The Patrimony Page 7

  With the worn, wire-wound hilt in his weak grip and the polished steel ball-pommel under his forearm, he smiled fleetingly and sighed. “An affectation, mayhap, but no man of my house has ever died without his steel in hand. Now, my last love please kiss me.”

  Giliahna’s lips had but barely touched his, when she felt the life leave his body.

  The state funeral was held only three days later, due to the unseasonable heat. Then Giliahna and the Principate Council ruled as regents until, a fortnight after his father’s entombment, Gy of Kuhmbuhluhn rode in from the north to claim his patrimony.

  Standing upon the steps of the palace to greet her returning stepson, Giliahna and the other councilors were all but deafened by the cheering of the folk who packed the narrow streets, hung out of windows and even clung to eaves and rooftops to catch a first glimpse of their new, young lord. Smiling, silver-scaled troopers of the principate horseguards and footguards gently pushed the crowds back to make way for the cavalcade with nudges of long, limber poles — Djylz had always forbidden the use of whips or polearms against his folk.

  Giliahna felt a cold chill course over every inch of her body when first her eyes took in the lead rider of the procession. The armor, though highly burnished, was plain and the helm concealed most of the face from her viewpoint, but that figure could be none other but Djylz — dead Djylz, whom she had seen buried beside his father in the great crypt beneath the Sword Altar. How he sat his horse, erect but relaxed, that was Djylz; the movements of the gloved hands, saluting the crowds and handling his reins, that was Djylz … it could be none other.

  But, at the foot of the steps, the illusion was dispelled. After dismounting from his tall destrier, the rider removed his helm to reveal a smooth-shaven face and head, both already scarred. Moving lightly in his heavy half armor, the warrior first rendered to Giliahna the homage due her — for until he was formally approved by the Council of Nobles and crowned in public ceremony, she was the reigning Princess of Kuhmbuhluhn.

  Kneeling on the step below her, Gy brought to his lips and kissed first the embroidered hem of her skirt, then that small hand on which the massive Ring of Kuhmbuhluhn fitted so loosely. That done, he arose and gathered her into his strong arms.

  Though his voice was not so deep as had been his father’s, it was every bit as warm and gentle. “Mother mine. Little mother Giliahna. It has been so long and I have so missed you.”

  Prince Gy II of Kuhmbuhluhn proved to need little of the guidance which Giliahna had promised. He slipped into his place and duties as easily as sword into sheath. The polish he had gained at the court of Pitzburk stood him in good stead. He knew and automatically assumed the proper procedures whether granting audience to ambassadors or sitting at judgment in the city court on a case of two merchants accusing each other of unfair competition.

  A truculent western noble, who had openly declared that what with the dry summer and the resultant damage to crops in the west he and his peers could not and would not render the usual taxes, was seen by Gy alone. Within an hour, he emerged, all smiles and praises of the young prince.

  When asked by Giliahna how he had so quickly wrought such a change, Gy had grinned. “The western harvest was poor, but not so poor as he would have had me believe. Even so, I agreed to accept a sixth, rather than a third, this year; then I appointed him my official surrogate to accept and forward the grain and silver.”

  Giliahna wrinkled her brow. “But, Gy, how can you be certain that such a man will deal honestly?”

  Gy’s grin widened. “Little mother, I’m sending some of my own clerks — to save him the trouble and expense of hiring such, of course — and if he tries to steal from my revenues, I’ll simply shorten him … by a head.”

  And Giliahna knew that the young man was perfectly capable of carrying out that threat, for when an especially predatory and ruthless band of cashiered Freefighters and assorted outlaws began to pray upon the trade road between Kuhmbuhluhnburk and Getzburk, the new prince mustered his horseguards and every resident or visiting nobleman and fostering who was not too old or too young, and sent gallopers to bear word to both the High Lords in Kehnooryos Atheenahs and to Duke Randee of Getzburk-York that he was campaigning to crush and extirpate the robbers and that he did not mean for borders to stop him.

  Old Count Looiz of Kohlzburk, who had soldiered for nearly twenty years before succeeding to his own inheritance and titles and now was Duke Randee’s marshal, met Gy just north of the border with an escort of heavily armed nobles.

  After polite greetings, the grizzled veteran got down to business. “Lord prince, Duke Randee is every bit as anxious to do in these scum as are you and he regrets that he cannot join you himself since he much valued the friendship of your late and much-lamented father. But the thrice-damned Iron King has been foraying in force across the northern border, and the duke is up there now with the bulk of our army.

  “When your message reached him, however, he bade me come and assist you as best I can. Lord prince, my gentlemen and I are at your command.”

  Mounted foresters and hunters of both realms quickly scouted out a large, sprawling forest camp, and after a long, cold, wet, supperless night, the force struck at dawn. More than twoscore bandits were slain or seriously wounded, which meant death too. A dozen and a half were captured more or less hale. A number of captives — mostly female and all much-abused — were freed, along with fourscore horses and mules and a fair quantity of assorted livestock. And there was considerable inanimate loot “liberated.”

  For all their disparity in numbers — there had been only an eighth as many Getzburkers as the southern force — Gy saw to a precise halving of the booty between the principate and the duchy. Even Count Looiz protested that his lord’s allotted share was too much, for all that he went about grinning like an opossum. But Gy was adamant, pointing out that the action had been fought on the duke’s land and that, as the camp had been situated in Getzburk, the duke could — in strict interpretation of law — claim it all, were he so minded.

  “Though, if he did,” Gy chuckled and clapped Count Looiz on the shoulder, “he’d have a war on his southern border, too.”

  Back in Kuhmbuhluhn, the prince formally tried his nine captives, found them all guilty of highway robbery, maiming, stock-stealing, rape, kidnapping, extortion of illegal ransoms, murder and numerous other offenses. After public torture and mutilation, all nine were hanged in slow nooses.

  But as to the other matter of which his father had bespoken Giliahna, Gy simply shrugged. “My princedom is at peace, I am not yet twenty and there is no urgency to assure the succession. In good time, I’ll wed and bed and sire.”

  When news of her father’s death reached the Principate of Kuhmbuhluhn and Giliahna broached her decision to journey to the duchy of her birth, possibly to not return to Kuhmbuhluhn, Gy and all the councilors tried mightily to dissuade her, but she was adamant and spoke to them in terms they could both comprehend and appreciate as the Middle Kingdoms noblemen they basically were, for all their principate’s nominal Confederation allegiance.

  “My Lord Gy, gentlemen, I must go back to Sanderz-Vawn on a matter of personal honor and of the honor of my house. A great injustice was done to me and my brother in years agone, and if he be unable or unwilling to go back, then it be my bounden duty to redress that wrong in the blood of those who perpetrated it. Your generous offers of lands and wealth make me feel truly humble in the light of the obvious love for me which impelled them, and please believe that the love I feel for Kuhmbuhluhn and for you all is no less in quantity or quality. But, noble gentlemen that you all are, you must recognize that satisfaction of this, my debt of honor, must come before other considerations.”

  The men grouped around the table nodded, one and all — in their minds blood debts took precedence over all else.

  Old Archduke Rohluhn scratched at his skimpy white hair. “How many troops will my lady require? And can she estimate for how long the service?”


  Before she could answer, Gy snapped, “Stop quibbling, uncle! Our lady is a Princess of Kuhmbuhluhn. She shall have at least one squadron of our horseguards — say, three hundred full-strength lances. And I’ll command them; this business will be settled in short order, I trow!”

  Giliahna repressed any trace of her mirth at his still-boyish enthusiasm, saying rather, “Lord prince, as you know, the High Lords permit organized bands of Freefighters to enter and leave the Confederation at will; but what do you think their reaction and that of the Prince of Karaleenos, in whose domains my home duchy lies, would be to an incursion of nearly one thousand household troops of Kuhmbuhluhn led by the reigning prince, himself?”

  The aged archduke and several other veteran councilors nodded, and Duke Djaikuhb of Rahbzburk said, “My lady is right, my prince. Before you’d got five leagues south of the border, you’d find yourself boxed in by Confederation dragoons. They’d politely ask your business, then they’d politely point out the decrees of the High Lords forbidding the maintenance or the movements of private armies save on the frontiers, then they’d politely escort you and your lances back to Kuhmbuhluhn and, in a month or so, a messenger would arrive from Kehnooryos Atheenahs with a politely couched reprimand.”

  And so, Giliahna left Kuhmbuhluhnburk with only a dozen horseguards and her immediate retainers, conveyed in two coaches and three wagons. Upon hearing that mere was a rumor that Duke Hwahltuh of Sanderz-Vawn had died of slow poisoning, Gy would not rest his entreaties until Giliahna agreed to include in her party a Zahrtohgah physician, one Master Fahreed, and his apprentice, Raheen.

  The prince and a large cavalcade accompanied the dowager princess as far as the border, and, during their last, solitary conversation, Gy took both her hands and looked down into her eyes. “My lady, you asked weeks agone if I loved any woman and I answered nay, but that is not true. I do love a woman. I love you and, did our laws not forbid such, you would be my wife, my princess — after all, I am less than five years your junior. But such can never be and I know it. Therefore, I charge you this: Send to me a sweet, loving maid like yourself, one who can come to love and comfort me as you loved and so comforted my dear father, and I vow to cherish her as I would have cherished you.”

  *

  Ahrkeethoheeks Bili of Morguhn had been as gracious and caring a host as she recalled from her childhood visits to the Hall of the Red Eagle, and such had been the attentions lavished upon her by his handsome eldest son, Djef Morguhn, that she had felt almost embarrassed, before her acutely perceptive half brother noted her discomfiture and found a convenient errand for his heir to ride forth upon. He then proved a veritable fount of information, all of which she found interesting, but it was not until they were closeted alone together within his grim little office at Morguhn Hall that he imparted the news which set her heart to pounding and raised tingling goose flesh on her body from head to toe.

  “At our last meeting before his … shall we say, untimely death, I promised your late sire that, when he died, I would dispatch word to your brother, Tim. You should know that he and I have kept in touch over these last years and that, through me — though Tim doesn’t know it — your late father’s gold reached him.

  “Please listen to what I say and believe it, Giliahna. Your father deeply regretted his hasty and ill-advised actions in sending you and Tim away, but by the time he recovered fully from whatever drugs those harpies — your stepmother and her damned tongue-sister — were dosing him with, the deed was irrevocably done. You were wedded and Tim, stubborn in his hurt and rage, refused to respond to what few letters Hwahltuh could sneak past those Ehleenee and out of his hall. For, understand you, Giliahna, your poor, ailing father was very close to a prisoner in his own duchy in his last years, spied upon when he was not actively guarded by his wife and her slut, his half-Ehleen brood and their adherents.

  “Giliahna, your father was born in a Horseclans yurt and was past middle age when he led his clan from the Sea of Grass. Your Horseclansman, fresh from the west, has an inordinate love for children, any children, but especially his own. You’d have to fully comprehend that fact to be aware of just how deeply your father hurt himself ten years ago. He was a proud man and strong, with more real guts than a whole tribe of mountain barbarians, yet many’s the time he has sat in that same chair and wept like a whipped child in his regret over banishing you and Tim.

  “Had he chosen to cleave to that thrice-damned perversion of a religion upon which Mehleena so dotes, he might have at least had the idiotic precepts of that faithless faith to console himself with. But Horseclansmen do not harbor this idiotic fear of interbreeding that the Ehleenee do; indeed, there is no such word as ahimomikseeah in all the Mehrikan dialects, though the High Lord Milo tells me that there was once such a word, centuries ago.

  “But, be that as it may, your father is gone to Wind, along with his sorrow. You are returned, and Tim soon will be.”

  Giliahna clasped her hands tightly to keep them from trembling. In a painfully tight voice, she asked, “When, brother, oh when?”

  The archduke smiled at what his uncommonly powerful mind could read in hers. “Two weeks, little sister, possibly three, depending upon road conditions. He’ll be bringing the Ruby Company, his condotta, down here with him. One of my men will make contact with him ere he crosses into Kehnooryos Ehlahs, delivering to him a pass from High Lord Milo countersigned by our own Prince Zenos. Once he’s here, of course, there’ll be no question about private troops, since Vawn is still considered a frontier duchy in some senses.”

  He paused to drain his cup and refill both his and hers. “But I tell you all this in strictest confidence, sister. Be damned careful which if any of your retainers you tell, and be certain that you breathe not a word of it once you are at Vawn, to anyone, mind you. Your brother, Ahl, already knows, but don’t even discuss it with him, either aloud or by mindspeak, for Tim has plans for Mehleena, her litter and her folk and t’were better that they not be forewarned.”

  Giliahna sipped her wine, “What sort of plans, Brother Bili?”

  Bili cracked his big knuckles all at once. “I’m sure he’ll confide them to you when arrive he does. But I don’t know any details, nor do I wish to know them, lest I forget my duty to my overlord, Prince Zenos, who is Mehleena’s cousin.”

  *

  Geros had told him where to find her. In the wide corridor outside that room which, long ago, had so often been their place of love, he enjoined Sergeant Rai. “Draw you up that chair, old friend. Allow no one to pass into these chambers without my leave.”

  In the sitting room, he surprised a small, delicate-looking Zahrtohgan girl brewing a spicy tea, the exciting fragrance of which filled the chamber. “My lord,” she began, “my lady is not yet arisen and she …” Then a tiny, brown-skinned hand flew to her dark lips and her soft brown eyes widened perceptibly. Smiling secretively, she shyly inquired, “You, then … my lord is my lady’s brother? The Duke Tim?”

  At his nod, the girl’s smile widened, despite the tears coursing copiously down her dusky cheeks. “Oh … oh, my lord, oh, oh, my lady … so very happy she will be …”

  Giliahna half-heard the chamber door open and half-knew that she should at least sit up and greet the sweet, faithful Widahd, but the other half of her was lost in erotically pleasant reveries of lying here, upon this very bed with Tim … so very long ago. Almost could she still feel his sweet lips pressing upon her own, almost feel his hands upon her shoulders, almost … The lips had withdrawn, but there was still a warm hand upon her shoulder, and so reluctantly, she opened her eyes.

  Chapter IX

  “Mother, dear?” Ahl’s voice contained a larger than usual note of mockery and he fixed his blind eyes directly upon his stepmother.

  Mehleena squirmed inwardly and her rage rose in proportion. She could not bear it when Ahl skewered her with those sightless eyes that seemed to be staring directly into her very soul. But before her rage could burst out in words, he had continue
d.

  “Mother, dear, it were best that you have one of the carpenters reinforce another chair if you intend to dine with the rest of the family in future. In their present condition, I fear, any one of the less massive chairs would splinter under your lard-sow weight.” The blind man smiled broadly and Lady Mairee chuckled throatily, adding unneeded fuel to stoke the fires of Mehleena’s boiling anger.

  But such was the fat woman’s ire that no words would come, only screams, hisses and stuttering. Ahl and Lady Mairee observed her briefly, then the tall man arose, extending his arm to the tiny young woman. “My lady, it is time we departed. This will be a very full day, I feel it.”

  To his sorrow, Myron, too, arose at that moment. With all the force of her rage, Mehleena spun on her broad rump and sank her fist into his midsection, the pointy little knuckles penetrating the vee below the ribs, driving the air from his lungs and his just-eaten breakfast up into his throat.

  While the unhappy young man gasped and choked, dribbling gobbets of chewed food and turning purple, Ahl never lost his sardonic smile. Shaking his head slowly, he said, “My, such fierce maternal affection. Wind be thanked that our dear mother does not treat me to her love taps. Little bumboy, you had best whack your lover on the back a few times, he appears to be strangling.” Then, both of them chuckling, he and his lady made their slow, stately way down the length of the dining chamber and out of sight, leaving Ahl’s stepbrother in his suffering and Ahl’s stepmother still hissing and spluttering in her impotent rage.

  *

  The White Hawk coverlet had long since been kicked off the foot of the bed onto the floor, but not because of the fire on the hearth. The heat of two long-suppressed passions, finally commingled, had rendered the room hot as a smithy for a while. Now the evaporation of their love sweat was cooling them and Giliahna had straightened a wadded linen sheet enough to cover their wet bodies.

  Raising herself on one elbow, she looked down upon the face of Tim, her brother, her first lover, now once more returned to her. “I never stopped loving him,” she thought. “Yes, I loved Djylz, too, but … but it was a different kind of love; Djylz was my husband, my dearest friend, my companion, but he was never” — her brow wrinkled in concentration — “was never part of me, was never and could never have been what Tim is to me. It is as if all those long years something was gone, something was missing, I was but a shell of myself. And now, Tim has refilled that shell, has made me again complete. Oh, Tim, Tim, my dear dear brother; Sun and Wind, how I love you!”