"No," I said. "Go." The two fellows then stepped down, carefully, into the small boat. I was then left alone on the walkway.
I saw a piece of the broken walkway, half submerged, off to the right.
I looked up, from where I crouched behind the shield. Then I rose up, lifting the shield once more.
A solitary figure, with no shield, but in helmet, and with sheathed sword, approached. It seemed a long walk, coming toward me, on the walkway. I could hear his steps when he came within a few yards of me. The water lapped about the pilings beneath the walkway. There was the cry of a Vosk gull overhead. I could see the smoke still lifting from the citadel, then drifting out, toward the river.
"Do not come closer," I told him.
"The day belongs to Cos," he said.
"Yes," I said.
"There remains to be accomplished only the slaughter on the piers." I did not respond.
"Thus what you have done here has gone for naught."
I did not respond. What had been done here, however, had been entered into the annals of reality. The meaning of history is its own terrain, its own mountains and summits, here and there, wherever they be found. It is not all prologue to a last act, following which comes nothing.
"It is speculated that you are not of Ar's Station," he said.
I shrugged.
He did not attempt to come closer.
"It is speculated that you are a mercenary," he said. "Cos has us of such. I come on behalf of Aristimines, Commander of Cos in the north. He is pleased with your work, through it has been to his own cost. I have here a purse of gold. Contract your sword to Cos and it is yours." He dropped the leather purse, drawn shut with strings, to the boards of the walk. He then stepped back. "See?" he said. "We do not cut at your neck, as you bend to take it."
"I am not taking fee today," I said.
"You are then, of Ar's Station, or Ar herself?" he asked.
"No," I said.
"With the gold," said he, "comes a command, and women, slaves trained to please men in all ways, domestic and lascivious."
"Aristimines is generous," I said.
"Your answer?" he asked.
"I am not taking fee today," I said.
"But what of the women?" he asked.
"I will take my own," I said.
He approached the gold, bent down and picked it up. He did not even watch me as he did this. I accepted this tribute to my honor He tucked the gold back in his tunic. "You are not a mercenary, then?" he said. "I did not say that," I said.
"Choose for Cos," he said.
"Not today," I said.
"Yet today, I think," said he, glancing out to the piers, "would be a good day to choose for Cos."
"Why did not relief come to Ar's Station?" I asked.
"It was not the will of Lurius of Jad, Ubar of Cos," said he.
"I see," I said. How lofty then, I thought, must be the heights of treachery within the walls of Ar.
"And the will of Lurius has not yet been accomplished in the north," said he. I did not understand this.
"I have brought you the gold of Cos," he said. "When I return, you understand, I must bring her steel."
"The walkway is meaningless," I said to him.
"Not to Aristimines," he said.
"I wish you well," I said.
"And I, too, wish you well," said he. He then turned and walked rapidly back toward the landing. He had not taken more than five steps before a number of Cosians, who had been waiting on the landing, hurried onto the walkway. He was for a moment like a rock in the midst of their stream, and then he turned, facing me. At the same time some small craft set out from the landing. Two of the fellows hurrying toward me were too eager, separating themselves from their fellows. One's shield, he charging, I struck obliquely to the side, and he, in the grip of his own momentum, lost the walkway. I cut at the other below the shield, above the knee, and he slipped to the boards. "Hold, fellow," called the officer, behind the men, he who had come with the gold on the walkway. "Good," he said. "Together now, gently fellows, spears down. Look for your chance. Forward, carefully. There is only one man there. Swordsmen for flanking, behind spearmen. To each side, fellows. Forward."
"Help!" cried the fellow in the water, grasping upward. He was trying to climb the piling, but slipped on it. He could not reach the surface of the remains of the walkway. The piece of broken walkway which had been to the right was now back, a few feet from the torn end of he walkway, floating in the inner harbor. "Stop!" I ordered the approaching Cosians.
They, puzzled, stopped.
The fellow whose leg I had cut was backing away, towards his fellows, limping. Blood flowed down his leg, running among, and over, the thongs of the high, bootlike sandal he wore. His retreat could be traced in the trail of blood on the walkway.
I put down my shield on he walkway, and extended my hand down to the fellow in the water. There were fewer fish about now, I was sure, but I did not think he would be likely to thrash alone for more than a moment or two. I could already see two dark shapes beneath him.
"Do not move," said the officer to his men.
The man in the water, frenzied with terror, his eyes bulging, seized my hand and I drew him to his stomach, to the walkway. He lay there on the drenched boards, trembling. I do not think I could have managed this as little as a quarter of an Ahn earlier. I think it likely he would then have been seized in the jaws of some fish or other, perhaps one of the visitors from the river, drawn by the traces of blood in the water.
I then stepped back, and faced the Cosians, some yards toward the landing. The officer lifted his sword to me, in salute. I returned this salute. The men with him smote with their steel on their shields. I acknowledged their tribute as well.
"On my own authority," called the officer, "and at my own risk, that of my life for yours, should this not be found meet by Aristimines, I again offer you the gold of Cos!"
I sheathed my sword. "I am not taking fee today," I said.
"Lower spears," said the officer to his men. "Swordsmen, flank." I turned, suddenly, then, and ran to the end of the walkway. There I leapt from the walkway out, over the water, to the piece of half-submerged wreckage, cut from the walkway. It sank down a foot or two into the water, but then rose up, again. A moment or so later a dozen or so Cosians crowded the charred end of the walkway. None of them, as I had anticipated, cared to attempt the same leap. I had had a running start. I had known where the wreckage was. I had kept it in mind. I did not think that one of them, given the crowding on the walkway, would attempt the same leap. If he did, and managed to reach the wreckage, I would be waiting there, sword drawn. My ankles were under water. The force of my leap had thrust the piece of wreckage out further, toward the piers. The men on the walkway and I regarded one another. Several lifted their weapons in salute. I lifted my hand, too, to them. It was, I suppose, one of the odd moments that sometimes occur in war, one of those moments in which the rose of gallantry suddenly emerges from the background of danger and blood. A great, long body suddenly emerged from the water and lay half on the wreckage. With my foot I thrust it back into the water. I saw some small craft from the landing approaching, with crossbowmen in them. But then, too, I saw the rowers of these small vessels, rest on their oars. About the piece of wreckage on which I stood, then, were small boats from the piers. On one of them I saw the young fellow with the crossbow. No quarrels were exchanged. I stepped from the wreckage into one of the small boats. We then put about, and I was rowed slowly toward the piers.