She bridled. "Naturally they left. They know better than to upset us."
I shook my head, marvelling at this new-found facet of the Sherkin character. Obviously the Web had erred in not planting a few doxies of their own among the troopers' women. "So that was all that happened?"
"Yes, until Angel brought you in."
"And there's nothing more you can tell me?"
Reflectively, she popped a pikcherry into her mouth and spat out the stone. "Lord Shree was leading the troopers when they burst in on us. Now there's an attractive man. When I see him, I could almost wish to be a concubine." Mbuha chuckled, but I don't think Lissula was joking. She went on, "They must have found the rope hanging down into the chute—I can't imagine how else they could have tracked you. Such bad luck, darling!"
"They came into the sewer while I was opening the way for you," said Angel. "I hid in the caves and they lost me."
I put my hand on his shoulder. The scenario was clearer now in my head, from Jebri's disclosure of the between-ways, to Shree and his troopers crouching near Angel's breach of the Caves, waiting to follow whoever would appear. Calla and I appeared—and Krisht and I arrived at our objective, the Lady, with Shree and the world's doom close on our heels. For the first time since awakening in the shintashkr, I forced myself to look squarely at the chaos outside.
Lissula poked my shoulder. "What are you going to do, my darling?"
"I don't know yet—but I can't stay here much longer."
"That's obvious," she sighed, "but what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to get the Lady back and destroy the Sherank."
I laughed as if I'd just made the best joke in history. Only Mbuha laughed with me.
* * *
35
"IT'S SUCH A pity you can't risk the between-ways," Lissula said. It was at least the tenth time.
"I know."
"Now, if you could use the between-ways—"
"I know, I know. Everything would be easy. You've already pointed that out. But we can't risk it, and anyway, you're wrong."
"I was going to say," she said coolly, "we wouldn't have to go to all this trouble for the uniforms. You don't have to get nasty, darling, even if you are pissing with fright."
I sighed—she would never have believed me if I had told her, but I had moved beyond fear into fatalism. "I'm sorry, Lissula. You know I love you all for what you're doing."
"All of us, my lord? No one in particular?"
"All of you," I said firmly.
Lissula shrugged. "A few of the shints will be disappointed."
"But not you?"
"Don't be silly, darling."
After that we lay side-by-side, not talking, for what seemed like a long time. In the dim light, Lissula's face was a pale golden oval on the pillow, close beside mine. There were no takers for her that evening, since she had, with the help of one of Rasam's preparations, faked a fever, but the nightly cacophony panted and yowled all around us. I amused myself by composing the abstract of a treatise on Sherkin sexuality, a hitherto neglected field, although it seemed highly unlikely that I'd ever get a chance to write it.
Surprisingly, Sherkin males appear to be sexually timid and easily manipulated by any female who can legitimately be viewed as an object of desire, this extending even to their non-Sherkint shints and concubines. Perhaps it is to compensate for this timidity that they generate extraordinary volumes of noise during the sexual act, thereby assuring themselves and the listening world of their potency and aggressiveness. It is even possible that their nation's obsession with conquest is intimately bound up—
A rapping on the wall close to my ear, almost inaudible, but I could feel the vibrations.
"It's time, Lissula."
I crawled across her under the bedclothes, feeling a twang of desire in my loins; but my idyll in the shintashkr was ending. As I slipped off the pallet, Lissula caught my face in her hands and kissed me—not for the first time, you understand; the shintashkr was nothing if not hospitable, but never before so tenderly, with so much of actual affection. Perhaps she felt it was for the last time—I know I did.
"Good fortune, Tigrallef," she whispered.
I pulled her hands gently away and held them for a moment between mine, thinking damn the Sherank, damn the Lady, damn Oballef and all the Scions and Flamens, damn the life that made Lissula a stamped-in-the-selvedge slut—and then turned away from her without a word and crept out of the cubicle.
Next door, Silka was half-sitting on her pallet, the streak of black brows startling in the white moon of her face. She rolled off the pallet when she saw me and began to tug at the bedclothes. I helped her.
The Sherkin under the blankets was still warm, and there was no blood; the Tatakil have a neat trick involving a long pin into the base of the brain, very quick and quiet, although it takes much practice. Sometimes I wondered about pretty little Silka.
Together we hauled the body over against the wall and covered it with a dark cloak so that it was invisible to a casual eye—for example, that of any other Sherkin taker who entered the cubicle that night. "But what will you do with the bodies in the morning?" I'd objected when the plan was being worked out. "Never mind about that, dearheart," they'd said, and there was something about the Storicans' smiles that made me reluctant to press for details. With the luckless Sherkin laid temporarily to rest, I sorted out his discarded uniform from the jumble on the floor and got myself dressed, with much fumbling of complicated buckles and straps. Even the helmet was there, since the deceased, a man of habit, came directly from guard duty on alternate nights. With this predictability he had written his own death-warrant.
When the last buckle was in place, I hastily kissed Silka goodbye. There were tears running down her cheeks. "Don't worry, little Silka," I whispered into her ear.
"I'm not worried," she sobbed, "I was quite fond of poor Karesh, that's all, he was one of my best regulars. He always brought me presents."
I clapped the helmet on to my head, making very sure it covered the back of my neck, before embracing her again. I asked myself how Tatakil men would ever dare to quarrel with their women. Silka released me lingeringly, and I threw back my shoulders and swaggered out of the cubicle in the confident Sherkin gait I had rehearsed for the past two days. Angel was not yet at the agreed point near the centre of the shintashkr, so I leaned against the wall and tried to look as if I belonged there.
With the din of Sherkin passion, I failed to hear the Koroskan approaching. Suddenly she was there, a glacier of womanhood, towering above me in her vast white robe. I jerked like a fish on a hook. "Well, trooper," she boomed in Sheranik, "finished your fun? What are you waiting for? We're busy tonight."
"I'm waiting—" I squeaked, coughed, then started again in a deep growl that threatened to rend my vocal cords, "I'm waiting for my guardmate."
"Taking his time, is he? No consideration, some of your lot. How much time do you need for a little storm-the-gateway, hey? Here!" She bent down to peer at my helmet, and my heart, what was left of it, froze solid. On the other hand, the Koroskan seemed to melt. Her face puddled with pleasure.
"Hoy, it's you, Karesh. Thought I knew the helmet. Sounds like you've caught a cold—and you've lost some flesh this week as well, haven't you? Not surprising, seeing how Old Claw is pushing the troops these days."
She nudged me with an elbow the size and general shape of a Sherkin battle-club. I oofed faintly. Leaning companionably against the wall, the wardress excavated a pouch out of the mighty battlements of her bosom and offered me a plug of something that looked and smelled like the cud of a dead cow. I accepted it without thanks, in the Sherkin manner, and pretended to push it through the mouth-orifice of Karesh's helmet. Then I dropped it discreetly on to the floor and stood on it.
"It's rough times for us all, you know," the Koroskan went on, practically shouting to be heard. "You troopers have been working the girls too hard lately, what with all this trouble you've been getting in th
e city. The last week alone, we had three shints die on us, just floated off in their sleep, not a mark or a day's sickness among them. I call it exhaustion, that's what I call it."
I nodded sadly. Silka's pin, that's what I'd call it, or something choice from Rasam's extensive Glishoran herblore. Lissula had told me the shints had methods for dealing with potential problems, but she did not tell me they'd been applied in my defense. The golden days in the shintashkr lost slightly in lustre.
I became aware at that point that the Koroskan had started to breathe on me. She was definitely closer. "They're all like that, these skinny girls," she said. "Now if you had a real woman, Karesh, someone with some sinew in her thighs, you wouldn't need to ride those poor splinters so hard, hey? Am I right?"
I nodded dutifully. She edged closer.
"I mean, think about it—would you rather have an armful of bones or an armful of good solid meat, hey?"
"Yes, quite," I said vaguely.
A trooper in off-duty whites turned the corner and strode towards us. I was almost glad to see him. "Ho, Karesh," he grinned as he went by, "water first, wine after, is that the plan?" He chortled off down the corridor, the Koroskan simpered and blushed, and I began to sweat. The strain was weighing on me, as was the damned uniform—how did the bastards manage to fight so well, dressed like that?
"You're not very sociable tonight, Karesh. Surely that stringy little Tatakil can't have worn you out, a good strong man like you?" She moved even closer. She overhung me like a cliff.
"It's my cold," I mumbled.
"Ah, yes, poor lad. Here, take off your helmet."
"What?"
"Take off your helmet. Let me have a look at your throat."
"Thanks, but—"
"Come on, trooper. Happens I have a remedy in my bedchamber that might just help you." She grinned vastly and reached for the helmet, and I took a desperate step backwards.
"Mistress!" A wail ending in a gasp—Lissula lurched out of her corridor and tottered towards the Koroskan. Just short of us, she swayed gracefully and dropped; the Koroskan leaped to catch her, grumbling ferociously under her breath. "You see what we have to put up with?" she demanded, swinging Lissula over her shoulder like a lovely sack, "these fragile flowers, no stamina, a few good pocketings and they're finished for the night."
"Not in my experience," I mumbled.
"What's that?" She swung back to face me.
"Nothing."
She poked me genially in the chest. I blessed the Lady for the Sherkin breastplate. "Don't go away, Karesh, I'll be right back—and then we'll see what we can do to make you feel better, hey?" As she marched away towards the infirmary, the floor vibrating to her tread, Lissula's dangling hand waggled a delicate obscenity.
I collapsed against the wall. Where in the Lady's name was Angel? Lissula had bought me a little time, but I would rather have faced Kekashr and all the hordes of Iklankish on my own than be waiting when that amorous mountain came back. I turned towards the exit and bumped squarely into another helmeted Sherkin.
"Had a good one?" he asked.
"Yes, thank you, very good," I babbled, then realized that I had just been given the password, composed (naturally) by the shints. "Angel? The Lady be thanked. Let's get out of here."
We turned and marched side-by-side through the maze of cubicles. "You took your time," I muttered, "where were you?"
"What's wrong, my lord Scion?"
"I was practically raped, that's what."
"The Koroskans?" A curious sound issued from behind Angel's helmet.
"It isn't funny, Angel."
He seemed to be thinking this over. "Yes it is, my lord Scion."
"What do you know about it?" I asked crossly as we stepped into the little entrance enclosure, where a handful of troopers played at fingersticks while they waited for a shint to be free. Another Koroskan wardress sat at a desk beside the door. She glanced up at us without interest and made a couple of notes on a list in front of her. "Next two," she called out.
The shints had told us what to do at this point—we walked past the desk without comment, tossing a couple of tokens into a bowl near the Koroskan's elbow as we went by. The great doors of the old Contemplation Hall of the Novices swung open before us and closed behind us, and the final phase of my quest began.
* * *
36
A FAIR-SIZED PARTY of troopers came out of the shintashkr just after us and followed us down the Spine. They were not far behind us—I could hear their voices and the tired clumping of their boots on the stone floor—but they made no attempt to catch us up. Angel was as stolid as ever; I used every grain of willpower I owned to keep from breaking into a run. We walked the long, long length of the Spine that way without meeting another soul—not surprising, since it was only a couple of hours before dawn. The Spine brought us out into the colonnades of the old Inner Garden, where the queens of Gil had raised flowers and herbs, and where generations of little Scions had played.
Legend held that unwelcome seeds never sprouted there, which presumably saved my ancestresses the trouble of weeding; now weeds were all that remained, and there were pitifully few of those. A rough stone pavement had been laid over the rich soil. Horse-stalls had been built among the porticos on two sides. Of the original five fountains, only one survived, now reincarnated as a watering trough, and the statuary group that once graced it (Oballef's children frolicking in the spray) was gone. Amazingly, some of the delicate wrought-iron brackets designed to support garlands of flowering vines were still affixed to the columns, now holding flaming torch-poles that stank of grease.
The courtyard was unexpectedly crowded with dark figures, milling busily around by torchlight while a light rain glazed the stone pavement. We walked along in the shelter of the raised south portico without attracting attention, although I was worried by Angel's tendency to shamble when he should have been striding. It was hard not to hurry, hard to remember that we were effectively invisible, just two of a crowd of uniformed troopers, identical except for small details of helmet and sword. There, of course, lay the greatest danger; I expected any moment to be hailed with the name of Karesh, or to have some friend of my late benefactor (may his bones bring forth etc.) swagger up jovially to slap me on the back. But nobody even glanced our way—all attention was on the rain-slicked centre of the courtyard, where four great black horses were being hitched to a black-and-gilded carriage and mobs of ostlers were saddling up a troop of cavalry mounts.
"Here! You lot!"
I turned, my hand moving involuntarily to the grip of my sword. A harried-looking officer stood by the door to the Queen's Vestibule with his helmet under his arm. He was addressing us—but not just us, also the straggle of troopers who had followed us out of the shintashkr. "Over there, the top of the stairs," he snapped, "and hurry! That means everyone, Roshek. And I don't give a Gilman's fart if you're off duty or where you've just come from, you randy buggers, I'm short-handed and Old Claw wants an honour guard for this. So jump!"
We jumped. He pointed to a broad strip of carpeting that snaked down the flight of steps from the portico to the courtyard, so we jumped in that direction. Then I noticed with panic that Angel had not moved, so I jumped back, grabbed him and hustled him over. The others, muttering, were already lining themselves up along both edges of the carpet, one on each step. I planted Angel at the top and myself on the second step. The officer strode down the steps and up again, dressing the line fiercely; he halted in front of me and my heart stopped.
"Great Raksh," he groaned. He extracted a rag from his sleeve, spat on it, polished a spot on my breastplate, moved on to straighten Angel's helmet. "Now nobody move!" He vanished inside the vestibule.
We stood like a frieze of statues. Several minutes passed, then several more. There were too many troopers around for us to fade discreetly away, and holes in the honour guard might have been conspicuous. My knees began to ache. More minutes passed. The trooper one step down from me muttered a colour
ful expletive, one I hadn't heard before, and I committed it to memory. Almost half an hour passed.
At last the same officer dashed through the vestibule door. He shouted—I risked moving my head, and saw the troopers in the courtyard running to form up their lines. Within seconds the honour guard was complete, an unbroken double file of snarling helmets and wind-whipped cloaks stretching from the vestibule to the carriage waiting in the courtyard. A measured tramp of boots sounded from the vestibule. A phalanx of officers swept grandly through the open doorway, followed by Shree under his red crest, Kekashr himself—and Calla.
She was even more gloriously gowned than when I had last seen her, to the point where one could hardly tell there was a flesh-and-blood woman under all those tiers and rigid billows of metal-laced gold satin, the bodice that could have turned a sword, the filigreed headdress that rested on her hair like a towering, bejewelled birdcage. But there was nothing decorative about the iron fetters on her wrists, joined by a short, solid-looking chain, and her face was one to make the nervous or unarmed keep their distance.
That much I gathered with a quick glance. Then it was eyes to the front and arms stiff by my sides, in imitation of the trooper facing me across the carpet; thus, I heard rather than saw a brief and energetic struggle just outside the vestibule door. A second later, Kekashr appeared in my field of view, looking exasperated. He stopped just below me on the stairs, but turned to look towards the vestibule.
"Come now, Krisht," he said softly in Gillish, "this is not seemly behaviour for the daughter of a lord of Iklankish. Nor will it affect my decision."
"You promised me—"
"I know what I promised. Perhaps I was not entirely frank with you, my beloved child, but I suspect you have not been frank with me either. We will not discuss it."
He turned to continue down the stairs. Calla followed, after a fashion. She was flanked by two troopers, who were not so much hustling her along as trying to channel her natural energies, but without great success. Just in front of me, one of them grunted and folded up, gasping for breath—really, from Kekashr's point of view, it was a mistake to dress Calla in a gown that was virtually a close-combat weapon. Tearing free from the remaining watchdog, she crashed resoundingly into the trooper across from me. Her bodice proved to be not quite a match for his breastplate—she ricocheted off and fell forwards down the stairs, a dozen arms reaching for her as the Sherkin line broke. But Calla was not finished. A howl from one of the troopers below, and she reappeared in the crush, swinging a heavy sword in her fettered hands and working her way up the stairs again.
Gil Trilogy 1: Lady in Gil Page 25