Arms-Commander

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Most likely about Nesslek…or her father—or both.

  In the meantime, Saryn and Hryessa had all too much training to do.

  LXVI

  Despite Zeldyan’s words, it was close to midday on fiveday when Lyentha appeared in the courtyard where Saryn and Hryessa were working with the wooden wands to develop the blade skills of the recruit guards.

  Saryn sensed the young woman’s approach and stepped back. “Yes, Lyentha?”

  “At your convenience, Commander, Lady Zeldyan would appreciate a word with you. She is in her upstairs study.”

  “You can tell the lady I will be there in a few moments.”

  “Yes, Commander.” Lyentha hurried off, clearly relieved.

  “What do you think it is, ser?” murmured Hryessa.

  “Nothing good. There have been too many messengers, and none of them have worn purple. We’re going to have to ride somewhere and fight someone. This time, if it comes to that, I’ll take first squad and whichever recruit squad is farthest along.”

  “They’re really not ready, ser.”

  “I know that, but from what I’ve seen, they’re as good as the locals.” Saryn glanced at the waiting recruits. “Keep working them. I don’t want to keep the regent waiting, and I hate postponing bad news that can only get worse.”

  Hryessa nodded understandingly just before Saryn turned and walked across the courtyard toward the palace.

  Lyentha was standing outside the study door and opened it as Saryn approached. “The commander is here, Lady.”

  Saryn had barely cleared the doorway when the door closed behind her.

  Zeldyan turned from the window farthest to the right. “If you would, Saryn, I have received some messages. I would like you to read the one from Lord Jharyk first.” She extended a heavy sheet of parchment that had been folded and sealed rather than placed in an envelope.

  Saryn took it and read, her eyes coming back to the key phrases.

  …already have seen two Jeranyi attacks on small hamlets, and have lost a number of my armsmen. Those with lands bordering mine have offered sympathy, but feel that they cannot assist. They point out that since help from the regency is not forthcoming, they cannot afford to stretch their limited forces…

  “That’s effectively blackmail,” Saryn said. “If you don’t help him…”

  “Exactly,” replied Zeldyan. “It does not help that he has always been lax in maintaining armsmen because he claims that too many of them will drive a lord-holder to ruin. Lord Nessil almost took his holding years back in order to give it to a stronger lord-holder.”

  Another type who wants someone else to shed their blood because defense isn’t cost-effective. “Why didn’t he?”

  “He always paid his tariffs on time. He still does. Now…if you will read this one.”

  Saryn took the second sheet, which had been sealed inside an envelope, and began to read the words beneath the blue-and-gray seal.

  My dearest Lady Regent,

  It has come to my attention that you have been visiting various lord-holders within Lornth. Your diligence in doing so is commendable, although, had those of us with the best interests of the future of Lornth been consulted, we might have suggested that the overlord-heir accompany you, since it is in his name and for his future that the regency exists. More disturbing, however, is the presence of the so-called arms-commander of the brigand land occupying sections of the Roof of the World on such visits, for it was those very brigands who not only usurped Lornian lands but whose acts resulted in the very need for a regency.

  As a lord-holder devoted to Lornth, I find that such a lack of concern about both the future of Lornth and the circumstances that led to the present unfortunate situation suggests consideration by all lord-holders of the need for a more impartial regency and one that looks to the early rule of Lord Nesslek under such. That is, unless the present regency will consider taking the necessary steps to reclaim Lornth’s lost lands and remove with due haste agents of those who have caused such losses.

  I remain your most obedient and concerned lord-holder.

  The seal and signature were those of Jaffrayt.

  Blue and gray? Saryn looked up. “Do Jaffrayt’s armsmen wear blue and gray?”

  “I would think so. Those are his colors.”

  “This wasn’t the only one, was it? There were a number of messengers.”

  “Yes, there were,” replied Zeldyan. “There were similar missives from Lord Rherhn of Khalasn, Lord Orsynn of Cardara, and Lord Keistyn. Kelthyn wrote expressing concerns that the regency was not meeting the needs of the lord-holders. Shartyr’s letter was less demanding. He just expressed a need for agreement among all the lord-holders in dealing with Lornth’s future.”

  “So that he could claim to the others that he’d also written you but without declaring directly his opposition to you and the regency.”

  “He has met you. The others who wrote have not.”

  “If I’m counting correctly,” Saryn pointed out, “you’ve received six letters of complaint or threat. That doesn’t count Henstrenn, who’s already shown where he stands, even if he hasn’t put it in writing. How many of the remaining southern lords might support the regency, besides Lord Jharyk?”

  “There are eight lord-holders in the south, now that there is no lord-holder of Rohrn. The only one who has not made his feelings known is Lord Mortryd of Tryenda. Although he is not actually in the south, Lord Mortryd tends to follow the southern lord-holders.”

  “I can take two squads, one of regulars and one of recruits.” Saryn paused. “We’ll need a guide, and I think we should leave under the cover of darkness. Outside of the palace, few know how many guards we have here now, anyway.”

  “You would do this?”

  Do I have any choice? “If Jharyk and Lord Mortryd back the regency, with the holders of the north, most of the lord-holders will be behind you. If you don’t send some help to Jharyk…”

  “Then much may be lost.” Zeldyan paused. “I should send a squad of armsmen with you.”

  “One squad…those who rode with us before, I think. We will leave tonight after dark.”

  “Let me send for Undercaptain Maerkyn to meet me in a glass. Then, before he arrives, I will tell you what you should know about Lord Jharyk.” Zeldyan shrugged. “I would tell you of the Jeranyi, but there is little I can say except that they ride and strike quickly, then vanish into the plains or hills.”

  Wonderful. Trying to combat guerrilla warfare on horse back while helping a lord whose support is lukewarm at best.

  Zeldyan lifted the bell on the table and rang it once.

  The door opened, and Lyentha stood there. “Yes, Lady?”

  “Please summon Undercaptain Maerkyn to meet me here in about a glass.”

  Lyentha nodded and closed the door.

  Zeldyan gestured to the chairs and the table. “We might as well sit down while I tell you what I know.”

  Saryn took the seat across from the regent.

  “Jharyk does not merely venerate golds. He worships them more obsessively than the ancient Cyadorans did their long-lost chaos-towers. He also obsesses over women, in a differing fashion, since he is now on his fourth consort, for various calamities befell all the others…”

  Saryn listened, even while thinking, And we have to help this excuse of a lord so that all Lornth doesn’t fall into revolt and into the Suthyan Council’s hands…or purses? There has to be a better way… Except that she couldn’t think of one, not with the limited resources she had.

  Almost exactly a glass later, at least by the sand-glass on the top of the bookcase, Zeldyan finished by saying, “I don’t know how much of that will prove useful, but that is what I know.”

  “I think all of it will be useful in one way or another. It’s always what you don’t know that causes trouble.” Saryn rose. “I’d best start getting the guards ready.”

  As she stepped out of the study and started down the steps, she found Undercap
tain Maerkyn headed up. The undercaptain stopped and stepped to the side of the staircase.

  “Undercaptain,” said Saryn in greeting, “a word with you, if you please.”

  “I’d be most happy, if I can be of assistance, Commander.”

  “What do you know about Lord Jaffrayt?”

  “Besides the fact that he’s said to be a direct descendant of the Pantarans, not much.” Maerkyn shook his head.

  “The Pantarans?”

  “Oh…you wouldn’t know that, Commander. There aren’t any Pantarans. They don’t exist. Whenever the old-timers wanted to blame someone, they blamed it on the Pantarans…”

  “You’re saying that he’s a nobody? Or that his family came from nowhere?”

  Maerkyn nodded. “That’s what they say when they talk about people who claim to be more than they are.”

  Saryn wondered how many more expressions she’d either missed or had to learn. “Is there anything else?”

  “They say he doesn’t pay his armsmen very well.”

  That figures. “And?”

  “Other than that…I don’t know. I’m from the north, near Carpa.”

  “Thank you.” Saryn nodded and continued down the steps, then out across the courtyard.

  Hryessa had to have been watching, because she said something to Shalya, who stepped forward to take over the drills as Hryessa moved away from the guards and met Saryn.

  “Were you right, ser?”

  “Close enough. We’re going to a place called Nuelda, and we need to leave after dark tonight, as quietly as possible. Deryll—he’s the Jeranyi lord or chief or whatever—he’s sending raiders there. Lord Jharyk is one of the few southern lords supporting the regency, and he’s not equipped to deal with them.”

  “The weakest hen house is the one that always wants guard dogs. They usually don’t want to feed them, either.”

  “Something like that. Nuelda is a hundred kays southwest of here. It might be more. I don’t trust anyone’s distance estimates. Lady Zeldyan is sending one squad of her armsmen, under my command, and I’ll take first squad and whichever recruit squad…”

  “Second squad. I’ve moved Yulia from fourth squad to be squad leader, and put two of the recruits in fourth squad as replacements.”

  “Can you handle any more recruits?” Saryn asked.

  “We’re still getting a few. Not so many as before. That might change if word gets around to the other towns. You think we’ll need them?”

  “We’ll need every blade we can train. And every one Daryn can forge.”

  “I’ve told him that. He grumbles, but he works hard. Dealdron has been talking to the other ostlers. He might be able to get ahold of a few more horses…ones that he can work with.”

  “Ones that are trouble but that he can train? We can’t afford many others.”

  “Just capture as many as you can, ser.” Hryessa grinned. “We’ve done pretty well that way.”

  Saryn shook her head. “We need to go inside and go over the supplies.”

  The two walked toward the barracks and the small space that served as Hryessa’s study.

  LXVII

  By oneday morning, Saryn and her detachment had ridden for two days over low, gently rolling rises that held more meadows than tilled fields, and more than a few cattle and sheep. They passed orchards, but the trees were generally low, either olives or apricots, according to Saensyr, the older armsman who was acting as their guide.

  “They look to be even poorer than those in the flats of Gallos,” observed Shalya, the first squad leader, riding for the moment beside Saryn. “They’re overgrazing the meadows.”

  “You’re from Analeria, aren’t you? Did you have raiders like the Jeranyi?”

  Shalya laughed. “Our ancestors were the raiders. They settled down to become herders.”

  “So how do you deal with raiders?”

  Shalya shrugged. “You can only kill them. They won’t stay bought or bribed.”

  “Do you think the Jeranyi are like that?”

  “Worse, from what we’ve heard. Even Lorn the Mighty couldn’t do anything but slaughter them. That was almost a thousand years ago, and they haven’t changed much.”

  A bit past noon, she rode back to talk with Caeris, the squad leader of the palace armsmen.

  “Have you ever fought the Jeranyi, squad leader?”

  “Not since I was first in service, ser. We didn’t so much fight them as guard Lord Sillek’s mages while they picked off the Jeranyi one at a time. Except once when they charged, and they didn’t fare so well.”

  “We should be able to hit them with arrows from a distance…” mused Saryn.

  “The way you hit the Suthyan raiders up north?” asked the squad leader. “You’d have to be out of sight. They don’t even come close to formations. One of their tricks was to string out a company, then swarm in from all sides. Leastwise, that was what the locals told us.”

  “I’ll have to keep that in mind. Do they use spears or bows?”

  “They had short bows, but they didn’t carry as far as yours.”

  While she talked with Caeris for a time, she didn’t learn all that much more.

  Then she joined up with Yulia.

  “What do you think about the squad?”

  “They want to be guards. They work hard. Hryessa weeded out those who didn’t.” Yulia laughed.

  “You meant that, didn’t you? She had them dig or pull out all the grass in the courtyard?”

  “The captain wouldn’t let anyone eat until they finished a section each day. She didn’t eat, either. She told them that what she was making them do was but a fraction of what the guards on the Roof of the World endured. Only four or five quit.”

  That just confirmed what Saryn thought about how women—or many women—were treated in Lornth and how desperate some were to escape.

  “How are they with blades on horse back?”

  “They’ll be all right in making or taking a charge. I wouldn’t like to have them in an all-out melee, though, not yet. We’ve practiced breaking in unison on command. They should be able to execute it well enough not to get spitted, if the locals have pikes.”

  Should is one of those words commanders hate, and this just reminds me why. But Saryn just nodded and kept questioning Yulia…and making a suggestion or two.

  Clouds began to appear in the sky to the south by midmorning. By noon, a mass of darkness loomed across the southern sky. The land the three squads were traveling was less cultivated, with more open pastures, if with scattered stands of trees, although she didn’t think that the woods were anything close to original growth. They just didn’t feel that old.

  She turned in the saddle toward Saensyr. “I take it that there’s no town nearby?”

  The older armsman shook his head. “Just herders for another ten kays, as I recall.”

  Saryn gestured to Shalya. “Squad leader…send out a pair of scouts to see if there’s anywhere ahead that might offer shelter.”

  “Yes, ser.” Shalya glanced toward the darkening sky. “Looks like we’ve got a solid storm moving in.”

  In moments, on Shalya’s orders, two guards urged their mounts away from the main body, then, after another half kay, past the outriders. A half glass later, a misty drizzle began to fall, but there was nowhere in sight that would have offered any real respite from the heavier rain to follow—just open fields with grain and maize looking close to harvest, and pasture, although Saryn could see woods to the west, ahead along the right side of the road.

  If there’s nothing ahead, we could see about the woods up there. Except, in the end, all that trees did was delay the rainfall.

  Another quarter glass passed before the scouts returned. Their report was simple.

  “Another two kays along, past the beginning of the woods up ahead, there’s a herder who’s got an empty barn and an old house with a sound roof that’s only got some timbers in it.”

  “Nothing else?” asked Saryn.

&n
bsp; “No, ser. He says that he’s the only one for another three kays.”

  The mist drizzling down around Saryn wasn’t that bothersome, but the sky was continuing to darken, and she had the feeling it wouldn’t be that long before a hard rain fell. “If that’s what there is, that’s what there is.” She hoped that the herder’s shelter wasn’t too filthy.

  The misty drizzle had definitely shifted to rain by the time Saryn reined up outside the dilapidated barn that squatted before a stand of old oaks—the first truly old trees Saryn had seen since they had left Lornth.

  The herder, wearing oiled leathers, gestured toward the trees. “The old place is back there, to the left and behind the barn.”

  “Lead the way.” Saryn turned to Shalya. “I’ll be back shortly and let you know if the old house is suitable.”

  Saryn let the chestnut gelding follow the herder along a path through knee-high weeds past the left side of the barn and through a gap in a thicket of wild berries—redberries, Saryn thought—and out into a clearing covered with sparse grass and thick moss. At the back of the clearing was a single-story dwelling that looked smaller than it was, overarched as it was by two towering oaks whose branches intertwined well above the roof whose green tiles almost matched the moss covering most of them. The dark blue glazed bricks forming the walls still retained their sheen, except for those where the finish had been crazed by time or impact. Even so, Saryn felt that, from the outside, the ancient dwelling, were it cleaned and repaired, might well provide more livable shelter than the herder’s crooked timber house. A freestanding wall some six cubits wide and more than head high faced with green and blue tiles blocked direct access to the door. Faded yellow tiles formed an intertwining pattern of squares and triangles on the front of the wall.

  Saryn rode up to the low wall, where she discovered an ancient hitching ring made of a bright metal she did not recognize, its shimmer seemingly totally at odds with the age of the structure. After dismounting, Saryn quickly tied the reins to the ring.