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“Who are you?” he called. And when I told him, “Severian of Nessus, eh? You’re civilized then, or half-civilized, but you don’t look like you’ve been eating too well.”
“On the contrary,” I said. “Better than I’ve been accustomed to, recently.” I did not want him to think me weak.
“But you could use some more—that’s not Ascian blood on your sword. You’re a schiavoni? An irregular?”
“My life has been pretty irregular of late, certainly.”
“But you’re attached to no formation?” With startling dexterity he vaulted from his saddle, threw the reins to the ground, and came striding over. He was slightly bowlegged and had one of those faces that appear to have been moulded in clay and flattened from the top and bottom before firing, so that the forehead and chin are shallow but broad, the eyes slits, the mouth wide. Still I liked him at once for his verve, and because he took so little trouble to hide his dishonesty.
I said, “I’m attached to nothing and no one—memories excepted.” .
“Ahh!” He sighed, and for an instant rolled his eyes upward. “I know—I know. We have all had our difficulties, every one of us. What was it, a woman or the law?”
I had not previously viewed my troubles in that light, but after thinking for a moment I admitted it had been a bit of both.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place and you’ve met the man. How’d you likw a good meal tonight, a whole crowd of new friends, and a handful of orichalks tomorrow? Sound good? Good!”
He returned to his mount, and his hand darted out as quickly as a fencer’s blade to grasp her bridle before she could shy away. When he had the reins again, he leaped into his saddle as readily as he had left it. “Now you get up behind me,” he called. “It’s not far, and she’ll carry two easily enough.”
I did as he told me, though with considerably more difficulty since I had no stirrup to assist me. The instant I was seated, the destrier struck like a bushmaster at my leg; but her master, who had clearly been anticipating the maneuver, dubbed her so hard with the brass pommel of his poniard that she stumbled and nearly fell.
“Pay no mind,” he said. The shortness of his neck did not permit him to look over his shoulder, so he spoke out of the left side of his mouth to make it clear he was addressing me. “She’s a fine animal and a plucky fighter, and she just wants to make sure you understand her value. A sort of initiation, you know.
You know what an initiation is?”
I told him I thought myself familiar with the term. “Anything that’s worth belonging to has one, you’ll find—I’ve found that out myself. I’ve never seen one that a plucky lad couldn’t handle and laugh about afterwards.”
With that cryptic encouragement he set his enormous spurs to the sides of his fine animal as if he meant to eviscerate her on the spot, and we went flying down the road, —trailed by a cloud of dust.
Since the time I had ridden Vodalus’s charger out of Saltus, I had supposed in my i
We had halted in one of those little, lost fields one sometimes finds among the hills, an area more or less level and a hundred strides or so across. A tent the size of a cottage had been erected in the centre, with a faded flag of black and green flapping before it. Several score hobbled mounts grazed at will over the field, and an equal number of ragged men, with a sprinkling of unkempt women, lounged about cleaning armour, sleeping, and gambling.
“Look here!” my benefactor shouted, dismounting to stand beside me. “Here’s a new recruit!” To me he a
The ragged men and women were standing and drifting toward us, many of them frankly gri
“Comrades, I give you Severian of Nessus!
“Severian,” my benefactor continued, “I’m your condottiere. Call me Guasacht This fishing pole here, taller even than you are, is my second, Erblon. The rest will introduce themselves, I’m sure.
“Erblon, I want to talk to you. There’ll be patrols tomorrow.” He took the tall man by the arm and led him into tent leaving me with the crowd of troopers who had by now surrounded me.
One of the largest, an ursine man almost my height an least—twice my weight, gestured toward the falchion. “Don’t you have a scabbard for that? Let’s see it.”
I surrendered it without argument; whatever might happen next, I felt certain it would not be an occasion for kill
“So, you’re a rider, are you?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve ridden a bit, but I don’t consider myself an expert.”
“But you know how to manage them?”
“I know men and women better.”
Everyone laughed at that, and the big man said, “ Well, that’s just fine, because you probably won’t do much riding, but a good understanding of women—and destriers—will be a help to you.”
As he spoke, I heard the sound of hoofs. Two men were leading up a piebald, muscular and wild-eyed. His reins had been divided and lengthened, permitting the men to stand at either side of his head, about three paces away. A trollop with fox-colored hair and a laughing face sat the saddle with ease, and in lieu of the reins held a riding Whip in each hand. The troopers and their women cheered and clapped, and at the sound the piebald reared like a whirlwind and pawed the air, showing the three horny growths on each forefoot that we call hoofs for what they were—talons adapted almost as well to combat as to gripping turf. Their feints outsped my eyes.
The big man slapped me on the back. “He’s not the best I ever had, but he’s good enough, and I trained him myself.
Mesrop and Lactan there are going to pass you those reins, and all you have to do is get up on him.
If you can do it without knocking Daria off, you can have her until we run you down.” He raised his voice: “All right, let him go!”
I had expected the two men to give me the reins. Instead they threw them at my face, and in snatching for them I missed them both. Someone goaded the piebald from behind, and the big man gave a peculiar, piercing whistle. The piebald had been taught to fight, like the destriers in the Bear Tower, and though his long teeth had not been augmented with metal, they had been left as nature made them and stood out from his mouth like knives.
I dodged a flashing forefoot and tried to grasp his halter; a blow from one of the whips caught me full across the face, and the piebald’s rush knocked me sprawling.
The troopers must have held him back or I would have been trampled. Perhaps they also helped me to my feet—I ca
I went for him again, circling to the right to keep clear of his hoofs, but he turned more quickly than I, and the girl called Daria snapped both lashes before my face to throw me off. More from anger than any plan I seized one. The thong of the whipstock was around her wrist; when I jerked the lash she came with it, falling into my arms. She bit my ear, but I got her by the back of the neck, spun her around, dug fingers into one firm buttock and lifted her. Kicking the air, her legs seemed to startle the piebald. I backed him through the crowd until one of his tormentors goaded, him toward me, then stepped on his reins.