not recognize. He quickly turned back from peering
through the trellis. She was young and small, really
tiny, and black-haired; dressed in white, she was
obviously a lady. A young nursemaid and a small
child were visible in the background, out of easy
earshot along a graveled path that helped make the
rooftop look like a country garden.
“Good morning, Lady.” In the past ten years or
so Jord had been often enough in cosmopolitan
society that now he could feel more or less at ease
with practically anyone. “The men who brought
me up here told me that I was in the house of Mis-
tress and Master Courtenay.”
“So you are; I am the mistress of this house. Gods
and demons, don’t try to get up. And you are Jord.”
Jord abandoned his token effort to rise. “I am
Jord, as you say. And I thank you for your help.”
“Is the food not to your taste?”
“It’s very good. Only they gave me more than
enough.”
The lady was looking at him thoughtfully. There
were chairs nearby but just now she evidently
preferred standing. “So, the Princess Rimac sent
you to us. As courier, to carry two Swords back to
her.”
Jord tried to flex his wounded knee a little, and
grimaced at the sensation. “I seem to have failed in
that task before it was fairly started.” It was said
matter-of-factly. “Well, I’ll do as best I can with
whatever comes next. It seems I’ll need to heal
before I can do much at all.”
The lady continued to regard him. It appeared that
for some reason she was strongly interested.
Presently she said “The servants-all except Denis,
who’s really more than that-think that you are simply a
fellow merchant, who’s had an encounter with thieves
and is in need of help. Such things are all too common
in our business.”
“And in mine, unhappily. Again I thank you for
saving my life.” Jord paused. “But tell me something.
Those who carried me up here said that I arrived only
last night. But . . .” He gestured in perplexity toward
his wounds.
“One of the blades that you were going to take to
Princess Rimac is the Sword of Mercy.”
“Ah.” Jord, who had been supporting himself on his
elbow, lay back flat again. “That explains it.”
The lady had turned her head away. The little child
was babbling somewhere on the other side of the
roof. But someone else, a huge man of about the
lady’s own age, was approaching around a corner of
trellis. Birds flew out of his way. “My husband,” she
explained.
Again Jord raised himself on his elbow. “Master
Courtenay. Again my thanks.”
The big man smiled, an expression that made his
face much more pleasant in appearance. “And you
are welcome here, as I expect my wife has already
told you.”
Jord’s hosts seated themselves together on a bench
nearby, and asked to hear from him about
last night’s attack that had left him wounded. Both
appeared relieved when he told them he had
dispatched his lone assailant before he had collapsed
himself.
The master of the house informed him, “A few
more of those who were following you arrived a little
later. But we managed to dispose of them.”
“Following me? More of them?” Jord swore
earthily, calling upon various anatomical features of
several gods and demons. “I feared as much, but I
saw nothing of ’em.” He groaned his worry.
Master Courtenay’s thick hand made a gesture of
dismissal; there was nothing to be done about that
now. Then Coutenay glanced at his wife, a look
transmitting some kind of signal, and she faced their
guest with the air of someone opening a new subject.
“Jord,” she asked him, “what village do you come
from?”
It had been years since that question had surprised
him. “Why, you’re quite right, Ma’am, I’m a village
man, not of the cities. And I’ve lived in a good many
villages.”
“But twenty years ago you were living in Arin-on-
Aldan, weren’t you? And still there, up to about-ten
years ago?”
Jord nodded, and sighed faintly. “Like a lot of other
villages, Lady, it’s not there any longer. Or so I’ve
heard. Your pardon, gentlefolk, but most who start
asking me about my village have an earlier one than
that in mind. Treefall, the place that Vulcan took me
from to help him forge the Swords. Yes, I’m that Jord.
Not too many Jords in the world with the right arm
missing. Often I use another name, and I put most
people off when they start
asking where I’m from. But you of course I’ll answer
gladly. Whatever you’d like to know.”
“We,” said the huge, broad man, “are no more
gentlefolk than you. The name I was born with is
nothing like Courtenay, but simply Ben. That was in a
poor village too, where one name was enough. Ben of
Purkinje, some call me now. You’ve heard that
somewhere, most .likely, within the past four years.
I’m the Ben who robbed the Blue Temple, and they’re
out to hunt me down. I’m pretty sure it was their
people who followed you here last night.”
“And my name is really Barbara,” the lady said
simply. She moved one small pale hand in a gesture
that took in the luxury of the terrace, her whole house.
“This is all Blue Temple wealth, or was. A single
handful of their chests and baskets full of jewels.”
“Ah.” Jord nodded. “I’ve heard of the man called
Ben who robbed those robbers. That story has gone
far and wide-”
The lady interrupted him, eagerly. “Since you’ve
heard the stories, you must have heard that a man
named Mark was in on the raid with Ben, here.” Here
Barbara really smiled at Jord for the first time. “And
you have a grown son named Mark, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said the man on the couch. “It’s a common
enough name. Why?”
“Because it is the same Mark,” the lady said. “And
we are his good friends, though we have not seen him
for a long time. He took no wealth for himself from
the Blue Temple. He’s still out there soldiering, in Sir
Andrew’s army. And I’m afraid he thinks that you are
dead.”
“Ah,” said their visitor again. He lay back flat,
and closed his eyes, and clenched his fist. His lips
moved, as if he might be praying. Then he opened his
eyes and once more raised himself a little on his
elbow.
He spoke to his hosts now almost as if he were
their prisoner and they his judges. “Mark had to run
away from the village, that day . . . is it ten years
now? Almost. He had to take Townsaver and get
away with it. Yes, he saw me struck down. He must
have been thinking ever since that I’d been killed. He
wasn’t able to come back, nor we to find out where
he was. So much happened, we had to leave the
village. We never had any news . . .”
Jord’s voice changed again, happily this time. “Tell
me about him. Still soldiering, you say? What-?” He
obviously had so many questions that he didn’t know
where to start.
Again someone was arriving on the rooftop. Jord
heard a door close, and footsteps came crunching
lightly along the graveled path. A pause, and a few
words in what sounded like the nursemaid’s voice.
Then the footsteps resumed. This time there appeared
a slender, dark-haired youth who was introduced to
Jord as Denis, nicknamed the Quick. He greeted the
older man courteously, and stood there rubbing his
forearm through its long sleeve as if it might be sore.
Jord rubbed his arm-stump again. Already it
seemed that the swelling, where the Sword had
touched him, was a little greater.
Ben asked the new arrival, “What news from the
streets?”
“None of the local people on our payroll noticed
anything out of the way around midnight. It was a
good night to be staying in.”
“Denis,” said Ben, “sit down.” And he indicated an
unoccpuied chair nearby. Then he turned his head and
called: “Kuan-yin? Take the baby downstairs, would
you?”
Presently a door closed again. Four people looked
solemnly at one another. Ben said to his young
employee, “There’s one thing we’ve not told you about
Jord yet. His reason for coming here.” And at that
point Ben paused, seemingly not knowing quite what
to say next.
His wife put in, “You must know by now, Denis,
where our political sympathies lie.”
“The same as mine, Mistress,” the young man
murmured. “Or, indeed, I wouldn’t be here now.” But
he knew that was not- true; he would have stayed
anyway, to be near her. Might he have stayed to be
near Kuan-yin? That was more problematical.
Ben said to him, “You also know that our guest here
is a secret courier, if not the details. And, as you can