Читать книгу Dragon Lord of the Savage Empire - Jean Lorrah - Страница 6

CHAPTER TWO

Before Lenardo could even think of a command, Arkus turned his horse and began firing orders to his troops to clear people out of the looted buildings.

Helmuth shouted, “Greg, Vona! Up here and make us a clean path.”

As two people rode forward, the corpses began to go up one by one in the roaring blaze of funeral pyres. The other debris burned with the bodies, and the paving stones were purified in the wake of the flames.

The obvious done, people began turning to Lenardo for orders. Dragging himself out of lethargy, he said, “We need a place to stay and a clean place to set up a kitchen and a hospital.”

“Where, my lord?”

He Read the shambles all around them, despairing of clearing an area large enough to let his people—my people—sleep without the stench of death in their nostrils and rats crawling over their feet.

But there was one building.... He laughed as he realized it: “The one place Drakonius never used—the baths!”

The huge Aventine bathhouse, built to serve an entire city, was almost untouched. It stood on the edge of the forum, empty, unharmed by the looting because there was nothing in it to loot. The baths were dry, but the spring that served them had been diverted to form the city’s water supply. Clean, fresh water tumbled from a pipe at the side of the bathhouse into the beginning of the ditch that had replaced the overloaded sewer system.

Lenardo led his train through the streets to the forum and then pointed. “Sweep it out, scrub it down. Where’s Sandor? Set up an infirmary and start processing the sick and injured. Call me if you can’t see what’s wrong.”

“But my lord—”

“Give a mental shout—I’ll be Reading.” He turned to the cook and her staff, who were looking considerably sickened by the mess. “Those people the soldiers are rounding up are hungry. There’s no food in the city, and we have our own to feed as well. No fireplaces in the baths—can you clear a place on the front steps and cook over an open fire?”

“Aye, my lord,” said the woman who had volunteered to head his cooking staff, and set her people to hauling buckets of water to scrub down a section of the forum.

Once started, Lenardo found it easy enough to give orders. There was so much to be done. It was well after sunset when Cook descended on him with soup, bread, and cheese. He realized that he hadn’t eaten all day.

As he sniffed the soup appreciatively, Cook said, “It’s vegetable.”

“I know,” he replied, and she blushed.

“Sorry, me lord. I forget. But I didn’t forget you don’t eat meat.”

“You didn’t make special soup just for me?”

“Of course.”

“With everything else you had to do today? Now, you mustn’t do that again until we’re settled and you’re cooking just for me and my...household.”

“Yes, me lord.” But she was distressed.

“Thank you this time, Cook. The soup is delicious. If there’s any left, I’ll have it tomorrow, but no fussing over me. From now on, just bring me anything you have except meat.”

Arkus found him still sitting on the steps outside the bathhouse, finishing the bread and cheese. “What shall we do with the prisoners, my lord?”

“What prisoners?”

“Why, all these people. We’ve rounded up over a thousand. Where are we going to put them for the night?”

“Let them sleep wherever they’ve been sleeping until we can create some kind of order.”

“But they’ll hide again.”

“They’ll come out for breakfast.”

“Not,” replied Arkus, “when they know the flogging starts tomorrow.”

“Flogging?” Lenardo exclaimed. “What are you talking about?”

“They’re thieves, my lord. They’ve stolen and destroyed your property. You must punish them, and since you’re not an Adept, you can’t do what Drakonius did.”

“No, I’m not Drakonius,” Lenardo murmured, recalling with a shudder the time he had observed, powerless, the Adept torturing Galen.

“Well, even Drakonius couldn’t handle all the punishments himself. We always flog most of them.”

“Not any more, you don’t. Arkus, have you looked into the infirmary? There are over a hundred sick and injured people in there. Sandor’s exhausted, and now you would deliberately injure a thousand more?”

“Sandor wouldn’t have to heal them, and they must be punished,” Arkus insisted stubbornly. “Do you want your people to think they can steal from you any time they feel like it?”

“No, but look around. There is an incredible amount of work to be done. Make them do it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Greg and Vona must burn the rest of the bodies to keep disease from spreading. Let the prisoners scrub down the streets. Then they can rebuild the houses they destroyed.”

He could Read Arkus’ grim disappointment as the young officer said, “What’s the matter with you? You can’t rule if you act like a country grandmother over a little bloodshed.”

“I’ve shed my share of blood, Arkus. You’ve seen me fight when I had to. But consider this: how eager would you be to flog someone if you felt every stroke on your own back?”

Arkus’ disappointment turned to dismay. “It must be a whole different world for a Reader. Are you not tired, my lord?”

Tired of explaining that Reading did not use up physical energy the way Adept powers did, he simply said, “No, are you?”

“No, I’ve hardly used my talent today.”

“Just to save my life,” Lenardo reminded him. “Have you the strength to move some clouds before you sleep?”

“Of course. Let me set the guard first. You know, people still aren’t going to come out tomorrow, because they’ll be afraid of flogging.”

“Arkus, will you stop worrying? I can find them.”

“Yes, my lord!”

“And Arkus—”

“Yes, my lord?”

“There are far more than a thousand people in the city. I think the others will show themselves when they find out they’ll be fed and not flogged.”

* * * * * * *

That night Lenardo slept deeply and dreamlessly on a pallet on the marble floor. He had left Josa and Arkus to draw the cloud bank he had found toward Zendi. By morning it was raining, but not on the city. Moist breezes refreshed the workers, but the city streets remained dry.

Encountering Arkus and Josa hand in hand, Lenardo told them, “You’re showing off.”

“No one works well in the rain, my lord,” Arkus replied. “Look how well your plan is working.”

It did seem to be. Lenardo didn’t like the fearful looks when he passed, but he hoped that would change when they got used to him. None of Aradia’s people looked at her that way.

More people crept out of hiding as the news spread that there was food for all and no one had yet been flogged. On the fourth day, the test came.

They were attempting to provide only two meals a day, morning and evening. Lenardo, hot and thirsty, returned to the spring by the bathhouse to run cool water over his head and then take a long drink. The washing-up after the morning meal was completed, and already Cook had some of her staff preparing for evening. When she saw Lenardo, she hurried to his side.

“Are you hungry, me lord? Thirsty? One of the farmers brought in fresh berries.”

“Thank him and tell him I’ll have them for dinner,” said Lenardo. “Do you have enough help, Cook? You’re doing a fine job under difficult conditions.”

She blushed under his praise. “Right now, people are grateful just for food. That won’t last, me lord. Has Helmuth asked you—”

“About locating ale or beer? Yes. I told him to send men out to find as much as possible.” He smiled at her. “I may have different dietary requirements than you’re used to, but I wasn’t raised totally apart from the real world. I know that after working so hard, people want something stronger than water or fruit juice. You know I like a cup of wine myself.”

Although Lenardo hadn’t meant it that way, Cook called, “Ho! Dorn! Wine for me lord!”

The boy ran into the bathhouse, where the casks of wine were kept cool, and returned with a goblet for Lenardo.

He was no longer thirsty, but he Read that Cook would like some wine, although she would neither ask for it nor help herself to the supply reserved for the Lord of the Land and his officers.

By savage custom, it was a sign of honor and friendship for two people to drink from the same goblet, and so Lenardo offered the wine to the cook, saying, “Will you try some?”

She blushed but dared not refuse. Although she rarely had wine for her own pleasure, she knew the varieties, which to choose to complement various dishes. This was an ordinary white wine, of which they had brought several kegs, but a good one. She held it for a moment to savor the bouquet before tasting.

Amused and happy that he could please this hardworking woman with such a simple gesture, Lenardo Read her reactions, careful not to invade the privacy of her thoughts.

As she sniffed the wine, her delight turned to puzzlement. She frowned and took another whiff. “Could the heat have spoiled it?” she asked, and started to tilt the cup to taste.

Lenardo Read the wine curiously and then in panic grabbed the cup out of the woman’s hand, sloshing wine over both of them. “It’s poisoned!”

Cook gasped, “No! Oh, no, me lord, I never—”

“I know you didn’t do it, but someone did—someone with access to the wine casks.”

Facing a life-threatening situation, Lenardo Read openly. Cook was trying to think of a suspect, still convinced that he would find her the most likely. She followed him into the bathhouse, where he Read the kegs. Only one was poisoned: the half-empty one he and his retainers had been served from.

“The wine was good yesterday,” he said. “It was done last night or this morning.”

“But I’ve had thirty people in and out all morning,” said Cook. “I knew we shouldn’t have pressed those townspeople into service so near me lord’s food, but where was I to get help?”

“Cook, I’m not blaming you,” Lenardo insisted. “Your keen sense of smell just saved both our lives.”

“But you Read—”

“Only after you noticed something wrong. I’m not in the habit of Reading for poison in everything I eat or drink.”

Satisfied at last that he would not blame her, Cook asked, “Will you Read the workers, me lord? Find out who did this?”

“If he—or she—saw what just happened out there, the culprit is the person running away,” Lenardo said.

But no one had run off. Most of the kitchen staff were resting; only the cooking staff—all of whom had come from Aradia’s land—were beginning work on the evening meal. Lenardo sent for Arkus and then walked among them, Reading, finding neither hate, fear, nor resentment.

Arkus arrived as Lenardo confronted the puzzled, fearful townspeople pressed into scullery service. The terror of being called before the Lord of the Land so obscured individual thought that Lenardo wondered whether he would have to interview each one alone to find his would-be murderer. Although there was plenty of resentment, he could find no hatred strong enough to account for an attempt on his life.

He had not told them why he had gathered them; the thought in most minds was that they were to be pressed into some other work. But why would the lord himself bother with that? The Lord of the Land dealt with ordinary people only to punish, although this one had been heard to offer praise....

That gave Lenardo an idea. “Arkus, these people are doing a fine job of keeping everyone well fed.”

Puzzled, Arkus replied, “Yes, my lord.”

“I wish to thank them. Instruct Cook to have wine brought from the open cask so that everyone may have a cup.”

Thoroughly bewildered now, Arkus kept his composure only by reminding himself that he had sworn loyalty and obedience. Why is he making me an errand boy for this riffraff?

But blazing beyond Arkus’ justified concern came a flare of fear and guilt and hatred, standing out clearly from the others’ relieved pleasure. A man began edging his way toward the door.

“Arkus!” Lenardo’s voice stopped the young commander in his tracks. “This man—” he pointed “—poisoned the cask of wine that you and I and our staff have been drinking from.”

“No! It’s a lie! I never—”

The man backed to the wall as Arkus advanced on him sword drawn. But he was not suicidal: he stood pinned, sword at his throat, sweating, eyes popping, cursing himself for having moved.

To the other startled, frightened men and women, Lenardo said, “I’m sorry to trick you, but I had to find the culprit. And you shall have your wine—from a fresh cask—as soon as I determine what to do with this would-be murderer.”

By the time they were left alone, the man was radiating stormy defiance and contempt. Lenardo Read that he thought the new lord weak and stupid.

“What is your name?” he asked the man, who was dressed in tatters of what had recently been elegant clothes.

“I won’t tell you.”

“Your name is Bril. Why did you try to murder me?”

“You’re not going to make me work like a scullery maid.”

Lenardo knew the words a Lord Adept would say at that point: “You are my property.” He did not say them. Instead, he said, “You are my responsibility, along with this city and all the surrounding countryside. I expect you to work for your food, clothing, and shelter like everyone else.”

Arkus said, “Bril’s a moneylender, my lord. He doesn’t know what work is.”

“It is not a motive for murder. What did you think to accomplish, Bril? Had you killed me, the Lady Aradia would have given Zendi to someone else or taken it herself. The new lord would be my friend and would avenge my death.”

“Yes, a Lord Adept who would do something,” Bril spat. “If anyone had tried to kill Drakonius, he wouldn’t have wasted time talking. He’d have the person tortured to death in the forum as an example.”

“You are quite right, Bril,” said Lenardo, sick at heart. “Your punishment must be an example. Arkus, you may proceed with the flogging you’ve been wanting.”

“At once, my lord,” Arkus said with grim satisfaction. “I’ll tell the whipman to make sure he takes a long time to die.”

“No, I will not rule by torture. Bril will be flogged, but not to death.”

“But my lord—”

“I want him alive so that people will remember that he did not succeed. The men who ambushed you and Helmuth and me did not succeed, but they are dead, and people have already forgotten.” He turned to Bril. “I’m not like the Lords Adept you are accustomed to. You cannot fool me, Bril. You accomplished nothing, and yet you must suffer. Whether you admit it aloud or not, you will deliver this message to my people: Attacks on Lenardo are not worth trying.”

Trembling inside but outwardly composed, Lenardo assessed Bril’s physical condition. “Ten lashes,” he ordered.

“For trying to kill you?” Arkus gasped.

“Look at him. He’s never felt the lash before, and he’s not young or strong. It will be the worst thing he’s ever suffered, but he will recover and be able to work.”

“You may be right,” said Arkus, “but others, more hardened—”

“The idea,” Lenardo said, “is for there to be no others!”

Arkus suddenly understood. “You really won’t be able to...shut it out?”

“To a degree,” Lenardo admitted, “if I stay at a distance.” But he would have to witness his order being carried out.

Steeling himself, he stood on the bathhouse steps. There were plenty of witnesses: Arkus brought in all his soldiers and work crews, and other people mobbed the forum as the word spread that the Lord of the Land dealt punishment when it was deserved.

Bril was fastened to the old well-worn whipping post in the center of the forum. Arkus joined several soldiers there, gave one of them the lash, and, Lenardo Read, said softly, “My lord says no torture. Lay it on swift and certain.”

Lenardo braced himself for the empathic reaction. He had to watch, nor could he shut out the sound of the lash or Bril’s screams turning from fear to pain.

Yet something distracted his attention. He became aware at the seventh blow that for every crack of the lash, a wail from within the bathhouse rose in concert with Bril’s scream.

Collecting his wits, he listened clearly to another two and then on the last he heard the voice change to the mournful sobbing of a child in pain. He turned, following the sound and then Reading. Instantly his back was aflame, but he could tell himself that it was not his own pain and let it subside The child could not.

He burst into the frigidarium, which was being scrubbed down before being put into operation. If the new lord had the functioning of the bathhouse high on his list of priorities, who dared question his idiosyncrasies?

A number of women had been working there while their children played about the building, but now one of those children was clinging to its mother, sobbing and then screaming when she touched its back. Everyone had stopped working to stare, and the room was awash in bewildered pity.

Knowing immediately what had happened, Lenardo set out to break the child’s focus on Bril. //Child!// he projected at the most intense level.

Despite the pain, the response came clearly, the thrill of first contact with a compatible mind. The child turned huge brown eyes to him, and he smiled reassuringly. //Focus on me, and the pain will go away.//

Tears turned to laughter. The child dropped its clutch on its mother and ran to Lenardo, crying, “Mama, he talks to me! In my head, he talks to me!”

The mother screamed. Hate and terror filled the room as the other women cried, “Reader!” and converged on Lenardo and the child, one of them pulling a knife as she said, “I’ll take care of it, me lord.”

Astonished, Lenardo snatched the child out of their reach. “What’s the matter with you?” he demanded. “Haven’t you been told that Readers are not to be harmed anymore?”

Pounding feet, and Arkus skidded into the room, sword in hand. “What’s going on?”

“This child—a Reader they want to kill it!” And then, “Arkus, why don’t these women know I’m a Reader rather than an Adept?”

The wave of renewed terror made Lenardo wince, and he recalled Helmuth stopping him from revealing himself to the peasants.

Arkus said, “I think you can Read why, my lord. Nobody lied to them. We just didn’t spread the word. Now that you’ve established your authority, it’ll be all right.”

“By the gods,” said Lenardo, “I want that decree carried at once to every reach of the land. Any child who gives sign of Reading ability is to be brought to me unharmed.” He was trembling, clutching the child tightly, his fear communicating itself to...her.

As he realized that it was a little girl he held, he thought in dismay, I should never have touched her! Although the scheduled testing in the empire was done by female Readers for girls and male Readers for boys, it naturally happened that unexpected discoveries were made by Readers of the opposite sex from the children discovered. At home, Lenardo would have avoided seeing the child, certainly never touched her, and sent her to the nearest Academy for girls.

But he was not at home.

Wait. I am at home. This is my home, my land...and I make the laws for it. He turned to the girl’s mother. “No one’s going to hurt your child. She has a precious gift. I’ll help you teach her to use it.”

“I don’t want her, me lord,” the woman answered gasping. “You take her!”

“Take the child, my lord,” said Arkus. “She’s yours anyway. But I’d still advise you to give the mother something for her, before witnesses.”

Lenardo nodded. He had often had to buy little boys from their families for the empire’s Academies. “Where is the child’s father?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” the woman said blankly, and Lenardo Read that what she meant was that she did not know which of a number of men was the father—nor did she care. “What’ll you give me for the girl?”

“A quarter measure of silver, or I will give her back to you to raise, and you will be severely punished if you neglect her or do her harm.”

“Don’t want her poking in my head. She’s yours, me lord.”

“Very good. Arkus, give the woman her money and get her mark witnessed on a paper signing the child over to me.

Arkus covered his surprise with a “Yes, my lord,” but as soon as they had left the room, he asked, “A paper? What do you mean?”

“A legal document,” Lenardo explained. “Can you write, Arkus?”

“No my lord. Helmuth can.”

“Helmuth is out of the city today. I’d better write it.”

As Arkus went off to the well-guarded room where their personal belongings and the treasure Aradia had insisted “went with Zendi” were stored, Lenardo turned his attention to the child in his arms. She was clinging to him like a little monkey, basking in the empathic flow between them. She didn’t question leaving her mother, who had never responded to her growing gift. Lenardo knelt down and tried to set her on her feet.

//It’s all right,// he told her, prying her clutching hands loose from his tunic. //See? You don’t have to touch. What’s your name?//

At first he didn’t think she would respond. Reading abilities often operated sporadically for months before a child gained permanent control. She seemed terribly young and indeed looked like a monkey with her spindly limbs and her huge solemn eyes studying him from a too-thin face. Her hair had been lopped off any which way, apparently to save her mother the trouble of combing it.

He was about to ask her name aloud, when she said, “Julia.”

He smiled approval. //That’s a pretty name. Now, without saying it, try to tell me how old you are.//

//Eight.//

//Very good.//

The girl grinned, revealing that a front tooth was missing. Lenardo was surprised she was that old. She was no bigger than a five-year-old, and he had been guessing six only because of her response.

//Do you know who I am?// he asked.

In the heat of the day, Lenardo was wearing a plain tunic and sandals. Julia put a grubby finger on the dragon’s-head brand on his arm and said, //That is the sign of the Lord of the Land.// She cocked her head, puzzled. //I thought he was old and ugly.//

//I am the new lord,// Lenardo explained. //What we are doing now—talking in our minds—is called Reading. I’m going to teach you to use your abilities, but around other people we must talk out loud. It’s not polite to shut them out.//

“All right,” she said, and held out her arms to be picked up again.

“You can walk,” Lenardo told her. “As your Reading improves, you’ll find you don’t want to touch people. You feel what they’re feeling, like that man’s pain.”

The dark eyes clouded. “Will that always happen?”

“I’ll teach you how to stop it.”

“Good,” she said, idly scratching her head, where Lenardo Read lice.

“That is even easier to stop,” he said. “I don’t know which you need worse, a meal or a bath.”

“Food! Don’t want a bath.”

“You’ll have one anyway,” he told her, taking her out onto the steps and turning her over to Cook. Lenardo then joined Arkus again to make the deal with Julia’s mother.

“You don’t have a seal, my lord,” said Arkus, “but the city seal was in the treasure chest.”

“That will do for now,” Lenardo said. Something else he had not given a thought to. Some sort of symbol. What would Wulfston choose, he wondered, since the wolf’s-head sign he had been named for belonged to Aradia?

Julia’s mother watched curiously as Lenardo wrote out the document. When he pressed the seal into the wax, the woman pointed to the brand on his arm. “Is that how ye mark your sworn men, me lord?”

Choking down the horror of the idea, he replied, “No indeed,” and lifted the seal, only to find himself facing the dragon’s head again, this time surmounting a tower, and beneath it the letter of the savage alphabet for the sound of “z.”

If I don’t do something about it soon, he thought, I’ll end up with the dragon as my symbol by default.

In the infirmary, he found Sandor just finishing with Bril, who was still painfully sore. “Can’t you help him any more than that?” he asked.

“I could, but do you want to have to flog him again tomorrow? I healed the cuts so he can’t get infected. Let his own body do the rest, while the pain reminds him of what will happen if he turns on you again.”

Lenardo said no more. Harsh physical punishment was the norm in the empire as well as here, but before he was branded and thrust beyond the pale, the worst that had ever happened to him personally was a sound thrashing the day he was caught kissing the innkeeper’s daughter, when he was twelve years old.

Rubbing the mark on his arm, he told Bril, “Report to Arkus, and don’t forget that it’s no longer possible to sneak away and hide. I can find you no matter where you go.”

Bril tried to look defiant, but the beating had taken most of the rebelliousness out of him. “You got a Reader working for you, like Drakonius had?”

“I am a Reader.” Lenardo allowed a moment for the shock to register and then added, “You were a wealthy man, Bril. If you’re clever and you work hard, you may be wealthy again—but it will be a long time before you earn back the right to be trusted.”

* * * * * * *

Emotionally exhausted, Lenardo walked the streets of his city the rest of that afternoon, with some new instinct prompting him to show himself as the word spread of what he was. To his relief, acceptance followed the first shock. It was not that he was nonAdept, like the legendary Wulfston the Red, but that his abilities were different from the ones they were used to...and equally powerful. He Read the fear that had been growing since his arrival beginning to give way. Their lord had his own powers with which to protect his people. They were not defenseless, as they had begun to think.

But there were new fears as well: fear that he knew their most secret thoughts, fear that his powers were inadequate to protect them against Adept attack, and just the vague anxiety generated by another shock to people whose lives had been shattered too many times.

I should have been Reading my people more carefully, he realized. Had he not been protecting their privacy, operating under the Readers’ Code, he might have discovered days ago that his not exhibiting special powers frightened them far more than if he had been a tyrant like Drakonius, arbitrarily setting examples to keep them in line.

At Northgate he climbed the tower, greeted the watchman, and then turned to stare out over the city. He could have Read it from the ground, but somehow he needed the physical exertion of the climb and the actual view.

It no longer stank. Close by the tower, he could see that the buildings were empty shells, but the basic structure of the city was intact. From here to the forum a main street ran straight and clean; the other streets radiating from the forum were all clear now to the east and south. The west-to-northwest sector, though, was rubble. There, most of the buildings had been of wood and had burned down completely.

For now, he was having that area cleared of flammable debris and left alone. One day, after he had forged the treaty with the Aventine Empire, a new Academy would rise there, a place where Readers and Adepts would study together, share their skills—

But if that were to happen, Lenardo must first learn to rule. The dragon’s-head brand on his arm seemed to glow in the late-afternoon sun. His people expected him to live up to that symbol. The empire, having seen it on the banners of those who attacked their walls for many generations, had deemed it the sign of the savage and used it to mark their exiles.

And here, thought Lenardo, I am failing because I am not savage enough. He wondered how Wulfston was faring—the young black man whom he had met as Aradia’s foster brother and apprentice and to whom she had given the lands west of Lenardo’s, to the sea. Was he managing to rule without the cruelty these people seemed to demand?

Cruelty? Or firmness? Firmness I can give them, Lenardo determined. I’m a Master Reader. I don’t have to invade people’s private thoughts to stop plots before they get as far as Bril’s poisoning the wine.

But Lenardo was only one Reader, and if his actions that day had made many of his people feel more secure, they had also made one implacable enemy and generated enough fear to provide him with henchmen.

* * * * * * *

It was Julia’s screaming that woke Lenardo well after midnight, just as Bril was poised to plunge a knife into his heart. Lenardo twisted, and the blade gashed his left shoulder. He hardly felt it, surging to his knees to drive his right shoulder into Bril’s midsection, knocking the man back against the wall with a howl at the pain in his injured back.

Bril’s knife clattered to the floor, but by that time another man had grabbed Lenardo from behind, seeking to cut his throat while two more reached for his arms. They could hardly see in the faint light from the window, but Lenardo could Read. He allowed the man behind him to get a grip and set his feet, grasped his knife hand so that he could not cut, and then used him for leverage, swinging his legs up to kick out sharply at the other two attackers. One he caught squarely on the point of the breastbone, full force, and the man dropped unconscious. The other he kicked in the diaphragm, leaving him only staggered, while Lenardo’s weight drove the man behind him down, with Lenardo on top of him.

Lenardo arched over, twisting the knife out of his attacker’s hand, bringing his full weight down on one knee on the man’s forearm to the satisfying crunch of broken bones.

There were footsteps coming, help on the way, but Lenardo still faced two armed men, for Bril had reclaimed his weapon, mad with hopeless fury. With the growl of an animal, he launched himself at Lenardo, knife raised high, exposing himself to Lenardo’s thrust between his ribs just as soldiers with swords and torches poured through the doorway.

Bril was falling at Lenardo’s feet, one man lay unconscious, one sat moaning with the pain of a broken arm, and the fourth turned, knife in hand, and was promptly dispatched by one of the soldiers. Lenardo, breathless, surveyed the scene of carnage, revealed in the torchlight to be spattered with blood: his own and Bril’s. His shoulder began to hurt in earnest.

The two men Lenardo had injured were still alive, and so was Bril, although he was bleeding badly. Lenardo’s blade had missed his heart. Arkus and Helmuth were both in the room now, and Julia scooted between people’s legs to Lenardo’s side, crying, “Oh, they hurt you! Don’t die, my lord—please don’t die!”

“I’m not going to die,” he said to reassure her.

At once, she pointed to his fallen attackers. “Kill them, my lord. Torture them to death.”

Lenardo looked over the child’s head to Arkus, who nodded, but it was Helmuth who said, “You must, my lord. This time you have no choice.”

The three surviving attackers were taken to the infirmary, where Sandor put them to sleep, doing no more for Bril than to stop his bleeding so that he would survive for his execution.

The gash across Lenardo’s shoulder was not deep. Sandor laid his hand over it, and the familiar heat of Adept healing spread through his shoulder as he sat on the edge of the infirmary table, talking with Helmuth and Arkus and Julia, who refused to be shepherded off to bed until she was certain that Lenardo was healed.

“They killed two guards on the way in here,” Arkus said. “Slit their throats. But my lord, I don’t understand. How could they sneak up on you? You’ve always known before.”

“I was asleep,” he explained.

Arkus and Helmuth looked blank, and Julia said, “So was I—and I Read them!”

“And that, child,” said Lenardo, “is what saved my life. I thank you.”

“But why didn’t you Read them, my lord?” Helmuth asked.

“One of the most difficult lessons a Reader must learn,” Lenardo explained, “is not to Read in his sleep. It is not that he might discover something but that he might reveal something, for no one can control his own dreams.”

“I still don’t understand,” Arkus said. “Who could Read your dreams?”

“Julia or any other Reader. Where I come from, Arkus, people with varying degrees of Reading ability are as common as people with varying degrees of Adept talent are here. In the empire, a Reader with a slight talent—as you have a slight Adept talent—would be trained in an Academy to make the most he could of his ability. Can you imagine the chaos in an Academy full of children if each time one had a nightmare, it was broadcast to all the others? And what of the traumas of growing up? Consider how you might have felt had your adolescent fantasies been broadcast to all your fellow soldiers in training.”

Arkus blushed scarlet. “I see,” he murmured.

“But protection from embarrassment is not the main reason a Reader must guard his sleep. Theoretically, a stronger Reader might guide the dreams of a lesser one, specifically to elicit information. That is now a forbidden technique, for Readers are not gods. Because that technique, developed for teaching and for treating some of the problems Readers have, was in the past vilely misused, now every Reader is taught self-protection from earliest childhood. I shall have to teach Julia—a difficult task, as it means staying awake for many nights, monitoring her sleep. I fear it will have to wait until our situation here is much more stable.”

“My lord,” said Helmuth, “you are going to have to tell us how to protect you.”

“Yes,” added Arkus. “This incident tonight should have been prevented. Twice you have proved that you could Read danger and prepare for it, even recognize poisoned wine so that no one could be harmed. It crossed my mind last evening that after you revealed yourself as a Reader, I should increase the guard here, but then I thought, no, you will warn us far in advance of any attack. How much more effective to let your people see that you have no more need of an armed guard than the strongest Lord Adept.”

“I haven’t, except when I’m asleep,” said Lenardo.

“But you must tell us when you are vulnerable,” Helmuth insisted. “A Lord Adept must have protection when he has used up his strength in applying his powers. Now that we know you must be guarded while you sleep, we will protect you.”

“I’m still not used to thinking of myself as needing protection,” Lenardo explained. “A clean battle is one thing, but assassins in the night—”

“You defeated them,” Sandor put in. “No need to spread the word that you had even a small wound. Try your shoulder, my lord. Any soreness left?”

“No, Sandor. Thank you very much.”

“Sandor is right,” said Helmuth. “It won’t hurt at all to let your people think you’re invulnerable. Mutiny, poison, assassination—and there you are, unscathed, while your attackers are all dead or scheduled for execution. The word will spread tomorrow, my lord. With Bril dead, there is no one with a personal grudge. This should be the last attempt on your life until your people have a chance to see how you rule. And if you rule well, it may be the last attack ever.”

* * * * * * *

Before the executions, Lenardo had the distasteful task of Reading the condemned men to discover whether they had acted alone or represented a larger group of malcontents. It was a skill he had learned years ago, interrogating savage prisoners for the Aventine Army. To his relief, he found that Bril had trusted no one but the three who had joined him, formerly wealthy businessmen with whom he had often traded financial favors.

When Lenardo stood once more on the steps, bracing himself to witness the executions, Julia joined him. “I told you to go to the watchtower, child.”

“They tried to kill you. I want to see them die.” Sensing that he would have her removed bodily, she tried a different tack. “Please, my lord. I must learn my duty.”

Lenardo waved Sandor over. “Julia insists on witnessing the executions. I’ll help her block the pain, but if it becomes too much for her, I want you to put her to sleep.”

“It won’t be too much,” Julia insisted.

Lenardo was astonished at the girl’s strength. He showed her how to block the worst pain of the men being flogged to death, but she had little control, and both of them were sick and shaking by the time the last of the attackers passed out. By Lenardo’s order, they were not revived; the beatings continued until all three hearts had stopped.

Faint and nauseated, Lenardo stood his ground while the bodies were cut down. Greg and Vona stepped forward, and purifying fire consumed the bodies. Lenardo could not help but recall the burnt-out canyon in which Galen had died. A few bones were all they had ever found of the four Adepts and one Reader destroyed by powers Lenardo guided. Scavengers had made it impossible to know which of the scattered bones were whose.

Bril and his henchmen may not be accorded funeral rites, Lenardo thought, but at least their bodies were not desecrated .

The crowd broke up in silence, and Julia collapsed at Lenardo’s feet. He picked her up, but Sandor quickly took the child.

“Come inside and lie down yourself, my lord.”

Inside, Julia came to, threw up, and began to return to normal. “I should have had you carried to the tower,” Lenardo told her.

“No,” she insisted. “People mustn’t think we’re afraid to deal out punishment just because it hurts us.”

He agreed with her in principle. The savage child seemed to understand instinctively what he was learning through trial and error, but he was faintly repelled at the way she sought to turn her abilities into power over others. And yet that is what I must learn in order to achieve a treaty with the empire.

* * * * * * *

As word spread that the new lord was a Reader, the population shifted. People fled across borders or into the hills, swelling the ranks of the hill bandits. In the city, as people came out of shock, Arkus’ troops had their hands full as fights broke out between those willing to give their strange new lord a chance and those who feared his nonAdept status.

Even those on Lenardo’s side resented his attempts to stop the regrowth of certain occupations; they were used to thievery, gambling, and prostitution as normal daily activities.

Helmuth advised Lenardo to punish theft and accept the other activities. “Sex doesn’t harm ordinary people, my lord, and if some are foolish enough to pay for it, let them.”

Lenardo sighed. In the Aventine Empire, prostitution was taxed along with everything else. Gambling would never stop—the problem was to prevent cheating. “Where is all the money coming from?” he asked. “We confiscated what the looters stole.”

“You’ve been paying your army regularly.”

“Helmuth, how can I allow—”

“My lord, you are worrying over which way the wind blows. Unless you plan to start a fire, it doesn’t matter.”

In the old man, Lenardo Read the wisdom of experience. “We’ve enough to do without starting fires, but all reports of anyone robbed or cheated come directly to me. It’s easy enough for a Reader to discover who’s lying.”

Lenardo was constantly grateful for Helmuth’s advice. When the old man had volunteered to join him, claiming that Lenardo’s land was closer to Lilith’s, where he had a daughter and grandchildren, Lenardo had hesitated. But there had been few in Aradia’s land willing to throw in their lot with him, and Helmuth had quickly proved invaluable. It had been his idea to give Arkus and his troops a new chance, his connections who had scouted out Sandor, Greg, and Vona, all distantly related to him and all with the Adept powers Lenardo lacked. Josa was Helmuth’s niece, entrusted to her uncle in hopes that in a new land she might find a suitable husband.

Once they were established in Zendi, Helmuth demonstrated new talents, for agriculture and for organizing people without antagonizing them. Lenardo couldn’t have ruled without him.

As the summer passed, the crops were harvested, and the new lord’s reputation for fairness spread. People began to return to Lenardo’s land. There was plenty of work, as Zendi had been the central trade city and all its warehouses had been destroyed in the burning and looting. Before winter, there must be not only food but shelter and clothing for everyone. The miserable huts that had served Drakonius’ peasants were quickly replaced with more substantial homes. The materials were available, and willing hands could put up such a dwelling in a day or two, but Drakonius had never allowed them such comforts.

Everyone with Adept talent had fled before Lenardo arrived. Now many straggled back, offering their services. Healers were desperately needed, as Lenardo found chronic disease everywhere. Some would suffer all their lives from malnutrition in childhood. It would be many years before he could hope to have the robust population he had seen in Aradia’s land.

Meanwhile, though, very few people were worse off than they had been under Drakonius. The vast majority, for the first time in their lives, were adequately fed and housed, and they worked with a will in return. Lenardo saw Helmuth’s wisdom in not denying their leisuretime pleasures.

He could have used a hundred Readers, and frequently longed to be rid of the one he had. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Julia; no one could help loving the child, and that was her undoing. Lenardo had little time to spend with her, and so he assigned Helmuth to teach her to read and write and Josa to teach her “whatever girls are supposed to know.” As it turned out, the old man melted at Julia’s smiles, while Josa, a plain girl of an age when her society warned her to prepare for a life of lonely spinsterhood (Twenty-five this winter! Lenardo once caught her plaintive thought), took out her frustrated motherhood on the little girl, who, cleaned up and fed, her hair a halo of dark curls about her face, was turning into a pretty creature indeed.

Since Julia accepted Lenardo’s authority and worked eagerly on her lessons in Reading, he did not at first realize that she was not performing equally well for her other teachers. Nor did any of them know the games she played when she was not under adult supervision.

A ruined city was a dangerous playground. The completely burnt-out sections were off limits, but Julia did not consider that the order applied to her. Unfortunately she had little trouble persuading other children to join her in exploring and treasure hunting. They stole a rope and some digging tools and went into the abandoned northwest sector, where Julia Read a cache of coins at the bottom of an old well. They lowered Julia and two strong boys into the well to bring up the treasure, but inevitably their efforts caused the walls to start to collapse. When the three children above tried to haul up the rope, the terrified ones in the well all scrambled to be pulled up at once. Their thrashing dislodged more dirt to fall in on them, along with one of the girls hauling from above.

The other two children ran screaming for help, but long before they could reach the forum, Lenardo’s mind was torn with, //Master Lenardo! My lord! Help!// and then a mental screech of panic, //Father! Father,// and a terrifying sense of suffocation.

“The gods help us,” he cried, setting off at a run across the forum, Reading the whole picture before he had gone twenty paces.

Arkus loomed before him. “My lord—”

“Get men, ropes—follow me! Hurry!”

Arkus relayed the order and quickly caught up with Lenardo. When they encountered the two breathless children, Lenardo stopped only long enough to tell them: “We know. Help is on the way.”

All the while, he was projecting to Julia, //I’m coming. Don’t move,// for the struggles of the children threatened to bring more dirt down on them.

At the site, Lenardo Read all four children alive. The girl who had fallen in had a broken arm, but the other three were only scratched and bruised. They were half buried, though, and more wall threatened to cave in. “Where are those ropes?”

“They’re coming, my lord,” Arkus replied, peering cautiously into the depths of the well. “Who’s down there?”

“Julia. Three other children. They know better!”

“Father?” a frightened voice called up to them.

“Hush! We’re here. Keep still, all of you.”

Men arrived with ropes, followed by Josa, Helmuth, and Sandor.

“Lower me into the well—” Lenardo began.

“No, my lord,” said Arkus and Helmuth with one breath.

“The walls are collapsing. Someone must go down for them.”

“We’ll hold the walls,” said Arkus. “Josa—”

The young woman hurried to his side, taking his hands and saying fearfully, “But heavy earth—”

“We don’t have to move it,” Arkus replied, “just make it stay in place. My lord, tell us where to concentrate. Someone small should go down there.”

“I’ll go, sir,” said one of Arkus’ soldiers, a compactly built young man with muscular shoulders.

In moments, although it seemed to take forever, the men laid a beam across the top of the well so that the soldier could be lowered without hitting the walls.

Arkus and Josa, facing each other with hands joined, concentrated on keeping more dirt from falling on the children.

The injured girl was brought up, and Sandor had her asleep and healing before the soldier reached the bottom of the well again. He had to dig the others out. One by one he slung the rope about the boys and sent them up while he freed Julia.

She had calmed down, her confidence in Lenardo overpowering. But I’m not doing anything, he thought. If only I had Adept powers. Dust drifted down from the side of the well, and he said, “The side opposite. This side’s already fallen. Hold that side!”

Arkus and Josa paled, but the wall held. With agonizing slowness the soldier freed Julia, started to put the sling on her—

“No,” Lenardo called. “Both of you—the walls could go at any moment.”

The hauling on the rope began again, backs bent with a will, but tired now, Arkus and Josa on the brink of collapse, the well wall threatening—

Lenardo grabbed the rope, adding his weight, instantly raising blisters in the uncalloused area of his hands between thumb and forefinger but not caring, needing to help.

The rope moved too slowly. The wall started to cave in. As guilt and fear ate at Lenardo, he Read Julia’s panicked litany: //I love you, Father. I’ll be good. Help me, oh, help me, Father! Don’t leave me again! Father!//