by Robert Adams
“So, you can bet your boots that all the arms, save only those you squirreled away and the pitiful remnants in this room, are now on the backs or in the hands of her private army of rebel ruffians, down in the hall villages. Which fact, incidentally, answers any doubts you might have entertained about where Tones’ loyalty lies. He’s Mehleena’s and no mistake!”
Sir Geros’s brow wrinkled. “But … but what if you had not come back and if the Kindred had chosen Myron to be chief?”
“Yes, I posed that question, too. The good priest required a bit more persuasion before he’d give me an answer, but after I’d dislocated one of his shoulders, he became much more talkative. If Myron had been elected and confirmed, Mehleena and her banditti would bide their time. It seems that there is a widespread conspiracy afoot in Karaleenos, Geros. The priest was certain that some very high personages — possibly even Zenos himself — are involved. When this pack had gained enough strength, they were to rise up in every duchy, county, baronetcy, city, town and village, slaughter the Kindred and declare an independent Kingdom of Karaleenos.”
“Madness!” declared Sir Geros, vehemently. “Utter insanity! In a frontier duchy, say, such a scheme might even work out … for a little while. But here, in the very heart of the Confederation, it’s doomed from the start. Kehnooryos Ehlahs abuts the whole northern border of Karaleenos and the Ahrmehnee Stahn the whole western. To the south, lie the Associated Duchies, and to the east is the sea, commanded by the Confederation Fleet. So who, what idiot, could think such a plan would last any longer than it took word to reach Kehnooryos Atheenahs?”
Tim shrugged. “Present company excepted, of course, what Ehleen ever thought with his head rather than his emotions? Well, there’s damn-all here for us. They left only junk. Get back to your house and arm yourself. I’ll be in the thoheeks’ suite with the others.”
“But, Tim, would it not be better for us to make our stand down here in the magazines? We’d have no shortage of either water or food here.”
The young captain growled, “No, by Sun and Wind, I’ll not be driven into a hole in the ground! This is my hall, Geros, and by my steel, I’ll hold it. Father had the central portion built for just such a contingency as this. With the doors to the wings locked and barred, it can be held by a small force against anyone not willing to burn down the whole place … and, grasping as the bitch is, I don’t think Mehleena would see the hall in ashes, even if it meant my death.”
*
The horror-laden screams of a maid brought Majordomo Tonos and a hastily sent servant brought the Lady Mehleena to the bath chamber.
The soft, white, womanish body of the priest hung by to bloody, swollen wrists from the central beam. The shoulders had become disjointed and the flesh about them was hideously discolored. A wide pool of blood was beneath the dangling feet, with more dripping from the toes. The hilt of a boot dagger stood out from the lower belly, just a few inches above the stump of the castrate’s penis. The mouth continued to dribble blood down the chin and onto the chest, and to give vent to a low, continuous whining, gurgling moan. The empty eyesockets had almost ceased to bleed.
When, at last, Mehleena had stopped her screaming, raving tantrum, Tonos approached her. “Mistress? My lady … ? May I kill Father Skahbros? It were the kindest thing anyone now can do for him. He is in great pain and dying … but he could live longer without a mercy-thrust.”
Her fat face twisted with rage. “You softheaded fool! We don’t have time for him now. To hell with him! Send a galloper down to the villages and call out the Crusaders or all will be lost for us here.” With that, she slammed the door to the bath chamber and stamped off up the hallway.
*
When the thin blade was into Neeka’s chest a little past half its length, Master Fahreed sliced from side to side, to damage the woman’s heart fully and so speed her death. Then he wiped the blade on her shift and stepped back. He did not mean to leave until she had ceased to breathe.
*
Neeka had just started her last year of the indenture when Master Lokos’ merry, plump wife, Yris, died of a fever then raging through Esmithpolisport. Hardly was she decently interred than the master himself was borne home dead from a meeting of the Heritage Council, whereat he had suddenly clutched at his chest and collapsed, expiring before he could be carried to a physician.
Koominon had the corpse borne to what had been Lokos’ bedchamber, locked himself in with it and hastily performed in private those last rites that were forbidden in public, while Neeka summoned the servants to wash and dress their master’s body. It seemed to Neeka that fully half the inhabitants of Esmithpolisport attended the public eulogy to Master Lokos Prahseenos; even the thoheeks, Dahnuhld Esmith of Esmith — who hated the salt sea and almost never came to the port which produced so much of his revenue — sat with the other notables and speakers on the podium and said a few, halting words in praise of Lokos, whom he had never met personally. At least three-quarters of the attendees joined the procession that bore the cypresswood casket to the necropolis and saw it placed between those of his two wives in the splendid mausoleum of pale-green Theesispolis limestone, with its entrance flanked by two fluted columns of white, purple-veined marble from the Associated Duchies, far to the south and west.
So far as Judge Gahbros, the executor of Lokos’ sizable estate, or anyone else knew, the late master had no living relative, so inquiries for the closest relatives of his two dead wives were sent far and wide. In the meanwhile, Koominon kept the house as orderly as ever he had for Lokos and Neeka managed the shop with all that that entailed and continued the training of the apprentice’s. At length, two months after Lokos’ demise, Judge Gahbros came calling just after the dinner hour one evening.
Once he was seated and had sipped at the wine, he said, mock-chidingly, “Koominon, I told you to come to me for any funds needed to maintain poor Lokos’ establishments, yet you have not come in two moons’ time.”
Koominon smiled. “There has been no need to do so, Lord Gahbros. Our little Mistress Neeka has done so well at the shop that not only have the profits been sufficient to pay all the household expenses and salaries, but to pay as well the full expenses of the shop and to put by a few thrahkmehee beside.”
Neeka blushed furiously and both the men laughed. The judge reached across and patted her small hand. “Child, do not be embarrassed at honest and well-earned praise. All the business and professional community is full of your praises these days. You are proving a true credit to Master Lokos’ memory. If the man who is journeying here from Linstahkpolis has a grain of sense, he’ll keep you on as his manager and trainer until you’ve put by enough to buy his shop or to set up your own.”
Koominon asked, “Then you’ve located an heir, my lord?”
The jurist nodded. “The only son of Yris’ elder sister. A merchant, he is, one Pawl Froh, now resident in Linstahkpolis.”
Koominon sighed. “A Kindred barbarian?”
“Yes,” agreed Gahbros. “Half, anyway. His sire was a mercenary badly wounded in the Great Rebellion, who settled down with his loot in the Confederation, rather than returning to the Middle Kingdoms. He had three sons by Yris’ sister, the other two went a-warring and are now dead. This man is in his late twenties and is, I understand, a middling successful dealer in hides, horns and tallow, raw wool, horsehair, bristles and suchlike.”
Koominon shook his head slowly. “Hides? Bristles? What could such a man know of the craft of an apothecary?”
“Precisely,” smiled the Judge. “He’ll be needing a good manager to run the business … and who better than Neeka, eh?”
But Koominon was clearly unconvinced. He looked deeply disturbed.
Three weeks later, Pawl Froh appeared, and when Judge Gahbros brought the heir to the establishment that had been Master Lokos’, he looked as grim and worried as Koominon. It was easy to see why this third son of the retired Freefighter had not gone a-warring with his two elder brothers-no army or condo
tta would accept a hunchbacked cripple.
When the judge introduced Froh to Neeka, she tried hard to conceal her immediate dislike of the sharp-faced, shaggy-haired little man, with his scummy-toothed leer and his way of looking at her that made her skin crawl.
Froh’s normal speaking voice was a whining rasp, and he never ceased to rub together his grubby, ink-blotched hands. He seemed a little awed by the tall, dignified jurist and so waited until he had finished glorifying Neeka’s management of what was the most prosperous small shop in all Esmithpolisport.
With a wave at the apprentices, he whined, “What fer do you need four shop boys? I only got the two, and my place’s a whole lot bigger nor thisun.”
Before Neeka could frame an answer, the judge said, “They are not shop boys, Master Froh, they are apprentice apothecaries. Master Lokos turned out at least half the best apothecaries in the Principalities of the Three Karaleenosee, and Mistress Neeka is finishing these boys for him.”
Froh loudly sniffed his dripping nose, then wiped the back of one hand across it. “They be mighty damn well fed for mere apprentices; heh, ol’ Lokos, he musta been gittin’ inta his secon’ chilliood. But I’ll see to the stoppin’ of thet, and damn fast, too.”
The judge frowned. “Master Froh, you should know that this duchy has laws dictating the decent and humane treatment of apprentices and resident journeymen, such as Mistress Neeka, here. I have the honor to be the senior jurist for Esmithpolisport and I see to it that abuses of the apprentice laws are handled most harshly.”
“Oh, your worship, please don’t misunderstand this humble businessman,” whined Froh, bobbing up and down in little, short hows and wringing his dirty hands. “We have such laws on the books in Linstahkpolis, too, and ain’t no man but would say Pawl Froh heeds to the very letter of ’em.”
Neeka felt a cold chill of apprehension. Master Lokos had never fretted that craft masters of other trades laughed at him, he had treated his apprentices like his own sons and daughters, rather than doing for them only that which the law commanded.
While one of the boys raced back to the residence to fetch Koominon into the shop and while the heir nosed about the storerooms and workrooms, the judge drew Neeka aside and spoke in low tones. “Child, this creature is not what any of us expected. He is crude, vulgar, avaricious, a miser and, I doubt me not, more than a little dishonest; in the three hours we have been together, I have not heard him say a single good thing about anyone, living or dead.
“He seems to have the distorted opinion that ‘apprentice’ is but a synonym for ‘slave.’ Such is not the case, of course. As apprentices, you and the boys have all the rights and protections of any other subcitizen of the Confederation. He, Froh, is a subcitizen, himself; he showed me a copy of a letter proclaiming him a citizen of the Baronetcy of Awstburk, whence came his late father. He chortled and crowed that such subterfuge prevented the Thoheeks of Linstahk levying taxes on anything besides his profits.
“He is not a good man, Neeka. I’m telling you now, and I’ll be telling Koominon later, should he offer abuse to anyone in this shop or the house, I am to be immediately notified. He may feel himself secure in this windfall, but he is not. Mistress Yris had other sisters and they, too, had children and I shall remain in charge of poor Lokos’s estate until …”
He broke off, perforce, as Pawl Froh limped back into the main room of the shop, bringing back with him his perpetual sniffle and a reek of unwashed flesh that overpowered even the clean scents of the herbs and spices.
The riding mules were the first to be sold, then the two little asses Master Lokos had used to bear the panniers of herbs and roots from his fields beyond the city and from his frequent expeditions in search of those plants which could not be cultivated and needs must be gathered from streams and forests.
“Master Froh,” she asked, “without an ass, how can I and the apprentices bring back the herbs we need from the woodlands and our fields?”
He looked up from the tally sheets, whining annoyedly, “Their backs look strong enough to bear a few pounds of roots a few miles.”
“But when we harvest the fields next year —” Neeka began, only to be rudely cut off.
“Don’t chew worry none ’bout thet, sweetiepie, ain’t no more fiel’s. I done sold ’em. Got me a dang good figger for ’em, too.”
When he had sold the feed and hay and had discharged the groom for whom there was no longer any use, Froh had the quarters of the apprentices transferred to the draughty stable loft, but all the beds and other furniture was ordered left behind. Then he commenced letting the beds by the week to sailors and wagoners, who often caroused far into the night, robbing the servants on the floor below and adjoining neighbors, alike, of sleep. But Froh seemed not to care, so long as silver and gold coins continued to amass in the iron chest he kept chained to his bedroom wall.
Then, unexpectedly, Judge Gahbros was called to Danyuhlzpolis to sit on a special, three-judge panel convened by Ahrkeethoheeks Hari Danyuhlz III of Danyuhlz to hear an important case. Twenty-four hours after the jurist’s departure, Froh sold the indenture contracts of the two newest apprentices to a Middle Kingdoms merchant bound back to Harzburk.
Again, Neeka confronted her new master. This time, she was coldly furious, frantic for the safety of the little boys she had come to love like younger brothers. “Surely you must know, Master Froh, that the moment that merchant’s wagon crosses from the Principate of Kuhmbuhluhn into the Kingdom of Harzburk, those children will cease being contracted apprentices and become true slaves for the rest of their lives! How? How in God’s name could you do such a thing? It … its inhuman!”
He did not even look up from his tally sheets. “I be master here, missy, don’ you go a-lectrin’ to me, heanh? I made me a fine profit offn them two contrac’s, and there’s two less moufs to be fed to boot What all thet fine, upstanding merchant does oncet he’s out’n this dang Confedrashun’s tween him and his burklord. But us burkers is honest folks. We ain’t all borned liars and rebels like you friggin’ Ehleenee is. Now, gitchore purty ass out’n here and let me be!”
After Tilda, one of the servant girls, was raped in her bed by a drunken sailor who had wandered down from above, all the servants demanded that Master Froh afford them protection from the depredations and petty thefts of his roomers, “answer” was to fire them, en masse. Then he moved more roomers into the vacated chambers of what had been the servants’ quarters. He would have fired Koominon, as well, save that that worthy produced a properly drawn and witnessed contract guaranteeing him employment as majordomo and chef by Master Lokos or his assigns for a period of thirty years, and there still were more than eight years to go.
Thereafter, Neeka seldom saw the remaining two apprentices, as Froh saw to it that the boys stayed busy doing the work of the fired servants. Consequently, Neeka’s workload in shop and workrooms trebled and, shortly, she began to feel and show the strain. She had to exercise more and more self control to keep from snapping at customers. It became harder and harder to force her dead-tired body to do the compounding and distilling the proper, time-and energy-consuming way and not allow herself to succumb to the temptation of dangerous shortcuts and half measures.
Which was probably why she forgot to throw the big iron bolt on her chamber door that one night. She fought her way up from the depths of a sound sleep, trying to recall what noise had awakened her. There was only the merest ghost of a shuffling, scraping sound in her room, though on the two floors above, the usual carousing was still in progress.
Then she became aware of the smell, that sickening stink of a filthy human body. Then Froh sniffled. A cold hand touched her face and, before she could even gasp, clamped down over her mouth. The coverlet was suddenly ripped from off her, then his dirty, misshapen body was pinning her down, his foul breath nauseating her.
Chapter XIV
While his other hand and one bony knee were occupied at the task of trying to force her thighs apart, Neeka raked
the nails of her left hand across his face. At the same moment her right hand grabbed his scrotum, squeezing and twisting at the sac, while kneading the testes agonizingly.
With a whining howl that quickly became a scream, Froh let go her mouth and sent both hands to the crotch she was punishing so savagely. Quickly, she smashed the heel of her left hand into his dripping nose. The cartilage snapped loose from the bone with an audible crack, and his blood spurted down on her face and body. As she fought from under the sobbing, bleeding man, she saw Koominon standing in her doorway, a lamp in his hand.
“Holy saints preserve us,” the undercover cleric gulped. “What wickedness have you done?”
“The pig would have taken me, half-asleep, by force, Koominon,” panted Neeka.
“But … but he is master here, child! All in this place are his to do with as he wishes.”
Neeka felt as if a war club had come crashing down upon her head. “But, Koominon, didn’t Judge Gahbros speak to you about our rights? He said he would.”
Koominon shook his head. “Judge Gahbros is a full week’s journey west of here. He cannot help you, now.”
Neeka thought quickly. “Then, Koominon, you must go at once to the city governor’s palace. Komees Pehtros will see that justice is done.”
Koominon looked down. “Can’t you send one of the apprentices?”
“Damn it, Koominon, of course not!” snapped Neeka. “You know the guards would never pay any attention to a stripling.”
“Then … then one of the barbarians upstairs?”
But Koominon finally dressed and left. Going across to his room, Neeka armed herself with one of the prized knives he kept there since so much had been stolen from the kitchen by Froh’s roomers. Then she dressed and kept watch over Froh’s moaning, groaning, bleeding carcass until the majordomo returned.
Komees Pebtros strode into Neeka’s room with fire in his eyes, two scaleshirted Freefighters behind him, along with another man, another noble, by his dress.
