Oswy seemed to be two cities — one fairly clean, for a frontier town, the other shabby and mostly unpainted. The central street, very wide, very muddy, divided them. At first I thought one side held the well-to-do, such as they were, the other the poor, but Bakr corrected me. “On this side are the traders and those who give a shit about clean streets. On the other … the Negaret, who care more for the cleanliness of their souls and bodies, and spend as little time behind walls as they must.” Proof that worldly injustice is rife was that the Negaret side sounded with music and laughter, and the Maisirian traders were pinched-faced and ill at ease.
Bakr had pitched his tents beyond the city walls, which he said was required for Negaret bands, then he and his warriors escorted me to the balamb, or military governor. Oswy, the first city within Maisir on the main trading route, was too important to be ruled by a civilian kantibe.
Balamb Bottalock Trembelie and his staff were waiting inside the gates of his sprawling compound. Trembelie was an odd-looking man. He must have been a fine bull of a soldier who’d spent too long at the trencher and not enough in the trenches. At one time he would have weighed 250, perhaps 300 pounds. But something had happened, perhaps a wasting disease he was only just recovering from, for his weight had fallen so quickly his skin hadn’t had time to shrink to its proper size. His jowls drooped, and the skin of his hands sagged in folds. He should have worn a beard, for he looked like a dissipated, petulant baby. He wore jewel-crusted red suede breeches and vest, with a silk shirt that ended at his elbows. His forearms bulged, not with fat but muscle, and I knew he could handle a heavy sword without effort.
It was raining as we rode through the gates, but Trembelie paid no attention, striding down from the pavilion he and his courtiers were sheltering under. “Ambassador Damastes á Cimabue, Tribune and Baron,” he said, and his voice was a flat, clear baritone well suited for the commands of the battlefield. “Welcome to Oswy. Welcome to Maisir.”
I dismounted and greeted him. There was the usual babble of introductions.
“Balamb Trembelie,” Bakr called. “My duty is finished, and I now give over this man to your keeping. Guard him well, as I have.” He looked at me. “Take good care. When you return, come a-hunting with us. Or, if not, think fondly of the day when we’ll be hunting each other.”
I saluted with an open hand, and he wheeled his horse, kicked it into a gallop, and splashed out of the compound.
“May I ask what that was about?” Trembelie said.
“Jedaz Bakr has determined war between our kingdoms is inevitable,” I said.
“That was rude.”
“Not in his eyes,” I said. “He thought it would be quite a wonderful time.”
“And you?”
“My orders, my desires, and those of my emperor, are for peace. Let those who want war find another enemy than Numantia.”
“Good,” Trembelie said. “I feel the same. These bones of mine have seen enough of blood. I have no desire to scatter them on some forgotten ground. After what you’ve just said, I personally bid you another, fonder welcome to Oswy. Come inside, you and your men, and let us provide a proper — and dry — reception.”
• • •
That night’s banquet was interesting, if somewhat overspiced for my palate. The Maisirians love to give flowery names to their dishes, just as Varan cooks do. One dish, for instance, was called Heavenly Forest Log Bearing Scents of Spring. It was a haunch of venison with far too many spices, too much wine, and too much garlic, cooked with onions, scallions, shallots, and leeks. I foresaw that I’d better eat simple dishes when alone, if the Maisirians proposed to feed me like this in public.
Trembelie’s eyebrows lifted when I told him I didn’t drink, but within moments he’d ordered up various sorts of iced waters, some charged, others scented with flowers or fruit.
There were only a handful of women at the table, and these were the concubines of Trembelie and his highest aides. I don’t know if any of these officials had wives in Oswy, but if they did, they were kept in seclusion.
Bakr had warned me about the interminable toasts, and so it went, beginning with one to the Emperor Tenedos, then to King Bairan, then to each other, then to the city of Oswy, and so on and so forth.
After dinner I gave out presents to Trembelie and four of his aides. These were clever cylinders that provided a different view of Numantia each time you turned and peered through them, tiny statues of strangely worked metals and semiprecious stones, and suchlike. For Trembelie, I had a dagger whose blade was skeletonized, with various-colored gems set within.
“We have gifts for you,” he announced. “These come not from us, but from His Royal Majesty. I must say that our king, who does all things well, has outdone himself.”
First were expensive, soft winter furs, then a jeweled and elaborately engraved sword.
“There is one more,” and Trembelie sounded wistful. “The king has granted you a great honor, one which I hope, to be frank, to be worthy of if Irisu smiles and I serve my master well.” He tapped a wooden clacker and a young woman walked into the room.
I don’t know if I gasped, or if it was someone else. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She was tall, four inches under six feet. She had straight black hair that fell below her waist and was pulled back and held with a jeweled clip. Her eyes were almond in shape, and green. She had a small, pert nose, equally small and inviting lips, and high cheekbones. Her complexion was a golden marvel, utterly clear, as if the finest lacquer had been laid over the finest hammered metal, and I knew her skin would be as velvet to my touch.
She was quite slender, but full-breasted. She wore a robe suitable for a bedchamber or an imperial audience — high-necked, close-fitting, and following the lines of her body to her ankles. It was light blue, with a raised pattern lighter blue. Her expression suggested someone who’d come quickly to laughter, curiosity, or passion.
“This is Alegria,” Trembelie said. “She is a Dalriada.” He said this as if I was expected to know what a Dalriada was, and to be suitably impressed.
She lifted her face and looked at me. I was shaken for an instant by an unknown emotion. It was lust, but more than lust. I yearned suddenly to take her in my arms, take off the robe she wore, and love her. I said, and meant love, not just lust.
“This is, as I’ve said, one of the highest honors our King can bestow,” Trembelie said. “Alegria is given to you by our gracious king not only for your time here in Maisir, but to take back to Numantia if you wish.” He paused, then said, “Unless, of course, there are … problematical circumstances.”
Someone snickered, and I’m afraid I blushed, as much with anger as anything, for a host of reasons. The most obvious was wondering why men behaved in such an utterly boorish manner. I thought, for an instant, a bit of amusement came and went on Alegria’s face.
The clacker sounded again, and the spell was broken. Two servants appeared.
“Escort this woman to Tribune á Cimabue’s chamber, along with his other presents.”
Alegria bowed and walked out, as calmly as if she were royalty leaving an audience chamber.
• • •
We sat for another hour, perhaps two, mouthing platitudes of peace and brotherhood. I suppose I held up my end, but my mind was hardly present. I wasn’t eager to have the evening come to an end, at least not until I determined what I’d do about the woman. But no ideas came.
Finally Trembelie yawned widely and suggested it was time to retire. “I assume you’d also like to … examine the gifts from our king.” That got a laugh, but not from me. I forced a smile, rose, and a servant came.
My apartments were on three levels, on the highest floor of the building, and faced east, so the rising sun would illuminate them, with Oswy and the river it sat on below. Everything was silk, padded leather, and luxury, decorated in a rather feminine style.
Alegria was kneeling in the center of the main room. “Good evening, master.” Her voice was as I’d expected, soft, gentle, purring but with the force of a tiger.
“Get up,” I said.
She obeyed, rising with utter grace, hands not touching the floor.
“First, my name is Damastes. I’m not to be called master.”
“As you wish, mas — As you wish.”
“Sit down somewhere.” She obeyed, curling herself in a round, backless chair. “Let’s start over,” I said. “Alegria, I am delighted to meet you.”
“And I you,” she murmured. She looked me up and down. “I think I’m very lucky.”
“Don’t be so sure,” I said, wondering why my voice was harsh, and forcing it to be gentle. “But why do you say that?”
“Forgive me for sounding arrogant,” she said. “But those who my lord and master, King Bairan, deem worthy of a gift of Dalriada are generally, shall we say, not young, but of years commensurate with their station. Not to mention bulk,” she said, a smile coming and going.
“Thanks for the compliment,” I said. “But you should know that I’m married.”
Alegria held out her hands, palms up. “That isn’t important.” She opened the first button of her robe and took out what looked like a small stone tablet. “My lord, would you do me a favor?”
“If I can,” I said, eager for a new subject.
“Put this in your mouth for a moment.” I took the lozenge. It was engraved with tiny symbols. I obeyed, and tasted perfume I knew was her body, her scent. “Now give it back to me.”
I took it out of my mouth, then hesitated. “Sorcerers try to get a bit of spittle, blood … other substances from those they wish to control,” I said. “Is there magic in this?”
“There is. But not concerning you. This is something all Dalriada are required to do when they meet their master for the first time.”
“I said, I’m not your master! Please don’t use that word any more. But what happens next?”
“Nothing to you, as I’ve said. I merely place this in my mouth for a moment. Then the tablet’s spell is expended, and you may have it back, if you wish.”
“What does the tablet do?” She hesitated. “Tell me!”
“It binds me to you. Forever.”
“A love philter?”
“Of sorts. But one that’s very skillfully woven. I … I will love you, certainly. But I won’t be blind to your faults, so I won’t moon over you, and drive you mad with doglike devotion. It makes what you do, your happiness, your success the most important thing to me.”
“So if I said your death was necessary?”
She looked down, nodded slightly.
“Utter, complete, contemptible bullshit,” I snarled, rage breaking into the open. I went to a window and hurled the tablet into the night. “Fuck that nonsense.”
Alegria’s face twisted, and she started to cry. I didn’t know what to do, but finally sat beside her and put an arm about her shoulders. She found that of little comfort, and so I just sat there until the sobs stopped. She excused herself, went into the bath, and I heard water splashing. She came back out and sat down across from me.
“All this is quite beyond me, quite beyond anything I’ve learned,” she said. “Forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Your wife must be very fortunate to have someone who loves her that much.”
The cheap and convenient lie I’d told suddenly came back up, acid in the back of my throat. “No,” I confessed. “My wife has left me recently, and will divorce me, if she hasn’t already.”
Alegria’s eyes searched me. “Oh,” she said gently. “So now you hate women?”
“Of course not. I … just feel, well, dead.”
“I’ve been taught ways my instructors said will open passion’s gates to almost anyone.”
“I don’t mean in the flesh,” I said, wondering why I was telling this woman so much. “But rather that there’s no attraction.”
Alegria stood, and slipped her robe off. Under it she wore a filmy wrap, tinged with red and green, growing darker around her waist and sex, then lighter once more. I saw the delicate brown of her nipples, the firm pertness of her breasts. “No?” she breathed. “Even without the tablet I’m drawn to you, wish to make you happy.”
“No,” I said flatly, honestly.
“Then what do you wish me to do? Do you want me to leave?”
“If I did, I doubt if your lord and master would be pleased with me. But that’s as may be. What would happen to you?”
“The same thing that’ll happen when you leave Maisir, since obviously you’ll have no interest in taking me back to your kingdom,” she said. “I’ll return to the Dalriada.”
“Which is?”
“A place. An order. Where I grew up, where I learned what I know, where my friends are. Where I’ll grow old and die. Probably they’ll want me to teach the novices, although what I’ll have to teach I surely don’t know. Maybe that even the fair can fail.”
“You haven’t failed,” I said. “Don’t be silly. Don’t you have, well, male friends?”
Alegria looked at me closely. “I see you’re not making a joke. So you must’ve been told nothing about what I am. I was chosen to join the Dalriada when I was seven years old. From that time to this night, I was never permitted to be alone with a man.”
“Oh.” This was becoming troublesome. “But when you go back, surely you can do whatever you want. Your service to the king is complete. It’s no fault of yours the situation is what it is.”
“No. If I were to marry, or company a man, that would be considered a disgrace by the king. My life would be forfeit.” She looked to either side reflexively, as if making sure she wouldn’t be overheard. “I don’t understand why that shames my lord and master, but then I’m not a man, not a king.”
I almost blurted that neither was she a gods-damned fool, and I didn’t understand that kind of thinking either, but caught myself. “Is this what happens to all Dalriada?” I asked.
“Most. But not all. Some of us are lucky. Some of us become mistresses of those who own us. There are tales of a few even becoming wives.”
“What about being freed? Of no longer being …”
“A slave? That would be terrible,” she said. “For who would protect me?”
“The first man you met,” I said. “You are very beautiful.”
She blushed. “Thank you. But you don’t know the ways of Maisir.”
“Evidently not. But I’ll learn them. The question now is, what should you and I do?”
“Please don’t shame me this night. Allow me to sleep on the floor. Then I’ll do what I must do.”
“That’s not an option either,” I said. “Let me ask you this — do the talents of a Dalriada go beyond the bed?”
“Of course! Why do you think we’re as prized as we are?” she said indignantly. “I can sing. Dance. Balance accounts. Provide any sort of conversation you wish, from party chatter to talk about art or books or even diplomacy. We’re very well trained in that,” she said. “Perhaps because most of our mas — lords practice that craft, sometimes to the exclusion of all else. Or so I was told.”
“Then there’s a solution, at least for the moment,” I said. “Alegria, would you travel with me as my companion? My teacher? For I desperately need to learn everything there is to know about your land.” Needless to say, I didn’t add that it would be for the purpose of conquest.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course. I am yours.”
“Mmmh.” I was still thinking. “I suppose that Trembelie will have my servants brought up and questioned, to see what happened this night, eh?”
“I would think so. He was quite interested in me.”
“There’s but one bed. Would it be better for everybody, I mean … I don’t mean to be …” My stammer faded off.
“Thank you, Damastes.”
I didn’t meet her eyes as we went into the bedchamber. It was quite awkward, planning to sleep with someone who was a stranger, someone you weren’t going to have sex with. I found a thick robe made of toweling, and that helped. I looked studiously in other directions as we washed, cleaned our teeth, and perfumed our bodies. I rather imagine it would have been roaringly funny to an observer, but it was only embarrassing to me.
We went into the bedroom, and she sat on one side of the bed. “One small favor,” she said, without looking at me. “Have you a tiny knife?”
I did, a small folding blade, in my housewife, useful for cleaning nails and such. I gave it to her. “Be careful, it’s sharp.”
“Good,” and before I could do anything she slashed the tip of her ring finger.
“What are you doing?” I exclaimed.
“The same thing you are. Preventing gossip.” She pulled back the covers and allowed blood to drip onto the sheets in the bed’s center. “Remember? I am … I was … a virgin.” Alegria suddenly giggled. “Your face is red.”
“I know,” I said furiously.
“And your neck.”
“No doubt.”
“How far down do you blush, Damastes?”
“Stop it, woman. I meant what I said.”
She leaned over and blew out the light. I took off the robe, lay back, and pulled the covers over me. She got into bed. It was utterly silent, save for the dim clatter of a cart somewhere beyond Trembelie’s mansion.
Then she giggled once more. “Good night, lord.”
“Good night, Alegria.”
Given the strangeness of the situation, I thought, I’d toss and turn for hours. But I didn’t. Sleep took me within moments. I don’t remember what I dreamed. But when I awoke, just at dawn, I felt very happy, and had a smile on my lips. And my cock was as hard as an iron rod.
• • •
The next morning, we started south, toward Jarrah. We were escorted by two full companies of the Third Royal Taezli Cavalry. Their proper total strength should have been around four hundred men, the ranking captain and therefore man in charge of both formations, Shamb Alatyr Philaret said. But they’d never been able to muster more than two hundred fifty or so, and fifty of these men had recently been detached to “help train the new units,” further indication the Maisirians were building up their armies.
The other shamb was named Kars Ak-Mechat, who, I was quickly informed, came from one of Maisir’s oldest and “best” families. In truth, he reminded me of a certain arrogant fool of a subaltern named Nexo whose skull had thankfully been crushed by a peasant during the Tovieti rising. Ak-Mechat was a few years older than Nexo but no wiser at all. His favorite topic was himself, the second favorite how noble his family was. I tried to ignore him.
We had a caravan of five carriages, sprung on iron leaves. But the constant swaying on the Maisirian — I almost said roads, but rethought the matter — trails, rather, was as exhausting, as if I were on horseback or in a peasant’s wooden cart. I often thought longingly of that huge piggish carriage I’d had designed and built to lug me about the reaches of Numantia in something resembling comfort, a word whose meaning I was gradually forgetting.
The carriages were big, I suspected converted charabancs, drawn by eight horses, and leather-upholstered, with oiled canvas screens at the side windows, to keep out the weather. I’m sure I was thought a lunatic for keeping the screens half-open, even in the worst weather. I know Alegria, though she never complained, must have muttered wryly to herself about her “luck,” huddling in a huge fur robe with nothing but her eyes, the tip of her nose, and the ends of her fingers to be seen, even though we were still in the Time of Rains, and the Time of Change hadn’t even begun.
I explained that when I was a child I’d once been shut in a tiny chamber, and I had suffered for it ever since. What I was really doing was surveying anything and everything an invader might need to know, from the depth of the fords to the provender to be gained from the countryside. Behind me, in the second carriage, my men were doing exactly the same. Every night we gathered, purportedly to pray, so no Maisirians, respectful of anything to do with gods, bothered us. Actually we were telling Captain Lasta everything of military value we’d seen, and he was keeping notes in minuscule script on a long roll he kept inside his shako. The other three carriages held emergency supplies and camping equipment, which we were forced to use too many times.
We ground on, day to day, moving south. I wish that I could say we moved steadily, but that was far from the case. All too often we were forced to wait until a raging river subsided, or blocking trees were cut away, or a severe storm passed. The Maisirian road system was an utter catastrophe. The current joke — and it wasn’t much of one — was that it was easy to tell the road from the muck — the road was the one with the pair of ruts.
The Maisirian highways were alarming, for without good roads, our army, when and if we attacked, would crawl as slowly as in the old days when it was burdened with officers’ mistresses, useless baggage, and camp followers.
We passed through tiny, grim towns, little more than shack villages with perhaps a stray cobble here and there to jolt the wheels — gray, dismal. The only solidly constructed buildings were the stone temples, invariably the most magnificent structure seen. Then we’d return to the suebi — gray sky, gray mud, gray rain, gray brush until the eye cried out for relief. The only color would be our uniforms and Alegria’s bright clothes.
I never thought I would mind being wet, since I grew up in the jungles. But this grayness, this always being soaked, not freezing, but chilled, morning to night, then waking and donning clothes that hadn’t dried — it worked on all of us. I was very proud of Alegria. She might have been born for palaces and luxury, but she was, indeed, a noble companion, always having a joke when we were tired, a tale of the road, or some bit of trivia about the river or hamlet we’d just passed. At night, when we were caught between cities, she’d have a tale for the camp fire, or a song.
When we readied ourselves for sleep, curled in our coach, I tried not to think of her, how close she was, and that she wouldn’t object if I slipped across the foot or two between us. Of course that was like telling a man not to think of a green pig. Alegria was my green pig, and grew greener the farther south we went.
• • •
We were well and truly mired. Our coachman cursed and his whip lashed, and the horses neighed protest, but the carriage merely creaked from side to side. Officers shouted for their men to dismount, put their shoulders to the wheel, and give it everything. I jumped out the side door and joined them, another cursing, heaving, muddy trooper in the dusk.
Men were sitting their horses a few feet away, and I almost shouted to them to get their lazy asses down and work some muscles, but then realized they were officers.
Through the grunting and swearing I clearly heard Shamb Ak-Mechat’s nasal sneer: “If that bathless barbarian and the slut he’s obsessed about would deign to stop their futtering, get off their flabby asses, and dismount from …” I heard no more. I had Ak-Mechat’s booted leg in my hands and yanked him from his saddle. He yelled, flailed at the air, and landed face-first in the mud.
“You … you fucking swine … I’ll …” He rose, met my boot in his chest, and went back down into a puddle with a splash. Ak-Mechat rolled, and came to his feet, then recognized me. “You bastard, how dare you, you baseborn cocksucker, how fucking dare you lay hands on me,” he hissed, out of control, hands yanking at his saber.
I was about to flatten him again when a bow thumped, and an arrow sprouted from the shamb’s stomach. He screamed once, grabbed at the arrow and tried to pull it free, and then three other arrows thudded into his chest, one impaling his hand. Ak-Mechat was very dead when he went into the mire for the third time.
Behind me was a grim Shamb Philaret, archers behind him. He looked at the corpse without pity. “Stupid bastard. Thought his gods-damned family would let him do anything to anybody he …” Philaret broke off. “Calstor,” he shouted.
A warrant waded up. “You order me, sir,” the standard response to any officer’s call.
“Take this bag of shit to the nearest tree and hang him there. Put a notice on him: ‘This Dog Disobeyed His Ruler.’ ”
“You order me, sir,” the man said mechanically, as if he’d just been told to make sure a deva cleaned his equipment before the next inspection.
“That fughpig has shamed us,” Philaret said to me. “My utter apologies. If you care to report this to the king, I would understand.”
“What would happen if I did?”
“The unit would likely be decimated,” he said. “The officers would be the first to die. Most likely Ak-Mechat’s family would be required to pay blood-bond. He has a son and a daughter, so their lives would be forfeit. The king might also decide Ak-Mechat’s father’s life belonged in the balance.” Philaret’s voice was completely calm, as calm as the calstor’s had been.
“I don’t see the need to bring this matter up again, Shamb. A fool’s idiocies should be forgotten as soon as possible.”
“I thank you, sir.” Without further acknowledgment, the officer rode back down the column. I returned to my wheel, and about half an hour later, after we’d gotten the spades out, the carriage was free.
I could have said what I was thinking — how utterly unnecessary that death had been, for his saber would never have been drawn before he would have been hammered back into the mire and given a thorough hiding, which might have taught a lesson — but I didn’t.
• • •
What I’d read was true — the officers of the Maisirian army thought their men no better than barnyard animals, and treated them the same. Shamb Philaret and his junior pydnas were shocked when I insisted on making sure my men were quartered and fed before I ate. For them, enlisted men were servants. I remember one night there was no shelter to be found, and so we pitched tents. Once the officers had their cover up, and servants making dinner for them, it was as if the poor enlisted swine no longer existed. How they cooked their ration of barley and raw bacon, where they slept, was no matter.
But Isa help the soldier who wasn’t turned out smartly in the morning and ready to ride on. It didn’t matter, by the way, if he’d bathed since last year, or if he was soaking wet, so long as his sopping uniform showed no traces of the previous day’s muddy travel. But the devas and calstors never complained, at least not within my hearing.
One night, we camped next to a group of merchants, and before dinner I wandered over to chat with them. Like most traders, they were careful about what they said in even casual conversation, especially with a soldier. But I learned a bit more about the country, helping to fill out the map I was building in my mind, and I got to spend some time with people not in uniform. When I returned, I had a tiny present for Alegria. It was a pin of a kitten, batting at a butterfly, and was quite cunningly cast and polished. It was made of various alloys of gold, so variations of the precious metal swirled through it — yellow, red, white. Held in the palm, the kitten took on the hues of a real animal, and mewed and swatted, without ever coming close to the playful insect darting about its head. When I gave the pin to Alegria, tears welled in her eyes. I asked her why — it had been fairly inexpensive and was a very minor sorcerous bauble compared to what she must have seen around the rich and mighty.
“This is the first thing that’s ever been mine,” she said. “Truly mine.”
“What about your clothes, all the jewels in your chest?”
“The king’s. Or they belong to my order. They’re only mine so long as I’m with you.” She snuffled. “I’m sorry, my lord. I don’t mean to be always leaking tears like a rain cloud. But …” She let her voice trail off.
“I think this is as good a time as any to also forget about the ‘my lord,’ ” I said briskly. “Shall we make it Damastes?”
“Very well. Damastes.” She started to say something further, then stopped and concentrated on the tiny kitten frolicking in her hand.
• • •
We stayed in village inns when we could, which gave me a chance to wander the streets and meet people. There weren’t many tradesmen, artisans, or people of the middle class. Or many rich, either. The peasants were dirty, cheerful, friendly, and exceedingly religious. Cheerful, but with little use for soldiers, even though the enlisted men were of their own class.
Two examples of why, which came from the same incident: We’d been forced to shelter in a farmer’s yard, pitching our tents from the eaves of his ramshackle barn. The farmer grudged us fresh, warm milk from one of his two cows, and two chickens plus a smattering of wizened vegetables for a very thin soup. The next morning he watched as we got ready to move. I realized no one had offered to pay the farmer for his favors. They were rude, but the best he could have done. I hastily got out of our coach, went to the man, and gave him three gold coins. He was incoherent in his gratitude, which embarrassed me to excess.
We set out. I don’t know what made me do it — perhaps I’d seen something out of the corner of my eye to make me suspicious — but a mile down the road I shouted for a halt, and asked Shamb Philaret to loan me a horse. I had to ride back to the farm, where I’d forgotten something. He said he’d have a pydna go, but I refused. Karjan was looking at me skeptically, knowing me full well by now, probably angry that I was going to do some piece of idiocy without an escort. I rode back, pulling my horse down to a walk before the gates. Then I heard screams. I slid from my horse, sword in hand, and ran forward.
Three of our soldiers, one calstor and two devas, had the farmer trussed to one of his wagon’s huge wheels, and the calstor had improvised a whip out of an unwoven rope with knotted ends. “Y’ll tell us where th’ rest of y’r gold an’ silver is, or y’ll show us your bones,” he shouted, and the whip slashed down once more. I guess the three were outriders, and thought they’d be able to accomplish their villainy and rejoin us before they were missed. I was across the yard and behind the warden before he heard me. I smashed the pommel of my sword into the back of his head, and he gurgled and fell into the muck. The two devas saw my ready blade and screamed in fear.
“Cut him loose.” They hastened to obey, then one of them, knife in hand, looked calculatingly at me. I put four inches of steel through his forearm before his thoughts became action.
“Find the rest of that rope,” I ordered, and when they brought it, a length of about fifty feet, I had the three tie loops, five feet apart, at one end and then put their heads through. The farmer was blubbering something about “great lord,” “great father,” but he owed me nothing. I gave him more gold. I took the far end of the rope and started back toward the caravan. I kept the pace just below a trot, so the men had to run, stumbling along the muddy track. All fell more than once, and I’d ride for another few yards, dragging them, kicking, flailing, before pulling up long enough to let them regain their feet. By the time we caught up with the others, the three were no more than mud-men.
Philaret demanded to know what had happened, only I made no reply, but tossed him the end of the rope, gave the pydna back his horse, and reentered the carriage. I don’t know what happened to the three would-be thieves, but I don’t remember seeing them on the rest of our journey.
• • •
The Maisirian soldiery weren’t all idiots and thugs. Crossing one swollen river, a man was swept off his horse and carried downstream. Without thinking, without hesitating for an instant, four devas dove after him. We never recovered the first man, and three of his four would-be rescuers drowned as well.
Noble, but Shamb Philaret would have ridden on without ever acknowledging the bravery of those three men.
I asked for a moment and said a prayer, a speech more to the other Maisirian enlisted men than an invocation to any gods. We went on, and the sound of a nameless river that had just killed four men died away gradually.
• • •
We reached the Anker River, about two-thirds of the way from the border to Jarrah. This east-west tributary was wide, almost two miles from shore to shore. But it ran the wrong way for commerce, and was heavily silted, so only small boats could navigate it. Here, at the village of Sidor, it broke into many courses, with sandbars and small islands between each of them. Some of the islands had a few ragged fishermen living on them.
There were two long bridges across the Anker, about twenty yards apart. Each was about thirty feet wide, made of wood, with low railings, like long causeways from islet to islet. Philaret said it was quite common for one or more sections to be destroyed in the spring melt, and for traffic to be held up for weeks or people forced to use boats to reach the next, intact, section.
Sidor, mostly built of stone, was a bit more solid than other villages we’d passed through. We admired the tall, six-sided stone granary that was the local landmark, bought smoked, salted, and sorcery-preserved fish to improve our impossibly dull rations, crossed the bridge, and went on up the low hill on the far side.
• • •
There was something even worse than the suebi — the marshlands. The swamps weren’t as deep on our route as they were to the east — the enormous Kiot Marshes, actually a closely connected series of swamps, with thin peninsulas running through them. But the world was still gray, and it wasn’t from the now-hidden sky, but gray moss hanging from colorless, rain-dripping, twisting trees that looked as if they never lived, never died. And there were few hamlets — Philaret said only the hardiest Maisirian ventured through these lands, although there were tales of mysterious people who lived in the swamps, paying no heed to King Bairan or anyone else of the government.
The road was, simultaneously, better and worse. It was no longer a rut, but rather corduroyed with logs — trimmed, laid beside each other, and lashed in place — and crude bridges over the many streamlets. We didn’t mire the carriages as often, but our way was a constant jolting from log to log to log. I asked Philaret about how many men it took to keep this road up, and he told me the king’s magicians helped, laying spells of preservation on the green wood and rawhide lashings, but it was still necessary to send soldiers through with axes and shovels every year, after the ice melted in the Time of Births.
There were creatures out there in the dimness. Karjan and I spotted, about a hundred yards from the road, what appeared to be an ape, but with two pairs of arms and legs and an elongated, nearly headless body, so it resembled a spider larger than a man more than any monkey. It gibbered angrily, then was gone. I was told no one knew, or wanted to know, much about these creatures. Supposedly they were intelligent, almost as intelligent as a man, lived in rude communities, and stole the children of the peasants living on the fringes of the marsh. “Either stole them,” Captain Lasta reported, since he was the one who’d heard the tale, “or had them for dinner. There’re two ways of thinking.”
At least there were few insects in this late season. But I would rather have dealt with a thousand buzzing bloodsuckers than the terrible fear that hung over us, a dread of something unknown, unseen. I felt as if something, or somethings, was watching us, perhaps hidden in this hummock or cleverly concealed behind that gnarled, tortured tree trunk. Sometimes we heard noises, but no one saw anything.
We reached a section where the corduroyed logs were rotting, dismounted, and went on afoot, drivers leading their teams. We put dismounted scouts ahead of the column, to give warning if the road had been washed out from beneath. I was wondering where we’d find a place to camp when a terror-stricken scream rang. Swords snicked from scabbards, and arrows were fumbled onto bowstrings.
Running toward the caravan was one of the scouts, howling in complete, mindless panic. But no one could call him craven, for rushing toward him, moving parallel with the road, was an impossible nightmare. Conceive of a slug, speckled, slime-yellow, shit-brown, a slug with no eyes, but a score or more gaping mouths along its slime-bubbling snout, a slug thirty or more feet long. It moved soundlessly, faster than the scout could run. It was almost on him, and the man looked over his shoulder once, shrieked again, and darted off the road, toward a clump of trees. Perhaps he thought he could outclimb the nightmare.
Philaret and another officer bellowed at the man, shouting for him to get back to the road, get back or die, which made no sense.
The slug reared as it moved, then collapsed wetly on the soldier, burying him under its disgusting bulk. Arrows spat, and buried themselves in the creature, and spears studded its flanks. But the monstrosity took no hurt. It slid away as quickly as it had come, back into the dimness, back into the shadows. There was no sign of the scout, no sign at all.
“That stupid bastard,” Philaret swore. I asked what the man had done wrong, what we should do if one of us were attacked.
“I don’t know if it’s a secret or not … but no one said not to say anything,” he said. “I told you the logs had words said over them, to keep them from rotting as fast as they would otherwise. There’s another spell, something supposed to keep any of the swamp creatures from crossing the road, or even going on it. Stay on the road and you’re safe. Move off it …” He didn’t need to say more.
We went on for another hour, then stopped where we were, on the road. We slept in the carriages, and the Maisirian soldiers spread canvas from the carriage tops to the roadway for shelter. It was uncomfortable, but I don’t think anyone slept very much. I certainly didn’t. Not so much out of fear of the slug’s return, but because I was pondering what Philaret had said. As far as I knew, no magician, not even the Chare Brethren, had the power to create a spell like the one Shamb Philaret had described. The emperor had been right — Maisirian magic appeared to be far in advance of our own.
• • •
Eventually we came to the end of the swamps, and entered woodlands, part of the immense Belaya Forest that ringed Jarrah and was its final protection. The hills were low, rolling. The ground was poor, sandy. The trees were tall conifers, and the constant wind touched them, moved them, night and day, sometimes a whisper, sometimes a roar.
The track improved until it was actually a road, even graveled from small town to town, and in the towns the ways were cobbled. We were getting close to Jarrah.
We came on the great estates of the Maisirian nobility, which stretched for leagues. But as often as not the great houses needed work, the surrounding villages were shabby, and the land poor and unyielding. We were greeted joyously at these estates, since we were, in many cases, the first visitors “of their class” to be seen in half a year, and they were eager for what they called news.
Actually all they wanted was gossip about what the rich and powerful were doing and wearing in Numantia, in Oswy, or on other estates. Real news, such as the tension between our two countries, bored them. They were lonely, they said, but I noticed none would have considered inviting any of the merchant caravans to be their guests. Boredom was better than having to deal with a lower class.
• • •
We stopped outside a village, and a peasant came out with buckets of milk, which he sold by the dipper. We drank all he had and wanted more. I went back to his farmhouse with him, this time sensibly allowing Karjan and Svalbard to accompany me. I asked questions about the land, the farm, the growing seasons, what kind of help he needed to work the land, but the man grunted monosyllables. I’d hoped to ask what he thought of the king, of his rulers, but I realized I’d get nothing from this stone.
His farmhouse was a bit neater than most we’d seen, although very small by Numantian standards. Painted over the door was an interesting symbol. It was yellow, and looked like an upside-down, curving letter U. The ends were thicker, like knots in a rope.
“What’s that?” I asked, keeping my voice innocent.
The peasant looked at me hard, a threatening expression that was strange from a man of his station.
“ ‘Tis an’ old family sign f’r luck an’ good weather,” he muttered. “No more.”
The drawing looked very much like the yellow silk strangling cord used by the Tovieti.
“Let me ask something,” I said, keeping my voice casual. “Does this mean anything to you? It’d be in red.”
With my sword tip I sketched a circle in the mud, a circle with lines curling from it, the main Tovieti emblem, of murderous snakes rising for revenge from the pooled blood of the cult’s martyrs.
“No,” the peasant said quickly. “Means naught.” But he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
So the Tovieti were in Maisir, as well.
• • •
The mansion gaped at the gray heavens, stonework still scarred from the flames that had consumed it. It might have been just an unfortunate accident, but an hour earlier we’d passed through what had been a tiny village and was now a similar ruin. I asked Shamb Philaret if he knew what had happened, and he nodded. I had to prod him for the story, but eventually he told me the peasants had risen against their masters.
I remembered the horror of Irrigon — the flames and Amiel’s death — and held back a shudder. “Why?”
“The usual reasons, I suppose,” he said and shrugged. “Sometimes peasants forget their lot’s nothing but a crust and the whip, and their master’s got the right to do what he wants — and they go mad. It’s like a plague,” he said. “None of them think about what they’re doing, about what’ll happen, and they tear and kill, like a bear among the dogs.”
“So the army burned that village putting down the insurrection?”
“Not the army,” he said grimly. “The king’s magicians sent firewinds against the killers, and let Shahriya’s fire take them all — men, women, children. The king proclaimed these lands outcast, and forbade anyone to live here or plant the lands. This was to be an example that would live forever for man to know his station, and his duties.”
“When did this happen?” I said, thinking such utter barbarism must’ve been a generation or more ago.
“Five, no six, years past.”
We rode on, through other shattered villages, still-scorched lands. I felt the dark hand of the gods overhanging us.
• • •
The inn, only a day beyond Jarrah, sat on a hill overlooking a lake, and was a delight. It was frequently used for holidays by Maisirian nobility and was quite luxurious. There were stables, covered areas for the carriages to be washed, and barracks for servants of the guests. As with other Maisirian buildings, the lower story of the huge main building was of stone, framed in wood, and the upper stories were wooden. My men were on the second level, each with a room to himself. Captain Lasta was used to such luxury, as was Karjan, but the others were as delighted as children at their day-of-birth celebration.
I was utterly exhausted, and asked to have a simple meal served in our rooms. Alegria and I had three huge rooms on the top level, lit by gas piped from a nearby fault, which was a great rarity in Maisir. We’d barely examined the bedchamber or the main room, for this inn had that most precious of all things, something we’d barely seen since leaving Oswy — a bath. The room was hand-rubbed wood and stone, with controllable vents bringing heat up from the lower floors. Now I learned the Maisirian nobility’s way of cleanliness.
Stone monsters were set on the walls, chain-pulls below each, which allowed spouts of water, in various temperatures, to gush out of the pipes into wooden buckets. You wet yourself, soaped, and rinsed clean at least twice. Then you went to the tub, a twenty-foot-wide wine barrel cut in half. You never sullied this water with dirt or soap, but used it for relaxation, Alegria told me. There were other carved monster heads with chains overhead, and when the chains were pulled, the heads would tilt and dump down hot or cold water.
Alegria went into the bathroom first, while I tried to keep awake. Every muscle in my body whined about the moil and toil inflicted over the last time and a half.
“You may come in now,” she said, and I obeyed. Alegria floated on her back in the tub, eyes closed. I was too tired, too worn, to give a hang if she chose to watch. I hung the robe on a hook, filled a bucket, found the soap and a huge sea sponge, and began scrubbing. It took three complete baths before I felt the filth of the journey dissipating, and my skin was pink as a baby’s. A hairy baby’s, and I took out my razor and polished steel and shaved, amazingly without slashing my exhausted throat.
Alegria splashed happily, singing to herself. She, at least, was awake and alert. I considered drowning her. I thought about putting the robe back on, then thought myself foolish, went to the tub, and lowered myself into it. It was just above blood-warm, about three feet deep. Submerged, I felt my hair float like seaweed about my head. Finally I had to surface to breathe, and I stretched out on my back, my head resting on the tub’s rim.
The water was unusual, bubbling, caressing my skin, soothing it, but without the usual stink of a mineral hot springs. Alegria lay as I did across from me, peering at me through toes she wriggled from time to time.
“Are you happy, Damastes?” she said.
I realized, somewhat to my surprise, that at least I wasn’t unhappy. The leaden misery that had companioned me since Marán had discarded me was still there, but far distant, almost a memory. “Pretty much,” I said.
“I am, too.”
I yawned.
“None of that, sir,” she said. “You will be awake to dine. We have been eating slugs and snails and worms and grain and things I wouldn’t feed a duck for ages.”
“Well, we better not wait too long, then,” I said. “Or I’ll drown in the soup.” Oddly, as I spoke, I felt fatigue draining, as if the bath had rejuvenating powers.
“Of course not,” Alegria said. “These tubs are dangerous, I’ve learned.”
“How so? Too warm and you melt to death?”
“No,” she said, putting a worried look on her face. “It’s the wood the casks are made out of. I read that it harbors small creatures that slip out after a time.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“I’m telling the truth,” she said. “They’re somewhat dangerous, since they have a single claw, and dearly love to bite.”
“I’m deeply concerned,” I said.
“Oooh. I just felt one,” she yelped. “It’s down on the bottom, and it’s moving toward you.”
At that moment a pair of pinchers closed on my cock, and I found the power of levitation. Then I realized the “claw” was Alegria’s toes.
I stood, streaming water. “Wench! Hoyden! Liar!” My outrage might have been more convincing if my cock hadn’t been rising in front of me. “I told you not to do things like that,” I said, again failing at dignified outrage.
“I’m very sorry, Damastes,” Alegria said. “Especially since I hear the sound of our table being set outside. Shall we dine?”
• • •
We did, on freshly baked warm bread, tubs of country butter, a wonderful salad of many different kinds of greens, and tiny shrimp Alegria swore came from the inn’s tubs, and were just like the one that had bitten me, sans claws. We could have had meat or fish, but both of us lusted after vegetables, and so we had quickly fried bitter melon with black beans and assorted mushrooms. Alegria had two glasses of wine; I drank mineral water. I summoned a servant and had him remove the ruins of the meal.
“And now to bed, my lord?”
“And now to bed,” I said and yawned.
“Actually,” she said, as she rose and went into the bedchamber, “I’m quite grateful we have the arrangement we do.”
“Oh?”
“Were we anything other than what we are, we might be losing valuable sleep, which we need to build our bodies for the morrow.”
“You sound like my mother,” I said.
“But do I look like her?” She dropped her robe as she spoke. I caught a glimpse of her lithe, nude body, then she closed the gas valve, and we were in darkness, except for the tiny fringe of a moon through racing clouds. “Come to bed,” she whispered, and I heard the creak of the springs.
I obeyed. It was huge, soft, warm, and wonderful, although, at the moment, I was having a bit of trouble thinking about the bed and sleep. Alegria was on her side, back to me. I took several deep breaths, but that didn’t help matters.
“I’m almost asleep,” Alegria said, but she didn’t sound sleepy. “Tell me something, Damastes. Do Numantians kiss?”
“Of course, silly.”
“Why is that silly? I’ve never been kissed by one. Least of all by you. I thought maybe your people thought it was evil or something.”
“Alegria, you’re not being good.”
“No? What’s the harm in one little kiss? I mean, just to satisfy scholarly curiosity and things like that.”
“All right.”
She rolled on her back and stretched her hands above her head. “Do Numantians kiss with their mouths open or closed?”
“This one does it with his mouth closed, because he’s trying to stay out of trouble,” I muttered. I leaned over and kissed her gently. Her lips moved under mine a little. I kissed the corners of her mouth, and it opened slightly. But I held to my resolve and kissed her cheeks, then, gently, her eyelids. There seemed no harm in caressing her eyelids with my tongue, however.
“Numantians are very gentle,” she murmured. “Do that again.”
I did, and somehow my mouth opened a little, and her tongue slid into it. Alegria sighed and lowered her arms around me. The kiss went on, and became less gentle. Her arms moved up and down my back. It seemed appropriate to run my tongue back and forth across her neck, and her breathing came faster. She took one arm from around me and pulled the sheet away. Her breasts were against me, tight nipples hard.
I kissed one, then the other, teased them with my teeth, then came back to her mouth. One of my arms was around her back, pulling her close, and the other caressed her, moving down, just over the swell of her buttocks.
She lifted a leg, curled it around me, and I felt dampness and a curly tickle on my upper thigh.
Then she yelped, pulled away, and rolled out of bed to her feet.
“What the — ”
“Something bit me! Ouch! Son of a palsied — find the light, quickly!”
I fumbled on the bedside table for the covered slow match, opened it, and relit the gas.
Alegria stood naked in the middle of the floor, warily looking at the bed. “I’m not getting back in there — pull the blankets back, my lord.”
I obeyed, and a black spider scuttled across the sheet. I crushed it with the heel of my hand.
“Where did it bite you?”
“Here,” she said. “On the back of my arm.”
There was a red area, rapidly swelling. I found the bellpull and clanged for a servant. One arrived in minutes, and I ordered vinegar and baking soda. When they arrived, I mixed the two together, then laved the back of her arm again and again. As I did, the innkeeper appeared. She was appalled that such a thing could happen in her inn, especially to such a noble visitor, and insisted on having the entire bed removed and replaced. She wanted to have the chamber smoke-filled — to make sure the spider was dead — to move us to another room, even though it wasn’t her best like this one — and so on and so forth. But eventually I got rid of her and went back to Alegria. After about half an hour, she said the pain was gone.
“But when we reach Jarrah,” I said, “I want you to visit a seer. Spider bites can turn nasty.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said. She looked at me wryly. “I’m starting to believe Irisu wishes me to remain a maiden forever, though.”
I managed a wan smile. My mood of romance, gentle lust, was gone. Now I wanted …
I didn’t know what I wanted.
Alegria correctly read my expression. “Come, Damastes. Let us sleep. For real.” Once more she shut off the lights, and once more we got into bed.
“Good night,” she said, and her voice was dull, flat.
“Would you mind if I kissed you good night?” I asked.
After a moment, she said, “No,” and there was a breath of life to her tone. We kissed, and it was very tender, very gentle, with no heat. She turned over, and I yawned. Her breathing gentled, became the tiniest snore.
I felt myself sinking, but as I did, she moved toward me, her behind warm against my stomach. She fitted her legs against mine until we were nestled together, her head just below and in front of mine. I kissed the tip of her ear.
I cupped her breast with my right hand, and she made a contented sound. It precisely filled my grasp.
Then sleep took me.
• • •
I don’t know what might have happened if we’d stayed another day or two at the inn … or perhaps I do.
But the next day we moved on, and by dusk we were in Jarrah.