His Own Good Sword (The Cymeriad #1)

by Amanda McCrina

  The words died to ashes on his tongue. “No.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Aino.

  He said, “The family?”

  Aino said nothing.

  Anger engulfed him suddenly—furious black anger burning in him, closing round his throat like strangling fingers.

  “You bastard. Son of a bitch, I wish to God I’d known it was you.”

  Aino said, quietly, “It’s not what I wanted, Risto.”

  “Not until I had this victory, is that it? Until I had Senna’s favor. Is that it, Aino? No reason except Luchian had his grudge against me. It doesn’t matter the priest was innocent.”

  Aino turned his face away. He got to his feet.

  “You’ve been charged with treason,” he said. “You’ll be held here until the court martial. Time enough for you to heal—for both of you to heal.”

  He said, through shut teeth, “Let me speak with Senna.”

  “The legate won’t be any help to you now. He’s likewise under arrest for treason.”

  That caught him off-guard. He was silent a moment, turning it over in his mind, struggling to make sense of it. “Why?”

  “He tried to defend you to Ruso. He was hoping to get Ruso on his side, turn this whole thing into a squabble between army and Guard. Stupid, of course. Ruso would never risk antagonizing the Guard. He’s too pragmatic for that. Far more profitable for him to turn Senna over to us, he knew that. Berion’s been trying to get rid of Alluin Senna for years.”

  “He’s a legate, Aino. You can do nothing to him here.”

  “They’ve already taken him to Choiro for his examination. You, meanwhile—you’re still under Ruso’s jurisdiction, as an army officer. Though if the Rien court martial finds you guilty no doubt they’ll send you to Choiro for your execution—make an example of you.”

  Tyren laughed. “Ruso’s jurisdiction. Why bother with the trial? Ruso belongs to the Marri, you know that well as I do.”

  Aino glanced back to him without saying anything. He rapped twice with his knuckles on the shut door and went out wordlessly when the guard opened it. In the silence that followed Tyren’s anger ran cold. He lay there with his hands cupped over his face, his eyes shut, swallowing to ease the thickness in his throat. A half-formed prayer floated in his head and he repeated the jumbled words over and over, desperately, until all meaning had been stripped from them: let it have been quick, at least, for the woman’s sake—please, God. For Senna there was that hope: a swift examination, a quick, quiet, honorable death to quell the Senate’s murmuring. But for Muryn—O threefold God, at least let it have been quick.

  Later they sent a troop physician to change the dressing on the wound and wrap it up again with fresh bandages. Apart from that he was let alone. He didn’t sleep. The pain from the wound ran through him constantly, and there was the deeper pain inside him, the sickness in his heart. He ignored the meal they brought him in the morning though hunger had coiled tight and heavy in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t move from the mat, just lay there and looked up at the stone ceiling, watching the light grow bright and then fade as the hours passed, trying not to think.

  Aino came again at the time of the evening meal. He brought barley bread and hard cheese and raisins wrapped in a cloth, fresh water and a skin of wine.

  “You should eat, Risto,” he said. “They tell me you lost a fair amount of blood.”

  Tyren shook his head, wordlessly.

  “At least drink something. The wine will do you good.”

  “No.”

  Aino looked at him in silence a while. Then he shrugged, and set down the cloth by the mat, the wine and water next to it, and he turned to go.

  Tyren said, “Aino.”

  Aino paused, looking back to him.

  “It was your work. The old commander’s death in the spring. Before I took the command.”

  Aino didn’t answer right away. His eyes had sharpened, narrowing a little; his mouth had tightened into a thin line. Abruptly he lifted his shoulders again.

  “It was the simplest way. Transferring him would have required too much explanation, attracted too much attention in Vione, raised too many questions. As it was—it was a hard winter, there’d been sickness in the village. It was explanation enough.”

  “So you were murderer as well as informer.”

  “As the Empire has need of me,” Aino said. There was an odd note in his voice—amusement or mockery, Tyren couldn’t tell.

  Tyren said, “The Empire or the Marri?”

  “It doesn’t make a difference. You think Berion didn’t know you’d been sent to Souvin?”

  “You let them use you like that.”

  Aino spoke blandly now. “I followed my orders. As any soldier would have done. As you’d have done.”

  “No.”

  “You did what you did in Souvin because it was your duty. Against your own better judgment, sometimes. But it was your duty and you did it without question.”

  He shook his head. “Not without question. I had reason, Aino.”

  “And you think I had not?”

  “There was no reason for Muryn’s death. Only that Luchian wanted his revenge, no other reason.”

  “Maybe not to your mind. But I’ve other considerations than the glory and virtue of the Empire. I was never fool enough to believe in that lie, Risto—never had the comfort of that lie the way your kind do.”

  He laughed in his throat, harshly. “Other considerations. So they bought you too.”

  “I don’t barter my loyalty,” said Aino.

  “What was it, then? Some old grudge between your kin and mine? You’re Tarien Varro come again in the flesh, maybe?”

  “Call it blood loyalty if you want,” said Aino. “Though that wouldn’t be the full truth of it. I’ve my own score to settle with Lucho Marro.”

  Tyren looked over to him, studied him a while, carefully—studied his face, as a thought took hold all at once in his mind. The sudden certainty twisted in his gut like a knife-blade. It was a hard, proud, dark face, enough like Luchian’s he’d mistaken it earlier. Yes, the resemblance was close enough, once you knew—close enough to make him wonder he hadn’t seen it from the first, hadn’t questioned it. But he’d only ever thought of Aino as Cesino-blood.

  “You’re his brother. Luchian’s brother.”

  A tight smile touched one corner of Aino’s mouth. “Half-brother,” he said.

  “Your mother was Cesino?”

  “Yes.”

  “Luchian knows?”

  “He knows. My father—” Aino smiled again. “I doubt my lord father would know me as his if I stood before him. My mother was—inconsequential to him, you might say. But Luchian knows. For a while now. Since Vione. We were in the same column once Mureno transferred him out of yours. He’s the one who recommended me for the Guard.”

  “And you’re loyal to him.”

  “If that’s the word you want to use.”

  “What’s he ever done to earn it, Aino? You know what he thinks of Cesino blood.”

  “As you said, Risto, that day we rode into the Outland—Cesino, Vareno. It means nothing to me. I belong to neither world.”

  “He had his uses for you in Souvin. That’s the only reason, Aino. You owe him nothing. You think he’ll be loyal to you once he decides your uses are spent? You think he thinks of you as kin?”

  There was a tightness in Aino’s voice. It was the nearest he’d come to anger. “My concern, Risto, not yours. Don’t delude yourself you know everything of the matter.”

  Tyren made no reply to that. He’d lost the inclination to argue it, suddenly. Absurd to argue it further. There was no need to waste words on this. Let Aino give his loyalty and his life to the Marri, let them do with it as they wished. What did it matter to him?

  Aino had turned again to go. “You should eat,” he said.

  XVI

  Torien woke to the drumming of hoof beats out in the yard, muffled shouts. There was dull red torch-ligh
t coming in through the slats of the window-shutters, flickering over the walls of the bedchamber, startling away the night shadows, and for those first dazed moments of wakefulness the old battle readiness was clenched up tight inside him. He was back at Tasso, waking to another night raid, and his first thought was for his sword, his next for the horse lines. Then clarity cooled his head. He could sense Chæla beside him still fast asleep, could hear the calm, steady rhythm of her breathing. The tightness went out of his muscles quickly as it had come. No need for that anymore. Tasso was long years ago and the battles were a different sort now.

  He got up. He took a tunic from the chest beside the bed, dressing quietly so as not to wake Chæla. Then he took down his cape from where it hung by the anteroom doorway and went out into the corridor, round the atrium, out through the great double-doors to the yard steps. Moien was already there on the steps, buckling on his sword-belt.

  There was a horseman coming up the gravel path from the gate, some of the gate guards running along quickly behind him. Torien could see the horse was spent; sweat stood out thick and white on its flanks, glistening in the torch-light, and it dropped its head low, snorting, as the rider reined up. The rider himself was slumped forward in the saddle. When he dismounted he went down onto his knees from sheer exhaustion, struggling to gather the breath to speak. There was blood running freely from a long gash splitting his right arm above the elbow. Moien knelt hurriedly beside him, slid an arm across his shoulders to hold him up. Torien recognized him when he lifted his head. He’d been among Senna’s spear-men.

  “Lord Risto,” he said, with effort. “I bring word from Rien, from the legate Senna.”

  “What happened?”

  The man shook his head, tightly. He stammered through clenched teeth as he spoke. “Let me—let me speak with you alone, Lord Risto.”

  “My study,” Torien said to Moien. “Help him up.”

  In the study Senna’s man rested in the chair before the desk, drinking heavily from the water jug Torien brought him, letting Moien bind up his wounded arm with bandage cloth. When he’d strength enough to speak again he said, “The legate’s been arrested for treason, Lord Risto.”

  Torien said, “Marro wouldn’t dare.”

  “That isn’t all, lord. They’ve arrested your son, too. He’s to go before a court martial.”

  That took the words from him.

  He said finally, roughly, “Why?”

  “He attempted to prevent the Guard Commander—the young lord Marro—from killing a priest. A Cesino priest, Lord Risto, in Souvin. I don’t know everything of the story, lord. But they arrested him for that, arrested Lord Senna for trying to defend him. The legate’s being taken to Choiro now to go before the Emperor. I wouldn’t have left him, Lord Risto, but he wished me to bring the word to you. He trusted that to me before they took him.”

  “And my son?”

  “Remains in Rien, lord. He was wounded; they’re giving him some time to recover before he goes to the court martial. Commander Marro has charged him with treason also—charged he aided the Cesino rebellion in Souvin.”

  “He put down the rebellion in Souvin. What does that Marro bastard think he’s going to prove?”

  “Forgive me, Lord Risto. Commander Marro claims your son arranged to let the priest and certain of the rebels escape—that he’d planned the thing from the beginning. He’s saying that’s why your son went to Souvin.”

  There was silence a while. Torien couldn’t find the words to speak, just looked at Senna’s man dumbly, his tongue heavy, his thoughts stumbling.

  He gathered himself together slowly and turned to Moien. He spoke in a clipped, cold voice. “See to his lodging and treatment. Then ready horses. I’ll go to Rien and put an end to this.”

  “That’s what they’ll want of you, Torien,” said Moien, quietly.

  The anger burst forth inside him all at once. “I don’t care what they want. I mean to save my son’s life.”

  Moien hesitated. Then he bowed his head and said, “Yes, sir.”

  He went back briefly to the bedchamber for his boots and his sword. He lingered a moment by the bed, but in the end he decided against waking Chæla. He didn’t have the time now to explain the thing to her, to give her some reassurance—wasn’t sure he could find it in himself to do so. He buckled the sword-belt on his hip and went out into the corridor.

  Tore was waiting for him there. “What happened? Your guard captain will tell me nothing.”

  He went past Tore down the corridor. He spoke over his shoulder. “The Marri have charged Tyren with treason.”

  Tore came along quickly behind him. “Treason?”

  “It’s a damn-fool thing. The charge will never hold, I’ll see to that.”

  Tore spoke up sharply. “Was it treason, Father?”

  “The Marri will twist it until it looks that way. The truth of it doesn’t matter.”

  “No, it matters.” Tore spoke with urgency now. “It matters, Father. Think about it a moment. If he’s truly guilty, and we make any move to protect him, the charge can be laid against all of us. Don’t let your grudge against the Marri blind you in this, at least. If he’s guilty of treason let them punish him for treason. He brought this on his own head.”

  “No,” said Torien. “No, the Marri brought this on him, and I won’t stand aside and let them do to him as they did to my father and my brother. If you’re willing to do that, Tore, you’re a coward, nothing more.”

  Tore’s voice went suddenly low and cold. “Cesino rebels killed your father and brother. You’ve let yourself be led on with this delusion—for twenty years you’ve dishonored our family, our name, so you could feed this delusion.”

  “You forget yourself, Tore,” said Torien.

  “No, I think I’m the only one left in this family who sees sense. Do as you like, then. But when the Emperor takes the governorship from us it’ll be your doing, not mine—certainly not the doing of the Marri. Your own pride, your own blindness, because for some reason you find it easier to believe Lucho Marro has this plot against you than that Tyren might actually be guilty.”

  They’d come round the atrium to the doors now. Another time he’d have met Tore’s words, let the anger come spilling out again. Right now he didn’t have the time or the will. The old weariness had spread over him instead.

  “I’ll deal with you when I return,” he said.

  “If you return,” said Tore. “Remember the Marri are dangerous, Father.”

  Torien struck him across the mouth, suddenly. For a moment afterward there was a heavy stillness between them. He was surprised by the thing as Tore was; they looked at each other with a kind of dazedness. Then Tore lifted his right hand to wipe away the beaded blood from his lip. He smiled a harsh, humorless smile.

  Torien said, “When I return—if I succeed in saving your brother’s life—he takes your place as my heir, do you understand?”

  Tore lifted his shoulders. “As you wish,” he said. “I want no part of the inheritance you’ll leave.”

  Torien didn’t waste any more words on him. He pulled open the door and went down the steps into the torch-lit yard, across the yard to the stable. Moien had horses out in the stall row, his own chestnut and Torien’s bay. The bay was already saddled, tethered by the reins to the post of the stall door. One of Moien’s guardsmen, shaken from sleep, still working at the buckles of his corslet and sword-belt, came after Torien into the row and went quickly to ready his own horse. Torien took the bay’s reins and mounted and took the horse out into the yard. Moien followed him at a little interval, the guardsman coming behind. They rode out from the gate and down through the city to the southwest road.

  He kept himself from thinking of Tore at first. There was what lay ahead in Rien to think about: this treason charge, the court martial, the Marri. But his thoughts drifted slowly back to Vessy, over the long, dark miles, to what had happened in the atrium, and then he could think of nothing else but that. If only there’d
been more time, if he’d had the time to reason with Tore. No—if only he hadn’t wasted all that time, all those years, so it wouldn’t take cold reason to bring Tore to his side in the first place. It might have been different once, if he’d let this thing go when there was still time, if he’d swallowed the pride, the anger. But he’d held onto it instead, and everything since then had been a narrowing, darkening path, and now this was the only end, and he’d no other choice left but to meet it.

  Moien, riding alongside him now, broke him abruptly from the thoughts—purposefully, maybe.

  “You know the Rien courts are all in the pay of the Marri, Torien. You can’t expect justice from them, no matter the truth of it, no matter how empty the charge really is.”

  “I’ll speak with Lucho Marro.”

  “He’ll use it against you if you try to bribe him. At the least he’ll be able to say the governorship should be taken from you. More likely he’ll appeal for your execution.”

  “I’ve no intention of bribing him,” said Torien. He spoke flatly, indifferently. His thoughts were already running elsewhere again. “There’s no need for it. He and Berion need the army behind them if they hope to move against the Senate, and there are still far too many men in the army who’ll swear loyalty to me when it comes down to it, when the truth comes out.”

  “I believed that before tonight,” said Moien. “But they rid themselves of Senna easily enough.”

  Torien ignored that. “Sere,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “If I fail, Sere, swear to me you’ll see to my family. I charge you with that. If I fail in this I want you to return at once to Vessy and see to their protection. Viere may be willing to help you.”

  Moien looked over to him sharply. “Then you’re expecting to fail,” he said.

  “Don’t be a fool,” said Torien.

  “Torien—”

  “Swear it to me, Sere.”

  Moien was silent a long while.

  “I swear it on my life,” he said, finally, quietly. “If that’s what you wish. God knows I owe it to you.”

  “And tell Tore I ask his forgiveness. I owed him better than this. I owed him the governorship. It would have been his if I hadn’t neglected that duty. Tell him I ask his forgiveness.”