Counting Up, Counting Down

by Harry Turtledove

  He covered his discomfiture with brusqueness. “Where’s Coradin?”

  “Why, upstairs, of course.” Lavria’s manner changed subtly; this was business, too, but of a different sort. “Come into the parlor and wait, if you care to. He’s paid enough not to be disturbed.” She held the brocaded curtain wide in invitation.

  The Jadeflower’s reception chamber lived up to the place’s reputation. Panes of gold- and rose-colored glass gave the entering light the texture of thick velvet. The paintings on the wall were erotic without being blatant. A lutanist better than the one at Rupen’s castle sat on a tall stool in one corner of the room, playing softly. Even the bouncer bathed. And when Milo picked a chair, he thought the soft goosedown cushions would swallow him up.

  A few seconds later, a servant appeared at his elbow with a goblet of wine. The goblet was cut crystal. At the first taste of the wine, his eyebrows shot up. “Rincian!” Maybe every other year, a handful of bottles of the precious stuff reached Iveria.

  The banister of the stairway that led up to the girls’ rooms had to be polished brass, he decided. It could not be gold . . . could it? That he wondered showed how much the place intimidated him.

  A door closed upstairs, with a slam that rattled the stained-glass windows. Someone howled out a snatch of bawdy song in an off-key bass voice. That sounded like the kind of racket Coradin might make. Milo mouthed the name, looked a question to the lute player, who nodded. The seneschal rose expectantly.

  Coradin appeared at the head of the stairs, a blond bear of a man, even bigger than Milo, and at the moment mightily rumpled. The seneschal hardly gave him a glance—he was not alone up there. No fewer than three of Lavria’s choicest girls were seeing him off. Transparent silk that displayed rather than hid the softly rounded flesh beneath held Milo transfixed. He was happily married, but a long way from blind.

  Three—! And every one of them gazed at Coradin with a satisfied languor that was a million miles from the hard, bright professional smiles of their trade.

  Milo ground his teeth. He had expected to dislike the mercenary, but not to hate him on sight.

  Coradin kissed all the girls thoroughly, gave them a pat or two, and started down the stairs. He noticed Milo staring up at him. “Do you want something with me, you vinegar-faced bastard? Gods, in a place like this how can a man look like he’s just had a live crab pounded up his arse?”

  Milo’s first impulse was to find out how good Coradin was with the sword that swung at his belt—but then he would have to explain to Rupen. That did not bear thinking about.

  Instead, he drew himself up to his full height. Voice icily formal, he proclaimed, “Coradin Honeymouth”—he could not resist that much of a gibe; the girls at the top of the stair giggled—“I am charged by Rupen, lord of Iveria, to offer you employment with the Count’s army at a rate to be set by mutual agreement, and further to offer you a reward of your own choosing for the secret of your ability to ride the unicorn currently outside this establishment.”

  Coradin was close enough for the seneschal to smell the wine on his breath, but he turned alert even so. “Another snoopy bugger, eh?” Mischief kindled in his eyes, which were almost as blue as his mount’s. “I tell you what—we can dicker later, but I’ll solve the mystery for you now, for free.”

  Milo waited, sure it was not going to be that easy. “What’s this?” Coradin said in mock surprise. “You don’t want the answer after all?”

  “Tell me,” the seneschal said wearily. As well have the foolishness over with, he thought, so we can get down to serious haggling.

  “All right, then, though you don’t sound much interested.” Coradin struck a pose. “You know not what bribes I have declined for this shameful secret out of my darkest past.” His voice sank to a dramatic whisper. “You see, I’m a virgin.”

  He laughed so hard he almost fell over the banister. Above him, the courtesans clung to each other while tears of mirth ran down their cheeks. The lutanist missed a note.

  Milo swore in disgust. “If you’re quite through, let’s head for my lord Rupen’s hall. I told him he was giving me a sleeveless errand, but he still wants you to fight for him.”

  “So you can keep prying, of course,” Coradin said.

  Milo looked at him. “Of course.”

  “Maybe he is a virgin,” the seneschal said a couple of weeks later. “He’s never left any byblows behind that I’ve been able to track down.”

  Count Rupen stared at him as if he were an idiot. “By the gods, it’s not from lack of effort. There’s not a tavern wench in town hasn’t had her skirts rucked up or her bodice torn. He’s not shy about getting ’em alone, either. And the worst part is, they love it. Honeymouth, Honeymouth, Honeymouth—it’s all you hear in the bloody town these days.” That infuriated Rupen as much as it had Milo; the count snarled every time he saw Coradin riding through the streets on his unicorn.

  “He’d best be good at more than friking, if he’s to earn what you’re giving him.”

  Rupen snarled all over again. Coradin was profane and drunken, but drunk or sober he knew to the half-copper what his unique services were worth. “Pay what I ask or go piss yourself,” he’d said. “It doesn’t matter a fart to me. If you don’t, plenty of others will.” Rupen had paid.

  The count brought himself back to the business at hand. “That’s why you’re going along, to make sure he earns it and doesn’t decide to pick old Gui’s side instead.” Rupen and Gui had been quarreling about their border for years. With Coradin available, the count of Iveria had chosen direct action.

  As Rupen’s war party rode south, Milo marveled anew at the unicorn. It paced the knights’ brawny horses with effortless ease. The seneschal was sure it could have left them in the dust as easily, though Coradin was as heavily accoutered as any of the warriors.

  Milo soon saw the mercenary was in his element on campaign. Coradin swapped rough jokes with Rupen’s troopers, and howled laughter at the few he hadn’t heard. When they camped that night, he produced a lute from his saddlebag and led the men in a series of songs that started foul and ended fouler. His playing wasn’t up to the standard of the lutanist at the Jadeflower, but he was far from bad, and his big bass voice covered a lot of fluffs. The knights took to him without reservation. Milo kept his own counsel.

  Somehow Gui had heard Rupen was about to have a go at the valley they both claimed. Archers shot at the war party from ambush as it splashed through the little creek that, Gui claimed, marked the rightful boundary. They hit two horses and a man. Arrows flew all around Coradin, but, with what Milo was coming to think of as his customary luck, he escaped unscathed.

  Lances couched, the knights thundered into the brush after the bowmen. They flushed three snipers and rode them down. That must have been the lot, for the shooting stopped. But Rupen’s warriors had little chance to rejoice. Coming from the other side of the valley was a band of knights at least as big as theirs, all wearing Gui’s dark green surcoats.

  Milo quickly re-formed his own troop. They spurred toward the foe. Out of the corner of his eye the seneschal saw Coradin dart ahead of the battle line, but he had no time to spare for the mercenary. All his attention was on one knight in the line rumbling at them, a knight whose gleaming lancehead pointed straight at his chest. He brought his own lance down.

  They met with a crash like an accident in a smithy. The enemy knight’s lance shivered against Milo’s shield. His own stroke was better aimed. Gui’s man flew over his horse’s tail and thudded to the ground. He lay there, out cold.

  The first impact between the two lines expended the momentum of their charge. The fight became a wild melee, knights on both sides hacking away at one another with swords and warhammers and swinging broken lances club-fashion. Unhorsed men, those who could, clambered to their feet and did their best to help their comrades. The ones who could not rise were soon trampled under the iron-shod hooves of the knights’ war-horses.

  In the melee, Coradin tru
ly came into his own. He slid away from the blows of Gui’s men as if he were made of shadow, and struck his own from places where he had no right to be. Foes tumbled from their mounts like ninepins. The unicorn was so much faster and more agile than the knights’ snorting chargers that they might as well have been riding oxen.

  But the unicorn was not faster than a flung stone. One of Gui’s unhorsed men hurled a fist-sized rock at Coradin from behind. It caught the mercenary just below his helmet, on his chainmail neckguard. Stunned, he crashed to the ground, sword flying from nerveless fingers.

  The unicorn screamed, a high, keening sound like a woman in pain. The anguished cry was all but drowned by the triumphant roar from Gui’s knights. Three of them closed in to finish Coradin. The unicorn attacked furiously, but not even its speed and gleaming horn could hold off three knights for long.

  Milo was charging to the mercenary’s rescue before he wondered why. His instinct, or so he would have thought, would have been to say good riddance to Coradin. But there was the matter of Rupen’s temper, and something more. A thoroughly stubborn man, he was still working away at the puzzle Coradin posed, and could hardly expect to solve it with him killed.

  The seneschal’s sword crunched into a hauberk. The iron rings kept the blade from his opponent’s flesh, but the fellow grimaced and went white all the same; the force of the blow was enough to break ribs. Gui’s knight wheeled his horse and fled. The unicorn routed a second enemy, goring him in the thigh and his mount in the flank. Wild with pain, the horse bucketed away, out of the fight.

  But the third knight was on Coradin, who groggily tried to rise. He lurched away from a swordstroke that would have taken his head; luckily, Gui’s trooper had shattered his lance, or he would have pinned the mercenary to the ground like a bug. Then Milo and the unicorn attacked the knight together. The fellow was a good swordsman. He matched Milo blow for blow. But the added threat of the unicorn distracted him. Milo felt the jar all the way to his shoulder as his sword made a bloody mask of his opponent’s face. Gui’s knight died before his feet slid from the stirrups.

  That was enough to send his comrades, already wavering, into headlong retreat. Rupen’s men chased them a little way, then let them go. Milo turned back to see how Coradin was. The unicorn was anxiously nuzzling its master, who did not seem badly hurt. “The father and mother of all headaches, but I’ll live,” he told the seneschal. He watched Gui’s warriors disappear. “We won, eh? Good. Now to serious business—where do we celebrate?”

  The disputed valley held a small village: a few houses, a smithy, a mill, a three-story tavern that was much the most impressive structure there. The villagers gave Rupen’s troops a warm welcome—for a while, at least, they would only pay taxes to one overlord, not two. Coradin’s unicorn didn’t hurt, either. No one remembered the last time the village had seen such a beast. Children shyly stroked it; their parents wished they could.

  The tavern served bad wine and surprisingly good ale. The knights filled the taproom to overflowing. A good half of them sat outside on the steps or in the street, which had only a little less grass in it than the meadow where the cows grazed back of the village.

  Milo climbed to the two little attic rooms to see if he could spot Gui’s men—and to make sure they were not trying to return stealthily and take revenge on his troopers while they roistered. A long way away, the setting sun glinted from chainmail. Trimming fingernails he had broken in the fighting, Milo grunted in satisfaction. He took a long pull at the jack of ale beside him, went downstairs again. The steps seemed to wobble under his feet: it was not the first jack he’d had.

  Down below, Rupen’s followers were giving Coradin his due. Not even Milo begrudged him that; his work with the unicorn had done a lot to beat Gui’s warriors. The knights bought him round after round, and cheered when he made what was obviously going to be a successful play for the tavern’s prettiest serving girl.

  As the evening wore along, some of the knights who had been drinking hard fell asleep in their chairs. Others stretched out on bedrolls outside. Milo thought he would join them. On a fine mild night like this, sleeping indoors held no appeal for him.

  He broke another nail, this one on the buckle of the belt that held his bedroll closed. He reached down to his belt for his dagger to pare it, and discovered that the little scabbard was empty. He could have borrowed anyone else’s, but by then his ale-soaked wits had room for only one thought at a time: nothing would do but his own. He wearily climbed the stairs to the attic again, and fuzzily wondered why the job seemed so much harder than it had the last time.

  He had forgotten to bring along a candle, and had also forgotten which room he’d been in. Searching on hands and knees, at last he found the dagger. “There!” he said, and carefully trimmed the broken nail. He started to get up, but rolled over and fell asleep instead.

  The noise of someone shutting the door to the other attic room did not wake him, but Coradin’s deep voice did. It pierced the thin wall as if that were made of gauze: “Here we are, my pretty, all the privacy we need—”

  Other noises followed, rustlings and wrestlings and bumps and thumps and squeals of delight. Milo made a noise of his own, a groan; his head was already beginning to pound. The pair in the other room ignored it.

  The amatory racket went on and on. Milo had not intended to listen, did not want to listen, but had little choice but to listen. After a while he sat bolt upright (sending a spear of pain through his skull) and exclaimed, “So that’s it!” Being a cautious sort, he added, “I think.”

  Exclamation and addition passed unnoticed on the far side of the wall. The seneschal did not care. He did not think Rupen could use the answer, but he didn’t care about that, either. He had it. Racket or no, he lay down and went back to sleep.

  Milo woke the next morning feeling exactly like death. When he went downstairs for hot porridge, he found Coradin already there, looking much less crapulent than he should have. Even so, the seneschal gazed at him with something approaching benevolence.

  Coradin noticed. “What’s your problem?” he demanded.

  “None at all, except for too much ale last night. I own I could use some fresh air, though. Shall we wander outside?”

  “Mm.” The mercenary packed a world of suspicion into a grunt. He lifted his tankard, tossed down what was left in it. “Why not?”

  The unicorn gave a happy whicker as its master came out of the tavern. He fed it half a dried apple. It licked his fingers, looking for more. “Later,” he chuckled. The beast’s feelings mattered much more to him than Milo’s did.

  Coradin and the seneschal wandered out of the village and down a twisting lane. After a minute, Coradin said, “This is charming and all, but piss or get off the pot.”

  So much for benevolence, Milo thought. He came back bluntly, “I have your precious secret.”

  The mercenary laughed in his face. “If I got a goldpiece for every time I’ve heard that, I’d be too rich to fight. What’s your version?”

  “Just what you told me at the Jadeflower: you’re a virgin—in a manner of speaking, anyway.”

  Coradin was still laughing. “Go ask Vylla back there—she’ll sing you a different tune.”

  “I don’t need to ask her. Truly I hadn’t intended to spy that way, but you weren’t as private as you thought last night.” He told the mercenary what he’d heard, and what it meant. From the way Coradin scowled, he knew he had it right. “One way or another, that’s all you do, eh?”

  “Yes, curse you.” Coradin turned purple, because the seneschal had started to laugh. “What’s so funny, you beetle-headed blackguard?”

  A little vindictiveness went a long way with Milo. “Sorry,” he said. “It just now hit me.”

  “What did?” Coradin looked as if he wanted to hit Milo himself.

  “Now I know why they really call you Honeymouth.”

  Myth Manners’ Guide to Greek Missology #1: Andromeda and Perseus

  This one tu
rns a well-known Greek myth upside down, backwards, and inside out. Proving I have no shame whatsoever, I’ve read it aloud several times at science-fiction conventions. The same line, toward the end, always gets the biggest laugh. It’s not the line I thought was the funniest. Only goes to show an author doesn’t always know quite what he’s doing.

  * * *

  Andromeda was feeling the strain. “Why me?” she demanded. She’d figured Zeus wanted something from her when he invited her up to good old Mount Olympus for the weekend, but she’d thought it would be something else. She’d been ready to play along, too—how did you go about saying no to the king of the gods? You didn’t, not unless you were looking for a role in a tragedy. But . . . this?

  “Why you?” Zeus eyed her as if he’d had something else in mind, too. But then he looked over at Hera, his wife, and got back to the business at hand. “Because you’re the right man—uh, the right person—for the job.”

  “Yeah, right,” Andromeda said. “Don’t you think you’d do better having a man go out and fight the Gorgons? Isn’t that what men are for?—fighting, I mean.” She knew what else men were for, but she didn’t want to mention that to Zeus, not with Hera listening.

  And Hera was listening. She said, “Men are useless—for fighting the Gorgons, I mean.” She sounded as if she meant a lot of other things, too. She was looking straight at Zeus.

  No matter how she sounded, the king of the gods dipped his head in agreement. “My wife’s right.” By the sour look on his face, that sentence didn’t pass his lips every eternity. “The three Gorgons are fearsome foes. Whenever a man spies Cindy, Claudia, or Tyra, be it only for an instant, he turns to stone.”

  “Part of him turns to stone, anyway,” Hera said acidly.

  “And, so, you not being a man, you being a woman—” Zeus went on.

  “Wait a minute. Wait just a linen-picking minute,” Andromeda broke in. “You’re not a man, either, or not exactly a man. You’re a god. Why don’t you go and take care of these Gorgons with the funny names your own self?”