Horseclans Odyssey

by Robert Adams

  And there they hunkered in idleness for a week more, while Martuhn silently fretted about the condition of the dying Wolf or the possibility that Milo of Morai might have tried to send messengers to him for one reason or another. He was, in fact, on the very point of gathering his people, calling for his horses and riding back to Twocityport when the duke’s curt summons arrived from Pirates’ Folly.

  He knew himself to be in bad grace from the coolness of the horseguards who escorted him from the city, as well as by the bare civility shown him by the palace people upon his arrival. Therefore, he was prepared for the dark, glowering demeanor of his overlord, though not for the groundless accusations that soon followed.

  “You back-biting young bastard!” was the growled “greeting.”

  “It’s lucky for me that I rode in when I did, else I might have — no, would have — had to fight to win back my own damned duchy from you. If I could’ve raised an army, that is, which is doubtful, the way you’ve poisoned the people against me.”

  “My lord,” began Martuhn, “has evidently been misled, for what reason I know not; but he should know above all others that I ever have been his true man.”

  Gripping the hilt of the bared sword that lay on the desk before him, gripping it so hard that his scarred knuckles stood out white as virgin snow, the old man hissed but one word.

  “Liar!”

  Stunned, Martuhn stood mute while the duke let go the sword, poured a small goblet brimful of strong brandy and regained a measure of composure, after draining it off.

  “Martuhn, I trusted you, I even was coming to love you as a father should love a son, and, regardless of our differences in that matter of the nomad boys, I had deluded myself into the belief that you reciprocated. But I was deluding myself, I can see that clearly now.

  The outlaw Urbahnos stated to me that when he came before you, you openly admitted that the supposed killing of me by the western nomads had but saved you the trouble of having me murdered.”

  “Your grace,” said Martuhn, puzzled that the duke would so easily believe such calumnies of him, “Urbahnos would say or do any ill he could toward me. He and a gang of scum invaded the citadel whilst I was holding Traderstown, slew a number of my cooks and quartermasters, and were besieging the central tower when I arrived. Urbahnos was the only one taken alive, and as he and his pack had so severely wounded my old retainer Wolf that even now he is slowly dying, I had the outlaw sent to serve in the cable barges. Naturally, he hates me.”

  Regarding Martuhn with smoldering eyes from under his bushy brows, the duke heard him out. Then he said, in a soft and almost conversational tone, but with a hard intensity underlying it, “Captain, lying tongues that flap too often and too long and, in any case, unbidden can be easily torn out; I have ordered such before, nor am I loath to order such again.

  “As for the Ehleen pig, he Swore to the verity of his original statement, over and over, even under severe torture.”

  Martuhn was of a mind to point out that under severe torture, most men would say whatever they thought their tormentors wanted most to hear, but instead he demanded, “Under your laws, your grace, I have the right to face my accuser.”

  The duke squirmed ever so slightly in his armchair and rubbed two fingers over his chin between lower lip and beard. “I had intended just that, here and now, Martuhn, but it is no longer possible. Somehow, for all that his front teeth were gone, the bastard managed to gnaw through the flesh of his wrists to the big veins. When men were sent to fetch him up here upon your arrival at Pirates’ Folly, they found him dead and stinking.”

  Martuhn nodded solemnly. “He knew that he could not face me and still fling such heinous charges.”

  The duke sighed. “Possibly, possibly; the word — sworn or otherwise — of a felon is ever suspect, and were that the only or even the greatest ground for my suspicions, I’d dismiss it all and set myself to forget it But there is more, Martuhn, much more.

  “There’s the council of nobles, too. Most of the elders are still mine, but almost all the younger members seem to idolize you. Thank God I’d not yet gotten around to naming you to the council. Otherwise, I’d soon find myself in one of those cells down there or in exile and on a boat, while you ruled in my stead.

  “More sinister yet, all the so-called ‘Old Nobility’ worship you and make no bones about the fact that they would much liefer see you duke than me. And what’s this about you talking to my sow of a wife before she finally freed me of her carping corpulence for good and all?”

  “Her grace was rumored to be near death, your grace,” replied Martuhn. “She sent for me and I attended her for a short while. She wished to know if I had seen your grace fall and if I thought you truly dead.”

  The duke snorted derisively. “And I can hear that bitch, even now, chortling that she had really outlived me. She always swore she would, you know. I but regret she didn’t live just a little longer, long enough to know that still I lived. “And I suppose, knowing her and how she loved to dredge and redredge choice turds from her cesspool of a mind, that she spoon-fed you twenty years’ worth of exaggerations and outright, whole-cloth-cut fabrications to prove to you what an unmitigated bastard I’d been throughout my misspent life, eh?

  Now it was Martuhn who sighed. “Your grace, her late grace spoke precious little of you that I had not heard as tavern rumors and camp gossip over the more than ten years I’ve served you.”

  “I suppose she trotted out that ancient slander that I had forcibly raped every woman and girl in her retinue; that would be like her, dying or no. Well, Martuhn, I didn’t I did seduce a goodly number of the sluts — only the younger and better endowed ones, of course — and possibly” — the duke grinned slyly — “a few seductions were a wee bit more forceful man the rest, but most succumbed easily enough to my manly charms.

  “Of course, the tales with which the strumpets alibied themselves to her were likely an entirely different kettle of fish. But what the bloody hell did that tiresome woman expect? She had never been a proper, willing wife to me, and after her father died she removed herself and her entourage clear to the end of the north wing of the old palace and kept her chambers barred and locked to me, her lawful husband, while she daily ate herself fatter and fatter until in the end she resembled nothing so much as some bloated, loathsome garden slug.”

  The duke poured and quaffed another goblet of brandy, took several deep breaths, and asked, “Did you swear oaths to her? Tis rumored that you promised to wed her sister, Alex’s widow, replace the present nobility with scions of the older houses and restore the ancient system of landownership, relegating all of the presently free farmers to the status of landbound serfs.”

  Martuhn shook his head. “Her grace required no oaths of me, your grace, and I swore none.”

  The duke nodded. “That much, at least, I’ll believe of you, Martuhn. I discounted the rumor when first I heard it, and it’s obvious that none of the farmers and none of my gentry put any stock in it either. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have such strong support in those quarters.

  “And that’s really my case, Martuhn. There are numerous other scurrilous tales have been brought to me, but I don’t believe one in ten. As for the matters just covered, I honestly don’t know whether you’re the prince of all liars or simply a born leader and ruler and too honorable for your own good. But you have become a threat to me and to my continued reign. One of us has to go, and it will be you.

  “Probably a prudent man would either have you quietly assassinated or hang you on trumped-up charges. But you served me well and faithfully for too long for me to stomach that, Martuhn. But go you must, and soon.

  “It’s now a week and two days shy of the new moon. When that moon is old, I shall expect you and your company to be on the road. You might go east — King Ehvin is still embroiled, I understand, and consequently hiring mercenaries. Or South — for that matter, the civil war in Mehmfiz is far from resolved and both sides are rich, as is the looting
.”

  Martuhn hung his head briefly, then straightened it and his body to the erect, unmoving posture of a soldier receiving orders. “It will be as your grace wishes, of course. But, your grace . . . I . . .”

  “Yes, captain?”

  “My . . . agreement with the nomads, you will honor it?”

  “Of course not, man!” snapped the duke. “Don’t be a fool. It was a good ploy to get our wounded back though, I grant you that much.”

  “Your grace, I gave the chiefs my word of honor and —”

  “And, as I said earlier, you may have too much belief in your honor for your own good, captain. Those bastards will get no uncontested passage over my lands, I trow, not after they butchered most of my nobles and hunted me and the rest like beasts of the chase. If cross they will, let them go north for a few hundred miles to where it’s a mere stream.”

  “But, your grace, my pledged word . . .”

  Tcharlz had once more grasped the sword. He raised it and brought the flat crashing down on the desktop, his eyes sparking with rage. “Enough, I say, captain; I’ll hear no more of this matter! And if you want to keep your tongue to leave the duchy with, I advise you to recall my previous warning. Dismiss!”

  * * *

  At last, the guttering lamp flame flared once and died and Martuhn could no longer see the interior of the yurt or even the young woman who lay pressed close against him. He could now feel her soft warmth, smell the clean fragrance of her hair and sense the muted thunder of her heart. He realized before his thoughts again wandered back into the tumultuous recent past that he was beginning to truly love Stehfahnah.

  * * *

  Immediately he had returned to the citadel, Martuhn sent Nahseer across the river to seek out and fetch back the war chief. Milo returned with the Zahrtohgahn in the small, speedy little sailing boat that same day, and the captain put the recent events to him bluntly.

  At the end, he said, “And so, if your folk are to cross on the cable barges, it must be done soon. Nor will you be able to count on a peaceful transit of the duchy; now you must all be prepared to fight for every foot of ground. Tcharlz is no tyro at any aspect of arms or armies, and he bears intense hatred for you all, based upon your defeat and pursuit of him. If he can quickly raise an army —”

  “You doubt, then, that he can, Martuhn?” asked Milo.

  The tall captain nodded. “It’s possible that he won’t be able to soon muster any effective numbers, for various reasons. To wit: Before the debacle at Traderstown, he had legally adopted me, recognized me as his heir and made me count of the city of Twocityport, as well as his senior military commander. When it seemed that he was dead, both the older nobility and his own, newer noble houses pledged themselves wholeheartedly and unasked to me . . . and they, none of them, seemed at all pleased at his return.

  “I am certain that both the dukes had expected me to hold Traderstown to the last man against you and yours, but I could see early on that it was indefensible against any determined assault, so I opted to withdraw in good order with all my infantry — the bulk of whom were drawn from the free farmers of this duchy — and all those others I deemed worth saving. The result of that action is that the common country folk of the duchy now hold me in far higher esteem than they do Tcharlz.”

  “So, you don’t think they’d willingly respond to a call to arms from their duke?” inquired Milo.

  “From the way all the people — noble and common alike — spoke whenever I stopped to bid someone farewell on my way back here from Pirates’ Folly, those who didn’t actually refuse would most of them assuredly drag their feet mightily. You see, they all recall that Tcharlz made war on me, besieged me in this very fortress once before — that was in the matter of the Steevuhnz boys, you may recall — then suddenly forgave me everything and secured my alliance to go to Traderstown and fight you. They now seem to feel that this present business is but another family spat that will sooner be done with if Tcharlz and I have only our personal troops to carry it on, and the duke has precious few after Traderstown.

  “Nor can he summon up the specter of ‘barbarian invasion’ to spur a muster, for — thanks in no small part to the public relations done by you and your chiefs when you were scouting out your proposed line of march through the duchy — the country folk know that you are men like themselves, not the howling, unwashed savages you have so often been depicted as being.”

  Milo wrinkled his brows. “But how about mercenaries? Even if your own company remains loyal to you, there must be others that Duke Tcharlz can hire on.”

  Martuhn nodded. “Normally there’d be plenty wandering along the river valleys in search of employment, but with a full-scale war going on some days east of here, on the north bank of the Ohyoh, and a multisided civil war in Mehmfiz to the south of us, the few companies not working aren’t worth anybody’s hire.

  “Now Tcharlz just might get more support from his home county, but the north-south roads have never been well maintained, for strategic reasons, so it will take them a bit of time to march up here. And, even with those, if he can raise an overall total of four hundred troops, I’ll be more than surprised.”

  Milo still looked worried; the lives and well-being of thousands of his clansfolk rode on his decision here.

  “You are dead certain then, Martuhn, that you can hold this place and protect those cables’ with the small number of troops you have?”

  “I am certain I can hold the citadel, Milo. I once held one just like it for over two years . . . and with a garrison of mostly untrained peasant pikemen. But so far as protecting the cables goes, well, I am critically short of seasoned bowmen, and, frankly, I’d expected to borrow a couple of hundred from you.”

  Milo compressed his lips and pinched his chin between thumb and forefinger for a moment, then raised his head and nodded briskly. “All right, two hundred archers; they’re yours. I’ll start them over as soon as I get back. However, with the possibility of hand-to-hand fighting to hold our landfall, I can’t deprive the tribe of any of its warriors. Far too many of them were lost in the battles across the river, as it is. I’ll send you two hundred maiden archers — unmarried women of between fourteen and sixteen years; they’ll all be experts with either bow or sling, and fully war-trained, too, if push comes to shoving spears or swinging honed steel.

  “Will female archers be acceptable?”

  “If you don’t mind some of them coming back pregnant,” grinned Martuhn. “Most of my men are unmarried, too, and so far as I know, none of them are celibate, by inclination at least.”

  Milo returned the grin. “As you’ve learned, Horseclanfolk are most uninhibited; none of those two hundred will be a sheltered virgin, of that you may be assured. So yours should be a happy garrison for however long the siege lasts.”

  * * *

  And it had been as Martuhn had predicted. By the time Duke Tcharlz had realized that the nobles, gentry and farmers of the more northerly portions had no intention of responding in any numbers, by the time that some less than two hundred foot and horse had marched up from the south, thousands of the nomads were already within the confines of his duchy and their warriors could even be seen on the hills west of Pirates’ Folly. Nonetheless, being a stubborn man, he set out for Twocityport with his pitifully tiny force.

  Milo had ordered that none be slain unless necessary, and none were. Almost all the force finally made it to their set objective . . . afoot, which was the way that they had made most of the journey. On the second night out from Pirates’ Folly, a dozen of the great prairiecats had infiltrated the sentry patrols and stampeded the horses and mules. And each time more beasts were obtained from the free farmers and country gentry in any meaningful numbers, the same thing occurred despite stringent safeguards.

  For this reason, among many others, Duke Tcharlz was in a mood of exceeding foulness as he paced the horse he had borrowed from the upper city across the cleared area to a spot just opposite the gate on the far bank of the moat
.

  Raising the faceguard of his helmet, he roared, “Martuhn, lower the goddam bridge! I’ve got to talk to you.”

  Once again seated in the captain’s grim little ground-floor office, Tcharlz pulled off helmet and padded coif, ran the fingers of both hands through his short-cropped hair and whuffed a few times, then drained off the large flagon of beer his “host” had provided.

  “Martuhn, you disobeyed me. I told you the nomads were not to cross over here, and you let them anyway. Nobody obeys me anymore around this duchy! I called for a general muster and the only troops that ever showed up were this piss-poor lot from my home county. And no sooner were they on the march with me than those big panthers of the nomads drove off every head of riding stock.

  “I should be furious with you to the point of murder . . . and I am in a way. But, too, I’ve been tumbling an idea around in my old head and now it’s smoothed off into a sure-fire plan.

  “How do you think this nomad war chief would react to an outright gift from me to him of Traderstown to be a nomad duchy? In return, I would want some thousands of his warriors to add to my army . . . but for a very special purpose, mind you; they’re little use for set warfare.

  “As you know, for years, I’ve wanted to expand east along the Ohyoh, but other matters have always cropped up to take the gold that I’d need for enough troops to succeed. So what well do is turn those thousands of savages loose on the Duchy of Maryuhnburk and, when they’ve bled the bastards white, I’ll magnanimously offer my assistance to that young whippersnapper of a duke, Frehdrik. Once that duchy is safely annexed, we can do the same thing to another of our dear neighbors. I’ll be a king yet, Martuhn!”

  Martuhn sighed, knowing in advance that the duke was not going to like all that he now had to say. “Your grace, yes, I disobeyed you, and you know why. In that honor which you deride I could do none else. But also, you had dissolved our contract, so I truly owed you no service of any kind.

  “So far as your granting ownership of Traderstown to the Horseclansmen is concerned, I think me that Milo of Morai and the other chiefs would laugh you out of their camp should you make that offer. They already hold that entire duchy by right of arms, and I doubt not that they could continue to hold it in the same way . . . if they wanted lands and city. But they want neither, your grace. Nor will they ever serve you as mercenaries in your never-ending schemes to see a crown set upon your head.”