The Shadow at the Gate (29 page)

“Try,” said Ronan.

The innkeeper shrugged.

“All, right, then!” he shouted. “Who’ll challenge?!”

“Might as well grab a sandcat’s tail!” someone yelled in response.

“Toss ‘im off! He’s the bleeding Knife, for shadow’s sake!”

“I tell you, he ain’t! Not anymore!”

“Well, if you think that changes things, then get up there and take his sword away, you stupid git!”

Ronan held up his hand for silence.

“Ten to one odds,” he said. “I’ll give ten to one odds for anyone.”

The crowd shuffled its feet. Men looked uneasily at each other. Vigdis, slouched in a corner on the top step, grinned and shook his head.

“Well, lad,” said the innkeeper. “Ain’t no one here going against you.”

“Pardon me, good sir, but I would try this man’s skill.”

As if one creature possessing a hundred heads, the entire crowd turned, all heads swiveling together. Two men stood at the tavern backdoor. The two looked a pair, alike in build, coloring and dress. They had hair like corn silk bleached to near white by a relentless sun. Their skin was the hue of old wood, burnished brown by that same sun and, as if they took all their colors from the heavens, their eyes were as blue as a summer’s sky.

“Harthians,” said someone.

The two men made their way down the steps. The crowd jostled around them. Already, bets were being taken. The scratch of chalk on slate filled the air as oddsmakers noted wagers. The taller of the two Harthians stepped up onto the platform. He surveyed the yard with bright eyes and then turned to Ronan and innkeeper.

“I am new to your fair city and, as such, not conversant with your games of skill. If you would instruct me in the rules, I would be grateful.”

“Well, m’lord,” said the innkeeper. “Ain’t much to it. No killing strokes. First man to give up or get booted off the planks loses, see?”

“Yes, I suppose I do see. Stio—” This was said to the other Harthian who stood at the platform’s edge. “Stio, I think this the tonic to clear my head of dances and dinners.”

“May I remind you, Eaomod,” said this other, “that we must return to the castle at the hour’s end. The regent has promised a race, and you were desirous of testing your steed’s mettle.”

He spoke calmly and clearly, as if the two were alone. The crowd stared, entranced. The oddsmen paused in their rounds. The serving girls gazed hopelessly at the two. Even the young nobles in the corner blinked, wide-eyed.

“Time enough, Stio. Time enough. Now, good sir,” said the Harthian, smiling at Ronan, “I am called Eaomod. I would know your name before we begin.”

“He’s the bleedin’ Knife!” someone yelled from the crowd.

“He’s Ronan of Aum!” shouted another.

The Harthian’s eyebrows raised. “With Aum a haunt of jackals and owls for how many hundreds of years now?”

Ronan grinned. “A man has to come from somewhere.”

Eaomod regarded the innkeeper’s swords with disfavor.

“These, good sir, are suited for chopping firewood and it would be dismal sport indeed, waving such crudities about. Have you nothing better?”

“N-nothing, m’lord,” stammered the innkeeper.

“Stio. Lend me your blade.”

Stio drew a sword from under his cloak. It was a long, lovely, deadly-looking thing, twin to the sword that Eaomod himself produced. He handed them both to Ronan.

“Choose, my friend, and then let us begin.”

“Here now,” said the innkeeper. “You can’t do that. No edges. Blunt weapons, see?”

“Truly?” said the Harthian. “But surely one of your skill, friend Ronan, would not mind?”

Ronan shrugged and weighed the swords in his hands. They were beautiful weapons, light and graceful and obviously forged by the same master hand. He offered Eaomod’s own back to him. As far as he could tell, there was no difference between the two swords.

“No edges,” protested the innkeeper. “Lord Gawinn will close my place.”

“Let ‘em fight!” shouted an onlooker.

“Aye! Get off the planks, you fat plonk, and let ‘em have at it!”

The innkeeper threw his hands in the air and clambered off the platform. Eaomod unclasped his cloak and tossed it down to his friend.

“Now,” he said. His eyes sparkled.

“Would you care for a wager, m’ lord?” said Ronan.

The Harthian shook his head, smiling. “In Harth, it is only for the sake of war or love that we fight. And today, this is for love of the sword. Though, if you throw me into the crowd in such manner as that unfortunate boy received, we shall fight again, but then for the sake of our own private war.”

Ronan smiled in turn, swallowing his disappointment.

“First blood?” he said.

“First blood,” said the other.

“All right, then.”

In that first moment, Ronan knew he faced a master swordsman. The Harthian did not waste a finger’s breadth of needless movement. He drifted just out of reach, wavering and insubstantial in the noonday sun. He seemed a thing of dream, moving to some peculiar music whose rhythm only he heard, but the sword in his grasp was sure and swift. Ronan circled around him like a hungry sandcat.

The crowd hushed into silence. A few of the older men there, those who had fought in the Errant Wars, knew what they watched might not be seen again in their lives. And those who were untutored in such skill instinctively knew what they saw was some strange rarity.

Sunlight glittered and flashed on steel. The blades described circles and arcs and angles, creating a myriad of fantastic tableaus that existed in the air over the platform, springing into being one instant, only to be replaced the next instant with another succession of whirls and lines. Here was the perfect, steel-colored circle of a many-spoked wheel throwing off a dazzle of light. Here was the abrupt unfolding of a lady’s fan, opening with a clatter and formed of light and air and iron death. And there was a strange flower grown of loops and whorls and deadly clashing petals.

Eaomod’s smile grew broader as they fought.

“You fight marvelously well, friend Ronan,” he said.

“Thanks.”

Ronan parried a bewildering succession of blows. He was not conversant with the style of the other’s swordplay and he wondered if it was peculiar to Harth. He had never been to Harth, except as a child.

“I confess myself curious, friend Ronan.”

“Is that so?”

“It is acknowledged in all of Tormay that there are nine true masters of the sword. The Lord Captain of your fair city is one of them, of course, though I have yet the pleasure to see his skill. My old teacher is another, even in his dotage and with death his patient attendant.”

The blades whistled through the air. Sunlight shone hot and white in Eaomod’s hair.

“And who is your teacher?”

“The blademaster of the house of Oran. Lorcannan Nan.”

“Ah.” Now things were starting to make sense.

“The other seven, naturally, are the seven lords of Harlech, but it is only our elders who have seen their skill, for the lords of Harlech only draw their swords when they ride to war.”

“True.”

“Perhaps, one day, I shall be so happy as to see their skill, but—alas—I would not wish such a fate on Tormay, even though, since childhood, I have been trained for battle. Most days, peace is better than war. Forgive me, I digress.”

“You’ve named your nine. I’ve heard of ‘em.”

The sun was high in the sky and just tipped into the beginning of its downward slide. In the yard, it seemed that only the two men on the platform moved, like bright gods who had stepped down from the heavens and so found themselves darting through the sluggish currents of human time, while all those who stood around them could only gaze in unblinking silence. The gods flickered faster than thought—lunge and parry and wheeling around each other in succession after succession.

“Yes, but I have heard tell of two others.”

“I haven’t. If war comes again to these lands, then I hope your nine’ll prove enough.”

“There’s a peculiar family that travels the breadth of Tormay, trading in horses and the training of them. They have an ill repute, for it’s said they steal their horses if they can’t have them for gold.”

“Sounds like a dodgy bunch.”

“They’re called the Farrows. Once, when my old teacher had been drinking and inclined to talk, he did say that no man lives in all of Tormay able to stand before the sword of the head of that family, Cullan Farrow. No man.”

“Haven’t heard of him.”

“No? And he’s supposed to have a son that will one day surpass his father’s skill. Declan is his name. Even in Harth, the minstrels tell the story of Declan Farrow and how he rescued the daughter of the duke of Vomaro. He was only a boy when he tracked the ogres to their lair and slew them in that dark haunt. Are you conversant with this tale, my friend?”

“I’ve heard the story. Who hasn’t? All minstrels are drunkards and liars.”

The blades sang through the air, punctuated by a tattoo of ringing tones—vicious hammer strikes—as sword met sword. Ronan pressed his attack and Eaomod smiled.

“It is time!” called Stio from beside the platform.

Eaomod stepped back and lowered his sword. Ronan paused in mid-lunge. The crowd came alive a surge. They howled in protest.

“First blood! First blood!”

Eaomod bowed slightly and then his hand flashed out, catching hold of Ronan’s sword. He held it up. Blood dripped from his palm.

“Here is your satisfaction!”

The crowd howled again, but in delight. A roar of applause went up.

“Poorly done, my lord,” said Ronan, laughing. “I’ve never defeated someone with such a weak cut before.”

“Never before has the Prince of Harth been defeated by such a paltry loss of blood.”

And the Prince of Harth, for that was who he was, smiled and bowed. Ronan held out his hand. The Prince looked somewhat bemused, but then he gripped the other’s hand.

“I am still not fluent in your northern ways,” he said.

“Another day, my lord,” said Ronan. “We’ll have to have another go. It’s been a long time since an opponent made me think.”

The Prince smiled and said nothing.

“My thanks for the sword,” said Ronan, stepping down from the platform and handing the blade to Stio. The man bowed and then, just as bemused as his lord, shook Ronan’s still outstretched hand.

“Never before have I seen my sorry steel put to such use,” he said.

The crowd jostled noisily around them as they made their way out. To one side, Ronan could see the glaring face of Arodilac forcing a path toward him through the press. He gave the boy no time, however, and ducked through the back door of the tavern. It was dark and cool and silent inside. With a bow, the two Harthians made their farewells, the Prince’s eye still speculative. Then they were gone, hurrying off into the busy street.

“For you,” said the innkeeper. He thrust a small bag into Ronan’s hand. “Half the house take for your fight.”

“Ah.” The bag was heavy. It clinked with coins.

“You’re in luck. Once that sandman got going, the bets came in fast. A lot of the lads were hoping he’d take you.”

Ronan slipped out into the street and didn’t look back, heading in the opposite direction from Highneck Rise and the regent’s castle. The opposite direction from where he knew the two Harthians would be going. Once he was several blocks away, he ducked down an alley. A peek in the bag of coins satisfied him. He had made more than enough to buy clothes suitable for the regent’s ball.

The coins were fortunate by themselves, but the contents of his pocket were of more interest to him. He took the two rings out and examined them. They were of plain gold. They bore no stones or markings, but from both of the pair Ronan could hear a faint whisper. Smiling, he pocketed them and strode on.

The day was proving fortunate.

Never shake hands with a thief.

Ronan wandered down to the wharf. A sloop was gliding out across the breakwater, heading for the open sea. White sails billowed as they rose. Across the bay, he could hear the voices of the sailors as they called to each other. Then, the boat was past the breakwater and heeling over, picking up speed with sails full of wind. Seagulls wheeled overhead. He breathed in the scent of salt, and it was so sharp and sudden that, for one instant, his mind was filled with the blues and greens and blinding sunlight of the sea and sky. The pound of the surf on the breakwater boomed in the distance. The wind sighed through the timber pilings of the piers.

These are the colors of her eyes, he thought.

The tide surged against the breakwater, and spray foamed up into the air, hanging there before subsiding back into the sea. He could hear hunger in the pounding boom of it, for the tide never sleeps, of course, but always returns for what it seeks. He turned away and was not sure if he feared seeing her again, or if he was glad. He was only conscious of the beauty of the day and the hunger of the tide and the silence which, he knew, must lie sleeping in the depths below it all.