Cyador’s Heirs

XIV

For the next two eightdays, as summer turns to harvest, even if the days and nights are no cooler, Lerial continues the same pattern of work in the morning and sparring and arms practice in the afternoon, followed by studies of tactics. On fourday, slightly before midmorning, he is working with Rojana in the small lemon orchard, picking only the lemons that are the right size and shade of yellow. He picks those that can be reached from the ground, and she is the one who climbs the tree.

Lerial hears several yells, and then a harrowing scream.

Before he can say a word, Rojana calls down from the tree, “Something’s happened! A little boy was hit by the brick wagon.” She scrambles down the tree, then grabs Lerial’s arm. “This way!”

Lerial has to run to keep up with her as she races up the lane in the direction of the villa, then crosses the space in front of one of the olive groves and nears the narrow brick-paved road down from the brick kiln.

The teamster is still seated on the wagon seat, holding the two-horse team steady. All the color has drained from his face. Another man and a woman kneel beside the large rear wheel of the wagon, loaded with the same kind of yellow-rust bricks as those used to build the villa and pave the area around it.

A boy stands on the shoulder of the road. He is stone-faced. “I didn’t mean to hurt him bad…” His words are in Hamorian, and are almost defiant.

“What happened?” demands Rojana as she nears the wagon.

The teamster is the one who answers. “One of the boys pushed the other, and he lost his balance and fell under the wheel. I couldn’t stop in time…”

Rojana turns and hurries to the rear of the wagon. Lerial follows. They both look down on a boy, slightly younger than the one standing back from the road.

Lerial gapes. Blood still flows from a wound on the inside of the boy’s upper arm. The flesh is mangled, but only on the underside, as if the iron tire of the wagon had just clipped his arm. How that could have happened without the boy having his entire arm crushed, Lerial has no idea. Even so, the child could die. The woman is trying to stanch the flow of blood, but her efforts appear ineffectual. The man, possibly the teamster’s assistant, just stares.

Rojana grabs Lerial’s arm again. “Do something! You must have learned something from your aunt…”

Lerial pulls off his shirt, then kneels down as Rojana pulls the woman back. The only thing he can see is that there’s too much blood. He quickly wraps the shirt around the boy’s arm above the wound, ignoring the moans and cries as he does. The shirt stops some of the blood flow, but not enough.

“Get me a short stick!”

In moments, Rojana hands him one, and he ties a knot above and below the stick, then turns it a turn, then another. A third turn is enough to stop the blood flow.

Now what do you do? He has nothing with which to clean the gaping gash, and he’s not certain he would even know how to sew up the wound.

“We need to get him somewhere where we can clean the wound and sew it up. As fast as we can.”

“Mother can do that!” says Rojana. “You keep him from bleeding while they carry him to the villa. I’ll have Mother meet you in the courtyard by the fountain.”

Lerial can do that. He also tries to infuse a little order to the boy’s arm as he walks beside the teamster’s assistant, guiding them toward the closest door-the one on the west side of the villa.

Maeroja is waiting when the teamster lays the boy on the courtyard table, and Tyrna has a bucket of water and clean cloths.

Lerial keeps the tourniquet only as tight as necessary and tries to stay out of Maeroja’s way as she cleans and wound and begins to sew it closed. After several stitches, she looks at Lerial.

“Do you see what I’m doing?”

“Yes, Lady.”

She frowns at the term of address, but only says, “I want you to do the next stitch. You’ll have to do worse in the field.”

Lerial sees that there is no way to decline. He takes the needle.

“Keep it close to the last stitch.”

Lerial manages two more stitches before she takes the needle back.

“You have to tie the last stitch, or the wound will open again.”

He knows that, but watches closely to see how she does it.

When the boy’s arm is stitched up and wrapped, Lerial immediately loosens the tourniquet. There is less order in the lower arm than he would like, and he tries to infuse just a bit more. That effort leaves him light-headed, and he has to put out a hand to the table to steady himself.

“You’re white,” says Tyrna. “Does seeing blood do that to you? It does to Aylana.”

“No,” replies Lerial. “It was … something else.” He stands there and listens as Maeroja speaks to the child’s mother in a lilting but fluent Hamorian … with an accent he has heard before … or not exactly … although he cannot recall where he has heard that before. He also realizes that he has never heard Maeroja speak Hamorian before.

“… you must keep this dressing on for the next two days. Keep it clean. Then come back here on sixday. We will see how it heals.” She pauses, then nods toward Lerial. “You are fortunate that … Lerial was close. Otherwise, your son might have bled to death.”

The woman looks to Lerial … and then away, almost as though she does not wish to see him.

Rojana offers Lerial a warm smile, one that leaves him disconcerted.

Why? Why would her smile do that? Is it because he is light-headed?

Once the mother and her son have left, Maeroja looks to Lerial. “You did what the healers do, after I closed the wound, didn’t you?”

“I was worried that the tourniquet was on too long. I tried to strengthen the order in his arm below the wound.”

“He is fortunate in more ways than one.”

“He is,” replies Lerial. “If Rojana had not seen what happened and insisted we go see, we might not have gotten there in time.”

“She thinks quickly, but so did you.” Maeroja smiles. “I think the lemon grove can wait until tomorrow. You two just stay here. I’ll have one of the girls bring refreshments. You both could use them. You especially, Lerial.”

“I could.” Lerial hates to acknowledge weakness, but he is still light-headed and more than relieved to be able to sit down, although he does choose the smaller table.

After Maeroja and Tyrna leave, followed by Aylana, Rojana sits across from Lerial. “You never said you were a healer.”

“I’m not. I know a little bit about healing, and I can focus a little order and a little chaos. That doesn’t make me a magus or a healer.”

“Then you could be a healer, couldn’t you?”

“I could probably heal a little. Maybe more.” Lerial isn’t about to admit that he could be a healer, especially if that means giving up the possibilities of at least leading Mirror Lancers and undertaking the other tasks of a true magus.

“You don’t want to be a healer?”

“Some healing skills are helpful for an officer who leads Mirror Lancers, especially after battles.”

“There’s already too much fighting.”

“It’s necessary.”

“It wouldn’t be if people didn’t fight.”

“What would you do if there weren’t any Lancers, and Meroweyan raiders tried to take your sheep and all the crops?”

“We’d have to fight, but they wouldn’t have to attack.”

“What if they’re attacking because they have no food?” countered Lerial.

“It’s still not right.”

“There are a lot of things that aren’t right, but happen. We have to be prepared for them.”

“We shouldn’t start them.”

Lerial thinks about that, then decides not to reply as one of the serving girls appears with a tray. She sets it on the table.

“Thank you,” he says, but she does not reply, only inclines her head and backs away.

Lerial wonders what he did to frighten or offend her.

“Saenja almost never speaks.”

“Do you know why?” He looks at the tray that holds two mugs, one filled with a greenish juice and the other with dark lager, and a platter with thin slices of what looks to be ham, as well as cheese and a loaf of dark bread. He sets the juice in front of Rojana. “Do you want some bread?”

“You need it more than I do.”

Lerial breaks off a chunk of the bread and cuts away a chunk of cheese that he wraps in a slice of the ham. He alternates mouthfuls of the bread and the ham and cheese, interspersed with swallows of the lager. Before too long, the headache he has not even realized he has begins to vanish, along with the light-headedness.

“I thought you’d be full of yourself,” Rojana declares. “You’re not. Not too much, anyway. That’s good.”

If that’s a compliment, I don’t want an insult. “It’s hard to be too full of yourself when you have an older brother who can drub you in sparring.”

“He won’t be able to do that if you do what father says.” Rojana sips the juice. “I’ll be glad when I can have lager or wine. They taste better.”

“I’m sure they do.” Lerial looks at the platter. It is empty, but he doesn’t recall eating all that, and he is certain that Rojana ate far less than he did.

“You don’t like letting people know what you feel, do you?”

“It’s dangerous when your father is the Duke.”

“That’s sad. No one will ever know how good you are.”

How do you answer that? “I just try to do the best I can.”

“I’m glad.”

For a time, neither speaks.

Then Saenja reappears and takes the tray and the mugs. Even before she leaves the courtyard, Altyrn enters from the north corridor and walks toward the two. “Time for studies, Rojana, and, for you, Lerial, sparring.”

“Yes, ser.”

Both Lerial and Rojana stand immediately. Rojana inclines her head to her father and then offers a long look at Lerial before she leaves, moving in the direction of the study.

A thoughtful expression appears on the majer’s face, then vanishes. He gestures toward the south corridor from the courtyard, and he and Lerial walk side by side toward it. “Maeroja said you were very quick-thinking this morning.”

“Rojana made certain I was,” says Lerial dryly.

“She’s like her mother in more than looks. Listening to the right woman can save a man, and listening to the wrong one will like as not destroy him. So will not listening at all, but it takes longer.” Altyrn pauses. “Listening to any young woman at your age is dangerous … but you’ll learn that soon enough, and nothing I say will change that.”

A tenth of a glass later, Lerial is wielding off attacks by Altyrn and trying to mount his own. For a time, he feels as though he is barely holding off the older man. Then, Altyrn recovers with his wand too low.

Lerial reacts by beating down Altyrn’s wand and thrusting, only to find that the majer has dropped to his knees and come up under Lerial’s wand with his own.

“That’s another trap. Be wary of any opening when your blade is higher than the other man’s.”

Lerial wants to shake his head. The more he learns, the more he discovers it can be used against him.

“Don’t look so hangdog,” says Altyrn dryly. “I have learned a few things over forty years as a Lancer.”

Forty years … and his face is wrinkled and his hair is gray and thinning, and you still have trouble laying a blade on him. “Yes, ser.”

“Just remember … the same thing will happen to you. If you learn what I’m trying to teach you, someday you’ll be looking at a worried young fellow, wondering if you looked that green.” Altyrn raises his wand. “Try again.”

Lerial takes a slow deep breath, squares his shoulders, and lifts his wand.

A good glass later, after Altyrn has run Lerial through learning another set of responses to various attacks, and called an end to the sparring for the day, Lerial washes up, changes into dry garments and makes his way down to the study.

“You’re getting better,” Altyrn announces as Lerial enters, then motions for him to sit down at the round table. “You can’t see it yet, but I have to use more and more things you haven’t come across to surprise you. That’s good.”

Lerial hasn’t thought of it that way.

“You do need a lot more practice, though. Every move needs to be smoother and without hesitation. In another few eightdays, we’ll go over to the post, and I’ll have some of the better blades there spar with you.”

Another few eightdays? How long are you going to be here?

“There’s still so much that you need to learn. I wish that I had some of the books that were lost in Cyad…” Altyrn glances in the direction of the courtyard, his expression almost morose. “That’s why you have to listen to me, because so much of what we had only remains in memory.”

Lerial does not comment, since the majer has said something similar several times over the past season. He also knows what Altyrn has said before, that when those who hold those memories die, even less of the knowledge and lore of Cyador will remain.

The majer straightens. “What sort of a stream path or road is dangerous to follow?”

“If there are trees close to the road, especially if the stream is deep.” That much, Lerial knows. “Or if the road is muddy.”

“There’s another kind of stream road to be wary of, especially in the drylands,” adds Altyrn. “Those are the roads in narrow and dry canyons, if you can see a storm in the upstream direction. Drylands don’t hold water, and a strong cloudburst can fill a small canyon and drown an entire company.”

Lerial frowns.

“Take my word for it. Every few years, it happened in the Grass Hills. It’s happened once here, about five years back. The only thing that didn’t make it worse was that the patrol was only a single squad. Still … losing twenty-one men at once…”

A good two glasses later, Lerial retreats to the courtyard with a small volume written in Hamorian-Necessary Skills of War-one of the few Hamorian books on tactics worth reading, according to Altyrn.

He has some time before dinner, and the courtyard is quiet. He opens the book and begins to read.…

How battles are waged is of the greatest importance to a land. Their outcome is a matter of life or death, the path to either survival or destruction. For these reasons, one must approach battles and their conduct only after studying all that lies behind and beyond them.…

True enough … but obvious. Lerial winces and leafs through the book to another section.

Victory is the only object of battle. If a victory cannot be obtained expeditiously, weapons are blunted and morale depressed. For there has never been a war that is drawn out from which a land has benefited. Likewise when armsmen attack cities and not warriors, their strength will be exhausted without commensurate reward.…

Lerial has no doubt that reading Necessary Skills of War will indeed be a battle. Still, he turns back to the first page and begins again … taking a deep breath.

Dinner comes … and goes, and there is no mention of the accident with the boy, but Altyrn and Maeroja do talk about the reports of more Meroweyan raiders near Narthyl and even crossing the hills to the northeast of the Clyan River.

As Lerial listens, the question that had come to him that morning resurfaces in his thoughts. Who had spoken like Maeroja? Who?

During the remainder of dinner … and afterward, Lerial tries to recall who it might have been. Then … as he is about to drift off to sleep, the answer comes-Kyedra! The daughter of Duke Atroyan. Yet it wasn’t quite the same.

He is still pondering when sleep claims him.