"That filth!" The man spat. "Who are you, then, if you fight against Siniava but befriend pirates?"
"Duke Phelan, of Tsaia."
"Tsaia? That's over the Dwarfmounts, all the way north! What do you here?" Confusion and anger both in that voice; his eyes raked the troops.
"I have a mercenary company, that fights in Aarenis. Siniava—" The Duke's voice thinned, but he did not go on. "We fought Siniava," he said finally. "He is dead. Alured of the forest has been granted the Duchy of Immer, and as he aided us, so I am now aiding him."
"He is no duke!" yelled the man. "I don't know you—I heard something maybe, but I don't know you. But that Alured—he is nothing but pirate, and pirate he will always be. Siniava was bad, Barrandowea knows that—but Alured! He killed my uncle, years back, out there in the bay, him and his filthy ship!"
"No matter," said the Duke. "He is the Duke of Immer now, and I am here to keep order until his own officers take over."
The man spat again, and turned away. The Duke said nothing more to the crowd, but set the cohorts on guard along the waterfront, and had patrols in the streets leading to and from their area. All stayed quiet enough, that first day. Paks felt herself lucky to be stationed on the seawall. She could look down at the boats, swaying on the waves, and catch a breath of the light wind that blew off the water. Strange birds, gray and white with black-capped heads, and large red bills, hovered over the water, diving and lifting again.
It was the next day that the executions began. Paks heard the yells from the other side of the city, but before they could get excited, the captains explained what was going on.
"The Duke of Fall and the Duke of Immer are executing Siniava's agents." Arcolin's face was closed. "We are to keep order here, in case of rioting—but we don't expect any." In fact, nothing happened in their quarter. The men and women went about their work without looking at the soldiers, and the children scampered in and out of the water freely. But the noise from across the city did not quiet down, and in the evening Cracolnya's cohort was pulled out to join the Halverics in calming the disturbance. They returned in the morning, tired and grim; Paks did not hear the details until much later. But the Duke's Company marched out of Immerdzan the following day, and the bodies hung on the wall were eloquent enough.
In Ka-Immer, rumor had arrived before they did. The gates were closed. With no trained troops for defense, and only the same low walls, the assault lasted only a few hours. This time the entire population was herded into the market square next to the seawall. While the Halverics and Phelani guarded them, Alured's men searched the streets, house by house, bringing more and more to stand with the others. When they were done, Alured himself rode to the edge of the square. He pointed at a man among the others. His soldiers seized him, and dragged him out of the mob. Then two more, and another. Someone yelled, from across the square, and a squad of Alured's men shoved into the crowd, flailing them aside, to seize him as well. The first man had thrown himself down before Alured, sobbing. Alured shook his head, pointed. All of them were dragged to a rough framework of spars which Alured's troops had lashed together.
A ripple of sound ran through the crowd; the people crammed back against each other, the rear ranks backing almost into Paks's squad. She and the others linked shields, holding firm. She could hardly see over the crowd. Then the first of the men lifted into sight, stretched on ropes slung over the framework. Paks stiffened; her belly clenched. Another. Another. Soon they hung in a row, one by the feet and the others by their arms. Alured's men pelted them with mud, stones, fish from the market. One of them hung limp, another screamed thinly. Paks looked away, gulping back nausea. When her eyes slid sideways, they met Keri's, equally miserable. She did not see the end, when Alured himself ran a spear into each man. She felt, through the movement of the crowd, that an end had come, and looked up to see the bodies being lowered.
But it was not the end. Alured spoke, in that strange language, gesturing fiercely. The crowd was still, unmoving; Paks could smell the fear and hatred of those nearest her. He finished with a question: Paks recognized the tone of voice, the outflung arm, the pause, waiting for an answer. It came as a dead fish, flung from somewhere in the crowd, that came near to its mark. His face darkened. Paks could not hear what he said, but his own soldiers fanned out again, coming at the crowd.
Before they reached it, the crowd erupted into sound and action. Jammed as they were against a thin line of Phelani and Halverics holding the three landward sides of the market, they somehow managed to turn and move at once. Paks's squad was forced back, by that immense pressure. They could hear nothing but the screams and bellows of the crowd; they had been ordered to guard, not attack. But they were being overwhelmed. Most of the people had no weapons; their weapon was simply numbers. Like Paks, they were reluctant to strike unarmed men and women—but equally, they did not want to be overrun.
Behind, in the streets that led to the market, Paks could hear other troops coming, and shouted commands that were but pebbles of noise against the stone wall around them. She tried to stay in contact with the others, tried to fend off the crowd with the flat of her sword, but the pressure was against them all. A man grabbed at her weapon, screaming at her; she raised it, and he hit her, hard, under the arm. Almost in reflex, Paks thrust, running the sword into his body. He fell under a storm of feet that kept coming at her. She fended them off as best she could, pressing close to the rest of the squad as they tried to keep together and keep on their feet.
A gap opened between them and the next squad; the crowd poured through, still bellowing. Paks was slammed back into the building behind her; she could feel something—a window ledge, she supposed—sticking into her back. Faces heaved in front of her, all screaming; hands waved, grabbed at her weapon. She fought them off, panting. She had no time to look for Stammel or Arcolin; she could hear nothing but the crowd. They had broken through the ring in many places, now, and streamed away from the market, lurching and falling in their panic. A child stumbled into her and fell, grabbing at her tunic as he went down, screaming shrilly. Paks had no hand to spare for him, and he disappeared under the hurrying feet.
By the time she could move again, most of the crowd had fled. She could see Alured riding behind his soldiers as they tried to stop those in the rear. She finally saw Arcolin, and then Stammel, beyond the tossing heads. Then she could hear them. The cohort reformed, joined the others, and was sent in pursuit of the fugitives. But by sundown, barely a fifth had been retaken, mostly women and children too weak to run far, or too frightened. Paks, still shaken by the morning's events, was sickened by the treatment of those she helped recapture. Alured was determined that none of Siniava's sympathizers would survive, and that all would acknowledge his rank and rule. To this end, he intended, as he explained to Phelan in front of the troops, to frighten the citizens into submission.
Paks expected the Duke to argue, but he said nothing. He had hardly seemed to smile since Siniava's death, and since reaching the coast had spent hours looking seaward. She did not know—none of them knew—what was troubling him. But more and more Paks felt that she could not live with what was troubling her. The looks of fear and loathing turned on them—the muttered insults, clear enough even in a foreign tongue—the contempt of Alured's troops, when the Phelani would not join them in "play," which to them meant tormenting some helpless civilian—all this curdled her belly until she could hardly eat and slept but little, waking often from troubled dreams.
Paks tried to hide her feelings, tried to argue herself into calm. She had spoken out once—that was enough for any private. As long as she wore the Duke's colors, she owed him obedience. He was a good man; had always been honorable . . . she thought of the High Marshal and wished she had never met him. He had raised questions she didn't want to answer. Surely the Duke's service was worth a little discomfort, even this unease.
When they marched out of Ka-Immer, leaving a garrison of Alured's men behind, Paks tried to tell herself the w
orst was over. But it wasn't. In town after town, along the Immerhoft coast, Alured suspected Siniava's agents, or found someone who expressed doubt that a pirate could legally inherit a dukedom. The mercenaries did not participate in the executions and tortures, but they all knew that without them Alured lacked the troops to force so many towns.
None of them knew how long it would last—where the Duke was planning to stop. Surely he would. Any day he would turn back, would march to Valdaire. But he said nothing, staring south across the blue, endless water. Uneasiness ran through the Company like mice through a winter attic.
Paks thought no one had noticed her in particular until Stammel came to her guardpost one night. He stood near her, unspeaking, for a few minutes. Paks wondered what he wanted. Then he sighed, and took off his helmet, rumpling up his hair.
"I don't need to ask what's wrong with you," he began. "But something has to be done."
Paks could think of nothing to say, any more than she had been able to think of anything to do.
"You aren't eating enough for someone half your size. You'll be no good to any of us if you fall sick—"
"I'm fine—" began Paks, but he interrupted.
"No, you're not fine; neither am I. But I'm keeping my food down, and sleeping nights, which is more than you're doing. I don't want to lose a good veteran this way. We don't have that many. All those new people we've picked up here and there. They aren't the same." Stammel paused again. He put his helmet back on, and rubbed his nose. "I don't know if they ever will be—if we ever will be—what we were." His voice trailed away.
"I keep—keep seeing—" Paks could not go on.
"Paks, you—" Stammel cleared his throat and spat. "You shouldn't be in this."
She was startled enough to make a choked sound, as if she'd been hit. "What—why—"
"You don't." His voice gathered firmness as he went on. "By Tir, I can't stand by and see you fall apart. Not for this. You've served the Duke as well as anyone could. D'you think he doesn't know it? Or I?" Now he sounded almost angry. "You don't belong here, in this kind of fighting. That High Marshal was right; even the Duke said you might be meant for better things." He stopped again, and his voice was calmer when he resumed. "I think you should leave, Paks—"
"Leave the Company?" Despite the shock, she felt a sudden wash of relief at the thought of being out of it, then a stab of panic. She had already made this decision; she couldn't make it again.
"Yes. That's what I came to say. Tir knows this is hard enough on me—and I'm older, and—But you leave, Paks. Go back north. Go home, maybe, or see if you can take knight's training somewhere. Don't stay in this until you can't stand yourself, or the Duke either."
"But I—how can I ask—I can't go to him—" The memory of his expression, that night when she had opposed his will, haunted her still. Even though he had seemed to hold no grudge, she did not want to risk another such look.
Stammel nodded forcefully. "Yes, you can. Tell Arcolin. The captain'll understand—he knows you. He'll tell the Duke—or you can. They'll recommend you somewhere, I'm sure of it."
That wasn't what was bothering her. "But to leave the Duke—"
"Paks, I've got nothing to say against him. You know that. He's been my lord since I started; I will follow him anywhere. But—you stopped him once, when he—he might have made a mistake. Maybe—if you leave, maybe he'll look again—"
Paks was speechless, faced again with the decision she thought she'd settled in Cortes Immer. How could she leave the Company? It was closer to her now than family, more familiar than the rooms of the house where she'd been born.
"Paks, I'm serious. You can't go on the way you have been. Others have noticed already; more will. Get out of this while you still can."
"I—I'll have to think—"
"Tonight. We'll be in Sord tomorrow—more of the same, I don't doubt."
Paks found that her eyes were full of tears. She choked down a sob. Stammel gripped her shoulder. "That's what I mean, Paks. You can't keep fighting yourself, as well as an enemy. Tir knows I know you're brave—but no one can fight inside and outside both at once."
"I gave my word," she whispered.
"Yes. You did. And you've already served your term, and more. You've seen Siniava die, which ends that oath, to my mind. I don't think you're running out—and I don't think Arcolin or the Duke will, either. Will you talk to them?"
Paks stared up at a dark sky spangled with stars. Torre's Necklace was just rising out of the distant sea. She thought of the distant past, when she had dreamed of being a soldier and seeing far places, and of the last town they had been through. "I—can't—go into another—"
"No. I agree."
"But it's too late." Surely the captains were all in bed; she could not wake them, or the Duke, for such an errand. Relief washed over her; she didn't have to decide now.
His voice was gentle. "Would you if it weren't so late?"
That gentleness and the certainty that it was too late relaxed her guard. She was so tired. "Oh, I—I don't know. Yes. If the Duke would let me—"
"He will," said Stammel. "Or I don't know Duke Phelan, and I think I do." Before she could answer, he called back toward the lines for someone to take her place on guard. "Come on. If I know you, you'll convince yourself by morning that you owe it to the Duke to work yourself blind, deaf, and crazy."
She followed him to Arcolin's tent, sick and trembling again, but the following hour was not as difficult as she feared. The other captains who had been talking with Arcolin melted away when Stammel asked Arcolin for a few minutes of conference. Arcolin himself looked at Paks steadily, but without anger or disappointment.
"You are overdue for leave," he said. "You've served faithfully; if you want either leave, or to quit the Company entirely, you have the right. I would hate to see you leave us for good; you've done well, and I know Duke Phelan is pleased with you. Would you consider a year's leave, with the right to return?"
Paks nodded. "Whatever you say, Captain." She could not really think; her mind spun dizzily from fear to elation to sorrow.
"Then we'll speak to the Duke about it." Arcolin pushed himself up from his table. "You should come too. He may wish to speak to you about your service."
The Duke also had not gone to bed. His gaze sharpened when he saw Paks behind Arcolin, but he waved them into his tent. Arcolin explained what Paks wanted, and the Duke gave her a long look.
"Are you displeased with my command, Paksenarrion?"
"No, my lord." She was able to say that honestly. It was not his command, but his alliances, that bothered her.
"I'm glad for that. You have been an honest and trustworthy soldier. I would hate to think I had lost your respect."
"No, my lord."
"I can see that you might well wish to leave for awhile. A northern girl—a different way—but do you wish to leave the Company forever, or only for a time?"
"I don't know—I can't imagine anything else, but—"
"How could you? I see." He gave a short nod, as if he had decided some issue she hadn't noticed. "You know that High Marshal suggested you might need to leave this Company; he told me that as early as Sibili, after you'd been wounded." Paks noticed that he did not use the High Marshal's name. Nor did he mention her earlier insistence that she would stay. "Perhaps this is the right time. You would benefit from advanced training, I think. If you decide to enter another service, I will be glad to recommend you. My own advice is that you seek squire's training somewhere. You're already good with single weapons—learn horsemanship as well, and you might qualify for knight's training." He stopped, and looked at Arcolin. "She'll need maps for the journey north; I suppose you've already arranged about pay and settlements—"
"Not yet, my lord. She came just this evening."
"Well, then. You might stay with the Company, Paksenarrion, until you have decided how you will travel. The state Aarenis is in, going alone would not be wise. I'll be sending someone back to Valdai
re a little later, if you wanted to wait—" The Duke had more advice, but none of the condemnation Paks had feared. He seemed more tired than anything else, a little distracted, though kind. She shook his hand, and returned to the cohort area with Arcolin, a little let down at how easy it had been.
Stammel was waiting. "You go on to bed. Tomorrow—"
"But tomorrow is Sord—"
"No. That's the day after. And you won't march with us. I'll have something for you to do—"
"But—"
"Don't argue with me! I'm still your sergeant! By the time you get into Sord, you'll be free of all this. Now get over there and go to sleep."
That night Paks slept through to daylight without waking.
Chapter Two
"From Duke Phelan's Company, eh?" Paksenarrion nodded. The guard captain was a burly dark man of middle height. "Leaving the Company?"
Paks shrugged. "Going home for awhile."
"Hmm. Wagonmaster says you want to leave the caravan halfway—?"
"It's shorter—"
"Mmm. Wagonmaster talked to your sergeant, didn't he?"
"Yes, sir."
"It'll do, then, I suppose. Do you handle a crossbow?"
"Not well, sir. I have used a longbow, but I'm no expert."
The guard captain sighed. "Can't have everything, I suppose. Now listen to me—the caravan starts making up day after tomorrow, and we'll leave the day after that or the next, depending on how many merchants join up. I'll want you here by high noon day after tomorrow, ready to work. You come in drunk, and I'll dock your pay. We have to watch the wagons as close in the city as on the trail. Don't plan on sleeping that night. Be sure to get some armor; the caravan doesn't supply it. I'd recommend chainmail. The brigands we'll run into along the coast use powerful bows. That leather you're used to won't stop arrows. You can buy mail from us, if you want." He cocked his head at her. "Clear so far?"
"Yes, sir. Be here at noon day after tomorrow, with armor."