“Do what I need of you, Rancor,” Glennen said, “and I will name you heir, as well.”
Rennin, Groff, Yerel and Hectar all nodded seriously. I would not have expected this, but later learned that they, like me, had no desire to leave their homes for the thankless burden of running the Eldadorian nation.
But if I could defend them against three times their number in foreign troops, then they would have me.
Right then I saw a glimpse of my future and I could hear War grinning in the endless void.
That night, for the first time ever, I prayed to my new god.
“Thank you, War, for your gifts, and your opportunities, and your bounty. Thank you for this life I never knew I wanted, until I had it.”
So finally you are come to Me, I heard in my head.
Does War answer all who pray to Him? I asked seriously.
My children have little need of Me, he answered. As you would say from your own place, I am not a switchboard operator.
I had to laugh because I had to agree. Then I am doing as You desire, I asked him.
You have barely begun to do as I desire.
He spoke no more, though I prayed and prayed. I thought that I had figured it out, but in fact I felt more like a kid who bought one of those ten-thousand-piece puzzles, figured out how to open the box and finally sifted through the pieces to find a corner. I still had a lot of puzzle left, but now you had a starting point.
That left the burning question, What was this the start of?
Chapter Twenty-Six
Making Friends and Influencing People
Teher is a walled city marking the boundary between Volkhydro and the nearest Confluni city, Tamara. In every skirmish between Conflu and Volkhydro the battle turned on the fate of Teher.
The city had no gates on its western side and three facing back to Volkhydro. Each bore a heavy iron grate, called a portcullis, which when dropped down closed off a thirty-foot long passage between itself and a solid wooden gate. That gate stood three feet thick and forty feet high. The usual arrow slits up and down the inner walls of its murder hole would make the average Confluni think twice before he ran in there with a battering ram.
They had no problem holding cities but with protecting the fall harvest from raiders. What I had seen of them last year supposedly meant nothing compared to the bold raids by Confluni National Guard, or CNG, this year. Half a hundred Confluni soldiers hung upside down from the west wall of Ulef as a warning to the raiders of what waited for them, and this had done nothing to dissuade the pirating.
“It is as if they had no grain themselves,” Henekh Dragorson told us, drinking from a mug of ale in his personal chambers. He had hired the Free Legion to make a punitive strike against the Confluni. Even if we all died, the Fovean High Council could do nothing against him and the Confluni might have something other than Volkhydro to worry about.
Henekh had been born of the Volkhan part of Volkhydro. He was big and burly and wore skins, his body covered in hair and his face with a thick, rusty beard. He had rough manners and he liked his manners that way. Supposedly this made him different from the more civilized Hydran half of Volkhydro, but I didn’t see it. Aileen had been a more gentle spirit, her brother tending more to be thin and wild than heavy and mean – but I saw same bawdy love of life in both.
I saw in Karl Henekhson a dour, quiet lad, just coming to man. He had sullen brown eyes and a battle-ax over his shoulder. He lived in the shadow of his father, stoop shouldered from one too many swats on the back. He attended this meeting because he had to but he obviously didn’t like it.
“Perhaps they don’t,” Nantar said. As one of these people he spoke frankly with them.
Henekh eyed him speculatively. “Well, then that’s their worry, not ours, and not yours either,” he added, wagging a fat finger at Nantar. “I want these raids stopped and these people dead, dead, dead! That’s what I am paying you your gold for.”
“We have no problem killing Confluni, sirrah,” Ancenon assured him. The rest of us just smiled. The whole world had no problem killing Confluni, and the Confluni mostly brought that on themselves. “And for your generous wages I assure you that you will be able to decorate all of the walls in Teher.”
“Can’t hardly wait to see that,” Karl mumbled. Henekh snarled at him and dismissed us. We were planning to start marching west the next day.
I had been a Duke for ten days. Oddly, I felt no different than I’d felt as an Earl – except that Ancenon kept calling me, “Your Grace.” That had me calling him, “Your Highness,” which was irritating. I just wanted to make sure I finished here in time for Shela’s birthing.
We had most likely done the deed on the march back from Katarran. For her the pregnancy had taken far too long, but I considered it one of those events where the destination ended up every bit as good as the journey. The way we had been going it was only a matter of time. I would have liked to have waited a few years, but in this culture you got your pretty girl pregnant and, when in Rome, etc, etc.
Shela had stayed in Thera of course, with all but a hundred of my Wolf Soldiers. These were my personal guard who were honor-bound to go where I went. An Earl could get away without an escort, I’m told, but certainly not a Duke. This suited my men anyway, and Arath wanted to begin learning this more sophisticated style of combat as soon as possible, so the already-trained Wolf Soldiers made that easier. They were giving instruction to their number in Free Legion soldiers, who would train more similarly, and so on.
If we could have a front line of fifty squads of ten then the Confluni would have a really bad day the first time they met us. Much as they, too, roved their border in bands of ten, they still fought heroes’ style, and would be no match for us in organized warfare.
We bivouacked as we always did, in our own encampment outside of the city. We gave the men leave and I personally handed out a gold Tabaar to each of my Wolf Soldiers. They had earned it, working double-duty guarding me and training Free Legion soldiers. This would be the last city some of them ever saw and they should enjoy themselves.
I think the Free Legion soldiers got some comparable amount, but not so high as my soldiers. Their reward would be in plunder after the raid on Conflu.
We sat around our small campfire and looked up at the night sky. The Earth and the sky struck me as really beautiful here, although their moon had no “face” like Earth’s moon. I didn’t know what meteor had scarred poor Luna but it sure gave her character.
“Your Grace seems pensive tonight,” Ancenon remarked, smirking to himself. D’gattis clicked his tongue in approval of the comment.
“Please stop calling me that,” I said. “I didn’t go around calling you Highness, before, did I?”
“You do now,” Thorn noted.
“Because he started it,” I said, and then heard for myself how silly that sounded.
“I can find some way to call you Lupus, if you like, I am sure,” Ancenon promised. “But not in public, of course.”
“Etiquette and all,” D’gattis chimed in.
“More likely veiled Uman-Chi insults,” Drekk said, his usual sullen self. D’gattis cocked an eyebrow at him. He continued, “Everyone knows that Uman-Chi see themselves as the only ‘nobles,’ and everyone else as a pretender. When you use titles, you really mean slurs.”
“Somewhat paranoid, don’t you think?” D’gattis said, airily.
“I don’t know,” Arath said. “In Eldador, when you call a woman you don’t like ‘ma’am,’ what you really mean is ‘bitch.’”
That brought a dark look from Genna.
“Where I am from it is no different,” I agreed.
“And where is that?” Dilvesh asked me, leaning forward in interest.
“North of Dorkan,” I said, immediately. Even Shela didn’t know where I came from.
“You always say that,” D’gattis complained.
“And it isn’t true,” Nantar added.
I cocked an eyebrow at him.
He just looked at me.
“Well, it isn’t,” Thorn chimed in, regarding me seriously. “Nothing lives up there but Ogres. I know – my father traveled there.”
“Perhaps he is an Ogre, then,” said D’gattis.
“He certainly is as large as one,” Ancenon added.
“Although not quite so intelligent,” Arath said, smiling.
“Nor so well-mannered,” Genna said.
Dilvesh chuckled.
I sighed. They might try to draw me out but I didn’t bite. I’d learned the advantages to having no identity and I didn’t want to lose them. Shela had explained that some incantations used against people in power required their true name or birthplace (or both) to work correctly. Death spells in particular required a lot of personal information and no one had any way to gather it on me. Shela had taken a few strands of my hair just so that she could do what she called a “finding,” and this ran beyond even D’gattis’ capabilities.
“Where I am from,” I said finally, as the rest went on and on about my ogre heritage, “a man is entitled to his privacy.”
Nantar chuckled and clapped me on the back. “Where I am from, too, Lupus. I think the Uman-Chi are just upset because you used to be a commoner, and now you rank them.”
“Oh, ho?” said Thorn. “I didn’t think about that.” He grinned ear-to-ear now.
“Oh, hardly,” D’gattis almost sneered. “Eldadorian titles are as common as grass and mean nothing in the Uman-Chi high court.”
“Well,” Ancenon said, being more politic, “not nothing. There isn’t an Uman-Chi alive who wouldn’t refer to Lupus as …”
“Bitch?” Genna inserted for him.
“Just so,” Dilvesh agreed.
Drekk shook his head, standing. “I am a common and glad of it,” he said. “You so-called nobles can go straight to hell for all I care. You have nothing I can’t steal from you.”
“Except that nobility,” D’gattis argued.
Drekk smiled one of his rare smiles and reached inside his tunic. He still disliked the gold insignia on his breast, but he had changed his leathers for a finer set and still emblazoned them with it. From behind that he drew an ornate insignia ring and tossed it to D’gattis.
“Don’t be too sure,” he warned, still smiling. The astonished Uman-Chi held the ring slack-jawed as Ancenon (and I) discreetly checked our middle fingers for our own signet rings.
I thought back to when we were just traveling the land, not so long ago, and had to set our own watches. Now we had guards to do that. My command had ten sergeants, two lieutenants and my personal Captain of the Guard – a huge Eldadorian Uman named Sammin. He had been the Captain of Glennen’s house guard and been “promoted” to learn from me. It didn’t seem that he saw it that way.
“I need to check the pickets, then I am going to sleep,” I said, standing. I bid them each good night, even Genna, then walked out through the tent flap.
Once again, I walked the night and checked the guards. I loved the order of the lines of tents, the precision of the pickets. It gave me a sense of pride as, nearing the exterior of our camp, men whom I had chosen for the Free Legion’s army snapped to attention and saluted, placing their fists over their hearts in fealty.
Once again, a familiar voice came at me from behind.
“So here we are again, about to enter Conflu.”
This time I didn’t turn around, just kept walking. I heard her feet crunch the dirt in our small city as she followed me.
“Running from me again?” she demanded of me, in front of our troops as usual.
In a few long strides I moved past the neat rows of tents and through the pickets, Genna pursuing me. Free Legion soldiers on watch stood aside to pass us. I lengthened my stride as far as I could without running. She in her leathers had no problem keeping up.
“What is the matter, White Wolf?” she asked me. “Why do you run from the one you once loved?”
I spun on her then, not as far from our camp as I would like but at least not inside of it. My hand clamped down on her neck, I pressed my face down into hers.
“That name,” I said, “is not yours to use, and I never loved you.”
She looked straight into my eyes, her small hands on my forearm. I felt her fingernails in my skin, digging deep.
I had never felt such hate, not ever. The helplessness of the situation burned in my stomach.
“So this is what you are, Lupus?” she hissed back at me. “Go ahead and slap me if it makes you feel better. Think you’d be the first?”
“If this is how you act, then no,” I said.
“It isn’t me who acted badly in this relationship, Lupus,” she said.
“There is no relationship, Genna,” I said, feeling my hand tighten despite myself. “There was nothing but convenience and sex.”
“You put your seed in me, Lupus,” she said, her fingernails tight in my forearm. “What should I think after that?”
That gave me pause. In a land without contraception, what did it mean when a man put his seed in a woman?
Like I had done with Aileen.
Who had never once been unable for “women’s reasons.”
“Going to hold me like this all night?”
I released her and straightened. She rubbed her throat. I felt sure I had marked her, and I could feel the blood wet on my forearm.
“You need to stop doing this, Genna,” I said. “You need to get on with your life.”
What had I done? What had I been doing?
“So everyone keeps telling me,” she said. “And still, you flaunt that whore in my face every chance you get.”
That woke me up.
“She isn’t a whore.”
“So I was the whore, then?”
I sighed. She wanted to go down this road again, as if I would finally get it this time. Give in and she attacks me, deny it and she attacks me. Taking it apart and putting it back together in her mind, until the parts were worn and made no sense.
Genna was a woman so driven by goals, that if she didn’t meet one then it destroyed her, and then she ravaged everything around her as she clawed after it.
Had I put the goal inside her with my seed? Is that what this meant here?
“You had to know what was on the other side of the door, didn’t you?” I asked her.
Her whole face changed, furious to shrewd in a heartbeat.
“What door?”
“In Outpost X – the vault door.”
“You know what was on the other side.”
“But you didn’t,” I challenged her. “You had to know. You would have done anything to get through that door.”
“You don’t know anything about Outpost X,” she said.
“Oh, I don’t?”
On her breast, the question mark turned upside down, the only one with no color, flickered, as if a firefly had traced its outline.
She touched the space between her breasts, looked down at her leathers, then up at me.
“What are you hiding, Genna?”
She turned and sprinted back into the night, toward the forest and away from the camp. I took a few steps after her and then stopped.
No one could match her in the forest.
I went to my tent and missed my wife. Sammin saw to my safety and also retired on the cot next to mine, his sword by his side. I had shown him the latches that released my armor – he didn’t seem to like it but also didn’t comment. He made the best of what he saw as a bad situation and wanted to do his time and return to Royal service.
I lay there for a while with my eyes shut and thought of Shela. In the comfort of Thera she would bring a new life into this world, with a husband to support her and gold to bring food to the table. Shela loved me, of that I had no doubt.
What courage did it take for a woman to offer that same gift with no such promise from the man? What were the consequences to the woman when the man up and left her, as I had done?
Twice.
I clo
sed my eyes and wished for Shela, even though she couldn’t be here in her condition. It wasn’t safe and would be selfish of me to even suggest it. Still, I didn’t like the loneliness. I let a tear slip silently down the side of my face, a tolerable indulgence with no one there to see it. It would be nice to have Shela’s soft love now.
“Be still, my husband,” I heard her sweet words and felt her breath in my ear. I stiffened and felt for the Sword of War.
“And you would dispatch me so quickly, having summoned me from so far?” she asked. I smelled her – my wife. I felt her warmth in the bed next to mine, heard the cot creak as she moved, felt the now-familiar bulge of her stomach at my hip.
“This is impossible, I said harshly. “I spoke to D’gattis about this translocation. Energy is equal to mass times distance – there isn’t enough power to move anyone so far -”
“Shhhhh,” she said, and pressed her warm, wet lips to mine. Her tongue darted past my teeth in the way that only she did – her taste told me more than anything else. Either Shela or the most perfect illusion in history.
“The house guard is going to freak,” I said finally. “Let me get rid of Sammin -”
She chuckled and I knew that it had already been done. She pressed her hands along my body and, as the night surrounded us, all became right with my world.
Sammin awoke furious the next morning and we’d already received a message from Thera saying that the Duchess was missing. My Wizards’ proficiency at keeping an eye on things, like my Oligarchs’, left no time wasted in letting me know that the Ducal bed laid empty. I had Shela send back a dispatch saying that she had decided to join me, and let them wonder as to how. I wondered that as well. Sometimes the mysteries of Power did more to keep the subjects in line than the actualities of Power.
“I woke up in a little tent, at the edge of camp,” Sammin complained, right in front of the men. The rest of the Free Legion greeted Shela as Free Legion soldiers marshaled for the journey west.
Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) Page 43