The Golden Sword (22 page)

The threxman assigned to Guanden was at his head, stroking it, and amazingly enough, the ill-tempered beast stretched out his crested neck and closed his eyes, that the threxman might scratch the wet hide under his jowls. I dismounted, that the threxman might cool him and care for him until the final race at mid-meal, and the man handed over to me the Shaper’s cloak encased in brown web-cloth that I had entrusted to him. He touched my arm and showed me the place upon Guanden’s chest where blood dripped from a flesh wound. I leaned closer to examine it, and our heads met.

“I would not mention to the cahndor how this cut came to be here,” he said.

“I had not intended to,” I whispered back.

“Good.” And his glance was conspiratorial. “Rest assured, we will take care of this matter, when the time is right.” He straightened up and led Guanden into the yellow pavilion. I latched the cloak at my throat and threaded the golden knife upon my weapons belt. When I looked up, Chayin stood less than a threx length away, engaged in discreet conversation with Hael and the Menetpher dharener, while Jaheil made exaggerated faces and impolite signs behind the Day-Keepers’ backs.

I threaded my way toward them through the crowd, only understanding Jaheil’s gestures when a hand clapped me heavily upon the back. It was Pijaes, the tiaskchan with whom I had conversed at my enchalding, and beside her Nineth, she to whom I had given Besha’s clothing. They were both maskless.

I accepted their effusive and slightly drunken congratulations, and begged my leave of them. Over Nineth’s massive shoulder I saw Chayin and the dhareners fall silent, staring apprehensively in my direction.

“You are going with Chayin to Mount Opir?” Pijaes demanded, her hand upon my arm. I admitted that I was.

“Surely with your great influence upon him, you could persuade our cahndor that a yra of tiasks would not be out of place upon this journey. It would do you much good among your sisters.” And Nineth leaned her bulk toward me suggestively.

“Could you fill me a yra of volunteers who would go maskless and take up the customs of the north? What is normal practice among northern men might be cause for a death match in Nemar. It would take tiasks of great restraint and understanding to spend time among such as the Ebvrasea’s renegade Slayers.”

“I could do that easier than preserve peace in Nemar if such an honor is denied us,” Nineth sniffed.

“I will volunteer, and even more, guarantee ten others,” said Pijaes.

“And I will find the other ten, though I cannot go myself,” said Nineth. Chayin beckoned me urgently from behind their backs. “Many will be anxious to follow her who was victorious at Frullo jer.”

“I have not won it yet,” I reminded her. “But if Pijaes will truly go, and be responsible for the tiasks’ conduct, and promise me that no blood will be shed other than at the cahndor’s order, I will arrange it.” And at this they were satisfied, and let me by them to Chayin, who took me into his arms and swung, me off, the ground.

“What passed with them?” he whispered urgently as he held me close.

“We will have a yra of tiasks with us upon Mount Opir, with Pijaes at their head,” I answered him as he put me on my feet once more. “I could do no different.”

He stepped back from me. “I think you have overstepped your authority.” His face was stern and his tone far from loving.

“They are your tiasks.” I would have said more, but Jaheil stepped between us and crushed me against him. When I thought I would die of his congratulations, he released me. I felt gingerly of my ribs, lest some might be broken from his ferocity. Hael and Dyis stood by Chayin, and each wore the other’s chald.

“Why the drawn face?” Hael asked me. “If you are so conditioned to struggle that you cannot experience victory when it manifests, in time it will cease to visit you.”

“Are you now dharener of Menetph?”

“Your eyes do not deceive you,” he said, fingering the strange chald of Menetph at his waist.

“Then save your counsel for Menetphers,” I advised him. I turned to Dyis.

“What is the time, dharener?” I asked him.

He raised his hands, palm upward toward me.

“Put me not in the middle between you, tiask.”

“I asked you what you see.”

“I have studied the yris-tera throw for this time,” he admitted. “I am not objective.”

“Talking to one is talking to any. They are interchangeable,” Chayin growled.

The Menetpher-now-Nemarsi dharener grinned, and the green-and-blue lightning bolts tattooed upon his cheeks wriggled.

“What has you in such a foul mood, Chayin?” I asked him.

He stared at me coldly, then took my arm and led me away from the others to the corner of the threx masters’ yellow pavilion. There he let go of me, and his hands toyed in the doubled chald he wore. I heard the gong for the third section chime.

“I must spend some time with Liuma,” he said to me. “There is much to do before this evening. We leave for Mount Opir at sun’s rising. The jiasks ... and tiasks”—and he shook his head—“will stay an extra day here. The Ebvrasea’s emissaries are among us. You and I will go ahead with them. Wiraal knows the way and will be in overall charge.” He leaned back against a stanchion and rubbed that place where his neck met his shoulder. “Make sure your tiasks understand this.”

“You would be advised,” he continued, “to keep your mask upon you until you stand before Sereth, and to conduct yourself as much like a tiask as you can manage until that time.”

“What would you have me do while you are busy with Liuma?” I asked softly.

“Whatever you choose.” A great roar signaled the end of the third-section race.

“I choose to do your will.” I wondered who had won.

“Why did you have that crell brought here?”

“Aje? I had thought to take him north with us and free him.”

“Free him now, then. A tiask couching the cahndor of Nemar and Menetph should have no need of a male crell.” The membrane flicking across his eyes belied his calm. “I have arranged for you to spend the night in Jaheil’s apprei. I want you safe under his protection.”

“And who will protect me from Jaheil?”

He shrugged. “Do as I bid you. And another thing. Speak to no one you do not know!”

“I will have to speak a number of times to those I do not know in order to get Aje suitably prepared to take up his freedom. I would not turn him out threxless, weaponless, or without proper provisions.”

“Jaheil will accompany you.” And he started back toward the others.

“Have you no special strategy for the race?” I asked him, hurrying to keep up.

“None that involves you.” And he knew that I knew what he and Hael had done. “I would not discuss such matters, were I you,” he warned me as we came upon Jaheil and Dyis, Nemar’s new dharener.

So it came to be that Jaheil was with me when I went and bought, upon the credit that the uritheria medallion gave me, a good young red threx for Aje, and an assemblage of plain but well-crafted weapons, such functional trail clothing as one can get for another without knowing size, and enough provisions for the trail to Stra.

We went then, loaded threx in hand, to the pit where all the Parset crells were kept together.

The crellkeep was a long time finding him, and Jaheil gloated nonstop about his triumph and pulled intermittently upon a kifra bladder he had with him. He was giving me the history in great detail of the Tycel son, Tycet, the golden threx who had been second to Guanden, when the crellkeep returned with Aje.

“Take those chains from him! I left instructions that he not be bound.” Aje’s confusion was mirrored in the crellkeep’s face as he freed the crell’s wrists.

“It is your business what you do with him in your apprei, tiask,” the crellkeep muttered, “but I cannot have unbound crells in the pits.”

“I will not be bringing him back,” I said. The crellkeep looked at me askance.

“Come here, Lalen of Stra,” I said gently, and he came and stood beside me, eyes upon his feet in good crell fashion. I touched his shoulder, where the huija had left great toothmark upon him. Even the brown salve of the south had not been sufficient to repair, scarless, Besha’s work.

“Look at me,” I suggested. He did so, pale eyes devoid of understanding. “You are free. This threx is for you, and what is upon her also, and this.” I held out in my hand a pouch. He did not move to take it. I shook it so the coins jangled. I took his hand and put the pouch in it. He looked from his open palm to me.

“You will have to buy your own boots.” I grinned at him.

And slowly his face lit up, and he too smiled uncertainly, as if remembering some skill long forgotten. I went to him then and put my arms around him, for I knew he would not dare such a thing. Jaheil snorted and muttered, and I saw the lingering crellkeep’s scandalized face.

Then I stepped back from him. “I could not get your chald.”

“It does not matter,” he said. His eyes were upon the red threx.

“Do you like her?” I asked, and I pulled from my belt the red sash I had purchased. I was sure that Chayin would not mind if I stretched his permission into protection.

“Lalen of Stra”—I laughed—“do you like her?”

“I love her,” he said wonderingly, running his hands down the threx’s legs.

“Wear this,” I suggested, handing him the sash. “It is good as a chald here, though why I should worry about the son of Satemit is beyond me.”

“You knew, then?” he asked, incredulous.

“I have been much among Slayers. The exploits of the Third of Stra, your father, are not unfamiliar to me, nor did those hands ever play instrument other than steel and gol.”

“I would not want him to know what ignominy I have brought upon his name,” said Lalen gaesh Satemit.

“I know,” I said. And I did know. “What will you do?” I asked him.

“I have no idea.” Jaheil glowered at us, arms crossed over his mighty chest, from where he stood a threx length away from the crellkeep.

“You will not return to Stra?”

“I cannot, chaldless.” He sorted through the weapons in the saddlepack.

“There are two here, who wear the red sash, with whom you might wish to strike up an acquaintance. They are from the camp of the Ebvrasea. I have heard that one of the primary requirements for entry into that camp is a chaldless waist, and the other is a skill level the like of which is possessed by only one in a hundred Slayers,” I said thoughtfully to him while he dressed and armed himself from the things Jaheil and I had bought. When he stood up at last, dressed Parset except for his bare legs, his stance was very straight and his eyes met mine unwavering.

“Perhaps I shall search them out,” he allowed, and mounted the red threx, who danced beneath him.

“Tasa,” he said to me, stroking her neck.

“Tasa,” I replied, and turned away to Jaheil, lest he see the unaccountable tears that filled my eyes.

Jaheil left the crellkeep, and his face was twisted as if he had eaten something sour as he looked at me.

“Let us get some food before it is too late.” He squinted into the yellow-tinged sky and pushed me ungently toward the food vendors.

“If you were my tiask, I would beat you until you were blue from head to foot for such behavior. And before a crellkeep yet.” His voice was gruff. “Have you no shame? Or even if you do not, how can you so demean Chayin’s attentions?” he demanded.

And instead of answering him, I pressed myself against him there in the middle of the aisle, and with my masked face against his great chest, let the tears I could not stay flow until I could cry no more. And Jaheil stood there helpless and stroked my back in the way of men before a woman’s despair, muttering senseless words of comfort about the safety of Lalen of Stra, though it was Chayin who had brought the tears upon me.

When I was relieved of tension, and the pain was no more than a dull ache within me, I stood back from him, glad for the mask that hid my face from view, and we walked slowly through the aisles to the food vendors, where Jaheil saw to it that I ate and drank. Though he queried me about my pain, I had no answer for him, nor for Chayin and what lay between us. And though I closed my mind as best I could to it, the helsar twisted and turned within Chayin’s apprei as Liuma worked her wiles upon him.

When I could, I bade Jaheil go and rescue him from her, lest the veil fall so heavy upon him he could not ride. He went, though I could see in his face he believed me not.

While he was gone, Nineth and Pijaes came and sat with me. I told them what Chayin had said, and cautioned them again as to their deportment. The sun neared its zenith, and Jaheil and Chayin did not appear. Pijaes and Nineth still went mask-less. After some delicate inquiries into the success they had had finding couch-mates, during which time I saw Lalen of Stra pass by with the two helmeted, red-sashed northerners, it became clear to me that Nineth had long nursed a desire to spend a night in the arms of the cahndor of Dordassa.

I allowed as how I could introduce them, and since I was to spend the night in Jaheil’s apprei, that Nineth might consider visiting me there. She was at first scandalized, then intrigued by what she called my northern strategies. I wondered aloud that she did not simply approach him. She answered me that she could not speak first to a cahndor. To this I replied that in my experience I had found the couching urge oblivious of such niceties as rank and protocol. She smiled and lowered her eyes demurely, an expression almost ludicrous upon one so powerfully framed as she. The gong for the final section rang out, and I begged my leave and hurried to find Guanden.

Under the yellow pavilion I found not only my mount, but Chayin and Jaheil as well, standing over Hael, who knelt, holding Quiris’ left front hoof in his hands.

“I will not chance it,” Hael said decisively, rising. I peered at the hoof and saw what disturbed the dharener—a hairline crack running vertically a finger’s length up Quiris’ mid-hoof. The threx bit at his leg fretfully, holding it off the ground. Hael jerked his head up, lest he injure himself further, and led him away.

Chayin looked at me, his eyes distant and brooding. “After the race, attend me,” he ordered. As the threx master came around with a deep bowl and we each drew our numbers, I wondered what I had done to further displease him. I drew fifth, Chayin third, Jaheil eighth. The threx master blared the lineup at top voice, and the threxmen shuffled their charges into order. The golden Menetpher threx, Tycet, had first position.