“I cannot serve the guards and their commander if I do not know what is needed.” Dealdron smiled sheepishly.
“You might ask me.”
“You often do not have time to tell me,” he replied gently.
Saryn couldn’t argue with that, not the way things were going. “That’s fine. But…if you’re not certain, and can, please ask.”
“I will. I would not go against what is good for you.”
“Thank you.” Saryn followed Dealdron to the larger stall at the end, where her horse was indeed saddled and waiting, then led the gelding out into the courtyard. No sooner was she in the saddle than three guards rode toward her and reined up. She knew two of the guards—the gray-eyed Dyala and the redheaded Kayli.
“Commander, this is Cenora,” offered Kayli. “She’s one of the newer guards.”
“Commander…ser.” The younger guard inclined her head. Her hair was cut short, and she wore the same gray trousers and tunics as the other guards, but the gray was slightly lighter. She also carried but a single blade in the shoulder harness.
Saryn could also sense apprehension, even a touch of fear. “Welcome to the guards, Cenora. It’s going to be a very interesting year. For the moment, we’re just riding into Lornth, to the Square Platter. I need to talk to the owner.”
“Yes, ser.” All three responded almost as one.
As Saryn rode out through the gates and around the green outside the palace walls, she couldn’t help thinking that everywhere she looked and went, matters were worse than she had thought, and it didn’t look as though she was seeing any improvement. Had her presence and that of the Westwind guards made matters worse?
She shook her head. The feed was the same as when they had come. Nesslek had already been at The Groves. The officers commanding the palace armsmen hadn’t been changed since before she had arrived the first time. The palace had already been falling apart.
By the time Saryn had ridden past the larger houses between the green and the square, she had noticed several other things. More than half the once-fashionable dwellings had been shuttered, but whether for the summer, or for other reasons, she couldn’t tell. The handfuls of people on the street barely gave her a glance, but it was an avoidance based on apprehension, not on fear, nor on familiarity. One other thing was very obvious when Saryn dismounted in front of the Square Platter. There was no bouncer on the narrow porch.
She stepped up onto the porch and went inside, but she didn’t immediately see anyone. Before she could call out, though, Vanadyl hurried up.
“Commander…” He bowed.
“If she’s here, I would like a few moments with Haelora or you and Haelora.”
“She is. I think she would be more than ready to talk with you. If you wouldn’t mind going to the front table, I’m sure that she will join you there soon.”
“Thank you.”
After Vanadyl left, heading toward the kitchen, Saryn entered the public room and walked to the table in the right front corner. She didn’t bother to seat herself but looked out the window at the three guards. Dyala was explaining something to Cenora, who was nodding.
Two men hurried by, but neither even looked at the three guards. That was a change, Saryn thought.
Haelora walked toward Saryn. “I was thinking I should have heard from you sooner.”
Saryn could sense a certain anger. “I’m very sorry. I’ve been in the north with Lady Zeldyan with half my guards.” Except they’re no longer half. “We just returned last night, and you’d said you’d prefer to talk in the mornings. I heard that one of our recruits took a blade to Rhytter. That’s why I’m here.”
“He mighta deserved it. I don’t know. Fynna was no great shakes, either.”
“No, I don’t think she is,” Saryn concurred.
“What are you going to do with her?”
Saryn could feel that some of Haelora’s anger was fading. “She’ll be executed in public. Her sentence will be carried out on the front palace green at noon tomorrow.”
“Yet she came to you…”
Behind the words was a mixture of emotions, and Saryn tried to address them. “She did, and then she broke the rules and killed two people. As you said, Rhytter might have deserved it, but the other woman didn’t, and we don’t like our guards going off and killing people. Who would trust us for long if we allowed that to happen and didn’t punish the one responsible?”
“Lord Nessil did. No one said anything.” There was a challenge, and resignation, beneath the words.
“I’m not Lord Nessil. Neither is the regent.”
“That’d be good.” Haelora smiled, a wry yet sad expression.
“If we can make it last?”
“That’d be up to you, Commander, I fear. The Lady Regent is fair and has a good heart, but the lord-holders respect only strength and power.”
“What about the people?”
“The people…we don’t expect much. Don’t tariff too high and don’t rip down doors and take our daughters. Pay for most of what you take. That’s what most people expect.”
Saryn concealed an internal wince. “I don’t think that’s all. I doubt you like fighting among the lord-holders because the deaths fall on your sons and cousins.”
“And now, if you fight, some will fall upon daughters.”
“That is true, but they will have a chance to be more than victims.”
Haelora’s expression remained sad. “What will that change?”
Saryn almost said that she was in Lornth to stop the senseless fighting—except that she realized she had already been fighting in what were nearly senseless conflicts. “I can only say that I will do what I can.”
“That is an honest pledge, unlike many.”
Saryn looked squarely at the innkeeper. “What should I know that you know, and I don’t?”
Haelora shook her head. “I cannot say…for I do not know what you do.”
“You know I am a stranger in a strange land.”
“You are, and yet you are not. You look like a young woman, except in your eyes, but you are not. Those eyes have seen what I would not wish to have seen…”
Saryn waited.
“Do not worry about the people of Lornth, except to save them from the worst of the lords. We can live through anything except the worst of weakness and of evil. Even that, we will survive.” Haelora smiled, faintly, but not unhappily. “Thank you for coming. I will tell others, and your guards are always welcome here.”
“Thank you.” Saryn nodded politely. “I must go.”
As she left the public room, she could sense Haelora watching her. Why does everyone watch me leave? Because they want me to go, or because I’m something strange that they’ve never seen? Or both?
She didn’t have an answer to that…or to more than a few other questions.
LXV
Early as she had been up the day before, Saryn was up earlier on threeday and meeting with Hryessa in the small space at the west end of the barracks, assigned to the captain as a company officer.
“You’ve checked the platform and the scaffold?” asked Saryn.
“Yes, ser. The ropes are in place, and they’ll hold her tight.” Hryessa looked at Saryn. “I can’t say as I like doing this in public.”
“We do it anywhere else, and someone will claim we were hiding something or that we really didn’t do it at all, and that they saw Fynna in Rohrn or Carpa or who knows where else. It’s going to be a show, no matter what we do,” Saryn said gruffly. “So we need to make it a good show—one that demonstrates that we mean what we say and that no one should mess with us, either. Besides, you have to deal with Sineada.”
“That’s just a whipping. She’ll recover, and she might learn something from it,” replied Hryessa. “You…that’s different. You sure you want to do it, Commander?” asked Hryessa, her voice deferential. “We could use an ax.”
“Do I want to? No. Do I have to? Yes. It sends a message that even the Commander of the W
estwind Guard knows weapons…and needs to be treated with the same respect as any male commander.”
“Men don’t—”
“They don’t have to. Everyone believes that they can. In Lornth, they don’t believe that about women, and we have to change that.” As quickly as possible.
At that, Hryessa nodded.
“Now…can we mount three squads?”
“I’d figured that, one squad on each side of the space you’ll need, and one squad behind, with two guards on the platform for each of them to tie her up.”
“They can handle Fynna if she gets wild?”
“Those two can. Zelha grew up tossing steers, and Marha is just as tough. If they’d been with Fynna, been a different matter.”
“Good.”
Once they had the details worked out, Saryn spent some time sharpening both her blades, then doing what amounted to a casual inspection of barracks and stables. Both were far neater and cleaner than when they had first come to Lornth.
At half a glass before noon, the procession from the palace began with a mournful trumpet fanfare from the gate tower. Mournful, but off-key. That was just another part of the palace staff where competence was less than marginal. Is that true of all small kingdoms…or is Lornth worse?
Saryn didn’t have an answer to that question, like she didn’t to so many others, and she watched as the first squad rode out and drew up in a north–south line, each rider facing east, and the first rider close enough to the stone platform that the nose of her mount was even with the west–southwest corner. The second squad rode out and took position in a line opposite the first, the distance between them the width of the platform. Then came three guards, with Rheala and Hoilya from fourth squad escorting Sineada—the girl who had been discovered stealing—with her hands tied before her. Behind them came Zelha and Marha, with Fynna between them, her hands tied behind her. Marha held the leads to Fynna’s mount. Saryn and Hryessa, riding slowly, followed, accompanied by Agala, who rode slightly behind them. Behind them rode the third group of riders—the remainder of fourth squad, led by Klarisa.
Zelha and Marha led Fynna’s mount directly to the stone platform in the middle of the green, from which three gallows trees rose, none of which seemed to have been used recently. They waited until Saryn and Hryessa had reined up, some ten yards short of the platform, and until fourth squad took position as an east–west line, so that the guards formed three sides of a rectangle, with the platform comprising the fourth side.
As Saryn and Hryessa waited, Rheala and Hoilya reined up at the steps on the left end of the platform, and the other two halted the three mounts at the right end. Saryn studied the crowd. From what she could see, there were more than a hundred townspeople present, possibly twice that.
Rheala and Hoilya tied the three mounts, then marched the trembling Sineada up to a space between two gallows tree supports and tied her wrists and ankles in place, then stepped back. Hryessa rode forward to the platform, with Agala riding behind her. When the guard captain dismounted, she handed the reins to the guard and climbed the five steps to the platform, carrying a whip.
“You have stolen from those you were trusted to protect,” said Hryessa. “That is theft, and you will receive ten lashes from the whip. If you are ever found stealing again, you will be executed.”
While Saryn wasn’t totally happy about that, a second offense of serious theft was a death sentence in most of Candar, and she wasn’t about to try to change it.
Hryessa did not shy away from using close to full force of the whip, until the end, when Saryn could tell that the guard captain pulled the last two lash strokes.
After the last lash, Hryessa stood back and raised the whip. “Justice is done. You are hereby banished from Lornth and will be sent to Rohrn to make your way there as you can.”
Hoilya and Rheala untied Sineada and half marched, half carried her to the mount that had brought her to the platform. Then they set her on the horse and mounted beside her, moving close enough to support her, if necessary.
Hryessa returned to her mount, and she and Agala rode back to take position beside Saryn. The three—and all the other guards—waited until Marha and Zelha marched a shuddering Fynna into position and tied her there.
Then Saryn eased the gelding forward, just two yards, and spoke, using a touch of order to amplify her words across the green.
“You have killed two people you were entrusted to protect, and you used the weapon you were given to protect them. That is murder, twice over. The sentence is death by the very weapon you misused.”
Saryn summoned the darkness and the flows, then stood in the stirrups, and drew and threw the short sword, smoothing and guiding its flight.
“No!!!”
The weapon sliced through Fynna’s chest, burying itself to its hilt and cutting off her last scream. Her body jerked but once, then went limp.
The entire green was silent as Saryn rode forward to the execution platform.
There, the two guards moved to the body. Zelha removed the short sword and stepped to the front edge, where she tendered the bloody blade to the commander.
Saryn raised the blade and spoke, once more letting order magnify her stern words. “Justice is done, under the Code of the Guard and the laws of Lornth. Let this be a warning to any who might consider breaking either.”
Saryn remained motionless, still holding the blade, while the two guards cut the body loose and carried it to the horse that Fynna had ridden, laying it facedown and sideways across the saddle before they re-mounted their horses. Saryn tried to use her senses to gather an impression of what the townspeople felt, but the greatest impressions she got were that, while the thrown short sword had stunned most of the onlookers, most felt that the punishments had been too quick and that both women should have suffered more.
People… She refrained from shaking her head and waited until the four guards dealing with Sineada and the dead figure of Fynna were in position before the platform and ready to ride. Then she looked to Hryessa.
“Guards! Return!” ordered Hryessa.
Fourth squad led the return procession to the palace courtyard.
As she and Hryessa rode slowly back, Saryn glanced to the guard captain. “They didn’t want a whipping and an execution. They wanted public torture.”
“Of course,” replied Hryessa. “It was good that you threw the sword. That way, no one will complain in public. They will mutter, but they will not say more where we can hear it.”
Once they were in the courtyard, in front of the stables, after dismounting, Saryn cleaned the blade, and her hands, before unsaddling the gelding.
When she was finished, she left the stables, heading for the palace. Dealdron was helping with the burial detail, such as it was. Not a single Lornian armsman was in sight, except for the four with gate duty.
Saryn’s next duty was to report to the regent, and she made her way to Zeldyan’s study. The regent was waiting, with a carafe and two goblets of red wine. She motioned to the chair across the small table from her.
Saryn took it. “It’s done.”
“I saw. I watched the execution and whipping from the tower. Several hundred people were there. It looked most impressive.” Zeldyan paused. “What if you had missed?”
“I would have looked very foolish. But I didn’t miss. I can’t afford to.”
“No, you cannot. You are wise to understand that.”
“Those who watched were looking for torture. I’m afraid we disappointed them.” Saryn didn’t bother to keep all the irony out of her voice.
“You also frightened them. They left the green quickly.” Zeldyan sipped her wine, then looked up. “The courier returned from The Groves. They rode much of the night both ways.”
Saryn couldn’t sense grief or despair. “So far, your father’s seen no sign of Kelthyn’s company of armsmen?”
Zeldyan nodded. “At least he knows, and he and Gadsyn can prepare. The courier might have reached The Groves
before Kelthyn’s armsmen. The old east road is much longer.”
“They might be headed elsewhere.”
“He’s sending his own messengers to the others in the north.”
“You’ve done what you can,” Saryn said.
“I have heard those words before, Saryn. When all goes wrong, they are cold comfort.”
“We have to take comfort where we can.” Saryn took a sip of the wine before continuing. “There’s another matter…much smaller. One of our ostlers came with the last wagon from Westwind. He has been checking the feed for the horses, and the grain contains quite a bit of chaff and the tiny oats that are mostly hulls…”
“I will talk to the steward.” Zeldyan smiled coolly. “I will tell him that you are concerned about the quality of the feed.”
“Perhaps, at least, you could pay less or obtain more…” suggested Saryn.
“For a time, and then, when we are gone or occupied with greater matters, they will return to putting chaff and the poorer oats in the feed.”
Saryn nodded, not in agreement, but in understanding.
“Do you know what is the saddest of all of this?”
Saryn was afraid she knew, but she merely shook her head.
“Those who have helped me more in the past season and watched my back are those who killed my consort, while those who claim to be my lords and people scheme to bring me and my son down.”
“Where would you like us to visit next?” asked Saryn.
“We might try Kelthyn. If he has a company elsewhere, he might be more welcoming.” Zeldyan took another sip of wine. “Or perhaps Keistyn. Think it over, and tell me what you think in the morning.”
“I will.” Saryn didn’t press. Zeldyan was waiting for something, and what ever it might be was unlikely to be good. “We’ll be doing some mounted drills later this afternoon, mainly with the newer guards.”
“They already do not look much different from the others.”
“They still have much to learn.” And little time in which to learn it. “If you will excuse me.”
“Of course.” Zeldyan’s smile was faint, concealing some sort of worry, but not, Saryn thought, about her or the Westwind guards.
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