Trinesh rolled over. The cavern floor was lumpy in spite of his pile of skins and desert-cloaks. He stil! had the steel sword—-he must ask for his iron gorget-piece back tomorrow as well—two spears, a Yan Koryani dagger in addition to his own belt-knife, a jug of water, and a flat basket filled with dark brown tubers that resembled Hmelu-XmAs. He had no way to cook the tubers, but if they had to stay here for any length of time, he could always demand a pot from someone. He hoped he would not have to risk any more of the locals’ dubious stew.
The rest of their party was scattered all around the cavern. He heard Chekkuru bleat an outraged and pompous reply to some tribesman’s importuning. The priest had provided amusement at least: he had refused to give up his vestments until a gaggle of women playfully held him down, kicking and squalling, and wrested them violently away. Horusel had begun by swearing to surrender nothing and to die fighting instead. He had then done battle with a swarm of warriors but had had brains enough to use only the flat of his sword, praise be to the Flame Lord! He was not stupid enough to think he could win, and eventually he shouted for a truce and grandly bestowed his legion cloak upon the bravest of his opponents. The Milumanayani were delighted. Horusel then joined in the spirit of the thing, took it all as a joke, and ended with a great store of armor, weapons, and food. He squatted now atop his loot, munching something and bantering with Dineva. Chosun, on the other hand, was shy for a hig man, and his success was less spectacular. He and his crossbowmen sat crosslegged close to the fire, a few of the sand-worms’ starveling wenches with them, and the resultant festivities were only now winding down. No one had troubled poor Jalugan; his wound was deep and painful, though not serious. Saina had taken him as her own special charge, and the two of them now lay together amid a heap of desert-cloaks not far away. Trinesh wished the injured youth whatever joy he could find in the arrangement.
Most of the Milumanayani were still awake, off in an open area of the cavern floor, probably holding council to discuss their unlooked-for guests. No need to worry, Tse’e said: there would be no treachery now that Trinesh and his party had shared food, salt, and water with their hosts. The tribesmen were currently making a great uproar: loud speeches, heckling, catcalls, and applause. Trinesh wondered what it was all about. He must ask Tse’e in the morning.
The Yan Koryani woman and her maid had not been bound again. The only direction of escape was the egg-thing, and there was no need for harsh measures. Trinesh did order them closely watched; it would be stupid to let the women and their little Pygmy-beast steal their sole means of returning to Fortress Ninu’ur, leaving them stranded in this Flame-forsaken place! He stood up to look. Yes, there they lay beside Dineva, Thu’n in a furry huddle on one side, the Lady Belket Ele Faiz curled up on the other.
He searched for the Yan Koryani girl—what was her name? Jai Chasa Vedlan—and finally saw her sitting apart from the rest, not far from his own sleeping place. She had not fared well; the womenfolk had demanded her pretty, feminine apparel, and at one point she had been stripped as naked as her mother had borne her. Saina had then provided a desert-cloak, as well as a gaudy skirtlike garment woven of Hma-wool and what was probably human hair.
The Milumanayani had not bothered the women. That, at least, was a mercy; it had probably saved lives, particularly in Dineva’s case. Though the tribes of the High Desert cared nothing about the ownership of property—their possessions were so few and life so hard that sharing them actually made sense—they did have a powerful sense of personal privacy. To rape a woman or slay a comrade was to start a feud that might last centuries and result in many deaths. War-captives were something else: they were indeed enslaved, but even then their females were never raped. A slave had to work— though no harder than others in the tribe—but slavery was less onerous here, and the refined cruelties of the Five Empires were thankfully missing. If any raping was done, it would likely be one of Trinesh’s soldiers who would do it and not the Milumanayani. Dineva, Saina, and the two captives were as safe in Na Ngore as children in a temple of Dilinala, the virginal Cohort of the Goddess Avanthe.
One puzzle kept pricking at Trinesh’s mind: the behavior of Lady Belket’s maid, Lady Jai Chasa Vedlan. There was nothing overt, nothing really wrong, but he could not understand her reaction to the evening’s chaffering and ribaldry. She smiled, petted the children, ate sparingly, and said so little that he would have thought her mute if he had not known otherwise. The girl appeared bored to the point of listlessness, as indifferent as a gladiator at a festival of flower-fanciers! Was she then a devotee of Dra the Uncaring, the Cohort of Lord Hnalla, Master of Light? Dra’s followers affected total inaction, disinterest in the things of this life, and an ennui that surpassed rational comprehension. Upon consideration, he decided this could not be so, for then she would have been of no use to Lady Belket.
The Lady Jai was lovely, far superior to the trollops who followed along in the wake of the army. He had not known such a woman since he left Tumissa—not since a certain junior priestess of the temple of the Goddess Dlamelish had introduced him to various inner mysteries . . . La, he put that memory firmly back where it belonged and thought of something else!
His mind refused to abandon the topic of women, dredging up a vision of Lady Belket Ele Faiz with which to torment him instead. She was more beautiful than her maid. But then she looked as though she were too clever, too sophisticated, too wise in the ways of the world, to succumb to any pleasurable urges of his! She was undeniably fascinating, as alluring as any of the heroines of the epics! She was, however, a trifle too old for him. (Though only by a few years at most, his little inner voice niggled. He popped a lid upon that thought, too, before his voice could accuse him of bashful cowardice!) In the epics, the women were always younger than their lovers, he reminded himself. That was poetic tradition, and why did traditions exist if not to impart wisdom? The Lady Belket Ele Faiz was not for Trinesh hiKetkolel,
He grunted, rose, and went over to the Lady Jai. There was no use evetj pretending to himself that his motives were innocent.
She had not donned the desert-cloak Saina had acquired for her but had draped it carelessly across her lap. The dancing, dying light of the fire turned her breasts into ruddy globes that compelled desire as the bards said the candle demanded the sacrifice of the Karai-beetle in its flame. Those breasts, Trinesh noted, were high and well rounded, their nipples dark in the shadows, like her unbound tresses themselves. A length of curving, golden thigh showed beneath the folds of the cloak, but she made no effort to cover herself, as many other women of prudish Yan Kor would have done. She paid him no heed.
He stood before her for a long moment, then asked, “You are comfortable?” He himself was not.
“As far as possible.” Her voice was low, accented, and musical. With just a subtle change in intonation it would have been seductive. She looked away.
He tried again. “Do not fear. We shall not let them harm you.”
“Thank you.”
“Nor shall we Tsolyani. I do not let my troops make war upon women.”
“That is noble of you.” Her voice was colorless. Did it conceal sarcasm?
He sat down uninvited. “What duties do you perform for your Lady Belket?”
She raised her eyes. They were large and long, almond-shaped, slightly tilted, as black as polished onyx, and luminous with glints of yellow firelight.
“I am her maid. I dress her, groom her, perform little services. No more.” Was that last phrase stressed more than the rest?
“You are far from home. What is your city?” Why was the woman so laconic? So difficult? Perhaps she hated all Tsolyani—had she lost a lover, a clan-brother, or somebody in the war?
It was unthinkable, Trinesh believed firmly, that any woman could really dislike him. He would have cheerfully conceded that this might be no more than the natural confidence of a reasonably handsome young man of good clan and lineage, but he would also have pointed to the numerous successes he had al
ready enjoyed, enough to make him an acknowledged expert on women among his clan-brothers and the feliow-subaltems of his legion. Oh, he had met women who were not attracted to him—for whatever reasons—but in the case of this Lady Jai Chasa Vedlan he did not sense “an arrow without a target,” as he called it. No, there was something odd about the girl’s behavior, almost as though she were asleep or drugged. He peered closely at her face but could see no signs of narcotics.
“I come from Dharu, the city we call ‘the Forge of Yan Kor.’ ”
“You’re not from Lady Belket’s Isle of Vridu, then.”
“No. From near the mouth of the River Vri, on the coast of the mainland. We are fisher-folk. Our clan is related to hers. Both serve the Lord of Sacrifice.”
At least she was talking! Perhaps she was only shy. (As was Trinesh himself, his inner voice sniped, nastily and without provocation.)
“So do we, though we name Him differently: Lord Vimuhla.”
“I know.”
“Tell me of your people. What is it like there, in Yan Kor?”
She sighed and gazed full upon him. For a moment Trinesh thought he had won past her defenses. Then she pulled aside the desert-cloak so that he could see the full glory of her gleaming, coppery limbs. She had not troubled to put on the crude skirt Saina had secured for her, and his eyes traveled of themselves down from her breasts to her slim and silky belly, and thence tp the dark triangle between her thighs.
She said, “If you are going to rape me, soldier, please do so quickly, for I am tired and would sleep.”
He could only gape. “No—no—” he stammered. “I shall not—cannot—”
“Here.” She pulled herself up onto her knees. “Kiss me. Get it over with.” She shut her eyes tightly, as does a felon who anticipates the thrust of the executioner’s impaling stake.
Astonished, he backed away and pulled the shreds of his dignity about himself like a beggar’s ragged mantle. “No, Lady. I mean no insult. I take no woman who does not desire the taking.”
“So you say.” Her lips were parted, but her expression was one of utter unconcern. “Do as you will. I make no resistance, yet you will have no joy of me. I do not feign apathy only to discourage you from lying with me. My response is genuine.”
“I believe you, Lady,” he said with formal courtesy. He had now regained a scrap or two of composure. He got to his feet. “Sleep well.”
She drew the cloak back over her body for warmth and let her long tresses coil down over her cheek.
Trinesh could not resist one last question, one of supreme importance to his youthful ego: “Tell me, Lady, what is it that causes your disinterest? Do you hate us Tsolyani? Or all men? Or am I personally so displeasing . . . ?”
He thought he heard her sigh again. Her voice came, muffled and indistinct, from beneath the cloak. “None of those: The response you seek has been shut away from my heart; I can no more give love—or share in pleasure—than a Chlen-beast can fly.” She said no more.
Trinesh turned on his heel and strode away. He felt thwarted and foolish, and this made him furious. He had almost attempted exactly what he had forbidden Horusel and the others to do, and yet the girl had parried him as neatly as a master swordsman knocks aside a novice’s clumsy thrust! Cha! As the Tumissan proverb put it, “The best weapon is that against which your adversary has no defense!” It was a long time before he fell asleep.
He was awakened by the exile, Tse’e.
“Hereksa, I have news for you. The Folk of Na Ngore still hold council, and—”
“And what?” Trinesh felt of his aching limbs, rubbed his eyes, and yawned. The cistem-pool was inviting. He needed a bath.
“They deliberate. Here, all who dwell at Na Ngore—men, women, and even those children who are old enough to comprehend—vote upon every issue that affects the tribe as a whole. Nothing is resolved without unanimity.”
“Foolish,” Trinesh grumbled irritably. “How do they ever arrive at a conclusion?”
“Often they do not. They continue the debate until all are agreed, though sometimes the tribe splits, and the factions go their separate ways.”
“They do not come to blows?”
“Rarely. Disagreement usually results in no more than inaction: if there be no consensus, nothing is done. The legends say that this was the reason that these people remained at Na Ngore when the rest of the Priestkings’ garrison departed, and the sea dried up and became the desert it is now. They quarreled and argued whether to go or stay—and still they are undecided after all these millennia!” The old man cackled gustily.
“Madness!” Trinesh was awake enough to take interest. “La! There are times when I question the rightness of our own Tsolyani system—a God-Emperor, whose every whim is law—but this insanity makes Tsolyanu seem a veritable paradise!” He stopped and gave Tse’e his full attention, for the renegade’s expression bore a shadow of grimness. “Quickly. Tell me how this present council concerns us. Should they plan to add us to the stew, they must be ready to count our Tsolyani vot,es—and we vote with our swords!”
Tse’e cleared his throat. He glanced down at his bare, dusty feet. “Since you dwell here now, you do have the right to vote. But no harm comes to you. That is not what they discuss.”
“Say it, then.”
“They have learned that three of you are Yan Koryani. When the Baron’s agents came here—you have seen evidence of them—they treated these people harshly: slew some, tortured others. ...”
“By the Flame, why? Give these creatures your armor, and they love you more dearly than your clan-mothers!”
Tse’e threw back the cowl of his desert-cloak to rub his balding head. “They fell out over the use of the cistern. The Yan Koryani would have brought a large contingent of troops hither and reserved the water for themselves.”
“Did you not mediate, as you did for us?”
The old man frowned. “I am still a Tsolyani. I admit that I did not argue very ardently for the Baron’s people, though they wished it earnestly enough to beat me.”
“1 see. What do they want? We will not give up our prisoners.”
“It were better that you do. Several of the folk claim the right of vengeance, and that is proper within their laws. Most of the others have agreed, though there are several who say that these are not the identical Yan Koryani who oppressed them.”
“The latter view is correct.”
“In Tsolyanu, when a felon cannot be apprehended, does not the Imperium punish his family, his clan, and sometimes even his friends for the crime? The principle is the same.” The renegade was right. Tsolyani justice was not that dissimilar, though more complex in its workings. Trinesh said, “Why, then, have we not paid enough Shamtla-compensation to make up their losses: our weapons, our armor, even the clothes off our backs? Let these savages be satisfied!”
“There is no concept of Shamtla here, Hereksa. Property counts for naught, especially in cases of personal grievance. No, the Folk of Na Ngore are fixed upon punishment.” “This cannot be.” The Yan Koryani were prisoners of war; they might possess useful information. General Kutume was parsimonious, but he did reward services of value!
“No?” Tse’e’s good eye was hooded and sly. “Why do you care? These are Tsolyanu’s sworn foes, Hereksa. If they die, you should rejoice. It relieves you of any danger from them. Later, you—and perhaps I with you—can regain the tubeway car and slip away.”
“It is not noble!” His determination was suddenly as unbreakable as mighty Hrugga’s sword in the epics.
“Do you then care so much for the girl? Oh, I saw you go to her last night! And for the rodent-faced Nininyal—and for a Yan Koryani general?”
Trinesh opened his mouth to make an indignant reply, but
visions of Jai Chasa Vedlan’s smooth and sensuous limbs obstructed his reason, arguing between his sense of duty as a soldier, and the Lady Belket’s exquisitely patrician features— What had the wretch said about her? A general?
He echoed the thought. “A general? What—? Who?”
It was Tse’e’s turn to marvel. “You did not know?” Trinesh’ expression told him, and he began to laugh. “La! La, brave soldier! A gigantic Akho in your net instead of a minnow! You have captured a high one indeed. The woman is the Lady Deq Dimani, General of the Legion of Vridu!” Trinesh goggled at him. “But she said—”
“She duped you, of course. I know her. I saw her—” He broke off and began again. “Here you have a chance to see one of Yan Kor’s cleverest officers out of Tsolyanu’s path forever!”
Trinesh was not listening. He pulled the desert-cloak about him, shouted for Horusel and the others, and plunged off across the cavern.
The council was apparently still in session, although many of the children were asleep upon the hillocks of drifted sand that served as seats, and some of the adults, too, lay dozing here and there. The business of governance in Milumanaya was obviously fatiguing. He stopped and waited until the rest of his party came up, and the Milumanayani had bestirred themselves. Then he ordered his comrades forward through the tribesmen’s ranks.
The three Yan Koryani were there already. They stood nude before the assembly, their wrists bound up behind their heads, and ropes of prickly thom-fiber looped about their necks. The Lady Belket Ele Faiz—the Lady Deq Dimani, if Tse’e spoke truly—looked upon him stonily. Her features were set and pale. Thu’n did not raise his head, and Jai Chasa Vedlan gazed absently into the distance, like a child compelled to attend a debate on esoteric theology.
Trinesh wheeled upon Horusel. “Who let them be taken?” The Tirrikamu hawked up phlegm. “Some of the sand-worms’ women came and led them away. We thought they would bathe them, feed them. . . . How were we to know?” He did not meet Trinesh’ eyes.
There would be a reckoning later. Trinesh said icily, “Go and cut them loose.”
Tse'e put out a hand. “No, Hereksa. They are judged. Now they will be punished.”
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