendar had killed twenty of them on his way to the border, and, they said, no few after, until he had gone into retirement in these hills just outside Hoishi province and lord Ghita and his men had understood it was far wiser to let him stay there unmolested.

  That was Saukendar. And if he had renounced the world and decided to seek his own perfection, then perhaps he had succeeded in that too and the gods cast a special light about him.

  But a second glance showed this man limped; and the light went out when he passed the barn and when the horse moved toward the rail fence: it was not lord Saukendar himself, then—only some servant. Taizu felt somewhat the fool: of course the weapons-master, the Emperor's bodyguard and champion, would have had at least one menial to go with him, or he would have taken a servant from the village below... someone to cook his meals and tend the ordinary things. Saukendar had been a great lord, with lands and servants. Even as an ascetic he would not change that.

  So Taizu walked out into the twilight, out into the open, disappointed, but braver in the failure of a miracle.

  Chapter One

  Shoka was well on his way back to the porch when the apparition came out of the forest, a huge lump moving on two thin legs, that proved only a basket and a skinny boy in a hat.

  He had seen it first out of the tail of his eye; and mindful of bandits, he had poured the water for the old horse, patted it on the neck and walked casually toward the house where his bow was, carrying an empty bucket which itself could be a weapon, if there was nothing else to hand.

  But he recognized the visitor now for solitary, likely another petitioner. He pretended not to notice him, for safety's sake, all the same—the bandits could use a child—and because, to his annoyance, the evening hour obliged him to some measure of hospitality, a cup of tea, a bowl of rice, a place to sleep—he reckoned that he might as well go up to the house in the first place. By the size of the legs that supported the monstrous basket, the waif was too young to turn away to walk the road again in the dark of night.

  So he walked up onto the low porch of weathered boards, beneath the small thatched roof, in easy reach of the doorway and his weapons, just in case: then he set down the bucket, turned and looked straight at the boy, who brought his ungainly burden as far as the steps.

  The boy slipped the woven ropes and set the basket down, then made a polite little bow. "I've come to see the master."

  "You've found him," Shoka said; and saw, weary of seeing, the young face come up, the mouth open and the eyes widen in dismay. "I'm Saukendar. What do you want?"

  The boy took off the oversized hat and stared at him—a gaunt and exhausted boy with a scar that made a man see that first and the desperation of the eyes second. That attraction to the scar embarrassed Shoka, who found himself both rude and careless; and by that, discovered himself snared in an attention to the whole face that he did not generally pay to his few visitors.

  "I want justice," the boy said; and snared him twice over.

  "Have I done you some wrong?" Shoka asked.

  The boy shook his head; and looked close to tears for a second, his chin about to tremble. Then he clamped his jaw and leaned his whole weight against the bowstaff he used for a walking-stick—a child's bow, rough-hewn. "No, lord. I want you to teach me."

  Shoka frowned and drew back then, angry at the approach and sorry for the boy, when for an instant he had felt a little pang of interest, the prospect of a problem that might engage him. "Another one. Didn't they tell you in the village? Or didn't you listen?"

  "They said you were an honest man. People everywhere sing about you. They say if you were still in Chiyaden you'd kill lord Ghita and all of the lords around him. Maybe you don't want to come back to the world, master Saukendar, but you can teach me and I'll do it and you don't ever have to leave here. I'll work for my keep. I'll cut your wood and feed your horse—"

  "And I tell you, you should have listened to the advice you got in the village. I have nothing further to do with Chiyaden. I'm not a teacher. I don't have any damn wisdom, I'm not a saint. I don't have anything to give you and I cut my own wood. You've had a long walk for nothing. Off my porch! Go back to the village! They'll take care of you!"

  The youngster stared at him in dismay.

  "Off!"

  The boy backed up, turned in sudden retreat down the steps.

  There was a cant to that movement, a little angle of a hip, a centering of balance that drew Shoka's eye and jarred with his assumptions. Yes. No. As the youngster turned a defiant face on him from a safer distance.

  "Girl," Shoka said; and saw the little flicker of the eyes, alarm but not offense. He shook his head and folded his arms, thinking again about the bandits and their tricks. "I'm a weapons-master. I'd be blind if I couldn't tell that. Did you think you could fool me? What are you doing up here on the mountain? Who sent you? Who do you belong to?"

  "My name is Taizu. From Hua province. I walked here to find you. They say you're the best there is, they say you could come back to Chiyaden and set everything right, only you've decided to stay here and have nothing to do with the world. But I will. I've got a reason to. I'll do the things you'd do if you came back."

  He laughed. It was not a usual thing for him. "Tell me another fable, girl. What do you really want?"

  "I want you to teach me the sword."

  "You're not from Hua. You're from Hoisan. You're a spy for the bandits."

  "No!"

  "They think I wouldn't hurt children?"

  "I'm sixteen. And I'm not a bandit. I didn't mean to fool you, just until you'd take me and I could show you I can learn. I have my own bow. I have a sword." She gestured at the basket. "I have my own clothes, my own blankets, I made my bow and my arrows."

  Shoka came down to the bottom step, took the bow from her hand, gave the wretched thing a glance and shoved it back at her. "It does better as a walking-stick."

  She frowned up at him. "Then show me how to make better."

  "I'm not showing you anything. Where did you come from?"

  "From Hua province."

  "That's four weeks' walk, girl! Don't tell me that."

  "I don't know how long it is." The voice was low and hoarse. The chin trembled slightly. "But I walked it."

  "Alone."

  "There's a lot of people on the roads into Yijang: they got burned out too. I walked with them; and then I walked with some that were going on to relatives in Botai—"

  "Where are you from? Who's your lord?"

  "Kyutang village, in Hua. We belonged to lord Kaijeng. He's dead now. The whole family. Everyone. Lord Gitu came over his border and burned Kaijeng castle and burned Kyutang and Jhi and all the villages and killed everything, even the pigs." The girl's chin trembled and steadied. "Lord Ghita won't do a thing. Everyone knows that. Lord Gitu can murder people and nobody will do anything about it. But I will. I promised that. And I'll do it."

  "You'll get your head cut off. That's what you'll get, girl. Leave the fighting to your menfolk."

  "There aren't any. There isn't anybody left."

  Shoka looked at her, at the ragged coat, the scar, the burning eyes, and felt something stir inside him that he had felt for none of the other petitioners who had come to him, even the earnest and honest ones. He mistrusted that impulse. She might still be a bandit, come to find out if he was truly alone; or even to kill him in his sleep,
if he was a fool. Maybe they thought he was that desperate for a woman. But her accent was genuine: it clipped and shorted ends of words in the pattern of the eastern reaches of Chiyaden, which could well be Hua province, and in that consideration she might be even a spy brought safely along the roads and sent up here on orders of lord Ghita himself. For a moment that seemed far more likely than bandits: but Ghita had not bothered with him in years and he saw no reason the Regent should begin now. Or she might in fact be a demon, which was also possible, but her feet were bare human feet and her thumbs were on the right way around; and he had been nine years in these hills without seeing any evidence of one. "Come in," he said, grudging the impulse that made him hospitable, and motioned toward the door. "I'll feed you, at least."

  "Will you teach me?"

  He scowled. "Teach you. I've turned away a score of young men, bright young men, serious and able students—and now I'm to take on a girl? What would I tell the ones I've turned down? That I'm a weapons-master for women? Gods. Come on inside. —You don't have to worry. I won't lay a hand on you. I've never yet assaulted children."

  She stood fast.

  "Damn." He came down the steps and she backed up again, snatching up her basket as she went. "Fool girl. A sword, for gods' sakes. Do you know if the magistrates found you with that you could lose your right hand, at the least."

  "There's no law here."

  "The law here is mine," he said. And as she backed further he waved a hand at her. "If you're going, then get out and don't stop on the road. If I find you skulking about here after, you'll find out what the law is on this mountain."

  "I want you to teach me."

  "I told you: I've turned down better boys than you. Get out."

  "Not without what I came for."

  "Dammit," he said, thinking of her hanging about—gods knew with what intention. "If you steal anything around here, or if you lay a hand on my horse, I'll show you what that's worth with me."