Seg the Bowman

by Alan Burt Akers

  “And the name Seg will go on through the main line?”

  “Just so.”

  “With us it is different.” Then she stopped and bit her lip. “I mean, well, here the male line is recognized only if the female line is in accord.”

  “That means, exactly?”

  “Well, Seg, to give the example that has exercised the minds of everyone in Croxdrin lately. The king, Crox, lost his wife and entire family in a dreadful accident. It was through his wife that his legal entitlement to the crown was established.”

  “So he had to look around for the next legal heir?”

  “It has been known in the past for fathers to marry their daughters to secure the throne — in name only, I hasten to add. So—”

  “Oh, I see. I heard that this poor Queen Mab whom you served was married to the king and he departed in the same hour to this fateful expedition into the Coup Blag. Then Queen Mab followed — she must have loved him, then, although I was told the marriage was political only.”

  “It was only political! There was no love there, only a dreadful acceptance of fate.”

  “Well, you should know, you were her lady in waiting.”

  “Yes.”

  “Diomb and Bamba have stopped frisking about and are looking expectant. It is time we moved on.”

  Then she surprised him.

  “Time is a terrible thing, Seg the Horkandur! I could almost wish this journey, which now is far more pleasant than when we began, could go on forever.”

  “But you want to get home to Mewsansmot!”

  “I do, I do. And yet...”

  “Come on, you two!” called Bamba. “Diomb is quite impatient in this as in other refined things.”

  “Coming.”

  Their route to skirt the marshes lay northwest, north, northeast and then, just to make sure, they curved down a little and struck along east-northeast.

  “And, my fine young friends,” quoth Seg, lustily, striding along. “At the first decent hostelry we run across, I shall treat you to roast vosk, momolams, squish pie, and a heaping dish of palines. And there will be ale, and wine — believe you me!”

  “We had best, perhaps,” said Milsi, most anxiously, “be very wary regarding ale and wine for Bamba and Diomb.”

  “Naturally. But they’ll down their jugs with the best in no time, you will see.”

  “We have strange stories about the dinkus from the forest. We must take care.”

  “If anyone offers insult to our friends, Milsi—”

  “You, Seg Segutorio the Horkandur, had best stay out of stupid arguments until we—”

  “Assuredly, my lady,” and Seg bowed a deep and most ironical bow.

  “Oh, you!” flared Milsi, the color rising.

  Seg could well understand what Milsi meant when she said she wished this journey could go on forever.

  The forest had now become far less hostile, the Snarly Hills dwaburs to the rear. There were few habitations, as most of the villages and towns were located along the river; but there were villages within the forest. The slavers operated here, and that made life terrible. But for the adventurers marching through the forest, eyes and ears alert, the dangers were by now a part of life, accepted by the two apims in the same spirit as the two dinkus.

  The air breathed less oppressively. There was food aplenty, and water — boiled to drink. The life made men and women hardy and inured to hardship. And yet, surely, to a lady brought up as a handmaiden to serve a queen, this rude out-of-doors adventuring life could not hold aught of pleasure? Yet Milsi throve.

  Seg, wistful, was reminded of ancient days.

  He said, once: “Milsi, do you know the difference between fallimy and vilmy flowers?”

  She laughed in an off-hand way. “Of course.” Then she saw how serious he was beneath the casual attitude. “One is good for poultices, the other to clean disgusting corroded cesspits and cisterns.”

  “Yes. And you could tell them apart?”

  “Well, would I put a cistern-cleaning poultice on your wound—” She saw him. “Seg!”

  “It is all right. I am ashamed. I should not have said anything—”

  “Can you tell me?”

  “Not now.” He walked on ahead, very quickly, and even in the state he was in he knew Milsi would be safe with Diomb and Bamba. He should not have spoken! It was cruel, degrading. It was unholy. Poor Thelda! He had loved Thelda, he had. They had had their quarrels, as who hadn’t, but they had had a splendid life. And now she was gone, married to another man, and here he was, a wandering adventurer desperately trying to relive a part of his life that was dead.

  He was not the same Seg Segutorio who had so happily marched through the Hostile Territories, all those seasons ago, with Thelda, and with his old dom and Delia. No. He was different now. He’d been a great noble, lording it over rich lands, and he’d lost all that because he’d tried to outlaw slavery. He’d told kings and emperors what they could do. He’d commanded armies in battle. And now he had found a woman in his life for whom he could cherish a great and genuine affection, who might turn back the years for him, cause the clepsydra’s water to run back up into the upper vessel...

  Milsi wouldn’t so confidently, meaning the best, have slapped a harsh cistern-cleaning poultice on the wound in his old dom’s chest... Poor Thelda! She was gone. He no longer loved the woman who was Thelda and who was married to Lol Polisto. He recalled the love he had felt for the Thelda of long ago, when they’d marched through the Hostile Territories, when they’d struggled for an empire.

  No. It was so.

  He could find it in his heart to love this Milsi, for all the oddness he sensed about her history. He had not so much found in her a new meaning to life, as a new reason to live a proper life once again.

  As to her feelings for him, they remained obscure, despite that he felt she had been shafted with him by the same bolt of lightning. It was entirely possible when they returned to civilization and her home she would give him a cool “thank you” and then turn away and forget him.

  Well, so be it, by Vox! He knew what he wanted, now. So, if that was how the adventure turned out, he’d use what skill and cunning he had to alter that outcome...

  All that had happened was gone. It was smoke blown with the wind.

  “By Beng Dikkane!” he said, calling on the patron saint of all the ale-drinkers of Paz. “I could do with a wet right now!”

  Following on, Diomb kept up a stream of questions.

  “What is vosk? What are momolams? What is ponsho? What is dopa?”

  Half-laughing, Milsi explained carefully. She was mindful of the responsibilities she had taken on with her acceptance of the two dinkus as companions.

  Seg could not fail to notice the way in which she handled them, easy and yet with a quiet manipulation she must have learned as a lady in waiting to a queen.

  Bamba chattered as much as Diomb.

  “What is a spinning wheel? What are carts?”

  And Diomb: “What is a ship?”

  Seg slowed, ears cocked, listening.

  Milsi showed no hesitation in her reply. She spoke with the same sure conviction anyone would use explaining what a cart was.

  “Oh, a ship is a very large boat, and I have told you that a boat floats on water and carries people and things. Ships travel far over the seas, driven by the winds of heaven, and bring strange and exotic merchandise back home.”

  Walking on, Seg reflected that Milsi knew much and spoke warmly of ships. Here, in the midst of a jungle with a river, a great river, to be sure, as her only source of information? She could have learned this from books. But, from the way she spoke, Seg was convinced she had seen what she so vividly described, had seen the armadas of sail ploughing the shining seas, venturing to the corners of the world, sailing home again, argosies of treasure.

  If his honorable intentions toward her were ever to be realized there was much, a very great deal, he must learn about her history. Then he laughed to himself i
n his old reckless raffish way. By the Veiled Froyvil! What did her history matter to him? He would do what he would do, and play his part manfully, and if Erthyr the Bow smiled on him he would win what his heart desired.

  Chapter six

  Milsi causes more aggravation

  They reached the Kazzchun River in good order and turned north along the bank. The brown water slid past and upon its still amiable flow the keels of commerce passed up and down. There were still plenty of sails to be seen, for Milsi said the head of navigation lay far upriver, and beyond that the paddle driven barks penetrated for many more dwaburs yet.

  They entered the first township with due caution, although Milsi insisted that strangers would receive the need that was their due.

  “A hulking great Bowman warrior, and two dinkus from the forest may attract unwelcome attention,” she said, with that tiny dint between her delectable eyebrows. “But a few cheerful words, and perhaps a small offering to the local godling in his temple, should smooth the way.”

  “I trust so,” said Seg. “Although the local godling’s temple I am most in need of is to be found in the nearest tavern.”

  “I shall begin to believe you are a drunkard, Seg Segutorio!”

  “Not so, my lady. Just that a fellow needs to wash away the dust from his throat from time to time.”

  “We shall see.”

  The place was called Lasindle, small and rundown, with wooden airy houses roofed with the leaves of papishin that were commonly used for this purpose in many parts of Kregen. Neither Seg nor Milsi felt any surprise that places in the world separated by vast distances should grow the same kinds of plants and harbor the same kinds of animals. That was perfectly natural to them. There were plenty of strange and weird plants and animals to be found inhabiting selected portions of the world to make those found universally to pass without comment.

  The local godling was a fish-tailed lady called Kazzchun-faril and her temple lifted above the houses, and its walls were of wood lavishly carved and decorated. The papishin-leaved roof covered a goodly area of cells and secret places. Milsi and the others went into the outer court and the sight of two gold croxes made the priestess’s eyes light up with avarice.

  “May the great and glorious fishiness of Kazzchun-faril light upon you and your hooks never be drawn empty,” intoned a lady in a swathing robe of fish-scales, and tawdry bangles. “Go with the goddess’s blessing.”

  So, with that out of the way, they went across the muddy square to The Hook and Net. Here a few copper coins produced the local brew. Without proper corn or vines, the locals produced their liquor from the bounty of the forest. Seg sipped. He made a face.

  “I judge Diomb and Bamba will never touch a drop of the good stuff if this ruins their palates,” he said.

  Diomb sipped, spluttered and looked affronted.

  Bamba sipped, sipped again, looked at Milsi, smiled, and finished the jug.

  “H’m, young lady. I shall not carry you to bed.”

  The delights of roast ponsho were available, for meat animals were carried downstream from the enormous pastures farther north. Momolams, those small, yellow tubers of the delicious taste, complemented roast ponsho. Also, there were local dishes, mostly of fish cooked in an amazing variety of ways. The bread, baked from flour brought down the river, was gritty and coarse and would wear a person’s teeth out well within two hundred years.

  The two dinkus lapped up everything new with an appetite at once greedy and charming.

  From the caverns of the Coup Blag Seg had brought his pouch-full of gold coins. He used these sparingly. He noticed that Milsi, also, had a pouch of coins, and he surmised that these had come from the same source as his own, or, perhaps, were leftovers of those she would habitually carry as handmaid to the queen.

  When the reckoning was paid, and the word was mentioned, Diomb said, “What is money?”

  “Ah, now,” said Seg, wisely, scratching his nose. “Now there you pose a question that has bedeviled men and women for thousands of seasons. Money! If we did not need it, why, then—”

  “We have none in the forest,” pointed out Bamba.

  “I will tell you this. Money is hard to obtain and easy to lose. With it you can buy — that is, get hold of

  — many things. But if you think only of money, you’re done for.”

  Milsi gave a more reasoned explanation, so that the dinkus, naturally, said: “Then how will we obtain this money if it is necessary to live in the outside world?”

  “Work.”

  “What is work?”

  As Milsi explained Seg looked out of the window. He pointed to the three stakes set up side by side against the larger house with mud cladding to its wooden walls. Each stake was crowned with a human head. Two were men, one was female; two were Fristles, one was an Och.

  “See those heads out there? They are there because their owners instead of working stole goods or money from other honest folk.”

  Milsi said: “Oh, Seg — the penalty here for thievery is to have the hand cut off. I don’t think—”

  Seg looked meaningfully upon the two dinkus.

  “And the hands cut off!”

  Then, sotto voce to Milsi, “I don’t want them up to their usual common-possession habits. If we scare

  ’em enough they won’t get into trouble.”

  “Yes, well. I suppose you are right.”

  Bamba and Diomb were suitably impressed.

  “The outside world is indeed a strange place. Far more strange than ever the elders told us.”

  “There is,” said Seg, helpfully, “a whole lot more.”

  A movement in the mud square took his attention. He pointed again. “Look there! See that fellow with the yellow skin and the blue pigtail? His hair hanging down like a rope, like a twisted vine?”

  They all looked out. The small coffle of slaves, trudging from the large mud-walled house, were in a poor state. The fellow Seg pointed out with the shaven yellow skull and the blue pigtail had tusks reaching up each side of his jaw. His eyes were bloodshot. His body was robustly strong and fit, endowed with muscle.

  “It is uncommon strange to see a Chulik as slave. They are mercenaries, fighting men trained up from birth. They are first-class warriors and they are not cheap to hire. I wonder what he did to get himself in this fix?”

  Chained before the Chulik a little Och slumped along, his six limbs giving him some assistance, for Ochs, although only around four feet tall, use their middle limbs as hands or feet as circumstances dictate. His puffy face and lemon-shaped head looked thoroughly hangdog.

  Following the Chulik a beaked Rapa, hawklike in appearance, his orange and blue feathers bedraggled, stumped along, careful not to drag the bight of chain tight.

  Other diffs and apims trudged along in the miserable slave column, and the Katakis lashed them with thick whips, or buffeted them with the flats of the steel strapped to their tails.

  “If they don’t cut off your hands and head,” said Seg, heavily, “they’ll take you up as slaves. So — do not take anything that is not yours. That is stealing.”

  “We will remember,” said Diomb, most chastened.

  The pygmies aroused considerable interest in the fisherfolk of Lasindle. A group of them in the opposite window corner kept shooting looks toward Diomb and Bamba. They were mostly apims, not all, and Seg began to feel a stuffiness in the atmosphere. He just hoped that he would not have to become embroiled in some stupid affray because these fishermen did not allow dinkus into their tavern. That kind of barbaric custom was known.

  He also did not fail to miss the interest they took in the great longsword strapped to his back. He’d kept the sword because it belonged to the Bogandur. As for Seg himself, his old dom had shown him, often and often, how to wield the thing, and to hold it properly, and how to cut and thrust and cleave a path through the midst of a confused battle, as well as how to meet an opponent in single combat. Seg could handle the longsword; but it was not his chosen wea
pon. If he came to handstrokes he was most comfortable with the drexer scabbarded at his side, or a rapier and left-hand dagger.

  All the same, he firmly believed in shafting his enemies before they got within striking range.

  Uneasily, he said to Milsi: “I believe we should leave here very soon.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m not much enamored of the looks of those fishermen.”

  “But they are ordinary honest fisherfolk—”

  “Oh, aye, indisputably. But they’re like any honest folk in their tavern. They don’t like strangers, particularly strangers they feel may wish them harm.”

  “That’s nonsense! I don’t see—”

  “All the same, my lady, drink up and we will leave.”

  Just as they were about to quit The Hook and Net a rumble of coarse voices from the stoop heralded a couple of Katakis. They stamped their feet. They swished their bladed tails.

  Seg stood aside.

  Milsi sailed on, oblivious of the newcomers, making for the door.

  With the two dinkus at his side, Seg watched, and it was all over in a twinkling.

  Milsi quite expected to walk out of the doorway unimpeded and if anyone happened to be there, her manner made it perfectly plain, then they’d scuttle out of her way.

  The Katakis did not scuttle.

  They pushed in, and where in most races of Kregen people entering a tavern would be laughing and chattering, joyous in the delights to come, Katakis just marched in with their usual dour and grim absence of humor.

  They pushed into Milsi.

  Her surprise was genuine.

  “You boors!” she cried, regaining her balance. “Do you not know to stand aside when a lady passes?”

  They turned their vicious low-browed faces toward her. Their bladed tails flicked above their heads.

  Snaggle teeth showed as — in this situation — the Katakis could take their unhealthy dregs of amusement.

  “Shishi! You speak over-boldly—”

  “Get out of my way, rasts!”

  They did not like that. One put out a hand and seized the Lady Milsi by her arm, and the other wrapped his tail about her waist.