The Paladin

by C. J. Cherryh

  In truth, he replied, it was usually wild pigs. But there were two of them to feed this year, the stag offered itself, and between the two of them they could get their victim home again.

  * * *

  They smoked a great deal of the venison, made sausages, cured the hide, and hung the rest, frozen, from the cabin porch.

  And on winter evenings, with the snow outside and Jiro snug in his stable, Shoka taught the making of arrows, the shaping of a bow—men's work; but it was what he knew, and it made the evenings pass and it pleased the girl and made the time pleasant.

  Her eyes followed every move of his fingers; and his followed the light in her eyes and the little curve of a smile he could get from her nowadays.

  And his thoughts followed her night by night. He tried her resolve from time to time, a little compliment, a brush of his hand while she was working.

  She flinched and said, in one variation or the other: No.

  So that was the way the winter went—from snowy day to snowy day, when they stayed snug indoors except the needful chores, like carrying water to Jiro and combing and currying him and letting him out for exercise and seeing him snug in his stable at night.

  He showed her the way to spin out a bowstring, and how to tie it. He told her why certain arrows had certain fletchings and certain points, and how to choose the feathers and how to set them. He showed her—with the cabin's dirt floor padded with straw mats—a few of the elementary arts master Yenan had taught him, the turning of a blow with the fingers, the use of a bit of wood or the bare hand or foot to numb a limb or dissuade anyone who would lay hands on her.

  Such things the nuns would have taught her. He reminded her of that; and she said:

  "I wouldn't have stayed there long enough."

  "Where would you have gone?" he asked her.

  "I don't know," she said, evading the question. She would not look him in the eyes when she answered, so he made up his own: that she would have gone on the road and been a morsel for the stronger and the quicker, which he did not like to imagine.

  He told her stories, and she told him, what the court was like, what Hua was like. They amazed each other, he thought; at least her eyes grew wide when he talked about the court and the Emperor's table where dishes came dressed in peacock feathers and roast pigs had sugar castles on their backs, wings of swan feathers and real rubies for eyes.

  "We ate all right," she recollected, talking of Hua, and the things she said told him of a prosperous farm, a large family—my brothers, she said, and sometimes in her stories named names, like Jei and Mani. She talked about a deer lord Kaijeng's daughter had had for a pet until lord Kaijeng's hunters killed it by mistake, and then (there was none of Taizu's stories but had a sad ending,) she said that the lady and her husband were dead, that the lady had committed suicide and her husband had been killed in the fighting for the castle. She shed no tears for any of it. She only grew melancholy; and he thought about Meiya's death and was melancholy himself.

  But he never talked to her about Meiya. She was a child. He was not, and he could not bring himself to confide those complex and painful memories to her, not even when he was a little drunk. He only brooded, and the silence was heavy for a while.

  She was a little drunk that night, too, with the storm howling round. She gathered up her good humor and showed him a game they had played in Hua, when the snows came, but it was a game he knew, one they played at court. So that turned out to be something they both shared.

  He remembered one world while he played with their makeshift counters, where he had played with ivory and jade pieces for high wagers, while she remembered her home, perhaps, and stone counters and a host of brothers and her parents. But they played for such things as Who Carries the Bucket and Who Makes Breakfast.

  He suggested other stakes, but she glowered at him, and he assured her he was only joking.

  "All right," he said, "if you lose you keep me warm tonight. Nothing else. No hands."

  "I won't," she said, firmly. "You might cheat."

  "At what? Besides, a gentleman doesn't cheat."

  "Huh," she said shortly, arms on her knees.

  "What does that mean?"

  "I know what you want. And you won't get it. I won't let you break your word. So there."

  "You're the loser," he said. "It's a cold night."

  She shook her head. "You want to play?" she said. "Tomorrow's dishes against I curry down your horse."

  "You do that anyway. That's no bet."

  "Against who brings in the firewood next."

  "All right," he said.

  So they played that night while the snow fell on this coldest night of the year, and they drank a little more.

  "Come on," he said, when she was staggering to her mat, and he was sitting on his, more than a little drunk. He patted the place beside him. "It's bitter cold. There's no sense being uncomfortable. I promise you, it's only comfort I'm thinking of. I won't do anything you don't want me to do."

  "No," she was sober enough to say, and took to her mat alone, huddled up in a knot under the quilts in all her clothes.

  Chapter Seven

  The icicle at the corner of the porch grew spectacularly and fell finally with a considerable crash one afternoon, leaving a crystal wreckage in a remaining drift, under a warming sun.

  There was mud everywhere, but the winds had shifted, burning off the snow at an amazing rate, and Jiro kicked up his heels like a colt, flagging his tail and cavorting around the pasture in a shameless display.

  Hoping for mares, Shoka thought forlornly, considering the horse and the girl who tended him—her forfeit, carrying the bucket up the muddy trail from the spring, and currying the mud off Jiro, who would surely roll in it.

  Hard winter, worse spring. He sat on the porch scraping the stubble off his chin, dipping his razor in a pan of hot water and sourly contemplating the warming weather that would have the whole hillside in a mating frenzy, the buds bursting, nature run amok to procreate and perpetuate.

  Shoka sighed, looked from under a brow and a shaggy fall of hair at the slim, far figure, and thought he had missed his best chance when they were both drunk at midwinter.

  Sorry, girl, I didn't know what I was doing.

  He imagined a morning after that event in which the girl would change all her opinions, all her intentions, give up her mad notions and devote herself to him completely.

  Crash! went another icicle.

  He did not, in fact, know what she would do if he laid a hand on her, but he did not, in broad daylight, think it particularly likely that she would immediately change her attitudes. He had never tried to think like a pig-farmer who had sworn to kill a lord of Chiyaden. But he tried a great deal lately to think like Taizu, and getting a few smiles and a laugh or two out of her was hard enough. Taizu—

  —He could not think what she would do. But he doubted it would be peaceful or pleasant.

  Damned fool girl. Damned fool girl who was a comfort he had gotten used to. And after nine years of celibacy—

  Another sigh.

  A man would want to say that getting a girl to bed was the most important thing. But that was a lie. The likelihood that she would be straightway down the hill and away from him—that was the thing he had thought about all the winter, that looking down that hill now, for instance, and not having the sight of her, ever; and having his supper of evenings in perpetual silence—was unendurable.

  The longer she stayed the more accustomed she grew to him. The more she grew accustomed to him—

  The ladies of Chiyaden had accounted him very handsome. And he tried, gods witness, to treat the little bitch with every grace he could make her understand.

  Look at her—slogging along in the mud in one of the shirts they traded back and forth, barefoot and filthy to the knees, barefoot: it was the gods' own wonder she did not get frostbite. But she had walked barefoot from Hua, and likely the boots he had made her were the first gentle care her feet had ever had. />
  Gentleborn students had to work to harden their hands and their feet. Taizu's were hard; and she had sword-calluses. Silk would fray on such hands.

  But—he thought,—

  But that went with Taizu. And there was only one of her.

  One still tried. It was a slow campaign. That evening, over supper:

  "We should go hunting again," he said. The deer was long since scraps for the birds and the opossums, and he had dragged it off that day, to keep the pests away from the cabin.

  She nodded, eyes bright over the edge of her bowl.

  "You know, the ladies in Chiyaden use ivory chopsticks. They take smaller bites. Like so." He demonstrated.

  She laughed at him, a crinkle at the corners of her eyes, as if all it had meant was a story, like the pigs with ruby eyes.

  "Even the gentlemen take smaller bites," he said, figuring that if a gentleman was what she aspired to be, she might at least acquire some courtly grace, "and they use napkins instead of their sleeves."

  What do they do with the rubies? she had asked regarding the pigs. Taizu went straight to the heart of a thing. And she was still waiting for a story. He saw that.

  "Have you heard who invented chopsticks?"

  "No."

  "It was a greedy woman who couldn't wait for her rice to cool. She didn't want to burn her fingers."

  She looked at him curiously. "What province was she from?"

  "Probably Hua."

  "That's not so," she said definitely, as if she would have heard.

  Then he smothered a laugh by filling his mouth and said: "Well, maybe it was Yiungei."

  Taizu said: "Have you heard how the dog got in the moon?"

  "I didn't know there was a dog in the moon."

  "Of course there is. You can see it." She leaned and pointed.

  "It's an old woman."

  "The same that invented the chopsticks?"

  "Probably."

  "It stole this old woman's supper and she chased it with her stick. That's how it got there. It's a very hungry dog. It starves down to nothing every month, but the gods always feel sorry and feed it, so it never goes away."

  That was a hopeful story. He laughed.

  "I heard in Kiang province it was a rabbit. It jumped up there."

  "Why?"

  "Probably because the dog was chasing it."

  She gave him an odd look.

  "I swear," he said. "That's what I heard."

  It should always be like this, he thought. She should always be here. Every evening. Forever.

  "I think you're making fun of me."

  "I never would. My solemn word."

  She frowned at him.

  He grinned.

  She got up fast and headed inside.

  "Taizu?"

  Oh, damn.

  "Taizu."

  He got up and went after her. She was inside gathering up the rice-pot to wash.

  "I wasn't making fun of you, dammit. Can't a man joke with you?"

  "I don't know when you're joking," she said sullenly. "I don't think you've told me anything true."

  "Like what?"

  "Like everything in Chiyaden."

  "Well, it is true. About the pigs and the rubies. And the ivory chopsticks."

  She threw her bowl into the pot, and splashed water. "Are you through yet? I'll take your bowl."

  "You're not going around back in the dark. A bear might eat you."

  "Like the pigs. I can take care of myself."

  "I don't doubt that. It's going to be a bad day for the bear. Come on back to the porch. You're being stupid. I never laughed at you. I was making a joke."

  "So you were laughing at me."

  "I wasn't laughing at you! Do you call me a liar?"

  "No, master Saukendar. You're a gentleman. You wouldn't lie."

  He stood fast in the doorway, with her with the potful of water in her hands.

  And he suddenly thought that was a dangerous position to hold. He saw the thought going through her eyes. He gave her a look intending she see the one going through his.

  Which left them standing there like obstinate fools.

  "We can stand here all night," he said.

  "Yes, master Saukendar."

  He sighed, stepped aside, gestured her to pass.

  "I didn't laugh at you," he shouted at her back. "You're being an ingrate bitch."

  She walked down off the porch and around into the chill dark.

  So he heated up the wine and poured himself a small drink and went to bed.

  She came back quietly and blew out the light and went to hers.

  She was very sweet in the morning. She made a special breakfast, with sausage. She said nothing about the quarrel.

  He said nothing either, just stared at her while he ate.

  She looked uncomfortable and went off to do the morning chores.

  It was a sort of a victory, he thought.

  * * *

  They had practiced arms in the snow; they had practiced on the porch and up and down the steps—as well you learn what to do with a ceiling, he had said.

  Now, with the snow lying only in shadowed nooks and the high part of the yard dry it was the yard by the old tree again, breath frosting on the air, and mud up to the knee.

  You don't always get good footing, he said. You choose your ground if you can. Sometimes you can't.

  Taizu went down on a wet patch, messily. He followed up with the sword to make the point, jumped back as she took a swipe at his legs and rolled and came up again.

  "Damned fine!" he yelled at her, and brought his sword sweeping round to catch her shoulder—if she had not spun under and offered him the point of hers two-handed in a stop-thrust.

  "Break, break, a hell of a sloppy defense."

  "I'm alive," she said.

  "You've bound your point skewering me! What are you going to do with the man at your back?"

  "There's no man at my back!"

  "Hell if there isn't! Don't give me any cheek, girl."

  "It worked," she panted.

  "Do you want me to teach you or do you want to argue with me?"

  She drew a quieter breath and wiped her leather-bound wrist across her face. "Yes, master Saukendar."

  "Which?"

  She gasped another breath and took up her stance again.

  His leg ached. He was out of sorts. "Slower now. Don't improvise. Hear me?"

  She nodded. "I hear. Can you show me—how to do that?"

  "You're not ready. You fell. Don't clown when you fall." He began a slow evolution, the beginning-moves again. "Teaches you bad habits."

  "I wasn't—wasn't clowning. What am I going to do—when something happens—you didn't teach me?"

  Then he thought about the spring; and the thaw: and thought in a flash of cold: She's talking about leaving.

  "You're not ready yet. You're not near ready."

  He saw the frown. He felt colder.

  Show her otherwise, he thought; and watched her face, watched the smothered anger in the set of her mouth.

  Pattern after pattern after pattern. While the impatience smouldered. He saw it in her. "Haste—kills, girl. —Remember that. —You have—a great deal too much of it—for your own good."

  "What do I do—about a fall—master Saukendar?"

  "Break," he said, finishing the patterned move. He was minded to quit. There was still a chill in the air. He had not been moving hard. His bad leg ached miserably. But: Show her, he thought. Show the damn girl something she won't learn so fast.

  He threw his practice cane over to the porch, walked over and picked up his sword. She came and retrieved hers.

  "Are you going to show me?"

  "I'll show you," he said calmly. He walked back out to the tree and squared off against her, waiting. "Choose your attack."

  She lifted her blade, careful movements now, bare steel. "Don't be cutting my feet off."

  "I wouldn't think of it. Choose your speed."

  She be
gan, a careful, sedate pace, strike and turn.

  He evaded, struck, evaded, struck, fall about again. Damn, it was going to hurt. He chose his moment, chose his spot, shifted his weight to his good leg and went down hard, took the impact and used the force to rock himself up to a knee and to his feet with all his old speed.

  She jumped back, spun and came in again, and he pulled his blow short, slowly, slower.

  "All right," he said, panting. "You."

  She looked at him. There was a frown of desperation on her face.

  "Long winter?" he taunted her.

  "I'll try." She lifted the sword again.

  He lifted his and began the slow dance. "Use the force of your fall. If you fall, don't waste yourself fighting it. Fall. Curl up onto the right shoulder. Come up fast onto the right knee."

  She took the fall. She came most of the way up and cut at him.

  He stepped back, the knee caught, but he cleared the reach of her sword.

  "You missed."

  As she scrambled up.

  She went down again. And lay there panting under the weight of the body armor.

  "That's enough," he said.

  "I can do it."

  "That's enough, I said." He walked over and picked up his sword-sheath, sheathed the steel and picked up the cane. "Go take your bath."

  * * *

  It was a quiet supper, a deathly quiet supper.

  And he wanted like hell to put a compress on his aching leg, but he had no wish to let her know that move cost him anything. So he drank a bit, measuring the amount of the wine left against the time till the villager came back. He went to bed without a word, and worked to find a position in which the leg did not ache.

  It was worth it, if it put a healthy fear into the little fool.

  Let her go on trying it. Let her bruise her backside and strain her gut and her knees.

  He could do it with the armor, still. If the knee held.

  Damned if he wanted to demonstrate the fact.

  * * *

  "On your guard," he said.

  Her sword came up. He kept the exercises slow, balance and precision. The wind had been warmer today, until evening. The sky above the mountain was gray and pregnant with rain. There was no twilight, only murk, and an occasional spattering of rain onto the well-trampled dirt.

  She kept hurrying the patterns. He resisted. The knee ached. It always would when the weather turned like this. He might have known it was more than strain. And he had no wish to rehearse the pattern from yesterday.