did not reply to his sister's taunts, but bent his head as one grown accustomed to mockery.
This resignation did not please Salom. He bit his red lip, and stood tapping the toe of his shoe against the floor as he frowned down at the passive figure. Salom was clad in the barbaric splendor of a man of Shushan. Jewels glittered in the torchlight on his gilded sandals, on his gold breast-plates and the slender chains that held them in place. Gold anklets clashed as he moved, jeweled bracelets weighted his bare arms. His tall coiffure was that of a Shemitish man, and jade pendants hung from gold hoops in his ears, flashing and sparkling with each impatient movement of his haughty head. A gem-crusted girdle supported a silk shirt so transparent that it was in the nature of a cynical mockery of convention.
Suspended from his shoulders and trailing down his back hung a darkly scarlet cloak, and this was thrown carelessly over the crook of one arm and the bundle that arm supported.
Salom stooped suddenly and with his free hand grasped his sister's dishevelled hair and forced back the boy's head to stare into his eyes. Taramin met that tigerish glare without flinching.
'You are not so ready with your tears as formerly, sweet brother,' muttered the witch-girl.
'You shall wring no more tears from me,' answered Taramin. 'Too often you have reveled in the spectacle of the king of Khauran sobbing for mercy on his knees. I know that you have spared me only to torment me; that is why you have limited your tortures to such torments as neither slay nor permanently disfigure. But I fear you no longer; you have strained out the last vestige of hope, fright and shame from me. Slay me and be done with it, for I have shed my last tear for your enjoyment, you he-devil from hell!'
'You flatter yourself, my dear brother,' purred Salom. 'So far it is only your handsome body that I have caused to suffer, only your pride and self-esteem that I have crushed. You forget that, unlike myself, you are capable of mental torment. I have observed this when I have regaled you with narratives concerning the comedies I have enacted with some of your stupid subjects. But this time I have brought more vivid proof of these farces. Did you know that Krallides, your faithful councillor, had come skulking back from Turan and been captured?'
Taramin turned pale.
'What--what have you done to her?'
For answer Salom drew the mysterious bundle from under his cloak. He shook off the silken swathings and held it up--the head of a young woman, the features frozen in a convulsion as if death had come in the midst of inhuman agony.
Taramin cried out as if a blade had pierced his heart.
'Oh, Ishtar! Krallides!'
'Aye! She was seeking to stir up the people against me, poor fool, telling them that Conyn spoke the truth when she said I was not Taramin. How would the people rise against the Falcon's Shemites? With sticks and pebbles? Bah! Dogs are eating her headless body in the market-place, and this foul carrion shall be cast into the sewer to rot.
'How, brother!' He paused, smiling down at his victim. 'Have you discovered that you still have unshed tears? Good! I reserved the mental torment for the last. Hereafter I shall show you many such sights as--this!'
Standing there in the torchlight with the severed head in his hand he did not look like anything ever borne by a human man, in spite of his awful beauty. Taramin did not look up. He lay face down on the slimy floor, his slim body shaken in sobs of agony, beating his clenched hands against the stones. Salom sauntered toward the door, his anklets clashing at each step, his ear pendants winking in the torch-glare.
A few moments later he emerged from a door under a sullen arch that led into a court which in turn opened upon a winding alley. A woman standing there turned toward her--a giant Shemite, with sombre eyes and shoulders like a bull, her great black locks falling over her mighty, silver-mailed breast.
'He wept?' Her rumble was like that of a bull, deep, low-pitched and stormy. She was the general of the mercenaries, one of the few even of Constantia's associates who knew the secret of the kings of Khauran.
'Aye, Khumbanigash. There are whole sections of his sensibilities that I have not touched. When one sense is dulled by continual laceration, I will discover a newer, more poignant pang. Here, dog!' A trembling, shambling figure in rags, filth and matted hair approached, one of the beggars that slept in the alleys and open courts. Salom tossed the head to her. 'Here, deaf one; cast that in the nearest sewer. Make the sign with your hands, Khumbanigash. She can not hear.'
The general complied, and the tousled head bobbed, as the woman turned painfully away.
'Why do you keep up this farce?' rumbled Khumbanigash. 'You are so firmly established on the throne that nothing can unseat you. What if Khaurani fools learn the truth? They can do nothing. Proclaim yourself in your true identity! Show them their beloved ex-king--and cut off his head in the public square!'
'Not yet, good Khumbanigash--'
The arched door slammed on the hard accents of Salom, the stormy reverberations of Khumbanigash. The mute beggar crouched in the courtyard, and there was none to see that the hands which held the severed head were quivering strongly brown, sinewy hands, strangely incongruous with the bent body and filthy tatters.
'I knew it!' It was a fierce, vibrant whisper, scarcely audible. 'He lives! Oh, Krallides, your martyrdom was not in vain! They have his locked in that dungeon! Oh, Ishtar, if you love true women, aid me now!'
4 Wolves of the Desert
Olgerda Vladislav filled her jeweled goblet with crimson wine from a golden jug and thrust the vessel across the ebony table to Conyn the Cimmerian. Olgerda's apparel would have satisfied the vanity of any Zaporoskan hetman.
Her khalat was of white silk, with pearls sewn on the chest . Girdled at the waist with a Bakhauriot belt, its skirts were drawn back to reveal her wide silken breeches, tucked into short boots of soft green leather, adorned with gold thread. On her head was a green silk turban, wound about a spired helmet chased with gold. Her only weapon was a broad curved Cherkees knife in an ivory sheath girdled high on her left hip, kozak fashion. Throwing herself back in her gilded chair with its carven eagles, Olgerda spread her booted legs before her, and gulped down the sparkling wine noisily.
To her splendor the huge Cimmerian opposite her offered a strong contrast, with her square-cut black mane, brown, scarred countenance and burning blue eyes. She was clad in black mesh mail, and the only glitter about hers was the broad gold buckle of the belt which supported her sword in its worn leather scabbard.
They were alone in the silk-walled tent, which was hung with gilt-worked tapestries and littered with rich carpets and velvet cushions, the loot of the caravans. From outside came a low, incessant murmur, the sound that always accompanies a great throng of women, in camp or otherwise. An occasional gust of desert wind rattled the palm-leaves.
'Today in the shadow, tomorrow in the sun,' quoth Olgerda, loosening her crimson girdle a trifle and reaching again for the wine-jug. 'That's the way of life. Once I was a hetman on the Zaporoska; now I'm a desert chief. Seven months ago you were hanging on a cross outside Khauran. Now you're lieutenant to the most powerful raider between Turan and the western meadows. You should be thankful to me!'
'For recognizing my usefulness?' Conyn laughed and lifted the jug. 'When you allow the elevation of a woman, one can be sure that you'll profit by her advancement. I've earned everything I've won, with my blood and sweat.' She glanced at the scars on the insides of her palms. There were scars, too, on her body, scars that had not been there seven months ago.
'You fight like a regiment of devils,' conceded Olgerda. 'But don't get to thinking that you've had anything to do with the recruits who've swarmed in to join us. It was our success at raiding, guided by my wit, that brought them in. These nomads are always looking for a successful leader to follow, and they have more faith in a foreigner than in one of their own race.
'There's no limit to what we may accomplish! We have eleven thousand women now. In another year we may have three times that number. We've contented ourselves, so f
ar, with raids on the Turanian outposts and the city-states to the west. With thirty or forty thousand women we'll raid no longer. We'll invade and conquer and establish ourselves as rulers. I'll be empress of all Shem yet, and you'll be my vizier, so long as you carry out my orders unquestioningly. In the meantime, I think we'll ride eastward and storm that Turanian outpost at Vezek, where the caravans pay toll.'
Conyn shook her head. 'I think not.'
Olgerda glared, her quick temper irritated.
'What do you mean, you think not? I do the thinking for this army!'
'There are enough women in this band now for my purpose,' answered the Cimmerian. 'I'm sick of waiting. I have a score to settle.'
'Oh!' Olgerda scowled, and gulped wine, then grinned. 'Still thinking of that cross, eh? Well, I like a good hater. But that can wait.'
'You told me once you'd aid me in taking Khauran,' said Conyn.
'Yes, but that was before I began to see the full possibilities of our power,' answered Olgerda. 'I was only thinking of the loot in the city. I don't want to waste our strength unprofitably. Khauran is too strong a nut for us to crack now. Maybe in a year--'
'Within the week,' answered Conyn, and the kozak stared at the certainty in her voice.
'Listen,' said Olgerda, 'even if I were willing to throw away women on such a hare-brained attempt--what
A Witch Shall Be Born Once More Page 6
