James Enge - This Crooked Way

The horde-leader's pyramidal head inclined politely to acknowledge her courtesy. "Take it; keep it. Why should she-who-will-be-Valona not know of these things? Some of the elders disapprove, but I see no wrongness in it. Still, Gathenavalona-"

"Yes?" She paused fearfully in the act of backing out of his presence. She was not afraid of him physically: she was perhaps twice his size. She did fear what he might say to her, what sooner or later he must say to her.

He said it. "Old Valona is sterile. Her eggs have no life in them. Since the last implanting, some of the victims have died, some are sick, but there has been no new life. The tribe has no mother. There must be an anointing."

"Please, may it wait?" she begged, jangling the words disharmoniously from all her mouths. "I promised to tell her the tale of Motherdeath, the whole tale. Only a few more days-"

"Gathenavalona, Gathenavalona. Do you know what the last Marh Valone told me, on the night before I slew him and took his name?"

"Many things, I guess."

"So many, so many. But one thing he said was, `Gathenavalona will always want more time."'

"After her second birth, I fed her with my own blood," Gathenavalona said to the implacable Marh Valone. "I taught her to hunt; I kept her safe through all the days and night."

"Of course you did," said Marh Valone. "That is what Gathenavalona is for. Now the time is come for an anointing. That is what Dhyrvalona is for."

Gathenavalona closed all of her eyes, and opened them. She gestured submission, defeat.

Wordlessly the Marh stepped forward. He bent her arms until they gestured weary triumph. "That is the way," he said. It is not a time for grieving. Your task is fulfilled and you may rest for a time."

"I will still grieve."

"As you like." His harmonies indicated sympathy, implacability.

"When?" she asked.

"Soon. Prepare yourself. I suggest you say nothing to her."

"Of course." What could she say?

She backed out of the Math's presence.

Dhyrvalona was waiting for her back in the nest.

"Did you get it?" she asked excitedly, while another mouth said, "Is that it?" and her third mouth said, "Math Valone is the best of marhs!"

"He is not a bad one, I think," Gathenavalona said wearily. "He cares for the horde, above all."

"Need we wait for evening?" whispered Dhyrvalona impishly. "Can you read me a tale now?"

She was astonished when her nurse replied with a single mouth, "No need to wait. This is Roble's tale: hear his voice: `I will not live three hundred years…."'

I will not live three hundred years. I'll be dead before I'm eighty and, if I'm not, I'll wish I were. The Strange Gods of the Coranians never knew my name, and I don't know theirs. I'm not a Coranian knight-I'm not a Coranian anything, but especially not a knight. I'm sick of that mistake. People see me in my armor, on my horse, and they scuttle away or call me "sir." Some of the Riders like that; it's the reason they ride. But I don't need it; if anybody calls me "sir" I tell them straight out. Nobody calls me "sir," not even my sister's boys.

That night I was riding with Liskin. I wasn't happy about it. Liskin was a whiner, a rule-keeper: I'd heard about him. A rule-keeper, but his regular partner, Ost, was a bloody-truncheon, a dead-or-aliver who had killed ten people on the Road, just for fun, in the past year. There was no mystery about it: this was the sort of thing Ost liked to brag about on his nights off. It's not a crime to kill on the roads or in the woods at night, as long as you bring the body back to a castleyard. It's not a crime, but it's not what the Riders are about, either. A couple of us got together (I wasn't there but I heard about it) and asked Liskin what he was going to do about Ost. "What Ost does is not against the rules," he said. So the rest of us did what we had to do about Ost. Liskin didn't join us; it was against the rules.

I was the lucky winner who drew Liskin as a new partner, at least tem porarily. My regular partner, Alev, had gotten his legs broken in a Bargainer's man-trap the night before. That would never have happened if Alev weren't a rule-breaker and a bad example; we were strictly forbidden to enter the woods around the Bargainer village. But we brought his stray out, and brought him out alive. That's what the Riders are about, and not keeping any particular set of rules.

Try and tell that to Liskin. He was on me from the moment I entered the courtyard of Rendel's Castle. My sword and shield were both shorter than regulations allowed, he said; my cloak was dark blue, not black, he said; worst of all I had a long scratch in the black enamel on my armor, he said.

I could have explained to him that long swords and long shields aren't handy for fighting in woodlands; a stabbing sword and a round shield are better. I could have told him that after sunset in the woods, dark blue is black, or so close as to make no difference. I could have said, in a reasonable tone, "Look, Liskin: it's twenty days until we get paid and I've got to help feed my sister's children. I can't afford to send my breastplate to the armorer's right now, not for a stupid scratch." I might have said all this, but I didn't have a chance. Liskin was still talking.

"Roble, you've got a slovenly appearance," Liskin said, proudly standing next to his own shield, which was leaning against the courtyard wall. "How do you expect anyone you meet on the road to believe you when you say you're not a robber?"

"Well-" I began, but he swept on.

"I tell you, Roble," he told me, "I never appear for duty without the proper gear in proper order. It isn't safe, and it just isn't right." He went on to tell me what he'd tolerate from the person he rode with, but I didn't have to listen to any of that. Because I knew what he'd tolerate.

I glanced over at his shield, standing tall and stainlessly black beside him. I drew my truncheon and struck it hard, back against the wall, scoring the enamel halfway down the shield. It bounced off the wall and fell facedown on the dirty cobblestones of the courtyard. Hitching my truncheon back on my belt, I looked at Liskin. He stood there, his mouth slightly open.

Neither of us spoke, or had to. Liskin had a spare shield back at the Riders Lodge (he had a spare at every lodge in Four Castles). He could run and get it. But then he wouldn't be back in time for evening muster, which was just about to happen. So he had to ride with a scratched shield or miss muster; either way he broke a rule.

I picked up his shield and handed it to him. After a moment's hesitation he took it. Slinging it over his shoulder, he walked off without another word toward the mustering square. I waited a couple moments before I did the same; by then the mustering officer had actually appeared.

That night we were mustered by old Marmon. He had been a Rider for twenty years, but the time came when he could no longer stand the roughand-tumble of the roads. By law of the Four Castles, he could eat and sleep at any of the Riders Lodges for the rest of his life, but you no longer got paid after you stopped riding the roads. So Marmon mustered us now and then (which paid a little something), and introduced lonely colleagues to his two "nieces" (which paid considerably better). He was grayer than your grandfather and only forty-five years old.

Marmon walked down the steps of the stabler's house, hefting a hillconch shell to his lips. He blew a curt and negligent blast (strictly for form, as he saw we were all present). But the echoes were still ringing in the courtyard as we lined up on the mustering square.