The Paladin Part 34

A riverman came past, running toward the bow, and Taizu swallowed it down fast. They were coming in at Anogi proper, which loomed up in tiers above the riverside, the two halves of the city somewhat skewed from each other across the Hisei-but that was the way the current brought the ferry ash.o.r.e, and that was the way the two halves had grown.

"Poor boy," Shoka said. "Don't try to talk. You'll open that up again."

Taizu glared at him.

"Trust me," Shoka said, and rested a hand on her shoulder. "We're doing just fine. Aren't we?"

"Not if you go talking to soldiers!"

"But Iwas one," Shoka said. "Don't worry about that part. Where are the d.a.m.n levies from Choedri, that's what I'd give a lot to know. Maybe off at Anogi garrison. Maybe in Lungan or beyond it. It's not something I can ask without telling too much. But I used to have resources in Lungan. We'll see if anyone's left."

"And if they're scared enough of Ghita-"

"There's that risk. There's always that risk. People change. Loyalties do. Don't think I haven't thought about that."

"Who are you going to talk to?" she hissed; and choked off whatever came next: the riverman was coming back past, headed astern in the general commotion of putting in at the landing.

"Old acquaintances," Shoka said under his breath, and looked out over the bow of the ferry aimed toward Anogi north.

He thought of the old man and Lungan in about the same breath. He wondered was Jojin still alive-whether an aged grammarian had been too political to survive; or whether Jojin's priestly connections had saved his neck.

Two days on the road and he had gotten nothing from the ferry-guard, back there on the Tengu sh.o.r.e, of anything he did not know or could not have guessed. The general situation was all too old to gossip about, the present details too intricate to navigate in blind questions with a man who could raise a general alarm-that was what he had sensed when he had abandoned his attempt to get news and skirted around the edges of matters.

So he had gotten back to the matter of the fish, very quickly, and tried to answer nothing and gather what he could by implication.

About Saukendar: yes, the mercenaries north of the river knew he was abroad.

About trouble, even a collapse of the south into chaos: that certainly worried them but they had no trouble believing it.

About a mercenary unit coming northward bereft of its captain: everything he had claimed to have done,escaping a night attack, coming north to report, had seemed reasonable to them. Thank the G.o.ds.

Two days of their seven were gone. And he was not as far along toward Lungan as he would have wished.

Nothing was as far along as he would have wished. He had wanted one of the birds to take along. If there had been a reason he could have thought, to justify a band of common soldiers having a pigeon-cage strapped to some horse's rump, he would have done it. But there was too much that could go wrong, a bird like that escaping or being let fly with a false message-was too dangerous. Hence the simple pact with Reidi, and a schedule that had to be kept.

Don't go charging blind into Lungan, he had said. Be ready to improvise. Don't follow instructions over the edge of a cliff.

He trusted that the man who had set up so much of this over the years had the wit to improvise in a crisis: he trusted the old man desperately, he hoped that Reidi's physical strength would suffice under the strain, he hoped that Reidi would have the moral force to prevail over fools like Kegi and Maijun. It was a great deal to hope of an old and hitherto sedentary gentleman, and for a dizzy, foolish moment of his own he had even wondered if Taizu would be capable of that kind of judgement in command-he was that short of talent, and she had it, he thought, she had the imagination and the sense that could make a correct decision in any situation except battlefield tactics,if she had had the simple years of living to let her understand cowardice and greed and glory-grabbing on her own side.

She was learning. He had seen the flicker of her eyes, he had seen her listening in councils, clench-jawed and silent, he had seen the little tensions that came and went when in their own small company, someone suggested something he himself had to refuse-sheunderstood.

d.a.m.n fine, girl. d.a.m.ned fine all the way we've come together.

I should let her go now.

Then he knew that he was thinking about dying.

Plan your retreat, master Shoka. . . .

He felt the pain in his leg, old ache, never quite absent in this long riding. He remembered cutting wood, and the frown on Taizu's face. He remembered that frown when the ferry b.u.mped against the sh.o.r.e and the officer of the guard on that side of the river came up asking for names and business.

A quickening of the pulse then; and he put his mind into the essence of one Sengi, mercenary, late of Aghi's company, who carried an ivory courier chit and who had made fast time ahead of trouble. "They said report in," he said to the guard captain; and then, taking a deliberate chance: "They said higher-ups better talk with us, if we know anything they'll want to know. Where do we go?"

"Everything's at Lungan," the guard captain said. "Everything's out of there."

"Same placethey're headed," Shoka muttered, slipping the chit back into his belt-pouch. "Fast. They're coming right north, they've picked up forces out of the west. Some of that lot. Probably been in it from the start, and there's too d.a.m.n many of them, hitting all over. The rumors are wild down there-there's supposed to be a dragon down in Taiyi. A demon with Saukendar's army. I tell you it's crazy." "Anyone see it?" The captain looked Fittha. His armor was hung with amulets and his wrists had braided horsehair charms against spells. "What kind of demon?"

"h.e.l.l if I know. If it was there I didn't see it, but I don't want to either. They have to get the priests busy, that's what. They'd better do something, d.a.m.n, they better get those prayer-sticks lit, I ain't going to go have a look for it, not me, no."

The captain scratched and rubbed at one of his charms. "So what are the companies south doing?"

Shoka shrugged. "I dunno. I don't know who's moving out there, I didn't see anything. What hit us was in the dark and fast, and we got out alive, that's all. Except we know Hois.h.i.+'s gone. We got reports up from there; Hois.h.i.+'s one of the ringleaders, and we saw banners from out west. So what I know, I don't know who knows, but I figure somebody should, fast, before it gets across the Hisei. So I'd better get on the road and move."

"That one won't make it there," the guard captain said, with a nod toward Taizu, who had her horse ash.o.r.e and who mounted up with every indication of exhaustion, the horse shying off and circling-My G.o.ds, from behind!-until Taizu hopped around in a drunken stagger and clawed her way up with the horse between her feminine backside and the captain's stare. "Better leave that one to hospital."

"My cousin," Shoka said. "I told him. He won't. Afraid of us getting separated. And I promised his father I'd get him home." Shoka climbed up to the saddle and reined back. "Lungan. We'll make it. Wish I was staying. Here's a h.e.l.l of a lot safer...."

The horse wanted to move. He gave it a touch of his heels and the rest followed, clattering up the stone landing and onto the streets of Anogi.

Everything concentrated at Lungan.

Ghita too?

Where in h.e.l.l is the Emperor right now?

Or that d.a.m.n pigeon.

Taizu pulled, up beside him. She said nothing. His heart had nearly stopped when she had to climb up on the horse again with the captain watching. "That coat's not long enough," Shoka said. "Be aware when a man's behind you."

"I saw it," she said between her teeth. "You think he saw?"

"You covered up. I hope." Anogi streets unwound around them, riverside market, a road that lay toward town-edge, and they picked up the pace a little, bunching together, stringing out to pa.s.s a cart, together again as they headed up the river front, past docked barges and small vendor boats.

All the while he kept thinking it was not going to work, that the guards were going to start thinking about Taizu's mannerisms or recall something in his accent and start wondering. He kept expecting pursuit, as nervous as the men with them, and not daring to look over his shoulder more than a man might, who was trying to keep a small band together on a city street.

But there was the city gate ahead-a mere landmark, Anogi long ago having sprawled beyond its oldlimits, so that the wall was built up in houses and shops and the gate had become nothing but an arch to shelter beggars.

An unG.o.dly number of beggars, the halt and the maimed, some of whom, doubtless, had been soldiers.

Or farmers.

He felt anger at that thought. He saw the numbers-he saw the wounds, the kind of wounds that swords made, he saw the hate directed at them in that ride through shadow- -for foreigners, for hired soldiers, for ten years of oppressors.

He thought of Taizu, glaring up at him as he stood on his porch.

Justice, master Saukendar.

And he thought, hurting this time,Young fool, I can't help you. ...

But they were not far from Lungan; or the Regent. And he wasangry in that moment, with a sense of outrage Taizu had stirred in him, but no one else, for years.

Shadow to sunlight, and the last sprawl of the town in front of them, people going about their business, just dodging the mercenaries in the street, that was the way people lived-except for the scarcity of young men on the streets.

There had been young men among the beggars, there were a number of young men in the yellow robes of monks- But not otherwise. And the women swathed themselves in scarves and shapeless coats, tired-looking, worn and cheerless, even the young ones.

The ghosts of laughing girls flitted across his memory, bright colors, flirting eyes, steps that danced. . . .

The women of Chiyaden, the young women, going stoop-shouldered and fearfully about the riverside- Taizu, in front of him at the porch steps:Teach me, master Saukendar. .., .

Taizu, in the rain, flailing away at the tree, Taizu lying in the mud, under the lightning-flashes- -Taizu with that demon's look on her face, white and wet and terrible- -Riding beside him, absolute in her intentions as he had never known how to be:Justice, master Saukendar . . .

He was not sure what justice existed in the court at Cheng'di, but he had a notion what justice he would take from the fools who marched the youth of Chiyaden off to border wars and plundered their own land and maintained their power with hired soldiers- Who used the young men of the provinces as coin to buy alliances, supporting one barbarian king, fighting another-and called it affairs of state- Cut off the head of this monster and that was only half the battle: the rest of its coils were threaded through every province of Chiyaden, and apt to die hard, working destruction as far as mercenary bands could reach.

But no worse than he saw around him.

There was no way to extricate that beast from the land; and G.o.ds help the people when they struck the blow.

G.o.ds help the people if they did not.

That was the way he kept thinking, with every stride the horses took. Five more days beyond this one, and Reidi was going to put his neck out and with him every hope of opposing Ghita's regime.

Five days beyond this one and that bridge at Lungan had d.a.m.ned well better be open. He knew no way, this side of the river, to get one of the men back to Reidi in time to say otherwise, and he wished to h.e.l.l he could, now, strongly suspecting, by everything he had heard from the Fittha, that Ghita was well warned and prepared to draw a battle-line at the bridge at Lungan.

That said something about the north, that Ghita reckoned the Imperial Province well in hand, so that he could hold at Lungan, without worrying about anything coming at his back. So much for the hope that the Imperial troops in the province might mutiny, that some wave of rebellion might come in from the borders, at least sufficient uncertainty to make a difference: in that case Ghita would pull back behind Cheng'di and across the Chaighin, to his own land in Kenji and Angen, where he could virtually section off Ayenden, Shangei, P'eng and Yijang, where the mercenary forces were thickest and where his supporters held lords.h.i.+ps-a slow, nasty kind of war, but better than fighting it out in the heart of Chiyaden.

But Imperial troops had evidently not defected, the Hisei and not the Chaighin was the line of defense Ghita chose, and the Emperor and the capital were firmly in Ghita's hands.

Decidedlynot what he had hoped for.

The spa.r.s.e traffic on the Lungan road had a desperate look, a few traders, anxious gentry in fancy, flower-painted carriages and countryfolk in plain farm carts, or just poor townsmen walking with baskets and bundles. When they saw soldiers they pulled over to the edge of the road and inched along, or stopped altogether and made respectful bows from which they did not look up at all. Taizu just rode coldly past them, watching, watching all the while, wary as he had taught her to be, sharp eyes above the mask of filthy bandage, while the men, some of them, rode silent and avoided looking at the people: ashamed, Shoka thought; or feeling too much.

Himself-he tried to figure out what he felt, who-he could not shake the feeling-might have come earlier, might have planned better, and, by the G.o.ds, on his side, might have had a d.a.m.n lot more help from these same people-if any number of them had been willing to take matters in their own hands. He was not sure whether he loved them in the aggregate or wanted to do them violence; or wanted simply to ride off and let them talk their way out of their disaster, the way they had talked the emperor to the throne and Ghita into power and himself out of favor and then turned around and deified him right into the mess he was in, his whole life carried one direction and another on the breath of the people; and all the virtue he had went to refraining from what they deserved- -except Taizu was one of their number. And he could not forget that, whenever he saw some poor soul struggling along with a basket or bundle, all that was valuable, all that was possible to save out of a lifetime. The lords fought, the banners flew, and the gray lines of desperate people trekked the roads, with their meager world on their backs.

Taizu believed less in G.o.ds after knowing him. She began to know what the people's heroes were made of-exaggeration, desperate wishes and superst.i.tion-and still stayed with him, caught in the same nets, while at the bottom of his heart he was terrified that she would get up sane one morning and see an ordinary, lame, forty-year-old man with a nasty disposition and too little patience with people.

He hated power over people. He truly hated it. And sometimes he hatedthem , that was what he was profoundly ashamed of, hated them because they thrust off all the virtues they admired on some poor idol, and stopped expecting them in themselves.

He wished hedid have a visible G.o.d or two to shove matters off on-but if the G.o.ds were accessible, it seemed only fair not to do to them what he complained about in others: as well, then, to shut up and carry matters on his own as far as he could. Then the G.o.ds might be happier about coming through in a pinch. That was the sum of his religion, and he was thinking earnestly about it this afternoon, on the way to getting all of them killed.

Well, Celestial Lord, I'm not sure this mess is solvable. Ghita's invited the foreigners into the heart of the Empire. He's a fool. Of course the foreign kings are helping him, while Chiyaden's army fights their wars. But there are far too many of them, aren't there, Ghita's gotten himself into a trap he has to understand by now-too much unrest to trust the army home, so much he needs the foreigners to keep order, and he has to know if they find a leader of their own, it won't be a border war any longer. So he has to keep the border war going not only to keep the army officers busy, but keep things stirred up so his foreign allies need Chiyaden's army. He can only do that so long, before the whole stack of bricks falls down.

Chiyaden will pay for what he's done, down the years. We've shown the barbarians too much about us.

They know our foolishness. Mend that, Celestial Lord, and save us from our own short-sightedness: that's what we can't do ourselves.

It was the only conversation he had had with the G.o.ds in ten years; but this afternoon he was down to that. He had no notion yet what to do, what they were going into, what their enemy's preparations had been- And all along the road they were pa.s.sing people who might have that information, who had come out of Lungan or its surrounds. The refugees, he thought, the people who s.h.i.+ed off from them on the road-knew things that were life and death to them; and might, if he told them the simple truth, carry that rumor back to mercenary units on the road behind them.

He watched one cart on its way to disaster, a girl with a baby, a young boy, an old man-the cartwheels squealing under the misaligned load of household goods and the old horse working hard to make headway.

On impulse he blocked the dray's path with his own, and, seeing the fugitives panic, bowed in the saddle, courteous and not crowding them himself, but his anxious company drew close on the side and behind him.

"It's all right," he said in soldier patois, and held both hands in plain sight. "We just have a question ortwo about the road ahead. Come all the way from Lungan?"

Heads nodded.

"Is the Regent at Lungan?"

Terrified stares.

"Where's lord Ghita?"

The eyes hardly blinked. Only the old horse moved, restless under the stressed shafts.

"Dammit, answer me!"

"Lungan, lord. In Lungan." From the grandfather, who looked fit to collapse. "All the soldiers are there."

"Fortified?"

"Yes, lord, fortified."

"Where?"

"The camp, lord. Around the camp."

Too much fear. Too little knowledge. Anything they said might be a lie, they would agree to anything he suggested, whatever would please him. "Go on," he said, and reined out of their way. He added, sorry for them: "I'd go wide of Anogi if I was you and I'd spread that word up and down the road. There's a garrison there. I just wouldn't be in that town, if things get bad. The mercenaries are apt to loot and run straight down to Mandi. Pa.s.s the word. Go north of Anogi, keep to the country roads. You'll be a d.a.m.n sight safer."

Still the huge-eyed stares. The baby cried and the girl put her hand over its mouth, hugged it against her.

"Go on," he said.

They started the horse up. The cart rolled past.

"And throw a third of that d.a.m.n junk off," he yelled over the squealing of the wheels. "You mayneed that horse."

There was no likelihood they would take either piece of advice. He staring past his shoulder at tragedy on an unstoppable course.

"Can't depend on anything they say," Taizu said, walking her horse up beside him. "They're too scared.

They'll never talk to a soldier."

"d.a.m.n fools."

He knew better than what he had just done. He felt angry with himself, angry with them, for reasons varied and too scattered to make sense of. If you were there, Taizu had said to him a long time ago,you'd set things right.

Of course I would.