L. Modesitt - Arms-Commander

“You know that Nylan has sent Dyliess a letter every year on her birthday?” Ryba’s words were not quite a question.

“I had wondered when the first messages always came in the spring, and there was always one from the west, sometimes through Lornth, for you.”

“They have to come from there. Nylan and Ayrlyn are living like hermits in some forest to the southwest, but there’s always a letter for Dyliess…and another one for me. One with information he thinks I’ll find useful.”

Saryn did not comment.

“It usually is,” Ryba continued. “The engineer has always known what is useful.”

“Has Dyliess read the letters?” Saryn asked.

“Yes. I’ve read them to her since before she could read. I make copies for her now. I’ve kept the originals in a book for her.” Ryba frowned. “The engineer is generally kind and thoughtful in his writing. He also is careful not to write anything he thinks will offend me.”

“Dyliess doesn’t speak of him.”

“I’ve told her not to, except to me, or to you, if she chooses. It’s better if everyone thinks of him as both mighty and departed for good, and not as a father who is human enough to write letters.” Ryba laughed, softly and bitterly. “If only once a year, long as those missives may be.”

“She must know that he hasn’t forgotten her.”

“That’s true.” Ryba glanced over her shoulder toward the window, still closed, but with the gray hangings pulled back to allow the morning sunlight to pour into the small chamber, illuminating the dust motes that hung in the air.

“Is there anything I should know, then?” asked Saryn. Ryba would not have mentioned the letters without a reason.

“He wrote that our troubles to the west are not over, and that, without aid, Lady Zeldyan may have difficulty holding Lornth.”

“She does provide a buffer,” Saryn temporized. “Do her difficulties lie with Lord Ildyrom’s son? The Jeranyi have always been a problem.”

“That’s but one aspect of it. The Suthyans have reclaimed Rulyarth as well, and have imposed close-to-punitive tariffs on goods bound to Lornth.”

“She’s being squeezed on both sides then. Do we have to do anything?”

“Both young Deryll and the Suthyans would be far less to our liking as neighbors than is Lady Zeldyan. Still…we will have to see, after we deal with Arthanos and the Gallosians.”

Saryn had the chilling sense that Ryba had already seen. “The Gallosians…and not the Suthyans?”

“The Suthyans fight with golds…or use them, or the promise of golds, to get others to fight. We will have to face the Gallosians first. After we deal with Arthanos, you’ll be the one who goes to Lornth,” Ryba went on. “What ever happens, I won’t send you to your death. That much, I do know.”

Ryba was quite capable of lying-except that Saryn would have detected it, and Ryba knew that. Still, from what Saryn had seen in the under-space battles with the demon towers, what she’d felt on the neuronet, and what she’d experienced and observed in the ten years since the angels had come to the Roof of the World, some forms of living might well be worse than death, not that she wished to experience either. But why would she mention that she would not send me to my death?

“Would you like to question the Gallosian now?” Saryn asked quietly.

“I’ll do it this afternoon in the common room before the evening meal, with at least a squad of guards present…and you, of course, and either Istril or Siret, whoever happens to be more available.”

“Yes, ser.”

“That will be all.”

Saryn nodded, then turned and made her way back down the cold stone steps of Tower Black, wondering, as always, just what Ryba had foreseen and exactly why she intended to send Saryn to Lornth.

Just past mid afternoon, Saryn sat at the end of the trestle table nearest the hearth in the main-floor great room. To her right was Llyselle, and to her left sat Murkassa.

“…the scouts reported that half the Suthyan party took the road to Lornth and that the trader was with that group,” Llyselle said. “The others took the northern road, the one to Middlevale, which avoids most of the Lornian lands on the way to Rulyarth and Armat.”

“The trader is traveling through Lornth…or part of it. Have you told the Marshal?”

“No, ser. We just got word.”

“I’ll tell her, then, after we finish. What else did they discover?”

“Nothing else about the Suthyans. We’ll need to send a team to repair some of the bridges…”

After Llyselle finished her report, Saryn walked up the stone steps to Ryba’s study.

Ryba turned from where she stood at the window. “What else is it, Saryn? More about the Gallosian?”

“No, ser. We may have another problem. Half the Suthyans, and the high trader, but not Suhartyn, took the road to Lornth.”

The Marshal nodded, almost as if she already knew. “That’s not surprising. Trader Baorl will try to discover any weaknesses, while ostensibly trading, and will be able to give the Suthyan Council a more current report on Lornth’s strengths and weaknesses. Doubtless, he will also spread untruths about Westwind.”

“That won’t make matters any easier for me…if you’re still planning on sending me.”

“I am, especially after what you just encountered. We’ll talk about that later.”

Saryn could sense that Ryba didn’t want to say more, and wouldn’t. She also knew that pressing the Marshal would only make matters worse. “Yes, ser.”

“Don’t worry about it, Saryn.” With those words, Ryba turned back to look out the window.

Saryn made her way down the steps, then to the smithy to see how much progress had been made on blades.

Later, just about a glass before the evening meal, Huldran and Ydrall brought Dealdron up from the lower level, the same way all guards with injured legs were carried, in a basket seat suspended from a wooden yoke, each end of the yoke borne by one of the two smiths. They set him on a bench facing the cold hearth…and Ryba. Saryn stood on the right side of the wooden chair where Ryba sat, with Siret on the left.

Dealdron’s eyes took in the trio one after the other-the arms-commander with her reddish golden brown hair, the black-haired and stern-featured Marshal, in silver-gray and black, and the silver-haired healer. The Marshal surveyed the wounded man without speaking.

After a momentary hesitation, the Gallosian bent forward, held the position for a moment, then straightened, looking to Ryba, then to Siret, and finally to Saryn. “Sers…most honored Angel and Marshal, I would offer more respect, but I cannot rise or bow without falling.”

“That is obvious.” Ryba’s voice was cool. “‘Marshal’ or ‘ser’ will do.”

Dealdron inclined his head. “Yes, Marshal.”

“What did you do before you became an armsman in Gallos?”

“Ser…I was not an armsman. I was an assistant ostler to the Prefect’s Cavalry.”

“Before that?”

“My father is a plasterer. I was working as his apprentice, but…times were hard, and my older brother, he was needed more, and I had helped at the local stable.”

“Why were you with the armsmen who were pretending to be brigands?”

“The majer sent me because they needed someone to take care of the horses. He did not want to use armsmen as ostlers.”

“Did anyone say that they might have to fight the guards of Westwind?”

“Ah…”

Again, Ryba waited.

“The undercaptain said that, if they came across any, they would take great pleasure in killing them. He also said that was not the main task. He said we were to rob and frighten away all the travelers and to kill those who would not be frightened.”