by Robert Brady
Hectaro tried to look at him, and then looked away. “On my life,” he murmured.
No doubt about it, Nina thought.
The world had gone mad.
Chapter Nine
Out of the Dark, into the Open
Yeral Stowe, Duchess of Angador, sat her palfrey and watched her husband as he directed his warriors. It seemed at once so simple and so complicated for him to control so many. Simple, because he gave the orders to his runners, who informed his majors, who informed his captains, who informed his lieutenants, who informed sergeants, who informed men-at-arms, moving a single command across four thousand in seconds.
Complicated to know what command to give, what order, how to tell if the left flank was exposed, or the march had lost a beat.
As a girl she’d seen Wolf Soldiers march on Uman City. She’d heard their heels drum the earth over an hour before they’d arrived. That thrum, that stomp, that terror had haunted her from that day to this.
Her father had told her, “You hear that, daughter? This upstart thinks that putting foot to Earth is no different than putting hand to steel. Well, the King may be a drunkard who’s fallen for these ways, but your father will be the one who finally sits upon the throne.”
A week later they were marching to Thera with their wrists in chains, and her oldest brother, Yor, marching in time with the Wolf Soldiers, them smirking to each other as he walked beside them.
Yor joined the Wolf Soldier guard years later and, as far as she knew, still lived. He’d fostered with the Emperor, competing with her husband for Lupus’ attention, while Yeral served Shela Mordetur as a lady in waiting.
Her own mother had tried her hand as a seamstress, and then run off one day with a Volkhydran merchant without even a good-bye. They’d hung her father for sedition, then buried him at Glennen’s feet, to serve his king for all time. The rest of her family, being reduced to common, would never join him there.
Her father had wrung one final promise from Rancor Mordetur before he stepped up to the gallows: do right by my family in my absence. She’d earned the favor of the Mordetur house, putting aside her blinding hatred for the horned goat who had deposed that great man. She’d learned everything she could about horsecraft from Shela Mordetur and she’d learned to bide her time and hold her bile.
She’d been the one to advise Hectaro to rub down his father’s mare with wintergreen, to get Blizzard to seed her. No one but she had thought of that. She’d come up with it after listening to one of the Emperor’s tedious stories of his greatness—how they’d eluded the Confluni in their own land.
That had been the work of a Bounty Hunter named Genna, now posing among her own ladies in waiting.
“Lupus told a captain once that fortune favors the bold,” Yeral said to the demure looking woman mounted on the palfrey next to her. “Surely Desire blessed you for your temerity, that you should come back to me with an empty hand.”
They spoke in hushed voices—the other lady could be trusted; she’d been promised a wealthy husband for her confidence. The lady whom Genna imitated now had wanted only her own Angadorian mare and 50 Tabaars when the journey ended.
“In fact, I fulfilled your contract, Lady,” Genna informed her. “You wanted Shela Mordetur captured with as many of her children as I could include, then for me to return here, and I did so. You didn’t mention bringing them.”
Yeral felt her lip curl in anger and forced her face back to its ladylike serenity. Bounty Hunters are a tricky breed—in the end, they’d betrayed her father for their own good. This one counted herself among the best, and with her came a certain anonymity. Most people thought her dead.
“Play not your semantics game with me, good lady,” Yeral threatened her. “You were engaged and you knew your duty, or you would not have brought them so far—”
“Just my idea of humor,” Genna interrupted her. “I failed in my mission, I returned to inform you. That is Guild policy. We’ve never had much luck with the Mordeturs.”
Yeral smirked despite herself. True enough.
“No one could have predicted that her eleven-year-old would rally the army to his banner and take her back,” Genna said. “In fact, he took one of my own men himself, a Fighting Bounty Hunter with more kills than I could count. It speaks well for my own son—”
Genna looked down. In her Uman disguise, she looked sadder still. Either she had lost a child, or planned to, Yeral decided.
Few enough female Bounty Hunters, fewer still with families.
“And now?” Yeral pressed her.
She met Genna’s green eyes. “Well, I would as like to steal a horse and ride, except your husband has mastered the jess doonar, and they are simply too hard to steal from you. Seeing as you don’t want him to know about my services, I think I’ll be waiting for the next farm house, and then depart and steal or barter for my ride.”
“Or you could remain,” Yeral offered tentatively. “Tartan would never have approved our mission, however now with this Confluni threat emerging…”
That had the whole camp worried. They’d paid War’s Wages to a scout of the Confluni army massing on the Andurin peninsula. If Lupus was campaigning with most of the armies of Eldador, it was a bad time to find so many here.
Tartan insisted that if 4,000 Wolf Soldiers could face thirty thousand outside of Thera, then why not 4,000 Angadorian Knights? Yeral believed he wanted to throw down the helmet of the Confluni general, the head still in it, at the Emperor’s feet.
“You would like to take advantage of my experience with the Confluni,” Genna finished for her.
Yeral nodded.
“And if, in the course of events, a certain Empress should present herself and her new-found warrior son to combat this menace…” Genna added.
Yeral smiled openly. Her husband caught her eyes and, believing all of her smiles were for him, returned it, and blew her a kiss from the back of his glove.
She’d earn those kisses soon enough. Genna knew her mind, however. With outriders this far flung, Shela would find them soon.
She wasn’t the type of Empress to refuse the field. In that, Yeral had learned a lot from her. Be the woman at her man’s side, be exciting, and watch him make all of your dreams come true.
Shela had told her that. She loved Shela in her way.
But she had her plans.
When she didn’t respond, Genna nodded. She faded from Yeral’s side, only to appear as a red-haired woman in leather, standing in their army’s path, only an hour later.
Well enough.
* * *
“The invincible person, the Light of the West, Ymir Effecate Hagadashi Boohoori,” the squire said, standing aside in his silks to let Xinto pass into the pavilion.
In the Western tradition, the noble remained in place, and announcements were made to those entering his presence or, in this case, hers.
Rare indeed to find a woman in charge of anything in Conflu, but Ymir Boohoori was considered special, the wife of the man who was defeated by Lupus the Conqueror in the Battle of Tamaran Glen.
Xinto’s eyes adjusted to the gloom inside of the pavilion. Superior Scitai eyesight picked out details an Uman or a thin-brained Man would have missed. The dirt on the rug told of large feet and many of them. The leather woven into the walls of the pavilion wasn’t deer or horse, but cow, died red, but clearly of a breed raised in the southern provinces of Conflu, nearer the capitol. The divan where Effecate reclined had been upholstered in satins lined with furs, again in the style of the capitol.
She came from the north, but she had spent more time in the Imperial Palace, at least recently.
Effecate Boohoori covered the divan and then some. Three young men in little more than a twist of cotton around their loins knelt by her feet, their heads down. The single piece of furniture was all but crushed under the weight of a woman whom, Xinto guessed, hadn’t looked down and seen her own feet in years. Rolls of fat peeked out from purple and white silk twists in her sari, he
r long black hair draped down to the floor in a puddle, framing a face with three chins, inset brown eyes and a hook nose, sporting a mole with three hairs.
Singularly, one of the most repulsive women Xinto had ever seen. He forced a smile and bowed until the bright orange feather in his cap brushed the floor.
“Lovely lady,” he said. “The noble presence honors me.”
She nodded, and snorted as she shifted her body on the divan. A plate of fruits lay half-eaten by her head—apples and grapes. Xinto wanted to be rid of her before that vile mixture worked its magic on her intestinal tract.
“We are surprised to see you alive,” Effecate said, finally. Her baritone voice sounded as graceless as a lowing aurochs. “We had received report that you had fallen afoul of the Emperor of Eldador.”
“Is this, then, a rescue mission?” Xinto smiled through his beard, trying to be his most charming. “I am flattered.”
She smiled through her fleshy lips. “Not that I would not have leapt at the chance,” she complimented him, “however, no, Ambassador, we are here for…other purposes.”
Xinto nodded. Confluni pleasantries like these could go on for hours. Normally, he would be content to exchange and banter, however, he knew Effecate Boohoori, and she didn’t usually play to the normal etiquettes.
He had worked for her before. He could even be considered slightly responsible for her rise in power—not because he had inadvertently empowered the thin-brained Man who had killed her husband, but because she had paid him handsomely to spy on her enemies in Conflu, when Lupus the Conqueror came to power and made the rest of Fovea too dangerous for him to travel in.
“How might I be of service to you, then, gracious lady?” Xinto asked her. “What small service might I perform, to reflect upon what I am sure is to be a magnificent undertaking into these foreign lands?”
Effecate Boohoori smiled, her cheeks crinkling, and snapped her fingers twice at the young boys. One immediately picked up a lute and began strumming. Another began to dance, swaying his hips sinuously to the music, while the third reached up and began to rub the woman’s bloated feet.
Xinto suppressed a shudder.
“Do you travel alone?” Effecate asked him casually.
“Not in these dangerous lands, no, great lady,” Xinto said, and winced internally. He was trying to avoid words implying size.
She didn’t react. “I am seeking to expand my fortunes here in Eldador,” she said, far too casually. She’d spent a fortune already by gathering so many. “I don’t suppose you hold sway with any entrepreneurs, who perhaps don’t share in Lupus the Conqueror’s favors?”
Did he know of someone rich who could help her fund this invasion? Well, he did, but he wasn’t ready to spill that yet. If she meant Glynn Escaroth, then she already knew the answer, having been spying on them for days. “The Emperor of Eldador has many enemies,” he said.
“True enough,” she said. She flicked a wrist at the dancing boy, and he slithered out of his cotton loincloth. Xinto felt his eyebrows drop despite himself. Court etiquette didn’t lend itself to nude dancers of either sex. Certainly a noble lady might entertain herself, but not so openly as this. Xinto saw this as indication she was not, in fact, here as a member of the Imperial court. She didn’t see herself returning to Conflu if she freely created this scandal.
What are you missing, Xinto? he demanded of himself.
“I’m informed,” she said, as she actually reached out and stroked the young man dancing in front of her, “the Emperor is massing for an expedition outside of Eldador.”
“I’ve heard rumor of the same,” Xinto admitted.
“And I’m told,” she continued, as the boy danced closer, and the other by her feet began to move up her legs, “he’s had trouble with the security of his house.”
Xinto smiled—that word had traveled fast. Lupus had turned out four Millennia, only to find his daughter in her bassinet and his prisoners escaped. Xinto had heard Confluni soldiers gossiping of this as he waited for his audience.
“Such persons, responsible for such humiliation, should of course fear the Emperor’s wrath,” the Ymir speculated.
“Such persons,” Xinto countered, “would not act so, were they not able to fend for themselves.”
Now the Ymir smiled.
‘But were they to find common congress?” she asked.
Okay, Xinto told himself. You know where I’ve come from; you want that Uman-Chi Enchantress. Well enough, but you know you’ve already got them. Why this show?
What are you telling me, you aurochs?
“Let’s assume they do,” Xinto allowed her.
“Well, then let us assume there is a game going on,” the Ymir said, “and a game within that, being played on the gamers, and surrounding that, even another game, that no one knows about, save for an Uman-Chi King, and I?”
Now Xinto’s mind was racing. That was a lot of information, and if it meant what he thought, then that changed everything he knew about Glynn and her song.
“Well then, it comes to me that everyone better be in the right game,” he said. “Because the ones that aren’t, well…”
She smiled through her fat lips then waved him off. Not unlike a Confluni noble to end an audience once her piece was said.
Completely unlike one to roll onto her back for two young men in front of a departing guest—and that had Xinto wondering a lot about Ymir Effecate Hagadashi Boohoori.
* * *
Shela Mordetur lay naked on her stomach in a small tent with one oil lantern, Nina of the Aschire kneeling down behind her.
As a part of her pretending to be unconscious, she’d had to foul herself. Her daughter had moved her leather harness to one side but not properly cleaned it, nor her privates for a full week. The girl couldn’t be blamed, and of course Shela could hardly have instructed her.
“How bad is it?” she asked her Aschire protégé, already knowing the answer.
Nina sighed. “It isn’t good,” she said, frankly. “You’ve a bad infection, Shela—this must hurt you.”
Shela shook her head, her black hair swishing back and forth against her naked back. “It isn’t bad,” she lied. “It bothers me now when I relieve myself.”
Nina grunted. The tent sides glowed as she invoked her healing power. The first thing an Andaran sorceress learned was to heal, and so the first thing Shela taught Nina was to heal. She felt the pain in the creases of her lower body as the broken skin was repaired.
It went on for several minutes. Shela turned her head as the tears rolled down her cheeks. The pain was nearly excruciating before it subsided.
Nina sighed again. “That’s what I can do, my lady,” she said.
Shela forced herself to ask, “Do you detect internal damage?”
Nina was quiet for a long while. She sighed, and then said, “You’ve three healthy children, each of which will make you proud, my Empress. You’ve more than most people.”
Shela lowered her head and saw where the tears soaked into the canvas floor of the tent. She’d loved her children, but in fact she’d wanted more, especially now that she knew she’d never have them.
“Don’t,” she said, and her voice caught in her throat.
“Don’t tell the Emperor,” she said, finally.
“Oh, of course not,” Nina answered her. She felt the younger woman’s hand on the small of her back, trying to comfort her.
A sorceress would treat many and know many secrets, especially among other women. In her tribe before she’d left it, then again among the Waya Agiladia, she’d had to tell other women their child-bearing years were over, that she’d need to cast the spells that would bring on menopause for another woman’s safety.
None of them had ever been so young as she.
Her own fault, she admitted to herself. She’d had to come find her husband; she’d had to come get herself and her children captured.
She’d almost had to kill them all, and she would have if she’d been
able. Arguably, this was better.
It didn’t feel better.
Nina stayed with her for quite some time, not saying anything, just letting her weep.
* * *
Duke Ancenon Escaroth, newly of the House Escaroth, stood at the bow of his own ship, She Sails Like a Cloud in the Heavens, as she pulled in to the port of a city named ‘Lupor.’
When it had been Kor, it had been an infested city of pirates and smugglers, where anything that could be imagined, no matter how vile, could be bought for a price.
Lupor already had her wharves clean and sparkling in barely three weeks, and Men, Toorians, Uman, even some Volkhydrans and Scitai were scurrying everywhere, making repairs to buildings that hadn’t seen repair in hundreds of years, repaving streets and moving around those ‘dumpsters’ Lupus loved so much.
Surely Ancenon preferred cleanliness to filth; however Lupus, whom he’d seen personally up to his elbows in entrails, could almost be counted a fanatic. In many of his major cities huge, smoking buildings turned seawater into sparkling fresh, and pumped it into peoples’ homes. So did they take wastes back out and into great vats, where of all things those wastes were reclaimed and used for some gas, ‘meh-dane’, which the Empire collected and stored in bottles.
If Lupus the Conqueror wanted to collect that, then he should invade Volkhydro after the harvest season, and he could breath of it to his heart’s content.
He had wondered if this meh-dane was not the key ingredient in his ‘chem-stree,’ and experimented with it. If he lived to be older than Angron Aurelias, he would shudder at those days.
“Well, that is a face,” came the usually chipper greeting from the dock. Ancenon looked down to see the familiar green curls and pale skin of Dilvesh, the Green One.
As he had so many times before, Ancenon Escaroth wondered at whom this person reminded him of, and could not decide.
“I was thinking of your liege lord,” Ancenon complained. With one elegant leap, he flew from the bow of his ship to the dock beside Dilvesh, his magic carrying him gracefully. “You must ply me with wine now, and quell my sour stomach.”
