The Paladin Part 22

Shoka bowed. "That's very generous."

Taizu gave him a furious frown. "No."

"I'll talk with my wife," Shoka said. "I'm minded to accept, master Yi. It's a very kind offer."

"It's too slow!" Taizu said; and Shoka said: "Excuse me," and bowed to the caravan-master, stood up and seized Taizu by the wrist, dragging her up and off to have a word with her on Jiro's other side. "It's good sense!" Shoka said. "Speed isn't enough. We can go as far as Ygotai with this lot! Use your head, girl!"

"That man is already suspicious! If we stay around he's going to go on wondering and pretty soon he'll start figuring you could be wanted by the law and there might be some money in us!"

Thatwas a thought, audacious and crooked, decidedly a thought on Taizu's side of the slate.

"I trustus! " Taizu said. "I trustyou , I don't trust this master Yi and his people. They're barbarians! G.o.ds know what thoughts might get into their heads. They could get scared if they get to thinking you could be wanted! They could do all sorts of things and if we're sleeping with them and eating with them there's no way we can defend ourselves! I don't like it, I don't like it, I don't like it."

Sheknew stealth. She had gotten from Hua to Hois.h.i.+, alive.

And G.o.ds knew-outland traders might not know his face or his gear; but someone they met on the road might, and might talk, and an outland trader might get ideas what his life could be worth in gold. . . .

In certain terms, he was more danger than protection to Taizu; she was right in that; and that both galled him and worried him.

"All right," he said. "All right. I'll agree with you."

She drew a quick breath and let it go without a word.

And he led her back to master Yi and bowed. "Master Yi, thank you, but my wife is shy of strangers, and I've humored her this far. I thank you profoundly for your good advice, but a married man, you understand how it is with wives-"

Doubtless master Yi suspected how it must be with this one. Shoka put on a rueful face and tried to look as embarra.s.sed as possible, not quite looking master Yi in the eye, and not missing, either, master Yi's shake of the head.

"M'lord, I trust you know what you're doing. I can't urge you strongly enough,"

"Women," Shoka said. He bowed again. "I certainly admire you, sir." And as he walked away: "Four wives. That's truly amazing."

"I recommend the stick," master Yi called after him.

Taizu started to turn around. Shoka grabbed her by the shoulder and marched her over to pick up the baggage. He climbed up to the saddle as Taizu thrust her arms through the ropes of the bedroll and the rest of their gear, and started off, with yet another bow to master Yi.

"Not a word," he said under his breath. "Not aword , Taizu."

She managed quite well, walking along with her head down while they pa.s.sed beside the caravan, picking their way on the brushy margin, among rocks and in and out among the wagons as one side or the other of the trail offered sufficient room. Caravaneers stared at them. No few leered at Taizu, and two exchanged words in their outland tongue and laughed. It was not easy, that pa.s.sage. He thought fondly of taking that pair who laughed and seeing whether their humor extended to a beating. But satisfaction was much too expensive.

Down the long, long row of wagons, until they were well into the clear of the road, and rounding the curve of the hill.

Then Taizu turned half-about and said, indignantly: "They were making fun of you!"

"If we want them to report us to the nearest magistrate I can certainly go back and teach them proper respect: that should get our descriptions up and down the road as fast as anything I can think of."

"You didn't need to bow to them!"

"Dear wife, I thought I did rather well. We're well ahead of them, and if they mention us to the magistrate in Ygotai let's hope they report a doting fool and his spoiled wife who probably left their bones in the forest. I was Shoka to my intimates, not to folk at large, and I doubt they'll connect that name with Saukendar-but they might, if I'd cracked their heads. Wouldn't they?"

She still frowned, but she made no more argument, "I didn't use the demon story."

"Oh, no, thenext caravan through the village will pick that up, and we'll be famous!"

"Another reason why I thought you might just be right about making speed on this stretch. Their logical a.s.sumption is that we turned north at Ygotai, ahead of the caravan-ifthey realize it's me. We told them the truth about Hua. That's precisely what they'll think is a lie. So they won't look on that road."

Taizu turned around again as she walked, her expression thunderous. "On the other hand they just could believe Saukendar wouldn't lie."

"I hope I had a reputation for being smart. -Look out for that bus.h.!.+"

She glanced back and skipped around it and the rock behind it. "All I can say is, ifI was the magistrate in Ygotai and they told me about a gentleman clear out here with all that expensive armor,I'd be suspicious, and I'd know he was in some kind of trouble, and I'd know there wasn't any lord Shoka because that's not a proper name."

"He'd know there were a couple of mercenaries, that's what, one female."

"Who didn't want hire with the caravan."

"Because they had better prospects elsewhere. Gitu was hiring them ten years ago. I don't think he's changed. And youm'lord anybody with a full rig of armor. I'm at least a mercenarycaptain , and that's more than master Yi can hire. He knows that. If he believes the wife story, that's fine; if he doesn't he'll think we're mercenaries-"

"Who walked out letting those fools laugh at us!"

"They won't sleep well tonight. Mark me. That was stupid of them, letting us among them to see how many they are. That's why Iacted the fool, and they laughed at the situation. When they get to thinkingback on the style of the gear and the rest of it, they're going to have two and three thoughts on it, none of which agree, all of which are going to make master Yi d.a.m.n nervous from here on, much more than if we were a simple pair of bullies they might have feathered outright.We walked away. They shouldn't have let us do that. And now I'm sure they're thinking about that and hoping we were fools."

She looked at him with her mouth open, walking sideways and backward. "You're so tangled up!

You've told them so many things they'll suspect us for sure!"

"They won't know what we are. Till, as you say, some other traders overtake them.Then they'll know, and by then we'd best keep ahead of the rumors." He thought of plaguing her again about going back.

And thought:G.o.ds, there is no going back, is there? Ghita will know, soon or late. And a.s.sa.s.sins will come again. Even on the mountain there's no safety now.

Well, I knew as much when I began this. No helping it. No helping anything now.

Straight in and straight out, and maybe, if we're very lucky-go for the south and the mountains, and lose ourselves there, where even the imperial guard won't follow.

d.a.m.nable mess this woman's talked me into.

The sun became a golden glow behind the hills on the other side of the river, and a touch of gold at the peaks of the hills that rose high on their right.

That went too, as they came to the place where the river ran noisier over rocks, and where the hills of the Barrens truly closed in.

Beyond this was not a place to travel in the dark, a narrow place fit for ambushes, where the river flowed in a riven, sometimes wooded gap and the ground was stony and the hills were broken and tumbled on either side.

"This is where we stop," he said, when a turn of the hills brought them face to face with that.

"I did it by dark," Taizu said. "But I didn't have any horse, and I hid a lot, whenever I could."

He shook his head, thinking of her with that d.a.m.ned great basket, light as she had packed it; and her alone in that place made for ambushes.

And he climbed down and led Jiro off where there was still a little ground free of rocks.

"I've got an idea," Taizu said as they were boiling up a little water: it was yesterday's rice and jerky, with tea.

"G.o.ds save us. What?"

"About the arrows. What we do-" She was sitting on her heels feeding twigs of scrub into the tiny fire while he sat cross-legged on their mats, close by. "What we do, I go in first, just right down the trail, and I make a lot of noise like a fool. And if there's anybody there, you'll be behind me and you can pick them off. That's better than both of us getting shot at or somebody hitting Jiro."

"No, they'll just shoot you outright. You don't look like a woman, from a distance." She gave him an offended look.

"I thought youliked looking like a boy," he gibed at her. "There's nothing wrong with the idea, except making you the target. Wecould always wait for master Yi. I knew this was ahead somewhere: I remembered it, but I like the look of it less by twilight."

"I don't trust that man. I don't trust any of his people. And they won't trust us. Like you said, they've had time to think, and they'll want to have us back in their reach. I'm almost more worried about them than I am the bandits."

He frowned, thinking on that point, thinking about Taizu, too, who he had long known was not dull-witted, but by the G.o.ds, he began to see the journey she had made and how she had made it.

d.a.m.n clever girl. d.a.m.ned clever.

One had to take her very seriously. Even if his own choice would be to go with the trader and crack skulls if it came to it. Taizu in the field had all the patience she lacked in other matters. Paradoxes.

"I knew a boy like you. Things were never real to him until the steel was out.Then he used good sense."

"He's dead," Taizu guessed. "All your stories come out that way."

He shook his head. "He's in holy orders. That's the only thing kept Ghita's lot from taking his head-last I heard. You know if you'd gone to Muigan, you'd have ended up abbess."

She wrinkled her nose at him, and sifted tea into the water.

"The nuns would have taught you the stick, you know. Same as I did."

"Too many do-this'es. And praying." She made a face. "Not me."

"Celibacy, too. I don't think you'd have liked that."

She made another face at him. "I said, tonight.After supper. I'm hungry."

"Well, I might be out of the mood by then. Who knows?"

The look turned wicked. "Master Shoka, you haven't been out of the mood since I've known you.

Here." She held out the pot to pour tea. He held out his tea-bowl and trusted her accuracy.

"It'sShoka ," he said. "Plain Shoka, if you please."

A worried glance from under brows. The smile was gone.

"I wish you'd gone back, master Shoka. Now I'm afraid they're going to hear about you leaving the mountain. And then what?"

"They've tried before. They tried several times when I first came, when they'd found me. They stopped.

It got too expensive for them." "This time they might not stop."

"They might not. So we leave to the south. We go through the hills. We find another mountain further away."

She looked at him a long, long time.

"Your dinner's getting cold," he said, and popped a rice-ball into his mouth.

Itwas a cold supper, of course. She ate her own rice and jerky, listlessly, between sips of tea. He ate his with appet.i.te, boiled up a second round of tea apiece, and leaned back to drink while she finished her dinner in silence.

"Admit it," he said. "You've gotten a little good sense thanks to my teaching. I won't say one word. You know everything I'd tell you. Plan a retreat. Always plan a retreat. I have one planned. Don't think I don't." d.a.m.n lie. He leaned his head back against the rocks, hoping that she was not going to find another excuse tonight, that her mood would not put her off. She slipped into that so easily. It took a few more years to put that much distance between a man and his dead, and to persuade him that the day and the moment were the important thing. "Enjoy life, girl. Or you let them kill you day by day. And I don't give the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds the satisfaction. Take everything the day gives you. Enjoy the sunset. Enjoy the rain. Or a man who loves you. What the h.e.l.l. Idon't think I'm that bad. Am I?"

She looked at him over the rim of the tea-bowl, a short glance, and again, sidelong, thinking about it, Taizu-like. A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, and a brow lifted. "No, I don't think so."

The smile disappeared. "I'm a farmer. I know how nature is. I've seen the goats and the pigs have afine time. I had four brothers, two married." The mouth trembled. "And what I got was something different.

You know? That doesn't surprise a farmer any. Goats aren't polite either. But h.e.l.l! master Shoka-" She ripped up a handful of gra.s.s and flung it. "My bad luck. Isn't it? I'd like them to try now. That's what. I'd like that."

He exhaled a careful breath. d.a.m.n, was there no respite in her? "I hope you don't include me in that number."

She bit at her lip. "No, master Shoka. I just want you to know if you sleep with me, I'm not your wife, I'm doing it because I'm scared and I don't like being scared, so I do it until I'm not. But you think it's for you. And I won't lie to you. I don't like lying. I'm not a virgin. I'm not anybody's lady. It's my fault you left your mountain and I wish toh.e.l.l you'd go back! If you'd go back I promise I'll try to stay alive and come back, and then I'll marry you, I'll do anything you want me to for the rest of my life. I just don't want you getting killed for me. I never wanted that. You're being stupid, and I hate that! I'm not what you think I am. I'm not your lady. I'm a farmer. They'll laugh at you if you say I'm anything else. Just like those people back there. And I won't have that!"

The face was perfectly in control, the hands on knees, the whole posture tranquil. Only the voice trembled and broke.

He left that silence a long while. He found a twig of brushwood in his fingers and snapped it. "Let me tell you then, since we're being ruthlessly honest: I was a d.a.m.n fool for not insisting Meiya sleep with me.

Then she never would have married the Emperor. I was a greater fool to have believed there was something the Emperor would stick at, and not to have s.n.a.t.c.hed her up and run for the border. But by then, you see-by then, she was the Emperor's wife. And they'd have brought an army after me; and she'd still be dead. But the fact is-" It was a thought that had been growing in him for months, a bitterthought, a thought that made desolate a good part of his life. "I don't think I'd loved her for years. I don't think she'd loved me-ever. We were kids. We were infatuated. I lost her to the old Emperor's order. It was romantical and I was desolated, and my pride was hurt. So what could I do but carry on with a feeling I'm not sure was ever real? You understand that? Probably what you're going through with me.

You do and you don't. Yea and nay. But for me, then, it had to be real. She hated her husband. I was her friend. We never once slept together. If we had, I think it would have been to relive the past. To imagine there'd been something more than infatuation. The day she died-" He cleared a tightness in his throat. "She was waiting for me, I'm sure to the last, because I was her friend. Because she knew if anyone had come-I would have. But things between us by then were all politics and planning how to do this and planning how to influence one lord and another to do what had to be done-all politics. We weren't lovers, we were a faction Ghita had to break-myself, Meiya, lord Heisu. That he couldn't prove adultery on me-was because we'd been so careful there was no chance. That they proved it on Heisu-was because-G.o.ds only know-she might have. And I wouldn't blame her. I'd know why . . .

because she treated me as too d.a.m.ned honorable. And she'd have known how foolish it was and how dangerous. But if she slept with Heisu-it was because she didn't give a d.a.m.n for him, personally, only as a friend and adviser, and her husband never touched her. You see-there are things people do to each other as bad as happens on battlefields. That's my truth. You didn't choose what happened. Imade the mess that I suffered from. So if I sleep with you-it's because I've gotten smarter over the years. I take the moments the G.o.ds give. I don't ask too much. I genuinely care about you. I've never slept with a woman I've cared about. Not one-until you." It grew too embarra.s.sing, to be saying that to a very young, very tough-minded girl, no matter she was no child. He reached out and jabbed the broken twig into the fire, not looking at her, but at the fire that licked up, brief, bright flames and a few sparks in the gathering dark. "Anyway, that's my reason. It's not on your shoulders." He took another bit of brushwood and fed it in. "If I remember my maps, the hills in the south of Hua are wooded. Hard country to find anyone in. That's how I plan to get out. And you with-"

She had gotten up. He thought he might have upset her and she was going to walk off. Instead she came to his side and squatted down and took his hand and held it, arms between her knees.

"Let's sleep together. All right?"

He looked up at an earnest, firelit face, close to his own. His pulse quickened. "All right," he said, and closed his hand tighter. And thought of the woods not far away, and the nature of the land.

h.e.l.l with it. He started in with her ties and she helped him with his, and they peeled out of the armor like two youngsters in a hedgerow.

After which he covered the fire, threw the blankets around them both and said: "Let's not hurry. Let me explain the fine points of-this."

"Just do it!"

"No, no, no, one doesn't."

"Mmmn," she said after a while, and let out a yelp.

The ladies of Chiyaden were more discreet. He could not say he preferred them at all, the more so as she got the notion to try her own ideas.