by Robert Adams
To Gil, who like all his Kindred had been virtually born in the saddle, it seemed distinctly strange to be riding a horse after so long of riding only his elephant. At fifteen-two, the gelding was sleek and powerful, yet he seemed tiny and very delicate to his rider.
Gil's officer's garb passed him easily and quickly through the gates of Mehseepolis, and the small folded square of vellum with its impressive gold-wax seal saw him duly admitted to the outer courtyard of the ducal palace, where a liveried groom was quick to hold the head of his horse while he dismounted, then lead the beast away. At the entrance to the citadel, a courteous but firm junior officer of the Council Guards relieved Gil of saber, dirk and both daggers, hung the weapons carefully on a wall hook among a host of other edge weapons, then waved him on to a functionary who unfolded and read the pass.
"The Thoheeks Sitheeros' office is adjacent to his suite, Captain. His grace's suite is in the palace proper, but you would likely be wandering half the day before you found it. Wait a few minutes and I'll send a man who knows his way with you."
This much said, the functionary did nothing, said no more, just stood, a slight smile on his lips. Gil had been told in advance by Tomos what to expect, so though it went against his Horseclans grain, he dug a silver thrahkmeh from under his belt and placed it in the soft palm of the outstretched hand, only to see all trace of a smile disappear and become an incipient frown. He dug out another silver coin to place beside the first, and the frown became a bit more nebulous. But it was not until four thrahkmeh-pieces were upon that palm that the trace of a smile returned to the dark, slightly greasy face of the functionary.
The boy who arrived shortly to lead him to Thoheeks Sitheeros' office, though looking to Gil just about old enough to begin warring, had he been a Horseclansman, already bore visible scars that could only have been made by sharp steel and moved as if he had spent much time under arms; moreover, there was an honest, no-nonsense air about him that was far more mature than his body.
Gil made to dig out a couple of silver pieces, but seeing this, the boy shook his head vigorously. "My lord Captain, I am not like unto these larcenous, bureaucratic swine, always rooting for silver. No, it is my great honor to serve my most puissant lord, Thoheeks Grahvos, who provides all my needs and more. Come, I will take you to Thoheeks Sitheeros, captain."
When the lad had knocked, introduced Gil by name and rank to a pair of armed guards, then handed the letter to one of them, he bade Gil a courteous goodbye and went back down the hall at a brisk walk.
Gil rendered the gray-haired thoheeks a military salute in the classic Ehleen fashion. He liked the look of the middle-aged nobleman—firm jaw and chin with a spiky, gray-streaked chinbeard, the scars of a warrior on his face and hairy arms, expressive black eyes and lips whose corners showed the clear traces of frequent smiles; the thoheeks' body was thick and powerful-looking, all big, round muscles, loaded shoulders, hips almost as wide as his shoulders, but with the legs of a horseman, for all.
The thoheeks' garb was very like that of a Horse-' clansman—short boots of tooled leather, tight leather breeches, an embroidered shirt of heavy silk, broad tooled belt with a massive silver buckle. He wore large rings on one thumb and three fingers, and up close the flat gold chain held onto his shoulders by brooches and hanging down onto his broad breast could be seen to be fashioned of little golden elephants, all joined one to the other at trunk and tail.
Although two braziers were glowing with coals, the marble-walled chamber was decidedly chilly, and Gil was glad to accept the steaming spiced wine proffered by a servant.
As the manservant was padding out, the thoheeks ordered, "Hohfos, tell my man Drehkos to bring a hooded velvet robe for me and one for Captain Gil here, too."
Then he waved Gil to a padded chair. "Sit you down, Captain. Our Hohfos will be back shortly with cheeses and other oddments. Not only am I ever glad to meet another admirer of elephants, your visit today gave me a rare chance to get away from the boring details of Council. I tell you, Captain, had I not pledged to stay here until planting time ..." The big man sighed gustily and shook his close-cropped head.
"But tell me, Captain, how do you people stay warm in winter in simple hide tents?"
"We don't, Lord Thoheeks" Gil replied. "We don't live in tents at all, except on hunting trips. Our homes are yurts, made of wood and hides and canvas and many layers of felt. So warm are they that even in the most bitter weather, a mere lamp will often render them so hot that vents must be opened to maintain comfort. Such winter warmth is unknown to you Ehleenoee, Lord Thoheeks . . . but then of course we barbarians have never attained to full many of the wonders of your sophisticated civilization."
The thoheeks stared hard at Oil for a long moment, then his lips began to twitch, then they bent upward into a grin, and when the man knocked, then entered with a tray of foods, followed by another man bearing two long, thick robes, Sitheeros was laughing uproariously, his face red and tears squeezing from out his eyes.
With visible effort, he sobered in the presence of the servants, though the stray chuckle still escaped him now and then, while the smaller trays were laid out on the table, brandy and smaller goblets fetched from a cabinet, the two of them helped into the warm robes and their chairs moved to opposite sides of the table.
To the departing servants, he said, "Tell the guards that if the city should suddenly be attacked, they may disturb me; otherwise, I am not available to anyone for any reason.
"May I call you Gil? 'Captain' is so formal, and I truly like you." At Gil's nod, he went on. "Good, then call me Sitheeros, Gil . . . when we two are alone, of course; one must keep up appearances, otherwise. Yes, rank indeed hath its privileges, but its full weight of firm responsibilities far outweighs its few middling privileges, I've always felt.
"Although you gave me the first good laugh I've had since I came to Mehseepolis by your manner of cool, politely phrased insult, you were completely right, completely justified in saying just what you did say. We Ehleenoee have always boasted and bragged to everyone who would or could be compelled to listen of our civilized and progressive culture. At one time, there was assuredly a reason for such boasting, but most Ehleenoee of the recent past and of today have scant reason to boast of anything, although it pains me to say it, it's true.
"We're most of us a static culture, really less civilized in certain important ways than many of those peoples we slander with the name 'barbarian.' For too long, we have been of the firm mindset that our way must be better because it was the way of our ancestors who conquered these lands hundreds of years ago, and so we have been too proud to try to learn ways that might be new and better and easier and more efficient that the old ones.
"Take this ducal palace, for an example, Gil. This is your classic Ehleenoee palace, and a blind man could see that it was never designed for comfortable, year-round housing in a climate like this one. No one now alive knows whenever and wherever this design originated, but 1 will guarantee that it was not here, not in the onetime Kingdom of the Southern Ehleenoee, but in a clime that was far warmer."
The thoheeks pointed a finger up at the plaster mouldings that decorated the ceiling and held the chains of the brazen lamps.
"Gil, there is no room in the living section of this palace that is lower than three full mehtrahee, and some are far higher, and this is fine and cool and breezy in hot weather, but in winter, there is no earthly way to adequately heat such rooms, especially when those rooms have cold stone walls and floors. Believe me or not, the rooms in the citadel yonder are far more comfortable in cold weather than are any in this palace. And the reason why is simple—they have lower ceilings, hardwood floors mostly, few and narrow windows, they're generally smaller, and many contain hearths built into the walls which will burn logs as well as coal or charcoal—and I am moving into a suite over there immediately it is prepared and furnished to my taste."
"Is that what you did back at Iron Mountain, Sitheeros?" asked Gil. "Did you move
into your citadel of winters?"
The burly man shrugged. "I don't know how they made out there back in the bad old days, just suffered through it, I'd guess, like the folk here do. But we of Iron Mountain have always been somewhat different from your average lowlander Ehleenoee, Gil. We've always been willing to try new things and see if they might work better than our traditional things and ways.
"When, during the Great Disaster of three hundred-odd years ago, our palace first shook down, then burned, my many-times-great-grandsire—for, you see, unlike the case with most of the lowlander Ehleenoee, the title and lands have never left my family since first we wrested Iron Mountain and the other lands from the folk who then held it—sought out certain ancient ruins he had recalled seeing in travels and on hunts, studied the principles of the smokehouses and the barns wherein tobacco is cured, then drew up plans and saw to it that his new palace was built just as he had envisioned it.
"Since then, Gil, the entire central wing of our palace has been heated by fires burned in huge iron kahmee-nohsee in the cellars."
Gil wrinkled his forehead and asked, "Your pardon, Sitheeros, but that is one Ehleen word I've never heard before. What is a kahmeenos?"
The thoheeks smiled good-naturedly. "Of course you haven't heard the word; I don't know of any other Ehleenoee who use anything like it. Look you: imagine if you will a mighty iron caldron, far higher than a man big enough around to fit six or eight standing men into; imagine a thick iron grill fitted into it as a platform on which to burn fuel—mostly earth-coals, of which our mines produce a plentitude—with an iron door just above it to feed in fresh fuel, then imagine an iron sheet some foot or so beneath to catch the ashes and cinders and another iron door at that level to allow them to be pulled or shoveled out. That is a kahmeenos, Gil."
Gil shook his head. "But I still don't understand how this device can heat an entire palace."
"That was the true genius of my ancestor, coupled of course with his willingness to try new things, think ideas no Ehleenoee had been willing to think before him," replied the thoheeks. "Look you, Gil, when a fire is burning, the smoke usually rises. Do you know why?"
Gil looked puzzled. "Hmmm, I never really thought on it, it was just something that happened because it had always happened. Why?"
The thoheeks grinned maliciously. "Keep up that line of thinking, Gil, apply it to everything, and before long you will be the true equal of any sophisticated, civilized Ehleen. Heat always rises, Gil, and smoke rises because of the heat it contains. My ancestor had hollow spaces built beneath the floors and inside the interior walls of the new palace he built. Inside those spaces he had installed wide tubes of thin copper and iron and brick clays all leading up from one or the other of the kahmeenohsee. The heat rises up from them into the tubings, you see, and the heat radiates upward and outward from them to heat the rooms and chambers, even the corridors. In the worst of the cold times, the stables of both horses and elephants are heated by more recently built kahmeenohsee, as too are the barracks of the Iron Mountain Guards."
The thoheeks took a sip of his brandy, then said, "How I do carry on, Gil. But surely you did not seek a meeting with me to talk on such matters as these. What did you want of me?"
"Sitheeros," began Gil, "the elephant you gave to the army, the cow who now calls herself Newgrass, has imparted to us all that she can remember being taught of elephant behavior in battle, but ..."
Looking and sounding excited, the thoheeks leaned forward. "So, it's really true, then? You can actually mesh your mind with those of beasts? I had thought the tale but another of these things told by craftsmen to shroud certain of the tricks of their trades.
"Then please tell me why that cow refused to accommodate herself to a new feelahks when her original one died of fever. Why she stamped the new feelahks into blood pudding."
"Yes, I asked her that, Sitheeros, and she told me. It was because the man who died did not die of fever, he was murdered by his wife and his brother, who was her lover. He was also the replacement feelahks, and New-grass' killing of him was understandable revenge. Her only regret now is that she was never able to get at that murderous widow.
"Newgrass has a feelahks now who is, like me, a mindspeaking Horseclansman, and she has never given him the slightest trouble.
"But back to my reason for asking you to see me today. Are our three elephants to be an effective addition to our army, they will have to be as completely trained as possible, and as matters now stand, I have no way to do that. You have done a great deal, given a great deal, already, but let me ask you to do a bit more, Sitheeros. Please loan us the skills of your elephant master from Iron Mountain. Newgrass has no memory of his name—elephants' minds, like those of horses, just don't work along those lines—but she says that he has fairer skin than most folk up there."
The thoheeks shook his head in wonderment. "Now I truly believe, Gil, there is no way I now could disbelieve your talents. True, someone of my retinue just might have given you a description of Master Laskos, who trains the Iron Mountain elephants. But there is no one down here at Mehseepolis with me who could possibly know of the foul murder of Vat feelahks, months agone. It was quite by accident that the business came to light, and that very soon before I left Iron Mountain.
"The widow had been given a menial job at the palace, you see, after her husband's demise, that she and the children might eat and be sheltered and clothed. She took a fall down the full length of a steep staircase and ended it, injured unto death, almost at my very feet.
To me she admitted her guilt in the death of her husband and swore that it was his ghost had pushed her from off the top step above. She lived only moments after that fall, and I alone heard that confession, you see. One of her children is quite bright and promising, so ere this I have told no one of the fact that his late mother was a confessed murderess.
"So, all right, I'll send for Master Laskos. He can be easily spared at Iron Mountain just now, though he must return in the spring, with me. He was captain of elephants for the late King Hyamos, was in large part responsible for the famous defeat of Zastros' first rebellion at the Battle of Ahrbahkootchee; King Fahrkos, who succeeded King Hyamos, declared Master Laskos outlaw and put a price on his head, and he fled to the northern mountains and, eventually, came to work for me. Fahrkos lacked either the will or the force of loyal, dependable troops to go to Iron Mountain and take him from me, and Zastros had no interest in him. Mayhap you can teach him how to mesh his mind with those of elephants, eh? That's a knack I'd like to know myself, for that matter, Gil. Not only would it be a useful talent to have, just think of what the having of it would mean for a ruler such as me: people will often say things in front of what they call 'dumb beasts' that they never would mention around other people, so I could have an internal intelligence-gathering apparatus that would put those of my peers to shame . . . and all for the price of elephant feed, which I'd have had to provide anyway."
However, long before the elephant expert could arrive from Iron Mountain, a trumpet of war was sounded. Summoned to the command center with the other captains, Gil and the rest were briefed by Sub-strahteegos Tomos Gonsalos and certain members of his staff.
"The Ahndros family was almost wiped out in the last two decades, gentlemen; only two of that blood remain extant now. One is a grandniece of the last thoheeks, the other is a son of his half brother. This man, one Hahkmukos, was recently confirmed Thoheeks of the Duchy of Ahndros by the Council, yet when he journeyed down there to take his place, they threw him out of the palace and city and chased him and his party clear out of the duchy; a number of his retainers were slain, and Hahkmukos himself was sliced up a bit here and there."
"Hmmph," growled Captain Ahzprinos, commander of a regiment of light pikemen. "I know that Hahkmukos of old. Too bad the bastards didn't slice him a bit deeper . . . say, just under his pocky chin."
Captain Bizahros, who commanded the other regiment of light pikes, nodded. "Yes, the Ahndros wine was alw
ays the best, but Hahkmukos is—to be most charitable—the stinking dregs of it, and I can't say that I fault the folk of Ahndropolis; I wouldn't want him for my overlord, either." He turned to the tall, spare, saturnine man seated nearby and asked, "You had some trouble with the bugger, as I recall, didn't you, Portos?"
Captain Thoheeks Portos' dark face turned even darker, his strong, hard hands clenched at the memory, and he nodded. "Yes, that I did, and I voted against his confirmation, too. But such are matters within that duchy that my civil peers felt the pig to be the lesser of two bad lots, and he was more than willing to trade oaths to the Council and the Confederation for the titles and lands . . . though just how much sworn oaths mean to a creature like him is a matter that only time will tell."
"If you three gentlemen are quite finished your gossiping and name-calling and death-wishing of 77zo/iee/cs-designate Hahkmukos," said Tomos sarcastically, "I will say this: Your likes, dislikes and opinions do not, in this case, own the value of a bucket of horse piss. A brand-new government simply cannot afford to allow an instance of this sort to pass, nor do they want Hahkmukos to do it the old way—raise a private warband and try to take the duchy and city by raw, brute force—that is precisely the sort of personal warmaking that must quickly pass out of fashion is the rule of the Council to prevail.
"Therefore, Thoheeks Grahvos, speaking for the Council, has ordered this day that a powerful force be sent back into his new duchy with Thoheeks Hahkmukos, nor is the force to return to Mehseepolis until the new thoheeks sits installed in his new buildings and has gathered a modest number of armed retainers to insure his safety.
"Any of you who feel that you could not do a soldier's job, could not follow orders and give support to this man who owns the support of Council, may say so to me, either now or in private, later, and I'll brevet one of his subordinates to command his unit until it is once more back here. But, for now, please leave off the insulting comments and hear us out, for I have promised that the force will be on the march before the end of the week."
