The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (41 page)

“Rula. She shouldn’t have too much time to worry.”

“I see.”

“I appreciate the help you’re giving me....”

“You could save a lot of water-hauling with a windmill.”

“I know. But nobody around here can build one. Anyway. I couldn’t
pay much. Maybe a share of the sheep. If you’d stay....”

Tain faced the east. The sunset had painted the mountains the
color of blood. He hoped that was no omen. But he feared that
legionnaires were dying at the hands of legionnaires even now. “All
right. For a while. But I’ll have to move on soon.”

He wondered if he could outrun his past. A friend had told him
that a man carried his pain like a tortoise carried his shell. Tain
suspected the analogy might be more apt than intended. Men not
only carried their pain-shells, they retreated into them if emotionally
threatened.

“We need you. You can see that. I’ve been too stubborn to admit
it till now....”

“Stubbornness is a virtue, properly harnessed. Just don’t be
stubborn against learning.”

Steban carried water with them, and seemed impressed. Later, he
said, “Tell us about the wars you were in, Tain.”

Rula scowled.

“They weren’t much. Bloody, sordid little things, Steban. Less fun
than sheep-shearing time.”

“Oh, come on, Tain. You’re always saying things like that.”

“Mikla made a glory tale of it,” Rula said. “You’d think.... Well....
That there wasn’t any better life.”

“Maybe that was true for Mikla. But the El Murid Wars were long
ago and far away, and, I expect, he was very young. He remembers the
good times, and sees only the dullness of today.”

“Maybe. He shouldn’t fill Steban’s head with his nonsense.”

So Tain merely wove a tale of cities he had seen, describing strange
dress and customs. Rula, he noted, enjoyed it as much as her son.

Later still, after his evening ritual, he spent several hours
familiarizing himself with the countryside. A soldier’s habits died
hard.

Twice he spied roving Caydarmen. Neither noticed him.

Next morning he rose early and took the gelding for a run over the
same ground.

VII

Rula visited Tain’s makeshift forge the third afternoon. Bringing a
jar of chill spring water was her excuse. “You’ve been hammering for
hours, Tain. You’d better drink something.”

He smiled as he laid his hammer aside. “Thank you.” He accepted
the jar, though he wasn’t yet thirsty. He was accustomed to enduring
long, baking hours in his armor. He sipped while he waited. She had
something on her mind.

“I want to thank you.”

“Oh?”

“For what you’re doing. For what you’ve done for Toma. And me.”

“I haven’t done much.”

“You’ve shown Toma that a man can be proud without being pig-
headed. When he’s wrong. But maybe you don’t see it. Tain, I’ve lived
with that man for eighteen years. I know him too well.”

“I see.” He touched her hand lightly, recognizing a long and
emotionally difficult speech from a woman accustomed to keeping
her own counsel.

He didn’t know how to help her, though. An unmarried soldier’s
life hadn’t prepared him. Not for a woman who moved him more
than should be, for reasons he couldn’t comprehend. A part of him
said that women were people too, and should respond the same as
men, but another part saw them as aliens, mysterious, perhaps even
creatures of dread. “If I have done good, I have brought honor to the
house.”

He chuckled at his own ineptitude. Iwa Skolovdan just didn’t
have the necessary range of tonal nuance.

“You’ve given me hope for the first time since Shirl....” she blurted.
“I mean, I can see where we’re getting somewhere now. I can see
Toma seeing it.

“Tain, I never wanted to come to the Zemstvi. I hate it. I hated it
before I left home. Maybe I hated it so much I made it impossible for
Toma to succeed. I drove Shirl away....”

“Yes. I could see it. But don’t hate yourself for being what you are.”

“His dreams were dying, Tain. And I wouldn’t give him anything
to replace them. And I have to hate myself for that. But now he’s
coming alive. He doesn’t have to go on being stubborn, just to show
me.”

“Don’t hate anybody, Rula. It’s contagious. You end up hating
everything, and everybody hates you.”

“I can’t ever like the Zemstvi. But I love Toma. And with you here,
like a rock, he’s becoming more like the boy I married. He’s started to
find his courage again. And his hope. That gives me hope. And that’s
why I wanted to thank you.”

“A rock?”

“Yes. You’re there. You don’t criticize, you don’t argue, you don’t
judge, you don’t fear. You know. You make things possible.... Oh, I
don’t know how to say what I want. I think the fear is the biggest
thing. It doesn’t control us anymore.”

“I don’t think it’s all my fault, Rula. You’ve done your part.” He
was growing unsettled. Even embarrassed.

She touched his arm. “You’re strong, Tain. So strong and sure. My
brother Mikla.... He was sure, but not always strong. He fought with
Toma all the time.”

Tain glanced south across the green hills. Toma had gone to the
village in hopes of obtaining metal that could be used in the windmill
Tain was going to build. He had been gone for hours.

A tiny silhouette topped a distant rise. Tain sighed in a mixture of
disappointment and relief. He was saved having to face the feelings
Rula was stirring.

Toma loved the windmill. He wanted to let the house ride till it was
finished. Tain had suggested that they might, with a little ingenuity,
provide running water. Rula would like that. It was a luxury only lords
and merchant princes enjoyed.

Rula followed his gaze. Embarrassment overtook her. Tain yielded
the jar and watched her flee.

Soon Toma called, “I got it, Tain! Bryon had an old wagon. He
sold me enough to do the whole thing.” He rushed to the forge,
unburdened himself of a pack filled with rusty iron.

Tain examined the haul. “Good. More than enough for the
bushings. You keep them greased, the windmill will last a lifetime.”

Toma’s boyish grin faded.

“What happened? You were gone a long time.”

“Come on in the house. Share a jar of beer with me.”

Tain put his tools away and followed Toma. Glancing eastward, he
saw the white stain of Steban’s flock dribbling down a distant slope,
heading home. Beyond Steban, a little south, stood the grotesque
rock formation the locals called the Toad. The Sharans believed it
was the home of a malignant god.

Toma passed the beer. “The Caydarmen visited Kosku again. He
wouldn’t give them the animals.”

Tain still didn’t understand. He said nothing.

“They won’t stand for it,” Rula said. “There’ll be trouble.”

Toma shrugged. “There’ll always be trouble. Comes of being alive.”
He pretended a philosophical nonchalance. Tain read the fear he was
hiding. “They’ll probably come tonight....”

“You’ve been drinking,” Rula snapped. “You’re not going to....”

“Rula, it’s got to stop. Somebody has to show them the limits.
We’ve reached ours. Kosku has taken up the mantle. The rest of us
can’t....”

“Tain, talk to him.”

Tain studied them, sensed them. Their fear made the house stink.
He said nothing. After meeting her eyes briefly, he handed Toma the
beer and ignored her appeal. He returned to his forge, dissipated his
energies pumping the bellows and hammering cherry iron. He didn’t
dare insinuate himself into their argument. It had to remain theirs
alone.

Yet he couldn’t stop thinking, couldn’t stop feeling. He hammered
harder, driven by a taint of anger.

His very presence had altered Toma. Rula had said as much. The
man wouldn’t have considered supporting this Kosku otherwise.
Simply by having entered the man’s life he was forcing Toma to prove
something. To himself? Or to Rula?

Tain hammered till the hills rang. Neutral as he had tried to remain,
he had become heir to a responsibility. Toma had to be shielded from
the consequences of artificial bravado.

“Tain?”

The hammer’s thunder stammered. “Steban? Home so early?”

“It’s almost dark.”

“Oh. I lost track of time.” He glanced at his handiwork. He had
come near finishing while roaming his own mind. “What is it?”

“Will you teach me to be a soldier?”

Tain drove the tongs into the coals as if their mound contained
the heart of an enemy. “I don’t think so. Your mother....”

“She won’t care. She’s always telling me to learn something.”

“Soldiering isn’t what she has in mind. She means your father’s
lessons.”

“Tain, writing and ciphers are boring. And what good did they do
my dad? Anyway, he’s only teaching me because Mother makes him.”

What kind of world did Rula live in, there behind the mask of her
face? Tain wondered.

It couldn’t be a happy world. It had suffered the deaths of too many
hopes. Time had beaten her down. She had become an automaton
getting through each day with the least fuss possible.

“Boring, but important. What good is a soldier who can’t read or
write? All he can do is carry a spear.”

“Can you read?”

“Six languages. Every soldier in my army learns at least two. To
become a soldier in my country is like becoming a priest in yours,
Steban.”

Rula, he thought. Why do I find you unique when you’re just one
of a million identical sisters scattered throughout the feudal west?
The entire subcontinent lay prostrate beneath the heel of a grinding
despair, a ponderous changelessness. It was a tinder-dry philosophical
forest. The weakest spark flung off by a hope-bearing messiah would
send it up.

“A soldier’s training isn’t just learning to use a sword, Steban. It’s
learning a way of life. I could teach you to fence, but you’d never
become a master. Not till you learned the discipline, the way of
thinking and living you need to....”

“Boy, you going to jabber all night? Get those sheep in the pens.”

Toma leaned against the doorframe of the house. A jar of beer
hung from his hand. Tain sensed the random anger rushing around
inside him. It would be as unpredictable as summer lightning.

“Take care of the sheep, Steban. I’ll help water them later.”

He cleaned up his forge, then himself, then carried water till Rula
called them to supper.

Anger hung over the meal like a cloying fog rolling in off a noisome
marsh. Tain was its focus. Rula wanted him to control Toma. Toma
wanted his support. And Steban wanted a magical access to the
heroic world his uncle had created from the bloodiest, most ineptly
fought, and most pointless war of recent memory. Tain ate in silence.

Afterward, he said, “I’ve nearly finished the bushing and shaft
bearings. We can start the tower tomorrow.”

Toma grunted.

Tain shrugged. The man’s mood would have to take care of itself.

He glanced at Rula. The appeal remained in her eyes. He rose,
obtained a jar of beer, broke the seal, sipped. “A toast to the windmill.”
He passed it to Toma.

“Steban, let’s get the rest of that water.”

A breeze had come up during supper. Good and moist, it promised
rain. Swift clouds were racing toward the mountains, obscuring the
stars. Maybe, Tain thought, the weather would give Rula what he
could not.

“Mom and Dad are mad at each other, aren’t they?”

“I think so.”

“Because of the Koskus?”