“So shall we let the gods judge?” Waydol said. He seemed to be asking the question of Pirvan and Haimya, of his heir, even of the sky above and the mud underfoot.
“Let the gods judge,” the heir said, but with a questioning note in his voice. He did not sound disobedient as much as bemused.
“Then the trial shall be in two days’ time,” Waydol said. “I shall take my heir Darin as my companion. Who will be yours, Sir Pirvan?”
Before Pirvan could realize that what he had heard was really what had been said, Haimya said, “I will, the gods be my witnesses.” Then she whispered to Pirvan, “The only alternative is Birak Epron, and I’m better in close combat than he is.”
Haimya might be as accomplished a warrior as Huma Dragonsbane, but she had still most likely signed her own death warrant. “Trial,” as the minotaurs used the term under these circumstances, meant personal combat, Pirvan and Haimya against Waydol and Darin.
Regardless of what weapons and armor were allowed, the odds were definitely in favor of the Minotaur and his heir. But participating in such a trial was lawful, and indeed if one had sworn to let the gods judge, the Measure commanded it.
“Regardless of the outcome, the blood-debt shall be considered settled,” Waydol went on. “Beyond that, the loser shall give oath of peace to the winner.”
It was on the tip of Pirvan’s tongue to say that his Oath as a knight forbade him to offer such, but he bit his tongue into submission. What Waydol had just said implied that the combat would not be to the death.
It might carry a whole cargo of other meanings as well, but Pirvan would think about those later. For the moment, he would accept that he had entered a game where he did not know all the rules and where his life might be forfeit, but where the prize could be so great that it was worth the danger.
Even when the danger was to himself and Haimya both.
Chapter 15
“This goes beyond folly,” Rubina said. “It is madness.”
Birak Epron said nothing, but rose and stepped out of the room, low and smoke-blackened, in the abandoned farmhouse that would shelter Pirvan and his companions until after the trial of combat two days hence. He looked as if he wished to slam the door, which had miraculously survived, behind him, but instead closed it gently. In another moment his footsteps on the gravel faded into the misty twilight.
“What does he think of this, I wonder?” Rubina asked, speaking more to the stone walls and moldy straw of the floor than to Pirvan or Haimya.
“He thinks that we have sworn to do it, therefore we must do it or be forsworn, and nothing he or you can say is worth the breath taken in uttering it,” Haimya said briskly. Pirvan sensed that the lightness in her voice was still largely feigned, but that she wished to avoid any more quarrels with anyone.
“Also, I think he wishes to be sure that only trustworthy men are within hearing,” Pirvan added. “This whole quarrel has arisen from a lying tale borne by some double-tongued fool, and believed by one with more ambition than sense. The gods alone will stand between us and ruin if it happens again.”
“Is that not already how matters stand?” Rubina asked.
Pirvan’s mouth was dry from fatigue, fighting, and an uneasy mind. He tipped the water jug up over his wooden cup and drank. The men outside were not sleeping cold or hungry, thanks to firewood and salted fish sent out from Waydol’s camp, but they had nothing more than water to drink. At least it was clean; none on either side in the recent fighting had sunk so low as to poison wells.
“No,” Pirvan said, when he had rinsed his mouth. “You heard Waydol speak of what the winner may ask of the loser. Does that sound like he means the combat to be to the death?”
“Perhaps. But that great lout Darin looked doubtful. Deny that if you can,”
“Doubt or surprise?” Haimya put in. “I think Waydol is setting afoot a plan secret even from his heir. I hope this does not mean a breach between them.”
“I should think you would be praying and sacrificing for a breach between them,” Rubina said. “What scant chances of victory or life you have would be greater, if so.”
“I doubt it,” Pirvan said. “Nor would it come without a price. A breach between Waydol and the heir would divide the camp into still more factions. Sooner or later they would come to blows, unleashing chaos.”
“I do not speak as a Black Robe in this,” Rubina said, “but only as your friend. Would not chaos in this case serve our cause, both of escaping and of reducing Waydol’s power?”
“Not in any honorable way,” Pirvan said, and he went on in spite of Rubina’s grimace, as though the word “honor” were a foul smell. “Besides, what of our men? Even if we escaped, they would be caught in the chaos, and in the end fighting one another, most likely. I will cut my own throat before I wittingly send men sworn to me to such a fate.”
“If Waydol and Darin don’t spare you the trouble,” Rubina said.
Pirvan could not help but admire the lady’s persistence, which was as evident as her beauty. However, he had doubts about the uses to which she put both.
Light knocking made the door sway on its one remaining hinge. “It is I,” Epron’s voice came.
He entered without waiting for a reply, stamping mud off his boots. Rubina gave him a reproachful look over his desertion.
“Is there anything you can say to our friends to save them?” To do her justice, the pleading note in her voice seemed real.
“I have spoken with the chief of the wagons who brought the food,” Epron said, in the manner of one making a formal report to a captain. “He says they have no wine or ale to spare for now. This is as well, as our men have been empty-bellied too long to endure either.
“Tomorrow an armorer will come to repair those weapons needing it. He says that it is likely, though not certain, that, regardless of the outcome of the trial, all who join Waydol’s service will receive arms from his stocks.”
That said a good deal about Waydol’s storehouses-and more than hinted at his being able to buy, not merely steal, weapons, from sympathetic towns and villages in the land about his stronghold. It also made Pirvan more certain than ever that Waydol was minotaur to the core; even if he had set up his own standard of honor, he would thereafter hold to it until death.
“Keep the men at work, and allow no wandering to the camp,” Pirvan said. “Also, I will speak to them tomorrow, praising them for their discipline and courage today.”
“I doubt many of them will be disposed to wander all the way to the coast out of mere curiosity as to whether they will be killed on sight or not,” Epron said, with the first smile Pirvan had seen on his face in days. “But you have the right ideas. Soon I will not be able to teach you anything about leading formed bodies of soldiers.”
“Yes, and what good will all this learning do him in the trial?” Rubina snapped. She seemed on the edge of tears. “I propose no serious magic, but even the lightest touch to their joints-”
“Is forbidden!” from Haimya.
“Will cost me my honor!” shouted Pirvan.
Into the echoing silence, Birak Epron inserted himself, speaking as calmly as a farmer discussing how many hogs he should slaughter before the onset of winter.
“My lady. I am sure these good people have told you that they cannot do otherwise than fight Waydol and his heir. They speak the truth.
“Now I will say more that they cannot. By what we have shared, by the honor in which I hold you, by-by whatever more we may say lies between us-I will not see you dishonor yourself as you propose. By all gods who judge honor and enforce oaths, I will kill you with my own hands unless you bind yourself to stand aside from the trial.”
If Birak Epron had turned into a minotaur, the silence could not have been more complete. It lasted until Pirvan laughed.