The Destiny of the Sword (14 page)

Tivanixi looked angry and puzzled. Lord Shonsu could apparently behave in a proper swordsman fashion when he chose to, but why honor two and not forty,nine?

“Now your promotions, my lord,” he said, “and then we shall call more minstrels to hear of the events at Ov.” Wallie nodded.

Tivanixi glanced at Thana’s sailor costume and smiled knowingly. “Adept Nnanji, we have a wide selection of opponents to offer you, but space has become a problem. Promotions have been going through here like sheep pellets, We have been forced to limit fencing to these small areas, but if you wish to go outside in the plaza, we could arrange that.”

Nnanji grinned and said that he would try to do his best in the cramped conditions. Apparently this routine affair was going to receive the castellan’s personal attention, which suited Wallie. He was aware of the murderous suspicion and resentment around him. He felt like a mouse in a snakepit and he knew that only the ways of honor were protecting him. Tivanixi doubtless wanted to keep an eye on Shonsu. Shonsu was happy to stay close to Tivanixi.

was selected as die second judge and presented. Wallie made sure that Jja was safely positioned between Thana and Katanji, behind one of the stone benches. Then he followed Nnanji and the judges into the fencing area. The crowd spread along the hurdles that formed one side, and along the roped benches and statues mat made the other three.

Tivanixi glanced over the spectators and carefully selected a Fifth, who was naturally several years older man Nnanji, and who made a joke about infanticide, which raised a laugh. Nnanji smiled tolerantly and said nothing. There was no need to review the rules—promotions required two matches, best of three. Tivanixi called for the fencing to begin.

Lunge!

“One!” Nnanji called.

“Agreed!” said the judges, somewhat startled. “Continue!”

Lunge! Parry! Riposte!

“Two!” Nnanji said. “Next one please.”

The Fifth departed in shocked humiliation. The crowd was stunned to silence, but it seemed to ripple, and suddenly Fifths were as rare as dinosaurs in the courtyard. Tivanixi sent Wallie a broad and quite genuine,looking smile. It suited him. For the moment, suspicions could be forgotten in the pleasure of good swordsmanship and the shared superiority of high rank.

“Strange!” he said. ‘There were some here a moment ago.” He sprang lightly up on a bench, glanced over the heads, and called a name. The crowd parted to admit a heavyset, swarthy Fifth, younger than the first, but obviously reluctant and angry at not having escaped in time.

The second match lasted no longer. The courtyard erupted in cheers. When Nnanji’s grin emerged from the mask, Wallie matched it and shook his hand.

Now came the sutra test, which was dull, and the crowd indulged itself in discussion and muttering. The lodge standards were high. The judges called for sutra after sutra. Nnanji spouted them all at top speed, without a moment’s hesitation. They shifted to tricky ones, and he never broke stride.

Tivanixi threw up his hands and rose. “I had heard mat Lord Shonsu was a great teacher,” he said. “Master Nnanji, I congratulate you on the most impressive promotion I have ever seen.”

Nnanji beamed. “Thank you, my lord.”

The castellan glanced at Wailie and then back to the new Fifth. “You would not care to try for Sixth?”

Nnanji gave his mentor a reproachful look. “Unfortunately I do not know all the sutras required for that rank, my lord.”

Tivanixi looked surprised, but he nodded sympathetically. “Many good swordsmen find mem the hard part.”

“Very true,” Wailie said sadly—and Nnanji glared at him furiously.

“And now my wife?” Nnanji demanded.

Tivanixi pulled a face and studied Wailie thoughtfully, perhaps wondering if this was some sort of trap to justify a challenge. He evidently decided it was not, and smiled once more. “I never heard of a female swordsman having the audacity even to approach a lodge, let alone seek promotion mere. However, Master Nnanji, in your case I will allow an exception. Present her.”

The onlookers muttered, but Thana was presented and Tivanixi found himself being charmed against his will.

“Two Thirds, I assume, apprentice?” he said, smiling.

“Fourths!” Thana said.

Wailie choked back an objection. Certainly Thana could make a good try at the fencing, for this confined space would suit her water,rat style admirably and confound her opponents, but he was almost certain that she did not know enough sutras even for Third.... He turned to question Nnanji and got a big grin. Nnanji must have been giving her more lessons than they had revealed. Wailie shrugged and the chance to intervene had passed. Then he decided that there had been something very strange about mat grin of Nnanji’s...

Tivanixi rolled his eyes at some of the watching Sixths. He started a hunt for opponents. The first two Fourths he asked turned him down at once. He gave Wailie a what,do,you,expect look, but on the third attempt he found one. Word that the good,looking female was going to fence provoked much grumbling and talk of heresy. Nevertheless the crowd congealed once more around the site, and some juniors clambered into trees for a better view.

Thana started with a big advantage: her opponent had surely never fought a woman before. He also badly underestimated her,

then got rattled when he lost the first pass. She won the second point, also. By now bets were being placed at the back of the crowd and the old arguments about the legality of female swordsmen were being rehashed.

It should have been hard to find another Fourth willing to risk his reputation, but Thana was accustomed to having her own way. She picked out a tall young man and smiled at him bewitcb,ingly. He was about to refuse, but his companions pushed him forward, laughing. Wailie guessed at once, and his guess was very soon confirmed. Thana had stumbled on a sleeper—he was at least a good Fifth, and would likely have given even a Sixth a fair match. He was as good as Nnanji! Certainly he could have wiped Thana off the court as easily as Nnanji had disposed of his opponents, but he chose instead to toy with her. The crowd understood, and the laughter began. Thana leaped and lunged and cut, and the Fourth hardly shifted his feet, as if he could do this all day. He never let her foil come close to him... a wildcat fighting a rainbow.

Nnanji turned blood,red with fury, growling about sleepers. Even me judges were grinning. Thana was young and fit, but she began to flag at last.

By then calls for a draw had begun at the back of the crowd. They grew louder and more numerous. The candidate had demonstrated her swordsmanship, and an outright win was not required. The judges at last agreed. The mood had changed. Prejudice had been overcome by professional admiration—and some sympathy. Male enjoyment of watching a nubile female body in motion was probably not without influence, either.

After a pause for the candidate to recover her breath—and for Wailie to persuade Nnanji that he need not challenge the smirking Fourth—it was time for the sutra test. The two judges sat opposite Thana, three swords crossed on the ground between mem. The crowd lost interest and some wandered away. Tivanixi began six thirty,five, “On the Design of a Fortress,” and Wailie groaned, for it was long, dull, hard, and not one he had ever heard her try. Thana smiled back at Wailie and chanted the words slowly and carefully. She stumbled twice, recovered, and reached the end safely. The Sixth began another, and she got that right, too. Wailie was bewildered—how did she do that? He turned to

Nnanji beside him and received a triumphant super,grin. Yet there was something wrong with that grin, also. It did not seem to be conveying quite the right message.

Nnanji went back to studying die examination—six thirteen, “On Long,distance Marching,” smiling encouragingly. Wallie stared at him, men looked around, then back at Thana.

Sudden understanding hit him like an earthquake.

Thana was using sorcery.

tttt

When WaJlie had gone ashore at Aus, the sorcerers had known what he had said to Jja before he had left Sapphire’s deck. The sorcerer who had come aboard in Wal had known Biota’s name. The port officials were being kept honest in all the sorcerer cities except Ov—and at Ov there were no warehouses overlooking the moorings.

When Katanji had infiltrated the tower at Sen he had seen a female sorcerer rubbing a plate on something—casting a spell, he had thought. Grinding a lens?

Now Wallie looked again along the line of spectators beside him. At least half of them were moving their lips. Nnanji was— he always did. Wallie looked back at Thana, and her eyes were flickering to and fro along mat gallery of faces. Then she glanced at him and in silence he mourned the words: “You are cheating,

Thana.”

The candidate stuttered and stopped her chanting.

“I cannot keep a secret from Nnanji,” Wallie said, still silent. “He is my oalh brother.”

She started up again and stumbled once more. The watchers held their breath, like an audience when an actor gets stage fright. The lip,moving became more obvious, but there was no

sound.

“He will kill you, Thana.” That might be an exaggeration, but perhaps not much of one. Honakura and Wallie had worked very hard on Nnanji to soften his rigid, implacable standards. From them he had learned mercy and tolerance, until he had even been

able to forgive the killing of swordsmen by civilians—under very exceptional circumstances. But there were no exceptional circumstances here. Thana was blatantly cheating. Nnanji’s fury and shame would have no limit.

“Start again,” Tivanixi suggested helpfully.

Thana flushed scarlet. “No, I think not, my lord.”

Nnanji ran forward to help her rise and give her a hug of condolence. The judges politely wished her better luck next time and congratulated her on her swordsmanship.

Wallie was exultant. The last mystery solved! The final veil had been torn off the sorcerers for him and he owed it to Thana’s ambition!

Wallie brought his attention back to Tivanixi with a start. “I beg pardon, my lord?”

The castellan had his hand on the shoulder of a young First, who held a rack of foils. “I asked if you would care for a pass or two yourself, Lord Shonsu? We both know how hard it is for Sevenths to find good practice.”

Wallie was about to refuse until he saw that Tivanixi was studying him very intently and with obvious suspicion. Perhaps the castellan was not quite at the point of suspecting a zombie, but he now wanted to check this mysterious stranger’s credentials. Nnanji had proved that he was a genuine swordsman—was his companion also one, or was he an imposter?

Wallie, for his part, was curious about this graceful and gracious Seventh. And he dared not refuse, anyway. “Why not?” he said. “Best of five?” He selected a foil, the longest he could find.

Tivanixi, wanting no burdens, removed his sword and handed it to a nearby Sixth. Wallie copied him, giving his to Nnanji. Then he slipped between the benches once more, onto the fencing ground.

If the leadership was to be decided by combat, then the Sevenths would have been testing one another out with foils under the guise of practice. The final battle with real blades would likely be a pure formality, which the minstrels would adorn with blood and drama for the general public and future generations; swordsmen admired courage, but they were not utterly brainless.

The word had gone out and the crowd reassembled yet again.

The balconies filled up by some sort of telepathy, and the noise dwindled.

The opponents faced off, took each other’s foils cautiously, and feinted a few times. The castellan had the grace of a ballet dancer, smooth as a sunbeam. He was very good, indeed, and very fast, and he proceeded to give Wallie his first real test since the god had made him a swordsman. They leaped and bounded in landlubber style, very unlike the deadly, close,in fencing of the water rats. Tivanixi, of course, had several other Sevenths to play with now, whereas Shonsu had not had practice on this level since before Wallie took him over.

The crowd muttered or cheered from time to time, but mostly just watched. Feint—thrust—parry—riposte—back and forth they clattered. “One!”

Wallie learned a few things and taught a few more, but if there was another swordsman equal to Shonsu, this was not he. “Two!”

They paused for a moment’s panting, then went to guard again. Clatter... clatter... Then some loud voices, some disturbance among the spectators; Wallie’s attention flickered momentarily from that shimmering silver haze that the castellan brandished.

“One!” Tivanixi exulted.

Damn! Shonsu should be winning this on straight points. Wallie growled angrily and drove in hard, forcing Tivanixi back against the barricade, where footwork would count for less. “Three!” Wallie said; best of five.

They removed the masks and breathlessly thanked each other. The crowd applauded loudly for a fine match and began to discuss the form sheet, doubtless with many comments that this Shonsu might have lost an army, but was certainly a good man with metal.