Hulagu looked at Bianca.
“He Koyunlu. He kill friends.” she made the finger sign and said in Khitan, “and raped the girls,” then switching back to Latin, “Not say why.”
“Not?” Bianca smiled, a cold, hard smile. “Not?” she said again, this time with a rising inflection and increased volume as she looked at Koyunlu.
“Not,” said Koyunlu, trying to look determined through his pain.
It was evident that the tone in the girl’s voice worried him.
Bianca drew a knife from her belt and muttered something he could not understand beyond a word that may have been ‘forgive’. She then kicked Koyunlu hard on his damaged hip again.
“Hold him.” She knelt daintily down beside Koyunlu and cut away his leather trousers from his groin with her knife, careless of how deep she cut and leaving his genitals exposed. “Him not need this,” and she grabbed Koyunlu’s penis in her left hand, holding it tight as she began to draw her blade along its length. Hulagu’s face showed his horror and Koyunlu, with his eyes wide, began a new and desperate screaming although he tried to lie still under her blade.
“Not,” he said, “I cannot tell.”
The girl drew another line with her blade, this time breaking the skin, missing vital blood vessels but leaving a trail of slow oozing blood behind.
“Not?” she asked sweetly and smiled again looking at her victim. “Cut off, leave for dogs. String?” she asked Hulagu innocently.
Hulagu didn’t know what to do. It was accepted to cause pain to ask questions of a man. It was another to maim them and make them no longer a man. For the Khitan it was almost the ultimate indignity and by the look of terror on Koyunlu’s face as his mouth worked and his eyes bulged with terror, it might even work.
Bianca suddenly dropped the penis and reached lower, giving a squeeze to his sack and causing another scream of mixed pain and terror. “Rule head. Cut off...hear good to eat. Rosa pleased.” She looked thoughtful again, gave another squeeze, and smiled again. “String? Fire?” While she was speaking Bianca was moving her knife point to rest on one threatened part after another as if in some bizarre choosing game. “Cut, eat, heal.” She brought the knife to rest with the blade at the base of his penis, “then let live.”
She smiled happily as if she had solved a problem. Through his pain Koyunlu’s look of absolute horror was apparent. He flinched back within himself and began to mutter ‘no’ continuously.
Hulagu did not know how Bianca had hit on what may be the ultimate torture, and one no Khitan would do to another. It was forbidden to kill oneself, and no one did, although they might court fighting something that they knew would kill them. It was ingrained in the Khitan mind that killing yourself would cause the ultimate pain and suffering for the soul. His manhood taken away and deliberately maimed, with it done on the plains and by a girl of the towns that he had been hunting, a person would be continually shamed in any group, even when they were among the dead and the damned.
Hulagu started moving towards his horse to get some cord as Bianca smiled sweetly again and looked up at him and, is if asking a husband how he wanted his meat cooked, grasped the penis at its end again and sweetly asked, “Many cuts or one?”
It was too much for Koyunlu, and once he was broken the words came tumbling out. “We were gathered by a Dwarf who called himself Dharmal. He had instructions and money and used to lead us to do things. We raided places and caravans. Sometimes we killed people, and sometimes we got to keep them. Only some of us would go to towns to sell things we had taken and to buy supplies. We have our own village in the southern mountains and the slaves we take work the land for us. We have women if we want them. I don’t know who we work for.” He paused and looked at the girl.
So did Hulagu.
She smiled like a mother pleased with her child. She changed her grip into a firmer hold. Her knife point was still playing with Koyunlu’s genitals carelessly and the blood was dripping around.
Koyunlu swallowed and began again, “I didn’t care who we worked for. Dharmal got instructions in a mineshaft that we could not enter. He was always gone for at least a day. For us life was good. Dharmal had many magic items. One could hide us if we stayed together and travelled slow. This time we had to find something in the caravan and make sure all the women were dead. Friends in town poisoned guards for the caravan and two of us took their place. We were also told a young wolf might be around, just starting his wanderjahr. If he was and we found him, we were to kill him; otherwise others would meet and kill him later. You were not to meet the caravan. That is all I know.” He stopped talking and looked at Hulagu. “Please kill me now—intact. Please. Don’t let this demon woman do this to me. I will suffer forever now, but I will suffer as a man.”
Bianca looked at Hulagu without changing her grip, “Say more?”
Hulagu shook his head, “No, think tell all.”
“Cut now?” Bianca pushed a little with her knife through the hair into the mound of flesh around the base of his penis.
Koyunlu shrank and screamed in Khitan, “There is no more to tell. I have no more. Kill me now.” Hoping she might understand better he switched to the Dwarven language and said the same, but Bianca showed the same reaction as to Khitan. He then switched to Hindi, “No more, I have no more. Kill me. Kill me.”
Bianca cocked her head slightly to the side before replying in the same tongue, “Do you have prayers for the forgiveness of your sins? I will give you a few minutes.” She withdrew her bloody hand and knife from his groin and contemplated them without moving away.
“You speak the trade tongue?” asked Hulagu. She still had a marked accent, but it was far better than her attempt at Khitan.
“Of course. I was learning to be a trader,” she said dismissively without looking up. “What I am now I do not know. I am soon to be an executioner.” She smiled coyly at Koyunlu. “Have you finished?” He swallowed and nodded. Bianca closed her eyes and said in Hindi, “Our Father, please accept this sinner who has not been able to know you but surely craves forgiveness and repents of all his many sins.” She opened her eyes and looked meaningfully down at Koyunlu. “You do ask forgiveness and repent of all your sins don’t you?” she asked sweetly.
Koyunlu looked back at her in horror as if she were a stick that had suddenly turned into a deadly snake while he held it in his hand. He didn’t know what she was babbling about, but maybe she was about to change her mind and unman him after all unless he agreed. “I do. I have done wrong all of my life and I am sorry,” he stammered, “very sorry.”
“See Lord, he does repent. Please have mercy on his soul. Amen.” Having said that she leant forward and grabbed Koyunlu’s hair and held his head back while she quickly thrust under his chin and into his skull as he just stared at her, face frozen in shock as the realisation of his death came to him. He shuddered as his brain stem was severed and the smell of his body letting go suddenly filled the air. As it did Hulagu saw Bianca give a start, as if she were quickly waking up from a trance. Quickly she rose and ran to the bushes as a reaction to what she had just done set in and she suddenly began weeping and vomiting.
~~~
Hulagu decided that it fell to him to clean up. Although they were very skittish he caught and tethered the bandit’s horses and began stripping the men’s bodies of valuables. He was going to drag the remains clear with Bianca’s packhorse, but it and her other two made sure that he could not approach it, the two warhorses moving their bodies to interpose them and showing their teeth at him. He quickly decided that it was perhaps best to use his own horse. He looped a rope around the dead men’s ankles and fastened the other end to Kurghiz’s saddle and dragged them over the ridge they had come from. Scavengers would soon take care of their bodies and he was not wasting wood on a proper funeral for them. They didn’t deserve it. He left them there in the growing gloom, taking a look around the horizon and seeing nothing before turning around to tend to the other men’s horses.
~~~
As Hulagu returned he saw the girl standing in her trousers with only a wet gauze undershirt on top emphasising her breasts rather than concealing them. She may have killed for him but she obviously didn’t fully trust him either. She saw him standing there and she patted at blades to make sure they were there before wringing out her jacket and draping it over a bush to dry a bit.
Bianca then moved up and began unloading horses and setting up camp as if nothing had happened. Hulagu realized that he was still staring at her as if she might explode like a wizard’s spell, so he tried to act normally as well and went to join her.
“I am not sure what came over me,” she said in Hindi. “I have never killed anyone before, let alone…” a haunted look appeared on her face as she waved a hand towards the patch of bloody earth where Koyunlu had lain.
“You did what you had to do.” replied Hulagu in the same tongue, “and now I know that I was destined to meet you.”
Bianca looked puzzled and so, as they set up camp Hulagu told her of his grandfather’s visions and tried to explain how she was a part of his destiny. As a fire was lit and Bianca cooked some food Hulagu tried to explain the signs to her. Bianca looked doubtful. As they began to tend to the handful of horses they now had Bianca was still stressing that she needed to return home. After caring for the horses they ate. The girl looked oddly at him as he did the normal rituals of eating. He poured a little drink on the ground and flicked some in four directions. He also threw some food into the air after rubbing it against the fetish that he carried in a bag around his neck to feed it before replacing it. Bianca went through a series of motions as she had done earlier, kissing her cross, muttering to herself in Latin with her eyes closed for some time then moving her fingers through the air and kissing the wooden cross again.
~~~
After eating they searched the saddlebags of the bandits. They found clothes, which they discarded except for the fur cloaks and gloves, some berries, which they thought might be betterberries, money and some books, which Bianca told him was a part of the cargo of one of the merchants, Francesco. They were being taken to Haven and were supposedly a part of a newly discovered library. A look of recognition came over her face.
“Koyunlu had held something back after all. He must have known what they were searching for. It was a book; larger and flatter than these.”
Among the books she found one that she said was a holy book that had belonged to the merchant. Not one for sale, but one he carried with him for his own use. She grabbed hold of it, clutching it as if it were made of gold. Bianca seemed to think for a little while and then declared, “You have your signs and portents, and I have mine. I will ask the Holy Word for advice as the priests do and I will take what it tells me to do.” She kissed her cross and muttered in Latin again before closing her eyes, opening the book at random and placing a finger on the page. As she read the Latin, which she did poorly, she translated it into Hindi so that Hulagu could understand.
To Hulagu it seemed that she was relying on memory as much as reading the words. He didn’t think that she read her own language very well.
“To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven,” she read out. “A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”
Hulagu was astounded and realised that, just as he had when his grandfather had spoken, he was feeling more than a touch of awe, and it probably showed on his face. The words seemed to speak to them. Bianca had killed and, it seemed, had been born to a new life. There was a purpose to it all and it looked as if there might be a war in the offing. Maybe this girl of the walled towns was a seer as well as having her other abilities.
Bianca again muttered to herself. He supposed they were prayers thanking her Gods for what she had found and again kissed her cross as she finished.
She turned to Hulagu. “It seems that you are right. I will come with you. For the first time in my life I have a purpose.” She smiled. It was a happier smile than the more, intense expressions she had displayed before. It seemed that the words that she had just read went a little way to erase some of the horror of what she had done. She no longer looked quite as sick or haunted.
Hulagu was amazed again. Bianca was a girl of the towns—a Latin of Freehold, but in so many ways she was just like a Khitan. He looked at her again as she worked and was easily able to see that she had a very nice body, despite her overly plain face. She could cook, train animals and fight. If she could ride he could see his mother liking her straight away as his partner, but he felt instantly that this was not going to be. He would treat her as if she was his sister, except that he didn’t want to play a joke on her or tease her. That might be dangerous.
Now was a time to refrain from embracing. It might even be a time for him to laugh as Bianca began her daily throwing practice, but she was so serious about it that he controlled the impulse and did not. As she progressed he noticed that even in the one session she showed a marked improvement in her skills as her dexterity and dogged determination to reach goals showed fruit. Already she could throw a blade and have some chance of hitting her target, something he could not do. It may not do much to hurt the person she hit, but it would probably hit them.
He made a bet with himself that soon she would be as capable as anyone. It was just as well given the number of blades she had, and with her jacket off, he noticed that she had others that he had not seen before. Part of her practice was to draw and throw from all of her sheathes—those on her legs and arms, those behind her neck and those tucked below her breasts as well as the others on her belt. These hidden blades explained why she wore her jacket so loose. He also noticed that the heavier fighting blade she had used to cut Koyunlu had not been discarded, but had been cleaned and returned to her belt where she easily draw it if needed.
~~~
Eventually, their tasks done, Hulagu set a second small fire near the first and asked Bianca to stand between the two. She did this. He could see that she was puzzled and that the smoke was stinging her eyes. Her nose was twitching as if she were about to start sneezing, as he began to ask the sky spirits to take away the demons that hung around all of the walled ones and made it hard to associate with them.
When that was done Hulagu took his turn and stood between the two fires and asked the same for any that had passed from her to him, before the fires were lit. Hulagu could see that she was curious but, until she asked, he really could not say anything to her. Although she seemed to be bursting with curiosity Bianca did not give vent to her questions, instead putting on her drying jacket, but not lacing it, unconsciously behaving as if she were a woman of the tribes away on an expedition with male relatives.
The three Khitan horses were soon hobbled, but Bianca still let hers roam free. There was an irony to the tribesman having to hobble horses, while the city girl felt comfortable that hers would stay, that did not escape Hulagu. He finally removed his armour and they then both sat near the embers of the fire and agreed to tell each other about themselves. As the smoke of the dying fire eddied around them, tickling the nose, they began to talk in Hindi. Bianca occasionally played her flute softly as she listened to Hulagu.
“I am Hulagu, seventh son of Togatak, who is the seventh son of Nokaj of the Dire Wolves—“
“But you are a Khitan,” interrupted Bianca.
“Yes, but I will explain us to you. I am of the Kara-Khitan—the people of the plains. But we call ourselves after our clan spirit animal. My clan is the Di
re Wolf. As well as my clan, whose Tar-khan, or clan head, is Toluy, there are those of the Thunder Lizard, which is the clan of our ruler, the Kha-Khan, Chinggiz Arghun, as well as those of the Snake, the Lion, the Elephant, the Eagle, the Cow Lizard, the Pack-hunter, the Axebeak and the Bison.
“If I marry a woman of the tribes I may only marry a girl from the Elephant, Eagle or Lion clans or, of course, of the Thunder Lizards and I must kill an enemy in battle before I may marry. I may, with the permission of my wife, marry more than one woman and one of my wives may, with my permission, also marry another man. Sometimes a man will marry women who are sisters to each other or a woman will marry men who are brothers to each other. Some clans we are friends with and others we fight. This is one of the reasons that I was wary of Koyunlu and Kitzez—the one you killed with your sling. Koyunlu said that he was a Wolf, the same clan as I am, but I have only ever heard that name used by a much older man—and we have less than three thousand adult males in each clan. I should have at least heard mention of him if he were not outlaw and so no longer talked about. Kitzez said that he was a Bison. We have had a dispute running with the Bison clan over some herds for very many years. A Wolf and a Bison might travel together, but it is very unlikely.”
“We all believe in the power of spirits and that everything has its own spirit. Some of these are strong and some are weak. Some will always help us and some will act against us when they can. When we become an adult, at the age of thirteen, we make a spirit store and place a part of our spirit in it.” He realised that he was touching his as he spoke. “We care for this and feed it—you may have seen me caring for mine when we ate. We always give offerings of food and drink to the land and the sky as these have two of the more powerful spirits. While the land gave birth to us, it was the sky spirits who made it so. Because we understand and work with the spirit world we usually avoid those who do not understand it and have little to do with them as they pick up bad spirits because they do not know how to avoid them. Luckily the bad spirits do not like fire and heat so, when I had you stand near the fires I asked the sky spirits to rid you of these bad spirits that were hanging on to you.
Intimations of Evil (Warriors of Vhast Book 1) Page 16