The women and the warlords coaaod-3 Read online

  As for the others…

  General Chonjara claimed to have broken into the Princess Quenerain's quarters in order to catch Haveros indulging himself with the supposedly virginal head of the Rite of Purification; Chonjara claimed to have been successful, and certainly both his targets had been naked when the subsequent fight had spilled out into the corridor.

  For her part, the princess claimed that Haveros had been manhandled into her room by Nan Nulador, and that Chonjara had raped her before Haveros managed to break free and come to her rescue. However, the time factor militated against this story; having attended a conference shortly before the fight, Chonjara could hardly have found time to do all he was charged with. The silks worn by the princess were undamaged, so they must have been removed from her body with care; at the time of the fight, Chonjara's lust had been confined by the constraints of half-armour, which took time to take off and put on again.

  Since Haveros, Chonjara and the Princess Quenerain were all high-born Yarglat, Lord Alagrace himself had to decide their fate. Only the Lawmaker could pass judgment on a high-born Yarglat. He did not want to avoid his duty – but his situation was impossible.

  Only a fool would have brought the Rite of Purification into question by laying charges against the Princess Quenerain – who was, besides, Khmar's daughter. Haveros was high in the favour of the Lord Emperor Khmar, who had made him Lord Commander of the Imperial City. Khmar did not love Chonjara so much – but Chonjara's protector was the Ondrask of Noth, who had more influence with Khmar than anyone else in the empire.

  What was Lord Alagrace to do?

  As a descendant of the High Houses of Sharla, the ancient enemies of the Yarglat, Lord Alagrace was hated by virtually everyone of any importance. The Blood Purge, which had claimed most of his friends and relations, had destroyed his power base. The Lord Emperor Khmar, finding that a competent bureaucrat was necessary to run a city of a quarter of a million people, had summoned Lord Alagrace out of his self-imposed exile in Ashmolea – but it remained to see whether Khmar would back Alagrace against a high-born Yarglat.

  Lord Alagrace consulted with Yen Olass, who gave him direct and honest advice, telling him to flee to Ashmolea. He refused. He had come to Gendormargensis because he knew he still had high standing with one person: Celadric. At the moment, Khmar's eldest son was powerless, but on Khmar's death Celadric would become emperor. If Lord Alagrace managed to survive that long, there was a good chance that he would become Celadric's chief minister, and would effectively end up running the Collosnon Empire.

  For such a prize, he was willing to gamble with his life. It was, besides, the only prize that would justify his life: the only prize that would justify his service to the emperor who had killed the people who were dearest to him. Granted control of the empire, Lord Alagrace could found a high civilisation in Tameran, and end the barbaric rule of the Yarglat.

  It was the last dream which remained to him.

  Lord Alagrace, in his wisdom, did as little as possible. He cautioned the Princess Quenerain to maintain her silence; he exiled Haveros and Chonjara to hunting lodges north and south of Gendormargensis; he assumed the title of Lord Commander of the Imperial City, and in his own name made all those administrative decisions which he had previously made for Haveros; he let it be known that he would not permit rumour or innuendo relating to the personnel of the Rite of Purification; he drafted a despatch to the Lord Emperor Khmar and sent it south on the long and difficult journey across the snowbound land.

  The reply came back in the spring, brought by boat to Gendormargensis which, as always, had been turned into an island when the thaw caused the river to flood.

  This was the reply:

  'Greetings, gaplax. The masters fight and the dogs are punished. Did you think you could silence rumour? You'd be the first. Half the army knows already. Give the dogs their show, Quenerain's head on the battlements, if you see fit. Are you Lawmaker? Are you even lord of your own lice? I can see you now, standing in your own shit, shivering. As I say. Write it down. Every word. Melish. That's all.’

  Lord Alagrace only had to read the message once to know it was, indisputably, a communication from the Lord Emperor Khmar. The obscenity at the beginning was definitely intended for him; that at the end might have been intended for him, or for the scribe taking dictation from the illiterate horse lord, or for both of them.

  A temperate ruler would have smoothed over the scandal by exiling Chonjara and Haveros to different parts of the empire. However, Khmar was obviously prepared to accept even the death of his daughter – and the destruction of the Rite of Purification, an institution which Khmar had never really liked. What had roused Khmar to fury was the fact that his Lawmaker had come running for help, instead of settling the matter himself.

  Lord Alagrace realized that he had been out of the company of the emperor for too long. Khmar had been raised by his grandmother, in the far north, far from the civilizing influences of Gendormargensis. He was as reckless as his grandfather Nol Umu, and had never learnt to prefer compromise to the joys of chaos.

  Now, at least, Lord Alagrace had a clear statement of Khmar's position. It seemed Khmar would back him to the hilt, whatever he decided to do. So who should he move against? Haveros or Chonjara? To strike a blow against Chonjara would be, indirectly, to strike a blow against the Ondrask. The more Lord Alagrace could diminish the Ondrask's prestige now, the easier it would be to get rid of him when Celadric came to power.

  By the next day, Lord Alagrace had given Chonjara an ultimatum: accept this judgment or die.

  The judgment was that General Chonjara should make public penance for slandering the Princess Quenerain. If Chonjara pleaded guilty to slander, that would do something to quell the rumours now abroad in the wide world. Chonjara deserved punishment in any case, for spying on the Princess Quenerain and intruding on her quarters in Karling Drask: Lord Alagrace did not look kindly upon such lavvbreaking, even in the name of vigilante justice.

  After an interview in which Lord Alagrace converted his own fears into anger – and Lord Alagrace, when angry, was a formidable force – Chonjara accepted his fate.

  The judgment was made public, and so, on a warm spring day when the floodwaters were receding, General Chonjara, his body stripped naked, presented himself at the Enskandalon Square, where a fully laden manure cart was waiting for him. There was also a large audience out to enjoy the fun.

  Chonjara, his face frozen, did not seem to hear the jeers and catcalls. Among the Yarglat, public nudity was taboo, yet Chonjara showed no shame; he carried himself with arrogance, if not with pride. His chest was matted with black hairs; Yen Olass, who would not have missed the occasion for anything, thought he looked rather like a bear. Since most of the game within easy riding of Gendormargensis had been killed out, she had never seen a bear, and this was one of the minor sorrows of her life.

  Chonjara turned to face Lord Alagrace.

  'My lord,' said Chonjara.

  His voice was flat, heavy, expressionless. Was he going to ask for a reading? Yen Olass, standing beside Lord Alagrace, had already been briefed, and had prepared a reading that would bring Chonjara more shame than any physical humiliation possibly could. Her reading began like this: 'A bear. A honey pot. Bear looks at the honeypot. Little bear. Can't have. Angry now…’

  She waited. She was ready.

  'I will remember this.’

  So spoke Chonjara. And that was all he said. He turned his back on them, and Yen Olass saw the muscles rippling under his skin. He was a strong man – yet once he shouldered the heavy yoke, even he had trouble in getting the manure cart to move. His procession through the city took half a day, and the worst part came when he went past the fishing wrorks.

  At the fishing works, young yerkels on the roof poured out a barrel of sluck, and down it came, a cascade of greasy water, floor scrapings, fish heads, disintegrating bits of flesh and bone, decayed rags and rotten sawdust. Chonjara walked on, like an animated stat
ue, his face immobile, his eyes fixed on horizons elsewhere.

  And Lord Alagrace, hearing of it – he had not followed the procession past its beginning – remembered Chonjara's words. And began practising his swordplay.

  CHAPTER SIX

  In the early days of spring, when the city of Gendormargensis was still talking about the public humiliation of General Chonjara, a patron asked Yen Olass Ampadara for a reading. The patron was Volaine Persaga Haveros.

  'I want to know my fate,' said Haveros.

  'I am not a fortune teller,' said Yen Olass.

  'But you will tell me what I want to know,' said Haveros, and laid before her a fragment of blue tile.

  Yen Olass knew exactly what it was. On taking the twenty-five tile map to the text-master Eldegen Terzanagel, she had found him excited, his face lit by the avid, shining greed of a newly married husband about to lay hands on his virgin (or, to be precise, his face had worn the expression Yen Olass imagined such a newly married husband might display). But when the carrier box had opened to reveal the wreckage inside, Terzanagel had been dismayed, then furious. Only six tiles had been broken, and only four were incomplete, but Terzanagel had made it seem like the end of the world. Yen Olass knew the shape and size of every missing piece – and saw them often in her dreams.

  So now, seeing this fragment, Yen Olass knew she was discovered. She looked at the broken bit of tile, then raised her eyes to find Haveros staring at her with an expression of… rage? Madness? She had seen that look before. What was it? Why had he not denounced her already as a thief, a spy, an enemy of the state? Considering that expression, Yen Olass admitted that she knew what it was: lust. Yet, unlike the text-master, Haveros was not the kind of man to lust after knowledge. What he wanted was…

  Yen Olass remembered Monogail. She remembered the soldiers. Their hands scrabbling over her body. The weight of their stinking breath. She could not speak. 'Well?' said Haveros.

  Yen Olass did the only thing she could do. She opened her carrier box and took out her Casting Board, slotting the two halves together. She took out the leather bag containing the 365 Indicators; she shook the bag then extracted sixteen tablets and laid them out on the Casting Board, placing four rows of four tablets in a foursquare design.

  'These are the quadrants of north, south, east and west,' said Yen Olass, endeavouring to impress Haveros with the mystery, for she was about to give a reading to try and save herself. 'In order, they are the quadrants of snow, sky, sun and moon, or, alternatively, stasis, change, action and thought.’

  She thought of telling him more, then saw his sardonic smile. Yen Olass looked down at the cool ivory tablets, each decorated with an exquisite pattern etched in black, blue, red or green. Even though she assigned no occult powers to this apparatus, his mockery still seemed tainted with sacrilege. Yen Olass looked at Haveros and said:

  'What's so funny?’

  'You look like…’

  He was amused. She could hear it in his voice.

  'Like what?' said Yen Olass, starting to get angry. 'What do I look like?’

  'As if you thought I was going to… to eat you. Or to do something I shouldn't. You don't think I'd touch you, do you?’

  It was too much to endure. The urbane, scornful amusement. Years of careful, diplomatic campaigning had allowed Yen Olass to make something of a life for herself, and now, with a tiny bit of broken pottery, this big ugly man was going to abolish her entire world. And – worse! – he mocked her for being proud enough to imagine that he might want to possess her. Carefully, Yen Olass raised one side of the Casting Board. The Indicators shuffled onto the floor. Haveros started to speak:

  'You can't get out of it-’

  Yen Olass picked up the Casting Board and hurled it at him. He ducked – too slow! The board clipped his head. As it spun away, Yen Olass snarled, her mouth locking open in something which was almost a scream. Haveros stared at her, then reached up gingerly and touched his head. He examined the blood on his fingers. Then smiled – and laughed.

  At that laugh, Yen Olass felt her resistance collapse. It was no good. Whatever she did. They were too strong, too sure of themselves. She could never hurt them. This was their city, and she was their slave. But, even in defeat, she would make no concessions. She would not beg. She would not plead. If he was here to bring her death sentence, she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her grovel at his feet.

  Haveros licked the blood from his fingers, then held up the little -bit of tile.

  'Where does this belong?’

  'I don't know.' said Yen Olass.

  'I saw what happened,' said Haveros.

  'So what did you see?’

  'Enough to make me think. What would an oracle steal? Plates from the kitchen of Karling Drask? Tiles from the roof? Wall panels from the bathroom in the Riverside Suite? By the time Lord Alagrace let me return to the city, I'd worked it out.’

  'Clever,' said Yen Olass, admitting nothing, even though she realized that she had already betrayed herself.

  Only the certainty of personal destruction could have set an oracle free to attack a warrior like Haveros; by her own actions, she had demonstrated her guilt, and condemned herself.

  'It has to be a text-master,' said Haveros. 'What has to be?’

  'No more games now,' said Haveros. 'I know which map has gone missing. The catalogue tells me it's an old, old map with inscriptions in the High Speech. Only a text-master would want a useless thing like that.’

  Texts in the High Speech of the wizards of Argan were not in fact without their uses, for the text-masters had spent the last ten years endeavouring to master that language so they would be able to serve as translators when the Collosnon Empire invaded Argan.

  'Why should I tell you?' said Yen Olass. 'It makes no difference to me.’

  'Why?' said Haveros. 'What do you think I'm here for? To bring you your death warrant? To amuse myself a little at your expense? No, it's not like that at all. Of course, it could be… but I'm sure we can reach an agreement.’

  'It's a trick,' said Yen Olass.

  And she was sure it was. Once Haveros knew which text-master had suborned her, he could complete his rehabilitation by denouncing her.

  'Listen,' said Haveros. 'Listen very carefully, and I'll explain in little little words that even a little mouse like you can understand.’

  Yen Olass, who was not little at all, swallowed the insult nevertheless, and listened. And began to understand.

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  Eldegen Terzanagel lived in Tangzkez Nesh in the purlieus of the Lutzuke tenament area, just to the east of the horse market. This was one of the oldest parts of Gendormargensis; the streets were narrow, noisome and unfashionable. Nevertheless, Terzanagel had made himself very comfortable; Yen Olass envied his ground floor quarters, for she often grew tired of climbing up and down the stairs in tooth 44, Moon Stallion Strait.

  Volaine Persaga Haveros came to Tangzkez Nesh disguised as a beggar. He had no aristocratic beauty to conceal. A little dirt, a lurch, a limp, a shrouding cowl, a mouthful of strong liquor to flush his breath, a mutter, the occasional obscenity – he was perfect. And when he reached the rendezvous, it took only a change of clothes, some clean water and some mintwash to refashion him in the image of love.

  The Princess Quenerain, on the other hand, arrived in a closed palanquin, a shabby equipage such as any moderately successful merchant household might have maintained. She came dressed in her finery – silks, perfumes, jewels and gold. When entering Tangzkez Nesh, the princess never said a word to Yen Olass – never acknowledged her existence.

  Yen Olass was always there, keeping watch with Nuana Nanalako. The text-master Eldegen Terzanagel, though he had allowed himself to be blackmailed into making his house available for this illicit liaison, always absented himself when the lovers arrived, leaving his slave girl to help the oracle keep watch.

  At first these two women attended to their guard duties with scrupulous care, expecting Gen
eral Chonjara to appear at any moment at the head of a squad of armed men. However, as the days went by their anxieties receded, and curiosity began to dominate fear. One day, Nuana showed Yen Olass a ventilation slit which overlooked the sleeping quarters and allowed them to watch and hear all that took place between Haveros and the Princess Quenerain.

  Soon, their guard duties became notional, and they amused themselves by spying on the trysting couple. They watched honey being applied to the most tender places, then licked off; they watched hands grappling with flesh and sweat; they watched two people becoming desperate, straining creatures, biting, groaning, moaning, writhing. Stifling giggles, they listened to the shameless dialogues of infatuation:

  'Son-son, is your little medi-vedi weary? Here, let me wake him up… what? Does that tickle? Come on, don't be… yes, he's a brave little soldier, isn't he?… oh, that's quite… ah…’

  'Does your little teni like that, Suggy?’

  'Oh yes, oh it's so… oh, it's slipped out. Oh, Son-son, it's so slippery… here, let me help you put it back in… ah, that's better… oh… push… oh… oh At which point it was standard for Nuana to open her mouth in an orgasmic 'O', thus threatening an immediate detonation of laughter, and forcing both voyeurs to withdraw to the cellar, where they could allow their mirth its free and unrestricted expression. Their laughter was not just a response to the human comedy: it was also a form of revenge. For these two women, who endured all the minor and major humiliations that slave status brought, there was something exquisite in the spectacle of this high-caste lord and his high-caste lady pawing each other's bodies, licking each other, sharing saliva, and first baby-talking then swearing and imploring as they struggled toward the brink of the apotheosis of friction.