Oath of Fealty

by Elizabeth Moon

  “Liss is hurt bad,” one of the other men said, coming up. “She won’t be able to walk.”

  Arcolin led his horse closer. The woman on the ground had a lump on her head, but the worse injury was to her leg, trampled during the fight. The younger woman knelt behind her, supporting her shoulders to give her a sip of water.

  “There’s a caravan headed east a ways behind me,” Arcolin said. “If we get you over onto the road, they may be able to help.”

  His horse jerked up its head and looked back eastward. Arcolin looked along the road and saw a horseman approaching at speed, carrying a maroon and white pennant. Closer yet, he saw it was Sergeant Devlin, on one of the spare horses.

  “Captain, what’s happened?” Devlin asked.

  “Brigands,” Arcolin said, waving at the bodies on the ground. “Six of them attacked these travelers and me.”

  “He came back to help us,” one of the men said. “Without him—”

  Devlin looked at Arcolin, then pointedly at Arcolin’s mount with the helmet still hooked to the saddle. Arcolin grinned and shook his head. “No time,” he said. “This woman’s got a broken leg; she needs a physician. We’re a glass or less from Valdaire: ride in, tell the city guard what happened, and ask for a cart for them—”

  “We don’t have money for a cart,” the man said.

  “You’re still in Valdaire’s domain,” Arcolin said. “You can call on them for aid, since they haven’t cleared out those brigands.” To Devlin he said, “I’ll stay here until you return, then have you stay while I ride on to the cohort. I know they’ll be worried, but we can’t leave this party unprotected. If the caravan will lend me a few guards when they get this far, I’ll go ahead then.”

  “At once, Captain,” Devlin said. He rode off at a canter. Arcolin unhooked his helmet, felt the slight dent where the sword had struck, felt inside—no change in the liner—and put it on. He checked the man who’d lost an arm—dead already from blood loss—and the two the travelers had downed. One still lived, unconscious; Arcolin finished him. Technically, he was due a bounty for proven brigands killed within the city’s outbounds, but he had no need for it, and these travelers did. He explained it to them.

  “I don’t know what the current rate is, but I know the bounty’s still in effect.”

  “But you killed some of them—”

  “I have pay,” Arcolin said.

  Before Devlin returned, the caravan appeared, trundling slowly along the road. Arcolin jumped the ditch with his mount again, and waited for them. They did not slow at first, but the caravan master climbed off the first wagon to speak to Arcolin.

  “What is it? Someone in your colors rode by telling us there was danger ahead.”

  “Brigands here—that party there has an injured woman, and we killed four of them—two got away into the woods.”

  “So we keep moving and warn others, eh?”

  “Yes, but I want to hire a couple of your guards to ward those travelers until the city sends a cart out for her. I need to go ahead and tell the cohort why I was delayed.”

  The caravan master chewed his lips a moment. “Well. You are Phelan’s captain and you did give us warning. I can let you have two, but they must follow as soon as others come to help. And it will cost you a nata each.”

  “Here.” Arcolin dug into his saddlebags and handed the man two natas.

  “Jori! Baltis! Come down here.” Two guards slithered down from the loads atop their wagons. “These are good men,” the caravan master said, as they approached. “Four years with me on the road, and Jori knows wound care, as well.” He turned to them. “Stay and guard those people until help comes,” the caravan master said. “They fought off a brigand attack; there might be more.”

  “The bounty for the four brigands killed so far goes to the travelers,” Arcolin said.

  “Understood,” the caravan master said. He turned and jogged toward the front of the caravan, now three wagons ahead.

  With the guards, Arcolin crossed the ditch again, this time on foot; his horse made no difficulty, hopping the deepest muck at the bottom and scrambling up the bank in two heaves of its hindquarters. It was dry again, breathing normally.

  “These men will stand guard with you until a cart comes for her,” he said, nodding to the woman. “I must go now.”

  “Gird’s grace go with you,” they all said in a ragged chorus. Arcolin mounted and turned his horse eastward again, letting the horse roll into a strong canter.

  He caught up with the cohort at last, to the obvious relief of his new young captain; by then his mount was willing to walk quietly along as he explained what had happened. He did not mention leaving his helmet off; that story would be all over the cohort as soon as Devlin returned, he was sure.

  The rest of the march to Cortes Vonja was uneventful as they followed the familiar trade road to Fossnir and Foss, then the river branch that led down the Immerest to Vonja and Silwan. The eve of the Spring Evener found them near enough Fossnir to see the bonfires on the city towers; Arcolin wondered where his old companions were. He imagined Kieri presiding over a formal celebration—blooding a ploughshare, perhaps, or a spade—and then lighting the ceremonial fire. If elves did that sort of thing. Dorrin, he was sure, would have a bonfire. As captain of the cohort, he cut his hand and blooded his own blade, then touched it to the others’. The next morning, the sun rose indecently early—with the others he had stayed up singing most of the night—and they went on.

  Burek, though much younger, had all the qualities Aesil M’dierra had claimed, and Arcolin saw nothing in his manner that should have set off even the prickly Count of Andressat. Burek’s speech and behavior were both mannerly, respectful of all, without indicating any weakness. His sergeants liked him; Stammel, usually noncommittal about new officers, sought Arcolin out to commend the choice.

  When they reached Cortes Vonja, the city militia commander, a man Arcolin remembered vaguely from the last year of the war against Siniava, explained why the militia needed help.

  “It’s not like it was before,” he said. “No more campaigns of city against city, each one knowing why and when. Now it’s wandering troops, no allegiance but to themselves, some with a grudge against a city, and some without, but all hungry. Trade’s down—I’m sure you know that from over the mountains—and caravaners expect cities to patrol the trade roads and keep the brigands off ’em. There’ve even been attacks between here and Valdaire, if you can believe it.”

  “I can,” Arcolin said. “I was in one. Brigands attacked a party of foot travelers in broad daylight, right beside the trade road, still in Valdaire’s outbounds.”

  “With your cohort there?”

  “No. I was riding alone, having been delayed leaving the city.”

  “But you got away safely, I see,” the man said.

  Arcolin felt a prickle of irritation. “We killed four of them,” he said. “The foot travelers were good with their staves.”

  “You—pardon me, Captain, for my assumptions. I had forgotten the reputation of the Duke’s Company. You stopped to aid. That is exactly the attitude we need from the troops we hire, and so few have it—”

  Arcolin, who remembered the Cortes Vonja militia scattering in disarray, said nothing, but their commander flushed a little.

  “Well,” he said, and made a face. “Here we are, again. We have the trade road to patrol, and fewer men to do it with than back in your day. Our farms and outlying towns are being attacked—mostly those to the south and east. Cortes Cilwan says the same, and Sorellin.”

  “What about Andressat?” Arcolin said.

  “The Count has accused us of letting brigands get away to harry his borders. He hasn’t told us of any other problems.”

  “Is there concern that any of these brigands are part of an organization?”

  “Well … the Duke of Immer, he that was Alured the Black, does say he should by rights take toll of the roads, even these up here. But Immerdzan’s a long way away.
”

  Arcolin looked at the map the commander had laid out. “One cohort can’t patrol that much territory—better to seek out your brigands and try to break them up.”

  “Exactly. But our people have no idea where they’re hiding. From Andressat’s complaints, possibly in the rough country below the downs.”

  Arcolin visited Kieri’s banker before returning to the cohort, to ensure that he could transfer funds to Valdaire as they had before, and then spent the rest of the day with Burek going over the maps the militia commander had given him.

  “Someone here must know who the brigands really are,” Burek said. “More than two years—they’re getting support from somewhere or they’d be dying out; the problem would be smaller.”

  “My guess would be Alured the Black,” Arcolin said. “Did you ever meet him?”

  “No,” Burek said.

  “He’s ambitious and cruel,” Arcolin said. “Easy to offend, but also a natural leader and a reasonably good field commander. My guess is that he wants it all—all Aarenis.”

  “Not that different from Siniava,” Burek said.

  “Quite so. Something none of us recognized when we made alliance with him. We needed his aid, we thought, and Siniava’s evil was so obvious …” Arcolin shook his head. “We erred. It wasn’t until after Siniava’s death, when we went downriver with Alured as we’d pledged.” He pushed the memory of those days from his mind and dragged it back to the problem at hand. “I think I’ll have Stammel send a couple of our best gossips around the taverns tonight and see if we can find out anything, but we’ll march tomorrow down this way—” He pointed.

  “The brigands will find out we’re asking questions,” Burek said.

  “If they don’t already know the details of the contract, I’d be surprised,” Arcolin said. “They’ll have spies in the city, of course. And they’ll be trying to find out things from our men. That’s a game all sides can play. We have some very good players.”

  The five Phelani soldiers who started their evening at the Flowing Jug brought a momentary lull to conversation and an anxious look to the owner’s face. Peering past them, he said, “Is that whole mercenary company coming into the city?”

  “Just us,” Devlin said, grinning broadly. “Sergeant said we’d done so well, we could come in and fetch him back a jug. We’ll each have a mug, to start with.”

  “Here’s a table,” Jenits said. “We could eat—”

  “You don’t think of anything but food,” Tam said.

  Devlin leaned on the counter, ignoring their familiar and well-rehearsed opening. He tapped a Cortes Vonja nata. “I’m buying this round,” he said and pushed it across.

  “This round?” the owner said. “And shouldn’t you take that jug back to your sergeant?”

  Devlin laid a finger along his nose. “He doesn’t know which tavern we went to, does he? Happen we’ll need to visit them all, to find one with ale good enough for our sergeant.”

  Three rounds later, the little group left that tavern, had a noisy argument in the street, split up, and the pair swaggered into the Blue Pig demanding drink while the trio joined a circle of gamblers playing Leg and Hand at the Cat and Crow. Each complained bitterly about their former comrades and dropped carefully planned nubbins of gossip about the Company. The trio, accused of cheating by the other gamblers, were invited to leave by the tavern’s security, quarreled again on the doorstep, and staggered off in three different directions. The pair, meanwhile, had struck up a friendship with a young woman and after serenading the tavern with an off-key rendition of “Sweeter than the Honey-Bee” were thrown out. They had their quarrel four doors down and like the others sought further adventure on their own.

  Torre’s Necklace shone far to the west when they returned to camp, sober and well supplied with gossip.

  “I’d forgotten how much fun this is,” Tam said. “You’d think they’d learn.”

  “We do it best,” Devlin said. As the most cat-eyed of them, he led the way. “Trade secrets passed down from generation to another.”

  “If any of it was true,” Jenits said.

  “The bits we all heard will either be true or what someone’s passing as truth,” Devlin said. “But wait until we get to camp.”

  In the light of the lamps in Arcolin’s tent, Tam’s idea of fun showed up as bruised knuckles and a cut on his forearm.

  “What happened?” Arcolin asked.

  “It became necessary to show fight, Captain. For the honor of the cohort—”

  “Specifically,” Arcolin said.

  “Oh—it was after we separated. I was supposed to be staggering drunk, and someone believed it. If he hadn’t breathed so loud, he might’ve hit me with that billet, but that and his breath-stink revealed him—so I ducked and he hit the wall where my head had been. The cut’s from his friend.”

  “And?” Arcolin said when Tam seemed to have stopped.

  “Well, Captain, you know it’s not safe for civilians to have weapons they don’t know how to use, so I tried to make the streets safer by disarming them. But sometime in the altercation the one with the club split the skull of the one with the knife, just as the one with the knife sliced the one with the club. I’m lucky to have got off with just a cut.”

  “The night guard arrived, didn’t they?” Arcolin said.

  “Yes, and I explained very carefully,” Tam said. “They thanked me for my intervention, but suggested I might want to return to camp. It was all polite.”

  “I’m sure,” Arcolin said. “Did you by any chance hear anything useful?”

  “Yes, Captain.” Tam’s expression changed from one of false innocence to that of a competent soldier. “I thought the fellow at the first tavern was overanxious about us, though we were just drinking quietly and saying how good it was to be back in the south, where it’s warmer and the food is better and the girls prettier.”

  Arcolin glanced at the others. “You agree?” They nodded. “Go on, Tam,” he said.

  “I noticed there weren’t any girls in the tavern, the way they were three years ago. We used that as an excuse to move on, and that’s when we split into three and two. I was with Jenits. We went on to the Blue Pig. It was more like it had been, there: three pretty girls, two of them from down the street, where there’s a house. They all kissed Jenits, but he’s younger than me.”

  Jenits, Arcolin noticed, turned red.

  “One man asked if we’d been hired to chase bandits, and we said yes, and he said good luck in a tone that didn’t mean it. Made the Trickster’s sign where he thought I couldn’t see. Jenits said he’d rather chase women than bandits, and the girls were all over him.”

  Most of the stories were the same, but for Devlin’s. He had abandoned the pretense of drunkenness as soon as he was alone, and walked to the east gate of the city, where—on the pretext of trying to find some soldiers who’d overstayed their leave from the camp—he chatted with the gate guards. Then he’d gone outside the walls and walked back around the long way, noting which windows still showed light at the wall.

  “I nearly ran into something,” he said. “Some men standing around a hole in the ground … and out came another, and handed over a bag of something that clinked.”

  “A tunnel,” Arcolin said. “Think you could find the entrance again by daylight?”

  “Certainly, Captain. By daylight or dark. I’ve no doubt it’s concealed, though.”

  Arcolin considered telling the militia captain about it, but he’d been hired for a different job and past experience with Vonja suggested it would be more profitable to let the Vonjans deal with any smuggling themselves. Likely some of the militia were involved.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Chaya

  At the heart of Chaya towered the King’s Grove. Ten of the tallest trees grew in a circle around a mossy mound where the coronation would actually take place. Kieri had been told of it, and forbidden to go near it. Now—on the morning of his coronation—he looked out the win
dow to see the trees massed beyond the palace walls. Already he heard a distant bustle in the palace, and soft scuff of those who would bathe and dress him coming along the passage …

  Kieri came down the steps of the palace in his coronation robes over new clothes from the skin. Before him, the Council that had sent Paks to find their king; on one side his uncle Amrothlin, the elven ambassador, and on the other the Captain-General of Falk. Immediately behind them, two King’s Squires and Paks. Behind them, the other Siers and lesser nobility, including Aliam and Estil—he’d insisted they be part of the procession, over Aliam’s protests. Merchants and crafters, too, this time over the protest of his Council, but he wanted everyone. Even—along with all the other ambassadors and envoys—Hanlin of Pargun.

  Palace staff lined the way to the gate, and beyond was a crowd, held back by a green rope in the hands of rangers in russet and green. Kieri would have walked faster on his own, but measured his pace to that of the Council.

  Left out the gate … along the street … and then an abrupt turn into a narrow lane winding between and around great trees, in a dim green coolness. The fragrance of sunlit meadows, of spring flowers, vanished into the rich, complex odors of forest.

  Finally, the King’s Grove. The ground rose slightly under his feet as they approached tree trunks wider than houses; the path lifted over knotted roots, dipped between them.

  He felt the taig here, far more strongly than he ever had; the flavor of each individual tree, its essential being, touched him. Ahead, his Councilors lurched and scrambled, the oldest helped by the younger, but to Kieri the path felt smooth, welcoming. On either side, great boles rose, furrowed bark shaggy with moss and tiny ferns near the ground, but higher showing multiple shades of red-brown, lavender, green-gray, where lichens patched the bark. A rich fragrance enveloped him, complex and enticing.