by Hugh Cook
'A burning stick!' commandend Yen Olass. Resbit hesitated, then obeyed.
'You're not goint to hurt her, are you?' said Resbit.
'No,' said Yen Olass, without much conviction.
If the child was blind, she was going to strangle it. She watched the child's eyes as she waved a burning brand in front of its face. The eyes did not follow the movement of the flame. Yen Olass handed the stick back to Resbit, who tossed it into the fire. The child screamed senselessly.
'What are you going to call her?' said Resbit.
'It's going to be buried without a name,' said Yen Olass, her throat choking up.
'What are you talking about?’
'It's blind!’
'Yen Olass, they don't see properly when they're born. Now you just lie back. You should feed her. Look, she's got a chin just like the emperor!’
Yen Olass looked, but could see no resemblance at all. This was not Khmar's child. This was some kind of demon spawn conjured into her body by the wishing machine which had hurt her.
'It's just as well she doesn't have the emperor's eyebrows,' said Resbit, prattling on. 'You wouldn't want to wish that on a girl! Now I've got to feed my little hero. Put the child to your breast, Yen Olass. What's her name? What're you going to call her?’
'I'll think about it,' said Yen Olass.
For the first few days, Yen Olass was intensely suspicious of her child, expecting it to turn into a frog or an old woman or something equally hideous.
But the female infant proved to be vigorously human. She was a lusty, aggressive child, bawling for food and attention, savaging the breast when she was given suck,
and, though at first she spent much of her time asleep, still managing to disrupt the nights with her demands. And she was so messy! Pissing and shitting and dribbling and snorting snot and burping up milk.
On the tenth day, Yen Olass decided her child had shown enough humanity to deserve a human name.
Tm going to call her Monogail,' said Yen Olass.
T still like Valadeen better,' said Resbit.
'No, she's going to be Monogail, because she's a true child of my homeland.’
And Yen Olass hugged her child, her very own skinned rabbit which she herself had brought into the world.
Slowly, she began to learn to take pleasure in her child. As she grew to be at ease with her infant, breastfeeding itself became pleasurable, bringing her, at times, secret swollen pleasures reminiscent of the sexual gratification of the flesh; wondering, with a little bit of guilt, if she was abnormal, she kept silent about this, being far too shy to discuss it with Resbit.
Sometimes, snuggling down in the warmth of her bed, she felt infinitely contented, thinking herself, for a moment, all-nourishing earth mother, fulfilled by producing, bringing forth, nourishing and mothering.
However, even though her rapport with her child was steadily developing, these earth mother moods did not last. Children were just too much hard work for anyone to be starry-eyed about them for long.
Fortunately the Melski females, appreciating that help might be welcome, and doubtless curious about the raising of human babies, came in and helped out with the household tasks. Yen Olass could not imagine how women coped when they had a newborn baby plus one or more young children plus a house to run and a man to feed, and clothes to make and shopping to do, and maybe an aged parent to look after as well.
The weather closed in. Forced to stay home and look after Monogail, Yen Olass was not free to go on long tramps through the winter forest. She found herself increasingly trapped inside House Two. It was dark; the fire smoked; the wind discovered chinks in their amateurish walls, and came whistling in. The fire smoked; the one room filled with smoke and the smells of cooking and damp mildewed clothing. Two women, two babies and a pig: at times, when there were two voices crying, two shouting and one squealing, it was utter chaos. Yen Olass felt trapped.
Though at times she felt she really loved Monogail, at other times she wished the steel flower had given her a pig instead -- a pig already cooked, with an apple in its mouth. Then at least everyone would have got one good meal out there in the wilderness of the Valley of Forgotten Dreams.
More and more, she appreciated the presence of the Melski. They were great talkers, when they loosened up. From perfecting her command of Galish, Yen Olass went on to learn the language of the Melski, a complicated tongue with seven different levels of formality and eighty-three variations of the word 'you'. Yen Olass had an acute, disciplined brain, a lifetime of language-learning behind her, a desire to communicate, and long dark hours in which she could revise her lessons. She made good progress.
Resbit, on the other hand, made no effort to learn the native language of the Melski. Speaking Estral and the Galish Trading Tongue, she thought of herself as highly cultivated already. In many ways, Resbit thought of the Melski as animals. Instead of studying, Resbit spent hours talking to the babies. She loved them without reservation. She was in her element. Love with Yen Olass had been a game: this was life.
Yen Olass, unable to share this enthusiasm, resigned herself to captivity, and waited for the spring.
* * *
Working between spells of bad weather, the Melski had finished the trading post by the time spring came. It stood on the lakeside half a league to the south of House One: a stockaded establishment complete with lodging house, warehouse, a corral for any animals that travellers brought with them, and a wharf leading out into the lake. Yen Olass and Resbit were suitably impressed.
'For people who never work with wood,' said Yen Olass, 'you've done very well.’
'What do you think our rafts are made of?' said Hor-hor-hurulg-murg.
He was, to say the least, offended. Yen Olass apologized, but it was a whole day before relations between them were back to normal. Yen Olass understood this as proof that the Melski accepted her as one of their own. She was no longer an outsider, for whom excuses can be made; she was one of the people, and should know better than to condescend to a full-grown Melski male.
That spring, Yen Olass was free to roam the forests again, with Monogail slung papoose-style on her back. When it was warm enough to venture into the water, the Melski taught the women how to find shellfish beds where they could dive for fresh-water clams. They refurbished their old traps, and made new ones, kept a lookout for any deer unwary enough to venture near House Two, and fished. Birds mated and nested; Resbit and Yen Olass stole eggs for their babies.
Yen Olass found her spirits revived as the weather warmed. Her child was more lovable when she was squad -dling on the beach instead of lying in a dark smoke-filled room bawling her eyes out. Yen Olass began to make plans for her. Monogail would be a translator, and a trader. She would raise scores of pigs and teach slaves how to hunt with them. She would hold the truffle-trading monopoly for all of Penvash . . .
Yen Olass did not speak of these plans, but Resbit boasted shamelessly about what her son would do when he grew up.
'Branador's going to be a hero,' she said, teasing his little 317
thing. 'With this sword, among others. Maybe he'll marry Monogail. Would you like that, Yen Olass? You can be his mother-in-law.’
'He'll have to be tough to stand up to me,' said Yen Olass.
Resbit smiled fondly.
T mean it,' said Yen Olass, and she did.
No man was going to bully her daughter, or turn her into a household slave. She was certain of that.
* * *
Toward the end of spring, the Melski told the women that four travellers had passed through Estar earlier in the year -- the Rovac warrior Morgan Hearst and companions named Blackwood, Miphon and Ohio, who were, respectively, a woodsman, a wizard and a pirate. They had come from Trest, and were heading south, hunting Elkor Alish, who was said to have command of a world-destroying power known as the death-stone.
The rest of the story was fragmentary and confused. There had been a battle between soldiers and Melski in a valley far to the ea
st of Trest; a fight against an evil wizard; a journey down an underground river; a mutiny; an epic struggle with a dragon; treachery and murder; a storm at sea; a battle with the Collosnon navy. Somewhere in all this hero-play, Morgan Hearst had lost a hand. Yen Olass thought it served him right: if he hadn't gone swaggering through the world cutting people's heads off, he would never have come to grief. She still remembered his outburst when he had come to parley with the siege forces outside Castle Vaunting:
'Elkor Alish has said nothing about his whore!’
Resbit, who had never been told of these words, was thrilled to learn that Elkor Alish was still alive. And maybe on the way to becoming a world-conqueror. The more distant he grew in her life and memories, the more she idealized him. By now she believed that their commercial fornications had been True Love; that Elkor thought of her always; that when he ruled the world, he would send agents north and south, east and west, in search of her.
Yen Olass, long-time observer of the cynical sexual politics of an imperial oity, could only wonder at this naivety. Though Yen Olass had never entirely lost the ability to play like a child, there was nothing childish about her appreciation of power, sex and the manipulation of one human being by another. But she did not try to disillusion Resbit. She doubted that they would ever again hear of Elkor Alish, or for that matter any other Rovac warrior.
But in the autumn came the news that Elkor Alish, after many battles, conquests and subsequent defeats, was in Estar with an army of Rovac warriors, seeking to hold it against vaguely defined monsters from the south, known as the Swarms. Then winter cut off further news; when spring came, they learnt that Elkor Alish was dead, killed in a fight with Morgan Hearst, who now ruled Estar, sharing his power and responsibilities with the woodsman Blackwood and the wizard Miphon.
Hearing of Elkor's death, Resbit wept, and for a week could not be comforted. But Yen Olass, while displaying her sympathies, was secretly glad that this man-nonsense was at an end: and that there was no chance of the hero of Resbit's daydreams stealing her away to some distant palace of opal and amethyst, there to live out her days as a helpless prisoner of lust.
Intermittently, more news came from Estar. For a while, Estar seemed to flourish. Then Resbit and Yen Olass heard news of a three-way power struggle between its rulers, Blackwood, Miphon and Hearst. Rumour came to them saying Blackwood and Miphon, making an alliance, had removed themselves and their followers to Sung, in the Ravlish Lands, taking with them certain implements of power.
When intelligence next reached Lake Armansis, the two women learnt that Morgan Hearst was now undisputed ruler of Estar, a Rovac army supporting his rule.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
In the spring of the year Celadric 4, when Monogail was three years old and a bit, the Rovac came north to Lake Armansis. There were three hundred of them, the ragged remnant of a rearguard which had fought the Collosnon forces while covering the retreat of the Rovac armies down the Hollern River to ships waiting to take them to the Lesser Teeth.
The rearguard reached Lake Armansis, unopposed by the Melski, who had granted them safe conduct, knowing their real quarrel would be with the Collosnon thousands following on behind.
After the death of his father, the Lord Emperor Khmar, the cool and elegant Celadric had contemplated murdering his brothers, but had finally decided to let them kill each other. So he had appointed them joint commanders of an army of invasion, believing such shared responsibility would lead to murder.
Eager to win power and glory, the brothers had come south. Meddon, the seasoned warrior, slaughterhouse comrades at his side. Exedrist, a lame-brained semi-invalid dominated by those two notorious generals, Chonjara and Saquarius. York, the brawler, the thug, travelling with his personal bodyguard of axeblade executioners, torturers and professional rapists. The stage was set for a vicious three-way power struggle.
But, to begin with, the brothers fought the enemy rather than each other.
At the time of the invasion, Rovac seapower had been concentrated on the western coast, contending with the Orfus pirates of the Greater Teeth. Most Rovac landpower had been in the south of Estar, commanding the hills and mountains against the monsters of the Swarms now trying to force a way into Estar.
With the enemy thus dispersed, the Collosnon had struck, and conquered. The survivors of the Rovac rearguard now at Armansis planned to turn west to cross the Razorwind Pass to Larbster Bay, hoping to be picked up by their own sea patrols. The long-standing ancestral dream of Rovac, which was to conquer all of Argan, was at an end.
The Melski still maintained their trading post at Lake Armansis, even though the invasion of the Swarms had halted the passage of the Galish convoys, which were now denied a road south to the rich markets of the Harvest Plains and the Rice Empire. Those great powers, in turn, had ceased to be. So the trading post waited, in case conditions changed, though nobody could see how that was possible. By now the Swarms were no longer shadows and rumours, but were known by name. Worst were the Neversh, the flying double-spike monsters.
Outnumbered and just barely tolerated by the Melski, the Rovac were constrained to respect the trading post and the nearby human community (still only four-strong). Even so, a small group of them got drunk and made trouble. First they murdered Pelaki. They slashed the pig's throat, strung their victim up by the heels to bleed to death, then cooked and ate the meat. After this outrageous act of terrorism, they decided to start on the women; by the time Morgan Hearst arrived on the scene, Yen Olass had disabled three of his braves, and the heroes had retreated so they could plan how best to burn down House Two.
Hearst restored discipline, then interviewed the two women. The Melski had told him only that they were under Melski protection. Hearst could not think why two women with young children would be living with the Melski, so he was entirely prepared for them to be lepers or lunatics, or worse.
To his great surprise, he found he recognized one of them. He had long ago forgotten her name, but still remembered her face. She had been Alish's bedpartner during the days long ago, when a prince by the name of Meryl Comedo had ruler Estar, and Hearst and Alish had fought side by side in the same battles.
'What brings you here?' said Resbit, who knew Hearst well, having seen him often enough around Lorford.
'I'm here to apologize for the behaviour of my men,' said Hearst, studying the two shy children who hid in the shadows, and the formidable black-haired woman who stood to one side, leaning on an axe and watching him intently.
'We don't need apologies,' said the black-haired woman. 'All we need is to be left alone.’
'Who are you?' said Hearst, surprised at her hostility.
'She's Yen Olass,' said Resbit. 'I'm Resbit.’
'I know you are,' said Hearst, doing her the courtesy of pretending he had remembered her name. 'I've seen you in Lorford in the ... in the old days .. .’
'When Elkor Alish was still alive.’
'Yes. You've heard .. . ?’
'The deeds of Hastsword Hearst are famous,' said Resbit, with a touch of bitterness. 'Even here.’
'I'm sorry,' said Hearst. 'Still, that's in the past. As for the future, you're under my protection.’
'What future is that?' said Yen Olass.
Again Hearst was surprised.
'I thought you were free to leave,' he said. 'The Melski told me they weren't holding you here in slavery.’
'We're free to do as we wish,' said Yen Olass. 'So get out.’
Hearst hesitated. He had killed Elkor Alish -- but that was a tragedy, caused by a misunderstanding. Resbit was his last link with a man who had been his valued comrade for many years, who . . .
'What are you waiting for?' said Yen Olass.
'I mean you no harm,' said Hearst. 'Is there anything you need? For yourselves? For your children? Are they twins, the little ones?’
The children, still shy as mice, were half-hidden in the shadows. Both of them had black hair. Resbit was a brunette, so it was not s
urprising that Hearst thought they both belonged to Yen Olass, who, after all, seemed more likely to be the mother because of her protective attitude to her territory . . . and who certainly had good, wide, child-bearing thighs.
'Of course they're not twins,' said Resbit. 'The girl is hers. Elkordansk is mine.’
'Elkordansk?’
'That's the name he chose,' said Resbit, 'before he went away.’
'I see,' said Hearst.
'He does see,' said Yen Olass. 'He's killed the man, now he's going to kill the child.’
'There'll be no killing here,' said Hearst. 'Alish was my friend once. And this .. .’
Hearst looked around the interior of House Two. Blackened by more than three years of smoking fires, it looked small and dark and dirty.
'. . . this is no place for his son.’
