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  I smiled as I said that because I knew it sounded corny in Dun Add. The reality of bringing civilization to the world wasn’t all romance and high-mindedness on the ground. That was especially true when the place joining the Commonwealth didn’t want to join.

  The Leader himself had told me that Mankind was part of a universe that didn’t seem to like men, so everybody had to stick together. Otherwise we’d be nibbled up by each other, and there were plenty of monsters to finish the crumbs. Master Guntram said the same thing, though he didn’t really care about it the way Jon and Louis did.

  And of course I didn’t make policy. I’d refused a chance to be on Jon’s Council, because I didn’t like the idea of deciding things for other people.

  “I’m a reader too,” Andreas said, “but five years ago Lord Hedgepeth came to Hafft with his retinue and put down the Duke. The Duke wasn’t our liege in Clove, but he and his men took what they wanted from the whole region. The Leader sent Lord Hedgepeth and now he’s our duke. We send taxes to Dun Add, but that’s better than just having everything but the land itself taken one day.”

  He drank some of the wine he’d poured after Osbourn got his. “The tax assessors don’t take the women, either,”

  I nodded. “So you wanted to be like Lord Hedgepeth yourself?” I said, sipping more lager.

  “Sure,” said Andreas. “Especially now that he’s the Duke of Hafft. My father will never be anything but a local merchant, but I can have a dozen places like Clove and Hafft and Reisbach paying tribute to me. Well, through me, some of it.”

  That was surely true—I’d just been thinking that myself—but it wasn’t something I liked to hear with as much enthusiasm as Andreas spoke it. Well, I was a farmer and he’d been raised as a merchant. Those’re different ways of looking at things.

  Osbourn hefted the bottle, found it empty, and said, “I’ll get some more. Perhaps they have a better vintage?”

  He went to the bar—there were no waiters at this time in the morning, just the tapster himself—and came back with an identical bottle, a lager for me, and a sour expression. “That man told me to take it or leave it!” Osbourn muttered. “Can you imagine that?”

  “Yes,” I said, finishing my first beer. I set it down and said, “What decided you to become a Champion, Lord Osbourn?”

  Osbourn’s lips pouted out as he thought. “You know,” he said, “I’m not sure that I could really say. I was good from the very start, you see, and everybody said I should go to Dun Add. Even Halcott, he was head of my grandfather’s Guard Company. He trained me, but I could beat him easily when we started sparring for real.”

  I nodded, wondering how much of that was Osbourn’s skill and how much was a hireling’s desire not to humiliate the boy who was the apple of his employer’s eye. Well, we’d learn that soon enough.

  We chatted a little longer; Andreas asked me about some of the other business I’d been involved in since I became a Champion. When I finished the second beer, I got up and said, “I’ll be back tomorrow morning, Lord Osbourn, and we’ll go down to the field. Right now, I’m going to make sure that Baga has sent all your baggage up from the house and boat both.”

  “Your lordship?” Andreas said. “Would it be all right if I accompanied you tomorrow morning? I realize it’s an imposition, but I’ll try not to get in the way.”

  I looked at him. He was older than Osbourn, but not by a lot; not as old as I am. “I don’t see it being much of an imposition,” I said. “Sure, if you’re ready when we are, you’re welcome to join us.”

  “Thank you, your lordship!” Andreas said.

  I cocked my head and looked at him. “And Andreas?” I said.

  “Yes, your lordship?”

  “Drop that lordship business, will you?” I said. “I’m Pal of Beune, and I’m more comfortable being ‘Pal’ to the folks I’m going to be around a lot.”

  Which seemed to include Master Andreas, somewhat to my surprise.

  CHAPTER 6

  Preparations

  I got up at dawn as usual the next day, but I waited till mid-morning before I walked up to the palace with Baga. I wasn’t surprised that Andreas opened the door to the suite at my first tap.

  And I wasn’t even surprised when he said, “I’m afraid Lord Osbourn isn’t up yet, your lordship.”

  As I say, I wasn’t surprised; but I sure wasn’t pleased. I walked to the door of Osbourn’s separate room and banged it with my fist.

  “Time and past time, Lord Osbourn!” I shouted. I tried the latch and found it locked. “Open this bloody door, Osbourn or I’ll cut it open!”

  I heard nothing and had just reached into my pocket for my weapon—I hadn’t been bluffing—when Osbourn pulled the door open. He was barefoot—which is why I hadn’t heard him—and wore a tunic stained with dried vomit. “I’ll be a minute,” he mumbled without raising his eyes to meet mine.

  It was longer than a minute, of course. I stood in the doorway, talking with Andreas. I think Osbourn would’ve liked to close the door for privacy, but I didn’t give him the option. He didn’t even ask, probably guessing that I wasn’t going to change my mind.

  As we went down the stairs, I turned and said over my shoulder to Osbourn, “Give the clerk a Dragon for the household staff. Nobody expects Aspirants to be saints, but puking on the bedding is a bit much.”

  I expected a complaint, but the boy just fumbled in his belt purse.

  I wondered what I’d tell May. Probably nothing. This was two nights in a row that Osbourn had tied one on, though. If it went on, I was going to have to say something.

  But maybe it wouldn’t go on. And maybe Osbourn would be just as good as he thought he was and I’d be able to tell Jon with a clear conscience to make him a Champion right away.

  And maybe pigs would fly.

 

  We picked up our dogs in the kennel and headed down the slope to the field. Osbourn had a golden retriever named Christiana, an attractive animal and perfectly groomed. Andreas’s Kyrie was a mongrel with more hound in him than other things; his feet were white with black hairs, and most of his coat was black.

  Looking at Kyrie made me think of Buck; not for the color, Buck was brown, but because they were cut from the same cloth. Rural raised, not fancy and not a bit handsome; but Kyrie made me think of home. I’m better off now than I ever was in Beune, than anybody ever was in Beune, but I miss those times.

  The jousting field wasn’t crowded—it almost never is—but I walked us over to a far corner. Baga stepped across the sideline, but I stayed in the field itself. There was a chance one of the Aspirants would take a swipe at me by accident, but I might break my neck walking down stairs in the morning.

  “You’re going to spar to the first touch,” I said, “and then you’ll do that again. And keep doing it, till I get a feel for you both. Understood?”

  They nodded.

  “Then show me your gear so I can see it’s set at twenty percent,” I said. They handed over first weapons, then shields. It was all properly set. Andreas’s weapon was of middling quality, but his shield was a very low-end piece of equipment. Still, Mistress Elaine had passed him for entry into the Hall.

  I returned the gear, stepped back, and said, “Go ahead.”

  I switched on my shield at the same time as the contestants did theirs. Osbourn and Andreas were as sharply visible in the sunlight because their shields were on, but I saw the rest of the world, including Baga only ten feet away, as if through thick glass.

  I was seeing through Lad’s eyes, so colors were muddy and shifted toward blue and brown. A dog processes movement much better than a human brain could, though, so I saw the predicted course of every stroke from the first quiver of the fighter’s body.

  Neither man rushed at the first instant. You see that sometimes—guys so frightened that they charge because they want to get it over. Osbourn and Andreas both had more experience than that, however.

  Andreas started to circle right
; Osbourn went straight for him, thrusting at the top right corner of Andreas’s shield. Andreas didn’t get his weapon up in time to parry, and his shield didn’t stop the thrust.

  Andreas staggered backward. He didn’t go down, but I stepped between them to stop the fight with my shield on full.

  Osbourn moved back and shut down his gear; a moment later Andreas did the same, and I could cut off my shield also. Andreas holstered his equipment and began probing his shoulder with his left hand.

  “Let me see,” I said and looked closely at the tunic where Osbourn’s thrust had landed. The fabric wasn’t marked. Andreas’s shield had absorbed some though not all of the thrust, and even with its extreme bias Osbourn’s weapon didn’t have man-killing power at twenty percent. I knew from personal experience how badly you could get hurt just sparring, but I doubted whether Andreas would even have a bruise tomorrow morning.

  “Is he all right?” Osbourn said. He’d holstered his hardware too.

  “You ready for another round?” I asked Andreas.

  “Yes sir, I am,” he said.

  I backed away. “All right!” I called. “Try it again!”

  This time the Aspirants moved directly together. Osbourn thrust again but Andreas’s weapon brushed his to the side. Osbourn backed for space and Andreas cut at his head. It was a well-struck blow, but Osbourn had kept his shield up and blocked it.

  Osbourn thrust again. Andreas tried to parry the blow but wasn’t quite as quick as he’d been before: he redirected the thin line of his opponent’s weapon but it still reached the shield with most of Osbourn’s strength behind it. The thrust penetrated and touched Andreas’s right thigh, though it wouldn’t have been disabling in a serious contest.

  I stopped the bout anyway. The dogs were keyed up; Kyrie rubbed against his master’s leg and whined, while Christiana paced in a tight circle behind Osbourn.

  “Step back, Andreas,” I said. “Lord Osbourn, are you willing to try a pass with me?”

  Osbourn looked at me in surprise. He was breathing through his nose alone, but his breaths were heavy.

  “Of course I am,” he said. “I’ll fight anybody!”

  “Let me explain, then,” I said. “I’ve got better hardware than you do, but I’m going to reduce my settings to ten percent, not twenty percent. You leave your where it is.”

  Osbourn frowned. “You don’t have to coddle me, your lordship!” he said.

  I reset first my weapon, then my shield. I didn’t speak, but I did have to do that to make the point Osbourn needed to learn. Looking up, I smiled at him and said, “Whenever you’re ready, your lordship.”

  Osbourn switched on and I followed suit. When I took a half step toward him, he thrust as I expected. My weapon flicked his to the side. Instead of recovering I backhanded at his head. His shield easily blocked the cut.

  Osbourn had backed after the exchange. I came straight on again, just a step. I was pretty sure Osbourn and his dog weren’t trained in the quality of footwork that Lad and I were, but though part of my brain—the part concerned only with winning the fight—considered going through a quick series of shifts, I stuck to my initial plan. I was here to teach May’s cousin a lesson, not to simply beat him.

  Osbourn thrust again. I parried; Even at ten percent, I had no trouble redirecting his weapon because of its lack of lateral strength. I counterstruck at his head, exactly as I’d done the first time. He wasn’t touching my shield—and he wouldn’t touch it if we did this all day unless I wanted him to. By using Lad’s brain, I saw all Osbourn’s movements in slow motion.

  I advanced. Osbourn thrust. I took it on my shield—some elements quivered in a blue haze for the instant, but nothing overloaded seriously—and I cut Osbourn’s right ankle out from under him.

  He went down with a bellow that I heard even with my shield on.

  I backed away and shut down. I wasn’t breathing hard. I worried that I might have permanently injured Osbourn, even at such low power, because joint injuries are tricky. I’d had to give him a real lesson, though; and if it was too real, best that he have it happen now and not later when he was facing an enemy with equipment at full power.

  From the ground, Osbourn said, “You tricked me.”

  “Yeah, I did,” I said. Osbourn sounded surprised but not angry. “And so would any other Champion. When you’ve put in a lot of hours at the practice machines, that won’t happen anymore. I suggest you go in and start that right now.”

  I turned to Andreas. He straightened but didn’t speak. I said, “Master Andreas, your shield is crap. Do you have any money?”

  “Not a lot, your lordship,” he said. “What will a better shield cost?”

  “Well, we’ll look at that later on,” I said. I figured I could work him a reasonable deal from one of Master Louis’s people moonlighting on his own. “For now, keep practicing. When you bring your skills up, it’ll be time to improve your equipment. The same—”

  I turned toward Osbourn, who’d gotten to his feet. His right leg was supporting him fine.

  “—for you, Lord Osbourn. You’ve got to learn to fight folks who don’t follow the playbook you’ve set out for them. Understood?”

  The Aspirants nodded.

  I walked back to the palace with them and stabled Lad. Osbourn and Andreas went to the practice hall as I’d directed—but I was pretty sure that Osbourn was doing that because he knew that I was watching. I didn’t have hopes for him sticking to a useful regimen, but one step at a time.

  I had business to take care of before I worried any more about May’s cousin.

 

  I’d met Master Louis on my second day in Dun Add and I’d seen him many times since, but we’d never become close. Master Guntram had trained us both, but Louis had outstripped his teacher.

  He’d become a weaponsmith whose skill seemed to me to go beyond human capacity. I was not only less talented—everybody was less talented than Louis—but only a dabbler. My heart had been in becoming a warrior, a Champion of Mankind; a Maker’s trance was my way to calm myself and to work out problems that I found more controllable than I did life itself.

  I pursued Guntram’s whims with enthusiasm, though we both knew that even if we succeeded there would be no practical use for what we’d created. Working in Louis’s room of Makers, all turning out shields and weapons as guided by Louis’s insights, would have bored me to thoughts of walking out into the Waste until the Waste claimed me.

  I entered Louis’s long chamber by the back entrance. The five or six Makers who weren’t in trances at the moment turned their heads, and Louis himself opened the door of his private office. “Good day, Lord Pal,” he called. “When I heard the back door, I thought it might be Master Guntram. How’s he doing? I haven’t seen him in a while.”

  “Well, sir,” I said. “That’s what I came to talk to you about.”

  Louis’s face stiffened. “Come in, then,” he said, and closed the office door behind me.

  The workroom I’d passed through was lined with neat cubicles, each with a couch and a chair; a cabinet with pull-out drawers for various elements which a task might require; and a tray that could fold down beside the head of the couch to hold the work piece and whatever material would be needed to repair or extend it.

  Louis’s own office was identical to any of the cubicles, except that it was larger. The extra space was given over to more cabinets. The main thing—and the reason I could never work for Louis—is that it was neat.

  My work area is more like a squirrel’s nest; I can find what I’m looking for there, but there’s no proper order. Guntram is pretty much the same way—and our minds are that way, too.

  Louis sat on the end of the couch and gestured me to the chair. In Guntram’s workroom or mine, a chair seat would have things piled on it, but nobody could argue with the results Louis achieved. He was as much the reason for the reborn Commonwealth as Jon and Clain themselves were.

  “Ah, Louis?” I said. “I may b
e looking for a high-quality weapon in a month or two—Champion quality. I know that your people sometimes sell pieces as private commissions. If there’s anything like that going, you might keep me in mind.”

  “I think Carker’s working on something,” Louis said. He was a small man; his blond hair made him look childlike despite the little goatee. He was Jon’s age, though, nearing fifty. On the wrong day, the Leader looked Guntram’s age. “In any case, when you’re ready, come to me. We’ll find something.”

  He frowned and said, “Not for yourself, I trust?”

  “No sir,” I said with a grin. I patted the right pocket of my tunic. My gear is so light that I don’t need holsters to carry the weapon and shield securely. “A relative of Lady May is determined to be a Champion. If he’s good enough, I’ll see to it that his weapon isn’t keeping him back.”

  Many of the Makers in Master Louis’s shop bought Ancient artifacts on their own and worked them into finished objects which they sold privately. They were bidding against the Commonwealth for the artifacts, however, and Louis paid more for items which he judged to have potential than a member of his staff could match.

  Even Louis made mistakes, though, and occasionally somebody working independently would turn out a weapon or shield of exceptional quality. It was the best chance I saw of getting Osbourn the equipment he’d need to win a place in Champion’s Hall.

  I took a deep breath and said, “Master, our friend Guntram seems to have disappeared. According to a Beast whom I know well enough to trust, Guntram has been captured by a cyst which exists outside Here and Not-Here. Have you ever heard of these things?”

  Louis snorted, a humorless laugh. “Heard of cysts, yes,” he said. “I’ve heard of hog farming too, and the name’s all I know about either of them. What we need for this is Master Guntram.”

  I grimaced. “Yeah,” I said. “But what we have is you and me. Well, sorry to have wasted your time, Master Louis.”