The Coming Of Wisdom by Dave Duncan Read Free Book Online Page B

chance of working toward promotion.
    Nnanji was obviously attracted, and she glanced nervously at him as he edged close, beaming down at her . . . no, leering down at her. When she scrambled up to the driver’s bench, awkward in her cloak and priestess’ long robe, he moved as if to join her. Wallie coughed meaningfully and jerked an imperious thumb at the back. He climbed up and sat beside Quili himself.
    She slapped the reins and shouted. After a moment’s reflection, the horse decided that there were more interesting places in which to be difficult, and the cart creaked forward.
     
    Tree trunks, valley walls, and streambed crowded in upon their path. The road was no more than a stretch of cleared ground, rough and rutted and spiky with roots. A little work with a dozer and a few truckloads of gravel would work wonders on it, Wallie decided. Twice the horse balked at fords, giving Quili trouble. The stream was rising, encroaching on its banks.
    “This rain is unusual, apprentice?”
    Quili was concentrating on the horse, but she stopped biting her tongue long enough to say, “Very, my lord. At this time of year. And the first real rain since winter.”
    Wallie wondered if there could be any relation between the rain and his own arrival. Then he decided that the thought was absurd—he was becoming as bad as Honakura, who was full of weird superstitions. Nevertheless, much more rainfall, and the track to the jetty would become impassable.
    The trees were less lush than the tropical varieties at Hann, and he could not identify any of them—hardly surprising, for he was no botanist. Apparently Shonsu had not been much interested in vegetation, for his vocabulary seemed to contain none of the names. Perhaps some had Earthly equivalents, similar but not the same, like the odd-looking horses. Or like the People themselves—a neat, brown-skinned folk, cheerful, fun-loving and lusty, certainly human, but not exactly matching any Earthly race.
    He moved his sword to a more comfortable position and stretched out his arm along the backrest. Quili jumped and then blushed furiously.
    Damn! Wallie had forgotten that he was no longer the man he had been on Earth. Women looked at Shonsu in a way women had never looked at the nondescript Wallie Smith. Wallie Smith might have received odd glances had he paraded around bare-chested in a kilt and leather harness, but not those sort of looks.
    Which raised the problem of Nnanji’s attentions to Quili. Nnanji had never made any secret of his ambition to become a free sword—it had been about the first thing he had imparted to his liege lord Shonsu when he had begun to relax enough in his company to talk at all. Wallie had parried the hidden questions about their joint future until he had gained time to learn from Honakura just what a free sword was. He had been disgusted to learn how much those wandering warriors expected in the way of hospitality. It was not a sutra, it was a universal custom, which meant a law—free swords could have anything they wanted, including access to their hostesses’ beds.
    That prospect was at least as attractive to Nnanji as the opportunities for bloodshed. Since the onset of adolescence, he had lived within the narrowly male world of the barracks, naively absorbing all the macho bragging, believing the tall tales of breathlessly grateful maidens. Now he saw his chance. He had no desire to be a routine policeman in some quiet little town or city. He dreamed of the open road—or, to be precise, open River—and honoring beautiful damsels would be a large part of the romance of it all. Here he was, a free sword at last, and this pretty young priestess had the misfortune to be the first woman he had encountered.
    Wallie could admit a certain barbaric logic in the custom. Free swords were the good guys and brigands were the bad guys, but at times the distinction between them must become blurred. So hospitality was given without limits—unstinted