by David Duncan
Thana drew in her breath sharply. "That refers to Nnanji?"
"Yes, it does. He was destined to be Shonsu's protégé. He was only a Second, you know. Shonsu made him a Fourth in two weeks. And he is the equal of a Fifth now, Shonsu says."
"A Sixth!" she snapped, and fell silent, thinking.
He waited patiently and after a while she looked up. "It only says 'may' be greater. Not 'will' be."
Honakura shook his head. "Gods do not cheat like that, Thana. The god was saying that Nnanji will be greater. It is obvious! He is absurdly young for even his present rank, and Shonsu says he fences better every day, without exception. He forgets nothing. Yes, Nnanji will be a Seventh-and very soon, I think."
She frowned. "He thinks he is a Sixth now, but Shonsu will not tell him the sutras-the last few he needs to try for Sixth."
"I am sure," Honakura said, and then wondered if he was sure, "that Lord Shonsu has his protégé's best interests at heart. Nnanji had been very lucky to find a mentor like him-few do. Many mentors grow jealous of successful protegés and hold them back. Indeed, that is the thrust of that sutra I mentioned-that protégés must be encouraged and aided at all costs, not impeded." He chuckled, thinking of examples he had known. "Even priests can be guilty of that sin, and obviously there are special advantages to a swordsman in having a protégé who can fight above his rank. Whereas, when that protégé gains promotion, he may set off on his own. But I do not think that Lord Shonsu would ever do that to Nnanji. If he is holding him back from trying for Sixth, then it is only because he does not think that Nnanji is ready."
I think that, but Shonsu is no fool.
She nodded. "And when the tryst is over, then Nnanji will not be satisfied to be merely reeve of some polliwog village?"
"Nnanji wants to be a free sword. He would be happy just to lead a band of ragtag swordsmen around the countryside looking for sport, killing and wenching."
She nodded and sighed. Honakura carefully arranged a shy smile on his face.
He said, "I think he would be wasted doing that. The Goddess must have more important tasks for a man like Nnanji. He needs guidance!"
"You mean..."
He shook his head. "I don't think I need say more."
Thana blushed. She jumped up and strode away, the yellow tail of her breechclout swinging. She went by Shonsu without a glance, then by the three-man sutra session, which wailed into silence as the chanters were distracted. Then she vanished through the fo'c'sle door.
Honakura chuckled. The chanters went back to their droning. Shonsu continued his whittling-apparently he had not even noticed Thana go by him, although Jja had.
Honakura waited hopefully, but there was no sign of a wind rising, no diminution of the stabbing pain in his ribs. He sighed and told himself to be patient. However, perhaps he had earned one tiny reward-it would be satisfying to know just what that big swordsman was doing, littering Sailor Tomiyano's tidy deck with shavings.
The old man heaved stiffly off the steps, walked over to the hatch cover, and levered himself up beside Shonsu. He was accustomed to being small, but the big man made him feel like a tiny child. The swordsman turned his head in silence and regarded nun. For just a moment Honakura could imagine that he was back on the temple steps that summer morning when he had so briefly met the original Shonsu-that steady glare, those vindictive black eyes with their promise of carnage. Startled, he reminded himself that this was a man from a dream world, not truly Shonsu, and it was not his fault that his gaze was as deadly as his sword.
"And how is Apprentice Thana?" the swordsman demanded in his distant-thunder rumble.
Another shock! Honakura could have sworn that Shonsu had not even seen Thana depart, let alone noticed the two of them talking together. "She is well," he said, carefully not showing reaction. Yet he knew that everything about Shonsu was of the seventh rank-his reflexes, his eyesight. Could his hearing be so acute that he had overheard the conversation? Impossible, surely?
The swordsman continued his inspection of Honakura for a moment and then turned his attention back to the peg he was shaping. After a minute or so he remarked, "Apprentice Thana has been surprising me."
"How so, my lord?" inquired Honakura, as expected.
"She has developed a sudden and passionate interest in sutras," Shonsu growled. "I assume that she plans to seek promotion when Nnanji does."
"Commendable! She is qualified, is she not?"
"In fencing, certainly," the swordsman said. "And she has been surprising me with her speed at picking up sutras. Not quite a Nnanji, perhaps, but remarkable."
Honakura waited, knowing there must be more.
There was. "Of course Nnanji is always available to coach her-he can gaze at her without interruption." Shonsu paused again. "Yet she has been pestering me, also, and even her mother. She sets it up with either Katanji or Matarro, keeping Nnanji out."
Honakura remembered now that the swordsmen had a limit of three to a sutra session, another foolish custom.
"Perhaps she is equally glad of a chance to gaze at your noble self, my lord."
The black eyes flashed dangerously at him. "No, she has some other reason. Apprentice Thana always has her impulses totally under control. She is a cold-blooded little golddigger!"
Honakura certainly was not about to say so, but he thought Lord Shonsu rather resented Thana's cold-bloodedness. With his rank and physical presence he could have any woman for a nod, with no questions asked. Not that he did, but he must be aware that he could. It was precisely because young Thana would have questions to ask-and would require the answers first-that he smarted over her immunity.
"Why are we becalmed?" Shonsu demanded suddenly, probably believing that he was changing the subject.
Honakura dared not say what he suspected. "I don't know, my lord."
"Is it because I was supposed to recruit an army in Tau, do you think?"
So he was still brooding over that? "I doubt it," the priest said. "As you suggested, we should be returned there if that were the case. We must just be patient."
Shonsu nodded and sighed.
"You are troubled, my lord?"
The swordsman nodded again. "I am perplexed by the encounter with Prince Arganari. That felt like the hand of the god, old man, but I don't understand what was required of me. How many swordsmen own one of the Chioxin seven? Not more than two or three in the whole World! The rest of the seven have been broken or lost. For us to meet by chance was utterly impossible... so why?"
He brooded in silence for a while. "I should have kept him on the ship, I think."
"But you said that Master Polini had sworn an oath?"
"Yes," Shonsu agreed miserably. "But I could have challenged him." He cut savagely at the peg and nicked his thumb. He swore and stuck it in his mouth. Jja reached up and pulled it out again to look at it.
"Tell me what you are making, my lord?" Honakura asked. "Is it some contrivance from your dream world, perhaps?"
"I am making a toy for Vixini," the swordsman said.
Which is what he always said.
Pain had made Honakura testy. "My lord! The god told you that you could trust me!"
Again Shonsu turned to regard the priest with mat deadly killer gaze. "Yes, he did. Was he correct?"
Did that mean he had indeed overheard the conversation with Thana? It seemed impossible.
"Of course!" Honakura said, aware that dignity was hard to project in the garb of a Nameless One.
"Very well!" said the swordsman. "I will tell you what I am making if you tell me about Ikondorina's brothers."
Now it was the priest's turn to sigh. Why had he ever been such a fool as to mention those? It had been a serious indiscretion, even if it had happened very early in their relationship, before he had realized how much he himself was involved. When the god had sent word that Honakura was to tell Shonsu the story of Ikondorina, it had been an obvious chicanery. Even the swordsman had seen through that, but then Honakura had
stupidly admitted that he knew of two other references to Ikondorina in the priestly sutras. Later, and even more stupidly, he had mentioned that they concerned Ikondorina's two brothers, his red-haired brother and his black-haired brother. He had been very tired that evening, he remembered.
"I fear I misled you, my lord," he said now. "Obviously there was a reference there to Nnanji and Katanji. But that was all-they joined your quest and the prophecy was fulfilled. There is nothing more to tell."
"I should like to be the judge of that!"
"I cannot reveal the sutras of my craft!"
"Then I cannot tell you what I am making."
Honakura turned his head away angrily. Swordsmen! It was so childish! Then he noticed that Apprentice Thana had reappeared on deck and was wearing the pearls again. Aha! And she had gone to lean on the rail where Nnanji would notice her. Sutra time would end soon, then.
He turned back to Shonsu, who was looking at Jja, and Honakura was just in time to catch the tail feathers of a vanishing grin on the slave's face. They were laughing at him!
"The stories are quite irrelevant!" he said angrily. "And trivial! The sutra that mentions the black-haired brother, for example-the epigram says merely Water pipes are made of lead."
That, he thought, would stop a whole army of swordsmen.
Shonsu nodded thoughtfully. "I approve, of course."
"Indeed? Perhaps you would be so kind as to expound further, my lord?"
The swordsman flashed Jja another glance that the priest could not see. He could not be winking, surely?
"Certainly!" he said. "A water pipe adds nothing and takes nothing away; it merely transmits a substance, water, from one place to another, just as Mistress Brota and her ship transmit goods from one port to another. But these are services vital to the well-being of the People. Water pipes are useful things, yet lead is the lowliest of metals. Conclusion: Humble folk, who may originate nothing themselves, may yet perform valuable duties, not to be despised. Correct, learned one?"
Angrily Honakura agreed that he was correct. After all these weeks, he should have remembered that this was no ordinary swordsman. Few priests, even, could have worked that out for themselves, and so quickly.
"The epitome, I would presume," Shonsu said, "would deal with the value of labor-no, commerce!"
Correct again, Honakura admitted grumpily.
"Then the episode, please?"
The priest was about to protest once more that he could not reveal arcane matters when he caught Shonsu's eye. A shy smile crept over the swordsman's face, making Honakura think of granite slabs being thrust aside by tree roots. But it was affectionate amusement-it invited him to share. Suddenly they both laughed. The knife twisted in Honakura's chest, but he felt better afterward.
"Very well, my lord! I suppose you have earned it. But I warn you that it is a foolish and banal doggerel."
"Which may yet transmit valuable thought?" Shonsu asked innocently.
Honakura laughed again in surrender and quietly chanted him the episode:
Ikondorina's black-haired brother
Late at night to village came,
Weary from a long day's plodding,
Very hungry, dry, and lame.
Heard two peasants loud disputing,
Also heard a farrow squeal.
"There," proclaimed
The black-haired swordsman,
"I can hear my evening meal."
"Villagers!" he then addressed them.
"Notice, pray, my honest face.
As a stranger come amongst you,
Let me judge this sorry case."
The peasants laid the facts before him-
Each one claimed he owned the beast.
Swordsman, drawing his sword to slay it,
Bid the peasants share his feast.
The big man had a big laugh, and now Shonsu put his head back and uttered one enormous bellow of laughter, like a clap of thunder. Chanting stopped. From bowsprit to rudder, heads turned in astonishment. Smiles appeared, the sailors pleased that their hero was restored to his normal good humor.
"That's marvelous!" Shonsu said. "No artist could have drawn him better-Katanji to the life! Honest face! And you said it was irrelevant? Come now, holy one, share the other with me!"
"No, my lord."
The barbaric glare returned. "I am making a toy for Vixini."
"Not fair, my lord!" Honakura protested, although he no longer cared very much what Shonsu was doing. He must certainly not be told the other sutra.
"Half a truth deserves half a truth!" the swordsman persisted. "I figure that if Vixini can work this, then perhaps the swordsmen can... Why will you not tell me?"
"The god said you could trust me," Honakura replied. Nnanji and Thana were deep in a world of their own by the rail.
"But can I trust the god?" asked Shonsu.
"My lord!" Honakura displayed shock-but secretly he knew that he shared that doubt. It would depend how one defined trust, of course.
The swordsman was studying him closely. "Why would he not tell me exactly what is expected of me? How am I supposed to serve him under those conditions? What should I do, priest? You tell me, then, if you are so trustworthy."
"I am not a priest anymore," Honakura said. "I am a Nameless One."
"You're a priest when you want to be!" Shonsu roared. "All right, then, answer this one! After the battle on the holy island, the god put a swordsman fathermark on my right eyelid. Fair enough-my father in the dream world was a sort of swordsman. But after the battle of Ov, I was given a sorcerer's feather on my left eyelid. What does that mean? How can I ever expect the tryst to follow a man with a sorcerer for a mother?" Honakura had no idea. He had worried about that since it happened.
Before he could reply, however, they were interrupted. Nnanji and Thana stood before them, hand in hand. Thana had her eyes demurely lowered, her pearl necklace shimmering with a virginal white glow like dawn over the River. Nnanji's face was as red as his hair, and his eyes bulged with excitement and joy.
"My lord mentor!" he shouted. "Your protégé humbly requests permission to get married."
†† † ††
The party began at once.
Of course Wallie gave his permission, choking down misgivings over the romantic, idealistic Nnanji being bound to that mercenary minx. Ignorant of the marriage customs of the People, he was carefully coached and then prompted by his sniggering protégé as he formally negotiated with Thana's mentor for the betrothal, tendering one copper as bride price. Brota accepted, but he suspected that she doubted the wisdom of the match as much as he did.
Even Wallie thought Thana worth more than one copper, but apparently it was that or serious bargaining-and then Brota would have taken everything both swordsmen possessed.
There was much hugging and kissing and laughter as the family acquiesced. The ship was at anchor, and the sun god would set in a couple of hours-of course the party must begin at once. Tomiyano produced some vials of the sorcerers' ensorceled wine, whose effects could be heard and seen almost immediately. Oligarro's mandolin and Holiyi's pan pipes and young Sinboro on his drums... there was dancing and singing. Children screamed with excitement as ancient Lina brought forth delicacies from some secret store-crystallized fruits and knots of preserved ginger and yet-stranger sweetmeats that Wallie could not identify.
He wondered how long engagements lasted in the World and what elaborate ritual the marriage itself would require. For him to say good morning to another Seventh required forty words and six gestures. On that scale a wedding service could take hours. And what gift would a highrank swordsman give his protégé? Not a microwave oven, certainly...
He danced with all the women and all the girls. He joined in some of the more raucous River shanties. He laughed at the bawdy bantering and Nnanji's boastful ripostes. He grew steadily more miserable.
The calm persisted, the sun god faded down into luminous mist, and the putrid sulfur stink from the volcanoes
dissipated, leaving only the pungent aroma of the ox hides in the hold. The sky began to darken. Eventually Wallie slipped away and climbed atone to the fo'c'sle, where he could lean against the rail beyond the capstan and gaze out over still waters. He listened to the musk and laughter and sometimes, when they momentarily waned, to the playful slap of wavelets against the bow. The mist grew cool and damp against his skin.
A free man could not marry a slave.
He brooded over this injustice and at last decided that a married protégé was just one more tiny worry to add to all his others. He began to list them again in his mind. The catalog never seemed to shrink, it only grew longer. Nnanji himself was becoming a pest, demanding that he be allowed to try for sixth rank, and Thana would add her nagging now, seeking to further her fiancé's career.
Honakura had instigated this stupid engagement! Wallie had overheard just enough of that whispered conversation to be sure. Certainly he had heard the word "prophecy" and he knew that must refer to the story of Ikondorina's red-haired brother. The old man's reticence on the subject was ominous, especially now that Wallie had wormed the other story out of him, and that other Story had so obviously matched Katanji. What could have been prophesied about Nnanji that Wallie must not be told? He wished he had been able to hear more of what the old man had been telling Thana.
He wondered if those sutras had been changed by a miracle to fit the requirements of his mission. The demigod was quite capable of rearranging the memories of all the priests of the World. Indeed, he need change only Honakura's. Wallie decided be would search out a priest in Casr and ask him if he had ever heard of Ikondorina.
No, that would not work. A mortal could not outwit a god. Yet Nnanji was hardly a worry to compare with his others. What might Wallie find in Casr when he met men and women who thought they knew him, who had known Shonsu? At least he need not worry about remembering names, because any conversation would begin with a formal salute. Those were as useful as the cutesy name tags of Earth: "Hi there, my name is..." Nor need he worry about being challenged. Only another Seventh would do that, and a brave one, for Shonsu's paramount skill must be known in Casr.
