Dying, Kellich had taken a piece of Vandien's honor with him. It was gone, never to be redeemed.
He fingered the back of his forearm, tracing the line of Kellich's rip. Absently he prodded it, searching for pain. There wasn't any, at least not the sharp pain he had expected. It had closed already, a thick, ragged seam on his arm. The pain it gave him was only a deep aching, as if the bone of his arm were frozen. But maybe even that was just a reflection of the deep cold ache inside himself.
Vandien sighed, but the heaviness didn't lift from his chest. He stopped walking, forcing himself to face the decision. Was he going back to Ki's wagon and the boy it sheltered? What if, instead, he kept on walking? He could, he knew that. He had faced the world on his own before, with less. In many ways, it would be the easier thing to do. If he turned around now and went back, it would be a commitment, of sorts. Not only to taking the boy on to Villena, alive, but to living with what he had lost. Living with what his rapier had done.
He thought of watching his father oil that blade by firelight, never trusting it to a servant, but always doing it himself, sitting in the quiet of the very late evening on the warm bricks of the great hearth, polishing the blade, then lifting it and watching the light run up and down its length. Sometimes he would trust it to Vandien's grip, kneel by his son and set it in the small boy's hand and counsel him as to stance and posture until the boy's shoulder and wrist ached despite his father's supporting hands. 'This blade,' he had said to his son, more than once, 'has never drawn blood in an unjust cause. That is its honor, and your honor, too.' And he would trace for his son the ancient, stylized talons on the grip, worn almost beyond recognition, and the spread wings and pinions of the hawk that made up its guard ... Vandien found himself fingering the back of his neck, touching the spread wings of the birthmark there. He jerked his hand away. 'Yes. And he told me that as long as that blade remained in the family, our honor and line would never fail. Wrong on both counts, Papa.' No heirs and no honor. And the fabled luck that was supposed to go with his birthmark seemed in remarkably short supply. Or perhaps it was as Ki had said, only luck, and no one had stipulated good or bad. He sighed again, but could not breathe out the heaviness that had filled his lungs ever since he had knelt over Kellich's body and listened to Willow cursehim. Well.
He stood a moment longer, listening to the night. He had never felt so alone. In his killing of Kellich, something else had been severed as well. A link to his past. A rapier. Such a minor thing, a blade, a weapon, a tool. He had never thought before how firmly it anchored him. He had carried it, he knew now, to remind himself that wherever his roving with Ki might take him, he was still his father's son. Another might sit at the head of his table, his cousin might wear the necklace of his holdings and mind the borders of his lands. But while he carried his father's sword, he had known he had still his father's and mother's names, and their honor.
So he had thought.
Slowly he turned and began to walk back to Ki's wagon.
TWELVE
By late afternoon, Ki wasn't sure if she was going mad or if everyone else was. Goat stayed in the wagon. She had convinced him that to let Vandien see him was to commit suicide. He had not doubted Vandien's animosity; the difficult part had been convincing him that she not only could not, but would not, stop Vandien. The boy had been rabid in his anger. 'I saw him in danger, and I tried to help him. I did help him! If it hadn't been for me, Kellich would have tricked him into stopping the fight! And then he would have killed him!'
'They were both ready to down swords, you idiot!' Ki told him angrily. 'Any fool could see that!'
Goat's eyes had gone very wide and far. 'I know what I felt,' he said distantly. 'I felt it!' His odd eyes suddenly flooded with tears. 'And I didn't want to see Vandien die!' He threw himself onto the bed, his face to the wall. Ki had left him, shaking her head. The boy was crazy. He had slept in the wagon, eaten in the wagon and now he rode in its rumbling belly. Ki neither saw nor heard him. That she was grateful for that almost shamed her. Almost.
But if Goat was isolated, so was Ki. Ki drove. Vandien sat. He sat in a silence that was neither cold nor angry. He was indifferent to her, caught up in some inner debate of his own. Still. She had waited up for him last night. When he finally came back to the camp, she had been ready to listen to anything he might say. What she had not expected was his withdrawal from her. Her few efforts at conversation were not noticed by him. The food she prepared was eaten in silence. He slept beside her but apart, and his dreams had rocked and tossed him. She had tried to shake him awake, and when that failed to rouse him, she had wrapped her arms around his sweaty body and tried to calm him with her embrace. His arm, where Kellich had ripped it, was the only cool part of his body. She had sandwiched the arm between them, trying to warm it. He had quieted as she held him, but toward morning awakened her with a shudder and a shout. 'Are you all right?' she had asked, but he had only stared at her, his dark hair wild, his eyes shot with blood.
She had stood his silence through the harnessing up, enduring it all morning. But now, for the fourteenth time, he sighed, a sigh that did nothing to relieve the tension she felt thrumming through him. She put her hand suddenly and firmly on top of his thigh, making him jump. 'Talk to me,' she urged him. He shuddered and rubbed his face. 'About what?' he asked thickly.
'Anything.'
She waited but the silence only grew. She cleared her voice determinedly. 'I hung up your rapier. You should clean and oil it tonight.'
He stared at her, his eyes growing darker.
'Or do you want me to clean it for you?' she pressed deliberately.
'No.' He struggled a moment. 'I'll clean it ... soon.'
'It was an accident. You didn't mean to do it, and I'm tired of you moping about it.'
'It's not that simple, Ki.'
'In the name of the Moon, why not? If he had fallen the other way, you would have missed, and you certainly wouldn't be thinking now about your thrust that hit the wall. That the boy's chest was there and unguarded was not your doing ...'
Vandien squeezed his eyes shut. 'It was. Can't you see it as I must? What was I doing? I was trying to kill Kellich, seeing how hard I could press him and still have him turn my steel aside.' He cradled his injured arm against his chest, his fingers running up the ridge of the rip. 'And why? To keep him from killing one of the most disgusting human beings I've encountered in my whole life. I killed him, Ki. And it's changed the way I see myself.'
Ki hissed in annoyance. 'Vandien, don't torment yourself this way. There was a terrible accident. It hasn't changed you. Take it from someone who's seen you through some rather strange times. You're a good man. Nothing's changed.'
Silence consumed her words. Then, 'Honor,' he said. He let the word stand by itself.
'Honor?' Ki asked at last.
'I've lost ... honor.'
'Vandien.' Ki's voice was pragmatic. 'You intended no unfairness in that fight. What if he'd caught his foot on a loose nail and tripped? Isn't it the same?'
'No. This ... feels different. Dishonest.'
'Dishonest!' Ki exclaimed. 'Vandien, I've heard you tell enormous lies to people eager to believe them. I've seen you drive bargains so sharp they border on theft. And I seem to recall that your first attempt at horse theft was what brought us together ...' She couldn't keep the amusement from her voice.
His face didn't echo it. 'Equal weapons and the outcome determined by skill alone,' Vandien muttered.
'What?' He cleared his throat. ' In an honorable fight, gentlemen employ equal weapons and the contest is determined by skill alone. No gentleman seeks nor uses an unfair advantage. No skilled swordsman needs one. '
'Where did you learn that?' Ki asked curiously.
'An old fencing master beat it into me,' he muttered.
Ki snorted. 'With those rules of conduct, it's a wonder he lived to be old.'
The look he gave her said he didn't see any humor in her comment. She changed the subject. 'Even with last night's detour, we can't be more than a couple of days from Rivercross,' she offered. And then Villena and
