by Robert Adams
“Order,” dear Lokos had told her so many times. “Order and neatness are the elements of success in our craft, and they are the salvation of those sufferers for whom we labor.”
She recalled how the quick, spry old man would take a pinch of crushed, dried herbs between thumb and forefinger of each hand and extend them for inspection by a new apprentice, prospective client or casual visitor. “Observe, two pinches of herbs. They appear identical, eh? If you steep this pinch in a brandy-cup measure of boiling water until the water colors, then strain it, stir in a dollop of honey and drink it down, it will cure your headache. Yet do the same thing with this other pinch … and you’ll be dead in an hour!”
“How?” She put her weight on the pestle and ground viciously. “How did I, carefully and so patiently trained by Lokos to heal the sick and ease the sufferings of the hurt, get myself into this nasty business of killing old men with slow poison and young ones with quick poison?”
Her line of thought was interrupted by a forceful knock upon her door. Since her present task was in no way dishonorable to her mind or harmful to anyone, she said loudly, “Ehrkohmai.” Then she completed her compounding before she turned.
Expecting her visitor to be the Thoheekeesa Mehleena, a servant or, perhaps, Lady Treena in a hurry for her medicine as she was in a hurry for most things, Neeka was taken aback to see the richly robed Zahrtohgahn physician, Master Fahreed, standing just inside the closed door. From his dark fingers dangled a slender golden chain, from which depended a lovely crystal prism. The prism caught the light, threw off shafts of it. Neeka thought it the most beautiful thing she ever had seen … and she could not seem to take her eyes from off it.
She did not see any movement of those night-dark fingers, but suddenly the prism was moving, spinning, spinning, faster, faster, and her eyes could only follow the spinning light And she was so tired, so very tired and sleepy. Her eyelids weighed so heavily, so heavily …
Chapter XII
Ahrkeethoheeks Sir Bili Morguhn of Morguhn strode out of the main entry of Morguhn New Hall; his three-quarter plate clashed and clanked as he descended the broad steps to the stone-paved courtyard. Softly nickering a greeting, the black warhorse, Mahvros IV, paced to greet his brother, Bili. After patting the big horse’s mailed cheek, the old nobleman buckled his cased axe in its place on the off withers, then came back to the near side and mounted.
To flourishing trumpets, Sir Bili led his twoscore Freefighter dragoons down the hill toward the ford and the road to Vawn. At the foot of the hill, two noble officers joined the head of the column and another standard bearer — this one bearing a sky-blue standard on which was embroidered, in white and gold, the White Hawk of Vawn-Sanderz took his place beside him who bore the famous Red Eagle of Morguhn. Behind the Morguhn Freefighters, one hundred Ruby Company lancers joined the column, their long, deep-red pennons fluttering on a stiff breeze, the steel points of the polished ash shafts glittering in the sun.
From atop the gatehouse tower, Djef Morguhn watched the departing column until the dust and the rolling landscape had swallowed them up. Then he turned his attention to the camp at the base of the hill, now a howling chaos as the remainder of the Ruby Company struck tents, loaded wagons, hitched teams and otherwise prepared to set out on the trail Reading to Vawn.
“Dammit!” he growled to himself as he turned and started down the steps to the wall walk. “I miss all the fun. Papa goes off to chop Ehleen rebels and I have to stay here and command the hall garrison. What the hell does he think his castellan is for?”
*
Neeka had never been happier than during the brief — too brief — years of her apprenticeship under Master Lokos. Once arrived at his home/shop and shown the small room wherein lay her trunk, she quickly changed into her own clothing, bundled up the expensive, gaudy outfit in which she had left the bordello and asked leave to return the garments to their rightful owner, but Master Lokos discouraged this, saying that, as Djoy Skriffen was known to be a grudge holder, it were best that Neeka never again place herself anywhere near the evil woman’s grasp. He sent a servant boy, instead.
About a week later, ugly Iktis strolled into the shop. Master Lokos greeted the known pimp and professional ruffian coldly for the benefit of the two other apprentices and the non-Ehleen customers. He invented an errand to take Neeka through the back storerooms and into the living quarters; shortly, he and Iktis joined her.
When Iktis was seated and sipping at honeyed wine, the master inquired, “What of the barbarian dunghill, does she know you are here? You take far too many chances, friend Ahkiles. You’d be of no use to us dead, you know.”
The pocky man smiled toothlessly. “You’re as apprehensive as ever, old man. All my life has been the taking of one risk after another; that’s the life of a warrior … or a conspirator. But your fears are wasted this time. Herself sent me here.”
“Really? Why, pray tell?” snapped Lokos. “Are you to be her scout? Is she planning a second abduction from under my very roof? If so, she’d better have more than four bravos.”
Iktis waved a hand placatingly. “No, no, Lokos, nothing like that. Djoy Skriffen is cold, cunning and a plethora of other adjectives as well, most of them highly uncomplimentary, but she’s too shrewd to butt against stone walls, she recognizes and accepts this defeat.
“No, I was to buy a quarter-leetrah of Blue Water for the bitch’s chronic biliousness and then find a chance to tell Neeka that herself holds no ill will against her. Of course, she has no idea how news of the kidnapping really was disseminated. She’s come to the conclusion that Fahlkop’s accomplices broke under torture.”
“And so that precious pair did,” Lokos shrugged, “but we already knew most of what they said.”
Iktis nodded and went on. “Anyhow, Lady Whale wishes Neeka to know that, whenever she tires of you and this kind of work, she will find a warm welcome at the whorehouse.”
Neeka’s mother, father and siblings had been swept off in one of the fevers which ravaged most cities every hot summer, and she had been reared by relatives who had lavished precious little love or affection on her and, with daughters of their own to provide for, had married her off to the first man willing to accept a minuscule dowry. In the house of Master Lokos, she had her first taste of true, familial affection, for the master and his plump, jolly wife customarily treated apprentices like the sons and daughters they had never had.
Many craft masters used their apprentices for servants and household drudges, but Lokos was a wealthy man, employed a large retinue of servants and saw to it that every minute his apprentices were not eating, sleeping or devoting to duties in shop, workrooms or garden, they were reading his extensive collection of works on pharmacology, human and animal physiology, differing theories respecting the treatment of wounds, injuries and illnesses, horticulture of herbs and a vast array of other interrelated subjects. Some of the better books had been written by Master Lokos himself.
There were four apprentices, all male, when Neeka first arrived. Kohmos, the eldest, was really a journeyman in all but name as he had less than two months until the end of his contract. Djahn, though but a year older than Neeka, was already into the sixth year of his apprenticeship. Zindaros, at fourteen, and Sbaidos, at thirteen, were both still in their first year.
The male apprentices had their quarters in a small attic dormitory, but Neeka’s room was close by the master’s suite. The only other resident on the same level was a man who filled two highly exacting niches in the household-major-domo and head cook — and who called himself Koominon. Neeka had quickly noted that the master treated this mere upper servant as an equal, as he did the outwardly disreputable pimp, Iktis.
It was not until many months later that she came to know the reasons for these and many other discrepancies in the behavior of Lokos, for the master was wisely very closemouthed with any save sworn members of the Heritage Society — ee Klirohnohmeea.
Djordj had advised Neeka not to get inv
olved in Lokos’ known radical political activities, but the girl had no choice. Her master, assuming that since the Society had helped her she would welcome a membership, informed her long after the fact that he had sponsored her for and she had finally been accepted in the Society for the Preservation of Our Ehleen Heritage.
“After all, child, you are a kath-ahrohs — which may not mean much in Kehnooryos Mahkedohnya where most folk are, but means very much here, where increasingly few are not to some extent mongrelized with the so-called Kindred and other strains of barbarian. Of the over eight thousand souls listed as permanent residents of Esmithpolisport, only some fourscore are kath-ahrohs, Neeka. I am not, God help me, nor is my dear wife. Indeed, no one in this house is save only you and Koominon.”
“Is Koominon a member?” asked Neeka.
Lokos had smiled and nodded. “Koominon is one of the founders of our chapter in this thoheeksahtohn, and a life member of the advising Council. The poor man has suffered more, and even more unjustly, than have you under the barbarians, Neeka. He has been cruelly bereft of hereditary lands and position, family and … and more.”
Lokos and Koominon led the way to Neeka’s first meeting of ee Klirohnohmeea through a disreputable district of shanties and hovels to a large building of weathered gray granite. Portions of the walls had evidently been knocked down long ago and had been rebuilt in cheap brick. Entrance was effected through a tiny door set into a pair of larger doors. Within, Lokos lit a small lamp he carried and Neeka saw that the building — whatever the purpose for which it may have been built — was now a warehouse.
The first three columns supporting the high, vaulted, soot-encrusted ceiling were roughly fashioned of brick, but the next two, despite the dim, flaring light of the lamp and layer on layer of dirt, could be seen to be of fine, red-veined marble. And the floor beneath their feet, in those places where shifting of heavy cases had scraped away the filth of ages, was of a delicate gray-green stone.
At her questioning look, Lokos spoke. “When the barbarians conquered this city, over two hundred years ago, this was a palace, the seat of the hereditary lords of the city, lands and port. Lord Graikos Pahpahthohpoolos fought the barbarian hordes street by bloody street after the city walls were breached, and he and his brave men made their last stand here. So fiercely did they fight that the barbarians finally brought up siege engines to knock down the walls. The palace, when at long last conquered, all its defenders massacred, was too damaged for habitation, and it sat vacant, tenanted only by ghosts and vermin, for many years; then, as the usurper Esmiths had improved the harbor and trade increased, rough repairs were effected and this noble edifice was converted to a warehouse.”
After that, Neeka was very glad that Lokos walked before her and Koominon behind, for it seemed that each patch of darkness, each shadow cast by the lamp was a skull-faced warrior in antique armor, skeletal hand gripping rusty sword or rotted spearshaft Under her breath, she breathed half-forgotten prayers to Christ, to His Holy Mother and to every other saint she could remember, temporarily forgetting that identical prayers for deliverance had availed her nothing those endless days and nights in that horrible cell in the fortress walls.
Down a flight of worn, stone steps lay a cellar, also stacked with bales and crates, but then what looked to be but a stretch of blank wall pivoted at the touch of Koominon’s hand and swung shut behind them as silently as it had opened. They went a few paces along a narrow corridor, down another, steeper flight of stairs, these set at a right angle to the corridor, then along a wider passage to a bivalve door of verdigris-covered bronze. Koominon drew a dirk from beneath his cloak and tapped sharply with its steel ball-pommel on the green-crusted door in a distinct pattern of raps and pauses.
“Open your mind, child,” Lokos mindspoke Neeka. “Lower your shield that they may be sure who and how many we are.”
Neeka did so and, shortly, one of the high, broad doors swung back. Lokos led the way into another corridor, this one with a down-sloping floor and a clean tang of the sea about it. The ramp curved gradually to the left and, at the foot of it, was another bivalve bronze door. Both halves of the door swung open before them, flooding the sloping corridor with warmth and light from the torches, lamps and braziers within a large, oval chamber.
Out from a knot of soberly garbed men and a few women strode Komees Petros. Taking both of Neeka’s small, cold hands in his large, warm ones, he bent stiffly from the waist and kissed the right one, but retained his hold when he stepped back, straightening.
“Neeka, until we investigated, none of us were aware that you were of noble birth, that your late father was an ahstoonohmos.” He half turned to the group and added, “We have no such title here, not any longer, but we did in ancient times; ahstoonohmos is a hereditary office and its holder is the deputy to the lord of a city or a district, being roughly the equivalent of our vahrohneeskos, though an ahstoonohemos is salaried and does not actually hold land, as does a vahrohneeskos. This poor child’s entire family died in an epidemic of summer fever. Her care and her dead father’s office were both then assumed by his younger brother, her uncle; he gave her in marriage to a lowborn curdog of a priest, who then sold her to a ship captain and put about the word that she had deserted him.”
The nobleman went on, giving a brief account of Neeka’s nearly two years in Esmithpolisport. He was an accomplished raconteur. Consequently, there were few dry eyes amongst the throng when he was done.
Koominon had disappeared during the monologue. When he reappeared, he was cloaked in the vestments of a priest of the Old Ehleen Rite and all those present repaired to a canvas-enclosed section of the room for the religious service which always opened a full meeting of the membership. Then, while some members were preparing precooked food and others were laying boards on trestles and bringing chairs and stools from the enclosed area, a woman and three men — Komees Pehtros, among them — took Neeka aside and began teaching her the complicated hand grasps and signals, the childish-sounding passwords and the significance of the oaths she soon must swear.
The oaths were sworn before dinner. They were designed to be solemn and awe-inspiring to those who were deeply religious, but the nobility of the north could take religion or leave it alone, generally the latter, and Neeka’s firsthand knowledge of the frankly mercenary philosophies of the Church and churchmen, gained from her brief marriage, had rendered her deeply irreligious. So, though she behaved as she assumed she was expected to behave, she actually found the oath-taking ceremony as childishly silly as the secret signs and words.
At dinner she was seated beside the woman who had earlier shared in her instruction, Lady Rohza Ahnthropoheethees, widow of a former shipping magnate, scioness of a house of the petty nobility and a distant relative of the onetime ruling house of Karaleenos when still it had been an independent kingdom. As big and as powerful looking as Djoy Skriffen — with broad shoulders, slender hips, flat thighs and buttocks, very small breasts and a set of craggy features — Rohza affected masculine garb, right down to jackboots, hanger and dirk. She spoke loudly and often, shouting down the length of the table in her deep contralto, frequently slapping her thigh as she guffawed at her own and at others’ witticisms.
There was something about the middle-aged woman that put Neeka’s little white teeth edge to edge; not even the evil virtually oozing from Djoy Skriffen’s very pores had so afflicted her. It was not that the brawny Rohza was cool or unkind to Neeka; indeed, the very reverse was the case — her attendance was so warm and constant that she seemed to Neeka more like a courting swain than a dinner companion. With almost every word she spoke to the girl, the woman’s big hands were placed lingeringly on shoulder or knee, neck or arm. Such uncomforting familiarity prevented Neeka from truly enjoying her dinner, and, at future dinners, she saw to it that she had other dinner companions.
Though she was, of course, not privy to the meetings or decisions of the Heritage Council, Neeka could see nothing of a practical, political nat
ure that was accomplished by ee Klirohnohmeea. It seemed little more than one of those secret fraternal organizations with which noble Ehleen society abounded in the north, in Kehnooryos Mahkedohnya, save only for the religious aspect which the northerners lacked and which, she shrewdly guessed, was a part of this group’s format only because it was forbidden by law.
True, at almost every meeting of the full membership, certain hotheads loudly prated daydreams of armed uprisings against the hated Confederation, but a dream that sort of talk assuredly was, for very few of the members had had any sort of war training, and if the Heritage had any popular support in Esmithpolisport, Neeka was never able to discern it. A conversation one day with Komees Pehtros confirmed her suspicions.
“Engaging together in an illegal act tends to bind the membership more tightly together, Neeka. But were it entirely up to me, I’d do away with anything pertaining to the Old Faith, for I was a young ensign in the Nineteenth Infantry Regiment during the Great Rebellion and I personally witnessed the perverse extremes to which religious fanaticism can go. Faced with such, I can see why High Lord Milo had no choice but to proscribe the Ehleen Church and all its clergy. Indeed, child, I would have done the same in his place. Crucifixion, burning, even impalement was really too good for many of the black-robed animals.”
“Even Koominon?” asked Neeka.
He shook his head. “Father Ahreestos, who calls himself Koominon, is truly a devout, good and humble man. That he, who never subscribed to the perversities which condemned his faith, was tarred with the same brushstroke is a tragedy. That he insisted on remaining in direst peril here is even more of a tragedy, for he could go far, could contribute much, were he to enship for a place wherein the Faith still is legal — Kehnooryos Mahkedohnya or Greeah Ehlahs. Here, he is living on borrowed time and, soon or late, will suffer a long, agonizing, messy death. And ee Klirohnohmeea will be in a large part responsible, for did he not have a congregation, he might depart for more salubrious climes.”
