The Oathbound

by Mercedes Lackey

  Start at the beginning—she told herself. Follow what happened. The girl came in here alone, the man followed after she was asleep, then what?

  He was found at his desk, said a voice in her mind, startling her. He probably walked straight in and sat down. What’s on the desk that he might have been doing?

  Every time Warrl spoke to her mind-to-mind it surprised her. She still couldn’t imagine how he managed to make himself heard when she hadn’t a scrap of that particular Gift. Tarma seemed to accept it unquestioningly; how she’d ever gotten used to it, the sorceress couldn’t imagine.

  Tarma—time was wasting.

  On the desk stood a wineglass with a sticky residue in the bottom, an inkwell and quill, and several stacked ledgers. The top two looked disturbed.

  Kethry picked them up, and began leafing through the last few pages, whispering a command to the invisible presence at her shoulder. The answer was prompt. The ink on the last three pages of both ledgers was fresh enough to still be giving off fumes detectable only by a creature of the air. The figures were written no more than two days ago.

  She leafed back several pages worth, noting that the handwriting changed from time to time.

  “Who else kept the accounts besides your lord?” she called into the next room.

  “The seneschal; that was why his room has an entrance on this one,” the woman Katran replied, entering the lord’s room herself. “I can’t imagine why the door was barred. Lord Corbie almost never left it that way.”

  “That’s a lot of trust to place in a hireling.”

  “Oh, the seneschal isn’t a hireling, he’s Lord Corbie’s bastard brother. He’s been the lord’s right hand since he inherited the lordship of Felwether.”

  The sun rose; Tarma was awake long before.

  If the priest was surprised to see her change of outfit, he didn’t show it. He had brought a simple meal of bread and cheese, and watered wine; he waited patiently while she ate and drank, then indicated she should follow him.

  Tarma checked all her weapons. She secured all the fastenings of her clothing (how many had died because they had forgotten to tie something tightly enough?), and stepped into place behind him, as silent as his shadow.

  He conducted her to a small tent that had been erected in one corner of the keep’s practice ground, against the keep walls. The walls of the keep formed two sides, the outer wall the third; the fourth side was open. The practice ground was of hard-packed clay, and relatively free of dust. A groundskeeper was sprinkling water over the dirt to settle it.

  Once they were in front of the little pavilion, the priest finally spoke.

  “The first challenger will be here within a few minutes; between fights you may retire here to rest for as long as it takes for the next to ready himself, or one candlemark, whichever is longer. You will be brought food at noon and again at sunset.” His expression plainly said that he did not think she would be needing the latter, “and there will be fresh water within the tent at all times. I will be staying with you.”

  Now his expression was apologetic.

  “To keep my partner from slipping me any magical aid?” Tarma asked wryly. “Hellfire, priest, you know what I am, even if these dirt-grubbers here don‘t!”

  “I know, Sword Sworn. This is for your protection as well. There are those here who would not hesitate to tip the hand of the gods somewhat.”

  Tarma’s eyes hardened. “Priest, I’ll spare who I can, but it’s only fair to tell you that if I catch anyone trying an underhanded trick, I won’t hesitate to kill him.”

  “I would not ask you to do otherwise.”

  She looked at him askance. “There’s more going on here than meets the eye, isn’t there?”

  He shook his head, and indicated that she should take her seat in the champion’s chair beside the tent-flap. There was a bustling on the opposite side of the practice ground, and a dark, heavily bearded man followed by several boys carrying arms and armor appeared only to vanish within another, identical tent on that side. Spectators began gathering along the open side and the tops of the walls.

  “I fear I can tell you nothing, Sword Sworn. I have only speculations, nothing more. But I pray your little partner is wiser than I.”

  “Or I’m going to be cold meat by nightfall,” Tarma finished for him, watching as her first opponent emerged from the challenger’s pavilion.

  The priest winced at her choice of words, but did not contradict her.

  Circles within circles....

  Kethry had not been idle.

  The sticky residue in the wineglass had been more than just the dregs of drink; there had been a powerful narcotic in it. Unfortunately, this just pointed back to Myria; she’d been using just such a potion to help her sleep since the birth of her son. Still, it wouldn’t have been all that difficult to obtain, and Kethry had a trick up her sleeve, one the average mage wouldn’t have known; one she would use if they could find the other bottle of potion.

  More encouraging was what she had found perusing the ledgers. The seneschal had been siphon ing off revenues; never much at a time, but steadily. By now it must amount to a tidy sum. What if he suspected Lord Corbie was likely to catch him at it?

  Or even more—what if Lady Myria was found guilty and executed? The estate would go to her infant son, and who would be the child’s most likely guardian but his half-uncle, the seneschal?

  And children die so very easily, and from so many natural causes.

  Now that she had a likely suspect, Kethry decided it was time to begin investigating him.

  The first place she checked was the barred door. And on the bar itself she found an odd little scratch, obvious in the paint. It looked new, her air-spirit confirmed that it was. She lifted the bar after examining it even more carefully, finding no other marks on it but those worn places where it rubbed against the brackets that held it.

  She opened the door, and began examining every inch of the door and frame. And found, near the top, a tiny piece of hemp that looked as if it might have come from a piece of twine, caught in the wood of the door itself.

  Further examination of the door yielded nothing, so she turned her attention to the room beyond.

  It looked a great deal like the lord’s room, with more books and a less ostentatious bedstead—and a wooden floor, rather than one of stone. She called Warrl in and sent him sniffing about for any trace of magic. That potion required a tiny bit of magicking to have full potency, and if there were another bottle of it anywhere about, Warrl would find it.

  She turned her own attention to the desk.

  Tarma’s first opponent had been good, and an honest fighter. It was with a great deal of relief—especially after she’d seen an anxious-faced woman with three small children clinging to her skirt watching every move he made—that she was able to disarm him and knock him flat on his rump without seriously injuring him.

  The second had been a mere boy; he had no business being out here at all. Tarma had the shrewd notion he’d been talked into it just so she’d have one more live body to wear her out. Instead of exerting herself in any way, she lazed about, letting him wear himself into exhaustion, before giving him a little tap on the skull with the pommel of her knife that stretched him flat on his back, seeing stars.

  The third opponent was another creature altogether.

  He was slim and sleek, and Tarma smelled “assassin” on him as plainly as if she’d had Warrl’s clever nose. When he closed with her, his first few moves confirmed her guess. His fighting style was all feint and rush, never getting in too close. This was a real problem. If she stood her ground, she’d open herself to the poisoned dart or whatever other tricks he had secreted on his person. If she let him drive her all over the bloody practice ground he’d wear her down. Either way, she lost.

  Of course, she might be able to outfox him—

  So far she’d played an entirely defensive game, both with him and her first two opponents. If she took the offense when he l
east expected it, she might be able to catch him off his guard.

  She let him begin to drive her, and saw at once that he was trying to work her around so that the sun was in her eyes. She snarled inwardly, let him think he was having his way, then turned the tables on him.

  She came at him in a two-handed pattern-dance, one that took her back to her days on the Plains and her first instructor; an old man she’d never dreamed could have moved as fast as he did. She hadn’t learned that pattern then; hadn’t learned it until the old man and her Clan were two years dead and she’d been Kethry’s partner for more than a year. She’d learned it from one of Her Kal‘enedral, a woman who’d died a hundred years before Tarma had ever been born.

  It took her opponent off-balance; he back-pedaled furiously to get out the the way of the shining circles of steel, great and lesser, that were her sword and dagger. And when he stopped running, he found himself facing into the sun.

  Tarma saw him make a slight movement with his left hand; when he came in with his sword in an over-and-under cut, she paid his sword-hand only scant attention. It was the other she was watching for.

  Under the cover of his overt attack he made a strike for her upper arm with his gloved left. She avoided it barely in time; a circumstance that made her sweat when she thought about it later, and executed a spin-and-cut that took his hand off at the wrist at the end of the move. While he stared in shock at the spurting stump, she carried her blade back along the arc to take his head as well.

  The onlookers were motionless, silent with shock. What they’d seen from her up until now had not prepared them for this swift slaughter. While they remained still, she stalked to where the gloved hand lay and picked it up with great care. Embedded in the fingertips of the gloves, retracted or released by a bit of pressure to the center of the palm, were four deadly little needles. Poisoned, no doubt.

  She decided to make a grandstand move out of this. She stalked to the challenger’s pavilion, where more of her would-be opponents had gathered, and cast the hand down at their feet.

  “Assassin’s tricks, ‘noble lords’?” she spat, oozing contempt. “Is this the honor of Felwether? I’d rather fight jackals. At least they’re honest in their treachery! Have you no trust in the judgment of the gods—and their champion?”

  That should put a little doubt in the minds of the honest ones—and a little fear in the hearts of the ones that weren’t.

  Tarma stalked stiff-legged back to her own pavilion, where she threw herself down on the little cot inside it, and hoped she’d get her wind back before they got their courage up.

  In the very back of one of the drawers Kethry found a very curious contrivance. It was a coil of hempen twine, two cords, really, at the end of which was tied a barbless, heavy fishhook, the kind sea-fishers used to take shark and the great sea-salmon. But the coast was weeks from here. What on earth could the seneschal have possibly wanted with such a curious souvenir?

  Just then Warrl barked sharply; Kethry turned to see his tail sticking out from under the bedstead.

  There’s a hidden compartment under the boards here, he said eagerly in her mind. I smell gold, and magic—and fresh blood.

  She tried to move the bed aside, but it was far too heavy, something the seneschal probably counted on. So she squeezed in beside Warrl, who pawed at the place on the board floor where he smelled strangeness.

  Sneezing several times from the dust beneath the bed, she felt along the boards—carefully, carefully; it could be booby-trapped. She found the catch, and a whole section of the board floor lifted away. And inside ...

  Gold, yes; packed carefully into the bottom of it—but on top, a wadded-up tunic, and an empty bottle.

  She left the gold, but brought out the other things. The tunic was bloodstained; the bottle, by the smell, had held the narcotic potion she was seeking.

  “Hey-la,” she whispered in satisfaction.

  Now if she just had some notion how he could have gotten into a locked room without the proper key. There was no hint or residue of any kind of magic. And no key to the door with the bar across it.

  How could you get into a locked room?

  Go before the door is locked, Warrl said in her mind.

  And suddenly she realized what the fishhook was for.

  Kethry wriggled out from under the bed, replacing tunic and bottle and leaving the gold in the hidden compartment untouched.

  “Katran!” she called. A moment later Myria’s companion appeared; quite nonplussed to see the sorceress covered with dust beside the seneschal’s bed.

  “Get the priest,” Kethry told her, before she had a chance to ask any question. “I know who the murderer is—and I know how he did it, and why.”

  Tarma was facing her first real opponent of the day; a lean, saturnine fellow who used twin swords like extensions of himself. He was just as fast on his feet as she was—and he was fresher. The priest had vanished just before the beginning of this bout, and Tarma was fervently hoping this meant Kethry had found something. Otherwise, this fight bid fair to be her last.

  Thank the Goddess this one was an honest warrior; if she went down, it would be to an honorable opponent. Not too bad, really, if it came to it. Not even many Sword Sworn could boast to having defeated twelve opponents in a single morning.

  Even if some of them had been mere babes.

  She had a stitch in her side that she was doing her best to ignore, and her breath was coming in harsh pants. The sun was punishing-hard on someone wearing head-to-toe black; sweat was trickling down her back and sides. She danced aside, avoiding a blur of sword, only to find she was moving right into the path of his second blade.

  Damn!

  At the last second she managed to drop and roll, and came up to find him practically on top of her again. She managed to get to one knee and trap his first blade between dagger and sword—but the second was coming in—

  From the side of the field, came a voice like a trumpet call.

  “Hold!”

  And miracle of miracles, the blade stopped mere inches from her unprotected neck.

  The priest strode onto the field, robes flapping. “The sorceress has found the true murderer of our lord and proved it to my satisfaction,” he announced to the waiting crowd. “She wishes to prove it to yours.”

  Then he began naming off interested parties as Tarma sagged to her knees in the dirt, limp with relief, and just about ready to pass out with exhaustion. Her opponent dropped both his blades in the dust at her side, and ran off to his side of the field, returning in a moment with a cup of water.

  And before handing it to her, he smiled sardonically, saluted her with it and took a tiny sip himself.

  She shook sweat-sodden hair out of her eyes, and accepted the cup with a nod of thanks. She downed the lukewarm water, and sagged back onto her heels with a sigh.

  “Sword Sworn, shall I find someone to take you to your pavilion?”

  The priest was bending over her in concern. Tarma managed to find one tiny bit of unexpended energy.

  “Not on your life, priest. I want to see this myself!”

  There were perhaps a dozen nobles in the group that the priest escorted to the lord’s chamber. Foremost among them was the seneschal; the priest most attentive on him. Tarma was too tired to wonder about that; she saved what little energy she had to get her into the room and safely leaning up against the wall within.

  “I trust you all will forgive me if I am a bit dramatic, but I wanted you all to see exactly how this deed was done.”

  Kethry was standing behind the chair that was placed next to the desk; in that chair was an older woman in buff and gray. “Katran has kindly agreed to play the part of Lord Corbie; I am the murderer. The lord has just come into this chamber; in the next is his lady. She has taken a potion to relieve pain, and the accustomed sound of his footstep is not likely to awaken her.”

  She held up a wineglass. “Some of that same potion was mixed in with the wine that was in this glas
s, but it did not come from the batch Lady Myria was using. Here is Myria’s bottle,” she placed the wineglass on the desk, and Myria brought a bottle to stand beside it. “Here,” she produced a second bottle, “is the bottle I found. The priest knows where, and can vouch for the fact that until he came, no hand but the owner’s and mine touched it.”

  The priest nodded. Tarma noticed with a preternatural sensitivity that made it seem as if her every nerve was on the alert that the seneschal was beginning to sweat.

  “The spell I am going to cast now—as your priest can vouch, since he is no mean student of magic himself—will cause the wineglass and the bottle that contained the potion that was poured into it glow.”

  Kethry dusted something over the glass and the two bottles. As they watched, the residue in the glass and the fraction of potion in Kethry’s bottle began to glow with an odd, greenish light.

  “Is this a true casting, priest?” Tarma heard one of the nobles ask in an undertone.

  He nodded. “As true as ever I’ve seen.”

  “Huh,” the man replied, frowning with thoughts he kept to himself.

  “Now—Lord Corbie has just come in; he is working on the ledgers. I give him a glass of wine,” Kethry handed the glass to Katran. “He is grateful; he thinks nothing of the courtesy, I am an old and trusted friend. He drinks it, I leave the room, presently he is asleep.”

  Katran allowed her head to sag down on her arms.

  “I take the key from beneath his hand, and quietly lock the door to the hall. I replace the key. I know he will not stir, not even cry out, because of the strength of the potion. I take Lady Myria’s dagger, which I obtained earlier. I stab him.” Kethry mimed the murder; Katran did not move, though Tarma could see she was smiling sardonically. “I take the dagger and plant it beneath Lady Myria’s bed—and I know that because of the potion she has been taking—and which I recommended, since we have no Healer—she will not wake either.”