The Reformer

gathering apprehension at the sudden prospect of a battle royal before his eyes, turned to look at her.

The nobleman flicked her an annoyed glance. 'Be silent, woman, or you'll get a worse beating than you would otherwise.'

'Oh, excuse me, my mighty Islander Pirate Lord dumber-than-dogshit, but you're forgetting something.'

'What?'

There was a slack amazement on Sawtre's hard face; he could not believe that this was happening to him, this public defiance by a woman. His hand went to his belt. Not to the hilt of his sword, as it had a moment before, but to the thonged crop that hung there.

'Forgetting this,' Helga said, and thrust underarm.

Lord Sawtre's face went slack with an amazement even more complete than before. Even then, his hand began a movement towards his sword, struck the hilt, began to draw. Hey, really good reflexes, Helga thought-it helped keep her mind off the fact that she had just probably condemned herself to death. I'd rather be dead, she thought, at the thick wet butcher's-cleaver sound as the blade went in from below, just above the man's left hip. Sawtre's mouth and eyes went into identical Os of shock as she dropped her buckler, put both hands on the hilt, and ripped the blade upward with a twisting wrench of arms and shoulders and back.

It came free with a hard shit-stink following it, and the Islander noble dropped to his knees and clutched at the pink-and-red intestines spilling into his lap.

'Be silent, woman, you said?' Helga said, her voice breathy with exertion. 'Try being silent about this, you velipad's ass.'

The sword went up, and her right foot curled up and then slammed down to add emphasis as the blade fell- spattering red drops even before it struck the man's neck, and with white shreds of fat sticking in nicks in the steel. Sawtre flopped boneless to the ground, and blood spilled down, crimson against the marble white and malachite green of the steps.

For a long moment there was absolute silence; Adrian was staring at her and looking-again as if he was talking to someone. His brother was staring at her too, seeing her as a person for the first time rather than a symbol his brother was willing to fight for, and his eyes were wide with an expert's appreciation of what she'd just done. King Casull was frozen in a different set of calculations. His voice cut across the beginnings of a murmur:

'Well, it seems he was silent about that,' he observed, leaning back in the throne and resting his bearded chin on the knuckles of one hand. 'And you know-I've thought Sawtre was a velipad's arse myself, for a good long while now.'

He chuckled, then threw back his head and laughed outright. Some of the courtiers chimed in immediately, and others took it up, until the whole room was roaring.

Allfather of Vanbert, Greatest and Best-what a bunch of pirates! Even after a year in the Isles, she forgot sometimes. .

Helga felt her shoulders begin to shake with reaction. Adrian laid his hand on her back again, gently- cautiously-but firmly.

'And now, if my lord King will excuse me,' he said.

'By all means, my Iron Limper,' Casull said, referring to the lame smith of the gods. 'Keep the vixen, if you want her. I'd say not to turn your back, but-' he gave another shout of laughter '-that didn't do Lord Sawtre here any good, did it?'

He raised a hand and shouted over the court's merriment. 'And now, my lords and gentlemen, we have a city to sack!'

* * *

'An' here's to lord Adrian, the favored of the Gray-Eyed, victory-lucky, best lord a fightin' man could follow!' Simun shouted, raising his cup.

The arquebusiers of the Lightning Band-they'd come up with the title on their own-raised a deafening cheer. Adrian smiled and nodded; it was rather like having a pack of pet direbeasts: alarming at times, but it certainly beat having them against you. The long palace hall was full of them, and of servants and women-the latter volunteers, or mostly, considering their alternatives-and the smells of food and wine and hastily washed mercenary rubbed with scented oil, and incense from braziers, perfumed lanterns, garlands. . Light flickered on hard battered faces, on ranks of bundles of plunder stacked against the walls, neatly wrapped in canvas and inked with their owners' names, and on the unit's equipment. They were ready to move out in the morning.

'Here's to his brother, who's Wodep come again,' Simun said loyally. 'Yer can't go wrong with leaders who're favored of the gods-smart, too.'

'Long live lord Adrian, who taught us to wield the lightnings!' someone else yelled.

'Long live lord Adrian, who's brought us to a place where we can swim in gold!'

That brought a really enthusiastic cheer. The wine cellar they'd gone through had turned out to be a subtreasury or something, probably the ready funds for the management of the Director's hareem. Strictly speaking it should have gone into the general pot, but everyone had agreed that that would be taking the rules to a ridiculous extreme. It had come out to about a year's pay for every man in the unit, not counting what they'd picked up elsewhere the rest of the day.

'And now I'll leave you to your well-earned feasting,' Adrian said.

There was another good-natured cheer. They didn't resent him not taking part in the celebration; they'd come to take a certain pride in the oddity of a Scholar of the Grove commanding them, now that nobody could doubt he had balls enough despite it. It had worked; it was lucky; and if it wasn't broke, they weren't going to try and fix it.

'Won't be a gentleman's symposium, no, sir,' Simun said. He leered cheerfully. 'Watch out for 'er sword before you show 'er yours, too, sir!'

He left the chamber in a roar of bawdy advice, flushing and smiling a little. His own chambers had probably been a royal guard captain's rooms, up a flight of stairs, with half a flat roof as well, enclosed by a head-high wall except where a low balustrade overlooked the courtyard-drillyard, and set with plants in pots, tumbles of blossoming vine falling down to the brown tiles. The scent of the flowers was faint and cool, after the heat and smells of the main hall; the walls blocked out flames and sound from the rest of Vase, leaving only the stars above, many and bright.

'Ah-' he caught himself before he said Lady Demansk; the Gray-Eyed knew he didn't want Helga to know he knew that. 'Freewoman Helga.' There, at least he'd gotten across that he regarded her as a free citizen of the Confederacy, not a slave who'd changed owners. She nodded, taking note of the title, and he went on: 'I've had some things gathered up for you, and you can have that chamber by the stairwell; we'll be leaving tomorrow.'

'Well, yes, I'd sort of wondered about that,' Helga said, stepping forward into the puddle of yellow light a brass globe full of oil with a cotton wick cast on the tiles.

She was wearing a clean tunic-man's clothing, but there was no doubt at all about the gender of the body within it. A garland of white-and-purple flowers crowned the long auburn curls that fell past her shoulders; it was hard to remember her turning the billhook meant for him, bathed in blood. . And fairly easy, too. All the gods witness, I was terrified. Not half as terrified as he'd been challenging Sawtre, of course.

Adrian cleared his throat, glad of the night dimness. A voice drifted up the stairwell, followed by a tremendous shout of laughter, and then the jaunty notes of a kordax on the lyre. A line of torch-bearing men stamped out into the courtyard of this building, mostly leaning on their companions-women of the town, or boys in a few instances-and began weaving in a chain dance around the fountain and back into the hall. They were singing something, something with his name in it, but between distance, drink and the blur of voices far from used to singing in unison, he couldn't make it out.

Interesting, Adrian thought with a distant scholar's part of his mind. He'd never actually seen a victory komos before, although the old epics were full of them. This wasn't much like the descriptions the poets gave; they left out the bits about men who stopped to throw up, or just fell down paralytically drunk.

I suspect that this is more like what they were really like, even in the War of the Thousand