In Neria’s lap was a basket of meat pies, for the road to Elderest was long and the weather was cold and dreary, and they would not stop for lunch. Heriana was in charge of the wine, and it seemed often times that it was very strong wine, or at least it certainly went to her head quickly. Elsorina was thin and tired and always weak but never hungry, and she felt every one of her fifty years deep to her bones.
In the morning they had entered the closed carriage, and it had no windows, but she imagined that the landscape passing by looked much like the morning had looked in the King’s Town. Snow covered fields with narrow lanes between them and stark and skeletal trees from which all of the leaves had been stripped lined the broad king’s road, which was itself slushy and treacherous with half-melted snow. The carriage slipped and slid and rattled and bumped toward Elderest, preceded by an escort of two hundred cavalry and the king’s coach and two others packed with military officers and officials. Behind the queen’s carriage came the servants’ wains, and behind all yet another two hundred lancers, all flying flags and wearing royal crimson tabards over their heavy winter coats and armor.
“I don’t know how you manage to stay looking so fresh, your majesty.” Declared Querla in her serious and confidential manner. “This traveling wearies me so. I swear I must look dreadful.”
“Nonsense.” Said Neria. “You look just lovely, Querla. Not as fair as the queen, of course, but you might have just stepped out of a storybook.” Elsorina looked at Neria, and she couldn’t help feeling a slight twinge of contempt for all three of them. These were her handmaidens, but they belonged to the king in truth, first daughters of minor noble houses seeking to win favor in the new administration. They were young, of marriageable age but not married, and half of their talk was frivolous chatter about young men they desired and the other half frivolous chatter about court and clothing and any manner of trivialities.
She wished the carriage had a window she could look out of and thus have an excuse to ignore them. When she did address them it was in the most banal of terms, and on the most inconsequential topics. Too often she had heard her own words repeated back to her from Maldiver, which was his none too subtle way of reminding her that he was watching her every move at all times.
She missed the confidants of her youth. Before marrying Maldiver she had had many good friends, but over the years her scope of acquaintances had broadened while the number of true friends had diminished, until finally she found herself without a soul she could truly trust. And now, when she most needed someone to confide in, there was no one. Her husband had either driven them all away or suborned them to his will. She was surrounded by his agents and her own guards, who in fact answered to his will.
There was a long and awkward lack of speech in the carriage, and Elsorina looked up to see all three of the girls looking at her, waiting on her to say something. She took a deep breath and tried to recount just what they had been speaking about. It was hopeless. She had not been paying attention. “I should very much like to have a window.” She said at last, for lack of anything better to say.
“Oh yes!” Heriana said eagerly. “That would be nice, wouldn’t it? To see the grand houses and estates roll by as we come into Elderest. I do so love Elderest.”
“It would be dreadfully cold.” Neria answered. “It is already quite drafty in this carriage, but it would help with the smoke …”
And so they continued, nattering on in meaningless conversation to keep up the appearance of normalcy, of decency and of courtesy. The carriage rambled on like the conversation, implacably trivial, and she pretended her husband’s spies and jailers were her friends.
Denjar pressed the horses, plying his whip to get the most out of the large draft animals, seeing snow fly behind their hooves as the large wagon moved across the barren and snow-covered landscape. As far as his eyes could see he was the only thing moving, like a large beetle pulled by ants across the vast whiteness. To his left and right rose the occasional estate, for he was in Elderest proper, and there were few small farms. Each farmstead had been added to for generation upon generation, wooden buildings replaced with stone and porches with verandahs. Most of the windows here were glazed, although usually with cheap opaque stuff, not the clear glass of the royal palace. There was money in the Duchy of Elderest, a great deal of it, hidden deep down in the substance of things like an underlying quality.
There were few shabby peasant cottages and many rambling ancestral holdings. All along the king’s road they rose, like silent sentinels to keep out the garish, poor and downtrodden. Elderest rose its chin against the world, and kept its nose held high. The towns each had central fountains surrounded by trees and parks, and the palaces of ministers and financiers brooded in their snow clad silence above the neatly cobbled roads. The wagon’s iron-shod wheels made a muffled clattering as Denjar whipped his horses, driving them into the cold wind as night began to darken the weary day. He was thankful that it was not snowing.
Ahead of him stood the Rose Keep, the residence of the Duke of Elderest, who was now King of Mortentia. The palace was a sober and conservative place, surrounded by an old-fashioned wall sporting merlons and arrow slits, not that anyone would dare assail the place. He drove the wagon through the raised portcullis and called out to the wardens. “Hello the palace! It’s Denjar. I’ve brought the meat and bread!”
Doors began to open in the tall central building, a three storied and massive rectangle of dark gray stone with crenellated towers at the four corners. A few stubborn green leaves still gripped precariously the many rose vines that covered the wall from the ground to the top. This was the ancestral home of the D’Cadmouths of Elderest, after all, and was second only to the royal palace in the King’s Town for majesty and prestige. Golden light shone from the doors and in the openings heavily cloaked figures of cooks and courtiers began emerging, looking tiny against the massive structure.
“How far behind you are they?” Mamin, the head cook, demanded. “Should I begin roasting the beef?” The fat and bearded man was flushed from the heat of the kitchens, and he had not bothered putting on a coat, despite the bitter cold.
“I don’t know shite about roasting a beef, Mamin.” Denjar replied impatiently. “I’d say they’re two hours behind us, no more. They’ll be expecting meat at table, so see to it. Have the guests arrived?”
“Aye, they’re here. In the main hall, and they’ve been keeping all of us running in circles demanding wine and meat and cakes. The town bard, that Alemen, has been telling them stories to keep them amused, but they’re treating the place like they own it.”
“Well, get to your work, Mamin. This is an important supper, and not a thing can go wrong. I’ve brought apples and Berla to make a pie for after. See to it, then.”
Mamin nodded and walked up to the door of the large covered wain. Berla was the third cook to exit, and Denjar watched her heavy figure step down from the vehicle gracelessly, wrapped in a tattered wool coat. He noticed that her hands were shaking a bit, and doubted that the cold had anything to do with it. Once the hostlers had the draft horses in tow, Denjar stepped off of the box and let the waggoners take over the job of putting up the wain and the horses. It was going to be a busy night, and he had guests to attend to.
Chapter 92: West of the Bone River, Muharl Ogre Territory
The King of All Ogres returned to what had been the summer camping ground of the Bloodhands with a mighty army behind him, armored and armed in swag that was beyond the dreams of the shes, bucks and whelps who dwelt there. When the long column of steel and iron emerged through the heavy fog that lay upon the melting snow beneath a weak and pale Arianus sun, a long line of trampled mud lay behind him and chaos before him. Whelps were wailing and the bucks were stone-faced when Azha the Fury came forth from the great caves, with half a dozen high ranking shes in her train.
“Where have you been?” She demanded rudely, ignoring the vast army behind Gutcrusher and the mighty swag he had accumulated. “These
bitches give me no rest. We needed you here.”
“I have killed a god and taken his plunder.” Gutcrusher replied. “Then I had to kill a few elk-men to establish our meets and bounds. We won big. What is your trouble?”
“While you and the boyos have been playing at war the pigsuckers kilt some whelps, and their mamas been whining at me for a week, Gutcrusher. If you are going to play at being a king, you need to take care of things.” She put her hands on her hips as a challenge, and the smell of her drove all kingly thoughts from Gutcrusher’s head.
“Get to the cave, bitch. I want you now.” He replied.
“But the whelps, Gutcrusher. We have to give an answer.”
“I’ll give answer when I’m done, Azha. Now get to the furs.” He followed her closely to see that she did as he told, ignoring her protests. He was the king after all.
Gutcrusher was not the only boyo who felt the need of a she, for it had been a long march from the Iron Bridge. Wolf was tired, for even the mighty endurance of the ogres could be taxed by a long march wearing armor and carrying a pile of swag that weighed nearly as much as he did. He was looking forward to a long sleep in a thick pile of warm furs, and his feet were tired. When the long column of marching ogres crested the ring of hills that surrounded the great camp that had once been a city and had once been the summer camp of the Bloodhands, he looked down upon the valley and was amazed at what he saw. From the mouth of every cave in the high hill that overlooked the city columns of smoke issued forth, and every one of the trees that had once grown up through the ruins at the feet of the hill had been cut down, presumably for burning. Long wooden scaffolds lined the base of the hill, and hanging from them were the carcasses of elk, auroch and deer, with low banked fires tended by shes and whelps smoking them for storage.
The ruins were being torn down in some sort of methodical way, and space was being made for rude stone houses, cunningly built by shes from the Mad River Band who knew the way of building. When One-eye’s ambush of the eastern bands succeeded, the greater part of their strength was extinguished, leaving camps and caverns full of unprotected whelps and shes. These vulnerable ones had followed the tracks of the many disaffected bucks who joined the King’s Band during the fall, and this place, now become a veritable city of ogres, had given them refuge. There were thus hundreds of unattached shes awaiting the return of the army.
A fat-faced young wench approached Wolf and offered to help carry his pack, laden with smoked elk-man meat, weapons and plunder as it was. His bag was one of the heavier ones carried by the returning army, for he was accounted a great captain in the King’s Band. “I am Denjou the Wicked.” She said, introducing herself. “You are the king’s friend Wolf.”
Wolf was impressed with her knowing who he was, as well as her initiative in seeking him out, but he looked among the gathered shes for a particular face. Standing next to Ehnudra Who Bites he saw her, and their eyes met briefly before she looked downward with a shyness that was unusual among ogresses. “I am Wolf.” He told Denjou briefly. “I can carry my own swag. You’ll have better luck with someone else.” Then he walked past her while she huffed indignantly, making his way to Enarla the Quiet. He looked her up and down briefly.
“You’re gravid.” He said, when she met his eyes.
She looked down with her characteristic shyness, belatedly putting a hand over her prominent belly. “Aye.”
“Is that the Blackhand’s get?” When she nodded, he simply nodded in return. “Aye well, the Blackhand’s dead, isn’t he? Everything that bastard had is took by us now, so I’m claiming his whelp as mine.”
He saw an unusual animation in her face when she raised her face, as if she were afraid of him. “What do you mean to do?” Her voice was almost a whisper.
“I mean to take the Blackhand’s get and make it my own son, wench. The whelp will never know who his bastard father was.” Her chest rose and fell, and her eyes glistened with emotion.
“And if it’s a she?”
“If it’s a she, the bitch will be a princess in the King’s Band.” He declared. “Any buck who wants to sire her will have to get my permission, and he’d better be a fine boyo.”
Wolf was surprised, and nearly dropped his great war-bag when Enarla threw her arms around him and pressed her face into his chest. “Get off me, wench!” He growled, but he was smiling when he said it, and he allowed her to take and carry his plunder back to the cavern they shared.
The King of All Ogres was in repose with his she, and had not bothered to manage the homecoming of his great army, so it fell to Balls to sort through the chaos that he knew would ensue when nearly nine-thousand trail-weary boyos marched among several hundred shes, many of whom were in full heat. Poor Balls had never seen this many shes all gathered together, and he wondered that there had been no killing, for shes would murder each other as a simple matter of custom, needing no provocation. But instead of the terrible mayhem that he feared, the shes lined up in orderly manner and were assigned to the strongest and most accomplished of boyos, no more than one apiece, and there were few disputes of consequence.
When he looked about wonderingly to see who was responsible for this most peaceful and well-organized reception, he saw Ehnudra Who Bites standing next to Fat Andra the Red, and both of them carrying thick wooden staves. He quickly discerned that whenever any she misbehaved, one or the other of them would appear suddenly with a sharp word, and if word did not suffice, a quick but solid blow from a staff would follow. It appeared that while the army had been off killing gods and elk-men, Ehnudra and Fat Andra had been conquering the camp, establishing themselves as leaders among the King’s Band shes.
Balls approached them happily and offered his assistance.
“Bugger off, Captain, we don’t need no help.” Fat Andra told him, after a reassuring glance to make sure that he was not seriously injured in any way. “We have things well in hand here. Once all of the boyos have a warm place to sleep I’ll come to you.” She favored him with a brief and indecent glance at his crotch, then winked. He smiled.
“Ah, wench, I missed you.” He declared.
“Time enough for that later.” She said curtly. “I’ll be busy at this until nightfall.”
And so the homecoming continued, and the most favored of the ogre warriors found themselves sleeping on piles of freshly cured pelts in caverns warmed by fire and lust, while their lesser companions had to settle for furs and fires only. Many wenches approached Ironspike with not-so-subtle offers, but he declined them all, generously awarding the greatest of his warriors and taking no wench for himself. Spearstain, who had been Whiteskin’s first captain and who now stood for the entire cohort from the City of the Damned, found himself, much to his delight, in the furs of Ehnudra Who Bites, for although she had not forgotten One-eye, she was an ogress of deep and inescapable lusts.
When all of the arrangements were made, Ironspike watched Balls and Fat Andra make their way to the cavern they shared, and he was alone without a she. He took meat, and if his eyes ever strayed to the cavern where Azha the Fury entertained the king, no one took note of it, for he was disciplined and patient. He stood in the middle of a broad avenue, trampled down to bare and well-laid cobblestones from ancient days, with the wind blowing and darkness coming on, confident that his day would come.
To his great consternation, when the King of All Ogres arose in the mid-morning of the next day with his bladder full and his lusts sated and went to take a piss against the wall of the cavern, Azha the Fury chased him out into the bright sunlight, and forced him to make water in a latrine that the shes had ordered dug into the hillside. He stood there blinking in the sunlight with his prick in his hand, idly regreting coming back within Azha’s dominion.
For the Queen of All Ogres had not been idle while the boyos had gone a-warring. With a fierce determination befitting her name, the Fury had imposed an iron discipline on the shes, bucks and whelps that the army had left behind, and all of them were about and wor
king, preparing food, leaving on hunts or moving stones for this or that purpose. Caverns that had been too shallow or exposed to be suitable dwelling places had been walled in or dug out so that the great hill’s living capacity was nearly doubled, and the roadways and streets had been broadened and flattened out. Bleary-eyed warriors rose to find the great camp bustling, for where the queen could not oversee workers, the many ogresses who made up her court could, and idleness was rewarded with a sharp word or a blunt fist.
“The shes have taken over the camp.” Splitnose complained in the nasal mush he called speech, standing wide-legged beside Gutcrusher at the edge of the piss-pit. “I went to the furs with a willing little slut called Amza Who Listens and got kicked out of bed by the bitch at first light.”
Gutcrusher smiled and chuckled at Splitnose. “Aye, it’s that Azha.” He explained. “I said she’d make a fine queen. Everybody’s scared of her. By the Dead God, I’m scared of her myself.”
The sun shone down on a blinding expanse of snow when Gutcrusher walked to a loose pile of stones that had been heaped near the center of the city-that-was and climbed it. It was unseasonably warm for the month the Mortentians called Arianus, although a great pile of heavy clouds on the western horizon spoke of more blizzards to come. Snow was melting all around them, and long icicles hung from doorways and the sides of ruins. In a loud voice he called to his people, and they assembled in front of the pile of stones in a loose collection of concentric rings, with his great captains at the front. This was their king whom they feared and loved and hardly knew, although the warriors had learned to respect him. He was giving law and holding court.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 121
