Oath of Gold Page 4

  "And I would sleep through it?"

  "The healing itself, yes. I would recommend it. Even if you were willing to endure all the pain awake, your reaction could break my attention to the healing."

  "I wish—" she began, and then stopped. She took a deep breath and went on. "I wish it could be done, and over, and I didn't have to decide."

  His voice was gentle. "No. It is not the way of the Kuakkganni to force a good on someone if there is time for choice. Each creature has its own way to travel; we learn much of them, but we do not change the way. And for humans, the way involves choice."

  "You forced me to eat, that first day."

  "Then there was no time. I had to buy that time, to find out what was wrong. Now you are beginning to heal, and I judge you well enough to make a choice for yourself. I will give you advice, and have, but you are free to follow it or not, as you are free to take what time you need for the decision."

  Paks had taken a twig from the ground, and was digging little holes in the dirt at her feet. She made a row of them, then another row. For a moment she saw them as positions in a formation, then scraped the twig across the design.

  "You think I should let you do it now?"

  "I think you should ask yourself if you can trust me. I think you should ask yourself if you can trust your own mind to hold on until your body has a chance to heal. If when you are well again you still wish to waste your bones on the hills, I've no doubt some orc or wolf will be glad to assist."

  "I don't, now," she said very softly.

  "Good."

  "I think—I know I want to be well again. If it can happen. If what is wrong is that poison, then—I must let you do it. Whatever it is."

  For the rest of the afternoon, they gathered herbs and other materials from the grove. Most of it was unfamiliar to Paks; the Kuakgan explained little, merely pointing out the plants to take. That evening he went to the inn for food, after telling her to stay inside. When he came back, one of the potboys from the inn was with him; Paks heard his voice outside. The Kuakgan had him leave his burden on the step, and when he had left, called Paks outside to carry it in.

  "We'll need food for several days," he explained. "You must eat well tomorrow, while I meditate, and I must eat something during the healing." He unpacked loaves of bread, a small ham, sliced mutton in pans, eggs, and other rich foods.

  It seemed to Paks that the next day lasted forever. She had become used to wandering outside; she was restless in the house. The Kuakgan had left the hidden panel open, and she spent some time taking a bath and washing her hair, but that left hours of idleness. She forgot to eat at noon. Sometime in the afternoon her belly reminded her, and she ate several slices of ham, then some cheese. As the daylight faded outside, she wondered if the Kuakgan would appear for supper. The door to his private room had been closed all day; she dared not knock. But she felt it would be discourteous to eat without him.

  The last light had disappeared, and she had lit candles in the main room, when he came to the door of the passage. Without a word, he nodded to her, and went to close the shutters. Paks started to speak, but he forestalled her with a fluent gesture of one hand. He laid a fire on the hearth, and lit it. Paks stood, wondering what to do. He pointed to the ham, and then to her. When she offered him a slice, he shook his head, but sat at the table to watch her eat. Her appetite had vanished; the ham lay in her stomach like a huge stone, and her mouth was dry. She looked over at him; he was watching her, his dark eyes warm. That gaze soothed her, and she was able to eat a bit more, and drink a mug of water. At last he reached and touched her hand, and gestured toward her pallet against the wall. She looked toward it, and at once the panic she thought had gone rose in her mind like a fountain, bursting her control. She choked on the breath in her throat, shut her eyes on the tears that came unbidden, and sat with her hands clamped on the table. He said nothing. Time passed. At last she could breathe, could see again her white-knuckled hands, could unclench those hands finger by finger. She did not try to meet his eyes again, but forced her stiff unwilling body to rise from the table and cross the room.

  His hands on the sides of her head were dry and cool, impersonal as the bark of a tree. She lay with her eyes shut, rigid and waiting. When the first touch of power came, it was nothing like she expected. It seemed more a memory of recent mornings, of spring itself, of gold sunlight filtering through young leaves. She felt no pain, only peace and quietness, and let herself drift into that light like a leaf in the fountain. She did not know when the dream of light faded.

  Return from that beauty and peace was more difficult. A call she could not answer, struggle, confusion, the return of fear. She woke with no knowledge of time or place—for a few moments, she thought she was back in the Duke's Company, trying to reach the Duke after the Siniava's attack on Dwarfwatch. "The Duke," she managed to say. "Saben—" Then she remembered enough to know that Saben was dead, and the Duke far away. The Kuakgan's face was strange to her, and only slowly did she come to know where she was.

  "You wandered a long way," he said at last. His face was lined and drawn. "A long way indeed. I was not sure you would return." He reached for her wrist, and felt her pulse. "Much stronger. How do you feel?"

  "I—just weak, I think. I don't want to move."

  "No wonder. You need not, for a time." He sighed, then stretched. "I wonder that your Marshal-General did not see how bad those were. It may be they've gotten worse. But, Paksenarrion, you were almost beyond my healing powers. One of the wounds still had a bit of the weapon in it—a stone blade of some sort—and that one I had to open completely." He reached for a jug and poured out a mug of liquid. "You must try to drink all of this." He raised her shoulders and held the mug to her lips. Paks sipped slowly, and finally drained it completely. She was desperately tired. Later she could never remember if that first waking had been in daylight or night.

  She slept, and woke again, and slept. Finally she woke to firelight, hungry for the first time, and able to move a little by herself. The Kuakgan was beside her, as always. When she stirred, and spoke to him by name, he smiled.

  "You are certainly better. Hungry? I should hope so. Let me help you to the jacks first."

  She wavered when she stood, dizzy and weak, but by the time they had gone down the passage and the stairs, she could support herself along the wall to the jacks. She came back alone, and slowly, still touching the wall. She tried to think, but had no idea how much time had passed. In the meantime, the Kuakgan had set food on the table: stew and bread. She half-fell onto the bench, and propped herself on the table. But she ate the last bite of her food, and was able to walk more steadily back to her pallet.

  The next morning she woke normally, no more weak than if she had worked too hard the day before, or fought too long. Her mind seemed curiously empty of all feelings, but her body obeyed her, if a little sluggishly.

  Chapter Three

  "You will not regain your full strength for some time," Master Oakhallow said, as he sat with her at breakfast. "But we need to consider your other problem now." He paused for a long swallow of sweetened goat's milk. "If you still have one. Can you tell?"

  Paks shook her head. "I don't feel much at all right now. When I think of fighting, it's very far away."

  "Hmm. Maybe that's for the best. Perhaps you will be able to think more clearly." He cut another slice of bread, and bit into it. Paks swallowed her own milk. She was discovering that nothing hurt; she had not known how that constant pain had weighed on her. For a little while she did not care whether she could fight or not; it was pleasant enough to sit eating breakfast without pain. She felt the Kuakgan's gaze and raised her eyes to meet it. His face relaxed as he watched her. "At least the poison's out. Your face shows it. Well—are you ready?"

  "For what, sir?"

  "To talk about courage."

  Paks felt herself tensing, and tried to relax. "Yes."

  "Very well. It seems to me that two mistakes have clouded your mind. Firs
t is the notion that having as little courage as an ordinary person is somehow shameful, that you must have more than your share. That's nothing but pride, Paksenarrion. So it is you felt you couldn't live with the meager amount of courage most folk have: it was too shameful. And that's ridiculous. Here you are, young, strong, whole-bodied now, with wit enough—with gifts above average—and you feel you cannot go on without still more bounty of the gods."

  Paks blushed. Put that way . . .

  "Paksenarrion, I want you to think of those common folk awhile. They live their lives out, day by day, in danger of fever, robbers, fire, storm, wolves, thieves, assassins, evil creatures and powers—and war. They most of them have neither weapons nor skill at arms, nor any way to get them. You've lived among them, this past winter: you know, you feel, how helpless is a farmwife against an armed man, or a craftsman against a band of thieves. You are right, they are afraid—full of fear from moment to moment, as full of fear as you have been. And yet they go on. They plow the fields and tend flocks, Paksenarrion, and weave cloth for you to wear, and make pots, and cheese, and beer, and boots, and wagons: everything we use, these frightened people make. You think you don't want to be like them. But you must be like them, first. You must have their courage before you get more."

  "But—sir, you said they had none."

  "No. I said they were frightened. Here's the second mistake. Courage is not something you have, like a sum of money, more or less in a pouch—it cannot be lost, like money spilling out. Courage is inherent in all creatures; it is the quality that keeps them alive, because they endure. It is courage, Paksenarrion, that splits the acorn and sends the rootlet down into soil to search for sustenance. You can damage the creature, yes, and it may die of it, but as long as it lives and endures, each living part has as much courage as it can hold."

  Paks felt confused. "That seems strange to me—"

  "Yes, because you've been a warrior among warriors. You think of courage as an eagerness for danger, isn't that so?"

  "I suppose so. At least being able to go on, and fight, and not be mastered by fear."

  "Right. But the essence is the going on. A liking for excitement and danger is like a taste for walnuts or mushrooms or the color yellow. Most people have a little—you may have noticed how small children like to scare themselves climbing trees and such—but the gift varies in amount. It adds to the warrior's ability by masking fear. But it's not essential, Paksenarrion, even to a warrior. The going on, the enduring, is. Even for the mightiest warrior, a danger may be so great, a foe so overwhelming, that the excitement, the enjoyment, is gone. What then? Is a warrior to quit and abandon those who depend on his courage because it isn't fun?" Paks shook her head. "No, and put that way it's obvious. You may remember such times yourself. It's true that one who had no delight in facing and overcoming danger would not likely choose to be a warrior, except in great need. But consider your own patron Gird. According to legend, he was no fighter until need—his own and his neighbors'—drove him to it. Suppose he never enjoyed battle, but did his best anyway: does that make him unworthy of veneration?"

  "No, sir. But if what you say is so, will I always be like this? And can I fight again?"

  Master Oakhallow gave her a long considering look. "And how do you define this? Do you feel yourself the same as when you came here?"

  Paks thought a moment. "No. I don't. I feel I can go on, but I still wish I were the way I used to be."

  "It was more pleasant, doubtless, to feel no fear and be admired."

  Paks ducked her head. "Yes, sir, but—I could do things. Help—"

  "I know. You did many good things. But if we consider whether you will stay as you are now, we must consider what you are now, and what you wish to be. We must see clearly. We must have done with daydreams, and see whether this sapling—" he touched her arm, "—be oak, holly, ash or cherry. We can grow no cherries on an oak, nor acorns on a holly. And however your life goes, Paksenarrion, it cannot return to past times: you will never be just as you were. What has hurt you will leave scars. But as a tree that is hacked and torn, if it lives, will be the same tree—will be an oak if an oak it was before—so you are still Paksenarrion. All your past is within you, good and bad alike."

  "I can't feel that, any more. All that happened before Kolobia . . . I can't reach it."

  "That we will change. It's there, and it is you. Come, you are strong enough to walk today; the sun will do you good."

  * * *

  As they wandered the grove's quiet trails, he led her to talk about her life, bit by bit. She found herself remembering little things from her childhood: watching her father help a lamb at birth, rubbing it dry, carrying her younger brother on her shoulders from the fields to the house, listening for wolves' wild singing on winter nights when they ventured near the barns. It seemed that she was there again—where she could never go—clinging to the hames on the shaggy pony as her father plowed their one good field, or catching her fingers in the loom as her mother wove the striped blankets they slept under. Seen so, her father was not the wrathful figure of those last days at home, but a strong, loving man who made a hard land prosper for his family.

  "He cared for me," she admitted at last, staring into the fire that night. "I thought he hated me, but he wanted me to be safe. That's why—"

  The Kuakgan nodded. "He saw danger ahead for you as a fighter. Any father would. To think of his child—his daughter—exposed to sword and spear, wounded, dying among strangers—"

  "Yes. I didn't think of it like that. I wanted danger."

  "And danger you had. No, don't flinch. You'd have made a very bad pig farmer's wife, wanting to be a warrior. Even now, you'd make a bad pig farmer's wife."

  "Not for the same reason."

  "No. But your pig farmer—what was his name?—is better off with whoever he has."

  Paks had not thought of Fersin Amboisson in years. She had never wondered whom he married instead. Now his pleasant, rugged face came back to her. He had looked, but for being a redhead, like Saben.

  "I hope he found somebody good," she said soberly.

  "The world's full of good wives," said Master Oakhallow, and turned to something else.

  Day by day the talk covered more and more of the years. Her first days in the Duke's Company, her friends there, the trouble with Korryn and Stephi (which seemed to interest the Kuakgan far more than Paks could understand—he kept asking her more and more details of that day—things that seemed to have nothing to do with the incident itself.)

  And as she talked, her life seemed to gain solidity—to become real again. She felt connected once more to the eager, adventurous girl tagging after older brothers and cousins, to the determined young woman running away from home, to the young soldier fighting beside trusted companions in the Duke's Company. This, it seemed, was her real self—bold, self-willed, impetuous, hot-tempered, intensely loyal once trust was given. She began to see how these same traits could be strengths or weaknesses in different circumstances. Trust given the Duke would lead to one thing; given to Macenion, to a far different outcome.

  "I never thought, before," she said, as they sat one day in a sunny spot. "I never thought that I should choose. I thought others were either good or bad, and nothing in between. Vik warned me about that, once, with Barranyi, but I didn't understand. It's still me, isn't it? I have to decide who is worthy of trust, and even then I have to decide each time if something is right or wrong."

  The Kuakgan nodded. "It's hardest for fighters, Paksenarrion. Fighters must learn to obey, and often must obey without question: there's no time. That's why many of us—the Kuakkganni, I mean, now—will have nothing to do with fighters. So many cannot do both, cannot give loyalty and yet retain their own choice of right and wrong. They follow chaos, whether they know it or not. For one like you, who has chosen, or been chosen for, a part in the greater battle, it is always necessary to think as well as fight."

  Paks nodded. "I see. And I didn't, did I? I did what I
was told, and assumed that those I followed were right. If I liked them, I assumed they were good, and forgot about it." She paused, thinking back. "Even when I did worry—when I wanted the Duke to kill Siniava quickly—I couldn't think about it afterwards."

  "Yes. You pushed it out of your mind and went back to being a plain soldier. You were challenged again and again, Paksenarrion, to go beyond that, and think for yourself: those incidents with Gird's symbol you told me about, but—"

  "I refused. I went back. I see." Paks sighed, and stretched suddenly, reaching toward the trees with her locked fists. "Hunh. I thought I'd never refused a challenge, but I didn't even see it. Was that cowardice, too?"

  "Have we defined cowardice? Why did you refuse? If you refused simply because you were certain that you should be a follower, that's one thing. But if you were afraid to risk choosing, risk being wrong—"

  "Then it was. Then while I thought—while everyone else thought—I was brave, maybe I—"

  "Maybe you were afraid of something, like everyone else. Don't be ridiculous, child! You're not perfect; no one is. What we're trying to do is find out what you are, and what you can be, and that does not include wallowing in guilt."

  Paks stared at him, startled out of her gloom. "But I thought you were saying—"

  "I was saying that you consistently refused to make some choices. That is something you need to recognize, not something to worry about in the past, where you can't change it. If you want to, you can decide to accept that challenge from now on."

  "I can?"

  "Certainly. I'm not speaking, now, of returning to soldiering. As a fighter, you're tempted to see all challenges in physical terms. But you can certainly decide that you, yourself, will consider and act on what you see as right and wrong. Whatever that may be."

  Paks thought about that in silence. When she turned her head to speak, the Kuakgan was gone. She thought about it some more as she waited for him to return.