“Ah, but naturally he didn’t give it away, or where would we be?” Still not looking at me, he took a step or two back, in order to make the moonlight shudder along the thin blade as he tilted it up and down. “And how did the good man resolve his difficulty?”
“As it happens, my ancestor was not a good man at all,” I said, “but he was a clever one. After much consideration, he had those words you see etched on the sword-cane, and when a particularly bold and cunning young thief actually did manage to lift it from him—in broadest daylight, if you will—he ran the man to earth himself and offered him a daring proposition. He might keep the swordcane and welcome, if he would marry my ancestor’s eldest daughter and become a part of his family. The thief agreed on the spot—as did the daughter, for he was apparently a pleasing youth. And so began our most ancient tradition.”
Up, down, tip it toward the moon, tip it into darkness. “A fascinating tale.” And he was fascinated, though careful not to show it; so much so that he paid no heed when I let myself move at last, the slightest shuffle, more to the side than backward. “Even if the thief’s only other choice was death. Meaning no disrespect to your ancestor’s daughter.”
“Ah, but that wasn’t the case at all.” And with that I had him. He forgot to play with the swordcane and stared at me; and for the first time he looked like a human being, round-eyed (though he narrowed them quickly) with blessed human puzzlement and my dear, dear, precious, beloved human hunger to know what happened next. Hurt, exhausted, and frightened for my life as I was, that look is, at the very last, my home.
I said, “The young man could have gone free and unharmed, nevermore to see the beautiful sword. He was happy to obey the graven command, steal me, marry me, and he turned out to be a faithful husband to both his wives. And since he knew so much better than my ancestor all the ways of thieves, not one ever again came within sight of the swordcane, no one but those whose last sight it was. The only difficulty was that he never could bring himself to leave his treasure to any of his own descendants, even on his deathbed. Myself, I think that he would have ordered it to be buried with him, if a quick-fingered serving wench hadn’t made away with it at the very last— which meant, of course, that his eldest son had to track her down and marry her in his turn in order to keep both the sword and such skill in the family. And so it has gone ever since, except for Grandmother. Always excepting Grandmother.”
Even then I could not be sure that he had taken the right bait, for all that he kept blinking from the swordcane to me and back again. “Keep the blood moving, that’s the way,” he purred, almost to himself. “Much as we do, imagine.” But he had to know, you see, and what’s a foot more or less of distance between one person and another when you have to know how a story comes out? “Your grandmother,” he said slowly; and I said, entirely to myself, You are mine.
“Ah, Grandmother,” I sighed. “The most magical figure of my childhood.” So she was indeed, bless her wicked, utterly shameless heart. “Grandmother was Great-Grandfather’s daughter, so therefore she was not eligible to steal the swordcane and marry to keep it. This struck her as a great injustice, and my grandmother never could abide injustice. She was small, like me, and easily ignored then, but from the age of twelve or thereabouts, she did little else but stand watch over the weapon and learn its use—that, at least, was permitted her. She studied every morning, before he had started drinking, with the old Kirianese master L’kl’yara ”—I saw my listener’s eyes go even wider than they already were “—until she knew everything he knew and could invent her own variations on his guards and counters, his legendary traps and responses, for hours on end. She became very nearly unbeatable, my quiet little grandmother who sang nursery songs to me every night, even when I was really too old for them. And when she understood that she was unbeatable—then one day, after her regular practice, she simply took the swordcane and vanished.”
“Vanished?” I was half-singing myself now, as completely fallen into the manner of storytelling that I was taught almost with my name as he was into the tale itself. But I have learned other things since my name, and I knew that I must slow everything down, everything—not merely my movement away from him, but my breathing as well, my pain and my banging blood, and even my thoughts—slow all down to the rhythm of the cold, quiet moon. Off to the right, under a scrubby bush, a shapeless blue shadow that must be his pack.
“Actually, she went to her room,” I said. “It was much the same thing, however, since for three whole years she only emerged to push out the body of the swordcane’s latest midnight claimant and pop back inside. No one saw her but her victims and the servants who brought her food—oh, her mother and father came almost every day to plead with her to behave sensibly, give the swordcane back, and marry whomever should steal it from them properly after that. But all their beseechments were in vain. Grandmother wrote them affectionate notes, asked after the health of her brothers, apologized for the condition of the last thief, and went on standing off all sieges. In the third year, I think it was, Great-grandfather, utterly exasperated, sent soldiers to break down her door. When she was finished with them, she never replaced the door, but deliberately left the room wide open from then on. Not a soul ever dared so much as a peep across the threshold—not until my one-eyed grandfather came prowling along. But that is another story altogether.”
Is that his pack, then? It must be, but what could it contain, what can these people travel with? Nyateneri had said that he would have come prepared for water, but what sort of boat but a toy would fit into a bundle that small? Fool, don’t look at it, for your life—keep those white, entranced eyes on yours, hold him, hold him—pick your spot now, half a step, so, let your right leg shiver and buckle just a bit, as it’s crying to do—I wonder if there’s a rib gone on that side, too, don’t let there be—and under all that a very different trembling, deeper than any of it. I can still do this, what I was made to do, it has not left me. I can still tell a story.
“And that was the woman who taught you to fight as you do?” His voice startled me strangely: in planning so totally to kill him I had almost forgotten about him himself, if you understand. He still wanted to know the ending before he killed me.
“No,” I said, “no, not exactly,” and let the leg go all the way this time, stumbling aside and down with a whimper that was quite real, breaking the fall with my left hand while my right was in and out of my boot in the same motion, and I was the one to catch the sword-cane, after all, before either it or he had fallen. The tiny dagger had sunk so deep into his throat that only the hilt was visible, jerking and bobbing with his breath as he stared at me. I got up slowly and walked over to him.
“My grandmother never touched so much as a carving knife in her life,” I said. “I bought that thing off a peddler’s cart in Fors na’Shachim, and I’ve no more notion than you of what that inscription means. And the person who taught me the sword was a vicious, drunken old soldier who would tell me before each lesson what his payment would be this time, and let me think about it as we fought. The dagger is his.”
That much I am certain he understood, but the white eyes were fading when I added, “I apologize for cheating you. You were too good for me to defeat honestly. Sunlight on your road.” We say that also at parting. I do not know if he heard.