The Women and the Warlords Read online

  Lord Alagrace got the impression that Yen Olass was glad to leave with him.

  Lord Alagrace and Yen Olass argued all the way to the city of Gendormargensis. Yen Olass, for her part, was still upset because Lord Alagrace had earlier told the Ondrask that she had the power to fix the problem he had with Haveros and the horses.

  Lord Alagrace was furious at the solution Yen Olass had found. She had persuaded the Ondrask to tell his follower Chonjara to watch Haveros until he got the chance to destroy his enemy -- perhaps by challenging him to a duel.

  'I do not want any more duels!' said Lord Alagrace.

  'That,' said Yen Olass, 'is not my problem.’

  'Wrong,' said Lord Alagrace. 'I've been looking for you all day so you can help me to stop a duel.’

  'Is that so?' said Yen Olass. 'And who are the fighters?’

  'Lonth Denesk and Tonaganuk.’

  Lonth Denesk was the father of Volaine Persaga Haveros, the apostate Yarglat clansman who had been daring enough to steal horses which the Ondrask had dedicated for sacrifice. Tonaganuk was the father of Chonjara, the Ondrask's follower who had, all unknowingly, bought those horses and butchered them for his banquet.

  'Tell me,' said Yen Olass, 'how did the fathers come to be involved in the quarrel of the sons?’

  'It all started when I tried to solve our little problem

  'Yes,' said Yen Olass. 'I thought it might be something like that.’

  'There are women in Gendormargensis,' said Lord Alagrace, 'who have had their tongues torn out for less than that.’

  'The Sisterhood,' said Yen Olass tartly, 'would not approve of such damage to the Sisterhood's property.’

  She was reminding him that they were not master and slave. They were, if anything, partners in crime. Lord Alagrace sighed. When he had to work with flawed tools like Yen Olass, it made things very difficult. But then, everything was difficult these days.

  During the Blood Purge, in which the Yarglat had run amok in Gendormargensis and elsewhere, they had killed out almost the entire intellectual elite of the Collosnon Empire. The administration of the capital had gone into the hands of one of Khmar's cousins -- briefly. Lord Alagrace was still trying to repair the damage.

  'Tell me about the fight,' said Yen Olass. 'Are they going to use axes?’

  'They're not going to fight,' said Lord Alagrace. 'They're going to apologise to each other, then go back home and behave themselves.’

  'After they've hugged and kissed,' said Yen Olass, in one of the moments of whimsy which she usually hid from him.

  'If you can make them hug and kiss, then go ahead,' said Lord Alagrace. 'But first let me tell you the problem

  CHAPTER THREE

  Gendormargensis: capital of Collosnon Empire; military and administrative city situated on Yolantarath River, commanding strategic gap between Sarapine Ranges and Balardade Massif. Extensive fortifications and notable archives; centre of fur trade; famous for annual horse fair and river tournament; pop. (est. Khmar 18) 273,460.

  * * *

  In the eighteenth year of his reign, the Lord Emperor Khmar was absent from the city of Gendormargensis. Accompanied by his second son, Meddon, he was at war, forcing the command of the Collosnon Empire south to the shores of the Pale. Nevertheless, even though the Lord Emperor rode elsewhere, the customary intrigues of court life continued.

  Most secret and most scandalous of all those intrigues was the liaison between Volaine Persaga Haveros and the Princess Quenerain. By now, many people knew that Haveros had taken the Ondrask's horses, but few would have thought him rash enough to bed the Princess Quenerain.

  Haveros, a high-caste warrior and the hero of seven campaigns, was Lord Commander of the Imperial City, answering only to the Lawmaker Lord Alagrace during Khmar's absence. Haveros was a big man with a big-built appetite for food, laughter, song and bawdry. He was also a drinking man, with a drinker's broken-red veins in his battle-scarred face: but his alcoholic thirst had yet to destroy his virility.

  The Princess Quenerain, nineteen years old, and virginal more in deed than in thought, had pearl-smooth hands and milk-warm thighs. When she conspired with Haveros, her eyes did all the talking; before their first words kissed, they knew their destiny.

  And so it came to pass.

  While her father was at war in the south of the continent of Tameran, the Princess Quenerain lay with the warrior Haveros, offending against both law and custom.

  The princess had already been ordained as head of the Rite of Purification, which was important for both war and peace, as it served to absolve soldiers from war guilt; the dignity of the Rite demanded an unblemished virgin to oversee its rituals.

  But the Princess Quenerain did not think of this as she grappled with Haveros, her breathing flushed, his flesh defying gravity, lips closing, heat clenching, thighs thrusting, her hands clutching his rhythm home to hers.

  And afterwards, fever relapsing toward sleep, neither of these two drowsy and sated animals thought of anything in particular as they lay there, heat declining, pulse slackening, sweat cooling, vague disconnected images already prefiguring their dreams.

  This act of copulation was rash but not suicidal. The lovers had secured their privacy by choosing to fornicate within the confines of the Princess Quenerain's private quarters in Karling Drask, the War Archives complex; for contraceptive protection, Haveros had consented to wear a hand-tailored condom fashioned from a section of the intestines of a reindeer.

  And so they slept in peace, untroubled by any intimations of disaster; they both knew exactly what they could get away with -- or thought they did.

  Elsewhere, snuggled down under her dreamquilt, her body burdened by the encroaching weight of her cat Lefrey, Yen Olass Ampadara was already asleep. And dreaming. No man lay beside her, and no lover figured in her dreams; though she was now officially a virgin, as a child she had been gang-raped by a dozen of Khmar's soldiers, and had subsequently failed to develop romantic yearnings.

  Yen Olass was dreaming of a rabbit. This small, frightened animal lay mewling in the snow. It had ben skinned; thin purple veins obtruded from its rasp-raw flesh.

  Yen Olass dreamt that she cradled this hubbly little thing deep within her comfort, snuggled it down into the feather-warm quilting of her weather jacket, and soothed the air with a growing song which made the raw flesh renew its bonds with a pelt of luxuriant fur.

  Floating from dreamsleep toward wakefulness, Yen Olass imagined herself, for a moment, as Earthmother, healer of the hurts and pains of the universe, infinitely tender and unstintingly generous.

  Then she woke, and knew otherwise.

  Dawn.

  The Yolantarath River lay empty-wide outside the battlements of Gendormargensis. Sheer-frozen, as it had been since Winterblade, it lay beneath drifts of snow; the rising sun spiked both ice and snow with that blinding dazzle known, in Yarglat parlance, as 'caltrops'.

  Sentries guarding the walls of the Imperial City stamped their feet, and watched a few early-rising ice fishermen trooping onto the river to reopen holes which the night cold would have sealed.

  Engulfed in a warrior's embrace, the Princess Quenerain slept, dreaming of pumping honey.

  The warrior, Volaine Persaga Haveros, woke, and sniffed first the hair then the flesh of the woman who slept in his arms. Disentangling himself from her embrace, he dressed; he had no intention of washing on a morning as cold as this one. He armed himself, then left.

  The corridors of Karling Drask were utterely silent. Haveros strode along those deserted marble avenues, paying no attention to the mosaics which adorned the walls. He was thinking of all the things he had to do that morning. His father, Lonth Denesk, was due to fight Tonaganuk later that morning. The fight might spark off a clan battle within Gendormargensis. If that happened, Haveros wanted to win the war. Even now, his people would be assembling in the clan drillhall; Haveros would see that they were properly armed and instructed before the duel started.

  Haver
os wished Lord Alagrace had not involved his father in this business. What had the old fool been thinking of, calling Lonth Denesk and Tonaganuk together? He should have realized that was the worst possible thing he could have done. The old man was slipping.

  Haveros reached the exit, and departed from Karling Drask, scarcely acknowledging the salutes of the guards on duty there. The sun was bright, the sky high: it was a good day to die.

  * * *

  Alone in a frost-cold room, Yen Olass woke. There was someone outside the screen. 'Who is it?' she said.

  Was someone about to demand a reading? That would be unusual. While Yen Olass sometimes gave readings of other people living in tooth 44, most of them observed the conventions and made appointments well in advance. Nevertheless, while unusual, it would not be unprece^ dented; Yen Olass had no right to deny any patron at any hour of the day or night.

  Her visitor slipped round the screen, entering the room: it was only Nuana.

  'Where have you been?' said Nuana.

  'Molychosh,' said Yen Olass curtly, using the Eparget word which meant 'pasturing', and, by extension, denoted retirement or a holiday.

  'Sa?!' said Nuana, using the generalized expression for surprise and disbelief. 'An oracle, pasturing? Since when did the Sisterhood treat you so sweetly?’

  'What do you want?' said Yen Olass.

  Her voice was sharp. She had more than enough to cope with today, without being bothered by Nuana.

  'You know what I want.’

  'I haven't got it.’

  'You must get it!’

  'I don't for you or anyone.' said Yen Olass, stretching, allowing herself to luxuriate in the quilted warmth of her bed.

  'He beats me,' said Nuana. 'Because you don't get it, he beats me.’

  'Get out,' said Yen Olass.

  But Nuana Nanalako, a sun-dark Southsearcher woman, was not disposed of that easily.

  'He doesn't just beat me, either,' said Nuana.

  'You heard me,' said Yen Olass. 'Get out!’

  Her cat Lefrey, awakened by these female voices, stirred, stretched, then curled down deeper into the layered warmth of the featherbed dreamquilt.

  'You're the lucky one,' said Nuana, advancing. 'He gave you away. You never had to . . .’

  'What?’

  'He's a filthy old man,' said Nuana.

  Yen Olass got out of bed and stood on the stone floor in her sleep-shift, shivering in the biting morning chill.

  'You get out of here,' said Yen Olass, 'or I'll rip your face apart.’

  Yen Olass was bigger and stronger than Nuana. And she was angry. After being nagged by Nuana for half a season, Yen Olass had had enough. Unless Nuana retreated -- now! -- there would be a regular scratching match.

  Nuana, confronted by an angry and advancing oracle,

  broke and ran. They were both slaves, but if they were caught brawling, Nuana would be the one who went under the spikes. Even the high-born could not lay hands on an oracle with impunity. When Nuana had gone, Yen Olass stood trembling with anger.

  Not for the first time, Yen Olass wished she had a proper door which she could close and bolt against the world.

  * * *

  Elsewhere, the warrior Chonjara was already up and about. He had been sharpening a battle-axe. Now he tested the blade: and was satisfied.

  * * *

  Alone in her room, Yen Olass attended to her ablutions, then broke her fast with a barley-meal cake. All things considered, she would rather have been in her cave to the north, eking out a bare existence with pemican and milk curds.

  With breakfast over, Yen Olass settled her mind by meditation, contemplating the everspan slumber of the bubbles of light encapsulated in her piece of amber, which was one of the few beautiful things she owned.

  Her day was commanded by a single duty, which was to attend a duel at the Enskandalon Square. Seeking to disarm a possible conflict between Haveros and Chonjara, Lord Alagrace had banqueted the fathers of those two famous warriors, hoping that he could persuade the fathers to tell the sons to end their quarrel. Instead, the fathers had taken up that quarrel themselves, and were now preparing to fight to the death.

  Before combat, Yen Olass would give a reading for the fighters. This was no delicate matter of statecraft or high politics; she only had to provide two arrogant old men with an excuse to apologize to each other, and thus to evade the intolerable demands of honour.

  With her meditations finished, Yen Olass donned her outdoor clothes, tucked a rug under her arm and picked up her nordigin, the lacquered carrier box safeguarding her Casting Board and her 365 Indicators. Thus equipped, she made her way to the Enskandalon Square. She was the first to arrive: there was no other life in the square except for a few old women, dressed in black, who were sweeping away the snow on the far side of that empty expanse of white.

  Yen Olass had arrived very early, because that was her duty: the Sisterhood believed that an oracle should avoid the temptation of making a grand entrance, and accordingly ruled that an oracle should arrive first, wherever possible. She unfolded her rug of double-layer yaquern fur, and settled herself to wait.

  After a while, someone entered on the far side of the Enskandalon Square. Slowly, the figure trekked across the snow, eventually revealing itself as the text-master Eldegen Terzanagel. That worthy was dressed in grey furs; his hair was cropped short and dyed grey if it was not grey by nature; he wore a severely-disciplined short-cropped grey beard, and about his garments hung a rope of grey beads, a tuft of grey feathers and one skull, painted grey.

  'Is that you?' said Terzanagel.

  'Whom were you seeking?' said Yen Olass coldly.

  'So it's you,' said Terzanagel, her voice having confirmed an identity which had been put in doubt by snuggling furs and three wrap-around scarves. 'Did Nuana speak to you?’

  'Your whorebit slave intruded on my quarters this morning,' said Yen Olass. 'Send her again, and you'll get her back with her face torn off.’

  'Yen Olass,' said Terzanagel, managing to sound hurt. 'Why so fierce? Haven't I always done well by you?’

  In a sense, he had. When Yen Olass had arrived in Gendormargensis as part of the plunder from Monogail,

  Terzanagel had purchased her at auction. This wilful slavegirl had then resisted his advances -- to be precise, she had bitten his penis, drawing blood, and had punched him in the testicles. He could have had her skinned alive for that, and many men would have done so without hesitation; however, instead of taking revenge, he had donated her to the Sisterhood, and had paid for the five years of study at the Imperial School needed to equip her to be an oracle instead of just one of the Sisterhood's working slaves.

  However, Yen Olass had suffered badly when she had been initiated into the Sisterhood. Besides:

  'Anything you did was for your own purposes,' said Yen Olass.

  She knew very well that Terzanagel's lifetime ambition was to journey to the Stepping Stone Islands of the southern continent, Argan, so he could complete his research on the life and times of that famous poet of antiquity, Saba Yavendar. Nuana Nanalako came from that region, and Terzanagel, needing someone to teach him the local dialect, had spent two years and a lot of money acquiring that Southsearcher woman.

  Unfortunately for Terzanagel, the law forbade text-masters to leave Tameran; to fulfil his ambitions, he constantly sought favour and influence, ^nd his every act of good citizenship was calculated to further this quest. It was said that the Sisterhood could not be bribed; nevertheless, ambitious men did well to ingratiate themselves with that school of oracles.

  'Yen Olass, I'm not asking much. All I want is a map.’

  'Patience melts snow,' said Yen Olass, which was a local idiom meaning all things come to those who wait.

  Yen Olass, I don't have much time. I'm an old man.’

  'Tratz!' said Yen Olass, using a word meaning gelding's testicles -- or, to translate idiom into idiom, horse feathers.

  'I'm sixty years old!’


  'My great grandfather was ninety on the day he died -- and he died fighting. I saw.’

  Terzanagel obviously had more to say, but was silent, for someone else was approaching. Footsteps crunched over the snow behind Yen Olass; she did not move, but as the newcomer entered her field of vision she saw it was the Ondrask of Noth.

  Today, the high priest of the horse cult was dressed in his full ceremonial regalia. He wore animal skins garnished with a gaudy array of rainbow feathers, beads, skulls, miniature knives and obsidian arrowheads, and, even on a day like this, when the cold tended to subdue most smells, he stank generously. Today, the smell of rancid fat was dominant.