The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [53]
The man shook his head mutely.
I jabbed Myrten in the ribs. “Move. We’re too crowded.” I tried to whisper, but Tamra looked around Wrynn and Myrten and glared at me.
I shrugged and rolled my eyes.
She shook her head, but edged outward.
“Who represents the duke?” demanded Isolde, ignoring the shuffling our movements created. Her voice cut like a knife.
“I do.” The soldier who stepped forward was the one who had moved earlier. He topped any of us, even me, by half a head, and Isolde by more than half a cubit. His face was lean, clean-shaven and unscarred, but his short black hair bore traces of silver, and his eyes were flat and lifeless.
“Blood or death?” asked Isolde.
“It has to be your death, Magistra. You are an outlander, and death is prescribed if you fail.”
“I was talking about you.” Isolde’s voice was cold enough to make the tax official scuttle back further.
The soldier inclined his head. “That is your choice, Magistra, but I will fight until I cannot. That is also prescribed.” His voice was polite, but rough, as if unused.
One of the soldiers unrolled a reddish cord that had presumably once been scarlet. A cord-defined square about ten cubits on a side appeared on the gray pier planks. The square was about two-thirds the width of the pier.
Two soldiers took positions, with unsheathed swords, at opposite corners.
“Your corners, Magistra?”
Isolde did not take her eyes off the Duke’s champion. “Krystal…Lerris…take the other two corners.”
The tax collector’s eyes widened as Krystal stepped forward. He paled, I thought, as she unsheathed her blade, and took the corner farthest from the Eidolon. That left me the corner only cubits from where I had been standing.
The wood of my staff was almost uncomfortably warm.
“…blackstaff,” murmured one of the soldiers in the guard group, which had retreated to the shore side of the pier as if to block our way to Freetown.
“Are you ready, Magistra?”
“I’m sorry for you, Duke’s Man.” Isolde sounded sorry, yet I wondered why she was so confident. The whole thing was a setup. The man had to be the best in the duke’s forces.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
They both stood for an instant, blades out. Isolde’s back was to me.
The man’s blade flashed, impossibly quickly. Yet, in scarcely moving her own blade, Isolde somehow deflected the attack.
Flttt…
…hsssttt…
…hsssttt…
Blades caressed, never meeting directly, edges sliding against each other.
Clank…
Thud…
The Duke’s champion lay face-down on the pier, separated from sword and life. Just as suddenly as it had started, it was over.
The tax collector’s mouth hung open. So did those of the other soldiers.
I held my staff ready, wondering what would happen next.
“I trust you will record that the duke’s proposed tariff on blackstaffs has been nullified.” Isolde’s voice had reverted to a merely matter-of-fact tone at least as chilling as the coldness she had conveyed moments earlier.
“…uh…yes, Magistra…”
One of the two soldiers who had served as corners began to reel the faded reddish cord back onto the spool. I stepped aside, but continued to watch the remainder of the squad. So did Krystal.
Two others hoisted the body and began to carry it toward the horse-drawn wagon that waited at the causeway at the end of the pier. Another retrieved the sword.
The thin youth scribbled some more onto his tablet, and the tax collector wiped his sweating forehead with a darkish cloth.
“You understand, Magistra…Duke Holloric…we only serve his requirements…”
Isolde nodded briskly. “Convey our best wishes to the duke. We trust he will wish to continue maintaining the Agreement without further attempts at one-sided changes.”
“Yes, Magistra…” He backed away, then turned.
The soldiers followed him back down the pier. Not one looked in our direction.
I looked at Tamra. She raised her eyebrows. I nodded. We both knew. For whatever reason, it had been an attempted setup by the duke. And the Brotherhood had known. I suspected Isolde was one of the best the Brotherhood had, and that was scary. Giving away nearly a cubit and a