Sunset Mantle (5 page)

The next day, and the day after, Cete did not go far from the house. Because they were lower on the slope than the houses next to the wall, the neighbors could see down into the fenced orchard. Twice they raised a cry of burglars, though everyone knew that the men who had climbed the fence were not there to filch unripe fruit, or to take wood contrary to the law. They would not be able to come during the daytime.

Cete slept in the day, and remained awake at night, a spear close at hand. For Radan to do what his clan had sent him to the Antach to do, he needed the confidence of at least some of the men of the Reach. Those who could not abide by what he had done to Cete were already lost to him; those who could swallow the abuse of the law would not be so ready to let pass signs of weakness. Going to church had been a challenge to which there could be only one answer.

Despite the care that Marelle took, despite the blue of his mantle and the pomegranate and greens with his meal, Cete’s back still pained him whenever he took a sudden motion, or when he awoke from sleep. If he could, he would have left what needed to be done for a week, or even two. But if it was left too long, he would have to fight on his enemies’ terms, where they chose. On the fourth night after his wedding, Cete stretched, tucked his axe into his belt, and went to the door.

“I fear the stones of some of the tree-gutters have come loose during the day,” he said. “I’ll go and attend to them.”

Marelle was sitting in her high-backed chair, working some piece of embroidery. “Of course,” she said. “Before you go, see your commission; I’ve almost finished it.”

The house was in near darkness. It suited Cete well, and while Marelle could still see well enough to tell light from dark, she did not prefer the light. At that, though, Cete kindled a lamp, and brought it over to where Marelle was working.

She was sewing white thread on a white fabric. Silk thread and linen fabric, by the look of the cloth, and the way the thread shimmered in the lamplight. Marelle tied off the string, unfolded the cloth that she had been embroidering.

It was a funeral shroud. Cete took it from her, ran his hands over the design. Cypress around the border, with rabbits and owls in among the branches. Above the trees were all the stars of the heavens, perfect in their places. It was as fine a work as the mantle. He could not have hoped for anything better.

He would wear it once, and only those closest to him as he was laid down in the earth would see the embroidery; from even a few feet away, it would seem a simple white cloth. “This does me too much credit,” he said. He did not have so little regard for the honor of other men, his love of beautiful things not so untainted by a desire to be seen possessing them.

“No,” said Marelle. “Not enough. But if the stones of the tree-gutters have come loose, you ought to see to them. I would not wish to lose the water when the rainy season comes.”

“I will not be long,” said Cete. “It is a small repair.”

As he went out he took one of the spears he had prepared in the days since his wedding. Seasoned wood, and with a steel head he had spent long hours sharpening. It would serve.

It was a warm night, and the moon near full; it was almost as light outside as it had been within. Cete stood for a moment, enjoying the scent of artemesia and honeysuckle, and watching the shadows.

There were three of them, slinking like jackals in the shadows of the walls and trees. They had come into his orchard; they had made themselves free within his walls. He could feel his blood rising, the shaking of the hands, the tightening of the vision.

Three was too many, if they were any good at all. If he charged in, axe swinging, he’d be cut down. He let his shoulders slope, leaned against the spear as though he needed it to support his weight. It was not much of a performance, but it was what they’d hoped to see; perhaps it would be enough.

They came in, closer, their boots crunching down the summer-dry earth beneath the trees, the faint clink of mail audible over the distant hooting of an owl and the buzzes of the night insects.

Cete had not let himself feel rage at Radan Termith, and what the Reach general had done. It was too large a thing; there were too many ways his wrath would serve his enemy. But now, in Marelle’s orchard, fury was rising up from where his toes gripped the earth, up the back of his spine. Three to slay one injured man, one blind woman? Three in armor? His anger filled him so full there was nothing else beside anger. The spear rose up in his hand, and he threw, no craft, no plan, his hand moving without any act of thought or will. He threw so hard that the spear seemed to flicker out from his hand into one of those shadows, catching the man in the shoulder and driving him back into an olive tree.

His axe was in his hand, though he could not recall pulling it from his belt, and he was in among the other two, though he could not remember crossing that ground. There was the ring of steel against steel, sparks from axe and blade. They did not expect anything like this. Cete had not expected anything like this. It was not the measured practice of morning or evening routine; it was not even the clash of arms on a battlefield. It was the clawing of a wild beast, injured in its lair.

He came in, and the sword of one of the men cut in along his arm. The pain was . . . it was become pleasure; he howled in the joy of it, struck out with his axe, cutting through armor and chest, laughed to see dark blood in the moonlight.

The other man stepped back when he should have stepped in, tried to line up a proper attack. Cete came in too fast for that, his axe swinging around, hungry. The man was pale in the moonlight; he held up his hand to stop the blow, rather than his axe or a knife. Cete’s blade sheared through his fingers and buried itself in his shoulder. The man staggered back, screaming. Another blow with the axe, and he was dead as well.

Cete howled, a long, ululating cry more like a tribal yell than anything taught in the cities. It was not enough; three men were not enough. He had his axe in his hand and the pain in his arm, and there was a man in the city who was his enemy. He could go and slay, and glory in the slaying forever.

He breathed, once, twice, fought back the nausea he had felt at Marelle’s bedside, that he had felt when Mase had been beating him to death. There was a constellation of pain from his back, there was a cut along the length of his arm, and there were two dead men lying at Cete’s feet. This had been the madding, the real thing.

The hills still echoed with Cete’s howl. The echoes sounded no different than what had burst from Eber Hainst, when he could no longer bear the leadership of the Hainst of the Hainst. It was well that he had not allowed the captain of the Antach’s guard to keep watch over his house. If there had been anyone else standing in the orchard with him, friend or foe, that man would only have lived if he had killed Cete.

Cete walked over to the man whom he had hit with the spear. He was still standing, impaled—the spear had gone through the mail shirt, and the shoulder, and through the mail again, the head buried deep into the tree. The man shivered as he stood there, like a man struck with fever, or one caught in a snowstorm. Perhaps it was the wound, or perhaps fear. It didn’t matter.

“Please,” he said, as Cete came close. “Please, I had no choice! I—”

Cete pushed his head up and back, and took the man’s throat out with the hook-bladed tribal knife he had won in the river-cut field. The men who had come to kill him and his wife were dead, but the business would not end if he took half measures.

From one of the trees beyond the wall, an owl hooted, and out in the valley beyond, a jackal yowled its response. There’d be meat enough for them, and soon. Cete wrenched the spear out of the dead man’s shoulder, and let the corpse fall to the ground. The tip was bent by the impact, blunted. When he was done with his work in the garden, he would have to grind that down, if he wanted to trust the spear again.

With that done, he came to the door, which had been closed behind him. “Marelle?” he said, wearily.

There was the sound of the bar being moved, and then the door opened. Marelle flung herself forward like a stone from a sling. If he had not caught her, she would have fallen, she was moving so fast, and she could not see.

Cete caught her and held her, his arms wrapping around her, heedless of his cut, of the pain caused by the way the skin stretched. She stood in his arms, and wept, beautiful in the moonlight.

They stood there for a time, beneath the stars, and said nothing. Finally, Marelle’s shudders grew fewer, she gained control of her breath. “How many?” she asked.

“Three,” said Cete.

“There will be more next time,” she said. “He can’t—”

“Perhaps,” said Cete. “But while Radan cannot let this lie, he also cannot look too much a fool. I will see what I can do.”

“Within the law?” asked Marelle, drawing away slightly.

Cete hesitated. “At the edges,” he said. “A scholar would be more certain as to which side it lies.”

“I understand,” said Marelle. “Do you need help?”

“No,” said Cete. Marelle’s face closed up, and he hurried to explain. “It’s butcher’s work, and I know the meat, and where to make the cuts.”

“I will stand with you, and I will do a portion of the work,” she said, and Cete turned away, ashamed to have misunderstood, to have rejected her help when she offered.

“Of course,” he said, taking hold of her by the arm. Cete led Marelle to where the bodies lay, gave her the fingers he had severed, and told her to take them and leave them on the trash heap beside the back gate of the orchard fence.

When she returned, he guided her hand for one stroke with the axe, to start the work of severing a hand at the wrist. “Thank you for your help,” he said. “I think I will be able to do the rest of the work myself.”

She gave a nod. “Yes,” she said. “And do see to the tree-gutters. There is too much work during the harvest to see to their repair, and the rains come on the heels of the harvest.”

Cete watched her as she walked back to the house. The little work she had done had stained her hands with blood, down to the wrist. If he was in the wrong, she would stand beside him before the judges. It was a heavy responsibility that she had laid upon him, but in truth, it was upon her all along. They were husband and wife now, and the risks he took were now hers as well.

As he had said, it was butcher’s work, and he knew the meat. It was not too long before the men who had come into the orchard were cut apart and lying on the dungheap beside the wall. The rest of Radan’s men would hear, and learn what fate waited for assassins in his service. It would be answered, assuredly, but perhaps . . . well, he would go to church for the morning service, and see if his decision had been wise. After he attended to the tree-gutters.

The next day, there were men wearing the colors of the Antach clan army playing dice in the shade of the city gate. They did not bid a good morning to Cete, or extend to him blessings on his marriage, but they were close enough that if Radan attempted to have his revenge on Marelle, they would see it, and would have no reason to refrain from sounding the alarm. Good.

In the street, some of the men he had seen in the Reach army gave Cete looks that made him regret the law that outcasts could not walk armed in the streets of the Reach, except in times of siege. But there were others who stood up in respect as he passed. They did not say anything to him, but they walked beside him, in the direction of the church.

For most of the men of the Reach, Radan’s attack on his former fifty-commander would seem a petty, vindictive feud of a man who had been in the wrong. What Cete had done was the sort of insult that men who counted themselves men would answer with a duel. But the Reach general couldn’t duel an outcast; he’d lose just by starting the fight. Trying again with more men might work, but he’d look even worse. And if a second attack failed, his command would fall apart, and the Termith would have nobody to blame besides their scion.

It was the duty of every man to attend the morning service, but there were no penalties assigned for a weekday service. Most men attended most days of the week, but there was always work that needed to be done, men who awoke impure, men who had drunk too deeply the night before, and so on. On that morning, after Cete arrived, the church filled as though it was Sheavesday, or the Night of Sighs.

Even the benches for criminals and outcasts were full. Some of Marelle’s neighbors were there, men and women whom he had seen in passing, and others who dwelt on the outskirts of the Reach Antach. Sitting before them were men who wore the bracelets that showed they had committed sins such that their labor had become the property of the Antach—mine workers and dung-cart drivers and tanners.

They did not look at him, for the most part, but when he prayed, they prayed with him, lifted their voices to follow his, fell silent when he was silent. Dangerous allies to have, a dangerous following to have gathered. Again, Cete considered the question of whether he had done wrong, whether his congregation of sinners reflected a well of sin within himself, from which they had come to drink. He did not think it did, and besides, there was nothing else he could do. His scar was no shallower than theirs; he had no right to consider himself above them.

The Antach attended to his prayers throughout. In the past, when he had finished a section before the congregation, or when an elderly and respected man had come up to the dais, the Antach would pause in his service, say a few words, reassure the congregation with nods and recognition. On that day, he prayed, and the prayer mantle he wore was a simple one, decorated only with the Antach seal in silver thread. It seemed that Cete was not the only one who had come to church to speak to God.

Radan Termith, on the other hand, wore both gold and silver in his mantle, and faced the congregation full on, his lips moving silently in the prayers. He had been angry with Cete before, but angry like a man gets angry with a rat for stealing his grain, or with a boar who had gored a favored hound. Now, Cete could feel the heat of Radan’s rage, and he basked in it. All Cete had ever known was the life of a fighting man, and Radan had taken that away. It had been Mase’s hand on the blade that had scarred him, but it had been Radan’s arm behind it. Radan Termith had caused Marelle to be cast out as blind, he had sent men to kill them in the night. Cete’s hatred for Radan had at last earned itself a mate in Radan’s hatred for him, and those hatreds burned so true that it was the nearest thing to love.

So deep was his joy in the hatred of the Reach captain that Cete almost missed the beginning of the scholar-priest’s reading of the law. As soon as the subject became clear, he immediately focused. “If a man should lead another man astray, so that the second man sins, the fault is in the second man,” said the law. “Follow not where you are led, unless the law be with you.” Well enough, but Lemist brought in another law—the law of a man who leads a congregation astray. Such a man is a public menace, akin to a wolf or hyena that has come within the walls of a city. He shall be put to death by the axe, and also his family shall bear the sin.

“But what,” asked Lemist, “is a congregation? The Ayarith school teaches that it is ten men, and the ancient school of Baern says seven. But among the Irimin school there is a tradition that even three men, if they are drawn in together into the same act, by the same person, that is a congregation, and a man who has led three men into the same wicked act shall be put to death by the axe, and also his family shall bear the sin.”

All the crowd in the church was silent. Perhaps there were some who did not know against whom this study of law was aimed, but they knew better than to ask questions, when they saw the frozen faces of those who heard what was being said. Cete looked back to Radan Termith, and for the first time, he saw that his enemy was afraid.

Lemist went on, explaining that according to the law, the “family” of a man who bore a clan name included the elders of the clan. Not that they were to be put to death by the headsman’s axe, but bearing the sin meant living as outcasts for three years. And that while there might be disagreement among the schools as to the precise definition, all the schools would uphold the ruling of a properly appointed judge, even if the ruling went contrary to what their school taught.

Cete blinked, as the world spun around him. Lemist could not have risen so high in the Irimin if she was inclined to speak rashly. Tradition held that the schools would not involve themselves in clan feuds unless the law was too flagrantly violated, and it seemed that Radan had crossed that line. Lemist Irimin was old, and she was a woman; most schools did not allow women to wear the mantle of scholar-priests. It was easy to see how Radan would not have expected attack from this line. Cete watched the scholar-priest expounding the law, as though discussing a fine point of the construction of prayer altars, or of which crops are obligated in the tithes to the poor and which are not.

Each word was a hammer. By forcing Lemist to declare a man outcast, to participate in what was intended to be a judicial murder, Radan had made an enemy. Sending assassins after a man who could no longer rely on the protection of the Reach had caused a rage as deadly as any madding. For all that Lemist Irimin was old, and for all that she was a woman, she was a properly appointed judge; Radan had taken his case to her for judgment. There was no school that would fail to uphold her ruling, should she give it.

One slip, one more push, and Radan Termith could destroy the Termith clan with far greater ease than he could the Antach. If the men who had sent him out heard any of this, they would shit themselves in fear, and bury Radan so deep that he’d attend resurrection baked like an apple by the heat of the underworld.

This was not what Cete had intended. He thought that by pushing the edges of the law, he would once again be brought before the judges. The crime would have been a minor one, and after Radan had sat in judgment and agreed to a punishment, he would not have been able to pursue further vengeance without showing his contempt for the court. But it seemed that Radan’s failure to account for the scholar-priest of the Reach Antach had already done the work required.

Cete rose mechanically for the closing prayers, as the sounds of the hymn were all but drowned out in the low hum of conversation. A weapon like this could change the whole situation. If the Irimin school were to come in on the side of the Antach—but no; they had not committed themselves. There was no talk of bringing Radan before the judges. For now, it was just a matter of law, read during the morning services. It was a warning, and it would keep Cete and Marelle alive for a day or two, at least.

Unless Cete could find some way to force Radan to lose control. Cete had felt it slipping during the morning service. There was a man there, wearing the mantle of the General of the Reach, and that man had been frustrated and embarrassed, he had lost when he had expected to win, and then lost again. If Cete could push him just a little further, find some other way to speak to his soul rather than to his mind, Radan would crack, and they would fight man to man, madding to madding.

Marelle was of the same mind when Cete returned and told her what had passed, but neither of them could find a way that would draw Radan in, when he would have set his mind towards keeping away. Cete pulled the boards from the window, shifted the bar from the door. If they did not need to fear the arrow by day or the knife at night, it was better to have some air than not.

After a time, three men wearing the white robes of judgment came, to remove the bodies from the dungheap. When he had set them there, Cete had thought to bar the court access to the remains. They had come by night, and sought his death; let their families come, and ask a ransom for the meat their men had left behind—if the butchery had not crossed the line of the law, that might have. But now, he let them in, gave them leave to search the orchard for pieces of the dead men that had been carried away by owls and crows. Now he was sheltering beneath the wings of the Irimin school, and he could commit no sacrilege.

“The Antach could have our murder done,” said Marelle, when Cete returned. “What one man tells the soldiers of the Reach, another can just as well, and the court would not view Radan’s pleas with any great favor.”

“Mm,” said Cete, and considered the possibility. “It would be a dangerous move,” he said, finally. “What one man says, another hears. It would be difficult for him to do that, and wake in the morning without the weight of blackmailers resting upon his shoulders, and informers to the Termith buzzing in his ears.”

“We could do it,” said Marelle. “And free him from the weight.”

It was a hell of a thing to suggest. To kill his wife of less than a week, and then himself, in the hopes that it would do more damage than they could alive. “If you wish this,” he started, and then stopped. No, he would not turn the decision over to Marelle, act as though he had no voice. “No,” he said.

She was silent.

“No, even if it would mean that we would triumph where otherwise there is only defeat, and not because our lives are too sweet to leave behind. Until this point, I have been true, and I will not end my life with a lie.”

Marelle had stopped her embroidering when she made the suggestion, and now she started again. “I understand,” she said. “I will not suggest it again.”

Cete walked over, kissed her lightly on the forehead. “You are clearer about this fight than I am,” he said. “And braver than any man I have known. But we have not yet lost.”

“Of course,” said Marelle. “What will you do next?”

“There is work to be done in the orchard,” said Cete. “Some of the trees could use pruning.”

“Of course,” said Marelle, again. “I hope it does not prove as difficult as seeing to the tree-gutters.”

Cete shrugged his shoulders; they still hurt, though they were not so ready to bleed. “I hope so as well,” he said. All the same, he took a spear with him as he went out, and kept his axe close by in his belt.

From within the walls of the orchard, he could see the men from the Antach clan army up by the gate, and the neighbors on the slope above working their own fields. It seemed unlikely that Radan would attempt anything, and if he did, there would be some warning. So, for a time, Cete put aside his spear, and worked in the orchard.

It was obvious that Marelle had hired men to work her orchard for her, and it was just as obvious that they had taken advantage of the fact that she could not see. The trees had been sloppily pruned, and there were dead branches left untrimmed. Olives were hardy, but dead wood attracted rot and worm, and it had to be taken out. It was hard, straining work, but it needed doing. Besides, for all that he had proven himself the better of three picked men, Cete would never again have a contract as a fighting man. He needed something else, and work among the trees was what he had.

Later in the day, Marelle came out with bread and fish sauce, and a pitcher of cool water, and it tasted as fine as a banquet, or as field rations after a battle was won. Then it was back to the trees, until there came the sound of a distant trumpet. Cete tied the bundle of dead wood he had gathered and waited until he heard it sound again.

Marelle was at the door. “The Reach army,” she said. “They are heading out.” Her ears were finer than his. Cete looked up. Late in the afternoon, but not too late to begin a march. The heat of the day was past, so they would make good time.

“I will go see this,” he said, and he went.

As he passed through the town, the trumpets grew louder, and he could also hear the piercing trill of regimental horn. Marelle had been right. At the north gate, the crowd gave way before him, so he was able to see the army marching out, banners flying, with Radan Termith at their head.

The Antach stood atop the gate, his arms outstretched in blessing. He could do nothing else, for all that he knew what Radan was, and what would happen to any man in that army who remained loyal to the Reach Antach or Clan Antach. Cete watched, and counted. The ranks were thinner than they ought to have been. It seemed that some of the men in the ranks knew what Radan was, and chose not to bare their necks for his blade.

Not much thinner. There were those who were with the Termith against the Antach, and there were those who did not guess at what Radan intended. But there were also those who knew they were marching to the slaughter, but marched regardless, banners held high, eyes dry of tear, but filled with the awareness of death. Fifteen of the men whom Cete had trained and led were of that group; they carried the banner of the fifty that had been his, and they marched in good order. There was nothing to be said when faced with courage of that sort, of obedience to law and contract in the face of death. Cete watched for a time, and then left. It hurt too much to stay.