One Land, One Duke

by Emerson, Ru

  "Hey. Checking for bears and stuff, bad guys, you know?"

  "Hey,” Jennifer retorted. “You know what's scary? I can't even tell which one of you said that."

  "Cool,” one of them chuckled—Chris, she thought. “Hey, you all right out here, lady?"

  "I was until you brought up bears,” Jennifer said.

  "Like that Who song says, ‘No bears in there.’ Nothing else, either. Real quiet around here. You talk to Lialla?"

  "Yeah. Don't know how much good I did."

  "Probably a lot, you talk a good line. Well, lookit,” Chris added. “You might be warm enough, but we aren't."

  "I know, all that exercise and fresh air isn't good for your boyish bodies, right?"

  "Hey. The lady takes notes. You gonna sleep in the wagon?"

  "No, don't think so. In fact,” Jennifer said around a yawn, “maybe I'll walk back to the fire with you."

  "Reminds me,” Chris said as he moved over so she was between them. “I'd like to see if I can't learn how to wangle that one particular thread Li was talking about—you know, the stuff she used to knock Ernie out cold, so you could pull him out of that hole?"

  "The calming Thread that Neri showed her?” Jennifer considered this, finally shrugged. “Well—why not?"

  "Just not tonight,” Chris added. “All these strange guys around, and I really don't think I want to zap myself tonight, just in case—but so one of us doesn't forget. Hey, know what? They got saws here after all.” Chris nudged Edrith, who sighed heavily. “He says why would he have seen them before in Sikkre?"

  "Well? Sounds logical. About the Thread thing; remind me later, will you?"

  "You got it."

  * * * *

  The road wound up almost from the first, the next day; at what Jennifer's watch told her was nine-thirty of a chilly, bright morning, Gyrdan brought them to a vee in the road and they stopped for a few moments, to walk out stiffness, to share water bottles, for Gyrdan to make his final selection of men who would remain with Aletto on the east pass road, while Gyrdan and the main body of Aletto's guard took the west road, and split up again several miles farther on, where the road came down across the Zelharri border and split into several smaller village tracks that eventually came back onto the east-west road that led to Sehfi and to Sikkre—the same road Jennifer, Chris and Robyn had stepped onto late one night two or more months before.

  Gyrdan clasped Aletto's hand. “We'll come into Sehfi by various routes, but no later than three nights from now, at moonrise. With luck, we won't draw much attention, and might even have the gates secured when you ride in. If not, we can take them together.” He glanced over the men ranged at Aletto's back—half a dozen men between Chris's age and perhaps fifty. “You'll be comfortable with only these? You're certain?"

  "Gyr,” Aletto smiled. “We had this out last night."

  "Last night, the numbers sounded reasonable,” the older man admitted. “Seen at your side, however—"

  "They're more than we had coming from Bez, you know. Or from Sikkre. My uncle knows where I am, Gyrdan, even if he can't watch me. Isn't that one reason we're breaking up this far from the border? Fewer men at my back, and my uncle might continue to think me an easy mark and attack; more, he might see us as a threat to be eliminated.” His smile faded, but only for a moment. “So long as each man knows the danger—well, but we had that out, as well, didn't we? Farewell, my friend, we'll meet in Sehfi, and with good fortune persuade my uncle without further violence to anyone.” Gyrdan merely shook his head, turned aside and rode off, the main body of men, the cook's wagon, three of Afronsan's observers and one of the clerks behind him.

  * * * *

  Jennifer didn't care at all for the east road: She'd traded her mount of the day before for one that didn't have quite as horsey an odor to it, and this one showed no tendency to ignore what she wanted of it. But it was slow, stupid even for a horse, she thought. And clumsy; twice since they'd parted ways at the vee, it had stumbled. Which was unpleasant enough to Jennifer's way of thinking, but the condition of the road was deteriorating as they climbed, and now there was a drop on her right side. Dahven rode on her right at first, but after an hour or so of very slow going, he left her to talk to Aletto. Robyn was already up front with Aletto; Chris and Edrith in front of them. Lialla had ridden for a short while, but she was back in the wagon once more, afraid to trust her blurred vision any further. Jennifer had no idea if Lialla had even bothered to think over what she'd said the night before; at the moment, she didn't much care, either. She was too busy concentrating on her horse's footing, on keeping the blundering animal away from holes, loose stones and the east edge of the road—and an increasingly steep drop—to worry about anything else.

  * * * *

  Midafternoon; they'd kept moving, and she was beginning to wonder who had managed to fit an extra dozen hours in between that vee in the road and this point; but when she tipped her head back Jennifer could see the dark rocks that marked the top, see dark blue sky and a drift of fast-moving cloud beyond it. Almost there. She glanced at her watch: it read four-thirty, near enough. The sun was temporarily out of sight behind the top of the pass but it would probably be visible—and warm—once she came up the rest of the way. It wouldn't set for another—what, three hours? That at least. The wind up here was cool and constant, it flowed down from the heights.

  She came out on top not long after; one final, absolutely hair-raising hairpin turn, followed by a steep and fortunately short washboard which ran between two black chunks of rough, lichen-covered rock. Something up here smelled pleasant—cedar, perhaps. Something clean and cool.

  They'd apparently decided on a decent stop: Chris and Edrith were off their horses already and Aletto was in the act of sliding down from his. Dahven sat his mount still, facing back toward the south—waiting for her, apparently. He waved as she came across the ridge and onto open meadow. There were pale lavender flowers everywhere, dotted here and there with yellow dandelions; it would've been absolutely lovely, Jennifer thought, if she hadn't remained aware of the drop-off all along the east side, where grass and wildflowers came up against a low line of the black rock with its bright yellow-green coating of lichen. Not that she was going to ride over there to see just how far down it was; she could see the tops of several sparse, wind-driven and broken trees, down off the slope, enough to indicate how bad it might be.

  She drew the horse to a stop, turned back to look behind her. Swallowed. The road looked even worse from this angle than it had the other way. Odd, though; she couldn't see the man with the lame horse, the one she had just passed on the east turn.

  "Nothing wrong, is there?” Dahven had come up beside her; he held out his water bottle. Jennifer drank, shook her head, swallowed.

  "Don't know. But there was a guy, the one with the beard? His horse was limping but he shouldn't have been that far behind me, not as slow as I came up."

  Dahven turned his head and came part-way out of the saddle. “Odd. I don't hear anything. How far back was he?"

  "Just beyond the last turn. Said he was going to check the hoof for rocks; would that take long?"

  "No. Pulling one might, especially if the hoof was already tender, though. Maybe if I—"

  "No.” Jennifer caught his arm and gripped hard. “No, don't. I don't like it, don't like the feel—"

  "You don't think already—” Dahven stopped speaking, held up a hand when she would have answered him. “Wait. Hear it? It's all right, he's coming."

  "Are you—?” She could hear it too, then, the sound of shod hooves striking hard-packed dirt and an occasional stone. “All right. There—got him, he's walking, leading it."

  "All right,” Dahven said. He took back his water bottle, capped it, brought his horse halfway back around but drew it to a halt. “Jennifer? Come on, he can catch up, they're going to build a fire, brew tea."

  "Go ahead, I'm coming,” she said rather absently. Her eyes were fixed on the gray-haired man. His shoulders were
bowed, his body bent forward with the steepness of the incline. His horse was still limping; hers took several paces forward, stopped. Jennifer tightened her grip on the reins and drew them in, hard. “Hold still, you rotten animal,” she snarled. The horse nicked an ear at her, whickered nervously. “Hell with it,” she muttered, “He can come on his own, he's fine."

  Something below her shifted, as though a cloud had crossed the sun, as though she'd taken off yellow-tinted sunglasses and turned the world a bewildering variety of blues and greens. The horse danced back a little, turned itself sideways to the road. And then stood absolutely still. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Dahven. Oh, God, how'd he get that far away? The armsman looked up, then, the movement catching her attention. And then his eyes found hers, and for one horrible moment, they seemed to hold her pinned as still as her horse.

  Dahven shouted something and spurred toward her, but the sound of his voice was muted, and he was moving at the wrong speed, the horse galloping almost in slow motion. The gray-beard, by contrast, flowed uphill like water, shifting smoothly toward her in a nightmare movement that stopped just out of reach. She wanted to yell; sound wouldn't come—anger or perhaps fear blocking her throat. The bo, she thought suddenly, but it was too late for anything now: The guard abandoned his lame horse at the top of the hill, sailed straight for her at a speed that badly mismatched the slow and deliberate movement of his legs. When he came to a halt, he could have touched her. She clutched the bo, dropped to the ground as Light burst from a point directly behind his head, spun around them, locking them together in a sphere—locking everyone else out.

  19

  Jennifer drew a shuddering breath, tightened her grip on the bo and went into a crouch. Jerk is the word for it! Let him try anything— but he was somehow inside her tip before she could shift and bring the staff around. His hands slapped hers; hers went numb, and the bo dropped, vanishing silently into puddled Light and possibly the unseen meadow grass beneath it.

  "Don't you dare threaten me.” The face was the older armsman's; the voice, unmistakably Jadek's.

  "Don't you even think you can intimidate me that way; I'm not your wife or your stepson,” Jennifer replied stiffly. “And it's only a threat if I don't intend to make it good. After everything you've done since we last met like this—Mister, I wouldn't count on empty threats from me.” Momentary silence. She folded her arms across her chest. “You're awfully damn hard on men. Was it really necessary to bother me again, or do you just like killing people this way?"

  He used a broad swing of his arm to indicate the still-clear sphere. “I needn't kill; not now that I have a better understanding of how this works. Certainly not this near Duke's Fort.” He smiled unpleasantly as he met her eyes again. “And of course it is not necessary to shield the ball. Unless you mind?"

  Jennifer glanced up as he had; there was a bird well above them, moving in slow motion. She brought her eyes back down, shrugged and turned the corners of her mouth in a smile that fell far short of hard eyes. “Why should I mind? I've seen odder special effects in movies. Why don't you give up?"

  "Why should I?"

  "Because right is on Aletto's side."

  "Do you think so?"

  Jennifer shook her head. “What I think isn't that important. It's what others think, what the laws and the rules say. Aletto is your brother's heir; holding onto the Fort and impregnating his mother with your heir doesn't change the fact that Aletto is Amarni's son, you're not."

  "Not to belabor the obvious,” Jadek replied bitingly. “But if Aletto were no longer alive, or—as I have maintained all along, unfit to rule Zelharri—and if Lialla has no son, then I am Amarni's heir."

  "Then you should have murdered Aletto years ago,” Jennifer said coolly. She stuffed both hands under her arms to keep chilled and still-aching fingers from trembling where he could see them. “Instead you let him cross the country so people could see how obviously fit he really is.” Silence. She gave him another dry smile. “Of course, that wasn't exactly intentional on your part, was it?"

  "It doesn't really matter, you know. The Fort is properly mine."

  She stared at him; he gazed back. “I really find it difficult to believe what I'm hearing,” Jennifer said finally. “You're counting on a lot, aren't you? Shesseran's inaction—"

  "That isn't so much to count on. What do you think—that a handful of merchants will come out of Bez and retake the Fort—on behalf of Aletto? Or his sister? That they'll petition the Emperor, demand I hand Zelharri over to my nephew? I think you badly misunderstand our ways here, outlander.” He held up a hand as she strove to speak. “Oh, I know about the shipload of eager young Bez money-grubbers sitting in the clerks’ hall in Podhru, waiting for an audience with Shesseran's paper-shifting brother—and shall we wager on how long they'll sit there? I do know which of their fathers offered Aletto support, back in Bez, beginning with my good friend Fedthyr. I will deal with them, in good time, once the matter of Aletto is settled."

  "You're mad,” Jennifer said flatly. Jadek laughed.

  "Am I? Because I understand how to consolidate power, and how to keep hold of it? Something my nephew was incapable of learning, perhaps."

  "What do you get out of it? No,” she added as he laughed again and shook his head. “I'd really like to know. Money? There can't be that much in Zelharri. Power? As the Duke of a backwater Duchy, how much power can you have—or does it really give you a thrill, having goatherders bowing to you and armsmen like that baker's son calling you ‘Honor'?"

  "If you have to ask, I doubt I could explain so you'd understand. I doubt you would understand anyway, woman; you've already shown a soft side like Aletto's."

  "If that means I'm too nice to figure you out—or deal you out, if I get a chance—don't count on it,” Jennifer replied mildly.

  "I won't. You and that outlander boy—well!” Jadek drew a harsh, shuddering breath, expelled it loudly. When he went on, his voice was considerably less tense. “It was my chance, my only chance. Maybe I thought it out then; I don't recall. Doesn't matter. After Amarni died, Lizelle was mine. You can't say—no one can say—that I didn't maintain the Duchy,” he added sharply. Jennifer freed a hand and waved him on. “Another man might have done otherwise, no one can say I wasn't a good administrator! I worked hard, long hours and years, always with an eye to how best to keep the Duchy, do you think Shesseran would've allowed me to maintain my place if I hadn't done the best possible job? And then, to simply deliver it—to that—that—drunken young lout!"

  "I absolutely won't argue Aletto's purported flaws with you again,” Jennifer said. “We did that, to no point. I do disagree about the Emperor intervening; after all this time in Rhadaz, I quite honestly believe you could have quietly murdered half the population without his intervention. All the same. By now, you know damn well Aletto's changed; you wouldn't be delivering all that hard work you claim over to a drunken lout. And he wouldn't be vindictive."

  "No? You're more naive than I thought, woman.” Jadek looked beyond her. “So he has a handful of guards now; is that to protect him once he enters Sehfi? Or as an honor guard for a returning hero?"

  Jennifer glanced over her shoulder. Dahven was still riding toward the sphere, in agonizingly slow motion; she jerked her eyes away, wondering as she did so whether Jadek was trying an elaborate double-bluff, or if he really wasn't aware of the size of Aletto's full company. “You should know; you've been watching us all along, haven't you?"

  "Oh, come now,” he scoffed. Jennifer smiled.

  "No closed-circuit TV, no shortwave, hmmm?” Hell, it might even be true.

  "Explain,” he demanded; she shook her head.

  "I don't think so. You knew we were here, though."

  "Aletto would come this way, as the shortest and easiest between Podhru and Sehfi, of course.” Jadek glanced overhead, back across her shoulder and he smiled now, an unpleasant twist of lips. “How lovely! You have the Sikkreni traitor with you—but that does n
ot surprise me. You are fond of each other, I gather; I shall keep that in mind."

  "You would do very damn well to keep it in mind. That, and what happened to anyone who's tried to come between us."

  "A warning? Yes, I know what transpired in Bez. You killed a man—with his own knife, someone said. With your own, others tell me. Somehow, I don't feel as fearful as you might like."

  "More fool you, then."

  "Ah?” The smile widened; cold settled in the pit of her stomach. “You think so?” The sphere pulsed once, sending a low-grade shudder of current through her body. “You bear three marks against you: woman, outlander, Wielder. Incapable of understanding us Rhadazi and the way our world works; incapable of understanding how a man thinks, why his logic exceeds yours, or surpasses your emotional point of view. Worst of all, you Wielders, you are all alike: arrogant, narrow of vision—incapable of understanding anything that is not Night-Thread and its pitiful magics. The old woman—do you remember Merrida? You should, she was responsible for your being here, after all.” He held up a hand before she could say anything. “Don't bother to deny that she did. I finally found a way to ask her that question and—well, let us say, she found it impractical to lie to me, about present events and her part in them. She had your attitude toward Light—evil, black, but somehow still not as powerful as the weak stuff she used."

  "What did you do, kill her?"

  "Why? You see, you do not understand at all, do you? Another time, we will discuss these things, believe that. But even here, time is growing short. My nephew's men are beginning to realize something is wrong; do you notice?"

  "I'm hardly surprised,” Jennifer replied. The man was shifting directions on her so quickly, it made her nearly as dizzy as the sphere itself. Good cop/Bad cop in one body, really swell, she thought dryly. The Chris-like thought steadied her for the moment. Get rid of him, she thought then. But how? Threats weren't working, she didn't seem to be able to anger him this time, either. Something else, though: Something occurred to her. Show him up. Wait, give him a minute, a moment or two, a little rope to hang himself. A quick glance over her shoulder showed Dahven, his horse dancing sideways away from the sphere, him trying to drag it back around—all in slow motion. Beyond him, though: Chris and Afronsan's men ranged in front of the wagon, Aletto standing with his arms around Robyn, a huddle of black at his feet—Lialla, sitting in the open, all of them surely watching. “Look, Jadek, we've chewed the same piece of meat half a dozen times. Why don't you just go away? I'm not particularly interested in listening to what a swell fellow you are; you apparently haven't heard a word I've said."