Oath of Fealty

by Elizabeth Moon

  The Council had gathered in the Council chamber; Arcolin recognized most of them from years past. Another boon he owed Kieri, for Kieri had ensured that his captains—especially the senior captains—met senior officials wherever they had a contract.

  “My pardon, sirs, for appearing in such disarray,” Arcolin said. “We had a situation that demanded my attention all afternoon.”

  “And a Marshal’s attendance, we understand,” one of them said.

  “Indeed so. Some of those swords we captured were spelled, with evil intent. Fortunately, my armorer noticed before putting them to the flame. Marshal Harak said that had he done so, a magical fire would have burned up the forge and killed many.”

  “Now?”

  “Now, thanks to Marshal Harak, that evil is gone; those blades have been destroyed, and the metal is safe to trade, he says. But it took us some turns of the glass. I am in no fit state to dine with you gentlemen, so if that was the reason for your summons—”

  “In part,” another Councilor said. “And I for one will excuse you from that, if the others will.” He wrinkled his nose slightly.

  “I would as soon dine with a mercenary fresh from battle as with someone too dainty to stand the smell of honest sweat,” said another Councilor angrily. He was a big burly man, probably, Arcolin thought, from one of the construction guilds.

  “Gentlesirs,” the chairman said, tapping a crystal bell with a little rod. “You will not quarrel here, surely. Captain, my pardon for our behavior. If you wish to dine here, and would prefer more formal attire, I am sure that among us we have both bathing facilities and suitable clothes. If on the other hand you prefer to return to your company, that is both understandable and acceptable to me—and I assume to all.” He glared around the table; no one spoke. “Now, Captain, there are a few other matters of which we must speak. One is that fellow Kory. You say that you personally had not seen the man who received the Duke’s punishment, but that one of your company had—by any chance, is that person one of your escort?”

  “Yes,” Arcolin said.

  “The man insists he was never north of the Dwarfmounts. He does bear marked scars on his back, however, and it’s clear the scars on his face come from multiple injuries. Yet we would not condemn him unless it can be proved. We would speak with that person who might have another way to recognize him.”

  Arcolin stepped to the door of the chamber. “Sergeant Stammel—”

  Stammel came into the room, calm as ever.

  “The Council wants to know what you know of the guard we captured, Kory … you think he’s really someone who was our recruit years ago.”

  “Yes, sir. Korryn, he called himself then. I signed him up myself, and wish I hadn’t. Good swordsman, already an expert, tall and strong, a bit arrogant as young men are who learn early to handle a sword. Told me he was a duke’s son’s bastard and would’ve been acknowledged but that his mother angered the duke, who turned her away, with her son. That’s how he got his first training, he said. Had been earning his keep as a door ward but wanted a real career.”

  “Did he say which duke?” Arcolin asked.

  “No, Captain. He wouldn’t say; said he’d promised not to. I liked that. Seemed to show a sense of honor. I was wrong about that. He was a complainer and quarrelsome. Sometimes we can train that out of them, as you know, sir, but this time we didn’t. He was always bothering the women, wanting to bed them.”

  “Are you sure you recognize him? What makes you think it’s the same man?”

  “It’s not just his size and hair—not even just the scar. He had a distinctive way of moving—especially when fighting, but even just walking or running. He gestured with his hand, something like this—” Stammel demonstrated. “—when he talked, especially when he joked about something. He had a way of sweeping his hair back with his left hand—” Stammel demonstrated again. “Aside from that, when we shaved him—for Captain Sejek had decreed he be tinisi turin, I remember a birthmark on his groin, left side I think. Small, dark. But what about whip scars—were they found?”

  “Indeed,” the chief Councilor said. “But he claimed he always scarred dark, and we do not know what the dye you used would look like after so many years.”

  “I gave him the last five lashes myself,” Stammel said. “And I know exactly where I placed them.”

  Some of the Councilors shifted back in their chairs, Arcolin noticed. Stammel was not a large man, but every fingerbreadth a veteran soldier: hard-bodied, steady, with strength beyond the obvious muscles.

  “Do you whip soldiers often in your company?” one of the Councilors asked.

  “No, sir,” Stammel said, answering before Arcolin could. “Recruits we mostly clout if they need it. Soldiers get their pay cut, and maybe a few lashes if they do something really bad. But what this Korryn did—plotting to get another recruit in trouble, putting some kind of poison in a corporal’s drink, beating a fellow-recruit who’d refused to sleep with him and then lying about her—saying she’d attacked the corporal—that was bad enough for a whipping. Then he fought, tried to kill one of the village council. Bad enough to kill him outright, if he’d been a regular, but as he was a recruit he got off light.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it,” murmured one of them.

  “Don’t it, sir?” Stammel asked, head cocked a little. “He nearly ruined one of the best recruits we ever had—nearly got her condemned to the same punishment—and then Stephi, a corporal—got him in trouble, too. Stephi was so ashamed of what he’d done that he got careless, thinking of it, and was killed next campaign year. If it’d been my choice, I’d have killed him then and there. But Captain Sejek, he wanted an example made.”

  Arcolin didn’t interrupt, but when Stammel finished, he said, “The recruit the sergeant speaks of is now a paladin of Gird. She fought three campaign seasons with us, including the last of Siniava’s War. If she had been killed, I myself would have died in the north, along with the Duke who is now king—she, as a paladin, saved us, and she is the reason Kieri is now a king.”

  “That may be, but we must be certain.”

  “Of course,” Arcolin said, with difficulty keeping the edge of scorn from his voice. He was convinced now, by Stammel’s explanations, but some people were never satisfied by facts they had not themselves discovered.

  In the end, Stammel and Arcolin followed two Councilors and several clerks to the city’s prison. There, in the lamplit governor’s office, Kory was brought before them. He looked the worse for wear, with fresh scrapes and bruises and one sleeve ripped to the shoulder; his hair had been tied back close to his head, so his scar was clearly visible. In daylight it had been just a mass of pale scar tissue, shiny. But in the lamplight, as he ducked his head, the shadows suddenly showed the shape of the brand under it all, the fox head.

  Without waiting for permission, Stammel walked up to him. “Well, Korryn—you don’t seem to have learned much in the past hand of years.”

  “You!” The man glared. “If it weren’t for you, I’d have had a decent place in the world.”

  “You always were a braggart,” Stammel said. “If you’d put the effort into honest work you put into bragging and bullying, you probably would have had a decent life. I’m not the one who made you a liar and a coward.”

  “I’m not a coward,” Korryn said. “I’m just not stupid enough to bow and scrape to the likes of you.” He spat at Stammel; Stammel put up a hand in time, looked at the spittle, and then wiped it down Korryn’s own shirtfront.

  “Your noble father—if indeed you had such—would not be pleased with his bastard,” Stammel said.

  “Would he not?” Korryn grinned suddenly, a different grin. “I think he would—” His arms struck out, the broken chains of his bonds smashing the two guards in the face, and then his hands closed on Stammel’s throat. “I have looked forward to this a long time, Matthis Stammel.”

  Arcolin felt a pressure on him like a load of sand: he could not move. He knew at once it
was some enchantment.

  “It was my honor to serve as the body for one greater than I could ever be,” Korryn said. “And to have an audience—that is best of all.”

  Stammel, Arcolin saw, could not struggle; his face darkened to a dusky purple, then bluish. Korryn dropped him, a limp heap, to the floor, then pulled a blade from one of the motionless guards.

  “Which should I kill first?” he asked in a light tone. “The captain who never knew me and yet was quick to condemn? The Councilors? The guards? Such a puzzle … who will suffer most from watching others die and being unable to stop them? My pretty captain, I do believe—” He stroked Arcolin’s cheek with the flat of the guard’s sword. “But do not worry, Captain—before you die of shame, I will have my fun with you, too. I think the guards first, as they are such mindless cattle they might escape my spell.”

  He did not turn, but backed around behind the guards, slitting the throat of one; blood sprayed out, soaking Stammel’s body. The other, he gutted from behind, slowly, watching with obvious delight those who could not move to stop him. “In favor of my lord Liart, and my lord Ibbirun, I give this blood and this pain,” he said. “May they grant me power to serve them better.” He dipped his hand in blood and then walked around, smearing blood on all their faces.

  “I think one of you must become my next body,” he said. “And I think—looking at these flabby merchants, and the paunchy governor of this prison—it must be you, Captain. It closes the circle, you see. To have you become the secret enemy … that is a sweet revenge indeed, even though he whom you injured—the man you thought you injured—gave his life to me, I will revenge him.”

  Arcolin, consumed by horror, prayed to every god he knew for help. It was as the prince had described; he could not move at all. Did that mean Korryn was a Verrakai? How could that be? He felt his muscles straining against the smothering force. The prince had been rescued by the unexpected arrival of a friend, but no one was likely to interrupt the Council questioning a prisoner in the prison governor’s office.

  Korryn bent over the governor’s desk and drew the sword tip across the governor’s forehead; blood dripped down into the man’s eyes; he could not blink it away. “Your guards are disgusting,” he said. “Your cells are disgusting … you are disgusting.” Korryn’s back was turned; Arcolin struggled harder; struggled to get his hand to his sword hilt, but he could not, though he did feel his fingers trembling against his trousers. Korryn sliced the governor’s cheek, talking all the time, his tongue as fast as the blood running down.

  Then Stammel, blood-drenched, crawled out of the welter of blood and guts, dagger in hand, and stabbed Korryn behind the right knee. Korryn screamed; his leg collapsed and he fell sideways, clutching at the desk. In that instant, Arcolin could move; he drew his sword and struck through Korryn’s neck before anyone else moved. The head rolled off the end of the desk and hit the floor with a wet thump. Arcolin wrestled his sword out of the edge of the desk.

  “I said he bragged too much,” Stammel said, his voice raspy. Two great bruises stood out on his neck.

  Behind Arcolin, two of the Councilors had fainted, untidy heaps on the floor; the other, gasping but still conscious, staggered to the wall and slid down it.

  “You’re—”

  “Alive,” Stammel said. “The governor …?”

  Arcolin looked at the man now slumped face-down on the desk, moaning. “We need a surgeon,” he said. Opening the outside door, he called for guards and surgeon, heard shouts in answer, and turned back. Stammel had pushed himself to his feet; his expression now was blank; his eyes stared at nothing.

  “Stammel?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “I can’t—don’t let it—Stammel lurched forward. “He’s still—he’s in—NO!” His eyes showed red, where they should be white, red as fresh blood; he fell into Arcolin. Arcolin tried to hold him up, but the guards’ blood on him was slippery, still wet; Stammel sagged, falling to the floor just as more guards arrived from outside.

  By now the Councilors had roused; one managed to stagger outside, retching. Another stared wide-eyed at Arcolin, unable to answer the guards’ questions.

  “Prisoner got loose, killed the guards, attacked the governor and my sergeant,” Arcolin said. “I killed the prisoner. Surgeon for the governor; he’s cut but should recover. I need another for my sergeant—” Under his hands, Stammel burned as if with fever, his muscles shivering.

  “But how did it happen?” the first guard asked, looking around. He had a sergeant’s insignia but seemed too confused to direct the others; they all stood in a huddle, like sheep startled by blood smell.

  “Get the Councilors out of here,” Arcolin said. Nobody moved. “You!” he said to one of the guards. “Help that man outside. Yes, that one. You!” to another. “Help the one in red.” To the sergeant he said, “Did you call for a surgeon?”

  “Uh … yes … sir …”

  “Then get more guards—you need to clear this room so the surgeon can work on the governor. Get a Marshal, too—Marshal Harak, in the smiths’ street.”

  “A—a Marshal?” The sergeant was still staring around as if dazed, though the two men Arcolin had spoken to had obeyed. Arcolin stood up abruptly; the sergeant flinched.

  “Sergeant! Wake up! Did you hear me?”

  “Y-yes, sir!” The sergeant’s eyes finally focused.

  “Tell your men to clear this room of bodies and blood,” Arcolin said. “Send one for more guards and a Marshal.” But one of the guards who had helped a Councilor out was now yelling outside; he could hear a distant clamor of running feet. The sergeant gave a shiver, then began giving orders, sensible enough, if slow. Arcolin knelt beside Stammel again. Stammel’s eyes were open and he was breathing, but he did not respond when Arcolin spoke to him.

  More guards arrived; a surgeon followed. “Get that dead man out of the way,” he said to Arcolin. “All that blood, he can’t live.”

  “It’s not his blood and he’s not dead,” Arcolin said. “He was strangled, but not killed; it’s the guards’ blood.”

  “He looks dead,” the surgeon said. He reached down gingerly. “He’ll be cooling by now—well, he’s not. That’s odd. He’s probably going to die, though, from the looks of him. He’s in my way; move him.”

  Arcolin stared at him, too angry to speak for the moment, and the surgeon gestured to two of the guards.

  “Come here and drag this fellow out of the way.”

  “Stop,” Arcolin said; the guards stopped as if struck on the head. He glared at the surgeon, who was already bending over the governor, ignoring him. “Fetch a door or something,” he said to them. “My sergeant is not dead, but injured; he doesn’t need to be dragged.”

  “Yes, sir,” said one. They both left and came back with a plank three handspans wide and half again as long as Stammel. “This do, sir?”

  “Yes,” Arcolin said. He took Stammel’s shoulders and head himself, and helped the men lay him on the plank. “Lift him,” he said. He took his hanger and scabbard off his belt and used the belt to lash Stammel gently to the plank. “Give me your belts,” he said to the guards, and added them around Stammel’s chest and legs.

  “We wouldn’t have let him fall,” one said, scowling.

  “I think he’s been spelled,” Arcolin said. “If he starts thrashing, the belts may give time to set the plank down.”

  “Oh … spelled. Well, then … where to?”

  Where to indeed? Arcolin had no idea where to, other than Marshal Harak’s grange. He picked up his sword in one hand, the hanger and scabbard in the other and followed them outside. In the square, others were gathering—guards, citizens—and the councilors, recovering from their shock in the soft evening air, were talking rapidly to one another. He heard hoofbeats, wheels grinding, axles squeaking, and a carriage drove into the square. The councilors looked up at the noise, and saw him.

  “Captain!” Councilor Janchek came over to him. “You saved us all! We cann
ot thank you enough—” Janchek looked at the men with the plank, at Stammel’s bloody body. “Your sergeant—he died, then?”

  “He’s not dead yet,” Arcolin said. “And he’s the one who saved us all—he distracted Korryn enough to weaken the spell that bound us. I need that carriage—” He pointed.

  “But—but that’s the chairman’s carriage—and he’s—he’s all bloody—”

  “He’s worth more than any carriage ever built,” Arcolin said, grief and rage swamping deference.

  “Sir—Captain!” His escort, left behind at the Merchants’ Guild Hall, came jogging into the prison courtyard.

  “Gird’s grace!” Arcolin looked them over. “Vik—take my horse; ride at once for the camp and bring our surgeon to Harak’s grange. Smiths’ street. Tam—find Marshal Harak’s grange. Tell him we’re coming there. If you see him on the way—just find him. It’s Stammel; he may die.” Those two took off at a run, no questions asked. The other two moved over and took the plank from the local guardsmen. “Orders, sir?”

  “Into the carriage with him.”

  The Councilors in their cluster made no more complaint; Arcolin only realized he still had his bloody sword in hand when he tried to climb into the carriage.

  On the short drive to the grange, Stammel’s condition didn’t change. Still that fixed unseeing stare, still the heat rising from him as from a stone left in the sun.

  Marshal Harak was waiting outside his grange, Tam beside him. “What is it? What happened?”

  “I think it’s a spell,” Arcolin said.

  “And what about you?” Harak asked. “You’re soaked in blood.”

  “Not mine,” Arcolin said, as he helped lever the plank out of the carriage. “And not his. Korryn—or whatever was in Korryn’s body—tried to strangle him. He fell. We were all spelled helpless; we couldn’t move. Korryn killed the guards—that’s the blood and gut stench—and Stammel crawled out of that welter when Korryn’s back was turned and stabbed him. That broke the spell for a moment; I killed Korryn. Then Stammel—” His voice shook; he fought to steady it, and told the rest.