Arms-Commander (41 page)

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.

“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.

She stepped toward the herder, gesturing toward the wall in inquiry.

“All the old Cyadoran houses had them. That was so no one could look inside at the womenfolk. That's what my grandma said, anyways.”

Saryn followed the herder around the wall. He had to lift the door slightly as he opened it in order to get it over the slightly buckled masonry. Saryn noted a narrow shining metal shutter in the center of the door, set approximately at eye height, and apparently made of the same metal as the hitching ring. Behind the door, inside the dwelling, was another privacy wall, but the floor between the door and the inside wall and to each end of the privacy wall comprised a mosaic. Although a handful of tiles were missing, and dust covered the remaining tiles, Saryn had no trouble making out the image of a mounted figure with a shining lance squaring off against an enormous lizard.

“Stun lizard. From the Accursed Forest,” said the herder laconically, before he stepped into a room that stretched the width of the dwelling. The third of the room to the left was filled with stacks of short timbers. “Good place to dry the oak.”

On the right end in the far corner was what looked like a ceramic stove. That side of the chamber was otherwise vacant, except for a solid ring of the shimmering metal set into the wall. “What's that for?” Saryn pointed to the metal ring.

“Link-ring. What Ma said, anyway. Cyadoran women who misbehaved or tried to run away had their chains linked there.”

Had their chains linked there? They wore chains all the time?
Saryn forced herself not to retort. Finally, she nodded and turned. Two sets of two narrow windows graced the front of the dwelling, and three windows were set into the walls at each end of the room. All the windows had sagging internal shutters that were closed and did not look as though they had been moved in years. The entire floor was of dark gray tiles, many of which were cracked, but still firmly in place. After a moment, she looked to the archway leading toward the rear of the dwelling.

“Most of the back rooms are empty. Don't do as much wood as my da did. Herding brings more coins.”

“Didn't anyone want to repair this?” Saryn asked. “It's not in bad shape.”

“Grandma, Ma…they said it was no place for women, that it still held demons. Neither one'd ever set foot inside.”

With that evil ring, I can see why.
“How long has it been here?”

The herder shrugged. “Hard to say. Was here before my great-grandda bought the place. He didn't even know it was here, what with all the brush grown up around it.”

Saryn nodded. “This will do. Thank you.”

The herder glanced around the chamber, seemingly holding in a shudder, then said, “I need to get back to milking, ser.”

“That's fine. We'll manage.”

After he left, Saryn spent a moment studying the dwelling. For all the herder's talk of demons, she could sense no concentrations of either order or chaos. If the link-ring were removed…it wouldn't be that bad, but she could understand why any sane woman would be repulsed by that metallic ring. Still…even in its present state of disrepair, the ancient house was far more solid than most of what she'd seen in Lornth. With a modicum of work, it could be made into a comfortable dwelling with cross ventilation and a good stove for heat in the winter. And no one had ever wanted to use it for more than storage? And what was that shining silvery gold metal that age had not dimmed?

She shook her head. At least her squads would have space out of the drizzle and rain for the night. But she did have to hold in a shudder when her eyes took in the shining ring.

On mid afternoon of twoday, Saryn's force rode into Nuelda, a small town on the west side of a nameless—at least to Saryn and Saensyr—narrow river confined between broad earthen berms that suggested the water was not always so narrow and shallow. Saryn had the Lornian squad lead the way, flying the regent's banner, and she rode at the front with squad leader Caeris. The dwellings were all of dull red brick, but the roofs were of a reddish gray clay tile rather than the turf they had seen earlier.

As in all Lornian towns, there was a central square with a raised platform in the middle, but the platform was low and of simple brick, with no statue or other adornment, and the inn to the south of it looked old, small, and mean. The passage of armed riders, particularly of armed Westwind guards, seemed to freeze those on the streets. Most just gaped, but several women dragged children inside shops.

Before all that long, the riders were following a packed-clay-and-gravel road to Jharyk's holding, located on a rise along the river, on the southwest side of the town. Unlike other holdings Saryn had seen, there were no walls around the long and low villa, with extensive outbuildings set along the crest of the rise some hundred cubits above the river. The villa, even to the square columns framing the entry, was of red brick.

Not knowing what else to do, Saryn directed the Lornian squad to form up opposite the main entry steps rising from a paved area with mounting blocks, with the Westwind squads flanking the Lornians.

They had barely completed forming up when a small man wearing a dark gray tunic and trousers, with a silvery shimmersilk vest over the tunic, stepped from the villa and walked halfway down the steps. He stopped and looked to Caeris, ignoring Saryn. “Captain…it's about time you arrived here.”

Caeris glanced to Saryn, then said quietly, “Begging your pardon, Lord, but I'm just a squad leader. Commander Saryn here is in charge.”

“A woman? That's—” Jharyk's eyes narrowed as he took in Saryn, then widened as he saw the battle harness with the twin blades.

“Lord Jharyk, I'm Arms-Commander of Westwind. I believe you have heard of Westwind. Since we did sign an agreement with Lornth some years ago, we are at peace, and in the interests of helping a cooperative neighbor, the Marshal sent me and close to a company of guards to offer some assistance to the regency.” Saryn paused before adding, “Since it would take almost an eightday to obtain a complete Lornian company and ride here, and since you had expressed urgency, we agreed to take on the mission on behalf of the regency.”

“How can you…and women help?”

“Earlier this summer we destroyed an army of nine thousand Gallosians with four companies. A number of years ago we did the same to a Lornian force, and over the past few years we've wiped out several hundred brigands and others. We have more experience at killing unwanted intruders than anyone else around. Isn't that what you wanted?”

Jharyk was silent, and Saryn could sense that he was getting angry. She turned to Caeris. “You might tell Lord Jharyk about the Suthyans, since he seems unwilling to accept my words.”

Caeris swallowed, then spoke. “One squad of her women destroyed almost fourscore armed Suthyans who were attacking Lord Maeldyn's crofters. She lost one guard. They did it all with weapons and not magery.”

“Why are
you
here?” Jharyk finally asked, as if nothing had been said before, but his eyes finally acknowledged Saryn.

“It's very simple, Lord Jharyk. You have been a supporter of the regency. Had you not been, in all likelihood you would still be waiting for assistance. Westwind prefers friendly neighbors. The regency has been friendly. Those who oppose the regency would likely not be so friendly. We help the friends of our friends.”

“Why would it take so long for a Lornian company?” Jharyk demanded, almost petulantly.

“I imagine that's because they're in Carpa at The Groves, and it would take time for a courier to ride there and even more time for them to prepare, then ride here.”

“There is that. Well, now that you're here, I imagine you can make yourselves useful by doing what you can to deal with those Jeranyi pests.”

“We will need some information from you, or your people, Lord Jharyk, as to where the Jeranyi have been attacking. We'll also need supplies, food, and lodging while we're here…”

“I'm but the poorest of lord-holders…”

Saryn smiled. “So you have said, but feeding and lodging the better part of a company for an eightday or however long it takes us to deal with the Jeranyi is far less costly than maintaining a full company yourself, and you can console yourself with that thought.”

Saryn could sense that Jharyk was so shocked by her reply that anger didn't even occur to him. “You…you would talk so?”

“We've ridden all the way from Lornth because you asked for assistance, Lord Jharyk. We're here at your request of the Lady Regent. It's certainly not unreasonable to expect food, lodging, and fodder, now, is it?” Saryn smiled politely.

“For a woman so beautiful, you are not exactly accommodating…Commander.”

“I am being very accommodating to your need to deal with the Jeranyi.”
For any other accommodation, you'd better look to your present consort.

Jharyk forced a smile. “Ah…I will go and summon my steward. He will settle your guards and armsmen. Then, after you have worked out matters with him, perhaps you would join me in my study…Commander, so that we may discuss the best way to approach matters.”

“Most certainly.” Saryn returned the smile with one as equally charming and false.

Saryn shifted her weight in the saddle and watched as Lord Jharyk made his way back into the villa, then glanced to Caeris.

“I'm sorry, Commander, if—”

“There's nothing to be sorry about, especially here.” Saryn followed her words with a humorous smile. She could sense the squad leader's relief.

The man who hurried down the steps after a good tenth of a glass was of moderate height, and balding. He walked quickly toward Saryn and bowed deeply. “Arms-commander…I am most sorry that we did not know of your arrival so that we might be better prepared—”

“We understand,” Saryn replied. “I am certain that Lord Jharyk did not expect us quite so soon, but we came almost as quickly as any messenger could have.”

“We do not have much in the way of accommodations for as many armsmen as you have brought…but there is a new barn, and the stables are mostly empty at present.”

“Let's see what you have, and we'll work from there. Where do we go?”

“Ah…around the villa…that way and past the staff quarters—that's the first building.”

“We will meet you there.” Saryn paused. “You are?”

“Boudyn, Commander.”

“I'm sure we can work things out, Boudyn. We're not likely to be here at Nuelda long, unless there are Jeranyi near.”

“Oh, no, Commander. The closest they have come is at Westera, and that is a good fifteen kays from here.”

Saryn raised her arm.

“On the commander!” called out Caeris.

Saryn urged the gelding forward and to the left, following the packed-clay-and-gravel drive around the villa.

All in all, it took less than half a glass to work out the quartering and feeding arrangements with Boudyn, and then Saryn walked from the stables to the rear entrance to the villa, where a young woman stood waiting.

“Commander?” Her voice was unsteady, just short of trembling.

“Yes,” replied Saryn pleasantly.

“Lord Jharyk awaits you in his study. If you would come this way…”

Saryn followed the woman along a short, covered walk, supported by square brick columns, then through a set of double doors into a wide hallway. She could see immediately that the villa was laid out so that, if doors and windows were opened, cross ventilation would occur regardless of wind direction, although the wind from the south might well bring not only coolness but a certain odor from the stables.

The study was on the northeast corner of the villa and paneled in a dark wood Saryn didn't recognize. As she stepped into the chamber, with its wide windows that offered a view of the river and the town, Jharyk rose from behind a wide desk on which were spread several maps.

“I do apologize for my…abruptness, Commander,” said the small lord smoothly. “You must understand I never expected a force of Westwind guards coming to deal with the Jeranyi.”

“I can understand your surprise, Lord Jharyk, and from what your steward said, it's unlikely that we'll be spending more than tonight here.”

“You, at least, must join us for the evening meal. Ioncosa has never met…well…none of us have ever met a Westwind guard, much less the Arms-Commander of Westwind.”

“I would be honored.”
Not particularly pleased, but honored.

“Good. Very good.” He turned to the desk and gestured. “Here is a map of the holding…the hamlets here to the southwest are those where the Jeranyi struck. Westera was the closest…right here. I would judge that they will move either east or north from there…”

Saryn said little as she listened and followed the swift and jerky gestures of the lord. Chauvinistic and arrogant Jharyk might be, but he was neither stupid nor slow, and he was clearly trying to make up for being taken aback by Saryn's arrival. She was also certain that he had decided Saryn's appearance at Nuelda was to his benefit, although she couldn't sense why.

Once Jharyk finished describing what had happened where and when, Saryn asked, “Have the hamlets or cots of other holders been attacked?”

“They don't seem to have been. My lands are closest to the West Pass, though, and that's the easiest way through the hills from Jerans.”

“Are the hills that hard to cross?”

“Compared to the Westhorns? Hardly. But the Jeranyi are always looking for the easy way. Steal rather than raise their own. Take a woman rather than arrange a consorting. Be a boon to all Candar if they were just wiped out.”

Saryn didn't like what she was hearing. If the Jeranyi were so opportunistic, why were there no attacks on other holders at all? Was that because the Jeranyi knew Nuelda was the weakest…or for other reasons, such as a message from the other lords?

After another half glass, the same young woman escorted Saryn to her guest chamber. There, Saryn discovered that someone had brought her gear and laid it out—still packed—on the long table under the high windows.

“The wash chamber is through the door there, Commander.”

Saryn almost felt guilty getting cleaned up and changing. Almost. When she left the room, her escort was waiting, and brought her to a set of open double doors, then slipped away.

“I hope you do not mind that it will be just the three of us,” offered Jharyk, standing at the door to the dining chamber.

“No, not at all. You're very kind.”

Jharyk laughed. “I'm seldom called such. You must already know that. But for all my vanities and foibles, I try not to be stupid. I'm certain you know much that I do not, and I hope to learn from you. But…first, may I present my consort, Ioncosa?”

Ioncosa was petite, dark-haired, and probably not much older than the youngest of the Westwind guard recruits. She was also pregnant and smiled shyly. “Commander…it is such an honor to have you here at Nuelda. I have always heard of the Westwind guards, but they seemed so…unreal. Yet…you are so solid, even though you're…”

“No…I'm not a giant,” said Saryn with a slight laugh. “The Marshal is imposing in stature as well, but most of us are not.”

Jharyk gestured toward the far end of a table that could have held twenty but was set for three. “We should be seated.”

As soon as the three had taken their places, Jharyk filled the three goblets almost precisely two-thirds of the way. “Enjoy.” He raised his goblet, then took a sip. “Some of the other lords in the west here make their own vintages.” He shook his head. “Waste of golds and time. The soils aren't right. They're best for sheep and wool, and for dairying and cheese. So I buy good wine when times are hard and store it in the cellar. We also store the cheeses if we can't get the proper prices.” He smiled at Saryn. “I've never figured out how you could support so many folk—or any folk—on the Roof of the World. Would you mind telling us what life is like up there?”

Saryn took a sip of the deep red wine. Jharyk was right about one thing. The wine was good, and she wondered where he had gotten it. “It was very hard for the first years. We do have mountain sheep…”

Jharyk nodded as she spoke, but Saryn could sense he would remember every word she said through the entire meal.