It was while he was supervising the loading of the last units of archers onto the three huge cable barges, his own fast war galley awaiting him on the other side of the long cable-barge dock, that he became aware of the clop-clopping of hooves and the rumbling of heavy transport proceeding along the streets of the city and drawing ever nearer the dockside.

Presently, the head of a long procession of a.s.sorted wains, wagons and other wheeled vehicles wound into view. Perched on the bow of the leading wain-a huge one, drawn heavily by two span of hefty oxen and laden high with chests, trunks, cases and bales-was Hatee Gairee; her two little slave girls trotted alongside. On or about the vehicles behind, Martuhn recognized numerous other merchants, bankers and an a.s.sortment of the wealthier commoners of Traderstown. When her repeated summonses effected nothing, the tall, flashily garbed old woman finally climbed down from her seat and strode out onto the dock, ill-concealed rage in her every movement. Without pleasantries or preamble, she snarled at Martuhn, "Whut's this here 'bout you a-seizing fo' of my ships, then setting't'others afire and letting 'em drift down friver? Just how d"you think me an* these here other folks is gonna git 'crost the d.a.m.n river 'fore them f.u.c.king nomads is in't'city?" Martuhn grinned like a wolf at a crippled hare, but his voice was soft and his tone mock surprised. "Why, Mistress Gairee, why would you and these others wish to flee the nomads? I thought you knew them and their simple wants so well? You surely will have no trouble dealing with them, will you? A few pretty slave girls? A few pounds of silver? Jewelry and some bales of cloth?" "You d.a.m.ned bastid, you!" hissed the old woman. "You knows d.a.m.n well the sitchayshun's done changed, what with the duke daid and the dang cavalry, too. And now you done sent alia the pikes and archers crost the river; it won't be no-dealing with them d.a.m.n Horseclanners now.

They'll just come in and take what they wants, all they wants, and likely kill halft the folks in't'city. "And now you done took or burnt up alia our ships, you gotta take us 'crost in yore cable barges... and soon, too."

"I believe firmly in repaying my old debts, Mistress Gairee," said Martuhn slowly. "Therefore, I shall give you and your kind all the willing aid that you have given me these last weeks. When the last of my troops are safely landed over yonder, if there are no nomads in sight from midstream, I shall allow three-and only three-barges to dock. They will remain on this side only as long as it is safe for them to do so, but no longer than half an hour, in any case. All not aboard at that time will stay behind or swim. I* that clear, Mistress Gairee?"

Leaving Hatee Gairee spluttering in wordless rage, the tall captain returned to his supervisory duties.

But the barges did not return that day. For when Martuhn had his small galley rowed back to midstream a few hours later, it was clear that the nomads were swarming through the streets of the city, and he was completely unwilling to risk the loss of more of his men on the chance of rescuing such undeserving types as Hatee Gairee and her ilk.

It was well after dark before the overworked Captain Count Martuhn of Twocityport was able to ride down into the Lower Town and walk his weary horse slowly over the bridge through the open main gate of the deserted citadel, followed by his staff and a few mercenary dragoons who had survived the carnage under the walls of Traderstown and whom he had summarily adopted as bodyguards. Les, the quartermaster sergeant-identifiable only by a pair of bronze arm rings, the flesh of his face picked down to bare bone by crows or ravens-lay dead in the main courtyard, with two of his a.s.sistants and a cooknearby. It was evident that all had gone down fighting, and the bodies of two strangers testified to the effectiveness of their efforts.

Without the need for orders, the veteran dragoons dismounted and strung their hornbows, while Martuhn and the rest unslung targets and loosened swords in scabbards. But a hurried search of the headquarters complex and the nearer barrack rooms revealed them to be deserted and undisturbed, although another dead cook was found in the kitchens. It was also clear that he had taken his death-wound elsewhere and dragged himself into familiar surroundings to die. With a burden of deep, dark foreboding, Martuhn at last led his small contingent to the central tower... only to find its outer door closed and secured firmly from within. When repeated shouts' elicited no response audible to him and the others, Martuhn sent his mind questing the height of the winding stairs to the topmost rooms. Beamings from Nahseer and Bahb Steevuhnz immediately answered. "Lord Urbahnos and a gang of waterfront sc.u.m from Pahdookahport came into the citadel hidden in a supply wagon, three days since, Martuhn.

We fought them as long as we could out there, but when Les was slain and Wolf wounded, I brought him and the lads up here. They have been besieging us since." "How is Wolf?" beamed Martuhn.

"Dying," said Nahseer, simply and bluntly. "But he swears that he will live until the lads are once more delivered into your hands." At Martuhn's terse directions, a heavy timber was fetched and soon brawny arms were regularly crashing it against the ironbound door to the tower. It took time, for the tower had been designed and built as a last, strong refuge against an at-tacker who had overrun the outer defenses.

But first one hinge gave way, then another, then the bars began to crack and the triple panels to sunder.

Then, suddenly, what was left of the reinforced portal crashed inward and a knife thrown from the darkness within dropped one of the troopers who had been swinging the ram.

Martuhn had the dragoons drop the timber, draw back a few paces and loose a blind volley through the yawning doorway; two very satisfying screams of agony resulted. Then he, his staff and the dragoons charged through the portal, blades bare and shields up.

The fight in the large ground floor chamber was short, brutal and very messy, but the common toughs were no real challenge to veteran armored mercenaries, most of the bravos being armed only with knives and cudgels or the occasional hanger. Soon all the living murderers had been driven up the stairs toward the topmost levels, followed closely by the coldly raging count and his merciless professionals.

The next-highest level was' lit with lamps and cressets. The invaders had apparently been using it as siege headquarters for the last few days, and it was here that they made their last, doomed stand.

Martuhn took the ringing hack of a thick-bladed hanger on the face of his target, angling the attack to the left and downward, while he drove the point of his sword into the man's bearded and unprotected face.

Another blade clanged onto the visor of his helmet and flashed momentarily before his eyes, then his peripheral vision recorded the sweep of a dragoon saber and his ears the gurgling shriek coming hard on the heels of a meaty tchunk. And then it was done. Five of the bravos lay dead or dying about the room and a big, black-haired man in half-armor stood with his back pressed against a wall. The crest had been raggedly shorn from atop his open-faced helm of eastern pattern, and he was just in the act of dropping a broken shortsword. Martuhn dropped his target, tossed his b.l.o.o.d.y sword to a trooper, then unbuckled and removed his helm. "What's your name, b.a.s.t.a.r.d? Urbahnos, perchance?" The dark man drew himself erect. "Lord Urbahnos of Kar-aleenos, barbarian. What are you waiting for? Kill me."

Martuhn shook his head. "My steel were too easy and far too honorable a death for the likes of you, pervert. Before he went to his death. Duke Tcharlz proclaimed you outlaw, and there awaits for you a short, wide, blunt stake, in Pirates' Folly; that should tickle your b.u.g.g.e.ring b.u.m until you scream your rapture." Urbahnos paled to true ashiness. "Duke Tcharlz... d... dead? Then who... who rules?" Martuhn shrugged. "I suppose that I do, since all his retainers save me went down with him under the walls of Trad-erstown." The Ehleen cleared his throat. "Then we should be able to come to a mutually profitable agreement, you and L You will be in immediate need of funds, of course, and I will be more than willing to pay a most handsome sum for my freedom and a pa.s.sage up the Ohyoh. Five pounds of gold? Ten?"

Martuhn spat at the Ehleen's feet. "You are an outlaw, you pig, and as such everything you once owned is mine anyway. I loathe you and all you stand for. Moreover, you and your pack of hired dogs have here slain a number of my men, several of them friends-old and very dear friends, two of them. "Now, there are a number of cells below us that are dank, ever cold, slimy, and dark and constantly at least a foot deep in muddy water, so that the rats have to swim to get at you."

Urbahnos had again paled; he gulped wordlessly, his fleshy lips trembling. "But," Martuhn went on, "I think me I have a better place for you to bide until I'm ready to put you to death. I have it on reliable authority that you are a castrate. You are obviously strong, and such wounds as you've suffered this day are but mere scratches."

Turning to a short, wiry, blood-splashed dragoon sergeant, the count said, "Byuhz, take this prisoner down to the docks, strip him to the buff, then turn him over to the overseer of one of the cable barges. It will do my heart good to think of the b.a.s.t.a.r.d pulling an oar for his keep." "B... but... but you cannotV Urbahnos wailed. "I... I'm not a slave!" Martuhn shrugged. "You are whatever I say you are, dog, and I say you're a barge slave... until I'm ready to make you a corpse, that is."

Chapter Sixteen.

Empty of human life, save for occasional parties of mounted nomads clattering through the streets, Traderstown lay sacked and smoldering. The clans had taken such slaves as they wished of the conquered, then driven the rest out into the countryside beyond the camps and herds. The loot of the city had been incredibly large, rich and diversified, and no clansman or woman was not happy in the sharing-out.

But the war chief, Milo of Morai, was anything but happy. It had never been his intent to take and sack the city. He had only wished to use the threat of such to force from the townsfolk use of the cable barges to transport the tribe and its herds across the otherwise impa.s.sable stretch of muddy brown water. Now there were no longer any folk with whom to treat in the city. All the cable barges were on the eastern bank of the river-which meant that, in effect, they might as well have been on the moon-and so, too, he a.s.sumed, was every other bottom of any usable size.

True, some had been sunk at the docks or close insh.o.r.e and he and the nomads might be able to raise a few and refloat them, but there were nowhere near enough to ferry many folk and their herds. Besides, not one of the nomads knew aught of sailing, so such boats as did set out without the firm support of the transriverine cables might well be swept clear down to the Inland Sea, if not to destruction on some sandbar or mudbank.

The tall, saturnine man thought hard on his possible alternatives, twisting idly on his finger the fine, ruby-set, golden ring which had been a part of his share of the city's loot. At length he decided upon a plan that might work, were the commander who had headed the city garrison the kind of man he reckoned by available evidence. At least six centuries of weighing human actions and human nature backed his judgment.

d.u.c.h.ess Ann had never recovered her health after the cold and deprivations! of the siege ofTwocityport. During her hated husband's hurried embarkations, she had come down with what her physicians had at first diagnosed a b.l.o.o.d.y flux, but it had worsened, despite their nostrums and purges.

Moreover, an infection of her lungs had also set in, complicating the matter. On his first, last and only audience with the hereditary d.u.c.h.ess, Count Martuhn could feel Death in the chamber; he could smell it in the close, too warm air, could see it in the deep-sunk but fever-bright eyes of the woman. He dutifully knelt and kissed the trembling hand she held out to him from her place on the huge bed.

Her ladies had washed her and dressed her and arranged her hair and done the little that they could to impart healthy color to her face. They had even anointed her bed, body and clothing with rich scents and strewn the floor with a deep layer of flower petals, but still the mingled stenches of illness and medicines were more than evident.

Her first attempt to speak suddenly became a racking fit of coughing which bent her body almost double before it was done. When the attending ladies had wiped the b.l.o.o.d.y mucus from her lips and chin, she spoke in a husky whisper. "He is truly dead, Count Martuhn? You saw him die?" Still on one knee, Martuhn shrugged. "As good as, your grace; I saw Duke Tcharlz gather his surviving n.o.bles and bodyguards and launch a charge into the very thickest of the nomad hosts. Very few of them came back, but he did not... and the nomads were taking no captives. And a sergeant of dragoons, Lee Byuhz, saw a nomad on a horse that he is certain was the duke's charger that day. "So, yes, your grace, all the evidence points in the direction of the duke's! death. But he died bravely, in honor, and he-" He was cut off by the d.u.c.h.ess* cackling laughter, which was in its turn ended by another of those terrible fits of coughing. When once more her ladies had wiped away the red-and-yellow residues, she breathed. "Then I've outlived that evil monster, I've truly, truly outlived him; not by much, alas, for I'll be dead meat inside a week myself. But I can now die content that that terrible man is burning in h.e.l.l while vermin gorge on his rotting cadaver. "Count Martuhn, never speak the word of honor in the same breath with the accursed name of my late and unlament-ed husband. Although he fancied to use the word often in public, he never really comprehended its meaning, nor did he ever harbor in his body or his soul a scintilla of it. He possessed much, it is true, of one quality that you men put great store by: great physical bravery.

Otherwise, he was base, treacherous, deceitful, murderous, l.u.s.tful and rapacious.

"My poor old papa, frantic that his lands not be ravaged and sundered upon his demise, had me wedded to the man, despite my pleas and against the good advices of all his councilors. Papa gave Count Tcharlz his daughter and his trust, then the back-biting b.a.s.t.a.r.d had papa poisoned; I have always been more than certain of it.

"The shameful practices to which he literally forced me in the privacy of our chambers aside, he was the very soul of kindness and courtesy to me in public... so long as papa still lived. But with papa laid to rest down in the crypt, he took over Papa's suite and banished me to the far end of the north wing, while he filled the palace with his cronies and his wh.o.r.es, and the very air with the rotten reek of his open adulteries. And not a one of my own ladies and maids but suffered sore at his callous hands-those he could not seduce, he forcibly raped, then often as not turned them over to the evil men of his coterie for further abuse. At least three of my ladies slew themselves out of shame after being so used."

Martuhn had heard many of these same tales before, during the more than ten years he had served Duke Tcharlz, but had heretofore tended to dismiss them as the highly exaggerated maunderings of the duke's political opponents. A death bed statement, however, recounted by the duke's wife, and he already dead, was difficult to dismiss as mere fable. He began to see the bluff, supposedly uncomplicated n.o.bleman who had for so long retained him in a new and different and decidedly sinister light. After another bout of coughing-which portended ill, producing as it did not threads but rather great gouts of blood-the dying d.u.c.h.ess continued her narrative. "In dear Papa's day and for generations before it, the duchy had been ruled by the duke and the ducal council- membership in which had once been purely hereditary but had become appointive in the time of Papa's grandpa. "They, the council, to the eternal honor of their gallant souls, tried to oppose the malicious machinations and Schemes of my husband-" the d.u.c.h.ess spat the word- "whereupon they began to die-the younger ones in clearly provoked duels with certain of the duke's clique; some were found dead in their beds of no clear cause; a few were done to death on the benighted streets, presumably by footpads.

"With more than half the old councilors dead, the rest quickly retired to their estates outside the city, the wisest and most perspicacious pausing only long enough to convert a.s.sets into gold, gather their families and pack their transportable goods and flee the duchy entirely. "Those unable or unwilling to flee their ancestral homes and lands finally organized most of the country n.o.bles and gentry and mounted an armed rebellion against the murderous usurper, but it was doomed from its inception; for while almost all of the n.o.bles' and gentry were well-mounted, well-armed veterans, the bulk of their force was a vast mob of untrained peasantry, all afoot and armed with a miscellany of agricultural implements. Crushed as they were under the heavy taxes levied by the new duke, they could afford but few mercenaries, and those few chose to go over to the duke at a crucial point in the decisive battle on the land northeast of the city.

"Beset with such treachery, the rebels were defeated with terrible losses, Count Martuhn, leaving the very flower of the duchy dead or dying on the field... and much of the precious rootstock, as well, alas.

"Tcharlz and his southern ruffians and forsworn mercenaries pursued the broken columns of survivors for miles, ruthlessly murdering any they caught of gentry or n.o.ble houses. But the wretched peasants he simply disarmed, dispersed and sent home, unharmed for the most part."

Martuhn could detect perspicacity in such a move. After all, hands were needed to work the land, else the whole duchy would starve, and the peasants had likely been forcibly impressed into the rebel army anyway. Under the old system, their mean, dehumanized status would have remained the same no matter who won the rebellion.

The d.u.c.h.ess had begun to cough again, even more violently than previously; the spasms went on and on for long minutes and were followed by more minutes of choking and gagging. A white-bearded and stooped physician left his place at the foot of the bed and motioned Martuhn to arise and depart, but the old d.u.c.h.ess would have none of his attempt to exercise authority. The deathly-ill woman flopped weakly back against the piled mound of cushions', but-though she perforce must speak through a mouthful of blood and mucus which dribbled the while down her chin to drip onto her bodice- her voice was as strong as ever.

"Count Martuhn, keep you your place. And you, you blathering old imbecile, get out of here! See you now how much good was done me by all the nauseous doses you made me swallow? By the unholy messes of oils and herbs you made me endure? If you must be active at something, fetch me that Zahrtohgahn, Master Ahkmehd. His drugs can at least render my death easier."

"Hush, your grace, hush," murmured the lady who bent to wipe the d.u.c.h.ess' lips and chin. "You are very ill, true, but you are not... are not dying." "Nonsense, Mahrtha!" The d.u.c.h.ess patted the freckled hand of the red-haired woman tending her. "I know it and so do you; I'm dying, all right. But my consolations are that the ravening beast who dishonored us both and most of the duchy as well is dead before me and most of his jackals with him, and that this birthright of mine will finally pa.s.s into the strong, capable hands of the kind of man Papa should have found for me to marry-this man, Count Martuhn-and I mean to live until I can tell him what he needs to know if he to rule long and wisely over my people." When Martuhn finally left the chamber of the dying d.u.c.h.ess, he was of two minds about the late duke.

He did not doubt that the non-bereaved widow was telling the whole and unvarnished truth... as she had perceived it. But still he felt admiration for much that Tcharlz had done for the duchy-however he had come to the ascendancy-and was he, Martuhn, to rule here, he could discern little or no reason to go back to the old order and ways, which was what the d.u.c.h.ess had been advising in a roundabout way.

Insofar as Duke Tcharlz's personal habits were concerned, the d.u.c.h.ess, who obviously had been reared in a sheltered and insulated environment by an adoring and overly indulgent sire, might be shocked to her innermost core, but Martuhn had known or known of far worse lechers than her dead husband. His hereditary overlord, Duke Lin of York, for example, had set aside his wife to take up the violent rape of three or four young virgins a week; and as he had gotten older, the victims he chose were younger, with many of the prep.u.b.escent children dying as a direct result of his abuse of their immature bodies. At length the monster had been overthrown and slain by some thoroughly disgusted n.o.bles, and Martuhn had lost his patrimony in the ensuing dynastic struggles. That the late duke had poisoned (or smothered; there was more than one tale of old Duke Myk's demise abroad) his father-in-law, long years agone, did not sound at all like the man Martuhn had known and respected, even while opposing him in the matter of Bahb and Djoh Steevuhnz. Besides, it had never been aught save suspicions mouthed by men and women who actively and openly hated and despised Tcharlz on other grounds; no one, not even her grace, had ever possessed a shred of hard evidence.

The deaths of so many of the councilors of the preceeding duke were another matter, of course, but here again the personal, straightforward stamp of Tcharlz just would not adhere, in Martuhn's mind, to poisonings or garrotes and envenomed daggers in the dark. So what really had happened in those distant days was anybody's guess. Most likely, Martuhn reasoned, some or all of them had been slain by Tcharlz's then retainers, but probably not on his direct orders. The way that Tcharlz had summarily broken the power of the n.o.bles and gentry-seizing their hereditary lands and thereby so impoverishing them that their only options were to cleave to him, flee the duchy or slowly starve-had, in Martuhn's opinion, been a stroke of rare genius; and that Tcharlz had not then-as many a high n.o.ble would have done-parceled out the seized lands to supposedly loyal new landlords, but had rather freed the peasantry and redistributed the land to them to own and work had without question immeasurably richened and strengthened the duchy. And that he had done precisely the same to those lands he formerly had ruled as a count had proved that it was not simply a punitive action but part of a carefully conceived plan. Of course, the actions and the suddenness with which they had been taken were very hard on the affected landlords- upon whose sufferings, admittedly pitiable, the stricken d.u.c.h.ess had dwelt at length.

But the overall outcome had been good and more than good. The lands were now more productive than ever they had been. The majority of the n.o.bles and the gentry were unswervingly loyal to the overlord (so loyal, in fact, that the vast proportion of those of fighting age had gone down to death behind Tcharlz's banner at Traderstown) and the peasants-c.u.m-yeoman-farmers had proved time and again where lay their allegiances.

But there were those nagging other things haunting the honor and the honest soul of Martuhn, and not solely because of the fevered accusations of the dying d.u.c.h.ess. Despite the wholly admirable system of laws, law courts and judges inst.i.tuted by Tcharlz to replace the ancient hodgepodge he had inherited, the captain had heard rumors as long as he had been a resident of the duchy that-were a large enough sum paid to a high enough authority-favorable judgment in duchy courts could always be purchased.

The recent apprehension and incarceration of the sly and treacherous Judge Baron Lapkin of Pahdookahport had, he had thought, put an end to it all. But now, in the light of the information given him by the d.u.c.h.ess, he was no longer so certain. Some of the most flagrant examples of bought judgments had, it seemed, well predated the ill-starred appointment of Baron Lapkin to the bench. Possibly, hemused as he rode toward the citadel, that very appointment had been effected for the same reason a skilled captain would readjust his pike line behind a screen of manuevering cavalry... and the late Duke Tcharlz had been, if nothing more, a superlative field captain; no mistake about that. He and his entourage were recognized long before they rode onto the bridge, but still the wall commander-knowing d.a.m.ned well that Martuhn's instructions were never issued lightly-insisted that all the riders bare their heads and faces and that the proper word be given before he would order the grille raised and the gates unbarred and swung open. Before the main building, Martuhn swung down from the saddle of his big white riding mule and surrendered the reins to his waiting groom. Then he strode up the steps and into the dim coolness, slapping dust from his boots with his shucked elbow gloves.

But gone forever was the near-empty building he had loved and remembered. As the seat of the now supreme power in the duchy, the corridors and rooms swarmed with the necessary staff of clerks and scribes and petty officials, with messengers and suppliants thronging so thickly about that his bodyguards and a double brace of pikemen from the entry had all that they could do to force through a clear path to the larger and far more elaborate offices his staff had had to occupy. Awaiting him in the antechamber were Nahseer, Dragoon Sergeant Lee Byuhz and a tall, black-haired man he did not know. Ignoring the stranger and the sergeant for the moment, Martuhn questioned NAhseer.

"How is Wolf? He still livesr Nahseer sighed, nodded. "Yes, my lord count, the n.o.ble Wolf still breathes, but be dies a little more with each pa.s.sing day. The physician, my countryman, can do nothing more for him, save to administer the drugs that keep him free of pain.

"But is my lord to see him, it had best be soon, for I think that he now craves death."

Martuhn nodded wearily. "Immediately I'm done here, I'll come, Nahseer.

"Now, my good Byuhz, what have we here?"

Once the stranger was seated with him in his private office, with brandied wine poured for them both, Martuhn stated, "I'm glad that your command of Trade-Mehrikan is so good, Senor Morr6, for yours is one language I've never learned, since I never soldiered for or even near to the empire. I truly regret that you were left behind when we withdrew from Traderstown-I had thought that I had gathered together and brought safely out all of the nonresidents, but obviously I erred.

"But that aside, tell me, why did the nomads Send you over here to me?" Senor Don Maylo Morrd, merchant and n.o.ble amba.s.sador of His Imperial Majesty Benito IV, Emperor of all the Mexicos, sipped delicately at his goblet before answering. And in that moment of waiting, Martuhn essayed to read the surface thoughts of his guest's mind; he failed miserably. He never before had contacted so powerful a mindshield, and he reflected that such a contact was akin to b.u.t.ting one's bare head against a stone wall.

Setting down the goblet, Morr6 answered, "Don Conde, the Horseclansmen now hold some hundreds of caballeros and mercenarios as prisoners, a few of them sound, but the most wounded to greater or lesser degrees." Martuhn's face darkened. "And the barbarian b.a.s.t.a.r.ds want to sell them back to me, eh? All right, I always try to stick by my warriors. How much gold do they want? But I warn you in advance, gold is all they'll get from me-no horses, no women."

But when the foreign n.o.bleman put the ransom demanded by the nomads into his halting, heavily accented Mehrikan, Martuhn looked every bit of his amazement. "They what? Those plains rovers must think me bereft of any wits at all. Such would be akin to not only opening the door to the wolf, butcourteously helping him over the sill, as well. I saw what your n.o.ble savages did to the lands of Duke Alex, and I'll not abet them in visiting the same on the lands and cities of this duchy."

"There were good reasons why the Duchy of Traderstown Was so despoiled," began Morr6 mildly.

"There are always 'good reasons' why invaders rape and pillage," snorted Martuhn derisively. "I've been a soldier for most of my life, and I know them all. A man hungers or thirsts or covets or l.u.s.ts, and where no law is enforced, it is always far easier to take one's wants at the point of a sword than it is to haggle a sale."

"If the ill.u.s.trious my host will please to allow for me to finish... ?" Morre' inquired politely.

Wolfs mind, still sharp and quick despite the wounds from which he was slowly dying and the drugs administered for the h.e.l.lish pain, immediately sensed the matters troubling Mar-tuhn. Mind to mind was presently the only way in which the grizzled man could converse, so smashed and damaged were his face and jaws. "If you doubt this Morr6's true motives and ident.i.ty, my lord, why not hustle him down to the cellars and put him to the stringent question?" "No, old friend." Martuhn, too, beamed silently. "He sailed over under a white flag, so his person is as sacrosanct as is that of a herald, and my suspicions may be entirely ungrounded-he may well be just what he claims, a captured Mehkskuhn merchant sent over by the nomad chiefs. "But, Wolf, although he is clearly not of the Horseclanner breed-he's too big-boned and tall and dark to be one of them-his name is very close to the name given by that wounded nomad the late duke captured across the river as the so-called war chief, or overall commander, of that tribe's warriors-Milo of Morai. I know, I have the transcript of that interrogation; the spelling is different, of course, but I would bet that the two names are p.r.o.nounced the same in speech."

"Nonetheless," stated the dying Wolf, "you sense him to be an honor-bound man and you will sail back across the Great River with him. I will not be there to guard your back, as of old, Martuhn, so I pray you, take Nahseer with you. He is a doughty fighter, that one, and is now as faithfully your man as ever I was." Count Martuhn, surrogate Duke of the East, stood in th blunt prow of the small row-barge and watched the citadel- gleaming almost white in the westering sun-grow larger with each ordered stroke of the oars. The dark-skinned, heavy-thewed Nahseer stood just behind him, conversing softly with Daiv Ghyp, master of the barge. On every other square foot of the deck lay or sat wounded cavalrymen, mostly mercenary dragoons or lancers, but with a sprinkling of gentry and petty n.o.bility from both duchies. And on the docks of Trad-erstown, more survivors awaited the arrival of another, larger cable barge. After that, a number of mounted chiefs and older clansmen would be barged over to scout out an easy, short and, with luck, frictionless route for the tribe's pa.s.sage through the duchy. His agreement with the Council of Chiefs had been that the crossing of the river by the horde would be delayed until all the duchy's crops were harvested. Further, the chiefs had given their sworn word that no folk of the duchy would be harmed, no villages or farms looted or burned, no lands deliberately ravaged in their pa.s.sing, and Martuhn believed them. Now all he had to do was convince his staff and the folk of the duchy. Once landed upon the western bank, a bare week since, the count's suspicions of Monk's true ident.i.ty had been fully confirmed, but he could not fault the war chief for the subterfuge. It had been a necessary, military expedient and had really wrought much good.

Neither he nor Nahseer had been required to surrender their weapons or doff their armor, but they, the two boys and Milo of Morai had been escorted at a polite distance by fifty or more well-armed clansmen with strung bows, as they rode through the shattered city of Traderstown. In the Clan Steevuhnz enclave, after Count Martuhn had formally returned the boys to their sire along with vociferous praises of their bravery, cunning and war skills, and when Bahb and Djoh had opened wide their minds and memories that their father might know of all the striving and scheming that the count had performed in order to keep them out of the perverted clutches of Lord Urbahnos, the Steevuhnz of Steevuhnz flatly refused to allowthe two easterners to leave his camp.

So Martuhn and Nahseer had, perforce, bided the two nights and a day it took Milo to a.s.semble the council in the camp of Clan Steevuhnz, as deeply honored guests. There he first met a prairiecat and was thoroughly impressed at the high intelligence of the beast, as compared to horses, which were the only other animals with which he had mentally communicated. Nor were the human clansfolk quite what he had expected. For all the grim, blank-faced taciturnity they showed the world, among themselves they were a merry, active people, living by a strict code of honor-both personal and clan- bound together by loyalty to their clan and duty to their chief. As for the myth of "stinking savages," he had found it to be a patent falsehood. No member of the clan but washed or was washed at least once each day in the waters of the lar-gish creek that separated their camp from that of Clan Mak-loor-often in large, mixed parties of young and old, male and female, and always with much horseplay and laughter- and most seemed good, if unorthodox, swimmers. Clothing and most of the horses' were washed by slaves. A few of the cats swam on occasion, but most avoided the water except when thirsty.

From the first hours in the Steevuhnz camp, Martuhn felt oddly as if he had returned home after a long campaign. He could not recall feeling so much that he- was in his rightful place since his exile from Geerzburk. "I could live with these good folk," he thought. "I could be truly one of them and happily live out the rest of my days as a nomad. I wonder... ?" Then he sighed, as reality once more confronted him, dashing hopes and daydreams alike. "I could, oh, aye, were it not for these d.a.m.ned duchies and my cursed responsibilities, my sworn word to a dead man." Martuhn's flexible mind had quickly accepted the differing customs of the clansfolk, even the unabashed nudity and the frequent and openly s.e.xual fondling of couples, young and old. But when, just as he was settling into his bed in the chiefs yurt on that first night, none other than the chiefs nubile daughter slipped from the surrounding darkness to press her warm, naked body close to his and nibble at his ear while her hand groped downward toward his manhood, he was appalled. The very last thing he needed or wanted was a row with these folk over the matter of a debauched maiden.

Stehfahnah read his surface thoughts, inchoate though they were, and mindspoke him matter-of-factly, "Maiden? Oh, you mean untried. You'll find none such in this camp. Chief Martuhn, and fear you not my father. What I do is as fitting as it will be-I believe-enjoyable. Both his younger wives are too near to their foaling to receive your seed safely; one of his new concubines has her time of the moon and the other is with him. So my sisters and I cast the bones for you-I won."

"But, my dear child," Martuhn began in a whisper, "I am more than old enough to myself be your fathmmmp!"

She stifled his words by pasting lier hot, wet mouth firmly over his own, her little pointed tongue thrusting deeply into his mouth, there to twist and writhe like a maddened serpent. One of her little hands clasped the back of his thick neck, kneading at the corded muscles under the skin; the other crept to his crotch and began to knead that which it found there.

"Oh ho,** she mindspoke him amusedly. "You misled me, Chief Martuhn; you are not so aged as you would have me believe. But as the proof of a stew is in the eating, so the proof of a new horse is in the riding. We must try your gaits and stamina, my stallion."

Neither Martuhn nor Stehfahnah slept very much that night... nor the night following.

In the end, his staff proved harder to convince than did either of the duchy councils, n.o.ble or common, but all came around eventually. A balding, sun-browned yeoman-farmer hailing from somewhere down in the late duke's home county stood in the commoner council and stated their reasoning bluntly andsuccinctly.

"We'uns all would hev his worship fer our new duke, an' if thet means a-herdin' five hunnert winter wolfs th'ough the dang duchy, we'uns'll do thet too!" In the much-shrunken council of n.o.bles-which numbered a few graybeards, but was mostly filled by the fresh young faces of younger brothers or distant cousins of those men who had followed Duke Tcharlz's banner to their deaths-Sir Manfred, Baron Kehrbee, had the last words prior to the oral vote. "My lords. I do not stomach the idea of a horde of nomads traipsing across the duchy any better than I would a dish of rotten stockfish, but Count Martuhn believes their a.s.surances of a peaceful pa.s.sage, and I believe him. And I'll speak true, far better them, who only wish to pa.s.s through and then be gone forever, than the incursions of foreign armies who mean to stay... and well have just that unless we immediately unite behind Count Martuhn and acclaim him publicly as our new overlord.

"You all, even you younger lords, know what usually occurs when the overlord of one of our neighboring states dies with no legal heir-the countless a.s.sa.s.sinations, the chaos and, like as not, outright civil war, with three or four or more factions jockeying back and forth. One always wins eventually, of course, but by then the land has lain idle for too long, the humbler folk have been butchered or driven into hiding, the treasury has been sc.r.a.ped clean and the flower of the n.o.bility either hacked to death or hanging from gibbets in chains. Over the years, Duke Tcharlz took advantage of more than one such debacle to enlarge our duchy.

"Well, now Tcharlz is dead and precious few of his male issue-legitimate or otherwise-survived him.

But our duchy is fortunate in that he legally adopted and named as his heir none other than his long-faithful captain, Count Martuhn of Twocityport. I mean to tender Count Martuhn my fullest support, and I shall expect all true n.o.blemen of this duchy to do no less. "Moreover, before She died, d.u.c.h.ess Ann authorized a long and deep investigation of Count Martuhn, received him and spoke with him in private for several hours, then exacted the solemn oaths of all her followers to support him as their new overlord.

"You younger men will not recall, of course, but I was a man grown when old Duke Myk died. The duchy was neither so large nor so rich then, but it was strong; and it was strong because it was united-every man of breeding or substance was solidly behind his overlord. It is a very good feeling to live in such a state... and we can have it again in this homeland of ours, do we but give our unqualified support to Duke Tcharlz's chosen heir, Count Martuhn." However, despite the unanimous support of the councils, despite the open-handed hospitality of the gentry and n.o.bility, the unrestrained cheers of the common folk who ran out to see him whenever his cavalcade rode through a city or village, Martuhn could not make the final and irrevocable decision to allow himself to be invested with the rank and the privileges, the duties and the responsibilities, he had long since shouldered. And the busy months pa.s.sed into history. The early harvests were in and the farmfolk were a.s.siduously sharpening scythes and sickles and corn knives for the long, weary labor which lay just ahead.

And in the bright, hot afternoon of a day just like the one before, a small band of hors.e.m.e.n clattered through the Upper Town, to draw reins before the palace into which Martuhn had recently had to move his headquarters, though he still returned to his citadel quarters most nights when he was in Twocityport.

The leader of the hors.e.m.e.n stiffly dismounted, shucked the billowing road shirt which had protected his rich attire from the dust of miles, then unwrapped some yards of sweaty, dust-caked cotton cloth from his head and face, donned a battered but polished helmet and stalked toward the guarded doorway.

Duke Tcharlz had come home.

Chapter Seventeen

The Great River lay many long leagues behind even the miles per day, the tribe had been more than a month on their slowest of the herds now, and at the average of four or five eastward trek. A few of the intervening statelets had been crossed in peace, after overawing or negotiating with the owners; most had not been entirely peaceful and some had had to be hacked through with tw.a.n.ging bowstrings and dripping blades.

The season was growing older, and although the days still were stifling, the nights were cool to nippy. As soon as he had stripped, given his dirty, sweat-tacky clothes to the waiting slave girl and washed in a barrel of water still tepid from the hot sun of the day just past, Senior Subchief Martuhn Geer of Steevuhnz made haste to his bed of hides and blankets and the warm young wife who awaited him therein.

Much later, when both were near to exhausted sleep, lying a little apart that their two sweaty bodies might more quickly cool, Martuhn thought back to other times, far less happy times, such as the return from supposed death of the duke. Tcharlz had embraced him warmly and even brushed lips to his cheek, though speaking in tones of stiff formality. In the privacy of the office, however, the worn old n.o.bleman had drained off a half-dozen jacks of beer, belched loudly, farted even louder, then begun to speak, familiarly. "You've obviously kept the reins firmly in hand, my boy, and by my steel, that's a relief. Those stinking savages hunted and harried us for days, drove us far downriver, and then we had to travel even farther down, ere we could find a way to cross to the east bank. "I knew, though, all along, that if you survived you'd do the right thing; you'd hold my duchy for me. But until barely a month ago, I had no idea what had happened to you, the fort or Traderstown itself. "I finally got back across with over a hundred mounted men, yet the bare dozen I rode in here with and a few wound-ed men I left in the south, in my home county, are all that are left of that force. We first landed in Ehleen territory, and it was either fight our way out or be enslaved by the blackhearted, boy-b.u.g.g.e.ring b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

"The folk who bide between the Ehleenee and the southern marches of the Kingdom of Mehmfiz are a primitive, savage and most inhospitable breed. And more men were lost to long-range sniping and ambuscades. "In Mehmfiz, our troubles should have been over for a bit, but we had the bad luck to ride directly into an ongoing battle and had to fight to survive. I merged my force with what looked to be the larger, stronger, better-led group, only to flee with them when the other side was overwhelmingly reinforced." With a rueful look, the trailworn old duke added, "And, as Fate would have it, we had not even wound up on the side of the right and the king, but allied with a group of n.o.ble rebels and in support of a would-be usurper, one Count Djoolyuhn. Since I could fathom no way to set the matter aright-get us safely over to the royal side-I threw in our lot with the rebels, arranged an audience with this Djoolyuhn whereat I revealed my true ident.i.ty and took over full command of the sorry agglomeration he called an army. "To be succinct, my boy, once I had gotten his troops properly organized and distributed, trained his officers to drill and handle them and imparted to him and them a modic.u.m of theoretical strategy and tactics, I undertook a campaign that virtually cleared his county of royalists and the county to his westward, as well.

"Then I turned his army back over to him and told him to clear the county to his north. He is a quick study, that lad, and he did just that, with scant delay and little loss of troops. So I put him against the next county north, then the next and so on, until I and my survivors could safely cross over into friendly lands.

"Thanks to me and my military genius, Martuhn, Count Djoolyuhn now has more than quintupled the size of his original army and has effectively split Mehmfiz-holding as he now does a succession 'of counties stretching from the southernmost border to the northernmost. He may very well actually become the next king, and, as such, he will make me a splendid ally. Though lacking my genius at war and statecraft, Djoolyuhn is much akin to me and I understand him. "So, anyway, we rode north through the client states in short, easy stages, resting frequently at this little town or that country hall, putting it out only that we were a handful of survivors of the cavalry battle at Traderstown, riding up here to seek the last of ourpay. And so, my dear boy, here we are, home safely at last. And thanks entirely to you and your loyalty, it's still home." Stehfahnah's hand came to rest softly upon his chest, and her mindspeak gently probed.

"Are you sleeping, my husband?"

Martuhn snapped back from the past to the present, from the tile-walled office in the Twocityport palace to the felt yurt so many miles and weeks away. "No, my dear, not yet."

She raised herself to rest on an elbow and let her fingers trace along the numerous furrowed scars on his chest and shoulders. "I saw you today, my husband, when you led your money fighters to the in-saddle council that the war chief had convened.

"I watched you from a distance. You sitting your fine, big stallion among the chiefs, with Sacred Sun making your armor gleam and sparkle like pure, polished silver.

"You towered over them all, even the war chief, and when you had listened for long and you finally spoke, their respect for your wisdom and valor held them all silent until you were done.

"And I said to myself, That is my man there, so tall and handsome. He is mine and I am his and one of the sons he will get on me will be the chief of Clan Steevuhnz.'

"And, oh, my dear, dear husband, I felt so full with my pride that I thought I should surely burst of it."

The girl sighed. "So very, very proud." She leaned to brush his lips lightly with her own, then snuggled herself against his side, pillowing her tousled head on his shoulder. Presently, her regular breathing told Martuhn that his young wife lay asleep.

Upon being apprised of the death of d.u.c.h.ess Ann, the duke had elected to take over the urban palace complex and Martuhn had more than willingly removed himself and his military staff back to the familiar, homier environs of the citadel. It had been a real relief to the captain to leave the self-seeking, ever-scheming bureaucrats to the man who had first chosen them and trained them to the ungentle art of power-mongering.