Soldier Of An Empire Unacquainted With Defeat

VI

Tain accidentally jostled Rula at the hearth. "Excuse me." Then. "Can I help? Cooking is my hobby."

The woman regarded him oddly. She saw a big man, muscled and corded, who moved like a tiger, who gave an impression of massive strength kept under constant constraint. His skin was tracked by a hundred scars. There wasn't an ounce of softness in or on him. Yet his fingers were deft, his touch delicate as he took her knife and pan. "You don't mind?"

"Mind? You're joking. Two years I haven't had a minute's rest, and you want to know if I mind?"

"Ah. There's a secret to that, having too much work and not enough time. It's in the organization, and in putting yourself into the right state of mind before you start. Most people scatter themselves. They try everything at once."

"I'll be damned." Toma, who had been carrying water to the sheep pens, paused to watch over Tain's shoulder.

Turning the browning mutton. Tain said. "I love to cook. This is a chance for me to show off." He tapped a ghost of spice from an envelope. "Rula, if we brown the vegetables instead of stewing them...."

"I'll be damned." Toma said again. He settled to the floor to watch. He pulled a jar of beer to his side.

"One should strive to achieve the widest possible competence," Tain remarked. "One may never need a skill, but, again, one can't know the future. Tomorrow holds ambushes for the mightiest necromancers. A new skill is another hedge against Fate's whimsey. What happens when a soldier loses a limb here?"

"They become beggars," Rula replied. "Toma, remember how it was right after the war? You couldn't walk a block...."

"My point made for me. I could become a cook. Or an interpreter. Or a smith, or an armorer, according to my handicap. In that way I was well-served. Where's Steban? I asked him to pick some mushrooms. They'll add the final touch. But don't expect miracles. I've never tried this with mutton.... Rula? What is it?"

Toma had bounced up and run outside. She was following him.

"It's Steban. He's worried about Steban."

"Can you tell me?"

"The Caydarmen...." She went blank, losing the animation she had begun showing.

"Who are they?"

"Baron Caydar's men." She would say no more. She just leaned against the door frame and stared into the dusk.

Toma returned a moment later. "It's all right. He's coming. Must have spent the day with the Kosku boy. I see his flock, too."

"Toma..." Fear tinged Rula's voice.

"The boy can choose his friends, woman. I'm not so weak that I'll make my children avoid their friends because of my fears."

Tain stirred vegetables and listened, trying to fathom the situation. Toma was scared. The timbre of fear inundated his voice.

He and Rula dropped the subject as if pursuing it might bring some dread upon them.

Steban had collected the right mushrooms. That had worried Tain. He never quite trusted anyone who wasn't legion-trained. "Good, Steban. I think we'll all like this."

"You're cooking?"

"I won't poison you. The fish was good, wasn't it?"

Steban seemed unsure. He turned to his father. "Wes said they were fined five sheep, five goats, and ten geese. He said his Dad said he's not going to pay."

Dread and worry overcame his parents' faces.

"Toma, there'll be trouble." Rula's hands fluttered like nervous doves.

"They can't afford that," Toma replied. 'They wouldn't make it through winter."

"Go talk to him. Ask the neighbors to chip in."

"It's got to end. Rula." He turned to Tain. "The Crown sent Baron Caydar to protect us from the tribes. We had less trouble when we weren't protected."

"Toma!"

"The tribes don't bother anyone, Rula. They never did. Hywel goes out of his way to avoid trouble.

Just because those royal busybodies got themselves massacred.... They asked for it, trying to make Hywel and Stojan bend the knee."

"Toma, they'll fine us too."

"They have to hear me first."

"They know everything. People tell on each other. You know...."

"Because they're scared. Rula, if the bandits keep pushing, we won't care if we're afraid."

Tain delivered the meal to table. He asked, "Who are the Caydarmen? The one I saw was no Iwa Skolovdan."

"Mercenaries." Toma spat. "Crown wouldn't let Caydar bring regulars. He recruited Trolledyngjans who escaped when the Pretender overthrew the Old House up there. They're a gang of bandits."

"I see." The problem was taking shape. Baron Caydar would be, no doubt, a political exile thrust into an impossible position by his enemies. His assignment here would be calculated to destroy him. And what matter that a few inconsequential colonists suffered?

Tain's motherland was called Dread Empire by its foes. With cause. The Tervola did as they pleased, where and when they pleased, by virtue of sorcery and legions unacquainted with defeat.

Shinsan did have its politics and politicians. But never did they treat citizens with contempt.

Tain had studied the strange ways of the west, but he would need time to really grasp their actuality.

After supper he helped Toma haul more water. Toma remarked, "That's the finest eating I've had in years."

"Thank you. I enjoyed preparing it."

"What I wanted to say. I'd appreciate it if you didn't anymore." Tain considered. Toma sounded as though he expected to share his company for a while.

"Rula. She shouldn't have too much time to worry."

"I see."

"I appreciate the help you're giving me...." "You could save a lot of water-hauling with a windmill." "I know. But nobody around here can build one. Anyway. I couldn't pay much. Maybe a share on the sheep. If you'd stay...." Tain faced the east. The sunset had painted the mountains the color of blood. He hoped that was no omen. But he feared that legionnaires were dying at the hands of legionnaires even now. "All right. For a while. But I'll have to move on soon."

He wondered if he could outrun his past. A friend had told him that a man carried his pain like a tortoise carried his shell. Tain suspected the analogy might be more apt than intended. Men not only carried their painshells, they retreated into them if emotionally threatened.

"We need you. You can see that. I've been too stubborn to admit it till now...."

"Stubbornness is a virtue, properly harnessed. Just don't be stubborn against learning."

Steban carried water with them, and seemed impressed. Later, he said, "Tell us about the wars you were in, Tain."

Rula scowled.

"They weren't much. Bloody, sordid little things, Steban. Less fun than sheep-shearing time."

"Oh, come on. Tain. You're always saying things like that." "Mikla made a glory tale of it," Rula said. "You'd think... Well.... That there wasn't any better life."

"Maybe that was true for Mikla. But the El Murid Wars were long ago and far away, and, I expect, he was very young. He remembers the good times, and sees only the dullness in today." "Maybe. He shouldn't fill Steban's head with his nonsense." So Tain merely wove a tale of cities he had seen, describing strange dress and customs. Rula, he noted, enjoyed it as much as her son.

Later still, after his evening ritual, he spent several hours familiarizing himself with the countryside. A soldier's habits died hard.

Twice he spied roving Caydarmen. Neither noticed him. Next morning he rose early and took the gelding for a run over the same ground.