by Dave Luckett
They tied him to the leeward rail, where he could lean out over the surging water to heave himself empty. All his forming feelings of ability to manage his own life, to cope with what had been set before him, all were nothing, whipped to rags before the endless power of the ocean.
Eight days to Loriso. The first three were an outward confusion that mirrored an inward eternity, and they were spent in his bunk, or clinging to the rail. But the third sundown after he had met the open sea, he walked across the deck to take up his position again, and found that somehow its rhythm and heave had woven themselves into his steps so that he no longer staggered and reeled like a drunk.
He ate dry biscuits for his supper, watching the horizon and waiting for the horrible sickness to seize him again, and it did not. The following morning, it was bread and preserves and a pot of small beer, and his innards gave never a twinge.
Misery ends, thought Gerd. It really does end. He walked out on the deck, and his knees accommodated themselves to the roll and surge of the ship, so that he could walk without staggering. The seamen, Lorisoans and therefore weather-mages all of them, nodded and grinned at him.
"Better today, younker," called the sailing-master. "That's good. Get a hot dinner in you, and you'll turn the corner. There's some really good fat pork and beans today. And biscuits, fried in the grease. Can't say better than that."
Gerd felt his stomach rise, forced it down, and forced a grin as well. "Sounds good," he said. "How's the weather holding, do you think?"
The sailing-master nodded to show his approval, and glanced over his shoulder at the following sea. "Looks like the storm's blown out for a while," he allowed. "Work itself up again in a few days, I'd say. See that blow, how it came out of the south-west? Often does, this time of year. Just now the wind's got more south in it, so what we're doing is we're crossing the gap between two storm-fronts …"
Gerd listened, reflecting that he was learning something of the weather-magic that the Lorisoans were renowned for. He stored it carefully in memory. Lore was never useless. Above, the wide curve of the mainsail strained to the wind, and the sharp bows carved into the seas, sending showers of pringling spray aft.
Land rose out of the ocean five days later. It was a single great low mountain, with long green slopes that rose to a single summit.
They altered course, and the shore came into sight, a coastline of short headlands framing small coves with stony beaches. Slowly one point seemed to move aside, revealing a town by a deeper inlet, the buildings clustered close around a harbour wall with a stone quay that jutted out into the bay. On the end of the opposite point a castle reared up, with a red and white banner floating from its tall keep.
"The Commandery," said the steersman. "That's the Western Knights. They rule here."
Knight or mage, Master Hawken had said. That was the first of the choices, and it was waiting there for him. Gerd stared at it, trying to decide. But was it a choice? What other was there? He shrugged. Life had narrowed down again to one path, it seemed. The ship docked, and he said his farewells. He hitched his bundle on his back and started walking.
A waggon road led around the shore. Gerd followed it in the blustery sunshine, the grey waves and the shingle beach on one side and the gradual slope on the other. Fields for flax and pieces of tilled land clung to folds of sheltered ground. The first green tinge was beginning to show, and Gerd realised that spring had begun already. Still, it was cold, and the tangy breeze blew hard enough to shrill in the saltgrass, whipping the tail of his cloak about his shanks.
The castle itself was a square tower - a keep - with a wide yard around it, surrounded by a towered stone wall that was as tall as four men. The road led nowhere but to the gatehouse, with the gates open between two flanking towers. No windows showed, just narrow slits in the stone. A single guard stood outside, a man in mail and open helmet, leaning on a long spear, his shield in turn leaning against his leg. Over his mail he wore a tabard, a length of cloth with a hole in it for his head, tucking into his belt before and behind. It was blood-red, with a white cross on the chest. Gerd looked up, and saw that the banner on the flagpole was the same.
He approached, and the other shifted his weight on to both feet, and stood more upright. The shield stayed where it was, though, and the spear-butt remained on the ground. Gerd was interested to see that he was taller than the guard, and that the man had flicked glances at cloak and boots as well as taking note of the sword-hilt riding companionably at Gerd's hip. Still, it was Gerd that spoke first:
"Good day. I was considering applying for training. May I do that here?"
The guard's head cocked to one side. "Training? Aye, that you can, if you join the company as an apprentice and pay your dues. Take my advice, though, and don't say anything about it to the captain while you're wearing so fine a sword. He'll double the fees."
"What should I tell him, then?"
The guard shrugged, a movement that twitched the mail on his shoulders. "I wouldn't tell him anything at all, if I was you," he said. "No harm in any man coming to see the smith here about some small job or other, whatever the captain might say about it. Our smith's a little unusual, you see."
"How, unusual?"
"You'll see. A good smith, though. Nothing wrong with the work. You can get a dagger to match that sword of yours, maybe. Gives you a chance to look the place over. Maybe you'll still be interested in training to be a Knight after you've done that." He shifted his weight on to the other leg. "Or maybe not," he finished, significantly.
There was a … flavour about the man's words, a certain wryness with a bitter undertaste. Gerd nodded, unsmiling. He cocked his head to indicate a request to pass through the gate. The guard returned the nod and returned to watching the seabirds circling in the wake of a fishing-boat that was making its way into the harbour, seeming to lose interest in Gerd entirely. Gerd walked on, under the archway of the gatehouse and into the castle yard.
Here there were stables and other outbuildings of various sorts. One of them was a smithy, an enclosed booth built as a lean-to against the outer wall. It was dimly lit, the forge glowing softly. The smith, sitting facing away from Gerd, was fitting grips to a knife hilt, head bent over the work. Gerd looked around. The place seemed clean and orderly, scented of charcoal and sharp metal. He wondered what the sentry had meant by whatever the Captain might say about it.
The smith hadn't heard him enter, over the rasping of the file. Gerd cleared his throat, and the other swung around on the stool, looking up.
"Yes, sir, and what can I do for you?"
Gerd's mouth dropped open. The smith was a girl. A young woman. Or maybe...
She saw his face, sighed and shook her head. "No, I'm the smith, all right. I'm not... " her voice took on a weary, sing-song chant "... his wife, daughter, sister or friend. I'm the smith. The smith is me and nobody else. My dad was the smith before me. He took the lease on the smithy for two lives before I was born, and then didn't have a son. So now you know all about it. All right?"
She was stocky, dressed in the rough work clothes and leather apron of the trade, with brown hair cut short, lighter in front. A headband kept it out of her eyes, which were green. And, just now, they were sparkling dangerously. She put the half-grip aside, but carefully. Gerd saw that her hands were rough and calloused but clean, although there was a sooty smudge on her forehead. A washbucket stood beside the bench. She had washed up before setting to fine work, clearly.
Gerd schooled his face. Something about the respect for her craft that she showed spoke to him. He decided to take the sentry's advice. "I was thinking of getting a dagger made to match my sword," he said.
Her eyes went to the hilt at Gerd's side. Her face changed. "May I see that?" she asked. Gerd unbuckled it and passed it over in the scabbard. She ran her hands over the shagreen sheath, and then over the hilt, before drawing the blade. She tested the balance, twitching the sword with a flick of the wrist, bent it against the floor - it sprang immediate
ly straight again - then examined the blade closely, slantwise in the light. At last she whistled.
"Well," she said. "I can make something that'll match it for looks, and a shorter blade is easier to forge. But I can't make anything so fine as this. This might be dwarf-work. See the patterning?" She held the blade to the light again, and Gerd could see a sort of steel rainbow shimmer in the surface of the metal. "That's damascening, that is. A real master smith made it." She tested the edge, apparently unaware of anything ironic in what she had just said, and nodded. "It's had use, as anyone can see, but you could still shave with it, and there's been no grinding done on it. A few minutes to burnish, no more than a light touch-up, and it'd be fit for a king. Lovely blade."
There was genuine pleasure and delight in the young woman's voice. Her face had lost its hardness.
"The hilt's a work of art, too," she continued. "That's hardened steel under the inlay, not bronze or brass. Not easy to do work like that in steel. Needs cleaning, but otherwise it's as good as the day it was made …"
Her voice was running down, speaking less to her customer and more to herself. She reached down and pulled a flake of white birchwood off a stack by her bench and took a stick of charcoal. She leaned the sword against the bench and stood back to see its whole proportions, then began to sketch a shorter blade with the same style of hilt and pommel.
Gerd watched, silent. The craftswoman muttered to herself, just broken phrases: "Straight edges … ogee point … no, that's wrong, the crossguard can't be that heavy … have to fine down the pommel … "
She looked from sword to sketch and back again, smudged out some details and drew again, lips pursed, frowning in concentration. At last she held the sketch at arm's length and nodded. "Well. That's the best I can do." She turned the sketch over to Gerd.
"It looks fine," said Gerd, after a moment of trying to look as if he knew what he was looking at. "What would you ask to make it?"
She seemed a little taken aback. She retrieved the sketch and considered it. Clearly, she hadn't thought about a price. Finally: "I'm not quite sure. I'll tell you plainly that some of the work on that sword is beyond me - though I doubt if any Loriso smith could do any better. I can make you an honest blade, and the hilt will match, if you'll leave the sword for me to work from. I'd say, well, around sixteen or twenty crowns. Would that be too much?"
The last was asked anxiously. Gerd blinked. He had thought it would be more, and the smith went on, "I'd really like to study that blade, anyway. I could reduce …"
"No, no," said Gerd. "That's all right. Even twenty crowns is fine." Automatic caution took over. "Ten now, balance on delivery."
They shook on it, the young woman looking pleased. "Thanks," she said. "It's the sort of work I really like to do. Name's Alissa, by the way. Alissa Coombe."
"Gerd," said Gerd. "Pleased to meet you." Gerd couldn't have said whether he was more startled at the smallness of the hand or the hardness of its calluses. Both together, he suspected.
Just then, a trumpet-call sounded from one of the corner-towers. There was a mutter of many voices, and a tramping of feet on hard surfaces, both getting louder. He turned.
A crowd of men was issuing from the keep, straggling into the wide square between the wall and the stone tower. The square was partly paved with stone slabs, and the men began to form ranks on the paved part, with a shuffling of feet and a continual low-voiced mutter. Gerd watched them, head on one side.
They were all wearing the same pattern of tabard as the guard on the gate, and they all had the same sort of spear and shield, the latter again red with the white cross. Apart from that, they all had different armour and helmets, some in mail, some with small plates or rings stitched to leather. They shuffled together into a line, four men deep. A man at the right end of the front rank had a little square flag, red and white, on the top of his spear-shaft. He was leaning on the shaft.
Gerd counted. There were about a hundred and twenty of them.
As the soldiers straggled into their lines, a couple of serving men carried out a trestle table and two stools and set them up before the formation, with the stools on the opposite side of the table to the soldiers. Finally, two more men emerged from the gatehouse. One of them was tall and broad. He wore a red cloak and a closed helmet, the latter at the back of his head with the faceplate up. His face was square and beefy, with a sparse greying beard and small, skeptical eyes. He was carrying a flat brown book the size of a breadboard. The other man, who was smaller and not wearing weapons or armour, was carrying a strongbox.
They marched straight to the trestle table and placed the box on it. The smaller man produced a set of keys and busied himself opening the box, while the other took up position between the table and the troops. The soldiers reacted by all coming to the same stance, spears held at arm's length in the right hand, butt by the right heel, shields held with the arm straight down at the side. Suddenly they were a pattern, neat, orderly, regular.
The man with the book filled his lungs. "Parade … Parade, 'shun!"
All together, the men stamped the butts of their spears on the stones, snapped the spears vertical, and at the same moment, brought their heels together and their shields across their chests with a single crisp slap. Gerd blinked at the effect - it looked as if the four-deep line had suddenly grown thorns and burst into red-and-white flowers.
Alissa returned a small silver piece in change. Gerd thanked her, looking at the pattern made by the soldiers. He asked: "How do you join the Western Knights? I heard about them from … from over on the mainland."
A complex emotion played over Alissa's face. Her eyes narrowed. "I suppose you ask Captain Mannon, there - he's the man in the red cloak. There's a fee, though. There's a fee for everything."
That was no more than Gerd expected, and he had the money. So far, he hadn't even spent the payment he'd received for the horses, and his store of gold pieces, which he kept in a leather bag next to his skin, hadn't been touched. He nodded, thoughtfully.
Out on the square, the man in the red cloak - Captain Mannon - had retreated behind the table, handed his book over to the second man, and seated himself on a stool. The second man opened the box and began calling out names. One by one the men came forward, received a payment in coins from the box, made a mark in the book, which Captain Mannon countersigned – Gerd saw that he signed with his left hand - and returned to their ranks.
"They get pay as well?" asked Gerd.
"Oh, yes," replied the smith. "They're all on shares." Then, seeing Gerd's puzzlement, "The towns in the Islands pay the Western Knights to protect them against pirates and raiders and collect taxes and, well, everything. They're paid out of that."
Gerd nodded. He watched as the men were paid and then dismissed. The box was closed and locked again, and the table dismantled and taken away. The Captain and the paymaster took the box by a handle each, picked it up and walked off with it between them. They passed through the door at the base of the tower from which they had first emerged.
"The dagger will be ready in a week," Alissa said. She glanced eagerly at the sword, which was leaning against the bench, as if anxious to begin straight away. Gerd smiled, and walked out into the pale spring sunlight. He considered, and then made up his mind at least to ask. He marched up to the door in the base of the tower through which the Captain and the other man - the paymaster - had disappeared. It had closed behind them. Gerd knocked, and heard the scrape of a chair. The door opened, and the Captain stood framed in the doorway.
He was still wearing his long red cloak, but had removed his helmet. It lay on the table behind him, beside a pewter goblet and a jug. Another goblet stood at the elbow of the paymaster, who was seated at the table with half a dozen piles of silver coins in front of him. Apparently they were counting the money.
"Yes?" asked Captain Mannon, squinting a little.
Close up, Gerd could see that he was tall and bulky. He was perhaps forty years of age, with peaked eyebrows that
looked as if he were continually questioning. He had thrown his head slightly back, so that he looked at Gerd under half-closed eyelids.
"I've come to enquire about training as a knight," said Gerd.
"Training?" The captain looked Gerd up and down, a quick assessing stare. "Well, you're young yet, but you have the inches, there's no doubt. We train all the time. The company does, anyway."
"Company?" asked Gerd.
The captain almost shrugged, but not quite. "This commandery of the Western Knights. If you want training, you've come to the right place." He glanced at the other man, the paymaster. "Of course, you'll need to buy your share - and sign articles, too. And take your oath, of course. We've a vacancy, I think, for an apprentice. A recruit. Inky?"
