soft music, and a stillness that enveloped him like peace, except for the pain, which seemed endless. Forcing his tired eyes open, he saw that he lay on a mat in a beautifully appointed chamber, one painted with scenes of warriors displaying the virtues of arms and valour. Between the reedy notes of two vielles playing in counterpoint, he heard a poet reciting the deeds and the victories he had accomplished, which extended back into Lord Sezu's time. Keyoke let his eyes fall closed again.
He had not lied to his Lady. He was content. To die of great wounds for her honour was a just and fitting destiny for a warrior grown old in her service.
But a disturbance outside in the corridor rang over the notes of the instruments, and the poet faltered in his lines.
'Damn it, are you just going to let him lie there until he dies?' cried a strident, nasal voice.
The barbarian, Keyoke identified, as always challenging custom.
Lujan's voice interjected, unaccustomedly distressed. 'He has served honourably! What more can any of us do?'
'Get a healer to fight for his life,' Kevin almost shouted.
'Or do you wait for your gods to save him?'
'That's impertinence!' snapped Lujan, and there followed the sound of a hand striking flesh.
'Stop it! Both of you!' Mara broke in, and the voices merged together in a spill of sound that rose and fell like waves.
Keyoke lay still and wished the arguing would end. The poet had reached the stanzas that referred to the raid he had once staged with Papewaio against Tecuma of the Anasati, and he wanted to listen for inaccuracies. No doubt the bard would not mention the celebration that had followed, nor the jars of sa wine he and Pape and the master had shared to celebrate the victory. They had all paid with a hangover, Keyoke recalled, and he had hurt afterwards nearly as much as he did now.
But the poet did not resume his verses. Instead, Keyoke heard Mara's voice carrying from the hallway. 'Kevin would be no kindness at all to save the life of a warrior is missing a leg. Or didn't you know that Lujan's field 1, had it cut off, since Keyoke took an arrow wound festered?'
Keyoke swallowed hard. The agony that racked his t masked his awareness of the missing limb. He kept his closed.
'So what!' Kevin said in exasperation. 'Keyoke's value is in his expertise, and even your gods-besotted healer knows man's brains are not in his feet!'
Silence followed, then Keyoke heard the screen swing back and someone step through.
Keyoke opened one eye and looked in the direction of disturbance. Entering the room was the tall barbarian.
hair blazed like fire in the candlelight, and his height th dark shadows on the wall. He shoved determinedly through the musicians, then shot a glance of disgust at the poet. '~
out,' he said imperiously. 'I want to talk with the old r and see what he thinks about dying.'
Keyoke looked up into the face of the barbarian slave, eyes dark with fury. He forced his voice to be as firm as condition permitted. 'You are impertinent,' he ech.
Lujan. 'And you intrude upon matters of honour. We' armed, I would kill you where you stand.'
Kevin shrugged and sat down at the old warrior's side you had the strength to kill me, old man, I wouldn't be ho He crossed his arms, leaned his elbows upon his knees, a regarded Keyoke who was very much a general of armies even propped like a figurehead amid a sea of cushions. E
flesh might be drawn with illness, but his face was still d of a commander. 'Anyway, you are not armed,' Keyoke observed with his shattering, outworld bluntness. 'k you'll need a crutch to rise from that bed. So maybe your problems can't be answered with a blade anymore, Force Commander Keyoke:
The pain dragged at his belly as the old man drew breath to reply. He could feel the weakness sucking at him, the dark-Ness in the wings that waited to draw him in, but he gathered himself and managed to speak with the tone that had stopped many a young warrior from cockiness. 'I have served.'
The words were delivered with unassailable dignity.
Kevin shut his eyes for a moment, and inwardly seemed to flinch. 'Mare still needs you.'
He did not look at Keyoke. Apparently his rudeness had limits; but his hands tightened white against his forearms, and Lujan, in the doorway, turned away his face.