Chapter Ten.

Stehfahnah awoke shivering lying on the floor -beside the cold hearth, but her first instinctive movements set off such waves of blinding red agony in her head that she sank sobbing back onto the icy floor of packed earth. It was some time before the twin forces of her will and the cold enveloping her naked body could force her to risk again the crippling effect of that h.e.l.lish pain. And it was even longer before she could will herself to rise to a huddled sitting position, the lowest part of her back pressed against the mortared stones of the hearth, her arms hugging her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s, rocking and moaning softly with the rhythm of the splitting pains in her head, even while her white teeth chattered and the rest of her shuddered with the agony of the cold. Finally, after what seemed to be eons of time wherein a third force, that of raging thirst, commenced to drive her, she commenced a snail-like crawl to where the water skin hung. It required every ounce of her strength to pull her body up onto her wobbling legs, but the first cool gush of water into the dry desert her mouth and throat had become revived and revitalized her to a great extent, though it did nothing to alleviate the pain.

She wisely decided not to try walking yet. Rather did she sink back as gently as possible onto her haunches, then crawled over .to the bed and the precious warmth of its thick blankets. Hardly had she wrapped herself against the cold than consciousness again left her and awareness of the pain with it Thump, came the loud noise. Thump thump thump, THUMP. Stehfahnah slowly came awake, dragged back to awareness by the insistent thumpings. Then the adrenalin rush of fear brought her upright on the bed. The man, he was trying to break down the door!

But a quick glance at the battered door showed it unmov-ing, and even in the gloom of the hut she could see that the steel spearhead and at least a foot of hardwood shaft still projected from it.

The pain still throbbed in her head, but it was become a bearable agony.- The renewed thirst was not bearable, however, nor was the aching of her bladder. THUMP, thump thump thump thump!

She crawled back over to the water skin and again pulled herself erect. Once she was upon her feet, her legs seemed far more willing to hold her than the last time. She greedily guzzled the tepid water, then allowed some of the stuff to cascade over her face and chest. This proved even more of a refreshment than had the drink.

In no way willing to go out the door naked and unarmed when the man might be waiting just beyond it, she half-squatted over the ashes on the hearth and emptied her aching bladder.

THUMP THUMP THUMP! Then a splintering crash from the rear room of the cabin. Arising from the hearth, Stehfahnah lifted down one of her own finely balanced horn-tipped spears from a wall rack and, lightfootedly and silent as her condition allowed, she approached the closed door leading into the shed, her weapon ready for either stab or throw.

Bracing herself for immediate combat, she threw open the door and drew back her spear arm, then sank back against the frame of the door, pouring out her tension in a flood of tears and laughter. Working as a team, the mare and the little a.s.s were backed up to the outer wall of the shed and were well on the way to kicking out a section of it. But at sight of the girl, the mare ceased to flail at the wall.

She mindspoke petulantly.

"Well, what did you expect us to do, twolegs female? Starve or die of thirst?" "You'd hardly starve, horse sister-the male twolegs fed and watered you both last night."

The little mare snorted angrily and stamped a forehoof. "You are wrong, twolegs. This is the second sun since the cruel twolegs male has seen to our needs. There is no more grain, no more hay and no more water. I first tried to reach your mind but I could not, so there remained nothing more to do except free myself. Will you now feed us? Will you give us grain and hay and water? Or are you truly as uncaring as the other twolegs?"

Setting aside her spear, but keeping it near to hand just in case, she emptied the second, larger water skin which hung near the door to the horse shed into the section of hollowed-out log that served as a trough, tried to lift a sack of grain and pour the feed bucket full as she had watched the man so often do, but ended by scooping out the grain a double handful at the time. While the mare and the a.s.s avidly munched the grain, she gathered an armful of dried gra.s.s from the corner pile and dumped it in the wicker rack.

"Are you now satisfied that I am not as the cruel twolegs male, dear horse sister?" inquired Stehfahnah.

Her sarcasm was lost on the mare. "I never truly thought that you were, clanswoman, but I was so very hungry and in need of water and..." But another message beamed into Stehfahnah's open receptive mind. "We all thought you dead, twolegs sister. We could not reach your mind, so we thought the male twolegs had slain you when he thrust his big, long, pointed stick through the moving-dead-wood at you."

The girl recognized the mind-speak of the female otter, Mother-of-Many-Many.

"Where is the male twolegs, my sister?" she demanded. "Is he near to this place?"

"He is in many places," the otter answered. "After The-Bear-Killer slew the twolegs, he ate the best parts, laid up for one sun, then went away. Then the eaters-of-old-kills came and ate and bore pieces of him away to their dens. What is left of him lies where The-Bear-Killer dragged it, in a copse near the side of the water.

"But you would not want to eat of it now, sister. It is old carrion and stinking. Wait, I will catch you a good fish."

Scarcely able to believe that she was really free of the man, the girl moved to the door, used the same cudgel to knock loose the bar and swung it wide, letting a wealth of golden sunlight in to flood the fetid dimness of the tiny cabin. Just at the verge of the clearing, she could see the sleek, brown form of Mother-of-Many-Many moving toward the river with the humping scuttle which was the gait of otters on land.

When she had a.s.sured herself that nothing threatened her from without, she went back inside and searched until she found her boots and clothing, for despite the sunlight there was a distinct nip in the outer air. Dressed for the first time since the man had captured her, she took the monogrammed dirk from where it hung from a hook on the man's belt and reaffixed it in its proper place on her own belt.

Then she set about worrying the steel-bladed spear out of the door. Before she left, she drained the smaller water skin into the trough in the horse shed, then slung both skins over her shoulder and headed for the river. By the time she had rinsed out and refilled the two skins, the sun had sufficiently warmed sothat she suffered scant discomfort when she stripped and swam briefly in the river. Its waters were bitingly cold a bare two hands beneath the surface, but she felt a driving compulsion to lave the stink of the man from her body.

For all her wiry strength, Stehfahnah Steevuhnz soon discovered that she simply could not carry both filled skins at once, and, while making the two trudging trips, she was considering fashioning a small travois from one of the man's drying frames; for, given the wealth of skins and hides, supplies and gear to which she was now heir, there would be no need to kill animals except for food, even if she found it necessary to winter here.

Then she thought of the a.s.s, once the man's and now hers. For all his minuscule size, the little beast was amazingly strong, capable-so the man had once a.s.sured her-of bearing the carca.s.s of a full-grown buck deer, which in life had weighed more than the a.s.s. He would be perfect for bearing back the filled water skins, in future.

She had just rehung the larger water skin when Mother-of-Many-Many humped through the open door, bearing in her sharp white teeth a silvery, feebly flopping fish a third as long as her own sinuous body; behind her humped the. larger Killer-of-Much-Meat-in-Water, his own teeth impaling a big catfish, swollen with roe.

Fish of any description had ever been cla.s.sed as a treat by Horseclansfolk. After a week of subsisting on the man's hide-ous stews and half-burned, half-raw venison and rabbits, Stehfahnah fairly drooled at sight of the offerings of her otter friends.

While the fire burned down to the coals needed for proper cooking, the girl squatted in front of the hearth, using one of the half-dozen skinning knives to skin and clean the two fish. As of old, when she had lived in the woods downstream, the two otters crouched before her, avidly devouring the fish guts and lights, which they preferred even over the firm white flesh. It was not until she gobbled the first mouthful of raw catfish roe that she realized just how ravenous she truly was. Therefore, to take her mind off her growling belly, she asked the otters again about the beast-surely fearsome, for had he not slain a full-grown man?-they had brought down to deliver her from her captivity.

"Where is The-Bear-Killer now?"

The big male otter chewed his way up a rope of roe as he beamed, "Not here; he never stays anywhere for long. If he did, all the meat-beasts would leave, for he will eat any fresh-killed creature, from the greatest to the least." "Why was he willing to come so far to help me, a twolegs?" asked Stehfahnah puzzledly, knowing that the strange beast's action had been totally unlike the usual behavior of even the most intelligent of wild animals. "When he was little more than a kit," the male otter answered, "he was caught in a twolegs' shiny-leg-biter, then taken to a place where many twolegs denned. He was kept, half starved, in a deep pit and forced to fight other beasts while twolegs watched.

"One night, a tree fell over the pit and he was able to climb up a big branch and escape. He hates all twolegs, but most of all he hates the twolegs who use the shiny-leg-biters. I told him one such denned here and he swam down the water to kill it. He is a mighty killer of twolegs."

As the Sacred Sun went to rest, Stehfahnah hunkered near the hearth on which a dry log blazed atop the coals of the cooking fire. With the careful, patient strokes of long practice, she was honing new edges onto the spearblade dulled by being thrust through the door at her.

Outside, all around the snug cabin, a cold wind soughed, rattling the branches of the trees and shrubs.All the signs in-dicated that the first snows were only weeks away, perhaps only days. She had been born and reared on the prairie, and so she knew full well the suicidal folly of setting out now to seek her clan, even mounted on the mare, well armed and equipped and with the a.s.s to carry supplies and a small tent.

Better to winter here and seek Clan Steevuhnz with the coming spring. True, the cabin and its meager furnishings were stinking and filthy, but all could be cleaned. Fresh clay could be brought up from the riverbank to cover the greasy floor, the tabletop could be scoured with sand and water and the greasy sooty walls, as well. She could wash the dirt-shiny blankets and, with fresh deerskins and tips of cedar and the rare pine, she could fashion a new and more comfortable mattress, lashed and sewn with sinew and placed upon a frame of sapling trunks and woven willow switches.

There were several bags of dried grain for the mare and the a.s.s, but while the weather was still good, she would have to fashion travoises for both of them, take the sickle and go west to the prairie verge of this woodland to cut and bear back enough hay to last the two herbivores through the cold time. Far westward, upon the tall-gra.s.sed prairie, the Kindred clans were slowly trickling into the huge, sprawled Tribe Camp. Of sheer necessity, the camp moved east a few miles each day, leaving behind it a clear, flat-tramped and close-grazed sign of its pa.s.sing more than two miles wide. The tribe now numbered forty clans of the Kindred. From the high plains of the west had come Clans Ohlszuhn and Danyuhlz and Kehlee and others. From the far south, Clans Rohz and Morguhn and Rahs and more; and from the northern prairies where winter was already making itself felt, Muhkawlee and Mahntguhmree and Maktahguht and Pahlmuh and Makbeen and Keeth and Stynbahk. A few came from the east, and one of these was Clan Steevuhnz.

Of a sunny autumn morning, a small party of riders wended their way through the vast herds of horses, cattle, sheep and a few goats ringing the tribal camp about. In hair, eyes and features, the leading rider bore a striking resemblance to both Stehfahnah and Bahb, which was perfectly natural, for he was their and Djoh's father, Chief Henree, the Steevuhnz of Steevuhnz. Henree looked every inch the chief, a leader of men, cats and horses, from the spike of his helmet of mirror-bright steel to the soles of his high boots of red-dyed doeskin. He bestrode a handsome, spirited black stallion, the horse fitted with a tooled saddle the same shade as the boots and inset with hooks and rings and decorations of steel, bra.s.s, copper, silver and ruddy gold. The Clan Steevuhnz was a wealthy clan, and part of the duty of a chief of such a clan was to wear clear evidence of that wealth, to richly deck out his mount and to bear fine, expensive weapons.

When at last Chief Henree stood within the circle of chiefs while his clan bard sang his long pedigree, which was also the history of Clan Steevuhnz, replete with all the many deeds of valor of his forebears, Milo of Morai noted that for all the costly and colorful clothing and adornment, the gray eyes of the Steevuhnz were dark-ringed and sunken and his lips were set in a grim line. When, after Blind Hari and Milo and the a.s.sembled chiefs had formally recognized that Clan Steevuhnz was indeed of the true Kindred and that Henree was its lawful chief, being the eldest son of the eldest sister of the previous chief-over the years, some clans had adopted this system of inheritance of the chieftancy, while others had clung to the system of pri-mogeniture-and had taken his place in the expanded circle, Milo spoke to him aloud. "Perhaps if my brother Henree Steevuhnz speaks of his sorrows to his brother chiefs, wrongs to him may be put right-Like a summer storm filling a dry streambed, the words rushed out in a flood. A peaceful party of clan hunters set upon in treachery by a caravan of eastern traders. Henree's third-eldest son murdered, two younger boys and a daughter of his get captured and borne back eastward to what terrible fates no one knew.

"We would have known nothing of any of it," said Henree sadly, "save that my brave, dead boy had left the cat that had accompanied the hunters outside the camp when he and his brothers and sister rode in,bidding the cat stay hidden lest she frighten those eastern men and the beasts they enslave. So this young cat, Cloudgray, saw it all, every infamy.

"From the descriptions she gave, I can but believe that the caravan was that of the trader Stooahrt, called 'the Shifty Man.' Steevuhnz warriors have many times ridden out and back as hired guards for this Stooahrt. "Cloudgray said that all my folk were invited to eat the meal and sleep within the trader camp and then eat with them again at sun birth. But the meal was hardly well begun when first the young boys and then the girl dropped their bowls of stew and fell upon the ground. My brave son arose and, though staggering as if he were drunk, drew saber and dirk and fought his way through the knot of traders to his mount, leapt onto her back and had ridden almost to where Cloudgray crouched, when one of the traders hurled a dart which pierced through my young warrior's back and burst his mighty heart "Being a young cat, with no war training and little experience other than some hunting of beasts, Cloudgray did not immediately run back to fetch the clan warriors, but rather remained crouched in the gra.s.s until the traders packed and hitched and set out eastward at the next sun birth. ' "She saw these accursed murderers put the two young boys into one wagon, the girl into another. They stripped the body of their victim of everything of value, then tumbled him into a bole in the ground, rather than sending him decently to Wind." A foreboding rumble of rage pa.s.sed around the circle of squatting chiefs. Only dirtmen sank their dead beneath the ground to rot and stink and be consumed by loathy beasts. Horseclansfolk were always sent to the home of Wind, their spirits rising up with the smoke of their pyres. To simply bury a Horseclansman const.i.tuted one of the deadliest of insults to his clan. Henree then continued his tale.

"When the traders moved on east, Cloudgray set out on the week's run to my camp, south and west of the spot on which this shameful deed was done.

"Unfortunately, in trying to take a saberhorn fawn for food, the young cat was seriously gored by the herd bull, and so was almost four weeks in stumbling into my camp. But before she died, she told all, beamed detailed descriptions of the evil men and of the country and landmarks between. "Leaving only enough force to guard the camp, I rode forth with my warriors and maiden archers and most of my adult cats. The king stallion followed with two spare mounts for every man, maiden and cat Riding by sun and by moon, as well, we won to that ill-omened spot on the prairie in less than four days.

"We had packed wood and oil with us, and we dug up my son's pitiful, putrid body and sent him properly to Wind." Hot tears of grief and frustrated rage cascaded over the scarred and weathered cheeks of the chief of Steevuhnz, and many of his brother chiefs wept with him; for though stoic to non-Kindred, with their own they could be very emotional.

"We camped that night in the spot whereon the murderers and kidnappers had camped the second night after they had done their wickedness against Clan Steevuhnz. Then we rode hard upon their trail and did not pause for longer than a few hours at a time until we came in sight of the fort that lies at the limits of the lands owned by the dirtman chief of Traders-town. "I made to ride in with my sons and my subchiefs to speak to the subchief of that fort, with all bows cased, and all blades put up and even the lance points toward the earth, a bit of white rag fixed at the b.u.t.ts. But they would not even speak. They hid atop the walls and threw stones and loosed many sharp arrows at us, killing two horses and my second-eldest son and injuring two of my brothers."

Milo looked around the circle of grim-faced men and used his powerful mental abilities to skim their surface thoughts. All were enraged to the point of blood and death by the appalling arrogance of the subhuman dirtmen to so dishonor the most ancient and revered symbol of parley. He knew that should he or Blind Hari of Krooguh call this minute for a discussion and vote upon the matter, within an hour there would be two thousand or more fully armed riders bearing down upon that still distant border fort.

Further, knowing the minds of Horseclansmen as he did, it could be only a matter of time-and a shorttime, at that- before one or more of the chiefs demanded that some or all of the clans ride forth to mete out punishment to the dirt-men. Milo had no compunction about leveling the tiny fort and butchering its garrison-for, after all, he had personally slain thousands of men and had been responsible for the deaths of numerous other thousands during his hundreds of years of life. But his scheme for getting the tribe over the Great River was to move suddenly and quickly across the lands of the Duchy of Traderstown, overrun or set siege to the city itself, and force out of the rulers of the duchy the use of their cable barges.

A premature attack upon the border of the duchy would but serve to warn those rulers that the prairie nomads were now gathered in unheard-of numbers and grant the dirtmen the time to gather unto themselves allies and mercenary companies and the wherewithal to make Milo's tasks harder and longer of accomplishment. Henree of Steevuhnz went on to the end. "That night, we camped out of range of their arrows and of the things that throw big rocks. The subchiefs chose a clansman to replace my son slain that day and my wounded brother who died soon after we made camp. Then it was decided that, with the next sun birth, we would simply swing wide, bypa.s.s the fort and then swing back to cut the trail of the caravan, for we were gaining on them hour by hour. "But when we tried to carry out our plan the next morning, the dirtmen sent out almost sixscore of mounted fighters to head us off. We drew up in battle line and, when those accursed dirtmen came into bow range, we gave them two loos-ings from every bow in the party. Then I led the warriors in under the cover of the maidens' arrow storm, which rained down up to the very minute we struck them. "My brothers, that was a fight! I had ridden from out my clan camp with less than rwoscore warriors, plus a half-dozen war-trained but unblooded boys, so we were seriously outnumbered, but the courage and honor of Clan Steevuhnz has seldom been matched, as any bard can sing you.

"Of course, the volleys and the arrow storm had taken a heavy toll of both men and mounts, and besides, when ever were any four mere dirtmen a match for a full-grown and armed man of our Holy Kindred? My warriors and I, we smote them, broke them and sent those craven curs still able to ride or to run back toward their fort as fast as their legs or their mounts could bear them. "We pursued, harrying and slaying the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, sabering and lancing them until arrows and stones from the fort began to fall among us. Then we trotted back to just out of range of the walls, uncased our own bows and dropped many more of those cowards before they could put stone walls between us and them. But not all had been spineless, some had fought hard, well and long, and, in consequence, some Steevuhnz warriors lay dead and red with their blood and others were so seriously wounded that-though it grieved our hearts full sore-we all knew that we must break off the pursuit of the stealers of our much-loved kin and return to the clan camp.

"But before we left that field, we stripped those foemen left lying upon it and had the king stallion and his subchiefs bespeak all the sound horses and mares left outside the fort; of course, most of them joined the Steevuhnz sept of horses.

"This fine steel helmet"-Henree pulled off the spiked headpiece, now decorated with red-dyed horsehair and the bushy tail of a fox-"I took from the chief of the dirtman warriors. With some gentle persuasion," he explained, with a grin as cold and humorless as that of a winter wolf, "he told us that he himself had seen the trader Stooahrt and his wagons loading onto the barges to cross the Great River two days before we came near the fort. 'Therefore, my Kindred brothers, let us move quickly to cross that mightiest of rivers, that we may the sooner free from the filthy men of dirt my little sons, Bahb and Djoh, and my daughter, Stehfahnah. It is a duty owed by us all to our Holy Race and to the honored memory of our Sacred Ancestors." As Milo had known would happen, immediately Chief Henree ceased to speak and sank back upon his haunches, Steev, the Dohluhn of Dohluhn, stood and, while scratching at the sections of scalp bared by his thinning, dark hair, said flatly, "I doubt not that you stung the sc.u.m badly, brother Henree, for I know well that Clan Steevuhnz breeds stark warriors. But deeds of such dishonor-if, truly, anything could dishonor a mere dirtman-call for death, not just crippling. "Now Clan Dohluhn's full warriors number rwoscore and eleven, and there are ten more unblooded."

Another balding chief sprang to his feet. Pat, the Kehlee of Kehlee, announced, "Clan Kehlee numbers a full threescore blooded warriors and almost a score of unblooded. All of us will ride with the valiant chiefs of Steevuhnz and Dohluhn."

"I had better," thought Milo, "defuse this thing before it gathers more momentum. Once they get the bit in their teeth, these stubborn b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are going to be hard to handle."

The war chief arose from his place beside Blind Hari on the dais. "Chiefs, Kindred brothers, vengeance will be taken on this batch of dirtmen, but like a stew of the flesh of a tough, elderly bull, it will be more enjoyable to us if we allow it to cook for a while.

"This fort lies on the way to, in the very lands of, the dirt-men whose ferry we needs must have in order that all our tribe may safely cross the Great River." Milo talked on at great length. Then Blind Hari stood up and added his not inconsequential powers of persuasion against any rash, early attack. As usual in any "discussion," the circle of chiefs grumbled and groused, argued and shouted, but finally decided that the war chief and the clan bard were right.

Chapter Eleven.

Although all of the court of d.u.c.h.ess Ann and more than half the residents of Twocityport cordially despised their d.u.c.h.ess' husband and openly welcomed her invading brother-in-law, Duke Alex of Traderstown, the folk of the farms and hamlets and villages of the countryside loved or at the very least deeply respected their overlord-he who had wiped out the ferocious river pirates, had kept a'lien invaders off their lands, had decreed and seen strictly enforced just laws, many of which had served to protect them from the depredations of the n.o.bles and gentry. He had broken up the huge estates of the old families and made yeoman-farmers of men whose fathers had been landbound serfs, and his heaviest tax bites fell upon those able to bear it: merchants, foreign factors, rich ship owners and the like.

The duke's soldiers, retreating before the enemy army which vastly outnumbered them, had but to say the word and the non-city dwellers did their duty. Duke Alex, as he advanced into the rich farmlands north and east of his objective, quickly realized to his dismay and rage that his plan of feeding his army off the country of his foe was doomed to failure. Storehouses and granaries gaped as empty as every house and barn, and the few unreaped fields now sprouted only charred stubble. Aside from the occasional stray goat or half-wild pig rooting in the midden of a deserted village, nothing that might possibly be of use to him and his host remained. Cursing sulphurously, he sent yet one more messenger riding back the way they had come, with or-ders for supplies to be ready for barging across the Great River as soon as he had secured the surrender of the ridiculous little pile of stone that went under the misnomer of "citadel." It would be ten days or two weeks, he estimated, probably only half that time.

Just outside the low walls of the city, Alex set up camp and, while he met with his sister-in-law, her retainers and courtiers and the chief men of the city, his troops were marshaled and groomed to give the best appearance. Then on the morning of the third day, to the cheering of the city folk lining the street-High Street, which led straight from the North Gate to the Palace Square in the exact center of the city- beneath the bunting-draped shops and homes, he and his army paraded in, with drums beating and banners unfurled. And Duke Alex felt every inch the liberator he had convinced himself he was. This heady mood lasted all the way to the Palace Square. As soon as the square was jam-packed with his soldiery and Alex was staring in horrified awe at the bulk of a completed citadel in the lower reaches of the city, a number of black specks were seen arcing from the top of the inland walls, growing steadilylarger as they neared.

The boulders slammed sanguineously into the ma.s.sed troops, shattering against the pave in deadly, flying shards or bouncing high-once, twice, sometimes thrice-to mash out the lives of still more men. And the carnival atmosphere was become, in a matter of short seconds, purest pandemonium and screaming panic. Nor did the second volley of bushels of smaller stones or the third of blazing pitchb.a.l.l.s help to calm the terror-stricken throngs. It was later reckoned that as many or more were trampled to death trying to flee the Palace Square as actually died from the engine missiles.

Duke Alex thought it, in toto, a most inauspicious beginning for the siege. And the following weeks went no better. Early on, it was discovered that the usual trenching manuevers would be impossible anywhere in the Lower Town, for no sooner was a trench deep enough to give a minimum of protection than it commenced to fill with groundwater from the high riverside water table. Therefore, on the advice of his staff, Duke Alex had many nearby homes and other buildings demolished and the rubble carted to fill in the ca.n.a.ls the trenches were fast becoming. Then the rest of the rubble was used to give some measure of cover to the crews of his engines.

But no sooner were his stone and spear throwers in place and taking their first, ranging shots at the walls of the citadel than their crews and Duke Alex were made painfully aware of the error in the staffs reckoning. Not only brick, stone and mortar had gone into the filling of the trenches and the erection of the protective wall, but much splintery wood, lengths of dry, dusty timbers that flared like brushwood at the impact of the first pitchb.a.l.l.s. The fire spread with unbelievable rapidity, its heat driving the crews away, crackling flames leaping in every direction, soon adding the wooden portions of the engines to the conflagration. Slowly eating into the wetted wood in the trenches below, the fire smoked and smoldered on for days.

The oldest portion of Tworivercity or Twocityport (which bore a third and still older name, Tworivertown) was the riverside section, in the center of which the citadel now squatted, ringed about by its moat. A hundred and more years agone, when the ancestors of both Duke Alex and d.u.c.h.ess Ann were nothing more than river pirates, who sent their swift galleys beating out to levy tolls on or board and plunder pa.s.sing river traffic, the lower section had been all the urban area there was and the only edifice on the stretch of bluff behind the town had been a watchtower to warn of the approach of prey from up- or downriver.

It was only after the town became richer and conquered much of the inland farmlands and small towns and the then rulers began to style themselves high n.o.bility and hire on soldiers to protect their holdings and add more by conquest that the first part of the bluff-top palace was built, and the present city had grown up around the palace. In the beginning, only mansions of the n.o.bility and gentry and the quarters of the soldiers had occupied the newer section of the city.

In more recent decades, however, pursuant to the many and sweeping changes wrought by Duke Tcharlz-and much to the screaming outrage of the old n.o.bility, whose wealth and power had declined precipitously in the wake of the new duke's reforms-non-n.o.bles, newly rich ship owners and mejr-chants had bought or built in the once exclusive Upper City.

Prior to the erection of the new fortress-citadel, the Old Town had been entirely given over to huge warehouses, mean bordellos and low dives frequented almost exclusively by river sailors and low-ranking mercenaries, fringed at north and south by a ramshackle aggregation of the huts and hovels of the poor, the aged, the outcast and the indigent.

Wisely, Duke Tcharlz had raised the landward walls of his new fortress several yards higher than calledfor in the original plans, that they not be overshadowed by higher elevation of the bluff-top city.

However, as days became weeks, Duke Alex, frustrated at every turn in his attempts to open a normal siege on the citadel in the old town, determined as his sole real advantage the fact that the bluff area, which be did fully control, was almost on a level with the walls of the objective and that it was the only feasible place, both within range and affording some measure of protection, on which to mount his batteries of engines.

Although only a little better than half of the promised troops to garrison the citadel had ever arrived, Captain Count Martuhn still felt well served and secure in his firm belief that he could hold the fortress as long as might prove necessary. True, he was devilishly short of archers, having only those from his own mixed company and the unit of crossbowmen from Pirates' Folly. But in the absence of any attempt at a frontal a.s.sault against the fortress, he had as yet had no need of them.

A more serious problem might have been the nonarrival of the company of engineers and artificers, save for the multi-talented Lieutenant Nahseer and two happy turns of fortune.

Quite a few of the yeomen-farmers who had stripped and deserted their land in the face of the invaders had come through the Upper Town to the Lower and sought admission to the citadel. Most had brought their whole families, their livestock and wagonloads of personal effects, furniture and victuals. After cogitating the ticklish matter and discussing it with Wolf and Nahseer, Martuhn had admitted a few, but only those who had relatives among the garrison or those who were retired soldiers. And that was how he acquired not one but two veteran engineers' artificers, one a company sergeant, one a sergeant-major, with a total experience of nearly fifty years between them.

With a few simple adjustments and a few days of drilling the amateur crews, the two sergeants had rendered the existing engines more flexible, longer-ranging and harder-hitting. The missing spearthrowers they had replaced with an ingenious device consisting of a wooden framework holding a wooden, V-shaped trough to support the spear and springy boards to propel it. When both of the retired noncoms flatly refused the offer of commissions, Martuhn transferred Nahseer from his personal staff to the command of the fledgling engineer unit, promoting him at the same time to senior lieutenant. Well aware from times past of the inherent dangers of idleness among soldiers, especially under the present conditions, Martuhn made certain that every member of the garrison had work of a sort to perform for almost every hour of daylight. The men, of course, grumbled at the unending rounds of drills, weapons practice and inspections, but it was the good-natured grumbling of professional soldiers and to be expected in any command.

In the absence of a real bowmaster, Martuhn, hesitantly at first, placed Bahb and Djoh Steevuhnz in charge of the small contingent of bowmen, with Sir Wolf to back them up was their authority to be questioned. But Wolf soon returned to the commander requesting a more urgent a.s.signment, remarking that every bowman deeply respected the deadly and matchless accuracy of the two boys and was more than anxious to himself acquire such a degree of skill. Martuhn too respected the nomad boys, and not solely because he. had never known them to miss any target-still or moving-at which they had loosed their short, black-shafted arrows. Under his and Nahseer's tutelage, Bahb and even the slower-witted little Djoh had rapidly learned the Game of Battles, and a session or two in light brigandines with dulled lancer sabers-Martuhn taking a blade somewhat shorter to allow for his longer arms-had pleased the veteran captain immensely. The wiry older lad was as fast as a greased pig, though he depended little on the various point attacks, seeming to prefer the hack and the slash and the drawcuts of a horseman. But that the boy was a quick study and highly adaptable was proved early in the second session, when he startled Martuhn by employing the entirety of an attack he had seen but once and penetrating the older man's guard almost to the juncture of contact. "I tell you, Nahseer," he had averred that night, when once the two boys had been packed off to their bedchamber, "if Bahb had been but a wee bit biggerwith no more than three more inches of arm, he'd have had me. A perfect thrust to the high belly or low chest. And I know he could've learned that bit from no one but me. The only things those nomads ever stab with are their dirks and their spears. All their saber drill is pure edge fighting. Some of their sabers don't even have real points.

"But he'd only seen it once, man, and that in the midst of a very brisk bout of fence," Nahseer, lounging back in one of the four chairs set at the table-c.u.m-desk, which with the narrow bed and a trio of clothes and weapons chests made up the only furnishings of the captain's spartan chamber, sipped at the cup of cool apple juice-cider which had been briskly boiled to rid it of the alcohol that was forbidden him by his religion. "Yes, Martuhn, you, I, Sir Wolf, any man would feel proud to be able to name as his get such sons as Bahb and Djoh, especially Bahb.

"You obviously stand high in the regard of the duke, your sometime employer and now your overlord.

And your lordship of this city and its environs is worded to be a hereditary one. But, my friend, your age is a bit advanced to go about the siring of heirs, if you mean to see them grown and properly reared. So why not, once this silly little war be concluded, prevail upon the duke to legalize your adoption of these two boys and make Bahb your legal heir?" Martuhn sighed. "Would that I could, my dear Nahseer, but they two talk of nothing else but a return to their clan and their prairies." Raising a s.h.a.ggy eyebrow and nodding, Nahseer replied, "Yes, I know, but I also know, as do you, what they do not Returning them to the prairies were difficult enough, reuniting them with their clan a virtual impossibility, as it could now be hundreds of miles away in any direction. As they get older, the boys will come to appreciate just why they could not be returned to their savage relatives. Of this I am certain, my friend."

"I promise to think on your idea, Nahseer," agreed Mar-tuhn, "and to discuss it with you and others at more length once Duke Tcharlz comes to lift the siege and affairs of the duchy normalize once more."

In the press of everyday affairs, Martuhn had almost forgotten Sir Djaimz Stylz. Then, one night, pikemen and a sergeant of infantry marched that very man before him. This Sir Djaimz, however, looked more like a half-drowned rat than like the precious young fop that the captain remembered. With a crashing salute of his poleaxe, the sergeant intoned the ritual phrases, then got to the meat of the matter.

The prisoner had swum the moat and had made sufficient racket to draw the attention of the wall sentries.

They had, of course, called for the sergeant of the guard, who had, in his turn, sent for the officer of the guard. That worthy had had a rope lowered that the sodden, shivering swimmer might be hauled up the outer face of the wall. "He don't know nary a one of the pa.s.swords, m'lud count, but he tawks like gentry and he swears he be a friend of m'lud, so Lootenunt Brysuhn ordered he be haled afore m'lud. It was a sword strapped 'crost his back, a dirk at his belt and a dagger in the boots he had slung 'rount his neck, but he ain't armed now, m'lud."

"Very good, sergeant," Martuhn said. "You have done well this night, as has Lieutenant Brysuhn. Return to your duties."

With another crashing salute, the sergeant ordered his brace of pikemen to face about, then marched them out of the chamber and down the narrow, spiraling stairs.

"So, Sir Djaimz, we meet again. But whatever possessed you to take such a deadly chance, man? Had you not lucked onto a set of level-headed sentries, you could now be on the bottom of the moat or floating toward the river with an arrow or two in you."

However, despite the heat radiated by two large braziers, the chattering of the young man's teeth made his reply all but unintelligible. "Wait, Sir Djaimz, hold on." Martuhn sprang to his feet and crossed to one of his chests in two long strides. From it he removed a thick blanket and tossed it to his visitor. "Stripthose wet clothes off and wrap up in this while they dry; hang them from those hooks, there, near that brazier." Then the captain filled a jack three-quarters full with strong honey wine, added a generous dollop of barley hwiskee, pulled a loggerhead from among the coals of the other brazier and blew off the ash before plunging it into the jack, releasing a small cloud of fragrant steam. He proffered the jack to Sir Djaimz, then filled another for himself.

"Get yourself outside this, lad, and you'll have another. Now sit you down and tell me why you risked your life to join me this night." "My lord count did, after all, invite me," said Sir Djaimz, bluntly. "He offered to teach me, to make me into a true knight and soldier, not simply one of d.u.c.h.ess Ann's lapdogs."

"You'd forsake your sinecure then, Sir Djaimz? I am certain that Duke Alex would've taken you into his army, if you've just a taste for the life of a soldier. Then you'd have still had the good graces of her grace to fall back upon, if you chose to return. By coming to me, man, you've burned your bridges behind you, with a vengeance... unless..." Martuhn rested his elbows on the table and, with hooded eyes, stared at his blanket-wrapped guest over steepled fingers. "Unless you are doing your mistress' bidding by coming here. Are you, Sir Djaimz?"

When the young man made to speak, Martuhn raised a hand in warning. "Wait, before you say a word, I do not hold it dishonorable to perform the dictates of one's overlord... or lady, as the case may be. But if you are doing such by coming here, tell me now and I'll have you put outside tomorrow morn in health and honor.

"For if you say not and I later discover the lie-as I will eventually-you will die very slowly and painfully in humiliation and dishonor, as befits a spy and a forsworn liar.

"Do I make myself clear, Sir Djaimz?"

The head of water-plastered hair sticking out from amid the folds of the gray military blanket nodded wearily. "Abundantly clear, my lord count, but all that I shall tell you will be the unadorned truth. I swear this by all that I hold dear. I have done many things for her grace, a few of them of a base nature, but I have never and would never perjure myself for her... or for any other man or woman.

"Lord count, I am born of that cla.s.s now known as 'the Old n.o.bility.' My late father owned twenty-five thousand acres of rich farm and pasture lands, woodlands and fish ponds. When I was barely three years old, Duke Tcharlz dispossessed my house of all, save only our hall and our town-house in Twocityport, neither of which we could afford to staff and keep up without the income from lands that were no longer ours. Our estate was parceled out to the serfs who had worked it. The duke freely gave these rural sc.u.m t.i.tle to that which should have been the patrimony of me and my brothers. "My father died shortly after he had been plundered, in an ill-conceived attempt to exact a measure of vengeance from the flesh of Duke Tcharlz. My widowed mother and my brothers and I were taken in by d.u.c.h.ess Ann, who is a distant cousin of my house. My brothers and I were reared in her court, fed and clothed, educated, trained and equipped by her charity." Martuhn felt his heart go out to the young knight. He too knew how it felt to be bereft of lands by a greedy overlord, to be cast into a hostile world with only his wits and the strength of his sword arm to sustain him... but he was also Duke Tcharlz's man and must try to defend the actions of his overlord, no matter how reprehensible.

"Sir Djaimz, your cla.s.s fought Duke Tcharlz-openly and in secret ways-at every turn, almost from the day of his ascension. He had no choice but to break them, render away their wealth and strength. Nor was that all; to your late father's generation, the men and women who actually worked the land were little better than slaves, lived far worse than slaves in most cases and often starved even when the harvest wasgood, which was d.a.m.ned poor incentive to work hard, you must admit. Since his grace broke up the estates and parceled out the land to those serfs and their sons and a scattering of old soldiers, yields have doubled and redoubled to the point that no one who is willing and able to work starves any longer. And this duchy, which formerly was obliged to import beer and ale now ejrports both, to the vast profit of a large proportion of the folk of the duchy, directly or indirectly. Why, his grace..." Now it was Sir Djaimz who held up a hand. "Hold, my lord, please hold. You need not waste your time in convincing me. A few weeks agone, yes, but not now. There is an-other side to the duke, this I have always known, though I have long pushed that knowledge to the back of my mind.

"Even though my father tried to take his life, and, in fact, wounded him sorely, five years later the duke saw to it that my mother was paid a good price for Stylz Hall and the acreage hard by it. Furthermore, at his own expense, he had every stick of remaining furniture, paintings, carpets, every movable of value, carted to our townhouse in Twocityport. Would a true tyrant, an ogre such as the duke is painted by d.u.c.h.ess Ann and her court, have done so much for the widow of an enemy? I think not.

"When first Duke Alex arrived, I-along with the d.u.c.h.ess and all the rest of the court-welcomed him, hailed him as a liberator, a savior... but I have had reason to reconsider. Using as excuse that there is nowhere nearby the citadel to set up his tents, this unbearable man has quartered his men and officers on every household in the Upper City, to be housed, clothed, fed and... entertained, with no hope of any reimburs.e.m.e.nt. By this time, I doubt there's a girl or a woman of the lesser gentry or the commoners between the ages of ten and sixty who has not been raped at least once. Yet Duke Alex merely laughs off any complaints for redress, and the d.u.c.h.ess dotes on him. cannot praise and honor him and his pack of raping, thieving, guzzling cutthroats enough. I can but be thankful that my own poor mother is dead, for she was a comely woman. "The Stylz townhouse, the last single piece of real property left to me and my brothers, was one of the row of buildings Duke Alex chose to raze to provide him material for that wretched little useless wall of his. But, to add insult to injury, he and his officers trooped through my house and all the others just prior to the demolition and had them stripped of anything that caught their eyes or fancies.

"When, they would have forcibly prevented such blatant thievery, both my younger brothers were cut down, coldly butchered. I was in attendance on the d.u.c.h.ess at the time, but neighbors and servants apprised me of these atrocities. By the time a messenger fetched me and I got back to what had been my home, it was fast on the way to becoming a heap of rubble.

"My just complaint to the d.u.c.h.ess brought from her the answer that I and every other soul in her cities and lands were hers to do with as she wished, and that my poor brothers had been criminals for attempting to save our possessions from Duke Alex. That night, trying to sleep in the mean quarters a.s.signed me by the palace majordomo, I began to compare the two dukes-Tcharlz and Alex-and to sift through the lies and distortions that had been my daily fare for most of my life.

"After some week or more of soul-searching, I thought upon you and your offer to one who had treated you with naught save contumely. I thought me that I had wasted enough of my life in service to a blind hatred of a man who had truly done much good for the duchy and who, even at his worst, was far and away a better man, a more just and honorable man, a more n.o.ble man in all senses than his rival will ever be.