Wallie paced slowly back along the jetty, gathering his thoughts. His boots made hollow drum noises on the weathered planks, and beside him Nnanji’s kept time. Nnanji was waiting in excited silence to hear what revelations the great Lord Shonsu was about to impart.
The jetty was stained with cattle dung—probably the estate exported cattle to the nearest city, Ov. The River was very wide, the far shore a faint line of smudge, and no sails marred the empty expanse of gray and lifeless water. At Hann the River had been about the same width, yet Hann lay a quarter of a World away. The River was everywhere, Honakura had said, and in a lifetime of talking with pilgrims in the temple, he had never heard tell of source or mouth. Apparently it was endless and much the same everywhere, a geographical impossibility. The River was the Goddess.
No sails…“The ferry’s gone!”
“Yes, my lord.” Nnanji did not even sound surprised.
Wallie shivered at this evidence of divine surveillance, then forced his mind back to the matter at hand. Twice before he had told his story, but this time would be harder. Honakura had accepted it as an exercise in theology. Believing in many worlds and a ladder of uncountable lives, he had been puzzled only that the dead Wallie Smith should have been reincarnated as the adult Shonsu, instead of as a baby. That was a miracle, and priests could believe in miracles. Honakura had wanted to hear about Earth and Wallie’s previous existence, but those would not interest Nnanji.
Jja had not cared about the mechanism or the reason. She was content to know that the man she loved was hidden inside the swordsman, an invisible man with no rank or craft, as alienated from the World as she was. Only thus could a slave dare to love a Seventh. Nnanji’s attitude would be very different.
The two men reached the end of the pier and stopped.
“Nnanji, I have a confession to make. I have never lied to you, but I have not told you the whole truth.”
Nnanji blinked. “Why should you? It was you the Goddess chose to be Her champion. I am honored to be allowed to help. You need not tell me more, Lord Shonsu.”
Wallie sighed. “I did lie to you, then, I suppose. I said my name was Shonsu…and it isn’t.”
Nnanji’s eyes grew very wide, strange pale spots in his grimy face. No man of the People could ever look unshaven, but his red hair had been blackened the previous day with a blend of charcoal and grease. Later adventures had added guano and cobwebs, road dust and blood. Now thoroughly smeared, the resulting filth made him look comic and ridiculous. But Nnanji was no joke. Nnanji had become a very deadly killer, much too young to be trusted with either the sword skill his mentor had taught him so rapidly or the power that came with his new rank—a swordsman of the Fourth had the potential to do a mountain of damage. Nnanji would have to be kept under very close control for a few years, until maturity caught up with his abilities. That might be why the gods had ordered that he be irrevocably bound by the arcane oath to which the present conversation must lead.
“I did meet with a god,” Wallie said, “and what he told me was this: the Goddess had need of a swordsman. She chose the best in the World, Shonsu of the Seventh. Well, he said that there was none better, which is not quite the same thing, I suppose. Anyway, this swordsman failed, and failed ‘disastrously.’“
“What does that mean, my lord?”
“The god wouldn’t say. But Shonsu was driven to the temple by a demon. The priests’ exorcism failed. The Goddess took his soul—and left the demon. Or what Shonsu thought was a demon. It was me, Wallie Smith. Except I wasn’t a demon…”
He was not telling this very well, Wallie thought, but he was amused by the puzzled nods he was being given. Others might mock at so absurd a yarn, but Nnanji would want very much to believe. Nnanji had a ruinous case of hero worship. It had suffered an agonizing death the previous day, but then the Goddess had sent a miracle to support Her champion, and Nnanji’s adoration had sprung back to life again, stronger than ever. He would grow out of it, and Wallie could only hope that the education would not be too painful, nor too long delayed. No man could live up to Nnanji’s standards of heroic behavior.
They turned together and began to wander landward again.
“Another way of looking at it, I suppose, is as a string of beads—that’s one of the priests’ images. A soul is the string, the beads are the separate lives. In this case, the Goddess broke the rules. She untied the string and moved one of the beads.”
Nnanji said, “But…” and then fell silent.
“No, I can’t explain it. The motives of gods are mysterious. Anyway, I am not Shonsu. I remember nothing of his life before I woke up in the pilgrim cottage with Jja tending me and old Honakura babbling about my doing a fast murder for him. Before that, as far as I recall, I was Wallie Smith.”
He did not try to explain language, how he thought in English and spoke in the language of the People. Nnanji would not be able to comprehend the idea of more than one language, and Wallie himself did not know how the translation worked.
“And you were not a swordsman in the other world, my lord?”
Manager of a petrochemical plant? How did one explain that to an iron-age warrior in a preliterate World? Wallie sighed. “No, I wasn’t. Our crafts and ranks were different. As near as I can tell you, I was an apothecary of the Fifth.”
Nnanji shuddered and bit his lip.
But there had been Detective Inspector Smith, who would have been so horrified by his murdering, idol-worshiping, slave-owning son. “My father was a swordsman.”
Nnanji sighed in relief. The Goddess was not as fickle as he had feared.
“And you were a man of honor, my lord?”
Yes, Wallie thought. He had been law-abiding, and a decent sort of guy, honest and conscientious. “I think so. I tried to be as I try here. Some of our ways were different. I did my best and I promised the god that I would do my best here also.”
Nnanji managed a faint smile.
“But when the reeve of the temple guard claimed that I was an imposter, he was correct. I did not know the salutes and responses. I did not know one end of a sword from the other.”
Nnanji spluttered. “But—but you know the rituals, my lord! You are a great swordsman!”
“That came later,” Wallie said, and went on to relate how he had met the demigod three times, how he had managed to find belief in the gods, and how he had then been given Shonsu’s skill, the legendary sword, the unknown mission. “The god gave me the ability to use a sword, he gave me the sutras. But he gave me none of Shonsu’s private memories at all, Nnanji. I don’t know who his parents were, or where he came from, or who taught him. On those things, I am still Wallie Smith.”
“And you have no parentmarks!”
“I have one now.” He showed Nnanji the sword that had appeared on his right eyelid the previous night, the sign of a swordsman father. “It wasn’t there yesterday morning. I think it is a sort of joke by the little god, or perhaps a sign that he approves of what we did yesterday.”
Nnanji said he liked the second possibility better. The idea that gods might play jokes did not appeal to him.
They reached the landward end of the jetty and turned to pace Riverward again. It was a strange story, almost as strange in the World as it would have been on Earth, and Wallie took his time, explaining as well as he could how it felt to be two people, how his professional knowledge differed from his personal memories.
“I think I understand, my lord,” Nnanji said at last, frowning down ferociously at the rain-slicked, rough-cut planks. “You greatly puzzled me, for you did not behave like other highranks. You spoke to me as a friend when I was only a Second. You did not kill Meliu and Briu when you had the chance—most Sevenths would have welcomed an excuse to cut more notches in their harness. You treat Jja like a lady and you were even friendly to Wild Ani. That was the way of honor in your other world?”
“It was,” Wallie said. “Friends are harder to make than enemies, but they are more useful.”
Nnanji brightened. “Is that a sutra?”
Wallie laughed. “No, it is just a little saying of my own, but it is based on some of our sutras. It works, though: look how useful Wild Ani turned out to be!”
Nnanji agreed doubtfully—swordsmen should not have to seek help from slaves. “I would swear the second oath to you, my lord, if you will have me as protégé. I still wish to learn swordsmanship from you, and the ways of honor…” He paused and added thoughtfully, “And I think I should like to learn some of this other honor, also.”
Wallie was relieved. He had half feared that his young friend would understandably flee from him as a madman. “I shall be proud to be your mentor again, Nnanji, for you are a wonderful pupil and one day you will be a great swordsman.”
Nnanji stopped, drew his sword, and dropped to his knees. There were other things that Wallie wanted to tell him, but Nnanji was never plagued by hesitations or deep reflection, and he now proceeded to swear the second oath: “I, Nnanji, swordsman of the Fourth, do take you, Shonsu, swordsman of the Seventh, as my master and mentor and do swear to be faithful, obedient, and humble, to live upon your word, to learn by your example, and to be mindful of your honor, in the name of the Goddess.”
Wallie spoke the formal acceptance. Nnanji rose and sheathed his sword with some satisfaction. “You mentioned another oath also, mentor?” The demigod had warned that swordsmen were addicted to fearsome oaths, and Nnanji was no exception.
“I did. But before we get to that, I must tell you about my mission. When I asked what the Goddess required of me, all I was given was a riddle.”
“The god gave you a task and didn’t tell you what it was? Why?”
“I wish I knew that! He said that it was a matter of free will; that I must do what seemed right to me. If I only followed orders, then I would be less a servant than a tool.” Another explanation, of course, might be that the demigod did not trust Wallie—either his courage or his honesty—and that was worrisome.
“This is what I was told:
“First your brother you must chain.
And from another wisdom gain.
When the mighty has been spurned,
An army earned, a circle turned,
So the lesson may be learned.
Finally return that sword
And to its destiny accord.”
Nnanji pouted in disgust for a moment, his lips moving as he thought over the words. “I’m no good at riddles,” he muttered. Then he shrugged. It was Shonsu’s problem, not his.
“Nor was I—until Imperkanni said something yesterday, after the battle.”
Ah! Nnanji had been waiting to hear this. “Eleven forty-four? The last sutra?”
Wallie nodded. “It concerns the fourth oath, the oath of brotherhood. It is almost as terrible as the blood oath, except that it binds both men equally, not as liege and vassal. In fact it is even more drastic, Nnanji, for it is paramount, absolute, and irrevocable.”
“I didn’t think the Goddess allowed irrevocable oaths.”
“Apparently She does for this one. I think that is why the riddle says chain. If we swear this oath, then we’re both stuck with it, Nnanji!”
Nnanji nodded, impressed. Again the two men began to walk.
Wallie let him think for a moment.
“But…you don’t know your—Shonsu’s—history, mentor. You—he—may have a real brother somewhere?”
“That’s what I thought, too, at first: that I had to seek out a brother. But the god did remove Shonsu’s parentmarks, and perhaps that was a hint. The oath is restricted, Nnanji. It may only be sworn by two swordsmen who have saved each other’s lives. That can never happen in the ways of honor, only in a real battle. I think that is why we were led into that slaughter yesterday. I saved you from Tarru, you saved me from Ghaniri. So you have a part in this mission also, and now we are free to swear the oath.”
Given the chance, Nnanji would have sat down cross-legged to hear a sutra, so Wallie began it before he could do so. It was short, as sutras went, and much less paradoxical or obscure than some. He needed only say it through once—Nnanji never forgot anything.
Then they continued to walk in silence, while Nnanji scowled again at the planks and moved his lips. Obviously the fourth oath was causing him trouble, and Wallie began to feel uneasy. He was certain that he had solved the first line of the riddle, and that he was supposed to swear that impossible oath with this gangly young swordsman. But what could he do if Nnanji refused? And why was he not eager to swear? He should be jubilant at the opportunity to be brother to the greatest swordsman in the World.
“It does not seem right, mentor,” he said at last. “I am only a Fourth. That oath sounds as if it should be sworn between equals.”
“It doesn’t say equals.”
Nnanji pouted and tugged at his ponytail.
“I need your help, Nnanji,” Wallie said.
“Help, mentor?” Nnanji laughed. “Mine?”
“Yes! I am a great swordsman, but I am a stranger in the World. I know less about it than Vixini. There are so many things I do not know. For example: why did you keep your sword on your back all night in the boat? That must have cramped your style a little with Cowie, did it not?”
Nnanji smirked. “Not especially.” Then he gave Wallie a startled look. “It is the custom of the frees, mentor.”
“It is not in the sutras, not that I can find.”
“Then it is just a tradition, I suppose. But a free sword never removes his sword. Except for washing—or to use.” He frowned, worried that his mentor did not know something so elementary.
If Shonsu had been a free sword, then the information had not been passed along—Wallie’s memory had been cut off in strange places. Even in bed? That would be part of the free swords’ mystique, of course, but it must be a very inconvenient habit.
“Well, that shows you how ignorant I am. If you are only my protégé, you will not want to criticize me, or offer advice when you think I am making a mistake. Those are the sorts of things that a brother will do that a mere protégé would not.”
“If you would let me swear the blood oath again, mentor,” Nnanji suggested hopefully, “then you could order me to advise you.”
“And I could order you to shut up, too! As my vassal, you were little better than a slave, Nnanji. I may never accept the third oath from any man again and certainly never from you.”
Nnanji frowned some more. “But how will I address you? A Fourth can’t call a Seventh ‘brother’!”
It was not a trivial question. A term of address advertised relationships between swordsmen and could warn a potential challenger that there was an onus of vengeance involved. As soon as they had sworn the second oath, he had begun calling Wallie “mentor” instead of “my lord.”
“‘Brother’ will be fine. Use any term you like. Probably you’ll want to call me ‘Stupid’ half the time.”
Nnanji smiled politely. “It is a great honor, mentor…if you’re sure?”
Wallie hid a sigh of relief. “I am certain—and not all the honor is yours, Adept Nnanji.”
Nnanji turned pink under his smears. “What is the ritual?”
“There doesn’t seem to be one. Why don’t we just say the words and shake hands?”
So, while the waters of the River slapped gently at the base of the jetty beneath them in subtle applause, Shonsu and Nnanji swore the oath of brotherhood and then shook hands. Wallie felt a sense of accomplishment. He had satisfied the first line of the riddle…what happened next, though?
Nnanji grinned shyly. “Now I have Shonsu as a mentor and Wallie Smith as a brother?”
Wallie nodded solemnly. “The best of both worlds,” he said.
They continued to stroll along the battered little jetty. Rain continued to ooze in summer drizzle from the low, gray-flannel clouds. Gray also was the River, gray were the cliffs that shut off all view of what might lie ahead. This soggy, barren little place ought to be depressing, especially before breakfast and after an extremely short night, yet Wallie’s mood remained stubbornly euphoric. He had escaped from the temple, from the dangerous trap that had held him for all of his brief existence in the World. He had proved that he could be a swordsman and could satisfy the Goddess in that role, playing it as he felt it should be played and not necessarily as the native iron-age hoplites played it. Now he was going to be given a chance to see a whole new planet and an ancient and complex culture, albeit a primitive one. He felt like school was out at last.
Furthermore, the priestess had said that there were no swordsmen around. Swordsmen held a monopoly on violence. Without swordsmen, danger was unlikely. Whatever his mission might prove to be, it would surely involve swordsmen, so it had not started yet. There might be more tests or lessons to come, but he might also be due for a vacation. He repeated to himself the instructions of the demigod: Go and be a swordsman, Shonsu! Be honorable and valorous. And enjoy yourself, for the World is yours to savor. A male fantasy of that elflike priestess flickered momentarily across his mind, and he hastily reproached himself for being as bad as Nnanji. He had Jja. No man could want more.
“What happens now, my lord brother?” Nnanji inquired impatiently.
They had reached the tarpaulin that covered the rest of the party. “Let’s go and see!” Wallie dropped nimbly to the shingle and peered in under the jetty.
Novice Katanji moved hurriedly away from Cowie. Cuddling was a good way to keep warm, but his brother would not approve. Nnanji arrived at Wallie’s side a second later.
The Goddess had selected a strange assortment of companions to accompany Her champion. Seven was the sacred number, so Wallie’s party had to number seven. Nnanji was understandable, and old Honakura was going to be a peerless source of wisdom and information—if he chose to be, for he could be inscrutably obscure at times. But two slave women, a boy, and a baby did not make much sense. On Wallie’s back was the seventh sword of Chioxin, which Honakura had defined as the most valuable piece of movable property in the World. The demigod had warned him that alley thieves would prowl after it. Why the mission required such a priceless sword was a mystery in itself; any ordinary blade would suffice when wielded with Shonsu’s unsurpassed skill. So why give him a treasure, and then withhold adequate protection?
What he needed, Wallie thought, was a half-dozen hard-eyed, hard-muscled swordsmen, not boys and women; yet he had been balked when he tried to enlist swordsmen from the temple guard. He had hinted to Imperkanni that he needed a few and had almost been challenged on the spot. Now he had been brought to a place with no swordsmen at all. Curiouser and curiousest!
He took a careful look at Honakura. The frail and incredibly ancient priest was accustomed to luxury, not this outdoor adventuring in damp clothes. Nevertheless, he seemed to be in good spirits, beaming his gums at the swordsman. Vixini was fretting, and his mother smiled rather wanly at her owner.
Nnanji directed a bleak gaze toward Katanji, perhaps suspecting what had been going on in his absence. “Lord Shonsu and I have just sworn the oath of brotherhood!” he announced.
Katanji contrived to look impressed, if rather cynically so.
“That makes him your mentor, also!”
Now Katanji looked alarmed.
“It does?” Wallie said. “‘Your oaths are my oaths’? Yes, I suppose it does. And also my brother, perhaps? Well, we shall have to make sure he is a credit to us both, shan’t we?” He stepped over and settled on the pallet beside Jja, having to tilt his sword at an angle across his back and keep one leg twisted under him. If this was how free swords had to sit all the time, then he disapproved. Nnanji moved in under cover and squatted on his heels.
“So you have solved the first line of the riddle,” Honakura said. “Now what happens?” He smirked mockingly.
“Has your mission begun, then, my lord?” asked Katanji.
Nnanji bristled. In so formal a culture, a mere First must not address a Seventh without invitation, but Katanji had already summed up Lord Shonsu and knew he was in no danger.
Hastily Wallie said, “I don’t know, novice. I was explaining to Nnanji that I was not told exactly what my mission is to be. It may have begun, but—”
“My lord brother! He is only a scratcher. He does not know one seventy-five yet!”
Wallie nodded. “Nnanji will instruct you in the sutra ‘On Secrecy,’” he told Katanji. “Meanwhile, just remember that this is in confidence, all right?”
The boy nodded, wide-eyed. He had already packed more excitement into his first day as a swordsman than most men would achieve in years. He had even saved Wallie’s life the previous evening—and probably Nnanji’s, too. Obviously he had a part to play also, but whatever it might be, it would not likely require a sword. Nnanji, in his first flush of excitement at being promoted, had impetuously rushed off, bought that ludicrous slave, and sworn his young brother as his protégé. Cowie might make some old man very happy in a comfortable home somewhere, but she was not a swordsman’s woman. Katanji, likewise, was not swordsman material. He completely lacked his brother’s natural talents as an athlete, as Wallie had confirmed with his horseplay on the jetty. Katanji had almost fallen over, even in a straight drop of three feet or so. Nnanji would have landed like a cat.
Nnanji was scowling, playing middlerank as he had seen it played in the temple barracks, wearing his topkick-facing-grunt face.
“You say you’re not good at riddles,” Wallie said. “How is he?”
Reluctantly Nnanji said, “Not bad.”
“Then let’s try him on this one.” Wallie explained the riddle that defined his mission. Katanji frowned. Honakura had heard it before. Jja was certainly trustworthy. Cowie would understand little more than Vixini…and yet Cowie had also played an unwitting part in the gods’ plans, a reminder that mortals should not jump to conclusions.
“So the question is: what happens now? I do have a couple of clues. No, three, I think. Two of them are things that…my predecessor said, just before he died. He said he had come very far. Well, we were moved very far in the night. Secondly, he mentioned sorcerers.”
“Rot!” snapped Honakura. “I will never believe in sorcerers. Just legends!”
Wallie knew that he would take a great deal of convincing himself, but he had come to believe in gods and miracles, so he was not going to close his mind on the subject of sorcerers. Shonsu had said they existed.
“There would be no honor fighting sorcerers,” Nnanji said grumpily, which was what he had said when Wallie had asked him once before. Then he grinned. “And there aren’t any here! I asked Apprentice Quili! No sorcerers and no dragons.”
“Dragons? Are there really dragons in the World?”
Nnanji sniggered. “None! What’s the third clue, lord brother?”
“You.”
“Me?”
Wallie laughed. “I wanted to enlist some good men to guard my back and my sword. I was blocked. I only got one. Of course that one is remarkably good.”
Nnanji preened.
“But one is not enough! I’m sure that my mission must involve swordsmen. Now we’ve been brought to a place where there are no swordsmen, and there can’t be many places like that in the World, can there?”
“No.”
“So I don’t think my mission has begun yet,” Wallie said cheerfully. “There must be a few more tests or lessons to come first.”
“Dangerous?”
“Probably.”
Nnanji smiled contentedly.
“But this sounds like a very safe place. So maybe we’ve been brought here just to relax for a few days.”
“Or to meet someone? Like Ko!”
“Ko?”
“Have you never heard…It’s a great epic!” Nnanji drew a deep breath, a sign that he was about to start singing. Even if the epic was inordinately long, even if he had only heard it once, or even if that had been years before, he would be capable of rendering the whole thing without a stumble.
Hastily Wallie said, “Just the gist!”
“Oh!” Nnanji deflated and pondered for a moment. “Lord Aggaranzi and his band were moved by Her Hand to Ko but the villagers had no work for their swords, and then Inghollo of the Sixth and his band were brought the next night, and the following day two more…”
The Goddess had collected an army at Ko, apparently, and then ambushed a large brigade of brigands, who had been chopped into small fragments. Nnanji approved.
“Sounds reasonable,” Wallie said. “So possibly we have been brought to a safe place to meet someone.”
Then he heard a distant clanking and jingling that must be the long-awaited transportation arriving.
“So there you are, novice,” he said quickly. “Now, why did I tell you all that?”
In the shade, Katanji’s eyes gleamed so bright that they almost glowed. “Because ‘another’ might mean ‘another brother,’ my lord?”
“Correct!”
“What?” Nnanji shouted. “You think you can gain wisdom from him?”
“We just did…didn’t you?”
Nnanji smiled sheepishly, and then shot another baleful glance at his young brother. “I don’t approve of Firsts thinking,” he said ominously.
The cart was drawn by one of the strange camel-faced horses of the World, and driven—surprisingly—by the little Apprentice Quili herself. She was clearly having some trouble, but she managed to turn the creaking old vehicle, and then she jumped down and bowed to Wallie.
“Lady Thondi sends her respects, my lord. She will be honored to receive you at the manor at your convenience.”
“I don’t feel fit to go calling on ladies at the moment.”
Quili smiled, seeming almost relieved. “You are most welcome to stop at the tenancy to clean up, my lord. The women have prepared a meal. It will be humble fare, compared to what her ladyship could offer, but they would be greatly honored if you cared to partake of it.” She waited hopefully.
“Then let’s do that.” Wallie began assisting his companions into the cart. There was straw to sit on, and a heap of shabby cloaks and blankets for cover.
He liked this diminutive child priestess. Her long hair was matted by the rain, and her yellow cloak a shabby, disreputable thing, but there was a quickness about her that told of humor and intelligence. Of course she was nervous and jumpy, which was quite understandable, merely emphasizing her youthful charm. Better groomed and garbed, she would be at least pretty and possibly sensational. She probably deserved a better life than the one she was having, if he read correctly the dirt ingrained in her fingers. With her mentor living half a day’s walk away, she could have little chance of working toward promotion.
Nnanji was obviously attracted, and she glanced nervously at him as he edged close, beaming down at her…no, leering down at her. When she scrambled up to the driver’s bench, awkward in her cloak and priestess’ long robe, he moved as if to join her. Wallie coughed meaningfully and jerked an imperious thumb at the back. He climbed up and sat beside Quili himself.
She slapped the reins and shouted. After a moment’s reflection, the horse decided that there were more interesting places in which to be difficult, and the cart creaked forward.
Tree trunks, valley walls, and streambed crowded in upon their path. The road was no more than a stretch of cleared ground, rough and rutted and spiky with roots. A little work with a dozer and a few truckloads of gravel would work wonders on it, Wallie decided. Twice the horse balked at fords, giving Quili trouble. The stream was rising, encroaching on its banks.
“This rain is unusual, apprentice?”
Quili was concentrating on the horse, but she stopped biting her tongue long enough to say, “Very, my lord. At this time of year. And the first real rain since winter.”
Wallie wondered if there could be any relation between the rain and his own arrival. Then he decided that the thought was absurd—he was becoming as bad as Honakura, who was full of weird superstitions. Nevertheless, much more rainfall, and the track to the jetty would become impassable.
The trees were less lush than the tropical varieties at Hann, and he could not identify any of them—hardly surprising, for he was no botanist. Apparently Shonsu had not been much interested in vegetation, for his vocabulary seemed to contain none of the names. Perhaps some had Earthly equivalents, similar but not the same, like the odd-looking horses. Or like the People themselves—a neat, brown-skinned folk, cheerful, fun-loving and lusty, certainly human, but not exactly matching any Earthly race.
He moved his sword to a more comfortable position and stretched out his arm along the backrest. Quili jumped and then blushed furiously.
Damn! Wallie had forgotten that he was no longer the man he had been on Earth. Women looked at Shonsu in a way women had never looked at the nondescript Wallie Smith. Wallie Smith might have received odd glances had he paraded around bare-chested in a kilt and leather harness, but not those sort of looks.
Which raised the problem of Nnanji’s attentions to Quili. Nnanji had never made any secret of his ambition to become a free sword—it had been about the first thing he had imparted to his liege lord Shonsu when he had begun to relax enough in his company to talk at all. Wallie had parried the hidden questions about their joint future until he had gained time to learn from Honakura just what a free sword was. He had been disgusted to learn how much those wandering warriors expected in the way of hospitality. It was not a sutra, it was a universal custom, which meant a law—free swords could have anything they wanted, including access to their hostesses’ beds.
That prospect was at least as attractive to Nnanji as the opportunities for bloodshed. Since the onset of adolescence, he had lived within the narrowly male world of the barracks, naïvely absorbing all the macho bragging, believing the tall tales of breathlessly grateful maidens. Now he saw his chance. He had no desire to be a routine policeman in some quiet little town or city. He dreamed of the open road—or, to be precise, open River—and honoring beautiful damsels would be a large part of the romance of it all. Here he was, a free sword at last, and this pretty young priestess had the misfortune to be the first woman he had encountered.
Wallie could admit a certain barbaric logic in the custom. Free swords were the good guys and brigands were the bad guys, but at times the distinction between them must become blurred. So hospitality was given without limits—unstinted generosity could avert pillage, and there was one sure way to avoid rape. Another benefit might be an increase in genetic diversity among the People, for likely few of them ever moved very far from their birthplaces in this primitive culture, and inbreeding would be a problem.
But that was the general case. In the specific instance, young Quili was being molested. Wallie could hardly change the laws of the World, but he could certainly divert Nnanji this time. He glanced back at his companions in the cart, noting his new oath brother’s glum expression. Satisfied that the squeaking axles and the roar of the stream would drown out his words, he turned to Quili and remarked, “Adept Nnanji seems very attracted to you, apprentice.”
Quili blushed even redder. “I am greatly honored, my lord.”
“Are you sure?”
She gasped and somehow managed to go redder still.
“No, no! That wasn’t what I meant!” Wallie floundered. “I am very much in love, Quili. I am totally infatuated by Jja. Like a starry-eyed boy! I seek no other woman.”
Understandably, she made no reply to such insulting gibberish. She kept her eyes on the plodding horse, although it seemed to be managing without any guidance from her.
“What I meant…I mean, if I seem…Oh, damn! If Nnanji thinks that I want you, then he will leave you alone. Do I make myself clear?”
“Either…Yes, my lord.”
“Then I shall pretend. But I’m only pretending!”
“Yes, my lord.”
He moved close and put his arm around her. Nnanji would certainly notice. She looked tiny in her yellow cloak, like a half-drowned canary, but there was a surprisingly firm young woman in there. He felt Shonsu’s disorderly glands begin to stir and repressed them with thoughts of Jja.
After a moment he said, “I swear I am only playacting, Quili.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“So there is no reason for you to tremble quite so violently.”