by Robert Adams
“And you, Cat-brother?” Milo questioned Horsekiller.
“I have known since kittenhood that your mind was not as other men’s, God Milo.”
Milo had had more than enough. He slammed one fist upon the tabletop and both cats blinked. “That’s sufficient subservience. I’m no Ehleenee, dammit! If you must give me a title, let it be war chief or cat-friend or, better yet, none at all.”
“The God speaks, His servants obey,” replied Blind Hari aloud. He was broadly smiling and a hint of gentle sarcasm tinged his. over-humble voice.
Mara had been watching and listening, and now her laughter trilled. “You speak with all the conviction of an Ehleenee priest, ‘Father’ Hari. But you must have a very good reason for disclosing your knowledge at this time. What urgency has impelled you, Man of Powers?”
“. . . and so, keeping under the cover of the creek bank, I brought her here, to my cat-brother, Bard Hari.”
After Old-Cat had recounted his portion of the table, Milo shrugged. “I lived among the Northern Ehleenee for some years. While mindspeak is rare among their race, it is not unheard of. Over the course of years and centuries, races tend to mingle. I suspect that many who think of themselves as pure embody more than a trace of the blood of the fair races.
“As for the fact that the girl dislikes her lot . . .” He shrugged again. “Few slaves do, not in the beginning. And you have probably earned her a beating, Old-Cat, by keeping her this long from her owner’s clan-camp.”
Old-Cat bared his teeth and gave vent to a hair-raising snarl of unadulterated menace.
“The cub has suffered enough! Much more suffering and her thought-mind will depart her little body. She has neither the maturity nor the training to control or prevent such. By my fangs and claws, the two-leg who seeks to hurt her more shall be found intestineless! Beware, Old-Cat makes not false threats!”
“If such is your feeling,” replied Milo, “the answer is simple: buy her. I am sure that your personal shares from the Black-Horse battle would be more than enough to pay a fair price for her, and if they are not, borrow from your clan; Chief Horsekiller is both generous and understanding.”
“That has been attempted, Friend Milo,” interjected Horse-killer. “Clan Linszee refuses to sell her. Chief Rik and his brother, Hwahlis, became quite angry when my emissary, Black-Claw, would not tell him where she was.”
Milo grimaced. “That, I don’t doubt, Cat Chief! Men like not to lose a new and but half-tried female.”
Mara turned on him bristling. “Sometimes, you are disgusting, my husband, and I can but wonder that I chose to marry you!”
Hari beamed his thought at her. “It is meet that you should defend the poor slave, Lady Goddess, for, though she has yet to see her twelfth year . . .”
“What?” Milo shouted aloud. “Has Clan Linszee, then, ceased to honor the Law? Slave girl or clan girl, I set the age of taking at fourteen!”
“And the Law, like all your Law, has proven just and good for clan and tribe.” Hari nodded sagely. “Little Aldora — for that is her name, Aldora Ahpoolios — says that she has tried ceaselessly to tell her ravishers her age and beg them to leave off abusing of her body, but she has only a few words of Mehrikan and could speak only in Ehleeneekos. The mercenaries who first raped her understood; but she is quite womanlike for her age, and they convinced her buyer, Hwahlis Linszee, that she was older, I am sure, for Hwahlis is a brave and honorable man and a respecter of the law.”
“Then, when he is made aware of truth, he . . .” Milo broke off at the shake of Bard Hari’s old head.
“Hwahlis is not the problem, nor is he the Law-defiler, War Chief. It is his brother, Chief Rik of Linszee. He fully understood and took her anyway, often and brutally! She knows he understood, for when they were alone once, he spoke to her in her own tongue, told her that as soon as she began to learn to speak Mehrikan, he would have her killed. She did not know the reason for this or why her death should be necessary, but we do!
“It has been long and long since a chief of the Horseclans has defied the Law. Rik of Linszee must not go unpunished. He knows the extent of his crime and is frightened — Black Claw said that he reeked of fear. Though Hwahlis likes Aldora, he would have sold her; but Rik convinced the clansmen to refuse to sell.
“Also, War Chief and War Chiefs wife, there is another thing that you must know: Though Ehleenee-born, this child is of your sacred race, the Race of Gods!”
* * *
Horsekiller and Old-Cat strode into the Clan Linszee chief-tent. Chief Rik neither rose in deference to Horsekiller as Cat Chief nor gave greeting. His mindspeak was flat and more than a little hostile. “Well, yet two more flea-factories today! Has the Cat Chief come to return my clan’s property that they took away? Where is she?”
“I come,” said Horsekiller, trying hard to keep his lip down and his claws in, “to summon you and one of your clansmen, Hwahlis Linszee, to the war chief’s stone tent, within Green-Walls. If you refuse to come, Old-Cat and I have orders to hamstring you and drag you there! The council sits and will judge you and your clansmen for deliberate defilement of the Law.”
Though obviously stunned by the Pronouncement, Hwahlis was just as puzzled; Rik, on the other hand, paled to ashiness and his hand crept toward his saber-hilt reflexively. His self-admitted guilt gave evidence that all could easily see and, muttering, gripping at Sun-talismans or the hilts of their sacred steel, his clansmen tightened their circle, edging away from him.
Arm cradling his telling-harp, Vinz Linszee, the clan bard, rose and mindspoke Horsekiller. “How speaks Blind Hari, Tribe-Bard and Sage of the Law, on this, Cat Chief?”
The big cat replied with ominous solemnity. “It is he who brings the charge, oh, Clan-Bard.”
Bard Vinz hung his head in shame. Such a charge from such a man was dishonor enough; but if, as he suspected from Chief Rik’s appearance and behavior, it were adjudged true, then the clan could claim no honor, past, present or future.
“Well?” snarled Chief Rik. “Speak up, useless-maker-of-useless-songs. Must I go or do we fight?”
Those clansmen who had been grasping hilts let them go, as if red hot, and hastily averted their eyes from their accused chief.
“You and Hwahlis must go,” answered Vinz with as much dignity as he could muster. “Under such a charge, it were further Law-defilement to draw steel against summoners or council.”
“And, raper-of-kittens,” put in Old-Cat, who had moved quite near to Chief Rik, “if your hand does not depart from your saber hilt quickly, it will depart from your arm immediately!”
* * *
At the beginning, Chief Rik denied all: threatening the slave’s life, understanding her tongue or speaking to her in it, even having had knowledge of her flesh. He swore sword oath that the charge was false, calling on Sun and Wind to witness his oath’s verity, but the Test of the Cat, administered by Horsekiller’s delegate, Old-Cat, broke him. As the teeth pierced his scalp and grated on bone, he screamingly admitted his deceptions and the blasphemies with which he had attempted to cover his misdeeds.
Bard Vinz and Hwahlis hung their heads and wept that their chief should so dishonor his clan. All the Linszee warriors were summoned to hear the foresworn man’s recital of his crimes. When he had finished, Milo rose and addressed the council.
“Kindred, at the fight on the hill, when there were no more arrows in our cases and all seemed lost, two brave men rose amid the foemen’s arrow-rain and precipitated a falling of rocks which, though it killed them, stopped the charge of the iron-shirts and preserved their Kindred. Both those valiant ones bore the clan-name of Linszee. The heinous misdeeds of Rik, Chief of Linszee, should be broadcast among all the tribe, to the irreparable dishonor of his clan. You Chiefs know what this will mean. As a dishonored clan has no place in the tribe, they will be banished. The Kindred will drive them out of tribe territory, that their dishonored blood may never pollute that of the other clans.”
Wh
ile he had been speaking, the weeping Linszee warriors had begun to voice a low moan. Clan dishonor and banishment from the tribe were the worst things that could befall them. After such, death would be a mercy.
“But, Chiefs,” Milo continued, “to save the honor of such a clan as produced the Heroes of the Rock, I ask that the council grant a boon.”
Several of the chiefs growled at once. “What would you, War Chief?”
“Allow Rik — who is clan-chief as well as chief malefactor — to personally expiate his clan’s dishonor. Allow him to reject his chiefhood, divorce his wives, give up his title to any clan-property, save only some clothing and a little food and a mule. Then allow him to ride away, bearing only dirk and ax and spear, for he has lost, by his blasphemies, the right to bear sword or bow or shield. And let him be declared outlaw, to be slain if ever he returns.”
No longer moaning, the Linszee warriors looked up, hope glimmering in their teary eyes; but Rik shattered their hopes.
12
A chief, with two sons,
Gained three more and a daughter.
Two score and two chiefs
The bastard did slaughter.
And the God led the Kindred
To the east, to the Water.
—From “Return of the Undying God”
“No!” Rik shouted hoarsely, his two fists clenched until the knuckles shone as white as his face. “No, no, I’ll not go alone. They all are as guilty as I of Law-defilement! Every one of them has had the slave-bitch, too. Let the clan be banished! I’ll not go alone!”
Where she sat on the dais, between Milo and Aldora, Mara rapidly mindspoke to her mate. “Why don’t you just have the lying pig killed and end this business rapidly and permanently, darling?”
“I can’t,” his answer beamed back to her. “The Law forbids it. To slay a fellow of the Kindred in cold blood is a crime worse than Rik’s. Kindred may only be slain on their request or in defense from unprovoked attack. I hate to do what I now must, but . . .”
Aloud, Milo spoke slowly and solemnly. “So be it. Chiefs, you must assemble your warriors and all your free-women and all children older than eight winters at the second hour of the Sun tomorrow, that they may see and hear and remember.”
Blind Hari came abruptly to his feet. “War Chief, may I be heard?”
Milo nodded and resumed his seat.
“Kindred,” began the bard, “from my earliest memory, have I heard of the bravery and honor of Clan Linszee. Though their valor has brought them honor and more honor over the hundreds of years, it has cost them dearly, for honor of clan and tribe has ere meant more to their warriors than limbs or life. These are good memories. They sing well and I have no wish to forget them.”
The oldest chief, Djeri of Hahfmun, stood. “But Tribe-Bard, the Law is the Law. You yourself brought the charges and they have — after much false-oathing — been admitted true. The honor of a clan is carried by its chief and, if that chief be not only criminal but craven, the clan must suffer. None here deny that Clan Linszee has long possessed honor, but by the Law-defilement of all the warriors and the perjury of Chief Rik, all the centuries of honor are dissipated. If the chief will not go and bear the dishonor away with him, what is there to do but drive off the clan?”
Hari’s reply was quick. “There is this, Chief Djeri: Rik is chief by birth, but, if his father were to declare him ill-got and not a true Linszee, his dishonor would be his alone and not of the clan.”
Chief Rik had regained some of his arrogance. He laughed harshly. “You’ll grow wings before then, old Dung-face. My father is dead these seven years!”
“Chiefs,” asked Hari, “who among us bears the clan-name sacred of prophecy? Who was affirmed ‘Father of the Tribe’ when we began this march nearly twenty winters past?”
Almost as one the council members murmured, “Milo, Milo of Morai, our war chief, he is ‘Father of the Tribe.’”
Hari nodded. “So as ‘Father of the Tribe’ is he supposed father of the man, Rik.”
Milo recognized his cue. “Him called Rik, I declare ill-got! Such a one cannot be of Linszee or any other honorable clan, his attributes are got of dirt; he stinks of swine.”
As Milo slowly pronounced the ritualistic words which declared Rik’s bastardy, that man commenced to tremble and, when all was said, he screamed, “No, no, what you do is unnatural! I . . . I am my father’s son!”
Milo shook his head. “I suppose you are, strange man, but none knows who your father might be, or what.” He addressed the Linszee warriors. “Kindred, if aught is unnatural, it is that a clan should be without a chief-especially, a clan so ancient and honorable as Linszee. Who is your oldest chief-born?”
Bard Vinz replied, “Hwahlis, brother to . . . to Haenk, who is next oldest“
“Then Kindred,” asked Milo, “can any Linszee say good reason why the clan should not have chief-born Hwahlis for the Linszee of Linszees?”
“But,” shouted Rik ragingly, “he brought the Ehleenee shoat in the first place, and he was first to use her, too!”
“Horseclansmen of true purity of blood,” declared Milo shortly, “need not listen to the rantings of a perjured man-thing of doubtful lineage. If yonder dog-man yaps again, teach him respect for his betters.”
Before the Council of Chiefs, Hwahlis was declared successor to his father, Haenk. The new chief paced the circuit of council, stopping before each chief who then rose to declare his recognition of Chief Hwahlis and to exchange with Hwahlis Sword Oaths and Blood Oaths of brotherhood. Meanwhile some of the Linszee clansmen threw Rik and stripped him of everything which bore the Linszee crest (and everything else of value), so that, at the last, he was left barefoot, wearing his sole possessions-drawers and a badly torn shirt.
The moment that Clan-Bard and Tribe-Bard had finished reciting his genealogy and the more spectacular exploits of his family and his clan and he had been invested with the trappings and insigniae of his new rank, Hwahlis set about his duty as he saw it. Striding to the dais, he took Aldora’s small ankle and removed the ownership cuff from it and dropped onto his knees before the wide-eyed Ehleen.
“Child,” he said, meeting her eyes steadily, “I have caused you much to suffer and have allowed others to do the same. Your face and your body are good to look upon and we thought you woman, not child. So, being men, we behaved as men will. This is not excuse, only statement.
“For the price of your blood, spilled by me and by my clan, will you accept your freedom as payment?”
Patient and silent, he waited until, in a tremulous voice, the girl answered. “Yes, Master.”
Hwahlis shook his head. “Master no more, child. If any be master, it is you, for I and all my clansmen owe you suffering-price. We will send word to your father, your kin, that he and they may come to set the price and collect it. Mine is not a wealthy clan, but all that we have, if necessary, will go to pay your suffering-price. Until your kin and your noble father arrive, our tents are yours. You are Clan Linszee’s honored guest and every clansman and clanswoman is your . . . Why, child, what now, have I done to . . .”
Aldora’s great mental powers — and later years were to see just how great they truly were — had been awakened for but a few hours, yet already could she feel the emotions of others with painful clarity. So sincerely sorry was her former master, such utter goodness of spirit and true repentance did his mind radiate, that she could not but weep. But what began as weeping for the soul-agony that Hwahlis was suffering, merged into weeping for herself, for her aloneness, with no kin to come for her.
“My . . . my f . . . father, he . . . come . . . never,” she sobbed in halting Mehrikan.
Hwahlis took Aldora’s tiny hand and patted it, roughly but gently. “Why, of course, he will, child! What sort of father would not come a thousand thousand days’ ride to fetch his loved daughter?”
Her eyes closed, she shook her dark head and lapsed into Ehleeneekos. “Ohee, ohee, Ahfendiss, ohee. Eeneh nehkrohs,
nehkrohs. Aldora eeneh kohree iss kahniss.”
Seeing Hwahlis’ honest ignorance of Aldora’s pitiful protestations, Mara leaned down and softly translated. “She says, ‘no,’ Chief Hwahlis. She says that her father is dead, that she is nobody’s daughter.”
The Chief of Linszee thought for only a moment, then he placed his calloused hand under the girl’s chin and raised it Gazing deep into her swimming eyes, he said, “Child-I-have-wronged, you are a daughter without a father. I am a father without a daughter. It is not meet that children should be without parents. Would you consent to be a child of my tent and clan? Aldora, will you be my daughter?”
Aldora entered his mind. All that she could find were his innate goodness and his honest concern for her welfare. She searched for signs of lust, but there were none. Its place had been completely usurped by a protective solicitude.
“Oh, Lady Mara,” she mindspoke, “what shall I do?”
Having had far wider experience with men and, consequently, trusting their motives even less than Aldora, a part of Mara’s mind had been in Hwahlis’ from the beginning.
“He is an honorable man, Aldora, and, for what he is, a very good and a gentle man. He truly wants to adopt you and he would be a fine father to you. It is but a question of whether or not you want a father.”
“Well, child,” Hwahlis prodded tentatively. “Will you grant my clan the honor of becoming its chiefs daughter? Mine?”
“Pahtehrahs. . . .” was all that Aldora could get out before the intensity of her emotions closed her throat. Sobbing wildly, she slid from the chair and flung her slender arms around the grizzled chieftain’s neck and rested her head on his epaulet, her tears trailing down the shiny leather of his cuirass.