An Empire Unacquainted With Defeat

  "Baron Caydar's men." She would say no more. She just leaned against the door frame and stared into the dusk.

  Toma returned a moment later. "It's all right. He's coming. Must have spent the day with the Kosku boy. I see his flock too."

  "Toma . . . ." Fear tinged Rula's voice.

  "The boy can choose his friends, woman. I'm not so weak that I'll make my children avoid their friends because of my fears."

  Tain stirred vegetables and listened, trying to fathom the situation. Toma was scared. The timbre of fear inundated his voice.

  He and Rula dropped the subject as if pursuing it might bring some dread upon them.

  Steban had collected the right mushrooms. That had worried Tain. He never quite trusted anyone who wasn't legion-trained. "Good, Steban. I think we'll all like this."

  "You're cooking?"

  "I won't poison you. The fish was good, wasn't it?"

  Steban seemed unsure. He turned to his father. "Wes said they were fined five sheep, five goats, and ten geese. He said his dad said he's not going to pay."

  Dread and worry overcame his parents' faces.

  "Toma, there'll be trouble." Rula's hands fluttered like nervous doves.

  "They can't afford that," Toma replied. "They wouldn't make it through winter."

  "Go talk to him. Ask the neighbors to chip in."

  "It's got to end, Rula." He turned to Tain. "The Crown sent Baron Caydar to protect us from the tribes. We had less trouble when we weren't protected."

  "Toma!"

  "The tribes don't bother anyone, Rula. They never did. Hywel goes out of his way to avoid trouble. Just because those royal busybodies got themselves massacred . . . . They asked for it, trying to make Hywel and Stojan bend the knee."

  "Toma, they'll fine us too."

  "They have to hear me first."

  "They know everything. People tell on each other. You know . . . ."

  "Because they're scared. Rula, if the bandits keep pushing, we won't care if we're afraid."

  Tain delivered the meal to table. He asked, "Who are the Caydarmen? The one I saw was no Iwa Skolovdan."

  "Mercenaries." Toma spat. "Crown wouldn't let Caydar bring regulars. He recruited Trolledyngjans who escaped when the Pretender overthrew the Old House up there. They're a gang of bandits."

  "I see." The problem was taking shape. Baron Caydar would be, no doubt, a political exile thrust into an impossible position by his enemies. His assignment here would be calculated to destroy him. And what matter that a few inconsequential colonists suffered?

  Tain's motherland was called Dread Empire by its foes. With cause. The Tervola did as they pleased, where and when they pleased, by virtue of sorcery and legions unacquainted with defeat. Shinsan did have its politics and politicians. But never did they treat civilians with contempt.

  Tain had studied the strange ways of the west, but he would need time to really grasp their actuality.

  After supper he helped Toma haul more water. Toma remarked, "That's the finest eating I've had in years."

  "Thank you. I enjoyed preparing it."

  "What I wanted to say. I'd appreciate it if you didn't anymore."

  Tain considered. Toma sounded as though he expected to share his company for a while.

  "Rula. She shouldn't have too much time to worry."

  "I see."

  "I appreciate the help you're giving me . . . ."

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

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

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

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

  "We need you. You can see that. I've been too stubborn to admit it till now . . . ."

  "Stubbornness is a virtue, properly harnessed. Just don't be stubborn against learning."

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

  Rula scowled.

  "They weren't much. Bloody, sordid little things, Steban. Less fun than sheep-shearing time."

  "Oh, come on, Tain. You're always saying things like that."

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

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

  "Maybe. He shouldn't fill Steban's head with his nonsense."

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

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

  Twice he spied roving Caydarmen. Neither noticed him.

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

  VII

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

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

  "I want to thank you."

  "Oh?"

  "For what you're doing. For what you've done for Toma. And me."

  "I haven't done much."

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Yes. I could see it. But don't hate yourself for being what you are."

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

  "Don't hate anybody, Rula. It's contagious. You end up hating everything, and everybody hates you."

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

  "A rock?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Toma's boyish grin faded.

  "What happened? You were gone a long time."

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

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

  Toma passed the beer. "The Caydarmen visited Kosku again. He wouldn't give them the animals."

  Tain still didn't understand. He said nothing.

  "They won't stand for it," Rula said. "There'll be trouble."

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

  "You've been drinking," Rula snapped. "You're not going to . . . ."

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

  "Tain, talk to him."

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

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

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

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

  "Tain?"

  The hammer's thunder stammered. "Steban? Home so early?"

  "It's almost dark."

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

  "Will you teach me to be a soldier?"

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

  "She won't care. She's always telling me to learn something."

  "Soldiering isn't what she has in mind. She means your father's lessons."

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

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

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

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

  "Can you read?"

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

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

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

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

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

  "Take care of the sheep, Steban. I'll help water them later."

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

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

  Afterward, he said, "I've nearly finished the bushing and shaft bearings. We can start the tower tomorrow."

  Toma grunted.

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

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

  "Steban, let's get the rest of that water."

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

  "Mom and Dad are mad at each other, aren't they?"

  "I think so."

  "Because of the Koskus?"

  "Yes." The walk from the spring seemed to grow longer.

  "Dad's afraid. Of the Caydarmen." Steban sounded disappointed.

  "With good reason, I imagine." Tain hadn't met any of the Baron's mercenaries. He hadn't met any of the neighbors, either. None had come calling. He hadn't done any visiting during his reconnaissances.

  "Soldiers aren't ever afraid."

  Tain chuckled. "Wrong, Steban. Soldiers are always afraid. We just learn to handle fear. Your Dad didn't have to learn when you lived in the city. He's trying to catch up now."

  "I'd show those Caydarmen. Like I showed that wolf."

  "There was only one wolf, Steban. There're a lot of Caydarmen."

  "Only seven. And the Witch."

  "Seven? And a witch?"

  "Sure. Torfin. Bodel. Grimnir. Olag. I don't remember the others."

  "What about this witch? Who's she?"

  Steban wouldn't answer for a while. Then, "She tells them what to do. Dad says the Baron was all right till she went to the Tower."

  "Ah." So. Another fragment of puzzle. Who would have thought this quiet green land, so sparsely settled, could be so taut and mysterious?

  Tain tried pumping Steban, but the boy clammed up about the Baron.

  "Do you think Pa's a coward, Tain?"

  "No. He came to the Zemstvi. It takes courage for a man to leave everything just on the chance he might make a better life someplace else."

  Steb
an stopped and stared at him. There had been a lot of emotion in his voice. "Like you did?"

  "Yes. Like I did. I thought about it a long time."

  "Oh."

  "This ought to be enough water. Let's go back to the house." He glanced at the sky.

  "Going to rain," he said as they went inside.

  "Uhm," Toma grunted. He finished one jar and started another. Tain smiled thinly. Kleckla wouldn't be going out tonight. He turned his smile on Rula.

  She smiled back. "Maybe you'd better sleep here. The barn leaks."

  "I'll be all right. I patched it some yesterday morning."

  "Don't you ever sleep?"

  "Old habits die hard. Well, the sheep are watered, I'm going to turn in."

  "Tain?"

  He paused at the door.

  "Thanks."

  He ducked into the night. Misty raindrops kissed his cheeks. A rising wind quarreled with itself in the grove.

  He performed the Soldier's Ritual, then lay back on the straw pallet he had fashioned. But sleep wouldn't come.

  VIII

  The roan quivered between his knees as they descended the hill. It wasn't because of the wind and cold rain. The animal sensed the excitement and uncertainty of its rider.

  Tain guided the animal into a brushy gully, dismounted, told the horse to wait. He moved fifty yards downslope, sat down against a boulder. So still did he remain that he seemed to become one with the stone.

  The Kosku stead looked peaceful to an untrained eye. Just a quiet rural place passing a sleepy night.

  But Tain felt the wakefulness there. Someone was watching the night. He could taste their fear and determination.

  The Caydarmen came an hour later. There were three of them, bearing torches. They didn't care who saw them. They came down the hill from behind Tain and passed within fifty yards of him. None noticed him.

  They were big men. The one with the horn helm, on the paint, Tain recognized as the Torfin he had seen before. The second was much larger than the first. The third, riding between them, was a slight, small figure in black.

  The Witch. Tain knew that before she entered his vision. He had sensed her raw, untrained strength minutes earlier. Now he could feel the dread of her companions.

  The wild adept needed to be feared. She was like as untrained elephant, ignorant of her own strength. And in her potential for misuse of the Power she was more dangerous to herself than to anyone she threatened.