The women and the warlords coaaod-3

by Hugh Cook

  '… You're the first man I've met who's been able to touch me like that… I don't know what it is, but I can't resist – this… do you like this? Does it make you happy? I want to make you happy, you're the most beautiful person I've ever met in my life

  Often he would fall asleep with some woman gentling his body; at the end of the day he was sometimes very tired. But sometimes, if the girl was drowsy and fell asleep before he did, Lord Alagrace would lie awake and allow himself to think about his lifelong service to the empire.

  In his youth, fighting in the armies of the Collosnon Empire, he had allowed himself to believe that he pursued power only in order to rise to a position where he could serve the higher purposes of civilization. But in fact, he had existed as a function of his own ambition, which had been gratified time after time; on first leading his own troops to victory, he had felt like a young god, strong, powerful and immortal.

  Now, in his declining years, he sometimes doubted even the existence of the 'higher purposes' which had been the excuse for his drive to power. It was generally agreed that an empire was the highest expression of civilization. Yet, supporting the glory of the greatest empire was the grubby, commonplace suffering: a woman in the sweating darkness of an army brothel closing her eyes as a soldier shoved his penis into her vagina, a sewn-up oracle falling asleep in a cold bed in a solitary room, a legless soldier begging bone-sustenance in the streets of Gendormargensis…

  Yet surely it would all be worth it if Celadric became emperor and brought about a new form of government, more reasonable, more humane… yet what if reasonable, humane government only created reasonable, humane nightmares?… down from the hills come tribes of fratricidal barbarians, battering each other's skulls with jagged rocks, then eating the corpses so produced. Settling in the cities, they become reasonable, humane and civilized, learning to prefer cats instead of dogs. Their wars are fought in accordance with rules designed to make them reasonable, humane…

  Half-remembering half-translated pieces of the Book of the Remnant, that ancient and fragmentary account of the Days of Wrath, Lord Alagrace would sometimes fall asleep to dream of reasonable, humane wars fought with weapons which never killed, but, instead, softened the skull, ate out the eyes, turned the finger joints to jelly…

  Discovering such doubts in his old age, he did not struggle for answers, but instead indulged himself, to a degree, in selt-pity, in a sense of futility. Perhaps all his life had been for nothing… no matter. Defeated, he had nothing more to live for, therefore… these final days were sweet.

  His contemplative calm allowed him to enjoy sunlight and cloud, landscape and skyline, a cup of wine and the heat of a woman's body, and, every day, the rituals of the blades. Working with his sword, perfecting techniques of balance and timing, attack and evasion, feint and follow-through, he sometimes recaptured, just for a moment, the sense of godlike strength which had possessed him at times in his youth.

  And often, at the end of a perfect autumn day, he thought to himself: this day has been enough. It has been enough to have lived just for this day, this one perfect day

  And so, travelling south toward Favanosin, Lord Alagrace reconciled himself to his death, and made himself ready for it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The slave Yerzerdayla was sold down the river by the dralkosh Bao Gahai, who was jealous of her beauty and who needed the money. Since the collapse of the Safrak Bank, the economy of the Safrak Islands was marginal; even as chief confidant of the Witchlord Onosh Gulkan, Bao Gahai could not live in the style to which she had once been very much accustomed.

  Gendormargensis was known to be glutted with women, so the slaver who bought Yerzerdayla, and a string of half a dozen other women besides, took them south. Khmar was in the south. If you had the best in the world, then an emperor's court was the best place to sell it, and the slaver was confident that Yerzerdayla was the best.

  At the river port of Locontareth, he picked up a couple of guards for the journey down the Yangrit Highway. One was a semi-alcoholic drifter from some distant place by the name of Rovac. The other was Yarglat the Yarglat, a morose, solidly-built warrior from the north. Both had their own horses, and hired themselves out on the cheap; the slaver was uncertain of their fighting ability, but wanted them more to scare people off than for anything else.

  Everyone rode. The slaver had no fear of his property escaping on horseback, for where would the women go without male protectors? And what fate could improve on a place in the imperial court?

  When the slaver caught Yarglat the Yarglat casting long glances at the elegant Yerzerdayla, he cautioned the guard about property rights. But when Yerzerdayla herself chose to ride beside Yarglat, the slaver did not intervene.

  Many leagues down the Yangrit Highway, when the tall and slender Yerzerdayla was riding beside Yarglat – it was a fine day, with gleaners following the harvest on either side of the road, and a hawk wheeling overhead – the female slave addressed herself to the warrior:

  'You know, I first met you when you were twelve years old.’

  'You would have been in your cradle then,' said Yarglat the Yarglat.

  'No, I was twenty years of age,' said Yerzerdayla.

  'That would make you close to forty now. You can't be more than twenty-five.’

  'I'm twenty-five exactly. But I've suffered the prisons of Bao Gahai, which lie beyond the realm of time.’

  'What's that like?’

  'It's like it was before you were born. It's like nothing at all. When you come out, the whole world has changed, but you're not even a single day older.’

  'That's hardly a punishment.’

  'You find yourself in the future – which is not the world you were born to. Nevertheless, not everything is strange. You, for instance… you're the woman I saw in the child.’

  Yarglat the Yarglat was silent, watching their shadows ride shadows down the highway in the westering sunlight of an autumn afternoon.

  'I brought you a piece of a cone of sugar… afterwards. Don't you remember, Yen Olass?’

  'There was a woman,' said Yarglat the Yarglat, reluctantly. 'I thought there was something about you, when I first set eyes on you. But I couldn't think what

  'Well,' said Yerzerdayla, 'it's been close to twenty years for you, and scarcely five for me.’

  'Even so…"

  'It was your walk which first gave you away. Did you ever see a Yarglat tribesman who wasn't slightly bow-legged? Right from the first, I wondered what you really were. I watched you closely. You made mistakes, you know. A Yarglat horseman talks to his mount, and sometimes claims to hear it talking back. He might stroke it or kiss it – but no Yarglat ever hugged a horse.’

  Yarglat the Yarglat blushed.

  'Your voice betrayed you, too. Not every man has a low voice, and yours was scarcely soprano. But your voice penetrated. It was that of a trained speaker. That gave me something to work on. I saw you never drank grain spirits – only wine. Now, did you ever meet a Yarglat clansman with a taste for wine?’

  'Perhaps I'm the first.’

  'And perhaps not. Yesterday, when we passed that convoy of high-born Yarglat clansmen going north, you hid your face. I was watching you. I saw. So here's a mystery. Someone who is not of the Yarglat yet may be recognized by them and does not wish to be, someone with a professional voice and a taste for wine…’

  'Not much to go on.’

  'No. But I worried the problem all through the day; the answer came in my dreams. When I woke this morning, I knew. Yen Olass, what are you running from? Where are you going to?’

  But Yen Olass, chagrined at being discovered, was in no mood to trust strangers – particularly not strangers who were tainted by association with the dralkosh Bao Gahai.

  As they rode south, she waited to see how Yerzerdayla would use this weapon against her. In Gendormargensis, she had learnt that nobody ever obtains an advantage without trying to exploit it. Yerzerdayla was virtually powerless, and therefore, in the way o
f those who lack power, must be prepared to use vicious means to obtain her own ends.

  Now Yen Olass watched Yerzerdayla not out of curiosity but out of fear, hating the alien woman, hating her tall and slender beauty, and hating the insights of her acute itelli-gence which had discovered who and what Yen Olass was.

  ***

  Nearing the borders of the old empire, they were warned that the newly conquered territories further south were as yet not entirely subdued. Partisan bands harried the roads, making travel dangerous for small groups. The slaver put up at a tea pavilion, to wait until they could join a larger convoy; he idled away his days drinking and gambling with the Rovac guard, and was usually dead drunk by nightfall.

  While they were waiting there, a brawling group of Yarglat officers came north. They filled the tea pavilion with their noise and their boasting, talking of slaughter and rape, of dawn attacks, of fugitives hunted and caught, of torture, arson and pillage. Yen Olass knew that if she was caught, these were the people who would subject her to their justice. She could imagine all too precisely what they would do to a runaway slave.

  Yen Olass fled to the safety of the stables. There, she discovered Snut was not being looked after properly. She was furious. She started making life hell for the stable hands. These slaves were all the same – except the further south you got, the idler they got.

  She was interrupted by Yerzerdayla, who called her outside. Yen Olass supposed that Yerzerdayla had chosen this moment to blackmail her. So what should she do? Run? Or kill her enemy?

  'Yen Olass,' said Yerzerdayla, 'you musn't treat people like that. How can you behave like that? Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Kicking that poor little hunchback dwarf!’

  'He's a worthless stinking slave,' said Yen Olass, viciously. 'A slave, is he?' said Yerzerdayla quietly. 'And what are we?’

  'Don't you lecture me, you whore,' said Yen Olass. 'You skak! You filthy female inlet!’

  Yerzerdayla slapped her, smashing an open hand across her face.

  'Don't you ever talk to me like that again!' said Yerzerdayla, her voice hissing with fury. 'Don't you ever, ever talk to me like that again!’

  Yen Olass, her eyes smarting with tears, turned on her heel and stalked away.

  'You come back here!' said Yerzerdayla. 'You come back here this very instant!’

  But Yen Olass kept going, quitting the tea pavilion for the comparative safety of the small town nearby. Should she stay? If she did, Yerzerdayla might have her killed. Should she run? She had to go south, because only Khmar could grant her absolution; without Khmar's pardon, she would live the rest of her life as a runaway slave under sentence of death. But the roads were too dangerous for her to travel alone. She had to stay with the convoy, no matter what the risk.

  To console her sorrows, Yen Olass indulged herself outrageously, spending half her money on a string of amber beads. They were very beautiful. She suspected they were loot, the price knocked down because the market was flooded with plunder from the south, so she felt guilty about buying them – but she could not resist them, all the same.

  At a tavern, she bought herself just a little red wine. It was Lord Alagrace who had introduced her to wine. In the tavern she found, to her disgust, men eating huge bright-red insects. It sickened her: the gross size of the insects and the gusto of the men who were demolishing them. The insects, clad with grotesque armour and sprouting huge feelers, were hideous.

  One of the men saw her disgust, and, laughing at the ignorance of the people from the north, offered her a bit. Yen Olass could not bring herself to be rude enough to refuse hospitality. She accepted: and was surprised.

  'What is it?' she said.’

  'Gaplax,' said the man.

  Yen Olass smashed her fist down on the table as she rose to her feet: Yarglat the Yarglat could do no less when someone used such an obscenity to his face. This brought a roar of laughter from the whole table.

  'Sit down,' said someone. 'Have a drink.’

  'I only drink wine,' said Yen Olass coldly.

  'That's fine, for that's all we've got.’

  They sat the foreigner down amongst them, and explained that 'gaplax' was the name the insect owned in one of the languages of the south. No insult was intended.

  'That's just as well,' said Yen Olass, 'for I've killed a man for less.’

  This brought more laughter.

  'Laugh as you will,' said Yen Olass. 'I killed my first man at the age of twelve. I've killed many since.’

  That sobered them up a little, for here at the southern border of the old empire it was well known that northerners were casual killers, not to be trifled with lightly. However… there was wine, bread and gaplax, the weather was fine

  'This is no day for fighting,' said one of the southerners. 'Share a gaplax with us. Better still, have one yourself.' 'How much do they cost?’

  'It's on us. Make yourself comfortable. Come on now, take off your coat.' 'I can't.' 'And why not?’

  'Because,' said Yen Olass, sweating, 'the killer of my father rides south, I have vowed to suffer until I have killed him.’

  'Where in the south would this gentleman be?' 'With Khmar,"

  Conversation faltered. In Gendormargensis, imperial politics was the commonplace of gossip, but under provincial interpretations of the law it was very easy to get oneself accidentally convicted of treason – so one did not speak lightly of the emperor.

  Still, the death-vow made the northern stranger even more fascinating to the southerners than before. While they demolished a skin of wine and a brace of gaplax between them, Yen Olass told of the death-fight between Tonaganuk and Lonth Denesk, Chonjara's public penance, the exile of Haveros, and the day the Ondrask of Noth disgraced himself by throwing his mother-in-law in the river.

  The last tale was a vile and gratuitous slander, but none of these southerners was to know that. Indeed, they were so ignorant, so naive, so ready to swallow down even the most outrageous improbabilities, that Yen Olass yielded to temptation and indulged in a number of staggering untruths concerning certain high-born Yarglat clansmen.

  It was evening when Yen Olass made her way back to the tea pavilion, mellow with wine, and stuffed with bread and gaplax. She knew now that the gaplax lives in the shallowest waters of the sea, the males hiding themselves under rocks while the females recline in nests made of water-twigs, comforting a brood of eggs. If you whistle in a certain way – and Yen Olass had mastered the certain way of whistling – they will march out of the water and line up on the shore before you. Alternatively, they can be secured by knocking two stones together: the sound stuns them, and they float to the surface, paralysed.

  The tea pavilion was gaily lit with lanterns. It was crowded with Yarglat officers, heavy with drink, their brawling energies now replaced by drunken nostalgia.

  Yen Olass did not want to venture into the company of those drunken animals. She stayed in the gardens, wandering by herself, wishing there was enough light left for her to admire the trees and the fish ponds. Wishing, too, that she could stop being a man, at least for a little while, since she took no pleasure in keeping her breasts bound up, in shrouding her body in concealing furs, in conjuring up aggression to handle minor social contingencies which would have been easily dealt with by way of a little diplomacy.

  Alone in the garden, she listened to the music from the tea pavilion. She listened to the music of zither, klon and slubvox, to the atonic wail of a woman's song pitched to heartbreak, and it seemed the song spoke to her, to her alone:

  In the river I glimpse my lover's face,

  Gone passing, many moons;

  In the smoke I glimpse horizons elsewhere,

  Gone passing, many moons;

  Homeland of my children never born.

  And now the moon itself was rising, tangled in the branches of the trees. Yellow moon rising. Yen Olass stretched out her hands to the moon, and said the Old Words, as her mother had taught her:

  'Allmother moon…’

&
nbsp; That was as far as she got. She could not remember the rest. She had forgotten. She had entirely forgotten. The Old Words were gone, forever. How could she have been so careless?

  Yellow moon… yellow moon… a woman singing… wine, which disarms us…

  Yen Olass stretched out her arms just one more time, and said, to the moon, to the yellow autumn moon (is it so much to ask?):

  'Allmother moon…"

  But it was no good. She could not remember. She had lost her mother, and now she had lost even her mother's words.

  And suddenly the ground swayed, her legs buckled, and she collapsed. Wracked by agony, she wept, crushed down to the ground, down to the dank of the earth and the smell of loam and leaves.

  'Yen Olass…’

  With gentle hands, Yerzerdayla raised her to her feet. Yen Olass allowed herself to be folded into the arms of the tall, gentle woman who smelt of the distant spicelands. She clung there, sobbing, while Yerzerdayla soothed her hair, her voice low, a hush of comfort.

  Yen Olass wept, as if she would die.

  Yerzerdayla held her, protected her, sheltered her, until time and comfort calmed her.

  Then:

  'Come,' said Yerzerdayla. 'We must talk.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Counselled by Yerzerdayla, Yen Olass stayed behind when the slaver moved on. She recognised the truth of the points Yerzerdayla had made. Khmar was capricious, true, and it might amuse the emperor to receive a petition from a woman. However, Khmar would never be free to indulge himself like that.

  This was how Yerzerdayla put it:

  'A man lives by his image of men. Khmar has spent his life being more a man than other men. Therefore, he is no longer free to be anything else, even if he wants to.

  'You must not come to him as a woman alone. He likes people who dare, but he could never allow himself to like a woman who dares in her own right. If you come to him, you must do so under the shield of a man. Lord Alagrace must be that man.’