The Death of Nnanji Read Free

like a fishing rod, but the hook dangling at the thin end would have choked a whale.
    “We found this. This is how she got in, see?” Rising on tiptoe, Vixini reached up to a window aperture about twenty feet above the ground, and caught the sill with the hook. “It’s much stronger than you’d expect,” he said cheerfully, lifting himself one-handed, to show that he was, too.
    Of course most materials were stronger in tension than compression, but that was not the sort of thought that translated easily into the language of the People. Wallie was more impressed by the assassin’s ingenuity and motivation than his son’s muscles. “I admire her courage. When she reached the top floor, she must have had to haul herself up with her arms and walk up the wall between the spikes.”
    “Suppose so.” His stepson sat down uninvited and reached for the cheese basket with one hand and a slice of ham with the other.
    “Where did you find it?”
    “Hanging on the wall of your balcony, o’course.”
    Wallie regarded him with the joy and fond envy that parents bestow on dearly loved offspring. Yet Vixi was Jja’s son, not Shonsu’s. He had been a babe in arms when the late Wallie Smith of Earth became Shonsu, swordsman of the Goddess, so he must be sixteen now. It was a peculiarity of the People that they never counted their ages. They remembered and honored their birthdays, but not the years—and their 343-day year was an inaccurate count anyway, based on religion, not astronomy. The stars ignored it, just as the People did. You were as old as you looked and acted; seniority depended entirely on rank.
    The strangest thing about Vixini was that he had grown up to look so like Shonsu, which was undoubtedly another miracle from the demigod. He was already taller than at least ninety-nine percent of the People, dark-haired and brawny, and yet incredibly nimble for his size. Everyone just assumed that they were father and son, and that Vixini would become a swordsman of the seventh rank in due course. Wallie doubted that, because Vixini was so amiable and easygoing. He tried to model himself on the man he believed to be his father, but that man was Wallie Smith. Shonsu, the original Shonsu, had been a vicious psychopathic killer. Vixini had the necessary agility and certainly the strength, but it was very hard to see him clawing his way to the top of the swordsmen’s craft. He lacked the arrogance and ambition.
    Mouth-full mumble: “Dad… Can I ask a favor?”
    “Of course. That doesn’t mean I’ll grant it.”
    “Not for me.” Vixi swallowed with an effort. “For Addis. He’s terrified his dad’s going to insist he swear to the craft. He’s not cut out to be a swordsman. He’s got three feet.”
    That exaggeration was swordsman slang for a stumblebum. Addis had the normal number of feet. He might not be the superb natural athlete Vixini was, but Wallie had never thought of him as clumsy. It would be in character for Nnanji to insist that his eldest son swear to his father’s craft, for that was the People’s tradition. He might not care much whether the Tryst became a hereditary kingdom, but Thana, Addis’s mother, was the prototype social climber—Lady Macbeth on steroids.
    Until fifteen years ago, the two most prestigious crafts had been the swordsmen and the priesthood, but now, with the Tryst ruling half the World and accepting female recruits, all parents’ cherished dreams of their children becoming swordsmen. Since the Tryst could have its choice of any adolescent it wanted, its standards were high, but no swordsman examiner would reject a son of Nnanji if his father wanted him admitted.
    He must be fourteen now, Wallie decided. “Is he ready?”
    Chewing again, Vixi just grinned and nodded. Children ran around naked. At the first visible signs of puberty they were decently clad and inducted into a craft, and it didn’t matter how old they were in years. Initiation was irrevocable. Once a night-soil