His command tent was located in the center of the camp. Two guards stood outside the entrance. As Menleco approached, he saw Raulon himself emerge through the flap and walk briskly away. He had not seen the general.
Lyssa was inside. Menleco rarely let her out of his sight and took her along on all of his campaigns. It pained and angered him at the same time to look on her. She was the most beautiful woman in all of Prathia and he knew she was as eager to be rid of him as suitors were to take her from him. Had Raulon seemed furtive? Menleco did not like the looks of it. He did not like it at all. He dismissed his troop and dismounted quickly.
"What was the captain doing in my tent?" he asked one of the guards. Menleco recognized him as one of the young men who had just graduated from the Prathian School. A trained killer, but full of youthful pretensions. No doubt he was resentful at pulling guard duty and having to kowtow to Shadow Riders. It was beneath a Guardsman, especially a newly minted one. Menleco saw more hatred than fear in his narrowed, hard eyes. The general would change that soon. For now, he just wanted to know what Raulon was doing inside his tent, with Lyssa.
"Don't know," the youthful guard said with infuriating indifference to both question and questioner.
Menleco grasped him by the throat. "What was the captain doing in my command tent?" he asked again.
The boy's baleful eyes went wide with surprise. They had lost all their menace. "He brought a plate," he said in a strangled voice.
"How long was he in there?" Menleco squeezed the boy's windpipe. Because I am an old man, these inflated youths must be made to feel the strength of my grip. Some required harsher lessons than others. This one was a quick-learner. Still, it was tiresome.
"A few minutes… Just a few minutes…"
"A few minutes what?"
The boy looked puzzled as panic began to set in. He grasped Menleco's wrist in both his hands. He was unable to even budge the general's arm.
"A few minutes what?" Menleco asked again.
"A few minutes…sir. General, sir."
Menleco relaxed his grip and the boy nearly collapsed, breathing hard. "Very good. Now, go fetch him to me. Bring me Captain Raulon. Hurry!"
The boy scrambled away in the direction Raulon had gone. When Menleco turned his eyes to him, the other guard stiffened and struck his leather-clad chest with his fist in salute. That was more like it. He ducked under the flap and entered the spacious command tent.
Lyssa sat alone at the long table, cheerlessly picking at her steaming supper. Three slaves bustled about her solicitously. One filled her silver and crystal chalice, while another spooned onto her plate a delicate portion of chilled jellied apple. She accepted the slaves' attention with detached politeness. Even in her searing unhappiness, Menleco was struck by her beauty. In the sputtering light of the lamp stands, her hair fell about her shoulders in luxurious auburn curls. Her flawless cheeks glowed with health. Menleco felt a wave of melancholy pass through him, but the feeling was replaced almost at once by anger. He had taken the beautiful girl to spite Areus, yet, truth be told, it was Menleco himself who suffered.
She looked up at him when he entered. Her eyes were all surface luster, like Pylia's pool.
He would bring life to them, one way or another.
Menleco removed his gloves, strode across the room and struck her so hard across her flawless cheek that she fell in a heap at the foot of her chair. The fork with which she had been picking at her food twirled in the air after her, showering her hair with splotches of gravy.
"Captain Raulon is a busy man, my dear," Menleco said. At least now he saw pain in her eyes. "Yet you take him away from his duties to wait on you?"
"You have been spying on me!"
She did not even try to get up, a wise move. Her narrowed, hateful eyes were a dagger in Menleco's. "These slaves should bring you your meals, not my officers," he snapped.
"It is bad enough that you … imprison me … in this foul tent of yours, but now you have me watched, too."
Foul tent. It was little short of a traveling palace. Behind his back, Menleco knew that the men snickered at his high living. Most of all, they snickered at his imprisoned wife. Young enough to be his daughter -- his granddaughter -- he rarely let her out of his sight.
Menleco laid his helm on a table. "Because of me, my dear, you are a queen wherever you go."
"I was a queen," she said. "Now I am a slave. Worse than a slave. At least the slaves--"
Menleco raised his hand in blind rage, and Lyssa closed her eyes awaiting the blow. But it passed quickly.
"Be careful what you wish for, my lady. A word from me makes you a slave in fact. Do not forget that. Then you will not let the word pass your lips so freely, for you will know what it is to be one." She had relaxed when he dropped his hand, but she would not meet his gaze. "I will hand you over to those animals outside. Oh, yes," he chuckled. "You think the Guardsmen you are always making eyes at are a group of gallant lads? You think your handsome Captain Raulon is a gentleman of noble birth? A man to protect you from the base evils of the world? Think again!"
Menleco laughed out loud. It was a ludicrous notion. Yet in her girls' mind, it was true. Raulon, he supposed, was her latest infatuation. It was no different than her last, the man Xanthippus. She had said nothing of him, though he often noticed her looking for him, expecting to see him. One day, Menleco would ask about him with wide-eyed innocence. Whatever happened to that fellow, I wonder? Perhaps he would ask the same of Raulon someday. Maybe, instead, he would show her his head.
He ordered one of the slaves to bring him his supper and he ate in silence while Lyssa rose to her feet and sat in front of her plate. No slave had ever lived in such splendor.
After a time, she looked up. "One day, you will let me go and Areus will kill you."
The words were a knife to his heart. "Areus fears me, darling. I daresay he fears me more than even you do."
"I don't fear you."
"You should." He looked into his wine cup. "Oh, look at this," he cried. "Look at the dust floating in my wine. Some king and queen we are! This is a stinking, dusty country, the air smells of horse dung… In the morning, we travel south, my dear. To the mountains and clear, fresh air. Perhaps we will find happiness there."
He actually found himself hoping the news would please her.
Raulon entered the tent. He stood just inside the entrance.
"You summoned me, sir."
"Ah, yes," Menleco said, setting aside his half-eaten dinner and rising. "Captain Raulon, so good of you to stop by." A tall, square-jawed man, straight-backed and more regal than menacing in his black leather corselet and long black cloak. Menleco could see how he could be mistaken for a man of high breeding. But nothing could be further from the truth. The only thing bred into this one was thievery and murder. He had come to Menleco a fugitive from the king's justice. Menleco would never let him forget it. The king's justice, once rendered, was irrevocable. Menleco owned the man like none other.
He threw an arm around Raulon's shoulders. "Let's take a little walk, Captain. We have much to discuss. You won't mind if I take the captain from you, my dear?"
Menleco looked at his wife and then at Raulon, and he wanted to laugh. Their faces were blank slates. Raulon bowed his head to the lady. A man of gracious manners, to be sure. Menleco led him outside, and they walked through the camp together. The descending sun lay nestled between distant hills. From the hilltop encampment, they could see the lay of the land in every direction. Long, black shadows lay upon the green fields.
"The man the Irrylians want is called Clautias," Menleco said.
Raulon raised his eyebrows. "I have heard of this man. He has been hunted for a long time."
"Well, the hunt is over. He is in one of the mountain towns on the Prathian frontier."
"Prathia?" Raulon was surprised.
"Yes. A scandal for Demetrius to take his own men there. But not for us. Here is the name of the place." Menleco pulled a scra
p of parchment from a pocket. On it was written the name of the town in Lord Taler's spidery script. Apparently, Pylia had Seen this place, as Taler had called it. Menleco was glad when the cursed relic was out of his possession.
"I know the place," Raulon said after reading it. "So we ride for Prathia?"
"At sunup," Menleco said. "Have the Shadow Riders ready."
Raulon shook his head in amazement. "Clautias! At long last… The Irrylians will honor you greatly."
"I care nothing for Irrylian honors, Captain. Only for their coin. Two battalions of the Guard fight with them in Sethaly and I have sent men into Tygetia. Demetrius is mad for blood."
Menleco only hoped none of it would be his own.
"Blood-coin is still coin," Raulon said. "It all spends the same."
The footmen had dug a shallow trench all around the perimeter of the camp, heaping the excavated dirt to make a palisade and leaving causeways for entry and exit. These were heavily guarded by armored spearmen. Menleco led Raulon through the south-facing gate and into a field of crucified men.
There were twenty-four of them, minus the two Menleco had taken to Taler. Most had been nailed, wrists and ankles, to the cross beams and uprights. These had been dead for some time. Several days, most of them. On the hilltop, the bristling garden of the dead could be seen from miles around. The carrion eaters making lazy circles in the sky above them could be seen for miles beyond that. At least some of the stink dear Lyssa complained of may have wafted to her on a south wind. The birds had already made a good start picking them over. They had lost their skittishness and only reluctantly took wing when anyone approached.
The man responsible for killing the two Shadow Riders had been tied to his cross instead of nailed and given a little perch to stand on. The Shadow Riders had sliced his eyelids away. The men could hear his laughter, his singing, his cries of anguish. Two spearmen stood at the base of his cross, their faces at the height of the madman's feet.
"We were just getting ready to stick him," one of the guard's said when he saw the general and captain approach. He had a guilty look in his eye.
"This man killed Shadow Riders," Menleco said simply. "He dies in his own time."
"But listen to him," the guard pleaded. "He is beyond comprehending his own suffering."
"Now it is we who suffer, listening to his ravings," the other guard added.
The men made a good point. At first hearing, Menleco thought some mad Epirian hermit had come begging out of his cave and had only to be shooed away. He saw there was no shooing this man. His eyeballs had been bleached white.
"Please, sir. Let us end this."
Menleco waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, do as you will." Perhaps he had had enough of suffering.
Menleco turned away and led Raulon through the field of corpses. Behind him, the singing abruptly stopped.
"The Epirians in this neighborhood have given us no trouble since the crosses went up," Raulon said with a smile. "We have been kings of the country here."
Menleco stopped and looked Raulon in the eye. The captain's smile vanished.
"Enter my wife's quarters in my absence again," Menleco said, "and you will end up one of these." He slowly twirled his finger, a gesture encompassing the entire field of crucified men.
Raulon's mouth opened as if to protest, but his eyes grew fearful, and he said simply, "Yes, sir."
Menleco smiled and clapped Raulon on the back. He too was a quick learner, and, truth be told, an excellent officer. A drunkard, a thief, a murderer, a sexual deviant … All true, but a fine leader. Menleco would hate to lose him. "Good. Then we will speak of it no more."
"We will be kings of Prathia, too, Captain," Menleco said on their way back into camp. "I'm glad this Clautias hides there. I look forward to entering the country. I hate Prathians."
Chapter 11
Closing his eyes, Demetrius pressed his head into the cushion of his high-backed chair. "Tell me what you see," he commanded. The captain of his guard began to speak, but the king, without opening his eyes, held up a finger, silencing him. "Gonatas. You tell me."
The captain fell silent and Gonatas looked towards the city of Lacecia.
"I see men hauling ladders up to the walls of the city," he said.
From where he stood, the masses of men swarmed like ants at the base of the city wall. Gonatas found it strange. Because he could hear nothing of the fight, the scene bore an unreal, staged quality. He had to remind himself that those were real men being crushed under the weight of the stones hurled at them from the battlements; and the wisps of shadow that passed through the air were masses of real arrows plunging out of the sky on top of them.
"Our men fall like wheat under a scythe," he added.
His father, the king, made a soft groan. Whether it was satisfaction or despair, Gonatas could not tell.
"There! Some of the men have made it to the top of the wall… The defenders make short work of them. Our ladders fall as quickly as our men put them up. The men on the top rungs ride them all the way to the ground."
No thud and no scream reached Gonatas' ears. The figures clung to the ladders as they arced their way back to earth. Some of the figures jumped from them, as if their landing would be softer. When the figures hit the ground, they simply went immobile and other throngs of ants raised the ladders again.
"I count twenty ladders against the wall," Gonatas went on. "The defenders rush from one point to another. Any man who reaches the battlements is hacked apart. The men on the ground try to hide behind their shields, but they are crushed under stones. Enemy archers fire without ceasing. Have you heard enough, Father?"
He looked with distaste at the king and his cronies. A long table had been erected in front of the royal command tent. His father and his men were dining in full view of the assault of the city, as if it were a mere dinner entertainment. The table had been set up on a makeshift flooring of marble tiles laid out on the ground so no grass or dirt would sully the hem of Demetrius' royal robes. He sat there in his purple, his eyes closed, his fingers tented on his chin. Despite his age, his hair and long beard remained jet-black, tightly curled and shimmering with oil. Today, he wore his golden laurel leaf crown. Gold rings glittered on every finger and wide golden hoops dangled from his ears.
He opened his eyes abruptly and leaned forward, taking a pear from a bowl that overflowed with hanging clusters of grapes. "You might as well eat something, Gonatas," he said. "The steak is excellent, slaughtered just this morning. The very bull in which my diviner saw…" He leaned forward again and peered down the table at an immense fat man, the diviner. He was loudly smacking his lips, happily chewing away in his own little world. "What was that you saw again, Diviner?" the king asked in a loud voice. The diviner gave no indication of having heard the question. Demetrius motioned to the man next to him and he elbowed the diviner in the ribs. The fat man looked up with a start.
"A thousand pardons, King," he said, dabbing at his greasy lips with a cloth. "What was that you say?"
"I say, what was that you saw in the bull's…Where was that you were looking, now?"
"Oh, yes," the diviner said, sitting up straight. "In the bull's entrails. It was a standard reading. You see, the--"
"Yes, that's it, the entrails. And what did you see there?"
The diviner swallowed. His eyes darted from one face to another. "All indications pointed to capitulation, sire," he said hesitantly.
"Yes, all indications pointed to capitulation. So you see, Gonatas, you might as well eat, for we have no further use for this bull. We have already inspected the creature's entrails for omens, and my diviner found exactly what I could have told him he'd find -- bullshit. Isn't that so, Diviner? Does that look like capitulation to you out there?"
The diviner sat with his mouth open, stammering for a word. A sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. The other men at the table were clearly enjoying his discomfort.
"Oh, go on and stuff your fat face," Demetrius said
after a moment. "Perhaps you will find more wisdom in the roasted haunch of the bull than in its bowels. Better yet. Here." He tossed the fat man a little leather pouch. It fell with a wet-sounding slap on the table before him. "What omens do you find there?"
The diviner opened the pouch and the blood rushed out of his face.
All the men laughed. All but Gonatas.
"I am not hungry, Father," he said. While half of the Irrylian army assaulted the city, the other half busied itself digging trenches and building siege works around its walls. Groups of slaves hovered about the royal table, refilling wine glasses, while scribes, messengers and armed guards waited nearby. Gonatas caught the eye of one of the mounted messengers. He was waiting to deliver the order calling off the assault -- an order that never came.
"But it really is quite good," Demetrius exclaimed. He held up a tasty morsel of meat on a fork, saluting the cook with it. "Excellent, Cook!" he cried. The cook grinned, nodding vociferously. "The man doesn't speak much Gyriece, I'm afraid," the king explained, taking the morsel between his teeth. "I have forbidden him speech in my presence. I can take only so much 'Is good, no? Is good, no?' It drives me mad, like listening to the babbling of a child. Now, look at him... Nodding so happily… Much better…"
"But Father, if I may--"
"Certainly, my boy. I'm boring you. Please, what is it?"
"Our men cannot continue to assault the city. You have ordered an escalade -- in the full light of day." Gonatas spoke between clenched teeth. He could feel his temper rising. He swallowed it down. "You send men needlessly to slaughter, and I want to know why."
"Gonatas, if you are ever going to be king, you must learn to control your emotions. You must learn to make decisions, hard choices, and be happy with them."
"You are happy with this slaughter? It is mindless! These men are wasted!"
"You say you want to know why. Well, I will tell you." Demetrius leaned forward in his chair. "I throw these men away because I don't have to find rations for the dead."
The Blood Gate Page 15