by Martin Ash
‘What was that?’ I called after him.
He turned back, with a vaguely quizzical expression.
‘Would you repeat what you just said?’ I asked.
He did so.
‘To whom do you refer?’ I asked. ‘Who let me out? And out of where?’
The man was mildly perplexed now. ‘Feikermun’s beasts.’
‘Feikermun?’
‘Feikermun of Selph.’
Something seemed almost to fall into place, a feeling both of understanding and, simultaneously, of being further confused by events. It was like a weight descending, a cloud falling upon my spirits, and again the sensation that the ground was crumbling beneath me. Feikermun of Selph was one of the three thuggish lordlets who held sway over Dhaout in Anxau.
Rising from my seat behind the desk, I approached Bon’s man, extending the full strength of my personality in the manner I had learned over years of Zan-Chassin training. The fellow was bigger than I, and stronger, but with some satisfaction I saw him quail before me. ‘What in Moban’s name are you talking about?’
‘It’s just something I picked up, Master Dinbig. I didn’t mean any offence.’
‘None is taken, but I’m mystified. Explain, please.’
‘Well, word is that Feikermun wanted you and that his beasts had caught you and were taking you back to Dhaout.’
‘Where did you hear this?’
‘From a Kutc’p herder we met on the road some days back. He said you’d sold Feikermun bad goods or something. Feikermun wanted your blood.’
Was this it? Did I have an answer? Was my alter ego at work bringing my name into disrepute in Anxau? If so, it was a dangerous course. In fact, by this account he might already have paid the price.
But the question still lingered: Why?
‘What’s the name of this herder?’
‘Fol Hostromn, sir. He said he’d heard it in The Goat and Salmon Pool, in Riverway. Everyone was talking about it, he said. Seems they thought it was the end of you. Feikermun’s not a merciful man.’
No, he was a sick-hearted monster. A deranged despot who reckoned himself untouchable. Brutal, murderous, a man devoid of any shred of decency. I had done business with him once, and had no wish to repeat the experience. I had emerged the poorer, but at least I had kept my life. To better Feikermun was to invite a blade between the ribs, or a slit throat as one slept at night. He had no respect for status. That I was in effect a roving ambassador of my country was of no account in lawless Dhaout.
Feikermun had ruled unopposed until a few years ago. His henchmen were beasts indeed, and through them he had held the city in terror. Then his brother and former right-hand man, Gorl, had attempted to assassinate him. The attempt had failed but Gorl escaped with his life and gained control of part of the city, leading to split rule and bloody street warfare.
At about the same time a third party sprang to prominence, a mysterious figure known as the Golden Lamb, who took advantage of the chaos and seized control in Dhaout’s relatively affluent western quarter. Tri-partite conflict had continued ever since, but the place was minimally less bloody these days, as each of the three had something of a curbing effect on the excesses of the other two. Feikermun and Gorl were as bad as each other. Little was known of the Golden Lamb. His reputation spoke of a stern ruler who commanded a loyal following, but it appeared he inclined somewhat less towards indiscriminate bloodletting than his two adversaries.
When engaged in business there, I, like most, endeavoured to avoid direct contact with the three or their immediate henchmen. The central marketplaces offered reasonable opportunities for trade, and generally one could do business there unmolested.
Recently rumours had filtered out of the death of Gorl, Feikermun’s brother. He was said to have been murdered by his lover, a woman named Malibeth, who now ruled in his stead. Whether this was true or not I could not say.
‘What’s your name?’ I demanded of Sorias Bon’s man.
‘Mursa, sir. Gillin Mursa.’
‘Well, Gillin Mursa, should further such scurrilous tales reach your ears you may inform the rumourmongers that they are unfounded. You are witness to the fact that I am alive and in good health. I’ve had no contact with Feikermun of Selph, nor his beasts. Nor have I sold him, or anyone, substandard goods - and he does not seek my blood. Do you have that?’
‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry.’
‘You may go.’
Mursa glanced sheepishly at his employer, who nodded, and he went back to his business.
Bon departed soon after. I remained for a while at the warehouse, attending to a few matters of business, then took myself off to a quayside tavern to enjoy a breakfast of pickled eels and herb potato flakes, with more hot cacao. Bris found me there, and brought the news that the Chariness expected me at noon in her audience chamber in the catacombs.
This left a few hours in which to find diversion. That business should be a pleasure is one of my most basic tenets, and with such in mind I returned to the warehouse and had a boy load a barrow with some of Bon’s new silks, plus a few other choice items of jewellery, perfumes and ornaments. With boy and barrow in tow I set off for Cheuvra, the Hon-Hiaitan manse of Lady Celice of Surla.
Lady Celice was nineteen and a rare beauty. She had recently wed the Orl Kilroth, dhoma-lord of Surla. He was arguably the most powerful of Khimmur’s nobles and, fortunately for King Gastlan, a man fanatically loyal to the Crown. Kilroth’s seat was Castle Drome, in the central province of Surla, but Celice, who had a taste for the finer things in life, found the place without charm. She was Surloan born and bred yet, since her betrothal, had succumbed to a quite mysterious and debilitating malady which affected her most notably when she was obliged to spend time in her home province, particularly within the chill walls of brooding Castle Drome. Hon-Hiaita, on the other hand, with its choice company and diverse entertainments, she found far more appropriate to her health and temperament. Celice had therefore moved herself into the splendid manse, Cheuvra, within days of her wedding. For the most part the Orl’s time was taken up with matters of duty at his beloved Drome.
Eager to contribute to and sustain the young Lady Celice’s sense of well-being and enjoyment of life, I had paid a number of visits to Cheuvra. On this occasion I arrived unannounced, and was shown in by a footman who disappeared upstairs to inform Celice of my arrival. She, as it happened, had returned to Hon-Hiaita from Castle Drome just a couple of days earlier, having been engaged in formal duties with the Orl which she simply had not been able to avoid.
She appeared at the head of the stairs, garbed in a bright, elegant carmine gown, gathered tightly at the waist and cut low at the breast, its split bodice laced with criss-crossed twin velvet thongs. I recalled having brought it to her some weeks earlier.
She was a vision, it has to be said. Slim, of average height, auburn-haired, slender-waisted, and blessed with a bosom of such youthful bounty as to cast a man into a swoon. That the Orl should opt for the wild scapes of Surla over the sweet abundances of lovely Celice was something I could not begin to comprehend.
Her lovely young face broke into a delighted smile at the sight of me - in fact, it was more than delight. She appeared surprised and overjoyed, clutching her hands together beneath her chin and giving a little jump at the head of the stairs. It was a greeting rather more effusive than I had expected. Her first words explained why, and at the same time filled me with misgiving.
‘Dinbig! You are safe! I was so worried!’
Somehow I knew then that the revelations of the last twenty-four hours were going to continue to haunt me, even here. ‘What do you mean?’ I said, gloomily anticipating the broad tenor of her reply.
Celice descended three steps, then halted. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes dewy, but I saw now that she fought to restrain herself in front of the household staff. ‘I heard the news of your terrible adventures in Anxau.’
I nodded. ‘Ah.’
‘I was told you were
dead — and worse!’
‘Worse?’
‘I was told you had suffered such... such... But I see the reports were exaggerated, for here you are - and I am so pleased - neither dead nor mutilated.’
‘Indeed, that’s so. Well, Lady Celice, in my most alive and unspoiled manner I have brought new goods for you to inspect. Perhaps, as you cast your lovely eyes over them, you might care to tell me precisely what it is you’ve been told.’
I hoped my expression and tone of voice and expression conveyed my desire to speak to her in private.
‘Of course,’ agreed Celice. ‘Please have the goods brought upstairs to my apartments. I shall inspect them there.’
My boy, helped by one of Celice’s servants, unloaded the barrow and together they took my goods to Celice’s chambers. She ordered mulled wine and cakes to be brought, and we ascended. She ran her hands over the silks with expressions of delight, quickly examined the ornaments and jewels, and sampled the perfumes. Her manservant arrived with the refreshments on a silver platter and poured sparkling amber wine into two goblets.
‘I do not wish to be disturbed,’ said Celice.
The servant bowed and withdrew, closing the door behind him.
As soon as we were alone Celice seized my arm. ‘Oh, Dinbig, you don’t know how I’ve been! I was sure you were dead.’
Her slender arms slipped around my neck and she hugged me fiercely, pressing her warm cheek to mine. I breathed in the lush scent of her, and savoured the sensation of her yielding body against my own.
‘Now what’s this?’ I murmured. ‘What’s this strange tale you’ve been told, and from where did it come?’
She drew back slightly. I gazed down upon the swell of her breasts, the deep, inviting shadow of her cleavage, inhaled her warm perfume, and my ardour rose.
‘I was told you’d been executed,’ said Celice. ‘You were picked up for sleeping with the wife of some Anxau warlord. You were tortured... horribly. Mintral said that before killing you they... they hacked off your pizzle and made you . . . made you...’
‘Made me what?’ I said, shuddering.
She screwed up her face. ‘Made you eat it.’
I shuddered again.
‘They didn’t, did they, Dinbig?’ Celice’s hand slid downwards to press itself warmly against the accused, who by this time was impressed with more than a little enthusiam against the inside of my trousers. ‘Aah,’ she breathed, and smiled and gave me a tender squeeze.
‘You see, it’s all foul rumour with no iota of truth. I’m very much a whole man. It was Lord Mintral, you say, who brought this news?’
Celice nodded. ‘He was here, the day before yesterday. He was convinced it was true.’
I felt a moment of concern. Lord Mintral was dhoma-lord of Beliss, Khimmur’s most westerly domain, which bordered upon the Kutc’p plains. His castle lay no great distance from Hon-Hiaita. I was not happy with the thought that Mintral might have been here, in this house, doing what I was about to do. I would question Celice further, both about the nature of Mintral’s visit and the exact details of his report in regard to my supposed activities, but now was not the time.
‘Did you sleep with a warlord’s wife, Dinbig?’ Celice asked.
‘Of course not. I haven’t been in Anxau.’ I kissed her. ‘Did Mintral mention the name of the offended warlord?’
‘Oh, he did, I think. But I can’t remember it.’
‘Feikermun?’ I offered. ‘Of Selph?’
‘Yes, that’s it.’ She frowned, pouting. ‘How do you know, if you haven’t been there?’
‘Because Feikermun’s name has already come up once today in connection with myself - again, on bogus premises.’ I kissed her once more, a long, deeply intimate kiss. ‘I take it your husband’s still away?’
‘At Drome, as was I. He has organized a grand hunt with his local lords, commencing today. He says he’ll decorate the banqueting hall with a dozen rhakk heads.’ She gave a grimace of distaste. ‘I don’t want hideous rhakk heads on my walls.’
The rhakk are strange creatures, dog-like but with a strange element of the human. They are considered savage, wicked and vile, known to take human babies from their cribs and feed them to their young. The rhakk are hunted remorselessly by men.
‘Ah, good,’ I said.
‘Good?’
‘I mean good that he is not here to disturb us, not good that he intends to mount hideous rhakk heads upon your walls.’
As I spoke I unlaced the velvet thong fastening Celice’s bodice and eased the material aside to free her breasts. I drew my breath at the marvellous sight, and slipped my hands upon them both. ‘The good Orl will not be back for at least a week, then?’
‘At least...’ She sighed and bent back her head. I lowered my lips to kiss the smooth soft flesh and gently circle a pert rosebud nipple with my tongue.
‘Ah, Dinbig, have you brought your magics?’
‘Of course,’ I murmured.
‘Then cast them now.’
I had used certain minor raptures before as enhancements to lovemaking. The practice was not, strictly speaking, approved of within the Zan-Chassin Hierarchy, but I do not imagine that I am the only one to have employed it. I picked Celice up in my arms and carried her through to her bedchamber. Laying her down, I invoked the raptures. In a haze of erotic magic I noted that two hours remained before my meeting with the Chariness. That time would be filled to the utmost as I steeped myself in the inimitable lovelinesses of Celice.
Three
IT seemed to me that Hisdra, the Chariness, had always been old. My earliest childhood memories of her were of a withered crone, more ancient than I could imagine. Now I was an adult, and she remained as impossibly aged as she had always been. It was as if she had been old from the beginning of time. I could not conceive of her bones ever having been strong and clad in firm, youthful flesh; I could not imagine her in the arms or the bed of a lover, nor see her dancing, running, playing. She was for me the perfect living embodiment of ancient wisdom — and wiles.
She sat before me now, her body tiny and frail, her chin wispily bearded, her pallid, wrinkled pate visible beneath thin wreaths of sparse grey hair. She wore an informal robe of sombre damask embroidered with blue-and-silver edging. She could barely stand, or even sit, without support. Her limbs were bony and bird-like; they shook incessantly, outside her conscious control. By my estimation she had known at least nine decades of corporeality. A possible contender in the age stakes was Lord Gegg, grand patriarch of Gegg’s Cowm in Surla. He had fought for and against more Khimmurian kings than any other living dhoma-lord, had lost an eye and a leg in separate battles for the effort, had spawned sons and grandchildren beyond counting, and was now partially deaf and half-crippled with inflamed joints. Sagas were composed about Gegg, but I believe Hisdra had at least a decade on him.
Her physical infirmity aside, she was the most accomplished and powerful member of the Zan-Chassin Hierarchy, our Sacred Mother, an Adept of the Sixth Realm. Few before her, and none among the living, had advanced so far.
It was in Hisdra’s eyes that one could perceive something of her true nature and strength. Sunk within bald bony sockets and skin that was cadaverously shrunken and desiccated, the eyes shone with a disarming vigour. Her gaze was keen, alert, perceptive, bright with the light of knowledge, the humour of understanding, the quiet energy of achievement. Also, unmistakably, she emanated an aura. One gazed upon her and saw a frail wisp, clinging to life; yet one instinctively sensed more, and recognized, without knowing quite how, that here was an old woman of rare and exceptional qualities.
‘Feikermun of Selph has been an object of interest to us for some time, Dinbig,’ she said, seated almost like a rag doll upon her carved-oak ceremonial chair. We were in her chamber deep within the Zan-Chassin catacombs beneath Khimmur’s Royal Palace. Her feet hung from her robe, well above the stone floor; there was a small wooden step beside the chair to help her climb on and off. ‘It is cur
ious that you should come to me now, mentioning his name in connection with your strange circumstance.’
‘In what way has he attracted the Hierarchy’s attention?’ I enquired.
‘His state of mind is a cause for some concern.’
‘How so?’
‘He is almost certainly insane.’
‘He is not so far gone that he cannot command loyalty among his followers.’
‘And fear among his adversaries. That is so.’
‘And his connection with myself, or my double, seems purely coincidental. If the stories that have reached my ears are true, it is my imitator who has caused offence to Feikermun and has thus drawn himself to his attention. Feikermun has not been the instigator.’