The Paladin

by C. J. Cherryh

  He exhaled a careful breath. Damn, was there no respite in her? "I hope you don't include me in that number."

  She bit at her lip. "No, master Shoka. I just want you to know if you sleep with me, I'm not your wife, I'm doing it because I'm scared and I don't like being scared, so I do it until I'm not. But you think it's for you. And I won't lie to you. I don't like lying. I'm not a virgin. I'm not anybody's lady. It's my fault you left your mountain and I wish to hell you'd go back! If you'd go back I promise I'll try to stay alive and come back, and then I'll marry you, I'll do anything you want me to for the rest of my life. I just don't want you getting killed for me. I never wanted that. You're being stupid, and I hate that! I'm not what you think I am. I'm not your lady. I'm a farmer. They'll laugh at you if you say I'm anything else. Just like those people back there. And I won't have that!"

  The face was perfectly in control, the hands on knees, the whole posture tranquil. Only the voice trembled and broke.

  He left that silence a long while. He found a twig of brushwood in his fingers and snapped it. "Let me tell you then, since we're being ruthlessly honest: I was a damn fool for not insisting Meiya sleep with me. Then she never would have married the Emperor. I was a greater fool to have believed there was something the Emperor would stick at, and not to have snatched her up and run for the border. But by then, you see—by then, she was the Emperor's wife. And they'd have brought an army after me; and she'd still be dead. But the fact is—" It was a thought that had been growing in him for months, a bitter thought, a thought that made desolate a good part of his life. "I don't think I'd loved her for years. I don't think she'd loved me—ever. We were kids. We were infatuated. I lost her to the old Emperor's order. It was romantical and I was desolated, and my pride was hurt. So what could I do but carry on with a feeling I'm not sure was ever real? You understand that? Probably what you're going through with me. You do and you don't. Yea and nay. But for me, then, it had to be real. She hated her husband. I was her friend. We never once slept together. If we had, I think it would have been to relive the past. To imagine there'd been something more than infatuation. The day she died—" He cleared a tightness in his throat. "She was waiting for me, I'm sure to the last, because I was her friend. Because she knew if anyone had come—I would have. But things between us by then were all politics and planning how to do this and planning how to influence one lord and another to do what had to be done—all politics. We weren't lovers, we were a faction Ghita had to break—myself, Meiya, lord Heisu. That he couldn't prove adultery on me—was because we'd been so careful there was no chance. That they proved it on Heisu—was because—gods only know—she might have. And I wouldn't blame her. I'd know why . . . because she treated me as too damned honorable. And she'd have known how foolish it was and how dangerous. But if she slept with Heisu—it was because she didn't give a damn for him, personally, only as a friend and adviser, and her husband never touched her. You see—there are things people do to each other as bad as happens on battlefields. That's my truth. You didn't choose what happened. I made the mess that I suffered from. So if I sleep with you—it's because I've gotten smarter over the years. I take the moments the gods give. I don't ask too much. I genuinely care about you. I've never slept with a woman I've cared about. Not one—until you." It grew too embarrassing, to be saying that to a very young, very tough-minded girl, no matter she was no child. He reached out and jabbed the broken twig into the fire, not looking at her, but at the fire that licked up, brief, bright flames and a few sparks in the gathering dark. "Anyway, that's my reason. It's not on your shoulders." He took another bit of brushwood and fed it in. "If I remember my maps, the hills in the south of Hua are wooded. Hard country to find anyone in. That's how I plan to get out. And you with—"

  She had gotten up. He thought he might have upset her and she was going to walk off. Instead she came to his side and squatted down and took his hand and held it, arms between her knees.

  "Let's sleep together. All right?"

  He looked up at an earnest, firelit face, close to his own. His pulse quickened. "All right," he said, and closed his hand tighter. And thought of the woods not far away, and the nature of the land.

  Hell with it. He started in with her ties and she helped him with his, and they peeled out of the armor like two youngsters in a hedgerow.

  After which he covered the fire, threw the blankets around them both and said: "Let's not hurry. Let me explain the fine points of-this."

  "Just do it!"

  "No, no, no, one doesn't."

  "Mmmn," she said after a while, and let out a yelp.

  The ladies of Chiyaden were more discreet. He could not say he preferred them at all, the more so as she got the notion to try her own ideas.

  "Mmmn," he said. "Gods."

  "That hurt?"

  "No," he said, between breaths, and settled himself. "Now?"

  Her nails dug hell out of his back. He had no care for that.

  Jiro snorted. Loud.

  He stopped. She did.

  A pebble rolled, on the rocks above them. "Damn!" he whispered into her ear, feeling her grip on his arms. "Someone's up there."

  Her fingers clenched, once, hard. "Mmmn," she said aloud, with cold presence of mind.

  "Mmmn," he said in turn, and eased aside and felt in the dark after his sword, while she melted away after her gear, while Jiro snorted and stamped in alarm.

  He wanted his armor, dammit, but his sword was all he could come by without a rattle. He hoped Taizu had sense to stay put.

  "Mmmn," she said again.

  He heard someone moving then, around by the side of the hill. At least one above. More than one to the right.

  He heard his target, saw the shadow, and struck like a whisper. There was not even an outcry. Two objects hit the ground, one small, one large.

  Sound from above. A stone rattled down, a series of rattles, as howls broke from human throats and shadows poured from the right.

  He took the first three in that many passes: missed the fourth, trying to keep him from getting past, took the fifth and heard Taizu yell:

  "Bastard!" —As something hit steel and flesh and a man yelped into silence; Shoka spun and struck and countered in what had started as fright and went to hot rage.

  He heard the man charge down the hill-face, heard it coming and whirled and struck, whirled again with the sound of steel on his left, took another and launched himself for the pale figure enveloped in steel-shining shadows.

  "Hyaaaa!" he yelled, drawing attention of his own, and cut his way through, heard a howl from Taizu, but not pain, a yell like an outraged devil's.

  And the last few shadows took to their heels.

  "Cowards!" she screamed after them.

  Shoka let go his breath and felt himself shaking from head to foot, the old feeling that came with a fight, heart pounding, muscles charged to move. "Get a bow, darnmit!" He grabbed Taizu's arm and shoved her back to the hill where their gear was. He ran and got Jiro from tether and drew him back close against the hill, trampling a detritus on the ground that had not been there when the fight started.

  Taizu had done what he had told her, gotten to cover against the hill and gotten the bows strung.

  Naked as she was born. "Are you hurt?" he asked.

  "No. You?"

  "No." He felt after his clothes. "Get dressed. We sleep turn and turn about. Damn them!" He found himself shaking for a different reason. For the memory of her out there surrounded. For what could have happened.

  For what she had done, by the gods.

  He hugged her against his side. "Scared?" he asked her.

  "No." Her teeth were chattering. He felt her shivering. He held onto her, thinking . . .

  Thinking that if she had made one mistake she would have died.

  Thinking that then he would have fired the whole damn forest and gone for Gitu himself, and for Ghita and for the Emperor and his whole damn court.

  He hugged her tight. "Want to g
o home?"

  "Hua," she said.

  Chapter Twelve

  The sky cast a faint glow into the narrows, over a flat, rocky expanse littered with hewn bodies, bits and pieces. Not a wholesome place for the sun to come up on—the stink of death all around them and the day getting just enough to see what a longsword could do to a body, armor and all.

  Not a good sight for a girl, Shoka thought, and then thought: but it's what she's chosen.

  He rubbed dried blood from his hands, rubbed the stubble on his face and found the same. Saw Taizu waking, or never sleeping at all, her eyes dark, liquid slits in the shadow, her face dappled with filth like his own. Jiro stood still drowsing, close to them, in the same sheltering rocks.

  They had not washed last night. They had armored up and stayed close to the rocks, and slept turn and turn about—if she had slept.

  Scared, maybe. He hoped that she was. He hoped it was that simple, that natural a thing.

  He reached out and tousled her bangs. "Better move," he said. "Early. Before our enemies want to get stirring."

  He got up. She did, and looked around her, and got her sword and walked out among the dead, poked one body and walked on—stopped to pick up a dagger and sheath and thrust it through her own belt, simple, pragmatic looting of their enemies.

  A grim face, stolid. It sent a chill through him.

  But it was also practical, what she did. He shrugged and rubbed the blood off his fingers and walked through the bodies and pieces of bodies, looking for things of value.

  A good dagger for her, a leather belt and silk cord—neither was to pass by: tack got worn and cords got cut. A couple of serviceable steel helmets. He had lost his in the fracas ten years ago and she had never had one. A gold locket. "Here," he said, tossing it at her. "But wear it inside. Stuff like this can get your throat cut—in more than one way."

  She looked at what she had caught in her fist, open-mouthed in amazement. She did not put it on. She stuffed it in a bag she had taken from one of the dead.

  A little silver. A little copper. A silver hair-clip. A silk scarf. That was the rest of their pilferage.

  Nine bodies, in the faint light. He counted. Probably Taizu did.

  "We've done no little service for travelers on this road," he said as he saddled Jiro and Taizu gathered up her load. "That's likely a good part of the bandits in Hoisan."

  "Huh," she said.

  At least she did not say—it was nothing. At least she did not say—she enjoyed what she did. He had seen both in boys in their first fight. But she was different. Like the wisest, maybe, who did what they did and kept their balance: that was what he had taught her—Your soul has a center, girl, the same as your body has. Let nothing you do take you from that center.

  Where are you this morning, girl?

  Or have you seen enough such sights in Hua?

  Taizu walking among the dead. Taizu stripping weapons from corpses, coldly turning this and that bloody bit of a man to see if there was something to be scavenged—

  Gods, what has Chiyaden come to, to breed a girl like this?

  * * *

  The road ahead by earliest dawn was an unpleasant ground of tumbled rocks, twisted pine, scrub and undergrowth giving way to tall trees as the gap widened.

  A little forest, a little thicket, a great deal of rock, through which the road had to wind, taking much more time than Shoka liked, past rocks large enough to hide three and four men. "Don't talk," he said. "Jiro's ears and Jiro's nose is the best defense we have through this."

  She nodded once. That was all, except when the road widened again and they went under daylight, beside the river.

  Not the way Taizu had argued—with her out to the fore. The bandits knew there were two of them. They well knew it; and Shoka kept scanning the heights within bowcast of them, with his own bow strung, with an arrow held crook-fingered to the string and two more in his hand.

  "I think they want easier pickings," he said finally.

  "Maybe there never were that many of them," Taizu said.

  He felt a prickle at his nape, strong enough that he turned in the saddle to look.

  But there was nothing but trees and rock and the narrow clear area of the road.

  He looked to the fore again, and wished with all his heart that he could put Jiro to a faster gait.

  But there was no possibility of that. His weight, Taizu's, both in armor—their gear and the tack: Jiro could carry it, but no faster than he was walking; or run with it and kill himself.

  So they walked, at a better pace than Taizu had yet managed. "Give me the pack," he said, and when she opened her mouth: "Hand it up."

  She slipped her arm out of one rope, changed bow-hands, and freed the other, keeping only the quiver as she handed it up to him.

  "Go," he said, then. "Move, girl. Run!"

  She moved, took a steady jogging pace, and Jiro snorted and broke into a faster gait with never a touch of his heel—the old chase game.

  That was the way they passed the heights, between rests in which they rested close against the rocks.

  That was the way they came to the wider valley, by the waterside. Taizu came to a panting halt, the sweat and the dirt and the day-old blood streaked with runnels of sweat, her hair stuck about her face.

  He felt as if they had passed a door—one without returning. And he gave a twitch of his shoulders.

  "I'll carry the gear a while," he said. "We're not resting here. Keep going."

  She looked at him open-mouthed, as if she thought this was some kind of revenge.

  "Go!" he said.

  She seemed to understand then. She gasped a breath and turned and ran.

  * * *

  They had to rest more often now—whenever they came to a rock that offered shelter. Taizu's breath came harsh and hard, and sweat drenched her. At the last she walked close by Jiro's side and held onto his saddle skirts, partly because she could hardly keep herself on her feet, partly to shield Jiro's chest from the vulnerable side as they passed the last of the heights.

  Beyond that, with the land open again, she was stumbling with exhaustion, and when they were in a broad, clear space with their river again, she said, in a croak of a voice: "Master Shoka, can we rest a while down there?"

  "Rest we will," he said, and got down from Jiro's back and made her climb up, and walked, himself, with Taizu sitting and swaying in the saddle—too prideful to collapse, he thought.

  But he insisted to make a fire when they reached the ford and a little gravelly stretch where the river brought wood and the sun dried it. He took off his armor and washed with handfuls of the icy water, and she did, some distance from him, and not looking at him.

  He looked at her—squatting peasant-style as she poured handfuls of water over her hair and her shoulders, managing to stir his interest even in that ungainly pose—and he felt a moment of disquietude even then—that she was so small, so set on her foolishness, and she had grown so important to him. But that she would be appalled at death and killing—he gave up that illusion for good, and continued to be appalled in his own turn, that she was so matter of fact about it.

  Maiden-modest by daylight. And conscienceless as a camp-follower. He thought he should be disgusted. But that was not what he felt. What he felt was—

  —attraction. And a thought that if she were a boy he would think her extraordinary for that calm, and that skill, and know here was that rare student too self-possessed to do foolish things. A student well-set in the Way.

  As I've taught her, was one thought.

  And the other—that it was feminine cruelty, of the sort he had seen in whores of all classes.

  One he respected; one he abhorred. He was not sure what he was dealing with, or what he had taught; and his body said he loved her, which disturbed him the more—You're off your center, master Saukendar. . . .

  Damn the girl.

  He wanted to believe the best of her. He wanted it; and yet—

  Believing the best
meant believing that she was capable of the Way; and that meant taking her in a completely different understanding than he had had with any woman; believing the worst meant he was a fool, lending his art to a student who would pervert it, even for a just revenge—and who all along had not been what a lonely man's vulnerable mind had wanted to make out of her.

  Considerably off your center, master Saukendar. . . .

  Demons he doubted. But that he might have bound himself up with a woman as destructive of him—he could not entirely rid himself of that thought. He had very little left but his reputation. And he had more than lent it to her. He had given it completely to her, to go into the world with, and to do good or ill with—

  Perhaps he could take the age-old cure for demons and strike off her head where she sat, unawares, and go home, with his reputation intact: the village would make legends of his narrow escape from her bewitching.

  But he had no wish to cut off her head. No wish to take her home by force, and no wish to wait on the mountain any longer, because now he would know what he was waiting for, and if there was never her again—then there was nothing, nothing, nothing for the rest of his years.

  So here he sat freezing himself with cold water and wanting a woman who was the equal of any young fighter he had ever known—a thing which seemed vaguely to him like being attracted to some unusually comely boy—and she was simultaneously a saint who could be corrupted by his lust—or a conscienceless woman who would inevitably attach to his name, and be the end of all the reputation he had—

  Not, he told himself, that it ought to matter to him. But, dammit, he had never asked to be a saint or a hero, and if the gods had cast his lot that way, and if he had tried to keep his name clean and not betray what people expected of him, then it was a damned shabby trick on the gods' part to send him a temptation like this one at the last—