Firethorn (44 page)

It raised a laugh. But the Crux frowned, and Sire Rodela bristled, saying, “Now you mock my house. I'll not have my house brought into this.”

The Crux answered the armiger sharp: “Then you should not be standing before me, for no man stands without his house.” Next he turned his attention to Sire Alcoba and said, just as sharply, “Make no mistake, I'm more lenient here than Rodela deserves. Do you count an oath worth so little? I know you bear a grudge toward Galan for costing you your armiger and your horse. Perhaps you're glad to see him spited. But you'd do well to remember it took two to make that wager.”

Neither man was unwise enough to speak.

He looked to Galan then, and waited until his nephew raised his head and met his eyes. It seemed a long time. “You are proud, as you should be,” the Crux said. There was no contempt in his voice now. “But sometimes pride must march with policy. Enmity between houses would be a far greater wrong than you suffered today; it would be a wound in the body of the clan. I ask that you accept this quittance and take no further vengeance. I know it doesn't satisfy your blood, but I ask that if it satisfies your reason, you will agree to be ruled by it.” He waited again, until Galan gave a curt nod and looked down. Galan never glanced my way.

Then the Crux said, “There is something further. Rodela, having made a mockery of his oath to Sire Galan, can serve him no longer. If Sire Alcoba agrees, Rodela will become his armiger, to take the place of the far better man Alcoba lost to Galan's foolish feud. That should quit Galan of any debt Alcoba could claim.” He looked to Sire Rodela kneeling before him, and there was enough scorn in his voice to singe the armiger's hair all over again. “I'm sure you'll agree to this,” he said, “because if you don't, you'll be sent home in a cart with the dames. And if Alcoba finds you unsatisfactory or catches you up to mischief, I'll give him leave to deal with you as he pleases. Will you swear faithfully to him?”

Rodela mumbled something so small I couldn't hear it.

“What's that?” the Crux said.

“I will,” said Sire Rodela, somewhat louder.

“And now you'll thank me. For the sake of your house and for your father's sake, I've left you the wherewithal to redeem your name.”

Under the weight of the Crux's gaze, Sire Rodela bowed down and down until his forehead touched the ground. He stretched his hands out before him, palms up, and half of what he said was lost between his lips and the ground, but he did abase himself and swear he was grateful for the Crux's mercy; he didn't deserve it, he was unworthy. The Crux watched with a grim satisfaction while Sire Rodela offered up every humble word he owned, his mouth so crammed he choked on them. If there was more resentment than gratitude in his tone, no matter.

Still the Crux wasn't done. He looked at his cataphracts and said, “Perhaps it escaped your notice that tonight Sire Galan accused Rodela of killing an armiger of Ardor and stealing part of his scalp. It did not escape mine. I won't weigh that matter here. If it's true—and I daresay it is, I mark Rodela doesn't deny it—it is better left to the gods, the ancestors, and a certain angry shade to punish him for desecrating the body of a foe. I think the shade has begun already.” There was an uneasy laugh at this. “But listen well: there are trophy collectors in every war, men who come home with a sackful of ears so they can say ‘I slew this many.' Such men bring misfortune home to their kinfolk, and I'll have none of that in my company.

“Now we'll put the sheath to the ordeal, and soon we'll know whether she lies or Rodela lies. I shall leave it up to each of you, if Rodela proves false and a profaner, to decide whether you wish the company of such a man.

A shunning. The Crux laid the burden on his men to make the fi nal judgment, to choose the cruelest punishment. Sire Rodela's back stiffened. His open hands became fists. He made no pretense of gratitude now.

It gave me another reason to face the dogs: to know he would be shunned. Almost reason enough.

The Crux stood and picked up his sword from the ground. Before he sheathed it he prodded Sire Rodela in the ribs. “Get up,” he said, and waited for the armiger to get to his feet. With a glance across the tent, he summoned his own man, Sire Rassis, who took Rodela by the elbow and marched him to the doorway. All the while the Crux took care to stand between Sire Galan and his former armiger.

I stepped aside. Sire Rodela's eye sockets were dark as bruises and his cheeks, above the beard, were pasty. The Crux had dealt him many blows. He'd been humiliated before his fellows, and he faced shunning. Yet when he passed me, he smiled.

No remedy but murder.
Galan had said it, and now his blood was cooler and he would accept what requital the Crux allowed and take nothing more. Sire Rodela had been brought low, but not low enough to suit me. It was not safe to let him live. If I survived the ordeal, I'd see to it myself. And then I'd tread his ashes in the mud.

Sire Rassis jerked his arm and they were out. The Crux was just behind, with Galan and the priests at his heels. The other cataphracts were rising, and the gabble of their voices rose also. The Crux spoke to me and his voice cut through the clamor. “Are you ready?”

Galan came close and said, “Don't do this.”

Then we were out the door and the cataphracts spilled from the tent after us, around us. The thinnest new Moon hung in the sky. At home in the mountains, it would mark the month of Ingathering. The herders would be bringing the sheep and goats down from the high pastures before the snows, and driving the pigs into the Kingswood to forage for the fallen acorns granted them yearly by the king. Did the months have different names here, by the sea?

There were no clouds. The wind had swept them away.

Galan's hand gripped my wrist as tightly as if he held the hilt of his sword, and he pulled me against the tide of the crowd until I stopped. “Why are you doing this?” he asked. “Tell the Crux you lied.”

“I didn't lie.”

“I know that. I don't require proof.”

“You say that now. Later you'll wonder.”

The Crux was on his way back to us, the cataphracts moving aside for him.

Galan looked as if I'd struck him. “Have I earned this much of your distrust? Please … I'm begging. Say you lied.”

He had no armor from me. And he was right, I distrusted him. Oh, surely he believed me. But could he live with me, if I said I'd coupled with Sire Rodela when his back was turned? He forgot the other cataphracts, how they'd scorn him for it.

I too was wounded. He'd asked me to do something he'd never do: claim a vile lie for truth and bear the shame that would come with it. He asked because a drudge has no honor to lose, no word to break-never tells the truth when a lie is safer. I had lied before, many times, to my betters. And yet I couldn't do it now. I was just discovering this myself. Still, I was angry Galan had not known it.

The Crux was upon us. “Has she changed her mind after all?”

I put my free hand over Galan's hand and leaned close. “I do trust you—as I trust my own heart.” I couldn't leave him with bitter words, if they were the last he was to hear from me.

There was no time. I pried his fingers loose from my wrist and walked toward the dog pen while the new Moon looked down: Crux showing his thinnest sickle smile.

The manhounds' pen backed onto the horse corral. Most of them slept, but they kept sentries. When we came close one began to bark and another took it up and soon there were four or five yammering at us. They woke Dogmaster. He came to the high wooden gate, walking between his charges as they roiled about his legs. I saw Fleetfoot and Ev and two other dogboys sit up across the pen, roused from their sleep amongst a dozen or so dogs lying head to flank, sharing heat.

Dogmaster hushed the dogs but their silence was no better. One growled low, the teeth showing white against the black muzzle.

When the Crux spoke his voice was just as low. “She's going in for trial by ordeal. Open the gate.” He pointed his thumb at me, not condescending to use a finger.

Dogmaster looked dismayed but said nothing. He felt for the latch in the dark and swung the gate half open. Behind me, the noisy crowd pressed forward: cataphracts and armigers and drudges who'd come running as soon as word had flown between the tents. They'd brought torches. Somewhere Rodela was watching too.

I knew exactly where Galan was. I could feel him, a silence just behind my right shoulder. I had silenced him. No matter how close he stood, I was alone in this.

Not quite alone. A god came unwelcome. Rift again, in the avatar of Dread.

I faltered, I balked. I had thought I was afraid before, and counted myself brave because I made my legs walk to the dog pen when they were unsteady. That was nothing compared to this. Dread seized me, inside and out, and I held on to the gate so I would not fall. My palms were wet. Dread drove my heart too fast, my mind too slow. I never knew that fear could hurt so much, that its pains were so various, both sharp and dull.

I couldn't understand courage. I couldn't find it in myself. How does a man go to battle? Not the cataphract in all his armor, but the drudge, the foot soldier. How does he face it with no honor of his own to spur him, knowing that whether he lives or dies, he'll win less praise than his master's horse? Rift must give the gift of recklessness as well as fear, or the god of war would have no soldiers. They'd all run away.

I would run if I could move.

While I hung on the gate, the crowd grew quiet.

I tasted salt and didn't know if it was sweat or tears. I prayed to Rift to take Dread from me, and send instead the Warrior to make me brave. But it was dangerous to pray to Rift. I should never have sought Rift's help to find the dwale; Dread was the price the god exacted for it.

Rift did not relent. It was a far humbler divinity who came to my aid: Dogmaster, who was a god to his hounds, at least. I saw some promise of mercy in Dogmaster's eyes, some pity. I believed he wouldn't let the dogs kill me. He stood with his hand on the gate and held it steady as I leaned against it. A dog whined, legs braced, hackles raised. The man growled and the dog quieted.

Fleetfoot and Ev were behind him. They'd come halfway across the pen to see what was happening and the rest of the dogs had come with them. They looked so small. The backs of the great manhounds came above the boys' waists. The dogs wore their winter coats of short, thick fur; most were fawn colored, but a few were of dun brindled with black. They all had black masks and ears. The boys wore their leggings and nothing else, and their skin shone pale in the dark. They looked sleepy, puzzled, cold. Fleetfoot folded his arms over his bare chest and shivered. Ev grasped a dog's ruff.

Why was I so afraid? The boys had no fear.

I remembered the war dogs let loose on Summons Day to please the crowd, how they'd torn the fallow deer to pieces on the tourney field.

I tugged on the gate and Dogmaster let it swing open. I took one step and another, still holding the gate for support, and he stood aside. The wind dried the sweat on my brow and chilled me. I heard Galan move, the rattle of metal against metal.

I was inside, but Galan was inside too, one step behind me, and Dogmaster closed the gate after us both. There was a sigh and a mutter from the crowd. Galan moved up on my right. He'd left his sword behind, outside the gate. He held out his shield arm and I clung to it to keep from falling to the ground. I felt the stiff, quilted linen under my hand. He kept his sword arm down in front of his body. The leather sleeve covered with metal scales was something better for the manhounds to chew on than our flesh. He gave me one glance, that was all—and, I swear, a fleeting smile—before turning his face toward the dogs.

Reckless heart. No wonder Chance loved him. He never cared what odds.

Then I thought: perhaps this was not of his choosing. Maybe by binding him, I'd bound him to die alongside me. Yet I wouldn't have unbound him at that moment if I could have, not for the world.

“Easy now, steady,” he said. He was talking to the dogs, I think.

The lead dog, a great tawny bulk with hoarfrost on his shoulders and muzzle, was the first to try us. He lunged to within a few paces and barked and snarled and barked again, while we stood still. Other manhounds came up in turn, and then a mob of them, legs and tails and ears stiff with fury, spittle flying as if they aimed to outdo their leader, or at least impress him. The barking riled the horses in the corral next to the dog pen; some dashed here and there and some neighed, ready to do battle.

So much bluster. It would have been laughable, if I hadn't seen what the dogs could do when they were minded to. They did not advance or fall back. They did not tire of howling. The din battered me. My joints loosened and Galan bore me up, his arm as solid as stone. He turned his right shoulder toward the leader and let his hand hang loose. All the while, he talked. He called the dogs lads and bade them be quiet in a stern voice, like a tutor admonishing a pack of rowdy boys.

The grizzled leader stopped barking and began to growl. The rumble sent tremors through me. The manhound was quivering too, but not with fear. He came a pace closer.