"Is that the clerk whom Neville replaced?" asked Jephthah.
"Neville told me about the revision," Iain said, tossing his head up. "He said that the revision hadn't been published yet, and he swore that he hadn't told you about it. May the high doom fall upon you, sublieutenant – how did you know about the change?"
The sublieutenant replied calmly, "Because unlike the rest of you, I spend my winters studying the law rather than dissipating my time in wine, women, and song. I do not waste my evenings in taverns filled with crooning bards singing sickly sentimental songs about murder and suicide – unlike a certain guard I could mention." His gaze turned toward Jephthah, who silently toasted him amidst the laughter. "Nor do I spend my time hand-in-hand and lip-to-lip with loose women, as does our junior-most guard, judging from the volume of letters he receives—"
"We are betrothed!" the youngest guard said indignantly.
"The more fool you for getting yourself betrothed when you could be spending your leisure time practicing swordplay and the law."
"We all practice swordplay during the winters, sublieutenant," volunteered Fowler from the half-light where he sat.
"I assume so, or you would all be dead," replied the sublieutenant. "But if Chatwin does not spend more time learning the law and less time sighing over his betrothed's picture, he is likely to take another misstep into lawbreaking one of these days. I swear, Chatwin, you know as little law as a god-loving Koretian."
Chatwin's partner, Hoel, looked angry, but Fowler interjected his voice first. "Be gentle on him, sublieutenant. He has only been with us for three months. Anyway, you still need to finish your link."
"Do not bother," said Iain, pulling himself out of the circle. "He knows the rest of the subsection; I have heard him recite it. What is your next link, sublieutenant? The Law of False Witness is an obvious choice."
"I am not sure I know that one," said Chatwin in a subdued voice.
He was staring at the ground, and the sublieutenant looked his way, then smiled again suddenly. "This one you know," he said. "'And being as it is more grave that a soldier should be disobedient to his official—'"
"'—the sentence for such a crime shall be mercy or reprimand or beating,'" Chatwin replied promptly. "'For however small an order it may be that the soldier refuses to obey, his obedience is necessary in all things . . .'"
I was beginning to feel very cramped, crouched as I was behind the bush. Part of me knew that I should leave while the guards were still absorbed in their conversation; it was clear by now that they would not be discussing their patrolling plans. But nothing could have driven me from where I was. Here at last I had found what I was seeking: information about the law. And though I didn't understand most of what was being said, I knew two things: that the mountain patrol was learned in the law, and that the patrol's sublieutenant was more learned in such matters than anyone else here.
At that moment, the sublieutenant, still listening to Chatwin's recital, leaned forward to throw a few final drops of his flask-liquid onto the fire. As the flames sizzled and steamed, his eyes rose, and for a brief moment I thought that he could see me, but his gaze continued to rise until he was staring straight up at the stars above, leaning back on his hands.
There was a pause in the conversation. Chatwin had finished his recital; now he said, "Did I get that right?"
"Quite right," said the sublieutenant, still staring up at the stars wheeling above. "Except that you said 'obedience toward the Chara' rather than 'to the Chara.' That makes a great difference in the law, you know."
"How so?" asked Fowler.
The sublieutenant finally looked down again to stare at his empty flask. He made no reply to his partner's question, but said, "I am out of wine, and so is Hoel. Will you fill our flasks, Fowler?"
"Let Hoel go," responded Fowler. "I want to hear what the difference is."
Again, the sublieutenant did not reply, but he hummed a short phrase of music that sounded vaguely familiar. The other guards' heads swivelled in the sublieutenant's direction, and after a moment, Fowler grinned and said, "Oh, very well, I will take on the duty. Where did Devin put the new cask?"
"At the south end of the storeroom, in the direction of the door. If you are going to open a cask, though, you had better clean that blood-dirtied blade of yours."
Fowler obediently came up to the fire and held his blade over the fire to cleanse it, then sheathed it once more as Iain said between yawns, "Good hunting in finding that cask, Fowler. The way Devin hides our goods, you will be at it all night."
"Five minutes at most," said Fowler, looking toward the hut. "I place a day's wages on it."
"Wager accepted," said Iain as Fowler walked away. "All right, sublieutenant, I surrender. What is the difference between 'to' and 'toward'?"
The sublieutenant tossed his empty flask to one side. "As a term of the law, 'to' indicates a difference of rank: we are obedient to the Chara because we are all subject to him. But if you were obedient toward the Chara, that would imply that you were of the same rank as he was, and that your obedience to him was voluntary. That is why, in the Law of Vengeance—"
All of the guards present groaned, and Jephthah said, "Not the Law of Vengeance again. I thought we would be able to spend one evening without hearing you mention that law."
"It is relevant." The sublieutenant glared at Jephthah. "In the law's Justification, in the passage on the burdens of the Chara, it is stated that the Chara has no equals, but it also says that the Chara is obedient to the law of which he is the embodiment. That shows that not even the Chara is as high as the law, and that even he must be obedient to its consequences. Thus the Chara's only master is the law, just as our greatest masters are the Chara and his law . . ."
We were reaching here closer and closer to the center of all my questions: what the law was, who decided what it said, why it existed. Yet something continued to tap at the back of my mind, and in a single instant I recognized the two thoughts that were trying to break through to my consciousness. One was the realization that Fowler had not taken any flasks with him when he walked away from the fire. The other was the realization that I knew what tune the sublieutenant had been humming: it was a whistle-code, and it meant, 'The hunted is sighted.'"
I stood and whirled, but it was too late; Fowler was standing beside me, blocking my path to the tunnel. His sword was out, and in the dim shadows where we stood, I could see that he was smiling.
"So you are back from the dead," he said in strongly accented Common Koretian. "Well, you will have no further opportunity to trick us, Koretian."
I had only a moment to think. Behind us, the sublieutenant had stopped talking; I knew that he and the other guards were poised to leap forward. I couldn't climb the sheer wall next to me; if I went toward the fire, the guards would capture me; if I ran toward the back of the hollow, there would be no place for me to hide. My only hope was to reach the tunnel, and Fowler was between me and the tunnel.
I had only a moment to think. Then I was past him, and in my hand was my dagger, now wet with blood.
I did not pause until I reached the point where I would break out of the bushes and reach the tunnel. I could hear that the guards were just starting to run forward in response to Fowler's grunt; now I looked back to see how far ahead of them I was.
I barely noticed the guards near the fire, for what I saw was closer than them: the sublieutenant, leaning over Fowler, his hand drenched with blood as he tried to staunch the wound in the side of his motionless partner. He looked up. For a moment I thought that he would pursue me and that he would succeed in catching me, since he was so far ahead of the others. Instead, from his shadow-dark lips there emitted a sound unlike any I had ever heard a human make. It was a whistle, but it was as high and blazing as a shooting star in the sky. It pierced the still night air with such force that I thought the mountains would crack, yet it was higher in tone than any bird's call.
Fenton hadn't taught me this whistle, but
I could guess its meaning. I turned, and began my escape from death.
By the time I reached the other end of the tunnel, a deluge of whistles was pouring through the mountain air, all overlapping each other so that I could barely tell where they were coming from. Above them all, I could hear the whistle of the lieutenant, close to where I stood. I turned, and ran in the opposite direction, toward Koretia.
It didn't take me long to realize my folly. I might save my life in this way, by returning to Koretia, but of what use was my life if I spent it in a land where I would never learn about the law? Stubbornly, I turned and began racing east into the mountains. The whistles around me were closer; my only chance was to do as Fenton had done and leave the safe territory of the mountain passes.
The guards around me were racing toward me much faster than they had throughout the day. No attempt was being made to safely encircle me; no caution was being shown toward me any more. Every guard, I could guess, now had his blade drawn, and every one of them was prepared to use it on me the moment I was captured. I had drawn deep blood; I was as much in danger now as I had been when I hunted in Cold Run.
I ran, I swerved, I dodged, and at a certain point I found myself in a narrow cleft, with three mountain walls around me. I turned, and found the lieutenant at the entrance to the cleft.
The moon had risen high, and though the shadows draped darkly upon us, I could see the moon's glitter upon the lieutenant's eyes and his sword. He had paused, but the angle of his sword told me that he was on the point of attacking. The pause was longer than it had been when I faced Fowler, and this time I felt pain well up inside me, and the feel of the trap's jaws close upon me. I must kill him, or be killed. I had no choice, no choice at all.
I had only a moment to think. Then I flung the dagger from my hand, and with a sob escaping from my throat, I turned and tried to climb the mountain wall.
I was no more than an arm's length up the wall when I felt my collar seized, and I was flung onto the ground, back-first. My head hit the rock, and for a moment I lay stunned. Only one whistle-code echoed through the air now, one that sounded familiar. With my head still sick with dizziness, I tried to rise, but something sharp against my chest held me back. I opened my eyes and saw the lieutenant, calmly pressing his sword against my heart.
The hunt was ended; the hunted was captured alive.
CHAPTER NINE
The eighteenth day of October in the 940th year a.g.l. (entry continued)
I lay very still. My hands were still raised above my head, the way they had been when I tried to climb, and I felt my wrists and ankles being pinned to the ground by unseen guards. I didn't resist them. I was afraid that if I moved in the slightest, the lieutenant's sword would miss the spot he was aiming for, and I would die a more painful death than already awaited me.
There was a pause while a soft shuffle of footsteps gathered round me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that there were more than six guards here; I had been right in thinking that the full unit was after me. My gaze, though, was on the lieutenant, staring down at me with dark hatred in his eyes, and my one thought, outside of terror, was my growing concern as to how long he was going to make me wait like this before he finished his deed.
Softly he said, "Search him."
Instantly, on both sides of me, I felt hands touching my body, swiftly and firmly. I resisted an impulse to flinch away, mainly because I was uncertain as to what they were doing. What did it matter to them whether I had another weapon? I'd have no chance to use it. The hands ceased to touch me on my front, and then I was rolled over onto my stomach, and I could feel myself being touched again. Still I did not move, for now I could feel the lieutenant's blade against my spine.
God of Mercy, I thought. Is he really going to kill me in the back? For the first time I felt the impulse to speak – not to plead for my life, which was clearly forfeit, but to ask the lieutenant to give me an honorable death. Then I stifled the impulse. What did I know of Emorian honor? Perhaps in Emor there was no shame attached to being stabbed in the back, as a fleeing man might be killed.
"He is naked," said one of the guards, meaning of course that I was unarmed. There was another pause, and my shoulder-blades began to draw toward each other, bracing for the moment.
Then the lieutenant said, "All right, get him up. And bind his eyes too; we take no chances with this one."
My momentary bewilderment was ended by sharp pain as one of the guards jerked down my upraised hands down and began to bind them behind my back with a leather strap. Another guard was tying a cloth over my eyes. Then I was pulled to my feet.
This was worse than I had expected; I was not even going to be granted the quick death I had dreaded. They were going to take me some place where they could give me a slow, painful death – perhaps they would torture me for days. I felt myself begin to shiver once more, and this time I knew that it wasn't from the wind.
Given the fact that I had been travelling in near darkness, I ought not to have had any trouble travelling eye-bound, but there is a great difference between walking forward in the darkness on your own feet and being propelled forward without having a chance to feel the ground beneath you. I never fell; the hands holding me on either side wrenched me upward each time I stumbled. After a few minutes of this, I discovered to my fury that moisture was forming at the edge of my eyes. Death I could accept, pain I would endure somehow, but this march of humiliation seemed calculated to break my spirit.
Presently the hands released me, and someone pushed me sideways, then forward. On either side of me I could feel rocks brushing against my arms; from the hollowness of the footsteps before me and behind me, I could tell that we were in the tunnel leading to the hut. The patrol guards must have marched me over the wooden plank across the pit, for the echoes of my footsteps ceased. I felt grass under my feet for a while, then the hands took hold of me again, and I travelled through open air for a short space before being suddenly thrust forward. I stumbled and fell to my knees, just saving myself from falling entirely to the floor. The ground beneath me was dirt, the air felt warm, and there were low voices speaking around me that had a hollow tone to them. I must be in some sort of enclosure again.
I heard the lieutenant saying something soft to his men. I was raised to my feet, less harshly than I had been thrown forward, and the cloth was removed from my eyes.
I found I was standing in a small room – this must be the hut I had seen in the hollow. Immediately in front of me was an open hearth-fire that was the sole source of light in the room. Beyond it, most of the soldiers were crowded around a dark, open doorway. Then they stepped back, and from the room beyond the main chamber stepped the sublieutenant.
He took no notice of me. He went over to the lieutenant, who was standing near me, and pulled his sword from his sheath. For a moment, he held the blade flat against his face; then he sheathed his weapon once more.
"How is he?" asked the lieutenant in Emorian.
"He will live." The sublieutenant's gaze wandered over toward me for the first time, and his brows dived low. "He caught Fowler's side – the wound is bad, but his life's blood has not spilled without measure. Gamaliel says that he should be taken back to the city. He doubts that Fowler will recover before the snows fall."
The door in the back was closing, and the other soldiers had begun to turn my way. The lieutenant was looking at me now as well; his expression had not grown any lighter since he first captured me. I felt my lungs being squeezed short at the same moment that my breath quickened. Now, I thought, they will begin.
"Very well, sir," said the lieutenant to me in Common Koretian. "You obviously wanted badly to cross the border. You may as well tell us why."
I must have gaped – at least, that was what I was feeling inside. But perhaps my expression came across as defiance, for the next thing I knew the lieutenant had me pinned by both shoulders against the wall. "Listen, Koretian," he said, his voice still even and cool, though his hands were pre
ssed hard against me, "you just wounded one of my best men. I am not in a mood to be patient. You will answer the questions I ask you."
My voice came out in a feeble sort of tremble. "You won't believe me."
"You have nothing to lose by telling me the truth," said the lieutenant, still very cool. "You have a great deal to lose by not speaking."
Blocked from my view by the lieutenant, the sublieutenant said, "He is probably going to say that his gods made him do it. That is what Koretians always say when they break the law."
The one, small part of me that was still functioning rationally put out an urgent message that I must not mention the gods in my reply. This created a difficulty – I had never before tried to censor all reference to the gods in my speech – but the lieutenant was clearly not prepared to wait long, so I switched over to Emorian, which gave me an excuse to stumble slowly through my speech. "I wanted to be Emorian," I said. "I knew that you wouldn't let me into your land without a letter of passage, but I wanted to become one of you. I wanted—" I hesitated before remembering what Fenton had said about the law. This was how I could find a substitute for speaking of the gods. "I wanted to take a vow of service to the Chara."
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