The women and the warlords coaaod-3

by Hugh Cook

  ***

  Lord Alagrace urgently needed to find Yen Olass, but the oracle was missing.

  He knew she had returned to Gendormargensis, as her shag pony was back in the stables attached to his city residence. Her weapons were back in the stable loft. By law, no woman was entitled to be in possession of weapons, so Yen Olass could not risk keeping bows, arrows or knives in her own quarters.

  According to the stable hands, Yen Olass had returned the day before, shortly after dusk. Where she had gone thereafter, nobody knew. She had not checked in with Lord Alagrace's office, as she usually did, and a servant sent to her quarters in Moon Stallion Strait had returned without finding her. Now Lord Alagrace himself had come to tooth 44, Moon Stallion Strait, to see if he could find any clue which would tell him where the missing oracle was.

  Lord Alagrace had never visited this street before, and had no idea what he might find. When Yen Olass had demanded quarters outside the reach of the Sisterhood, a little more than half a year earlier, Lord Alagrace had told his secretary to arrange it, and when Yen Olass had pronounced herself satisfied, he had not bothered himself about it further.

  Tooth 44 turned out to be a cold, massive building in white marble. In the foyer, three old women were sorting dirty linen into baskets, which would later be picked up and taken to the Central Washhouse. And, on the stairway leading upwards, two soldiers were gaming with dice.

  The soldiers leapt to attention when they saw Lord Alagrace. But it was far too late for that. Their helmets, their ceremonial shields and their spears were cluttered together in a corner; it was impossible for them to pretend they had been attending to their duty. Lord Alagrace took their names, then asked them what their duty was.

  The soldiers told him the names of a dozen dependents of the last emperor, Onosh Gulkan, the Witchlord, who were now living in this building under what was supposed to be house arrest.

  'And what really happens?' said Lord Alagrace.

  'We make sure they're all in the building by evening. Other than that, nobody worries.’

  'I see,' said Lord Alagrace.

  This explained a lot. At least twice since his return from Ashmolea, he had thought he had been seeing ghosts when he had glimpsed people whom he had thought dead or banished long ago. When he had the time, he should really

  have an inventory made of the more important captives held in Gendormargensis.

  'Who else lives here?' said Lord Alagrace.

  The guards were able to tell him a few names. He vaguely recognised some of them. They were hostages and ambassadors from states which had now ceased to exist, indigent old generals who were waiting for the Lord Emperor Khmar to attend to their petitions for pensions, a couple of Khmar's distant relations from the far north – the place was a veritable bureaucratic rubbish bin for dumping problems which were not worth solving.

  Lord Alagrace asked the guards a few more questions, then went upstairs. On the way up, he passed a group of old women who were going down, and one or two of them looked at him strangely. Puzzling over those glances, he realized he remembered them from the years when they had been young and beautiful – famous hetairai, the playthings of the powerful. Unless his memories deceived him, in his youth he himself had lusted after at least one of them – though always from a distance.

  On reaching height 3, Lord Alagrace soon found room 7. Yen Olass, as a slave, was not permitted a door which could be closed against the world; instead, the interior of the room was guarded only by a free-standing screen, which he could walk around if he chose.

  'Yen Olass?’

  No answer.

  Lord Alagrace went in and looked around. There was a bed, a chair, a window. Little else. A brazier, which was cold. A linen basket with a few soiled oddments sitting in the bottom of it. A linen chest for clean clothing. A battered old klon. A wobbly side table with a few oddments on it – some stones, a couple of broken shells, a scrap of cheap amber with some dirt flaws running through it – he couldn't imagine why she kept such rubbish. On the bed, folded sheets, folded blankets and a scruffy quilt, which was leaking feathers.

  Looking under the bed – his knees creaked alarmingly

  as he knelt down – Lord Alagrace discovered an oracle's nordigin. There was also a felt-lined box containing a copy of the Book of the Sisterhood. Lord Alagrace, who had never perused this classic statement of the Sisterhood's doctrine, took it out and had a look at it. But the script was too small for him to read. These days, relays of scribes were kept busy copying out vital documents in a big, bold hand, so he could consult them at his leisure.

  Disappointed, Lord Alagrace returned the Book of the Sisterhood to its box. He knew he could always requisition a copy, then have it read aloud to him, or copied out in a hand big enough for his deteriorating vision to cope with, but he would never do that, because he would have been ashamed to show so much interest in a woman thing.

  When Lord Alagrace left the room he saw, some distance down the corridor, a rheumatic old woman standing in the doorway of her quarters, leaning on a stick and watching him. On the off-chance, he went down the corridor to ask her if she knew where Yen Olass was.

  She invited him into her room, which was small, and crowded with antiquated furniture, tapestries and carpets. She claimed that she did indeed know Yen Olass. She pointed to a large, amber-coloured cat which was asleep on her bed. The cat, she claimed, belonged to Yen Olass. Once the oracle came back from 'the world of her wandering', she would reclaim the cat, which was called Lefrey. No, Yen Olass had not been in the building for the last few days. No, nobody could say where she might be.

  The woman then started to get querulous, complaining about the cold of the building, the irregular linen service, the state of the communal ablutions, the rats she had seen in the latrines. Lord Alagrace excused himself.

  Leaving the building, he passed a blank-faced woman who walked with an odd, jerking shuffle. He shuddered. Someone unfamiliar with the history of Gendormargensis might have mistaken the woman for a cripple or a victim of terminal syphilis, but Lord Alagrace knew exactly what was responsible for that peculiar gait – and that face washed clean of all character and emotion. The woman was an ofika, the first he had seen for years.

  During the reign of Onosh Gulkan, the emperor who had earned himself the title of Witchlord, the running of Gendormargensis had been left very much in the hands of the powerful dralkosh Bao Gahai. Drawing strength from a liaison with the powers of the dead, she could destroy anyone who opposed her, turning them into an ofika, a semi-sentient automaton which would, to the best of its remaining ability, obey without question.

  Bao Gahai, who must be at least sixty by now, was said to be still alive, living in the court of Onosh Gulkan in the city of Molothair on the island of Alozay, one of the Safrak Islands of the inland waters known as the Swelaway Sea.

  Thinking of Bao Gahai, Lord Alagrace realised who the old woman with the amber cat was. Her name was… no, her name still escaped him. But he remembered when he had seen her last. She had been one of Bao Gahai's servants and, once, at great personal danger, and seeking no reward for herself, she had sheltered him from the wrath of the dralkosh.

  Losd Alagrace hesitated, and thought about going back. But the demands of the day were many, and he could not linger any longer.

  ***

  When Lord Alagrace got back to Valslada, his city residence, he found a messenger waiting. The messenger had come from Lord Alagrace's office in Karling Drask.

  'So what have you got to tell me?' said Lord Alagrace.

  'My lord, your secretary has sent me to tell you that an important communication is waiting for you at Karling Drask.’

  Lork Alagrace swore, more from habit than anything else, and set out for Karling Drask. His secretary had received his basic training many years ago in the secret police of the Witchlord Onosh Gulkan, and had never been able to shake his obsession with secrecy.

  Arriving at Karling Drask, Lork Alagrace found the co
mmunication was a letter from the Ondrask of Noth, demanding that he come personally to the Ondrask's yashram to collect Yen Olass. Lord Alagrace recognized the handwriting. The Ondrask was every bit as illiterate as the Lord Emperor Khmar. He had dictated the letter to Yen Olass Ampadara, who had written it out in a large, bold hand, knowing that Lord Alagrace was no longer able to focus well enough at short distances to read small handwriting.

  With Khmar in the south, Lord Alagrace was the supreme authority in and around Gendormargensis. The Ondrask had no right to give him orders. Furthermore, Lord Alagrace was busy. He had all the responsibilities which went with the Lawmaker's office, and, while the Lord Commander of the Imperial City was ostensibly Volaine Persaga Haveros, that was only a matter of form, and Lord Alagrace handled all the administrative decisions which went with that position, too. However, the Ondrask called, and the Ondrask had influence with Khmar – so Lord Alagrace went.

  Now, at least, he knew where to find the oracle Yen Olass Ampadara.

  ***

  At the Ondrask's yashram, Lord Alagrace found Yen Olass sharing a meal with Losh Negis. He could hardly believe his eyes. However, Losh Negis explained that Yen Olass had given him hospitality in the wilderness, which made everything clear; a true Yarglat, like the Ondrask, had to repay such a debt, even if the debt was to a female slave.

  'But when you come back,' said Losh Negis to Lord Alagrace, 'she will be cooking, not eating. I will make her my skona-pana-tay.’

  Yen Olass flinched when the Ondrask made that little joke, and the Ondrask's women – or those of them who were within hearing – muttered amongst themselves. In Eparget, 'skona-pana-tay' meant, literally, 'young silk triangle'; the words were usually translated into other languages as 'silk girl', and formed the courtesy title of a particular type of whore.

  Lord Alagrace got the impression that Yen Olass was glad to leave with him.

  Lord Alagrace and Yen Olass argued all the way to the city of Gendormargensis. Yen Olass, for her part, was still upset because Lord Alagrace had earlier told the Ondrask that she had the power to fix the problem he had with Haveros and the horses.

  Lord Alagrace was furious at the solution Yen Olass had found. She had persuaded the Ondrask to tell his follower Chonjara to watch Haveros until he got the chance to destroy his enemy – perhaps by challenging him to a duel.

  'I do not want any more duels!' said Lord Alagrace.

  'That,' said Yen Olass, 'is not my problem.’

  'Wrong,' said Lord Alagrace. 'I've been looking for you all day so you can help me to stop a duel.’

  'Is that so?' said Yen Olass. 'And who are the fighters?’

  'Lonth Denesk and Tonaganuk.’

  Lonth Denesk was the father of Volaine Persaga Haveros, the apostate Yarglat clansman who had been daring enough to steal horses which the Ondrask had dedicated for sacrifice. Tonaganuk was the father of Chonjara, the Ondrask's follower who had, all unknowingly, bought those horses and butchered them for his banquet.

  'Tell me,' said Yen Olass, 'how did the fathers come to be involved in the quarrel of the sons?’

  'It all started when I tried to solve our little problem

  'Yes,' said Yen Olass. 'I thought it might be something like that.’

  'There are women in Gendormargensis,' said Lord Alagrace, 'who have had their tongues torn out for less than that.’

  'The Sisterhood,' said Yen Olass tartly, 'would not approve of such damage to the Sisterhood's property.’

  She was reminding him that they were not master and slave. They were, if anything, partners in crime. Lord Alagrace sighed. When he had to work with flawed tools like Yen Olass, it made things very difficult. But then, everything was difficult these days.

  During the Blood Purge, in which the Yarglat had run amok in Gendormargensis and elsewhere, they had killed out almost the entire intellectual elite of the Collosnon Empire. The administration of the capital had gone into the hands of one of Khmar's cousins – briefly. Lord Alagrace was still trying to repair the damage.

  'Tell me about the fight,' said Yen Olass. 'Are they going to use axes?’

  'They're not going to fight,' said Lord Alagrace. 'They're going to apologise to each other, then go back home and behave themselves.’

  'After they've hugged and kissed,' said Yen Olass, in one of the moments of whimsy which she usually hid from him.

  'If you can make them hug and kiss, then go ahead,' said Lord Alagrace. 'But first let me tell you the problem

  CHAPTER THREE

  Gendormargensis: capital of Collosnon Empire; military and administrative city situated on Yolantarath River, commanding strategic gap between Sarapine Ranges and Balardade Massif. Extensive fortifications and notable archives; centre of fur trade; famous for annual horse fair and river tournament; pop. (est. Khmar 18) 273,460.

  ***

  In the eighteenth year of his reign, the Lord Emperor Khmar was absent from the city of Gendormargensis. Accompanied by his second son, Meddon, he was at war, forcing the command of the Collosnon Empire south to the shores of the Pale. Nevertheless, even though the Lord Emperor rode elsewhere, the customary intrigues of court life continued.

  Most secret and most scandalous of all those intrigues was the liaison between Volaine Persaga Haveros and the Princess Quenerain. By now, many people knew that Haveros had taken the Ondrask's horses, but few would have thought him rash enough to bed the Princess Quenerain.

  Haveros, a high-caste warrior and the hero of seven campaigns, was Lord Commander of the Imperial City, answering only to the Lawmaker Lord Alagrace during Khmar's absence. Haveros was a big man with a big-built appetite for food, laughter, song and bawdry. He was also a drinking man, with a drinker's broken-red veins in his battle-scarred face: but his alcoholic thirst had yet to destroy his virility.

  The Princess Quenerain, nineteen years old, and virginal more in deed than in thought, had pearl-smooth hands and milk-warm thighs. When she conspired with Haveros, her eyes did all the talking; before their first words kissed, they knew their destiny.

  And so it came to pass.

  While her father was at war in the south of the continent of Tameran, the Princess Quenerain lay with the warrior Haveros, offending against both law and custom.

  The princess had already been ordained as head of the Rite of Purification, which was important for both war and peace, as it served to absolve soldiers from war guilt; the dignity of the Rite demanded an unblemished virgin to oversee its rituals.

  But the Princess Quenerain did not think of this as she grappled with Haveros, her breathing flushed, his flesh defying gravity, lips closing, heat clenching, thighs thrusting, her hands clutching his rhythm home to hers.

  And afterwards, fever relapsing toward sleep, neither of these two drowsy and sated animals thought of anything in particular as they lay there, heat declining, pulse slackening, sweat cooling, vague disconnected images already prefiguring their dreams.

  This act of copulation was rash but not suicidal. The lovers had secured their privacy by choosing to fornicate within the confines of the Princess Quenerain's private quarters in Karling Drask, the War Archives complex; for contraceptive protection, Haveros had consented to wear a hand-tailored condom fashioned from a section of the intestines of a reindeer.

  And so they slept in peace, untroubled by any intimations of disaster; they both knew exactly what they could get away with – or thought they did.

  Elsewhere, snuggled down under her dreamquilt, her body burdened by the encroaching weight of her cat Lefrey, Yen Olass Ampadara was already asleep. And dreaming. No man lay beside her, and no lover figured in her dreams; though she was now officially a virgin, as a child she had been gang-raped by a dozen of Khmar's soldiers, and had subsequently failed to develop romantic yearnings.

  Yen Olass was dreaming of a rabbit. This small, frightened animal lay mewling in the snow. It had ben skinned; thin purple veins obtruded from its rasp-raw flesh.

  Yen Olass dreamt that she cra
dled this hubbly little thing deep within her comfort, snuggled it down into the feather-warm quilting of her weather jacket, and soothed the air with a growing song which made the raw flesh renew its bonds with a pelt of luxuriant fur.

  Floating from dreamsleep toward wakefulness, Yen Olass imagined herself, for a moment, as Earthmother, healer of the hurts and pains of the universe, infinitely tender and unstintingly generous.

  Then she woke, and knew otherwise.

  Dawn.

  The Yolantarath River lay empty-wide outside the battlements of Gendormargensis. Sheer-frozen, as it had been since Winterblade, it lay beneath drifts of snow; the rising sun spiked both ice and snow with that blinding dazzle known, in Yarglat parlance, as 'caltrops'.

  Sentries guarding the walls of the Imperial City stamped their feet, and watched a few early-rising ice fishermen trooping onto the river to reopen holes which the night cold would have sealed.

  Engulfed in a warrior's embrace, the Princess Quenerain slept, dreaming of pumping honey.

  The warrior, Volaine Persaga Haveros, woke, and sniffed first the hair then the flesh of the woman who slept in his arms. Disentangling himself from her embrace, he dressed; he had no intention of washing on a morning as cold as this one. He armed himself, then left.

  The corridors of Karling Drask were utterely silent. Haveros strode along those deserted marble avenues, paying no attention to the mosaics which adorned the walls. He was thinking of all the things he had to do that morning. His father, Lonth Denesk, was due to fight Tonaganuk later that morning. The fight might spark off a clan battle within Gendormargensis. If that happened, Haveros wanted to win the war. Even now, his people would be assembling in the clan drillhall; Haveros would see that they were properly armed and instructed before the duel started.