CHAPTER TWO
The twenty-seventh day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.
I am now a patrol guard. Oh, I know that I’ve been a guard since the moment I gave my oath of loyalty, but I didn’t really feel it until this morning, when Carle and I arrived back at the patrol hut, and everyone ignored me.
We arrived shortly before dawn, when the day patrol was finishing breaking its fast. One or two of the other guards broke off their conversations to greet Carle, but no one said anything to me. I felt cold all through, wondering whether, in the time I’d been gone, the others had changed their minds about wanting me as a fellow guard. Carle, though, seemed cheerfully unaware of what was happening. He went over to chat with Iain while I spooned bean porridge from the pot and tried to pretend that everything was fine.
The night patrol arrived soon afterwards, all of the guards weary in body and face except for the lieutenant, who always looks quietly alert. None of them greeted me, not even Quentin. Instead, Quentin went over to talk to the day patrol while the rest of the night patrol gathered round Carle and started teasing him about the ladies they suggested he must have spent his time courting during his visit to the city. I was just beginning to wonder whether the porridge had been poisoned, for I felt quite sick to my stomach, when Carle glanced at the violet-pink sky and announced, “Time for work, I would say.” Casually, as though he’d done it a thousand times before, he unsheathed his sword and passed its blade over the flames before sheathing it and walking slowly toward the tunnel that leads out of the hollow. He had not looked my way since our arrival back.
The other members of the day patrol did the same, and a couple of the night patrol guards, now gathered around the porridge, glanced their way and said, “Good hunting.” Then, as Chatwin finished fire-cleansing his sword of old blood and turned away, a silence fell upon the patrol, and I realized that everyone was looking my way.
Even so, it took me a moment to realize why they were waiting. Then I stumbled hastily to my feet, almost cut my hand in my eagerness to unsheathe my sword, and held my unblooded sword over the flames. When I looked up, the entire patrol was spread in a line, awaiting me.
My face was now burning as hot as the Jackal’s fire. I hesitantly stepped forward, and as I passed the first guard in line, Chatwin, he said, “Good hunting, Adrian.”
I looked back at him, but before I could think of anything to reply, I had come abreast of Teague of the night patrol, and he was saying, “Good hunting, Adrian.” After that, I was too busy trying to walk as quickly as possible down the line to be able to think of what to reply to everyone, aside from embarrassed mumbles.
As I reached the end of the line, Carle clapped me on the back as he said, “Good hunting, Adrian,” but I hardly noticed him, for my gaze was upon the lieutenant, who had stepped into my path. He looked down at me for a moment, his expression serious, and then he said quietly, “Good hunting, soldier. Take care of your partner today.”
My chest was squeezed tight. I think that in the next moment I would have burst into tears if Carle hadn’t rescued me by beginning to talk loudly about the dilatoriness of young patrol guards. He grabbed me by the scruff of my collar and pushed me forward, while several of the guards behind him chuckled. Then we were through the tunnel, and my first day on active duty had begun.
o—o—o
The twenty-ninth day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.
Ten hours of climbing mountains is a good cure for sleeplessness. The first evening, I was ready to collapse onto my pallet the moment I arrived back at the patrol hut, but Carle quickly made clear that the time that the patrol guards spend talking together is considered just as much a duty as our patrolling.
I don’t mind, especially when we play Law Links, which we do every night. I’m the first guard eliminated each time, of course, but I’ve already learned a dozen laws that way, and Carle has been tutoring me during the day while we’re on patrol.
Even better than Law Links is when the full patrol gathers together at dawn and at dusk. At first, I wondered how many border-breachers must make their way past the patrol during this time, as I had planned to do. I soon realized that Quentin’s hearing is so acute that he can even hear border-breachers from the insulated hollow. Twice he has broken the gathering short to send the next patrol out in pursuit.
Most of the time, though, we have a chance to exchange information about what has happened during our patrols, and we younger guards take the opportunity to ply Quentin with questions about our work.
Quentin must have great patience, for some of the questions he answers seem quite foolish. Yesterday, for example, Payne said, “I fear I fail to understand the rule on disarming, lieutenant. Our standing orders are to disarm Emorian border-breachers upon capture, but we are only supposed to disarm Koretian border-breachers if they draw their blades against us. Does that not make it easy for the Koretians to attack us?”
His gaze flicked over toward me as he spoke, and I could see the other guards eyeing me as well. There were five of us sitting around Quentin: me, Payne, Chatwin, Teague, and Devin. The other guards were gathered on the opposite side of the fire, quizzing Carle about the details of a new court case that Neville had told us about.
Quentin didn’t look my way, but as he reached over to his side to pick up his water flask, he said, “Soldier Adrian, I know that it will be difficult for you to discard momentarily your Emorian way of thinking, but I would appreciate it if you would cast your mind back to the days when you were a Koretian and explain to Payne what you would have done if I had tried to disarm you before you had drawn your blade against me.”
“I would have killed you.” The answer was so obvious that I didn’t pause to think, but a moment later, I felt my spirit jerk as though it had been torn in two, for it suddenly occurred to me that there was something odd about what I had said.
I did not have time to analyze the matter, for Quentin had turned his attention back to Payne. “In Koretia, Payne, the symbol of manhood is a blade. No Koretian man will disarm himself except for the gravest of reasons, and any man who tries to disarm a Koretian who has not threatened him will find his life in danger.”
Payne’s expression had been tightening during Quentin’s speech. Now he burst out, “But that is barbaric! How can they be so childish?”
Quentin lifted one eyebrow, then glanced over at me, sitting with fists clenched, trying to keep control of myself. “Adrian, please tell Payne – passing your mind back to your Koretian past, of course – what you thought the first time you saw an unarmed Emorian man.”
I was uneasily aware that I did not have to return as far as all that to find the answer to Quentin’s question, but I obediently replied, “I thought he looked like a child.”
Too late, I realized that Payne had put aside his sword. Fortunately, Payne’s expression was so comical that the other young guards burst into laughter, and after a moment, Payne gave a weak smile.
“If Adrian could find room in his spirit to appreciate your manly qualities, despite your obvious deficiencies,” Quentin said, rising to his feet, “I imagine that you can learn to appreciate the barbaric Koretians. . . . Sublieutenant, two men are approaching from the north.” He said this quietly to Carle, who immediately abandoned his food and rose to his feet. I was at his side within a few seconds, and when the day patrol left moments later, I heard Payne say, “Good hunting, Adrian,” although I had not had time to flame my blade.
o—o—o
The fifth day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.
Since arriving back in the mountains, I’ve continued to accompany Carle on patrols, though he has not yet allowed me to participate in a hunt; I’m supposed to watch from a distance and learn how hunts are conducted. Much of our work, I’ve discovered, consists of stopping legitimate border-crossers and asking for their credentials. We usually hunt at least one border-breacher a day, and sometimes several. If the hunted doesn’t resist capture, we interrogate our prisoner on the spot and e
ither send him back the way that he came, or – in the rare cases where the breacher has a legitimate reason for crossing the border – we allow him past us.
I was surprised, though, to learn that border-breachers who draw their blades are all treated in exactly the same manner as I was: they are hand-bound and eye-bound, roughly led to the patrol hut, and questioned in a harsh manner before being placed on trial for their crimes. I asked Carle about this, and he said that fear was the patrol’s secret weapon.
“It’s our only weapon in most cases,” he said, speaking to me in a low voice because we were standing on a mountain overlooking the pass. “If the breacher doesn’t attack us, and if he isn’t a lawbreaker such as an escaped slave, then we can’t punish the prisoner in any way. We simply scare him in hopes that he won’t try to breach the border again. If the breacher is violent, we try to give him the impression that his life is forfeit in our hands, though in most cases the lieutenant only condemns the prisoner to a beating.”
“So my trial was a sham,” I said unhappily.
“No Emorian trial that I’ve ever attended has been a sham. You were in real danger of being executed at the start, and we were really angry at you for what you had done – but even if we hadn’t been, we would have acted as though we were.” Carle’s head turned slowly as he surveyed the landscape below us. “The only way in which your trial was different from the others is that it was more formal, because part of your defense was that you had escaped to Emor to learn about the law. So the lieutenant was judging you partly on the basis of how you acted during your trial.”
I discovered today that Carle was right when he said that most patrol trials are less formal. Our prisoner was a Koretian who held to my theory that it’s better to find the patrol guards before they find you – only in his case, his motive for finding us was to cut our throats. This type of episode happens every few weeks, Carle assured me with a grin, and is the reason why patrol guards are trained to be the hunted as well as the hunters. It’s also the reason why we patrol in pairs, and in fact it was Payne’s patrolling partner, Gamaliel, who saved him from death and sent out the Immediate Danger whistle.
I had thought that I knew about moving fast before then, but I found that the implications of the danger whistles had been so firmly planted in my mind that I was beyond the doorway of the patrol hut before I even realized that I had awoken from sleep. We captured the hunted alive, brought him back to the hut, and then, with only a short preliminary of questioning, placed him on trial for attempted murder. This time there was no court summoner or herald or clerk, and the prisoner rejected the use of a guide. Only the lieutenant acted the same, wearing his gold chain and sitting in judgment with cold formality.
The prisoner’s defense – such as it was – was that he wished he’d murdered the lot of us. Quentin’s patient questioning failed to elicit any stronger defense. So, in the end, Quentin pronounced the sentence of death that could have been mine.
I don’t know what I expected to happen after that – some sort of small ceremony, I suppose, before the prisoner was discreetly taken outside and executed. So I barely took in what actually did happen: Quentin asked the prisoner whether he wished to appeal the judgment and sentence, waited only the mote of time necessary to receive a negative answer, then pulled out his thigh-dagger, stepped over to where the prisoner was being held by Carle and me, and plunged his blade into the man’s heart.
The Koretian wasn’t expecting this either; he died with a look of surprise on his face. After I had managed to still my queasy stomach, I asked Carle about what had happened. He told me that Quentin was following Emorian law, which states that a prisoner must be brought to trial as soon as possible, and that his punishment must take place immediately after the trial.
“We Emorians think that the cruelest punishment of all is fear,” said Carle. “We try to spare condemned prisoners that much at least.”
Thinking about the fear that held Mountside in its frosty grip in the days before I left, I decided that Carle was right.
o—o—o
The sixth day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.
I’m beginning to realize how hard it is to think like an Emorian.
This morning, as we were waiting for the night patrol to arrive back from duty, I was taking my turn at tending the stew. The food in the patrol surprises me; from the stories I’d heard of army life, I’d expected a steady diet of blackroot nuts. The patrol, though, gets its food and other supplies from the merchants that pass over the border every few days, so we’re much better fed than other soldiers – we dine as well as nobles, even eating meat. I’ve almost reached the point where I expect to be introduced to such delicacies as Daxion nuts.
I was saying as much to Carle and joking with him in our usual manner, when I realized that the other members of the day patrol were giving me dark looks. This puzzled me, as I couldn’t think of anything I’d done to earn the other guards’ wrath.
“Soldier,” said Carle sharply, all of a moment, “I wish to speak privately with you.”
I looked around to see whom Carle was addressing, and then realized with chagrin that I was the one he was glaring at.
He took me as far as the fall, where we could not be heard. I realize I must take a detour in my narrative here, because I haven’t explained fully about the waterfall. It tumbles down the mountainside from one of the high peaks, where the snow lies year-round. From the fall we gain our drinking water and bathing water, and our latrine is located in the area where the water rushes underground.
Using the latrine at night is a chilling experience. Even more chilling is bathing under the fall; I always take care to do so when the sun is up. All of the guards do except Carle, who sneaks out to bathe when the rest of us are asleep. He receives a great deal of teasing for his bodily modesty.
Speaking low under the soft roar of the fall, Carle said, “Adrian, didn’t anything Neville said to you penetrate your spirit? You mustn’t call me by my name alone in front of the others.”
I stared at him uncomprehending for a moment; then I felt the chill of the waterfall’s flicking bite against my skin fade away as heat rushed across my face. I said stiffly, “I am sorry, sir. I thought . . . If I had realized . . . Sublieutenant, when may I address you by your name? You will always be above my rank, so will I ever be able again to . . . I mean, I thought the wine . . .” I fumbled for words, struggling to keep control of my voice.
Carle sighed and turned me away so that my back was to the other guards, who were watching us out of the corners of their eyes. “Strictly speaking, not until one of us retires,” he said. “Army rank isn’t carried over to civilian life, so we’d be free to address each other as equals then. But in reality . . . Curse you, Adrian; I suppose Emorian life isn’t as orderly as I sometimes pretend it is. When I first joined the patrol, I tried to adhere to the rules of rank at all times; I was determined to be a good soldier. The lieutenant, though, soon cured me of my naiveté. He pointed out the folly of the two of us always addressing each other formally when we had to patrol together for eleven hours a day, every day of the week, for eight months straight. So now the rule I follow is to address my fellow guards in accordance with their rank, but only when we’re in active pursuit, or when orders are being given and received, or when we’re in the presence of others. But for love of the Chara, Adrian, I expect you to follow that rule as though your life depended upon it! Do you know what it looks like for you to call me by my name when the others cannot?”
I hadn’t, but I understood well enough when I arrived back at the balefire, where the others were waiting in watchful silence. Still burning from my unofficial reprimand, I poured out soup for Carle and handed it to him, taking care to address him by his title – and immediately grins spread from one guard to the next, like a peace oath travelling swiftly from one town to the next. Not long afterwards, Iain put his arm around my shoulders and offered to tend the soup in my place.
Every time I st
umble in my understanding of the law, I grow weak with fear of what I might do next. How far will I go in breaking Emorian rules before I enter into serious trouble?
o—o—o
The tenth day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.
Now I know.
As I mentioned before, I haven’t yet taken part in a hunt. This can be frustrating, for I must watch the pursuit from afar and gain what knowledge I can from the tiny figures I see. By last week, I was already growing eager to put my knowledge to the test, but Carle, after reciting the names of all the patrol guards over the centuries who had died during their first hunt, put my request aside.
Today, as the sun was setting in the sky, Carle went a few paces ahead to speak with Hoel and Chatwin. Rounding the side of a mountain, I discovered a border-breacher making water against the rock.
That he was a breacher I had no doubt; he was wearing an Emorian dagger and was well past the point where we would have sighted him if he’d been travelling from Emor in the normal manner. I concluded that he must have travelled through the nearby mountains, somehow retaining his orientation, and that he now believed himself to have journeyed beyond our patrolling ground.
He very nearly had; if he went any further, a pursuit by the patrol would be hard, as we were less familiar with the mountain areas to the south of our patrolling ground. With no thought, only instinct, I quietly drew my sword, crept up behind the breacher, and placed my sword-tip against his spine.
He yelped but did not move his hand toward his dagger. I had doubted he would; I had already learned that most Emorian border-breachers are defiant only up until the moment of capture, whereupon they surrender quietly. And so, feeling the same triumph that a bridegroom might feel after taking his bride’s maidenhood, I sent out the End of Hunt whistle.
Carle reached me within seconds. Hoel and Chatwin were not far behind, and I relished the look of Iain and Jephthah as they arrived two minutes later and saw who the captor was in this hunt. Carle waited long enough to be sure that the prisoner would not resist; then he pulled me aside. “What happened?” he asked. “Did he attack you?”
With eager joy, I explained how I had saved the patrol from a difficult hunt. Carle said nothing. Though Iain was leading the interrogation of the prisoner, I could see that he and the others were eavesdropping on what I said. When I had finished, Carle said only, “Let’s deal with the prisoner first.”
I was disappointed, but I told myself not to be foolish. Carle’s matter-of-fact acceptance of my ability to capture a breacher single-handedly was a greater compliment to me than if he had shown amazement at my accomplishment. So I followed him over to where the prisoner stood, babbling forth his story.
As it turned out, I was wrong; the Emorian had not been leaving Emor but returning to it, and he had been armed only because he had been travelling amongst the dagger-wielding barbarians of Koretia. In fact, he had travelled from Emor to Koretia while Carle and I were at the army camp, and he was known by the rest of the day patrol to be a legitimate border-crosser.
This tarnished my inward triumph only slightly. Even if I’d been wrong, Carle had told me long ago that it was better for a patrol guard to be too zealous in his duty than to allow a genuine breacher past the border. I’d still saved the patrol from what might have been a perilous pursuit.
The sun had dipped behind the mountains; the birds were beginning to quiet in the scrubby vegetation that clings to the rocks, and the winds had gone still, as they sometimes do for several days on end. Carle, having apologized to the prisoner and released him, sent out the signal of the withdrawal of the day patrol from duty, though he usually waits for Quentin’s signal that the night patrol is ready. Then, without looking my way, he began to walk back to the patrol hut.
I tried to talk more with him on the way about what had happened, but he didn’t respond to my remarks. Behind me, the other patrol guards were speaking in low voices, the way they always do when the wind is so soft that their remarks might be heard by coming breachers. After several attempts to break past Carle’s barrier of silence, I withdrew from his side, puzzled and hurt. Could it be, I wondered with horror, that Carle was actually jealous of me? Did he envy me so much for my daring capture – which surely no other patrol guard had achieved during his first hunt – that he would allow his feelings to poison our friendship?
I struggled with this unpleasant thought after reaching the patrol hut, and so I was not as aware as I might otherwise have been of the conversations taking place between the day and night patrols; nor did I pay much attention to Carle as he took Quentin aside and spoke privately with him.
My first warning of my change in fortune came when Quentin whistled the call for assembly.
It took me a moment to recognize the whistle; I had not yet heard it used, except in practice. Then I joined the other patrol guards lining up against the outside wall of the hut. The balefire flickered upon us, showering warmth and light. Just beyond the flames, several paces ahead of the other guards, Carle was standing so that he could see both the patrol and their lieutenant.
All of us stood at alert, our arms stiff, our eyes straight ahead, though I could not prevent myself from watching Quentin out of the corner of my eye as he slowly walked down the line, inspecting each man. When he reached me, he said in a colorless voice, “Soldier Adrian – step out of line, please.”
I did so; my face was burning. This I had not anticipated. I tried to tell myself that this was no doubt part of the normal initiation into the patrol. Probably I would only be honored for my first successful participation in a hunt. I couldn’t help wondering, though, whether my bold capture of the Emorian was substantive enough to earn me an honor brooch.
“Soldier Adrian,” said Quentin softly, “I am told that you disobeyed Sublieutenant Carle’s order and took part in a hunt. Is this true?”
I stared amazed at Quentin, then looked down the line at Carle, whose gaze was fixed straight ahead of himself. I said, “But I—”
“Soldier.” At Quentin’s voice, much softer than before, I turned my eyes back to him, then felt my stomach lurch from the look in his eyes. His face was only inches away from mine. “I asked you a question. Did you disobey Sublieutenant Carle’s order?”
I swallowed in an attempt to moisten my dry mouth. “Yes, sir, I did.”
The low wind brushed the balefire, sending sparks into the air. Next to me, I could not hear so much as a drawn breath from any of the other guards. Quentin took a step back, contemplated me for a moment as though I were a bound breacher, and finally said, “Very well. Report.”
I did so, stumbling this time, and leaving out the words of exaltation and victory that I had spoken to Carle. When I was finished, Quentin stared at me coolly as my heart thumped louder than the growl of the fire eating the wood. Then the lieutenant said, “The fault is mine.”
My heart thumped again, this time in astonishment. “Sir?”
“I should have taken you aside to give you special training in this matter. This is the first time that the patrol has ever had a Koretian-born guard, but I ought to have realized that this trouble would arise.”
Not since my entrance into the patrol had Quentin made mention of my native origins in order to criticize me. I felt my face burn once more as I said, “Sir, if I lack skills because I’m Koretian—”
Quentin shook his head. “Not skills, understanding. Soldier, why did you disobey orders?”
I phrased my reply carefully. “Sir, I see that I was wrong in what I did, but at the time I thought I was saving the patrol from a difficult hunt.”
“You say that you see you were wrong. In what way?”
I realized that I would not be spared the ordeal of a questioning. Something touched me then – my Koretian stubbornness, perhaps – and I said, “I don’t know, lieutenant. I tried to save the other guards from possible danger. Why was it wrong for me to do that?”
Quentin’s eyes flicked away from me toward Carle. A look passed b
etween them, long and grave; then Quentin stepped back from me and addressed the line of silent patrol guards. “Soldier Gamaliel, step forward.”
I turned my head to look as Gamaliel stiffly took a pace forward. He is the oldest patrol guard, older even than Quentin; he is only a few years younger than Fenton was when he died. As the light chiselled deeper the lines of somberness in Gamaliel’s face, Quentin said, “Soldier Gamaliel, please recount for the benefit of Soldier Adrian the events leading up to Sublieutenant Shepley’s dismissal from the patrol.”
I heard a faint rustling behind me, as though several of the guards had shifted in their places. Gamaliel’s chin rose as he said rigidly, “Yes, sir. Two springs ago, Sublieutenant Shepley was on duty, close to the patrol hut, with his partner, Soldier Byrd. Both soldiers sighted a man wearing the clothes of a barbarian mainlander. The mainlander saw them at the same moment and drew his sword. Soldier Byrd promptly issued the Probable Danger signal.
“Before the full patrol had time to respond to the signal, sir, Sublieutenant Shepley, jealous of your title—”
“Reword yourself, soldier.” Quentin’s voice was sharp.
“My apologies, sir.” Gamaliel was silent a moment, then started again. “Sublieutenant Shepley, desiring glory for himself, immediately drew his sword and ran forward to capture the barbarian. Soldier Byrd had no choice but to follow. Just as Sublieutenant Shepley was on the point of reaching the barbarian, though, his foot slipped on some loose pebbles, and he fell to the ground, striking himself unconscious in the process.
“Soldier Byrd, seeing his partner in danger, responded by attacking the barbarian. Because he had only recently joined the patrol, Soldier Byrd’s sword skills were not sufficient to allow him to defeat the barbarian unaided. The barbarian wounded him severely.”
Gamaliel paused. The sun had set completely by now; cloakless, I was shivering in the evening wind, warmed only by the patrol fire flickering its glow upon us. Carle stood nearly outside the circle of warmth; only his face was alit.
“At that point, sir, you and your patrolling partner, Soldier Carle, reached the scene,” Gamaliel continued. “As Soldier Carle is—” He stopped, his gaze sliding sideways over to me, then said, “As Soldier Carle was the best swordsman in the patrol, you ordered him to keep the barbarian occupied while you carried Soldier Byrd and Sublieutenant Shepley to safety.
“Unfortunately, the barbarian was well skilled with his blade. Although Soldier Carle was able to defend himself for a short while, the barbarian soon broke past his defenses and disarmed him. At that point, Soldier Neville and I had just come within sight, but we and the other guards were too far away to assist. You, sir, had returned from carrying Soldier Byrd to a secure distance and was just picking up Sublieutenant Shepley. In order to give you and Sublieutenant Shepley time to reach safety, Soldier Carle, now naked of blade, flung himself upon the barbarian.”
My gaze jerked over to Carle. He was continuing to stand motionless, staring at emptiness; the copper brooch at his neck twinkled in the light. I let out my breath slowly.
“Fortunately, the barbarian was so startled by this action that he stumbled and fell beneath the weight of Soldier Carle,” Gamaliel said. “Soldier Carle was able to prevent him from using his sword for the time it took the other guards to reach the scene. The barbarian was then captured by the remainder of the patrol.”
“And the aftermath of this hunt?” Quentin hadn’t looked at me since the report began; his gaze was fixed upon Gamaliel.
“The barbarian was placed on trial and was discovered to be a legitimate border-crosser who had not realized that the men attacking him were the Chara’s patrol guards. He was granted mercy for his crime and was released to continue on his way. Soldier Carle was awarded the subcommander’s copper honor brooch for his courage, and he rose to the sublieutenancy of the patrol. Soldier Byrd died of his wound, but in his dying hours, he gave witness to Sublieutenant Shepley’s actions. Sublieutenant Shepley—”
“That is enough.” Quentin’s soft voice cut off Gamaliel, who promptly stepped back into line; the lieutenant’s gaze had already returned to me. “Do you understand now, soldier?” he asked quietly.
I found it harder to swallow this time; there was an obstruction in my throat. “Yes, sir. By disobeying orders, Sublieutenant Shepley brought danger upon his fellow patrol guards.” I nearly continued, then thought better of it and fell silent.
Quentin, though, had been running his dark gaze over my face. He said, “You have more comments?”
I took a deep breath; the chill of the mountain air bit at my lungs. “Only a question, sir. Sublieutenant Shepley disobeyed orders – but didn’t Soldier Carle disobey orders as well? Aren’t we under standing orders to retreat if we’re disarmed?”
The wind, whooshing down the sides of the mountains enclosing us, stirred Carle’s hair; otherwise, his body and eyes remained motionless. Quentin, who was now running his fingers over his sword hilt, kept his gaze fixed upon me until I felt my knees beginning to melt. Then he said, “Yes, Soldier Carle disobeyed orders, in the most blatant manner possible. When, Soldier Adrian, you understand the difference between what he did and what you did, you too may disobey orders. Until then, your judgment is not sufficiently mature to allow for that.”
I said nothing. The wind whistled around the hollow. Somewhere in the distance, a bird of prey screamed.
The lieutenant stepped back. “The mistake was mine, as much as yours. I should have taken your background into account. We will let the matter rest there.”
“Sir—” I stopped, biting my lip, until Quentin gave an impatient gesture. Then I said, “Sir, I’m an Emorian now, and I should be held to Emorian law and custom as much as any other Emorian. I would rather that you dealt with me the same as you would any other soldier in this unit.”
I couldn’t tell, from Quentin’s expression, whether I had said the right thing. After a minute, though, he replied, “Very well. As it happens, we have a special discipline for this type of episode – a test that should teach you not to make this mistake again.” And then, as I let my breath out in a sigh, he added, “If you survive.”
o—o—o
The eleventh day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.
Carle took me into the mountains today for my test. He was very cheerful.
“Have you seen the seal yet?” he asked, after we’d walked for about an hour.
“What seal?” I asked as I stubbed my toe and stumbled.
“Watch out here; this path is rocky,” Carle reported belatedly. “The Chara’s seal. It’s plastered everywhere in the palace, but since we didn’t go inside the palace— No, wait, move a bit to the right. You’re about to fall into a fissure.”
I hurriedly crowded up against Carle’s body. My eyes were bound; I had long since lost all sense of which direction we were going in. All I knew was that we must be far away from the pass, for I could no longer hear the whistles of the patrol.
Our journey was like an eerie replay of my first arrival at the patrol hut, but this time my hands were unbound, and I could even have dispensed with the aid of a cloth over my eyes, if I’d been sure I could keep my eyes closed. Not wanting to take any chances, I had requested to have my eyes bound.
Other than that, I was dressed as I ordinarily would have been for a day’s patrol: I wore my army tunic, my thigh-pocket with its hidden dagger, my boots, my sword, and my back-sling, which held my water-flask, binding rope, and noonday meal. Also my journal and pencil, which I had received permission from Quentin to bring with me. “Recording your thoughts may be of use to you in seeing your way clear to the solution,” he said, when speaking of my test.
Now Carle said, “Vengeance, mercy, judgment.”
“What?” I swung my face toward him, as though I could see him.
“Those are the attributes of the Chara, and those are what are depicted on his seal. The Sword of Vengeance. The Heart of Mercy – that’s shown as a wounded bird. An
d the Balance of Judgment.”
I hesitated a moment before replying, then decided that I really did not want to tell Carle that vengeance, mercy, and judgment were the three attributes of the Jackal as well. “The Balance of Judgment holds the bird and the sword in its scales?”
“Precisely.” Carle sounded pleased at my reply. “But judgment is a much greater matter than that. Take the Court of Judgment, where the Chara hears his cases. First of all, it’s unlikely that the man the Chara is trying is being tried for the first time. More likely, the man has been judged by the lesser courts, the case working itself up the ladder of the courts as it becomes clear that the case offers some problem that the lesser courts haven’t dealt with before. By the time the case reaches the Chara, he not only has the prisoner’s witness to consider; he also has the judgments of the previous judges. And beyond that there will be witnesses – many witnesses in an important case. The Chara can’t make a judgment on his own. He depends heavily on what is stated and judged by other men.”
“I see.” My mind was less on Carle’s words than on the rocky ground that would have caused me to fall to the ground if Carle hadn’t been gripping my arm. “So you couldn’t just have a case where the Chara was alone with the prisoner—”
“Oh, that type of case happens occasionally. ‘Private judgment,’ it’s called, and the Chara is the only judge in the land who is permitted to make private judgment, because of his high office. Even then, he’ll invariably be drawing upon the written witness of men not present. . . . Here we are.”
Carle pulled me to a stop. I strained my ears, trying to sense where we were. We had been travelling on the relatively level ground between mountains; I knew this from the number of times that Carle had pulled me back from stepping into fissures. I could hear no whistles coming from behind me, before me, or to either side of me. The wind shifted direction every few seconds. A few autumn birds twittered, but most had flown south at this time of year. Near us, a stone rattled down the side of a mountain.
My head jerked round; then I whispered, “It sounds like a breacher is near.”
“We’re too far from the pass for that,” replied Carle, adjusting the cloth binding my eyes. “Most likely it’s a cat.”
“A mountain cat?” I tried to keep my voice matter-of-fact. “I thought they only lived in the dominion mountains, except when they’re tamed. Do the wild cats travel this far south?”
“They don’t come near the pass, but they’ll occasionally roam these mountains, away from the pass. Don’t worry. You may find that one is following you, but they rarely attack humans, unless the human is wounded. Now, then—” Without warning, Carle took hold of my shoulders and spun me round. By the time he stopped, I was thoroughly dizzy.
“Any idea which direction you’re facing?” Carle enquired blithely.
“None at all,” I replied, trying to keep from toppling over.
“Good. Now, here’s how the test works. I’ll leave you here. You count to a hundred. Once the count is over, take the cloth off your eyes and make your way back to the patrol ground.”
“That’s all?” I said cautiously. “It’s just a test to see whether I can navigate through the mountains?”
“You can manage that, can’t you?”
“Of course I can,” I said quickly, though I was feeling uneasy, remembering Fenton’s warning about sticking to the pass.
“Good. Keep in mind, Adrian: this test isn’t meant to kill you. I don’t want you to make the same mistake that was made by the only guard I know who failed this test. When you find that you can’t locate the patrol ground, whistle, and we’ll come fetch you.”
I was stung by the lack of faith that Carle’s “when” represented. “I’ll make it back on my own,” I said stiffly.
“Good hunting” was Carle’s only reply. He said nothing more, and after a minute, I realized that he had left my side.
Taking a breath, I counted aloud to one hundred, keeping my count slow. I could not help continuing to strain for some clue of where I was. If Carle made any noise while walking back to the pass, I missed it. I thought, though, that I could hear the mountain cat, moving on some slope above. I had a sudden, nasty vision of what I must look like to the cat: an eye-bound man, easy prey.
Resisting the temptation to pull the cloth off my eyes, I pulled my sword instead. Perhaps the cat wouldn’t recognize the significance of the eye-binding. On the other hand, perhaps the cat wouldn’t recognize the significance of the sword either, if she had never encountered humans before. Not until she jumped me would the cat realize that I had a way to defend myself. And by the time I killed her, would her claws have mauled me sufficiently to make the killing mutual? I shivered.
o—o—o
I’ve been writing all this under a ledge in the tiny gorge where Carle left me. Evening had arrived by the time I removed the cloth from my eyes, and tonight the sky is too overcast for me to see the stars, so I will need to wait until dawn to figure out which direction I should take. I ate a little bit of my food and sipped a mouthful of my water, but I’m saving most of it for tomorrow. Surely I cannot be more than a day’s walk from the pass; that’s all the time that Carle spent in taking me here.
I haven’t heard the mountain cat again. I’m hoping that she never saw me and has gone elsewhere to hunt.
o—o—o
The twelfth day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.
It’s noonday; I’ve paused to rest. I had hoped last night that, by this time today, I would be halfway home – halfway back to the patrol ground. But something has happened that I hadn’t anticipated: the sky is still covered with clouds.
I could tell this morning where the east was; the glow in the clouds told me that much. But as the day went on, and the whole sky lit up, even that much became hard to discern. It’s not as though I can even see most of the sky; the mountains here are so crowded together that I can only sight the sky directly above me. I had hoped that I might at least be able to tell at noonday which direction was south, since the sun is always slightly to the south at noonday. But even that much information has been hidden from me by the thick clouds.
There has been no rain; I can be grateful for that. Or at least, I thought I was grateful until I realized how far my water flask was depleted. Then I began keeping my eye out, not merely for glimpses of the sun, but for pools of water.
I’ve seen none. What pools there might be are probably drawn into the fissures, which are so dark that I find myself in continual danger of walking into one unsuspecting.
Perhaps I will have better luck higher up on the slopes.
o—o—o
Trying to climb around the sides of mountains is exhausting and frustrating. I keep running into insuperable barriers: blocks of rock that prevent me from travelling further. Of course, such barriers exist on the mountains alongside the pass too, but the patrol has been doing its work for so many centuries that the guards know where every barrier is located and can pass on that information to new guards. Here I am like an explorer in uncharted areas of the mainland.
I did find a wild-berry bush this afternoon. It was a pathetic thing, shrivelled up from living so far north, but it had a few late-autumn berries on it still, which I plucked and placed in my back-sling. I have enough food and water until the end of the day; after that, I have no idea what I will do. Trap mountain animals? I can’t imagine how to make a trap out of the one bit of rope I have, barely long enough to bind a man’s hands. And though I’m sure a mainland boy would be taught how to hunt with blade alone, I never was.
I spent a long while this afternoon simply standing still, trying to determine through sound where I was. All I could hear was the wind, and what might have been the mountain cat, moving closer to me from a slope nearby.
o—o—o
The thirteenth day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.
I’ve run out of water. I’m trying to remember how long a man can stay alive without drinking water.
> The clouds still block my sight of the sun today, and they still refuse to drop any rain on me. Perhaps it’s just as well; the wind is so chilly now that I regret not having asked to bring a cloak. I barely got any sleep last night, curled up on the cold ground of a cave I found, wondering whether the cat would attack me before dawn.
My toiletry in the morning was exceedingly unpleasant. I miss the patrol’s latrine.
o—o—o
I’ve eaten the last of the berries, doing my best to suck out their moisture. The rest of the food I finished last night. It’s not that I’ve been greedy; it’s that the climbing I’ve been doing is so strenuous. I’ve been trying to climb high enough that I can see the pass. But the mountains are so high and so thickly clustered together that it’s like trying to sight Capital Mountain when you’re in the midst of the forest of central Koretia.
I heard the cat again today, her delicate paws sending pebbles down the side of a mountain. I couldn’t see her, though. I don’t suppose I’ll see her until she pounces on me.
And even if I should succeed in killing her before she kills me, what then? I’ll likely be so badly mauled that I can’t travel any further.
This afternoon, for the first time, I felt the temptation to whistle to the patrol for help. I manfully held back from doing so.
o—o—o
The fourteenth day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.
Another cold night, this time without shelter of the cave. I received no sleep at all.
I must admit now that I am thoroughly lost. For all I know, I’ve been travelling in the opposite direction that Carle and I came from and have been driving myself deeper into the mountains. There’s no way to tell; the day is overcast again.
Am I even within reach of the patrol if I should whistle? Most likely not, if I can’t hear their whistles. I haven’t heard a whistle since the time Carle left me.
My mouth is very dry.
o—o—o
It’s becoming harder and harder to travel; I keep having to pause to renew my strength. I find myself thinking of Fenton – of how Fenton looked when I first met him. Lying on the ground, barely alive . . . Only Felix’s urgent ministrations saved Fenton from entering the Land Beyond.
I can see now why the cat hasn’t attacked. She’s waiting until I’m too weak to be able to fight back. That shouldn’t be long.
o—o—o
Now I really am in trouble.
This afternoon, trying to make use of the last hours of daylight, I hurried up a slope in too careless a manner. I slipped. I swear I fell down half the mountainside before I managed to stop myself. I’m bruised from head to toe, and my arm is bleeding. That’s not so bad; I’ve put my face-cloth on it to keep the blood from running out of me. But I think my ankle is broken. When I try to walk on it, my leg gives way.
It is time to admit that I have failed. Even expulsion from the patrol would be better than to die alone here of thirst, or to await the cat’s attack.
o—o—o
I sent out the Probable Danger whistle three times but received no reply. Am I too far from the pass? Or is the penalty for failing this test death?
I can’t bear the thought of never seeing Carle again.
o—o—o
The fifteenth day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.
I managed, through sheer exhaustion from my tears, to sleep a bit yesterday evening after I whistled my danger. When I awoke a short time later, the clouds were red with sunset.
Carle stood over me, holding a wine-flask.
I sat up and greedily took the flask from him. “Careful,” he said, crouching down beside me as I began to swallow the wine. “You’ll make yourself sick if you drink too fast. Let me see that arm of yours.”
I set aside the flask as Carle undid my face-cloth, washed the wound with water from his other flask, and covered the wound again with his own, clean face-cloth. “Just a scrape,” he said. “Now let’s look at your ankle.”
It took him some time to pull off the boot; the ankle had swollen. He carefully inspected it. “Not broken,” he announced finally. “Can you walk on it?”
I tried again, and found that, in the interval since my fall, the ankle had gotten better.
“Just twisted,” Carle decided. “It’s likely to be good enough to walk on tomorrow morning.” He whistled suddenly, turning his head slightly to the right of the direction where I had been heading. From that direction, clear as a birdsong at dawn, came the reply of the lieutenant.
I stared, open-mouthed; then I understood. I had been near the patrol ground all along. The patrol guards had simply refrained from whistling their code during the time I took my test.
I felt the heat of shame cover me then. I had whistled for help – had whistled Probable Danger – simply because I’d twisted my ankle a bit. There was nothing wrong with me at all, aside from being a little bruised and a bit thirsty. I could have lasted the time needed to find my way back to the pass.
“Do you have any of those berries left?” Carle asked as he sat down beside me.
“No, I ate the last of—” I stopped, realizing suddenly how little time had passed since I had whistled. “Carle,” I said slowly, “that was no mountain cat following me. It was you. You’ve been following me since you left me.”
Carle raised one eyebrow as he rummaged in his back-sling. “I told you that the purpose of this test wasn’t to let you die. What if you had knocked your head on a stone when you fell down this mountain? Someone had to follow you to make sure you’d be all right. —Ah, here we are.” He handed me a hard biscuit.
I took it but did not eat it; I was feeling sour in my stomach. I had never been in any danger. Never. I had just let my fears get the best of me. “I’m sorry,” I said in a low voice.
“Sorry for what?” Carle enquired as he inspected one of my bruises.
“For failing the test.”
Carle rubbed a bit of dirt off my bruise to see it better. “Well, yes, you very nearly did. I was beginning to wonder whether you would whistle for help before you started dying of thirst.”
The evening wind, sighing, slid over my skin. The sky was beginning to turn the color of my bruises. A sudden cloud-break showed the stars above me, shining sweetly.
“I was supposed to call for help?” I said.
Carle sighed as he leaned back. “Adrian, try to use that quicksilver mind of yours. Why were you punished in the first place? What lesson was it that the lieutenant wanted you to learn?”
I was still for a long while as the night chill settled into the mountains, like lowering mist. Then I said, “All that chattering you did on the way here, about the Chara needing aid in making his judgments . . . You were talking about the test, weren’t you? You were saying that I couldn’t make it out of the mountains unaided.”
Carle shrugged. “Quentin might be able to make it back on his own. We know that Fenton managed it. But for us ordinary men . . . Adrian, there’s a reason that the Chara placed twelve patrol guards in the black border mountains, and it’s not just so that most border-breachers will back away in terror once they see how many opponents they’re facing.”
“None of us can survive here on our own,” I concluded quietly. For a moment, I saw myself as I had been just a few weeks before, running alone through the mountains, questing alone for knowledge of the Chara’s law. And then I saw myself as I now am: surrounded by fellow law-lovers, learning from them, and sharing with them my knowledge of blade-play.
“Come on,” said Carle, standing up and offering me his arm. “This is no place to spend the night. I passed a cave below that will shelter us if any exceedingly foolish mountain cat should decide to attack two patrol guards at once.”
I let him help me up, feeling no shame now at his assistance. “I’m such a fool,” I said.
Carle grinned at me. “You and half the young men who enter the patrol. Why do you think we have this handy test available? You’re by no means the first patrol guard to
make the mistake of thinking he can hold back breachers on his own, believe me.”
“Carle,” I said hesitantly, “on our way here, you spoke of one guard who failed the test. What happened to him?”
Carle’s smile broadened. “The lieutenant issued the worst possible punishment. He made me responsible for the lives of five other patrol guards.” Still grinning, Carle helped me hobble my way down the mountain.
o—o—o
The seventeenth day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.
I was permitted to take part in my first hunt today.
I killed a border-breacher today.