The Death of Nnanji: The Seventh Sword Book Four

by Dave Duncan

  As his horse neared the archway, Addis stuck the nail into its back and scratched it as deep and far as his bonds allowed. The horse screamed in pain and reared, jerking its reins out of Capn’s hands. Addis ripped it again, so it tried to bite him. It bucked and broke free, kicking and protesting. People scattered.

  He hoped the guards were watching now. He couldn’t look to see, for it was as much as he could do to stop having his neck broken in all the bouncing. It was more than he could do to stay in the saddle. He slid. He couldn’t fall to the ground, but he did fall sideways, one leg bent beneath him, one straight out, and his hands still tied to the pommel, where the horse was pouring blood.

  Men rallied around and calmed the horse. They went to lift Addis upright and discovered the problem.

  “What’s all this?” said a guard, coming to see. He saw the facemark, and that was all that was necessary.

  He pushed Addis’s hood back. No ponytail, but a lot more hair than any other craft allowed. He untied the gag.

  “Help me! I’m a swordsman and I’ve been kidnapped!”

  Nothing wrong with his lungs. Should have been a herald.

  More guards came running. One of them blew a whistle. Capn tried to bull his way through with the horses, and that was an even worse idea, because out came the swords.

  “Down!” roared the swordsman who had his sword point at Capn’s ribs. “Dismount!”

  The sorcerers were forced to dismount. Addis was untied, but stayed where he was, astride his trembling, hard-done-by horse.

  A swordsmen Fifth arrived, an older man almost as big as Shonsu, with a grizzled ponytail. A master swordsman wouldn’t take any crap from a sorcerer of any rank. He said, “What’s all this?”

  Looking down at him from his perch, Addis said, “I am Novice Addis and I was kidnapped by these civilians. They took my sword and brought me here against my will.”

  “What’s the bruise on your face?”

  “They hit me when I try to escape.”

  “Wait!” Capn shouted. “This boy is wanted by King Arganari himself. He ordered Grand Wizard Lord Krandrak to bring this boy to him.”

  The sorcerers were now so outnumbered that each one was standing on tiptoe with a drawn sword under his chin and another at his back. Beautiful!

  “Did he now? Well you’re not wearing enough facemarks to be the grand wizard, so which shit heap are you?”

  Growling the words, Capn made the salute to an equal.

  The swordsman acknowledged, using hand signals because there wasn’t room to swing his sword around properly. His name was Alacrimo. “Now, then. First of all, this complainant isn’t a boy, he’s a swordsman. Only swordsmen arrest people and that specially goes for other swordsmen. So if the novice is summoned to the king, then the palace guard will take him there.”

  “This is no honorable swordsman. He swore on his honor that he wouldn’t try to escape.”

  “I did not!” Addis yelled. “I swore I wouldn’t make any trouble. I’ve not been making trouble, I’m trying to get out of trouble!”

  Master Alacrimo seemed to have trouble controlling his smiling muscles. “Makes sense to me.”

  “You are making a big mistake, swordsman!”

  To address a master by the name of his craft was as good as spitting on him. Alacrimo swelled even larger. “No, sorcerer, you have made a mistake. You are under arrest on suspicion of kidnaping. Put your hands on your heads, all of you!”

  He turned to look up at Addis. “Tell me briefly how you came to be there, novice.”

  “I was in Ivo, about three days ago, maybe four, I’ve lost count. I went with my mentor to buy new boots. The next thing I remember, I was a prisoner in a boat with Master Capn and other men, and I had the grandad of all headaches. I’m afraid they must have killed my mentor, because he wouldn’t have let them take me. They took me to Soo and brought me here on a horse and across the River.”

  “And what did you see on the other bank from here?” Alacrimo asked narrowly.

  “A big army camp. They’re waiting to repel the Tryst. They’ve killed everyone in Soo and left the bodies for the scavengers.”

  “Didn’t know about Soo, but the camp is right.”

  “And I saw swordsmen taking orders from sorcerers!”

  The listening swordsmen growled like angry dogs. One muttered, “That damned Pollex!”

  “None of that!” the big man said. He held out a hand to help Addis dismount. “Freckles, take these suspects to the charge room, strip those gowns off them and lock them up. You come with me, Novice Addis.”

  Life was improving by the minute. As Addis walked away with Alacrimo, he heard Capn’s protests turn into the sort of noise a man makes when punched in the kidneys. It was very pleasant not to be tied up, and even to feel the old familiar feeling of walking over horse dung in bare feet. The entrance to the palace was huge and bustling with people. They ought to have clouds under those ceilings.

  “Now you tell me just why his Majesty would want a novice swordsman abducted?”

  Addis had already decided to trust Master Alacrimo, if only because they had much in common, specifically a strong dislike of sorcerers.

  “The king had a son who died many years ago. He was killed by my father.”

  The swordsman stopped dead, causing several other people to veer hastily. “Your father?”

  “Nnanji of the Seventh, liege lord of the Tryst of Casr.” That rolled off the tongue very nicely.

  “But that was… I’ve heard that epic sung a thousand times.”

  “It was a Return,” Addis agreed. “Dad borrowed the seventh sword from Uncle Shonsu. Well, he’s not really my uncle, but he’s Dad’s oath brother, so that makes him my oath uncle.”

  Alacrimo swallowed hard and glanced around as if checking that no one was listening, but everybody was giving him a wide berth. “Describe the seventh sword, then.”

  “It’s just gorgeous. The hilt is a silver griffon holding a sapphire this big. And all down one side of the blade there are bare-assed heroes fighting monsters, and on the other side girls with nothing on either are playing with the same monsters. The balance is superb.”

  Alacrimo let out a long breath. “Like the Fourth! Right. You’re still making sense. Great Goddess! The son of Lord Nnanji!”

  “Eldest son. I have a sister, Nnadaro, and a brother, Tomisolaan.”

  “The eldest son of Lord Nnanji. And where is the Tryst?”

  “I can’t tell you that, master.”

  “No, of course you can’t. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  Addis looked up at the big man’s very wide eyes. “The sorcerers said the king wants to kill me because my dad killed his son. Does he do that sort of thing often?”

  “Ah.” Alacrimo’s weathered face closed like a castle door. “Well, lad, his Majesty is old and not in good health. But he will not be doing anything like that when I’m around. I’m acting head of the palace guard at the moment and it would offend my honor very much to see an innocent boy punished for something his father did, especially when that something was a mercy, not a crime.”

  Much better!

  “But,” the big man continued. “I’m not sure where the reeve is. Lord Pollex might not feel the same way, and he said he would be coming back today. We’d better get this over with quickly.”

  That sounded like a good idea.

  Chapter 2

  Nobody asked Addis for his parole and certainly nobody suggested that he was a prisoner, but.

  He was put in the care of a Third and twoSeconds. They took him to the guards’ bathhouse which had hot water on tap like all good palaces should, although even Dad’s didn’t have it for anyone except family. They gave him a fresh white kilt, a shiny pair of boots that fit him, and a swordsman’s harness. Couldn’t do anything about a ponytail, because only the Goddess made those and the quartermaster was right out of them. Pity his sword had been stolen, but no doubt Master Alacrimo would issue him one. Afterwa
rds, they meant, so Addis was still a prisoner.

  A message arrived saying that King Arganari was going to receive the novice in a full court, and that would take some time to organize.

  They asked if he was hungry.

  About an hour later they said he couldn’t possibly still be hungry, could he?

  And half an hour after that he said, no, he wasn’t, thank you, not any more. By then he’d learned enough to know that Reeve Pollex and his cronies were the sort of swordsmen Dad called vermin.

  Most of Dad’s palace would fit inside the throne room. Well, maybe not, but it was very huge and shivery-splendid, all colors, carvings, columns, and curlicues, with pictures in tiles on the floor and more pictures on the ceiling and gold statues everywhere. There were a lot of people around too, but they were barely noticeable in so much space.

  Addis stood beside Master Alacrimo at the main door and stared along the great hall to where the king and queen perched on golden thrones at the far end. He glanced at the flunkies near him and then up at the big swordsman. All of them were looking grim.

  Queasy moment… Too much lunch.

  Addis said, “This is going to be all right, isn’t it, Master?”

  “It may be unpleasant, lad. The old gentleman may shout at you or call you names, but nobody’s going to punish you for something you didn’t do.”

  The king said something to somebody. That somebody said something to a herald. The herald called out, “Summon the son of Nnanji!”

  Another herald halfway along the hall repeated the cry, “Summon the son of Nnanji!”

  A third herald, right by the door, glanced at Alacrimo, got a nod, and bellowed, “The son of Nnanji!”

  The two swordsmen set off across the plain. When they passed the herald in the middle he bawled out, “The son of Nnanji!” Addis felt offended by being presented as the son of Dad. He was a person in his own right and he had been maltreated. A little justice was what was required here.

  The king was obviously very old, huddled and shrunken inside his blue robe, with a gold coronet perched askew on a bald head sticking forward like a turtle’s on a neck as wattled as a turkey’s. He was a priest, the seven wavy lines on his forehead made much wavier by his wrinkles. His mouth kept working as if he were chewing something, but the way his face had shrunk suggested that he had no teeth. The hands gripping the arms of his throne were skeletal and knobbly.

  The queen on the other hand, was only a fraction of his age and had plenty of flesh, a lot of which was visible. Her jewels were splendid, her hair a funny fawn color. She was regarding her husband with a very disapproving expression.

  Alacrimo halted about three paces from the thrones. “Your Majesty, I have the honor to present Novice Addis, swordsman of the first rank.”

  He thumped his chest, turned smartly, and marched off to the left.

  The king was peering in the general direction of Addis with his eyes half closed and his head wavering like a corn stalk in the wind. “Is he there?” he asked in what was probably meant to be a whisper.

  The queen’s reply was not audible, but she was nodding as she said it.

  Addis wondered if he ought to salute.

  “Beloved subjects!” the old man proclaimed, in a high, shrill, voice like an axle in need of greasing. “Many years ago a great crime was committed, a great injustice was done—to me, to you—a great loss was inflicted on all of us.” A priest must know how to make himself heard. “Argie… my son, Prince Arganari, who would have succeeded me as Arganari XV had he lived, was struck down most foully. He was a swordsman, a First. The Goddess had summoned him to the tryst she had called in Casr, he and members of the palace guard, including his mentor, Master Polini. They never arrived at Casr. They were despicably slaughtered by a swordsman named Nnanji. A swordsman of the Fifth murdering a mere novice, a child! For all these years I have prayed to the Mother of us all that She would one day grant me justice—grant all of all of us justice—and now behold! The son of Nnanji has been delivered into my hands. Is this not Her doing?”

  He leered toothlessly around his court, as if acknowledging cheers, ignoring the icy silence that greeted his words.

  “What say you to that, son of Nnanji?”

  Addis was no priest but he had a good pair of lungs and he intended to defend himself from this old maniac’s nonsense.

  “With the greatest respect, your Majesty, the facts as I have heard them were not quite as you imply. To start with, my father was not then a Fifth, but only a Fourth.”

  The king seemed surprised by that, sitting with his toothless jaw dangling.

  Addis galloped ahead. “I know that’s not what the epic says, but I have heard the story from Dad, and my mother, and also Lord Shonsu, all of whom were there. Apart from a few details like that, my dad says that Nnanji’s Farewell to the Prince is the most accurate epic he’s ever heard, so… Sire?” The old loon was drooling. Was he going to have a fit?

  The king roused himself. “Go on! Go on!”

  “Well, Sire. It was my parents’ wedding night, Wheelwrights’ Day.” He knew that day because it always meant a family visit to the temple to give the Goddess an offering. Even if Dad wasn’t in town, Mom would take them.

  “Bah! It was long after that, because the sorcerers didn’t prophesy it to me until Masons’ Day. You’re just parroting the wicked epic. It’s all lies.”

  “Sire!” Just in time Addis remembered he was addressing a king who could order his head cut off, and he only had Master Alacrimo’s word for it that he would not let anyone carry out the sentence. “Sire, sorcerers cannot prophesy! They send messages by pigeon, so they get to know things much sooner than anyone else does. I’m surprised it took them until Masons’ Day to get the news here, to Plo.”

  “Go on!” The old imbecile seemed to be hanging on every word Addis spoke, so he plunged ahead.

  “Well, Sire, the night was very still. And they had just completed their marriage vows when they heard swords clashing and cries coming from a boat nearby. It was the pirates who killed Polini. And they wounded your son so badly that he asked my dad to give him the Return. They’d met earlier, in a town called Tau, and he thought my dad was a hero, which he was, and—”

  Brainwave!

  Why hadn’t he remembered this sooner?

  “Before your son asked my dad to, um, Release him, he gave him this. And when I left Casr two seasons ago to come here, my father gave it to me to return to you, because it belonged to your great ancestor Arganari, so it is rightfully yours.”

  No doubt the sorcerers would have stolen the silver hairclip if they had noticed it, just as they’d taken everything else except his kilt, but it had been invisible in his mop all the time, and it was still hanging in there. He brought it out and took one step toward the throne. At once swordsmen with drawn swords appeared alongside the twin thrones as if they’d sprung out of the ground. Addis froze.

  A footman stepped forward to present a silver tray. Addis laid the hairclip on it, and watched as it was borne in state to the king and proffered with a bow. Arganari fumbled for it, found it, and held it up to his nose. He made a strangled noise, causing the queen to lay a hand on his arm and lean closer, looking worried.

  “A token! A token of Her special blessing… Come here!”

  “Sire?” Addis said.

  “Come here, boy, come here so I can see you.”

  Addis glanced at the swordsmen nearest the king and received a grudging nod. So he went up to the throne.

  “Closer!”

  The king grabbed his head and almost hauled him off his feet, pulling their faces nose-to-nose close. Eyes as yellow as pee peered at Addis, scanning every pore and eyelash of him. “Yesh… yesh…” The dotard was drooling again, barely able to make words. “Yes! Knew the voice. The voice exactly. Face very like. Up! Up! Help me up, boy!”

  He winced horribly at the pain as the bewildered Novice Addis helped him rise. Everyone else in the hall promptly went down on th
eir knees, all except the swordsmen guards and the queen. Addis almost did, because Arganari was leaning so heavily on him.

  “My people, let us give thanks! I have prayed diligently to the Most High that She send me a miracle, and behold, She has done so! A most wonderful miracle! A miracle to inspire minstrels for a thousand years! When were you reborn, Argie?” He thrust his right eye almost into Addis’ left.

  Oh, Goddess! “I was born on Shepherds’ Day, your Majesty.”

  “Wheelwrights’ Day they were married and you were born on Shepherds’ Day? That fits doesn’t it, my dear?”

  Addis staggered as the king leaned forward to peer at his wife.

  “Exactly forty weeks, I think, Sire. Yes, it fits.” She looked amused, pleased. Shouldn’t a wife be alarmed when her husband goes screaming wet-hen bonkers?

  All the courtiers started shouting in a great storm-surge of noise, in which only a few words like “Yes” and “Right!” and “Glorify the Mother!” were distinguishable. Apparently everyone humored the senile nitwit when he had these attacks. The priest-king raised his free hand for silence.

  “My people, let us praise Her!” He began to chant a hymn in a strong, if quavery, voice. Everyone else seemed to know the words. Addis did, so he joined in too, even if he did seem to be describing himself as a manifest blessing. His mom would not agree with that, most of the time. But his mom had nothing to do with him any more, since he was sworn, and he was beginning to think he might not see her for a very long time, if ever. He would need a new mentor… Oh, Vixi! Why couldn’t Vixi have lived to see this?

  The king demanded to be put down, and Addis managed that quite gently, he thought. Everyone else was now free to stand up. Funny, but from what he could see, just about everyone was either pleased with all this madness, or else very skilled at hiding their real feelings.

  “You never could carry a tune,” the king muttered, “but you’re not as bad as you were last time. Come and stand at my right hand, son. Push that stupid swordsman out of the way. Beloved subjects, tomorrow we shall hold a service of thanksgiving in the temple, and adopt Novice, um…”