Warlord

by Katy Winter

  Bethel stopped when the musicians did. Awareness returned to eyes from which the glow quickly faded. He stared apprehensively around. Not ungently, the warlord pulled the boy even closer and turned Bethel to face him. His hand transferred to Bethel's torc. The young head was forced up as boy's eyes met warlord's.

  Sarssen couldn't hear what was said, but he watched the warlord give the boy a peremptory shake and cuff him hard when Bethel shook his head. The boy was swung round to face the warriors, Lodestok signalling at the same time to the musicians that they begin to play. Lodestok nodded sharply at Bethel.

  Drawing in a deep breath and trembling a little, Bethel sang, this time without being accompanied by the warriors. As he listened, Sarssen wondered idly if the gods had both blessed and cursed this boy. His physical beauty had attracted a brutal man, yet his gentle nature may have saved him, as might his love of music.

  From that evening, Bethel often sang, Lodestok watching him with surprising tolerance mixed with amusement. The boy always stood held close to the warlord, the pure notes pouring effortlessly from him, Bethel far distant as he sang and divorced from a reality that caused him distress.

  In Lodestok's pavilion, Bethel sang entirely for him, not southern ballads that he'd picked up over the preceding seasons but all he'd been taught in Ortok at the Academy. It was the only time he spoke Samar. The warlord lounged back in his chair, goblet in hand, and instructed Bethel to stand a foot or so in front of him. It was then Bethel forgot where he was. He stood as he'd been taught, hands clasped behind his back, feet apart, head up and his concentration on his music. Thus he sang for his master.

  Sarssen realised singing made life easier for this highly sensitive and gifted boy. Though it didn't alter his life in any specific way, the moments when Bethel was lifted beyond his immediate present helped him through what followed. Sarssen wondered a little sadly how Bethel would cope, if he still lived, when his voice broke in the next cycle or two and found himself hoping the boy's development wasn't rapid for the child's sake because Bethel needed his music.

  Not, Sarssen reflected, as he watched the boy learn to wield an axe and avoid swinging swipes, that there was any guarantee Bethel would live to reach maturity. The warlord was a capricious man of irrational whims. Should his interest in Bethel wane, the boy's life would come to an abrupt and painful end.

  It was from this time, also, that the warrior bard, Gariok, began to take notice of the warlord's boy, his calculating eyes intently watchful when Bethel sang. One evening as they gathered about the fire, Gariok suggested to Lodestok the boy be taught southern music and traditional sagas as an apprentice bard. Amused, Lodestok looked down at the boy at his feet. He nudged him with a booted foot.

  "What say you, boy?" he asked, an eyebrow raised enquiringly.

  Bethel had seen how Gariok trained his bards and was deeply scared of the huge warrior who stood staring down at him with a thoughtful expression in his eyes. Bethel's eyes flickered to the whip carelessly tucked into the bard's broad belt. He gave a shiver.

  "If it pleases you, my lord," he responded docilely. Lodestok's eyes glinted as he made the boy look up, as usual by pulling him by the hair.

  "It will be so. You will go to Gariok from tomorrow."

  "Yes, my lord," whispered Bethel. He blinked very hard. Lodestok let the boy's head fall.

  "He will come to you before he goes to Lotos, Gariok. Ensure he learns thoroughly. He knows what to expect if he does not, do you not, boy?" A careless finger flicked at the dark curls. Bethel was thankful it was a rhetorical question as the quiet voice continued. "Do not spare him. I do not," advised the warlord with a laugh, nodding dismissal at the bard.

  Bethel hunched himself at the warlord's feet, dread of the morrow making him wish he'd not been born at all. His first lesson with Gariok confirmed him in his fear of the man. Bethel knew intuitively the bard was very gifted, but the man also had a vile temper that he wasn't averse to taking out on anyone unlucky enough to be near him.

  He took Bethel's training seriously. Bethel began to take up an increasing amount of the warbard's time as Gariok came to realise just how deeply talented the boy was, his methods ruthless and often painful. Bethel recited, his eyes on a whiplash restlessly pulled through fingers, acutely aware those fingers could both make beautiful music as well as very thoroughly thrash a boy. Bethel came to dread his hours with Gariok as much as he did his time with his master. But Bethel learned and very quickly. Gariok had never had such a gifted apprentice. He pushed the boy very hard, his encouragement never expressed directly, but Sarssen saw how the bard sometimes coldly smiled over at Bethel when the boy wasn't looking.

  The days sped by Bethel, each one fuller than the preceding one. The boy was so busy Sarssen would often find Bethel in his pavilion, if the child ever had a moment of rest, the boy curled up on a mat in an attitude of utter exhaustion. With sympathetic understanding, the warrior very gently lifted and placed the child on his bed, a wry smile on his lips as he covered the boy with furs.

  Even in exhaustion, Sarssen noticed Bethel never moved from his slave status. He curled up on the ground. It made the warrior sad. He thought, again, about Bethel's reaction to his slavery and his apparent sublimation of self, as if Bethel had closed off a great deal of what he inherently was. These respites of deep sleep were what allowed Bethel to function, Sarssen also noticing the boy always woke when he should and was invariably gone when the warrior returned to his pavilion.

  ~~~

  Spring came and passed to summer with all its dryness and unrelenting heat. It was during the first days of summer that an episode showed Bethel his master in a light that terrified him. An attack from the forest, from the north, penetrated to within a few feet of the warlord's pavilion. It was unexpected and probably a foolhardy attack. Bethel, bare foot and clad only in breeches, was paring Lodestok's toenails so the kick he got flung him backwards, saw him collapse winded, then stagger to his feet, his chains, not yet removed by the warlord, hampering him.

  Half-naked, the warlord stormed from the pavilion, a snatched up knife at the ready as he charged, his voice shouting enraged commands as he strode forth. Bethel got his balance. He tentatively moved to the entrance, only to find himself suddenly grasped by the torc from behind by someone who entered the pavilion by crawling under it. The grip considerably hurt him. It tightened. At the same moment, he was confronted by a man at the pavilion entrance. The man spoke urgently and compassionately, in a language Bethel understood.

  "Are you a slave, lad?" Bethel nodded. "Can you come to me?"

  In answer Bethel felt the hand at his torc tighten and he gave a choked cry, shook his head, but tried to take a step to the man who held out his hand, the boy's stretched out to meet it. Then Bethel was jerked back so fiercely he gasped, hands imploringly tearing at the one at his torc. The man at the entrance eyed Bethel sadly.

  "I'm sorry, lad," he murmured, biting his lip. "I'd fight for you if I could." He turned his head and listened. "I can't stay. Try to reach me, lad."

  Bethel tried to move, but was so firmly clamped he couldn't. The man precipitately disappeared. The warrior who held Bethel shook him in midair and snarled.

  "You would have gone to him, boy!" he growled.

  He was dropped. The hand dealt him buffeting blows that had him cower to the ground, his hands typically up to ward off further blows, before he felt himself ruthlessly dragged to the base of the bed where he was very roughly chained. Another series of cuffs saw him cringe again, his legs unable to hold him. When they sagged, he sank to the ground, his head clasped in his hands, the brief glimpse of freedom too much. He wept.

  He only looked up when he heard Lodestok stalk into the pavilion an hour later, but the marrow nearly froze in his bones at the sight of the warlord's expression. Never had Bethel seen Lodestok so blazingly and uncontrollably angry. When he was unchained, then picked up and flung purposefully, every part of the boy protested. The warlord may have been unable to visit re
prisal on the invaders but he could vent the violence of his ungovernable fury and frustration on his slave.

  In the morning, Sarssen eyed the blanched face and shivering limbs of the child who staggered towards him, unable to speak or eat, and didn't let the child do any training. Instead he lifted the boy and gently took him to a healer. Even warriors, sighting the boy, had recollections of a young Sarssen after one of the warlord's uncontrollable furies. Bethel's big black eyes told their own tale. It was Bethel's first experience of a master in the demon's temper.

  Bethel was nearly twelve cycles when Lodestok decided to break camp, leaving Ortok a fortified garrison with an Ortokian commander, called Lban, who had overlordship, for Lodestok, of all Samar. The warlord intended to move slowly north, his eyes set on further conquest at the northern reaches of Samar. Bethel, of course, was to go with him.

  The boy accepted then that his life was now set as the warlord dictated. He'd often walk to the camp perimeter to stare at what was once his home, his thoughts full of a family he assumed were dead, or else, like himself, enslaved. He thought wistfully, too, of the scholar and sadly of his mother. On their last morning in camp, the boy gave a last, long, lingering look at Ortok and Blenharm forest, before he turned resolutely away.

  When the army moved and passed close to the city, Bethel found he couldn't look at the ruins of a place where he'd known so much love and peace. It contrasted too sharply with enslavement and the loss of his family. As he rode beside his master wearing chains and a torc, he averted his eyes, the expression on the beautiful face resigned and subdued. The purple eyes were bleak.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The first few weeks of her flight were a hard lesson for Myme Chlo. Though she didn't endure the physical agonies of her brothers she suffered in other ways. Where her brothers were preoccupied with an instinct to survive, the little girl had more time to let a vivid imagination work.

  The amiable scholar who'd always been a part of her life had changed and wasn't approachable as he'd been in Ortok, now less communicative and certainly not prepared to laugh in the lazy way to which she'd become accustomed. He walked for miles in abstracted silence and though Myme Chlo trusted him implicitly, she felt she travelled with a stranger. She thought, sometimes, that he didn't notice her at all.

  She timidly asked about her mother and received the brutal truth that both Melas and Bruno were dead. Autoc didn't elaborate, but neither did he think it was kind to raise false hopes and he admitted, with a grim twist to his lips, that her brothers were either enslaved or dead. Myme Chlo came to a halt. The eyes staring up at the scholar were wide and imploring, but he only shook his head and put a gentle hand on a head that precipitately drooped.

  "I'm very deeply saddened, child," the scholar murmured.

  That was all he'd say. The little girl saw profound grief in the scholar's blue eyes and knew he spoke the truth. Over those weeks Myme Chlo wept herself to sleep, night after night, while she struggled to come to terms with the violence that tore her life apart. She suffered physical exhaustion too, because Autoc's pace was fast. He had very long legs and boundless energy, so it was an effort for a little girl to keep up with him, so much so that when they stopped to eat she'd sink to the ground, legs trembling and aching with fatigue. She was often too tired to eat, willingly obeying the scholar by remaining where she was when he went off to hunt.

  She thought he was a most efficient hunter, because he was never gone very long and would walk into whatever glade they were in with either an onton bird, or a small forest creature she knew as a kitter, dangling from one hand. She'd watch him prepare a meal, her yawns getting steadily deeper until her eyes closed and she'd be sound asleep. She never saw the understanding smile that touched the scholar's face when he glanced her way. She'd wake to his touch, eat, and then it took a real physical effort for her to clamber back to aching feet to begin another long arduous walk. During those early days Myme Chlo felt and saw little.

  The scholar saw far more than Myme Chlo realised. He frequently looked down at the determined little figure that trudged beside him with her head down, and when he did it was with a sad smile. He never, though, let Myme Chlo know he saw her tears and distress, nor did he comment on her problems keeping up with him, merely setting a pace he felt she could cope with but that kept them moving ahead of anyone from Ortok.

  The scholar let the little girl keep her pride intact, well aware that, apart from himself, she'd lost everything else that made up her life. He sensibly let her come to terms with her new circumstances in her own way which may have seemed hard to Myme Chlo and the scholar wondered sometimes if he did right. It worked. The scholar was correct in thinking that cuddling and caressing the child wouldn't help her.

  Three weeks after they fled Ortok, Myme Chlo began to respond, her despondent expression lightened and the little head came erect. The footsteps weren't as leaden. This evening, she even smiled for the first time. They were camped by a river. The scholar stripped off and lounged in the swirling eddies near the edge from where he encouraged Myme Chlo to join him. She was, just then, carefully walking across the stones to grasp his outstretched hand. The stones were hot. That made the girl move as fast as she could, miss her footing, and, slithering haphazardly, she fell into the waiting arms. A giggle escaped her. She wriggled away before the scholar could tickle her, cleaned herself and washed her hair.

  Slippery, she clambered up the slope and sat shaking her head to get the worst of the wetness from her hair. She sat dripping. She stared across at the scholar who enjoyed himself enormously and it was then Myme Chlo saw the scholar she'd known in Ortok. It was too much. A tear crept down her face. She deliberately looked away, lay back on warm baked stones near the water's edge that were pleasant to rest on, rolled onto her stomach and lay with her head in her arms. Warm, she drifted asleep.

  Autoc splashed his way to shore, their sodden garments draped over one arm, paused, looked down at the sprawled figure, then went back to the camp and spread out the clothes to dry. He laid out clean garments for Myme Chlo next to a very small fire he'd built, even though the weather was so hot they only needed heat for cooking. The scholar was already letting this fire burn down because, after their two day rest, they'd move again at dawn.

  Whilst Myme Chlo slept in the last of the sun, the scholar dressed and then calmly set about packing provisions - dried meat, tubers he'd shown Myme Chlo were edible, and other roots and herbs that he'd earlier sent the child out to collect. He walked back to the river to fill skins and on his way back to camp gently prodded the prone figure with a booted foot.

  "Myme Chlo," he said, nudging her again.

  She rolled over, opening large violet eyes that smiled straight up into the scholar's. Involuntarily he responded by holding a hand to her and helping her to her feet. She was unbalanced so he steadied her, took her other hand and guided her across the stones.

  "Go on ahead, child," he advised. "You'll find clothes by the fire."

  Myme Chlo scampered at a run, her dry curls feathered all over her head and bounced as she went. The scholar walked at a leisurely pace, arriving at the fireside to find Myme Chlo dressed and pulling in and buckling her belt, her hand caressing it. The scholar knew she thought of Bethel every time she dressed. He quietly waited for the day she outgrew clothes that clearly haunted her.

  He crossed behind her. He squatted down beside the fire, absently stirred a small pot that held a bubbling stoup, scooped some of it onto a plate and passed it across to Myme Chlo who'd just finished hauling on boots. She sighed and sat cross-legged, but ate with more enthusiasm than she'd shown since their travels began.

  "Hungry, little one?" the scholar enquired, serving himself.

  He stretched out against a trunk and nodded at the pot. Replete, Myme Chlo went over to the scholar and crouched down beside him, waiting for him to put out an arm. He drew her in close so she could rest her head on his chest, in the way she'd done since she was a very small child. Myme Chlo w
as quiet for a long time. The scholar merely looked enigmatically at the dark, fluffy head, content to wait for her to speak. It was the girl who broke the silence.

  "You've been very patient with me, Scholar, haven't you?" Autoc looked down with a smile.

  "I've been very hard on you, little one. It's no easy thing to find your life ripped apart as yours has been."

  "I find it easier now."

  "Yes, child. You're doing very well."

  "When I'm taller, it'll be easier keeping up with you."

  Myme Chlo smiled wistfully up at her mentor, though the scholar saw the melancholy behind the smile. It was a sombre little face that he stared at so thoughtfully, but he responded to the smile, aware it was only the second time she'd smiled in weeks. They both relaxed.

  Then the scholar sensed a body of horse approaching, and, as he usually did, he abruptly grasped Myme Chlo's wrist and yanked her roughly into the undergrowth by the side of the trail. The command for silence that came into her mind was peremptory. She crouched uncomfortably. Her heart raced with anxiety. The scholar was motionless.

  A group of eight riders came slowly into view. Even though the scholar now knew they were Dahkilan, he still pushed Myme Chlo's head hard down so she could see nothing and all she heard was the sound of voices and hooves and the occasional jangle of metal as the riders faded into the distance. The pressure on her shoulders eased and she was allowed to get up and stretch. Her left foot had gone to sleep and she had cramp in her left arm so she quickly flexed them both, wincing a little. She watched the scholar rise and brush himself down.

  "That was rather close, child, wasn't it?"

  "Would they have hurt us, Scholar?"

  "Who knows," was the non-committal answer. "We won't bother to ask them, shall we?"

  "No," was the forlorn reply.

  This incident was repeated so many times Myme Chlo rapidly became disoriented, lost her sense of direction within a few days and never got it back. The scholar veered left or right without explanation, so she simply obediently followed wherever he led. Only once they passed near a quickly assembled camp, people coming and going all round them. The scholar got very edgy and totally uncommunicative whilst they skirted the camp as best they could, while for Myme Chlo it was an unwelcome and brutal introduction to the result of the sack of her home city-state.