Kate Elliott - His conquering sword

"What the hell?" muttered Marco. "It looks like he's already broken the interdiction."

"Call down the shuttle," said Charles to Marco. He took five steps forward, out into the open, and raised his voice. "I'm looking for the actor known as Hyacinth, legal name, Sven Rajput Nguyen."

The man with the slate jerked his head around at the sound of Charles's voice. He staggered forward three steps and then collapsed onto his knees, signing himself with the Goddess's circle of grace. "Oh, Goddess," he wept. "Oh, Goddess. I thought we would never find you."

Charles gestured to David and Marco, and they came out onto the slope, the horses and pack animals behind them. Light rose in the defile. The sun had come up, although it had not yet breached the high walls to glare down on them directly. Hyacinth struggled to his feet, ran forward, and threw himself prostrate on the gravel in front of Charles.

The first thing David noticed, even from two meters away, was the smell. Hyacinth stank like he hadn't had a bath in months, or even changed his clothes.

Charles knelt and raised the young man up gently. Behind, by the tent, the jaran rider stood and watched, his expression guarded. He did not sheathe his saber.

"I knew that if we kept riding north, we'd come to you. I knew you wouldn't abandon us. I told Yevgeni that you'd rescue us. Oh, Goddess, why couldn't you have heard the transmitter? Maybe you could have saved Valye." Hyacinth babbled on, one grimy hand gripping the sleeve of Charles's shirt as if he never meant to let it go-

Marco walked up beside them and pried Hyacinth loose. "You look the worse for the wear," he said mildly, letting go of the other man as soon as he had freed Charles.

"I hate this planet," said Hyacinth with a hatred so implacable that his tone sent a shiver down David's back. "I want to go home."

"I think," said Charles, "that we can grant your wish. What about your friend? What's his name? Yevgeni?"

"Yevgeni Usova." Hyacinth turned. "Yevgeni! Come here. You must meet the duke."

The other man obeyed, but he approached cautiously, though he sheathed his saber. "The duke?" Yevgeni halted six paces from Charles and regarded him measuringly. He was of the dark-haired strain of the jaran, David noted, with a blunt nose and brown eyes. He appeared marginally cleaner than Hyacinth, and he certainly didn't smell as rank.

"I mean the Prince of Jeds."

"How did you find us?" Yevgeni asked, evidently still suspicious of Charles and his little party. "Is this your entire party? Are you truly a sorcerer?"

"Yevgeni!" said Hyacinth impatiently. "I told you that we're not sorcerers."

"Then it is true that you come from a land that rests in the heavens? I know that Singers tell many strange stories, and have often visited the gods" lands, but I didn't know that you were also a Singer."

"A shaman?" Charles allowed himself a brief smile. "I'm not a shaman." He turned his bland gaze on Hyacinth. "So. What have you told him? What does he know?"

Hyacinth's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "How did you find us? You must have traced my signal. But that means-" He caught in his breath and David tensed, waiting for the explosion. When Hyacinth spoke again, he spoke in Anglais, hard and fast. "That means you must have picked up my emergency transmission. How could you not have responded? Yevgeni's sister died because no one responded."

Charles sighed. "May I remind you that you chose exile? You knew you were putting yourself at risk. You knew-"

"That Rhui is interdicted? Yes, I knew that. But you're here. The Company is here. That's breaking the interdiction. But I suppose that since you own this planet you can do what you damned well please!"

"Quite true. Now, how much does he know?" The timbre of Charles's voice had altered, and though he did not raise his voice at all, the words cracked over Hyacinth and reduced the young man to silence. "You're responsible for him, now, you know," added Charles. "If he knows too much, he can't go back."

"Goddess! Don't you know anything? He can't go back anyway. His exile is permanent. Without me, he'll die."

Charles glanced at Marco. "Time?"

"Twenty-three minutes."

"Well, then," said Charles. "Take him with you."

Yevgeni edged closer to Hyacinth. David could not tell whether the young rider's proximity was meant to protect Hyacinth or to seek shelter for himself. Startled, Hyacinth gaped at Charles and then turned his head in a smooth motion to stare al Yevgeni. Yevgeni arched an eyebrow, questioning. David admired his stoic silence, his patience, his ability to stand there and hear an argument in a language he couldn't understand and simply wait it out. Or perhaps he had long since grown resigned to death, to his fate, whatever it might prove to be. But David recognized the gleam in his eyes, underlying his composure. He was in love with Hyacinth, and he trusted him.

What a fate lay in store for him.

"I could take him with me?" Hyacinth asked haltingly.

"Indeed," said Charles, "I begin to think you're going to have to take him with you. That would be the easiest solution."

"Wait. You're not taking me back to the Company?"

"How do I explain to the jaran how I found you? No. The shuttle lands in twenty-two minutes. Take down your tent. You're going with them."

"Off planet." Hyacinth shut his eyes. A look of peace smoothed his expression. "Thank you. Thank you."

"I'll help you take down the tent," said Marco. "We don't have much time."

"Hyacinth," said Yevgeni in khush, "what is happening?"

Hyacinth turned, took hold of Yevgeni's hands, and kissed him on the mouth. "We're going home. We're leaving. You're coming with me."

Yevgeni disengaged his hands and glanced at once, sidelong, at Charles and David, as if to gauge their reaction to Hyacinth's show of affection. Marco had already walked over to the tent.

"I hope you understand," said Charles softly, to Hyacinth, "that the transition will be particularly difficult for him. He'll have no one but you. I'll arrange for a stipend for him, that much I can do, but you'll be the only person he knows. And life will seem-very strange-out there. Do you understand the burden I'm laying on you? Can you manage it?"

Hyacinth drew himself up. "I chose exile because of the burden I had already laid on him. They stripped him of his saber, of his horse, of his name, of his connection to the tribe. It's my fault he got exiled, and exile is tantamount to death in this world."

"In any world," said Charles softly. "When you come right down to it."

"Well, so I already accepted the burden. I'll promise to marry him, if that will make you trust me more."

"Do what you must. Remember, perhaps, once in a while, that the burden I carry with me always is something like the one you now bear. I'm sorry about his sister. I had no choice."

" 'll deliver all," " murmured Hyacinth.

"Ah, that's a line from The Tempest. So says Prospero, when he promises to tell the story of how he came to the island and into his powers."

Hyacinth colored, easy to see even with the dirt caking his skin. "You know the play? We were working on it when I-left."

"It's been brought to my attention."

David stifled a grin, knowing that the poor actor couldn't possibly understand Charles's convoluted sense of humor, his always clear sense of the ugly ambivalence of his situation.

"Seventeen minutes," called Marco from the tent. "What do we do with the horses?"

"The problem with meddling," said Charles under his breath, "is that for every problem you solve, you create two more."

"Rather like the Hydra in Greek mythology," offered David, realizing that it was true, that the two refugees had a dozen horses with them. "Where did you get all of them?"

"We stole some from the army," said Hyacinth. "The rest we-we took in payment for Valye's life." He seemed about to say more. Instead, he spun and hurried away to help Marco with the tent. Yevgeni hesitated and then turned to follow him.