Once, too, Nelsa spoke to him. After a few words about the fight, she said, suddenly, “I have had husbands in my time,” she said, “both as an honest woman and as an outlaw. Husbands and pretty boys … Some were nothing, some — I thought — were real men. But now I see I never knew what real men were. There are fewer and fewer men-children being born, did you know that? Many poor women never marry. But the Great Ladies, the rich, those in high places, they have all the men they want; the Dame herself has always a hundred — one goes, another comes. Between them they have given her six children, four of them girls…. Why should she have so many, and others none? Many women ask these questions. Narra — she was once a Sword, wasn’t she? And now she’s your woman?”
He met her frank question with a level look. Narra … At first she was merely a woman to him. She was already more than that, how much more he was not sure. He was sure that some kind of an offer was being made him now. The odd thought occurred — what would Sejarra think of an innovation such as polygamy in place of polyandry?
“Well, well,” said Nelsa. “We shall soon be at the Holy Court, where — as you said — ‘questions will be answered’.”
• • •
It was late in the day. From time to time Jory scanned the landscape with his farseer, partly to carry out Rond’s orders, partly to make sure the pursuit hadn’t reached them yet. “Slavers” — did the Dame believe that? The dust made it hard to see anything; he took advantage of a rest stop to climb a low hill for better view. He did not tarry long.
O-Narra looked up in surprise as he took her arm. “Who rides in a white palanquin?” he asked urgently.
“Only the Dame,” she said. “Why?” Then she went pale. Her hand, gesturing at the farseer, trembled slightly. “Did you see that … with this?”
He nodded. The throng buzzed happily along like a swarm of insects, Rond and his men in the midst of them. How fast could they go, if they had to? And what sort of show of resistance could they put up?
“Yes,” he said. “On the road below … And what seems like every sept in the Land behind her.”
Narra didn’t speak for a moment. Then she said, “This is Sejarra’s work….”
• • •
The wall marking the boundary of the Holy Court lay downhill, an ancient and ornate gate coming in and out of their view as they all but tumbled down the spiral roadway. They were approaching it from above; the Dame and her forces, from below. Whether her intention was purely a tactical one — to cut them off — or whether she had a purpose of her own inside the Temple precincts, Jory did not know. He knew only that they had to get there first. Others must have sighted the white palanquin, rushing up the road on the shoulders of its fifty white-clad bearers, surrounded by the Corps of Guards, with Sept Sartissa right behind them; and behind them — O-Narra began to name them, Septs Boulbissa, Marnissa, Tarntissa, Ro’issa, Movissa, and Harn; the two Moieties of Larn; then Verdanth, Saramanth, Toranth … The names vanished into an obscurity of exotic syllables…. But others must have sighted them, too.
A ripple went through the throng, then something like a shudder. It stopped, moved back, moved forward, began to eddy. Jory moved rapidly. “Ho!” he shouted. “Ho, and ho!” Every eye turned to him. “The Dame comes to meet us! We must not tarry! Ho! Ho!” And he ran forward.
It was contagious. Men and women, young and old, they ran after him, O-Narra by his side. Over his shoulder he shouted, “Persephone! To me!” One by one, they caught up to him — tall Levvis, Little Joe riding on his shoulders, young Storm, old Lockharn, Mars, Duston, Rond.
“What do you intend by this, Mr. First?” Rond demanded, panting.
But Rond got no answer, was carried along more by momentum than zeal. The Dame had remembered — or had known — only part of the old maxim which said that a good leader should always be at the head of the troops but a good leader should always be behind the troops as well. It was, after all, a rather difficult maxim to carry out, and pre-eminence was not a habit easily relinquished. Nor was respect and discipline — her troops remained behind her. The palanquin, white upon white, moved swiftly; the scarlet and black masses behind it kept right up with it; but Jory and his undisciplined horde moved even faster.
He could see the erect figure on its seat, could see its mouth open and moving, but no word could be heard above the wordless shouting of the pilgrimage throng. The mob flowed across the path of the troops, and then, as Jory had known it would, had known it must, the mob ceased in one instant to be a mob, and fell on its knees.
Bearers and troops stopped abruptly. The bearers could not pass through the tightly packed genuflecting mass, the troops could not outflank the palanquin. Rond turned to look, stumbled. Jory put one arm around his Captain’s waist, one arm around O-Narra’s.
And so the people of the Persephone passed through the gate and into the precincts of the Holy Court … and sanctuary.
• • •
The meeting with the Dame seemed, after that, an anti-climax.
There was no precedence for such a meeting, the wrinkled little chamberlains assured Jory and Rond. It should have been an audience, but the High Keeper could have no audience in the Holy Court with anyone but the King himself. Still, the High Keeper had insisted, the Great Men had insisted; very well, be it so: a meeting, then. The troops had withdrawn; it was hardly fitting to give the appearance of blockading or besieging the Holy Court. The High Keeper had, as always, dismounted and walked through the gates, followed by an empty palanquin, bearing an empty scabbard. Sword-Hanna rested in the keeping of her chief Lieutenant; Dame Hanna, here at least, in theory at least, was merely the most eminent of King Mukanahan’s subjects. Since no building near the gate was suitable, they met in the open.
The Holy Presence was not present, but Hanna was, very much so. Guild Captains might have learned from her the meaning of command. A small motion of her hand, a small movement of her eyes said plainly, “Speak.” Rond spoke. It was a long, rambling address, in which mingled respects, apologies, the power and potencies of the Guild, mutiny, borax, reward, trade, treaties, alcohol, and regret. Jory wondered how much of it all she understood.
There was a silence. The Dame was a woman of stately and vigorous appearance, with dyed hair, her armor so worked with gold as to allow only a hint of scarlet or black to show through. She gazed through everyone. Then she spoke. “You wish to leave? Very well. Leave. You have safe conduct to the coast.”
Rond blinked. “But … Madame … the borax? The bitter salt of — ”
Her mouth twitched. “ ‘Great Men,’ indeed! Warlocks! What warlockry do you plan with the bitter salt? Or, rather, what lies do you tell me about it? Did you need come here — here — to find it? When every household shrine and shop has it?”
“There was no time, Madame. Your troops attacked, pursued us.”
The fairly obvious truth of this seemed to affect her. But only for a moment. Then she burst out again at him. “Who raised this rabble? You! Who has upset, in two days, the settled ways of centuries? You! The servitor eyes her mistress’ goods, the peasant lusts after his lady’s lands, the men aspire to seize the rule from women, the outlaw thinks to become a law herself. And who has done this? You! As I knew from the start you would. Attacked? Pursued? Of course! Certainly! Would that you had been seized and slain that first day. Great Men! What greatness can there be to men?”
Rond blinked. And Jory said, “The longer we stay, the wider will spread the unrest our coming has brought. Give us what we ask, and we will go.”
She stared at him, grim. “How can I believe it?”
“What other choice have you?”
Her white, strong hands clenched. “Are there any more of you? Have you any ships besides the one you spoke of?”
“To both questions, Madame — no.”
She considered. She seemed to relent, then repent, then to waver. And then the noise, that well-remembered, utterly familiar noise, broke upon their ears like thu
nder. Every eye went up. After the first emotion, Jory’s feeling was, paradoxically, one of admiration for the Dame. When all, including O-Narra, had, after one terrified glance, fallen on their faces — bearers, chamberlains, pilgrims, all — Dame Hanna remained standing and unafraid.
One word she said to him. “Liar.” And then she, with deliberate speed, was striding to the gate.
Almost reluctantly, he tore his eyes from her, returned them to the southwestern sky where, glittering like a somewhat lesser sun, the great ship descended from the heavens.
It was Rond, appropriately, who broke the silence.
“Persephone!” he said.
six
THE PERSEPHONE PASSED SWIFTLY OUT OF SIGHT, HEADING south, and then stood to the scrublands, halfway down to the Silent Sea. Here she paused awhile at her first landing, ostensibly to permit minor repairs to be made on her hull. The duty sections were reduced to a minimum and full liberty was allowed, except for the guards and work-gangs, which were frequently relieved.
At first, the men had poured out eagerly, tasting for the first time in months the air of a live world. They ran around and kicked up their heels as much as they liked, shouted “Get a lung of that!” and threw stones at the few wild awks unwary enough to come in range. Impromptu wrestling-matches and cook-outs were held, much greensleeve consumed — and slept off in the sun — and quite a number of the men, with many knowing looks and semisecretive gestures to their buddies, wandered off to engage in what soon became to their great annoyance a full-scale operation called “prospecting.”
Exercise presently lost its novelty, greensleeve tasted the same ashore as aboard, cooked-out food not even as good. The awks soon fled the scene, and the mineralogists found nothing worth the finding. As the repairs were soon completed, absolute boredom set in rapidly.
The ship next put down on the continent’s southern rim, whence the Silent Sea stretched, oily and endless, far as the eye could reach. The water was too chill for swimming, and the few men who bothered to try to fish caught (when they caught anything at all) nothing but a few bony fingerlings. Small search-parties set out in either direction along the coast. One returned, disconsolate and empty-handed; the other, equally empty-handed, was full of excitement.
The poor fishing hamlet they had reached offered nothing of interest in itself. There hadn’t been anything worth taking or trading in the way of plunder or souvenirs. To be sure, there were women … gaunt, toil-worn, poverty-stricken, unbelievably filthy … awestruck to the point of dumbness. The submissive surrender of their brute and scanty charms had brought little or no satisfaction to those members of the exploring party who had bothered.
But something else had been obtained there, which made up, and more, for all that was lacking, and that was — news!
“North! North! That’s where it is, y’see! That’s where it all is!” the explorers, returning, babbled, casting their eyes all around, beckoning, babbling; and —
“He’s right! I tell y’, he’s right! Listen! Lis-sen!”
The men listened, slipped away to summon others, demanded to be told again and again. The news went over the com system as soon as the news-bearers could manage to get to it. And then the ship went wild.
Gold!
Jewels!
Treasure!
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful women!
Rich and fabulous cities, crammed with wealth and surrounded by fat fields (although no one cared much about the fat fields)! Palaces of unbelievable opulence! A magnificence which beggared that of the legendary Forty Thieves themselves, in their castle counting-houses far off in the Cluster!
And all, all, defended by nothing but women! By nothing but swords! Women with swords! This last detail added, somehow, a fillip and a spice which might have been lacking if the women had been unarmed or the sword-bearers, men….
The policy was ancient, universal perhaps, probably automatic: when strangers come, strong and powerful and importunate, strangers seeking wealth and treasure, what else is there to do if you are poor and weak? What else, indeed, but to spur them on and send them away with tales of how rich others are? Of how desirable and how easily the gold is to be found — elsewhere. El Dorado, the naked men of the Orinoco said to Raleigh, outflung hands toward the distance. Cibola — Cibola and its Seven Cities — the loinclothed dwellers on the plains described to Esteban …
Differences, there were, to be sure. For one thing, none of the Persephone’s crewmen had ever heard of El Dorado or the Seven Cities of Cibola. For another, the stories which they now heard, with wide eyes and open mouths and rapid breaths and eager hands — these stories were all true.
• • •
Old Sword-Menna was close to eighty. Illness and failing sight had confined her to her inner chambers even before the debility of years had taken its toll. Exemption from answering the Dame’s levy was automatic. When notice of the levy came, borne by a hoarse and panting courier, the Heiress was so used to being the de facto chieftain that she did no more than show herself in the open doorway.
“I am going,” she said.
To the Old Sword the figure in the doorway was only a dull red blur; by turning her head to one side she was able to see it more clearly out of the corners of her eyes.
“Go, my hands,” she said. “Return with honor, or do not return.” She would have added something to the ritual words, but when she inclined her head to the other side to see more clearly, the Heiress was already gone. With her, of course, had gone every able-bodied fighting woman of the fief and sept. The Old Sword nodded a consent that had not been waited for, repeated softly, “Go, my hands….” Her attendants rubbed her ever-cold and withered feet. She called for more wood for the fire, a drop of strong drink, a bit of food, and reading-girls to summon up for her from the old scrolls, whose contents she knew by heart, the brave acts and deeds of glory done in times past by the Swords of Menna.
The girl was chanting of the Three Fights before the wall of the last stronghold of the Red Moiety of Larn —
Marna of Menna, my mistress, with main
Force is flying, and falleth full
Upon Larn, uplifting the peerless
Sword which has summoned —
when her aged seneschal burst into the room, distraught, crying, “Madame — Madame!”
“How dare you break in upon me without knocking thrice?”
“Madame, we are attacked! Here! Here!”
The Old Sword did not hesitate. She asked no questions. In an instant she was on her feet. She staggered, but recovered at once, and seized the weapon which had not left her side or her body for sixty years. “Hasten, my chair,” she directed.
“The old ones must man the walls and boil water and oil. Everyone else must take weapons and follow me. And let the swiftest girl carry the alarm. My chair. My chair. Hasten.”
The castle gong began its tongueless clamor….
Rallying around their aged leader in her sedan chair — the sole familiar factor in a situation which had burst upon them as suddenly as an earthquake — the people of Menna, armed for the most part with hastily snatched-up knives and staves, had vague ideas that the old and only recently revived rivalry with Fief-Lanna was the cause of the attack. They shouted lustily, imitating the war-cries of the great Ladies, and pressed around the chair partly to bear a hand and partly to refresh their confidence by physical contact with what to them had always been the source of all strength and power. The great war-rattle of the sept had gone off with its fighting forces, but an old one, pressed into service after long disuse, sounded its summons and its warning.
All was a blur to the Old One’s eyes, nor could she clearly distinguish the voices which suddenly cried out in terror, “Giants! Giants!” or those others which screamed, “Back! Back to the castle!”
She felt her chair jolt to the ground, but did not know that she was now alone. A figure in front of her raised an iron bar, but she did not see it. She swung her head around. Someone w
as at her side — a stranger, an enemy. She swung her sword, felt it cut cleanly, swiftly, through flesh and bone, saw the head roll — and did not live to see it fall.
The crones at the castle had closed the doors and were searching for its bars when it was burst open. Neither water nor oil had boiled yet, and, after the swift and careless looting, the fires upon the walls were kicked into the castle. The castle burned, the stacked crops burned, the houses burned; by nightfall no living thing was seen upon the scorched earth of Fief-Menna.
The Old One lay huddled and broken in her chair upon the field of her last battle. Her Sword had fallen. But it had fallen between her knees from her last instinctive motion, and its point was up.
• • •
The Persephone remained at her landing in the southern part of the Dales of Lan. Here, and hereabouts, no single soul of rank or title remained to lead even a token resistance. The mobilization ordered by Dame Hanna had swept the slate clean, and while all the fighting forces were roaring and rattling their way into and toward City Sartissa in order to seek out and destroy a handful of men who intended them no harm, a real enemy in vast numbers was left free to whet and sate and glut its vicious appetite.
The merchants and craftsmen of City Larnissa, with not even the memory of a tradition of self-defense, sought refuge behind the reed shutters of their shops. To say that the city had been “captured” was perhaps to overstate the situation. It had been entered. It had been pillaged. It had been devastated.
Fiefs Tula and Sarn faced each other on twin hills which encompassed a valley divided by a shallow and winding stream. They were burned, on the same day and at the same time, like heaps of rubble.
The population of the Border Marches did not wait to learn more, but fled into the Hills of Night.
City Saramanth had time to take warning, but not time enough to allow its people to escape through flight. It had had, however, in times past, some experience in dealing with the demands of importunate outlaw bands; and sought now to profit by it. Full of self-esteem at what they thought their wisdom, the householders urged each other to remember the story of the Clever Widower.
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