by Robert Adams
"They what?" burst out Thoheeks Pahlios, horror and incredulity reflected on his face and in his brown eyes.
"Just so, my lord," drawled Tomos Gonsalos in his Karaleenos accent, "and then, or so I am told, they both retire to his quarters and make love."
"It's nothing less than monstrous!" Pahlios remonstrated. "How is it that such an animal still commands our army, Grahvos? Though it does sound a bit to me as if this catamite has twisted him about a finger and adversely influenced him, robbed him of most of his wits insofar as running an army is concerned. Has there been any thought of having this boy, Ilios, quietly . . . ahh, eliminated?"
Thoheeks Mahvros, new chairman of Council and for long Grahvos' protégé", sighed. "Of course we've tried, Pahlios, we've hired certain men to kill both of them on occasions, no less than three attempts on the old man, but he's got more guards than you could shake a stick at, not to mention a seemingly charmed life. His food is prepared in his private kitchen by cooks who have been given to know that they will assuredly be praying for death long before it is granted to them if anything that even might be poison sickens or kills him."
"But back to your question about the regular foot and the corps of specialists, my lord Thoheeks Pahlios," said Tomos Gonsalos. "He did his usual number on the artificiers—denying them women, strong tipples, hemp, tobacco, restricting them all to the confines of the camp as if he commanded some slave-army, paying them only half of the contracted monthly stipend— but, oddly enough, they stayed on and merely grumbled until he had both the hands of one of their sergeants mangled and crippled for some trifling offense against his new rules. It was then that the entire unit of artificiers, officers and men alike, packed up and marched out of camp. And my lord must know that without a corps of artificiers, the remnants of our army might as well be sunk four feet deep in the sand for all of the moving any large number of them can do, for only some of the roads and bridges are passable for heavy transport, even yet." Responding to the beginnings of a contrabasso growl, he added, "This last, through no slightest fault of Thoheeks Bahos and his committee, but simply through a dearth of state-slaves, suitable materials on hand where and when needed and difficulty of transporting said materials elsewhere quickly."
"And as regards your earlier question about the finances of our government, Pahlios," put in Thoheeks Grahvos, "we are sounder now than we ever have been before, and sufficient monies were transferred to Pahvlos to meet all of the army's expenses, in full, and regularly. He simply chose to not pay his troops more than half the money they had coming."
"So where's the rest of it, Grahvos, or does anybody know? Where does old Pahvlos say it is?" asked Pahlios. "And does anybody believe his assertions?"
"Never you fear, it is all safe and fully accounted for," he was assured by Thoheeks Mahvros. "For all his other and heinous faults, the Grand Strahteegos is no thief or embezzler of army funds. The army paymaster, who recently retired, tells me that he had a full accounting done before he turned everything over to his successor and every last half-copper could be seen or traced to fully justified usage."
"All well and good, then," said Thoheeks Pahlios, "but still I must pose the question: What are we going to do about Pahvlos? When and how and how soon are we going to put him out to pasture or put him down?—which last is more along the lines of what he deserves for all the harm he has done us and so many others."
No one had an answer to his questions, however, not then and not there, but less than two weeks later, the Grand Strahteegos Thoheeks Pahvlos the Warlike lay dead upon the floor of the Council Chamber, the hilt of a slender dagger standing up from his back, he having been killed by Thoheeks Portos, but only after he had run up to the weapons racks, grabbed out his sword and a dirk, threatened to sword Thoheeks Grahvos and others, dirked Thoheeks Mahvros in the shoulder and called on his adherents to come and join him in what would have amounted to civil war. And such a war would have almost certainly rent the new-made nation apart, destroyed all that so many had labored so long and hard to erect.
Two hours after the necessary murder, newly appointed Sub-strahteegos Thoheeks Portos rode into the enclave of the army headquarters at the head of his sometime brigade of cavalry, fully armed for war. Leaving his officers and troopers to round up all of the late Grand Strahteegos' people and explain to them the new, hard facts of what was now to be, Portos dismounted and stalked through the main building, back to the private quarters of his late victim in search of his next chosen victim.
The brace of personal guardsmen in the corridor outside the door had been chosen more for their good looks and youth and grace than for any attainments of combativeness or fighting skills, so they were but a momentary hindrance to the tall, thick-muscled veteran warrior. He left one of them stark dead and the other crawling slowly up the empty corridor, sobbing weakly, in great agony and leaving a broad smear of gore behind him. Portos doubted the guardsman would make it far. He stooped, wiped his blade clean on the fancy cape of the dead one, sheathed it, then pushed open the door to the suite and entered.
Ilios was sitting on the edge of a bed, dark eyes still heavy-lidded, when Portos stalked in. "Wha . . . what are you doing here, and unannounced, Captain Portos? Those damned slothful guards will be well striped for this."
Portos grinned coldly. "No they won't, boy. One of them lies dead out there and the other will be dead soon enough. If it's protection you want, you should put scarred, ugly warriors on guard, not pretty popinjays."
Ilios paled, put one hand to a cheek, his eyes wide. "You mean you killed them, both of them? Pahvlos will likely see you hang for such ..."
Coldly, contemptuously, Portos stepped closer to the bedside and slapped the boy on the other cheek. "Pahvlos will never again do anything for or to another living soul. He's dead too. I drove a dagger into him less than three hours agone. The new Strahteegos is Thoheeks Tomos Gonsalos, and he's a lost cause for such as you, boy; he and his wife live together in this camp and are, I am informed, most congenial and contented, one to the other."
Seating himself unbidden beside the shocked boy, he gripped one of the bare, dimpled knees with a big, hard hand and said, "On the other hand, boy, there is me. I am now sub-strahteegos, and I always have been most susceptible to such treasures as you."
Ilios realized that, objectively speaking, he had no other options there and then. Turning his head to look up into the hard, black eyes of Pahvlos' admitted murderer, the boy smiled shyly, then puckered his lips for a kiss, letting the merest trace of a tongue-tip show behind those lips, enticingly. Such had always worked well on Pahvlos, Ilios' first and only lover. . . .
Ilios gasped when he saw Portos' body stripped of his weapons, armor and clothing—extremely hairy, seamed with scars from head to feet, tall, of a darker than Ehleen average and muscle-corded—but those features were not what brought the gasp. Nature had endowed the man hugely.
Portos padded over to an opened chest of toiletries, rooting through it, then turning with a flagonette of sweet-scented oil. Rubbing a small measure of the stuff onto both hands, he sat back down on the rumpled satin sheets and drew the boy's slight body nearer.
Ilios gasped when the big, oily hand commenced to work in his crotch. Later, lying in the glowing aftermath of his blissful fulfillment, it took him a good minute to realize that the man, his new protector and lover, was speaking to him.
"What did my love say?" he purred.
"Your body is incredibly small and narrow, I said," declared Portos, adding, "But then, as I recall, Pahvlos never was able to effect penetration of me."
To the boy's look of astonished surprise, the man nodded. "Oh, yes. Did you think to be the first? I, too, was one of Pahvlos' boys, when I was but a new ensign of barely fourteen years of age and he was a fortyish brigade commander, a sub-strahteegos already. But I seriously doubt that he remembered me in more recent years, for he had so many like me, keeping precious few around for any great length of time.
Ilios quickly assumed a sitting posture, shaking his head with vehemence and saying firmly, "No. Oh, no. I can't . . . won't let you do that, not yet, no. You're so ... so huge, love. You . . . you'll hurt me terribly, probably injure me. No, I ..."
And that was as far as he got before Portos' big, hard, oily palm smashed against the side of his small head, stunning him for a moment. However, he recovered enough to try to resist when he felt those horny hands begin to start rearranging his body and legs. He discovered to his immediate sorrow that such resistance was not only in vain, it was a serious mistake.
Portos' fist struck his hairless chest like the kick of a warhorse, forcing all the air from Ilios' lungs, and before he could once more breathe normally, if painfully, the brutal man had shredded a sheet, tied him to the bedstead by wrists and ankles and was returning to the bedside with a waist-belt in one hand and a look of grim anticipation on his face.
"I understand that you enjoy watching men flogged, Ilios. I've heard that it excites you. If so, your own flogging should arouse you even more. And even if it doesn't, it will be a salutary lesson to you that you must never deny me my desires . . . ever."
"No ... oh, please, please, no. Don't do it to me, oh, don't!" Ilios whimpered, straining at his bonds, tears of terror streaking his pretty face. "I ... I can't . . . cannot abide pain, don't you see? It ... it ... I ... my heart will . . . NONONO!"
Ilios had never gained any real friends among Pahvlos' officers, guardsmen and servants, having always been sullen, aloof, demanding and often downright bitchy, tolerated and catered to only through the underlings' fear of Pahvlos. As the loud whacks of hard-swung leather impacting upon flesh and the shrieks of pain and shrill pleas for surcease, for mercy, penetrated easily out beyond dead Pahvlos' private suite, all of the assembled officers and lesser men exchanged grins and nods. The spoiled, overindulged little piece of pig dung was finally getting part of what was, in his case, long overdue.
Portos was no novice at delivering beatings of all sorts, and he tried not to draw blood from the tender, pampered flesh, but he did not stop, to stand, panting, until the entire expanse from Ilios' neck to his knees was but a single, raised welt and shrieks and pleas and shouts were become moaning sobs.
He left his victim long enough to track down a ewer of wine, splash out a cupful and drink it off before going back to the bed, loosing the ankles momentarily, then retying them to the ornate posts at the foot of the overwide bed, thus splaying the slender legs widely.
Portos took his time, knowing his victim to be completely helpless, enjoying himself to the fullest and beginning to half wonder if, after all, he might not be well advised to keep the boy about until he had had the pleasure of completely breaking him ... or he found a wife with a fat dowry, whichever came first. But, as he spent finally within the boy's quivering, agonized body, he came back to his senses. It was most imperative to Council that this Ilios be "persuaded" to immediately quit the environs of Mehseepolis, for Pahvlos, in his bemused dotage, had named his lover his heir, and such as Ilios was not at all what the Council envisioned as a fitting thoheeks and member of the ruling nobility.
After scrubbing himself well with the sponge and toweling dry, he went to his pile of clothes and gear and began to dress while whistling the tune of a merry harvest-dance popular when he had been a boy, more than forty years now past, virtually unmindful of the steady, low moan and occasional gasps, sobs and whimpers from the brutalized boy still secured to the bed with strips of satin sheet, his small hands and feet beginning to discolor from the biting tightness of the makeshift bonds.
Ilios lay in certainty that he had been injured, possibly fatally injured, in the course of the rape, and he wondered if his wounded body could stay alive for long enough to reach an outpost of his people, far to the south, in time. Moreover, he was almost as certain that he had one or more cracked ribs, thinking that the sharp stabs that breathing spawned in his chest could come from no other source.
But terror took over his thoughts again when he saw the redressed, armored man approaching the bed with a slender, sharp-glittering dagger in his hand. The very dagger with which old Pahvlos had been slain . . . ?
"No, please," the boy croaked weakly, his tear-filled eyes unable seemingly to leave those six inches of bluish steel blade. "Haven't you hurt me enough?"
Portos smiled icily. "Oh, no, little Ilios. Today was only our beginning, yours and mine."
Extending the dagger, he sliced through the strips of satin that held Ilios' wrists to the headboard, did the same for the ankles, then said, conversationally, "When once you've washed and dressed, pack up your things and come to my quarters. You'll not be welcome at any other place in the camp, city or thoheekseeahn, you know. Tonight, I'll fit you with a nice, thick peg and start stretching you to my size and tastes, eh?"
Then he turned on his heel and left the suite, stepping over the two dead guardsmen as he strolled up the corridor, his weapons and armor clanking, clashing and ringing.
Chapter IX
"You must understand, Tomos," said Thoheeks Grahvos bluntly, "that I consider myself to be only a figurehead strahteegos, holding a rank-of-honor, as it were; you and only you will command, save for those functions you choose to delegate to your sub-strahteegohee. I accepted in Council only because I thought it just then impolitic to further upset those few who might've been leery of a foreigner taking over command of our army. As you surely know, things might've been much stickier than they really were in the wake of old Pahvlos' . . . ahh, demise.
"Have you made any decision as to who will take over the training command?"
Tomos nodded once. "Sub-strahteegohee Portos and Guhsz Hehluh will share that function, for once we get the army built up again it will be just too much for one man to handle alone—believe me, my lord, I know of hard experience. Hehluh will also, however, command all of the unmounted troops, and Portos all of the mounted."
"How of Hehluh's Keebai mercenaries—will he be expected to wear three hats, then?" asked Grahvos dubiously.
"Oh, no," replied Tomos, with a chuckle. "He was the first to point out that did I want anything done right, I had best not give him too many jobs to do at once. No, one of his senior lieutenants, a man named Steev Stuhbz, will be taking over field command of the mercenary foot, although for contract purposes, it will still be Hehluh's unit, of course."
"And the heavy horse that Portos has led for so long?" demanded Grahvos.
Tomos shook his head. "Now that presented me something of a problem, my lord. The man I wanted to captain the heavy horse, Captain Bralos, refused the posting, preferring to stay with his own light horse. He recommended Captain Ehrrikos, however. I talked with Ehrrikos, but he declined, saying that he'd take it only if I couldn't get another qualified officer to command it, strongly urging me to approach Captain Bralos. And I did, not quite knowing just what else to do under the circumstances, reapproach Captain Bralos, but he was most adamant in his refusal. However, he did point out a something to me that I had forgotten: Captain Ehrrikos has held his squadron command longer than any other officer still with the army. When I flatly ordered him to assume command of the heavy horse squadron, giving him no other option but to leave the army, he obeyed. Yes, it was a risky gamble, for we can ill afford to lose even one more experienced man or officer, at this sad juncture, but Bralos was certain that the gambit would work on Ehrrikos, and he was proven right, it did."
Noting the low level of wine in Thoheeks Grahvos' goblet, Tomos refilled it and his own. "I take it then that my lord will continue to make his residence in the city?" At Grahvos' wordless nod, he went on to say, "Then I must resolve another problem of a sort, my lord. You see, Hehluh is going to take over my old bachelor quarters in the training-command headquarters, Portos is planning to move into the other senior officer house near to mine, I mean to stay just where my wife and I are
now, so that will leave Pahvlos' suite completely untenanted, vacant."
"You can't have it converted to other uses?" asked Grahvos.
"Certainly, my lord, I could, but it would be a damned shame, in my way of thinking, to do it over. In the years that he lived in that suite, Pahvlos invested thousands—maybe tens of thousands—of thrahkmehee in renovations and furnishings. It covers the whole northeast quarter of the main headquarters building, my lord, on the ground level, with a commodious wine cellar under that.
"There's a long, narrow foyer that opens from the central hallway, a large sitting-room with a hearth for heating, a short corridor from there to the master bedroom with an attiring-room on one side of it and a combination closet and personal armory on the other; beyond that bedroom, the corridor runs on to let to several guest bedrooms. On the other side of the foyer are a very spacious bathing-room with a small pool and piping to a roof tank for sun-warmed water in good weather, as well as to the detached kitchen for heated water in cold seasons. The remainder of the space is taken up by servants' cubbies and storage rooms."
Thoheeks Grahvos shrugged, then suddenly brightened. "I know, Tomos, just lock up those rooms and keep them as is for housing very important guests, heh? That suite sounds to be far more comfortable than anything Council can provide visitors of rank in that crowded city, up there. Also, there's the incontrovertible and unvarnished fact that anyone would be far safer from assassins in the middle of this army's camp than lodged up there in that unhealthy warren behind the walls of Mehseepolis."
