Divided Allegiance

17

Suli grabbed the web strands that bound Paks, then yanked her hand back as welts rose on her palm. Arvid ran past Paks to look at Ambros and the priest.

“He’s dead,” he said shortly.

“Both?” asked Mal.

“Yes. Both.” Arvid sighed, then turned back to help Paks and Suli hack the web apart. “Lady, that’s a dire trap you’re caught in.”

“I know.” Paks could hardly speak for mingled anger and shame—Ambros was dead, and she had not been able to fight. She kept cutting grimly, until finally she could step out of the web. Her clothes were charred to rags, and Arvid looked at her mail with respect.

“That’s . . . very good mail you’re wearing.”

“Yes—” Paks touched one of the burns on her face gingerly, and went to look at Ambros’s body. The priest’s gray lash had laced blistered welts across his face. Together, she and Mal straightened his body, wrapping his cloak around it. Arvid and the other yeoman stood watch at the door, but no sound came from the corridor. Paks suspected that with their master dead, and his control broken, the men they’d fought had fled, either to the surface, or to deeper hiding places. Suli roamed the room idly, staring at the tapestries, then stooped over the dead priest’s body.

“Look at this,” she said, lifting a silver chain around the dead priest’s neck. “It’s got—”

“Drop that!” Paks remembered the Achryan’s medallion in Rotengre. “It’s magic.”

Suli looked startled, and dropped it less quickly than Paks intended. But nothing happened.

Paks could not define what she felt. She had not wanted to go back underground; she had not wanted to meet another evil mage. But she liked Ambros, had gotten used to his cheerful face. When he told her his dream, she felt his trust in her—and as always, gave trust for trust in return. In a vague way she had hoped—and made herself believe—that what they might face under the keep was not nearly so bad as the possessed elf-lord had been. She had thought Ambros’s dream was the dream of an untried soldier, a recruit thinking too much of the coming battle.

Now he was dead. She had failed him. She, the seasoned soldier, had not been able to fight. The untried recruit, the boy (as she thought of him), had fought on, alone, and died without her aid. He was as dead as Macenion, as Saben, two others she had not saved. As she took the precautions she knew to take—setting a watch, planning their return to the surface—her mind roiled.

Only after they had started back did she begin to realize what her position might be. What Sir Felis would think. What the Marshal would think. What everyone would think, when their yeoman-marshal lay dead and the experienced fighter let herself be trapped in a net. She did not know how grim her expression was until Arvid spoke.

“Lady? Do you foresee some trouble I do not? Your sorrow for the yeoman-marshal, yes, but—what else?”

Paks shook her head. “I did it all wrong.”

“All wrong?” Arvid looked at her with obvious surprise. “We went against a larger force, on their ground, and have only one dead and a few wounded, and you think you did it all wrong? By Simyits’s eyebrow, lady, we could all be dead.”

“No thanks to me that we aren’t.”

“Nonsense. You forget that you fought that priest too. Quite well, I might add—and you were right to jump ahead in the dark when you did. I only thought afterward that if flint and steel wouldn’t spark, then my oil flask probably wouldn’t burn anyway. That young man died bravely, but not because you failed. Though I expect you won’t miss an overhead net trap again.”

Paks shook her head, but felt a little better. The others said nothing, but smiled at her shyly when she looked at them. They were at ground level again when Arvid beckoned her aside.

“I’ll be saying farewell,” he said with a smile. “Good luck to you, Lady Paksenarrion—you have the makings of a great warrior. You’re already a good one. Keep thinking on all sides of a question—”

“But what do you mean, are you going?”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“My work is done,” he said with a shrug. “I was hired, as I said, to kill or convince the fellow to join the Guild. In my judgment, he would have made a poor member, even if he had been willing to join. I have seen him dead, and I have taken enough value to repay the Guild some of what it lost by his unlicensed theft.” Paks had not seen him take anything; while she was still sorting that out, he dipped into a pocket and handed something to her. “Here—a gift for you. Unlike your gnomish friends, I prefer to pay my debts at once.” Paks felt a something like a handful of pebbles through the thin leather of her glove. “No—don’t look now. Gratitude bores me. You see, I don’t think I’d like to explain everything to the Marshal—or have another talk with Sir Felis. You have enough witnesses to your actions; I need none for mine, if I go now.” He lifted her hand, still clenched around his gift, to his lips; Paks had never seen or imagined such a gesture. Before she could say anything, he had dropped it and moved lightly away, not looking back. She stuffed the handful, still unseen, into a pocket in her tunic, and turned to the others.

“And if I say it’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard? Ambros, at his age, to go haring off after a priest of Achrya! You, to let him—!” The Marshal, brows bristling in fury, strode back and forth in the grange, hands thrust into his belt. Paks, Mal, and the other yeomen stood against the wall; Ambros’s body lay on the platform, still wrapped in his cloak.

“Marshal, if I may—” Sir Felis looked almost as angry as the Marshal. The Marshal stopped in midstride, balanced himself, and nodded shortly. Sir Felis looked at all their faces before he spoke. “Marshal, when he told me what he planned, I thought as you. A fool’s plan, I told him. I think—I think I was wrong.”

“Wrong! With him dead, and—”

“Wait, Marshal. I told him he had no experience. I told him that orders were orders. I insulted her—” he nodded at Paks, “—and told him he was a fool to go anywhere with a thief and a mercenary. And then he told me, Marshal, that his orders came not only from you but from Gird.”

The Marshal’s face contracted, showing wrinkles it would not bear for many years. “It wasn’t—”

“I didn’t think it was Gird. I told him that, too—that too many youngsters thought the gods blessed their folly. But Marshal—I think I said too much. Gird graces the hard head, as well as the strong arm. He was angry, at me, and that made him—”

“Maybe not.” The Marshal sighed. “If it was Gird, if it wasn’t just a childish stunt—” He looked at the others. “What do you know about this? Were you all in it with him—did he think it up—or what?” For a moment no one answered. Then Mal, his voice still distorted by the bruises on his face, spoke up.

“Sir Marshal, Ambros was determined to find the priest as soon as he came back from talking to the robbers. He told me then that Paks thought he should wait for you—but he was sure that he couldn’t.”

“Is that true, Paksenarrion? Did you try to dissuade him?”

Paks nodded. “Yes, sir. When he first told me, on the way back from the keep, I thought he was crazy.” She felt the blood rush to her face, and glanced down. “I—he had told me, sir, of a dream, a few days before. He dreamed he was killed, in some battle. It was the day after you left.”

“Did he think it was a true dream?”

“He wasn’t sure. He asked me—I didn’t know. He thought it might be an evil sending to frighten him from doing what he should. That’s what finally made him do this, sir, I’m sure. I tried—I tried to tell him it could be a warning from Gird—or something like that—but he thought he had to find out.”

“But why couldn’t he wait? At least a few days—” The Marshal looked toward Ambros’s body.

“He—he thought it must be soon, sir.” Paks felt the tears burning in her eyes. She hoped Ambros would not mind her telling the dream now. “He could see—in the dream—the marks I gave him that last night at drill. The cut hadn’t healed.” The Marshal nodded, silent. Then he looked at the others.

“Did he tell any of you this dream?”

“No, sir.” They answered in a ragged chorus. Mal went on. “I knew something was wrong, sir—he didn’t say about the dream, but when I said something about not being in best shape to fight, he took me up on it and said I should stay behind.”

The discussion dragged on for hours. Finally the Marshal dismissed them, having, as it seemed, worn out his anger. Paks was so tired she could hardly walk, but her mind kept buzzing at her. She made it to the inn, and up the stairs, without a word to anyone. Stretched on her bed, still wearing her armor, she wondered what she’d done with her horse, and was too tired to get up and find out. She thought she would never go to sleep. Cold air rolled over her from the window. At last she managed to pull a blanket over her and slept.

Dawn came gray and foggy. She had left the shutters open; the floor near her window was wet and cold. Paks looked at the beads of moisture with narrowed eyes; she didn’t want to move. She heard noises from the rest of the inn, footsteps and voices. Her legs hurt. Her shoulder ached. Something was poking a hole in her side. That finally moved her—that hard lumpy something which seemed to be underneath a rib no matter how she squirmed. In one rush she threw back the blanket and staggered to her feet. Her boots skidded on the wet floor as she reached for the shutters.

The remains of her clothes hung on the fine chainmail like dead leaves on a shapely branch. Only her leather tunic was whole, though scarred by the net as if it had been touched by flame. She ripped the rags free, glad she had worn her old clothes for that trip, rather than the new ones. She slid out of the mail, noticing as she did a lumpy pocket in her tunic. Arvid’s present. She reached into it and pulled out a handful of fire.

After a moment, she could see what it really was. A string—several strings, interconnected—of fiery jewels, some white and some blue. It poured through her hand like sunlit waterdrops. The clasp was gold. She stared, openmouthed, then tucked it quickly away. When she opened the door, she nearly fell over Suli, who was curled up asleep outside.

“It won’t work,” said Paks firmly. She avoided Suli’s eyes, tracing a design on the table with one finger. “It won’t work because I’m not what you hoped for—and it’s not as easy as you think.”

“I know it’s not,” said Suli. “I know—I saw Ambros die—it was terrible!” Paks shot a glance at her; the girl’s face was solemn. “I still want it—even though I know—and I don’t see why you won’t—”

“You don’t know!” Paks lowered her voice after that. “Suli, if you think that was bad—one man dead, and quickly dead—you don’t know anything.” She thought of Effa’s broken back, of Captain Ferrault at Dwarfwatch. “You think because you’ve survived a couple of fights—difficult fights, yes, I’ll grant you—that you’re ready—”

“Just to be your squire,” pleaded Suli. “I know I couldn’t earn my way yet, as a soldier. But you could teach me—”

“I don’t know enough myself. No, don’t argue. I know what a private in the Duke’s Company knows, and a little more. You think it’s a lot—that’s because you don’t know—” Paks broke off, shaking her head. Would this have convinced her, the year she left home? Would anything convince Suli, now glaring at the table? She could feel that stubborn resolution as if it were a flame. She tried again. “Suli, I do think you can be a good soldier. You are strong, fast, and fairly skilled. More skilled than I was when I left home. I’m not trying to keep you from becoming a fighter. If you don’t want to join a mercenary company, try one of the guards’ units. Or ask Marshal Cedfer about training in the Fellowship. But all I can teach is fighting skills, and I’m finding out how much more I need. Why, when I first came, I’d never stayed in an inn before—”

“That’s why I don’t want to join a company,” said Suli. “Staying all together, never on my own. I already know how to live on my own—and I can help you with that.”

“You fight too much,” Paks said. She had heard that from Mal and the others. Suli blushed. Paks went on. “My old sergeant said soldiers were fools to get in brawls. Most folk don’t like soldiers anyway, and you get a reputation for causing trouble, they’re glad enough to see you in the lockup or sold to slavers.”

“We don’t have any slavers here,” muttered Suli.

“No, but you’ve got a lockup.” Paks drained her mug. “Look, Suli, that’s beside the point. It’s not you. It’s me. I’m not ready to take on someone to train. I was looking for more training for myself. If I were just adventuring, it’d be different, but I’m not. I want—”

“But I’ll never have another chance,” Suli burst out. “Nobody pays any attention—I’m just a crazy girl, that’s what they think. I thought you would help—you’re a woman, after all—and I’ll never get out of this place if you don’t—”

Paks slapped the table. “That’s just what I’ve been telling you, Suli. How to get out and get the training you need. But you don’t want to do it the right way. You want it to come all at once. I can see it in your eyes—you look at my sword, and my mail, and that big horse, and see yourself. What you don’t see is the years in between, the years it took me to get all that. And there’s no other way. Yes, I was lucky—I got some of it by a lucky chance. But the experience, the fighting skill, no. That came from years of just what you say you don’t want—daily drill, daily work, battles that you call dull. That’s what gave me the skill to take a chance when it came. You can’t just leap from being a village girl with a knack for swordplay to—” she paused, uncertain how she would describe herself honestly.

“It could happen,” said Suli. “It could. If you had found someone before you joined the company, she could have taught you everything you needed. You might have been rich and famous before now.”

“I might have been dead before now, too. And Suli, knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have hired myself back then. It took the Duke’s recruit company months to train any of us.”

“But I’ve been training, with the Marshal. You’ve seen me—I’m not a beginner.”

Paks sighed. She wondered if she had seemed so—so young, when she’d joined the Company. All that eagerness. At least she had taken Jornoth’s advice, had not just run away to search for adventure on her own. She was trying to frame an answer, aware of Suli’s intense gaze, when a shadow fell on her. She looked around. One of the senior yeomen nodded to her.

“Lady Paksenarrion? Marshal Cedfer would like to speak with you in the grange.” He smiled at Suli, who reddened. “They say, Suli, that you fought well with this lady.”

“She did,” said Paks.

“We’ll have to see about transferring you to the senior rolls,” said the man to Suli. “Might make a yeoman-marshal, might she?” he asked of Paks.

“I—don’t know how you choose yeoman-marshals, but Suli is a good swordsman.” Paks stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get my cloak—” The yeoman sat down and began talking to Suli; Paks was relieved.

The Marshal’s office was slightly cold; Paks wondered why he had lit no fire in the small fireplace. Then she saw that the Kuakgan stood leaning in the corner, quiet as a shadow.

“Come in, Paksenarrion,” said the Marshal. “We’ve been talking about you.” She glanced quickly at the Kuakgan, who said nothing. What had they said? The last talks with the Marshal had been painful enough; she knew he no longer blamed her for Ambros’s death, but she still blamed herself. She sat down when he gestured at a chair; the Kuakgan moved forward to take another.

“You will be wondering why,” the Marshal went on. “I, as you know, would like to see you join the Fellowship of Gird. As a Marshal of Gird, I am interested in all soldiers, as well as the cause of right. In your case, something more moves me. It is for this that I contacted the Kuakgan, and talked with him about you.”

“Yes, sir,” said Paks, when he paused as if for some comment. She didn’t know what else to say.

“Before we go on, would you mind telling me whether you have accepted Suli’s service? I know she wants to be your squire, or some such—she’s been wanting a way out of Brewersbridge for the last three years.”

“Marshal Cedfer, I was talking to her when your yeoman asked me to come here. I don’t—I know I’m not a knight, and have no way to use a squire. I’m not a wandering free sword—which she seems to think—and I don’t need a companion. I told her that.”

“Have you any complaint of her?”

“No. None at all. She fought bravely against the hool, as I told you, and did well against the priest’s guards. But, sir—she’s not ready to be a soldier, I don’t think. And I’m not the one to train her. I need more training myself, to be what—what I’d like.”

“Do you know yet what that is, Paksenarrion?” asked the Kuakgan.

“No—not exactly.” Every time she tried to imagine herself in some noble’s troops—even the Tsaian Royal Guard—the picture blurred and blew away. “Not a mercenary—what people think of as a mercenary. Not a caravan guard the rest of my life.”

“A knight?” asked Marshal Cedfer. “A captain, perhaps?”

“Maybe.” Paks looked at her hands. “I am a soldier, I enjoy swordplay, I want that kind of life. But not just for—for fighting anything, or for show. I want to fight—”

“What needs fighting?” suggested the Kuakgan.

Paks looked at him and nodded. “I think that’s what I mean. Bad things. Like the robbers in Aarenis that killed my friends, or Siniava—he was evil. Or that—whatever that held the elf lord. Only I don’t think I have the powers for that. But I want to fight where I’m sure it’s right—not just to show that I’m big and strong. It’s the same as tavern brawling, it seems to me—even if it’s armies and lords—”

The Kuakgan nodded. “You’ve learned a lot, Paksenarrion, besides what most soldiers know. I thought so before, but now I’m sure. Do you know anything of the rangers in Lyonya?”

“No.” Paks frowned. “Why?”

“You have fought with the elfane taig. It may be that you can sense the taigin, and if so you would be able to work with them.”

“Master Oakhallow—” the Marshal began. The Kuakgan waved him to silence.

“Marshal, I don’t question the sincerity of Girdsmen. You know that. We honor the same gods. But some fighters have abilities Gird does not use. She may be one of them.” He turned back to Paks. “Paksenarrion, we agree that you have shown ability to fight evil. You have shown a desire to know more of good, and to fight for it. We both think you have been touched by the evil you’ve fought—not to contaminate you, but in such wise that you should not go back to ordinary soldiering. Do you agree?”

Paks was too bewildered to answer. Marshal Cedfer spoke up.

“Paksenarrion, when you came you said your Duke had recommended additional training—even toward a captaincy. We are prepared to guide you toward such training, but you must choose. I can give you a letter to the Marshal-General at Fin Panir; she will probably take my recommendation and let you study with the training order there. From that you can become a knight in either of the two Girdish orders—or even a paladin, if Gird’s grace touches you.”

“And I can give you introduction to the rangers of Lyonya,” said the Kuakgan. “If you satisfied them, they might recommend you to the Knight-Commander of the Knights of Falk. That would be a few years away, however. But in either case, you would use your skills only in causes of good. If that way of fighting did not appeal, you could always leave.”

“You could not take Suli with you, either way,” said the Marshal. “That’s why I asked. If you had contracted with her, the gnome merchants have told me that they can get you a contract from the gnome prince of Gnarrinfulk. Something in the way of soldiering, I don’t know what. But if you aren’t taking Suli, then—” He stopped and cocked his head, waiting for her answer.

“But I’m not Girdish,” she managed to say. Nothing else came out.

“No. But I daresay that in Fin Panir, at the High Lord’s Hall, after training with others of the faith, that Gird would make plain his interest in you.” The Marshal leaned back a little in his chair. “I think he has already, Paksenarrion. When I think of the things you have come through—” Paks thought to herself that he didn’t know the half of it. She had not told him all about Aarenis. She remembered what the priest of Achrya had said: “near enough a paladin. . . . Achrya will be pleased if I interfere in the growth of a paladin of Gird . . .” And the training at Fin Panir was famous throughout the north. She might become a knight—or even a paladin—she pushed the thought away. It was for the gods to think of such things, not a soldier. But the other way. Rangers—she knew nothing of them. The thought of more powers like the elfane taig daunted her, though she hated to admit it. And years of service, before she might think of the Knights of Falk.

She looked at the Kuakgan again, meeting his dark eyes squarely. “Sir—Master Oakhallow—I honor you—”

“I know that, child,” he said, smiling.

“If you have a—” she stopped, knowing what she meant, but not how to say it. If he demanded it, in return for releasing her from guilt for the snowcat’s murder, she would go. She saw understanding in his eyes.

“I have no commands for you, Paksenarrion,” he said softly. “You have served Brewersbridge well; you have fulfilled my trust in you, and my hope for you. Go with my blessings, whichever way you go.”

“Then—” She looked back at the Marshal. Was it for Ambros, who had trusted her with his fears and died beyond her help? Was it for Canna, who had left her the medallion? Or for something else, something she felt dimly and could not define? “I would be glad, sir, of your recommendation,” she said formally. The Marshal shot a triumphant glance at the Kuakgan; Paks nearly took her words back. But the Kuakgan’s smile was open and friendly. He spoke to her alone.

“Paksenarrion, the Kuakkganni treasure all life created in the first song. We study, we learn, but we do not order a creature from its own way. And the creature itself knows its own way best, unless it is sorely hurt. If the other way had been best for you, you would have known.” He turned back to the Marshal. “Marshal Cedfer, we are no more rivals than two men who plant a seed neither of them knows, and argue until it sprouts whether it will be fireoak or yellowwood. The seed knows itself; it will grow as its nature demands, and when the first leaves open, all arguments are over.”

To Paks’s surprise, the Marshal looked shamefaced. “You’re right, Master Oakhallow. I have no right—but I was hoping so, for some good to come of Ambros’s death.”

The Kuakgan nodded gravely. “And yet you know that good has come of it. The webspinner’s priest is gone, and you will clean that filthy place from end to end. Ambros has shown that your training prepares untried lads for the worst of wars, and the best of ends. You live in constant combat, Marshal, and it makes you alert to each advantage—but the gods move in longer cycles, as well. Be at peace, honest warrior.” He rose and left the room. For a long silent time, Paks and Marshal Cedfer sat in quiet, contented. Then the Marshal shook himself like a wet puppy and snorted.

“Gird’s grace, that fellow could cast a spell on stone. He may have time enough, but I live a normal span, like any man. Paksenarrion, I will write my letter this afternoon. When will you be fit for travel?”

“In a day or so. I’d like to get everything cleaned up.”

“Good. I think you should not linger; winter will close some roads soon, and it makes bitter traveling to the northwest. About Suli—do you want me to talk to her?”

“I told her she should talk to you, but she—”

“She doesn’t want it; she knows what I’ll say. I’ve said it before. All right. I’ll say it again. I can send her to another grange—a larger one—with more women training. Let her know what she can work toward—yeoman-marshal, or something like that. Tell her to come, if you see her.” Paks wondered if it would help, but said she would.