Champion of the Last Battle

VII

Behkah, though she of course yearned to be back with her man, was of the opinion that she might have fared much worse than she had since these Skohshuns had captured her, wounded and helpless, on the battlefield. Once recovered of her hurts, she had been kept fettered and under day—and-night guard in one small tent, while the captured Kuhmbuhluhners were housed in another close by. But she had been adequately fed, visited daily by one of the surgeons and encouraged to walk under guard as much as she wished. But she had not been raped yet, or afforded any ill treatment, save by a white-haired old man who had slapped her face a few times before her act had convinced him that she did not speak any Mehrikan at all.

Nor did her fellow captives seem to have been ill used in any way, though of course she could not speak to them, not without giving away her linguistic deception.

She had heard her guards discussing the possibility of captives who had been taken earlier being brought to the encampment and housed with her and the rest, but that had not come to pass by the time the entire Skohshun army—prisoners included—took to the road and marched on New Kuhmbuhluhnburk.

As amazed as Behkah had been at the neatness and orderliness of the first encampment she had seen of these Skohshuns, she was no less amazed at how fast the encampment before the walls of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk went up. Within less than one full day, the fosse was dug out, the rampart raised and the tents pitched in serried rows, the prison tents too, near to the center of the rectangular camp.

The prison routine recommenced for her and the others, and on her walks about the bustling encampment, she often looked up at the burk, straining her eyes vainly, wondering if one of those tiny figures on the battlements of the walls was her dear Frehd, wondering if ever he thought of her or if he now mourned her as dead.

On the march and here in this new camp the Skohshuns had not borne their heavy, unwieldy, overlong pikes; rather had they been carried, in bundles of several hundred and carefully wrapped against rain or dampness, in long, narrow, stake-bed carts. Officers and pikemen alike all wore their swords and dirks, naturally, but unless going out to forage, few bore polearms of any description, she noted, though stacks of them were scattered about ready to hand when and if needed. Nor, with the exception of helmets, was armor much in evidence, again save that worn by woodcutters and foragers leaving the encampment.

After the first few days, Behkah gave over trying to keep count of the numbers of felled trees dragged across the plain and into camp by teams of horses, mules and huge plodding oxen. Once topped, tall, straight trunks were set deeply into the packed earth inside the fosse, just far enough apart to force an attacker to squeeze through sideways; short or crooked trunks were quickly rendered into faggots for the cooking or watch fires, or shaped into double-pointed stakes and set into the floor of the fosse to impede attackers.

Nor were even the smallest branches allowed to go to waste, she noted wonderingly. Of the nights, with little or no light, the skillful fingers of pikemen wove them into latticework fences to enclose the horse lines, officers’ tents and latrines, even one for the area around the tents of the prisoners. They also fashioned smaller-mesh frames to hold conifer tops and tips over which to spread their cloaks or blankets. She and the other prisoners were provided with these camp beds, as well.

Then, early one morning, still another foraging party set out with their wagons, but it was not yet midday when they returned, all wreathed in happy smiles, three of the wagons creaking under, the teams groaning with the weight of, barrel after barrel of some liquid, all of which were off-loaded at the supply area.

The young surgeon, who had faithfully called each day since their capture on her and the imprisoned Kuhmbuhluhners, failed to come for almost a week, and when he finally did arrive, he looked tired and drawn with care and worry. Behkah overheard him telling the other prisoners that half or more of the camp had suddenly come down with a violent, painful and debilitating flux of the bowels. The senior surgeon, he had gone on to say, feared an onset of the dreaded camp fever and was taking such precautions as he could—insisting that all potable water be briskly boiled, among other expedients, and recommending that the other ranks be afforded extra rations of beer until new sources of water could be found, especially since the discovery of a considerable quantity of large barrels of beer hidden away by some nameless New Kuhmbuhluhner farmer had swollen the beer supply appreciably.

When they came out onto the plain before the besieged city, Dr. Erica Arenstein breathed a sigh of utter relief. She had done a goodly amount of walking and hiking in this current body before the Skohshuns had captured her and a fairish amount since, curiously exploring the glen, under guard. So the march down from the glen to the siege camp, executed as it had been at the best steady pace the draft oxen could be prevailed upon to maintain, had been little exertion to her.

But to her entourage of Ganiks, who had seldom in their adult lives walked any farther than the nearest pony or horse, the march had constituted a form of slow torture. Only when kicks and blows, cuts of stockwhips and ungentle proddings with polearms failed to elicit a response of some sort was a fallen prisoner ever grudgingly tumbled onto the load of a wagon or a wain.

Nor was the simple fact of unaccustomed exercise the only or the worst problem undergone by the Ganik bullies. All of their boots had been taken in raids or after ambushes or battles, and consequently most were more or less ill fitting. Moreover, they were all horsemen’s boots, poorly suited for long-distance marching, nor had the primitive Ganiks ever used any sort of stocking or foot wrappings. Before the first day of the march was half done, their feet were become one excruciating mass of blisters, burst blisters and oozing sores. By the nightfall halt, even the strongest of the bullies were gasping, or crying out in pain at every limping pace, their lacerated feet squishing audibly in quantities of their own blood.

After she and the handful of Kuhmbuhluhn prisoners taken after the battle of the previous year had done the little of which they were capable for the suffering men—bathing their feet with a mixture of vinegar and water, then putting them to soak in such containers as were available filled with more water laced with more vinegar and some salt—Erica stalked across the camp to confront the officer commanding this column, with whom she had had some harsh words earlier in the day.

Supply and reinforcement trains were mostly commanded by a sergeant, an ensign, a lieutenant, perhaps larger or more important ones by as much as a captain, but Colonel Potter was a colonel and a regimental commander, as well as a blood relation of the earl. The soldier gossip was that his present assignment was a form of punishment for some misdeed or other. Erica could well believe that rumor, for from her first meeting with the pompous, bandy-legged little officer, she had found him possessed of all the charm and human warmth of a bull alligator combined with the patience of a rattlesnake with a toothache.

This dusk, she found him dining with the only other two officers in this column, a junior surgeon—his rank roughly the equivalent of a captain—from the glen reserves, and the boy ensign “commanding” the three hundred reserve pikemen being marched up to fill out the ranks.

An orderly at first halted Erica, but a snarled word and a wave of one of Potter’s greasy hands saw her passed to stop before his improvised dining table. There was a wicker-covered demijohn beside the colonel’s stool, and his ill-coordinated movements and slightly slurred speech told the woman what that demijohn likely contained.

“Well,” he smiled coldly, “gentlemen, we are honored with a visit from our female-sawbones prisoner, with her overbig mouth and her loose, flapping tongue.”

Then, to Erica, “What sort of outrageous demands and stipulations did you come to present me this time, woman? Chilled wine and rare roast beef, is it? Or perhaps feather beds for you and your unsavory crew for the night?” He laughed humorlessly, but Erica noticed that neither of the other two officers joined him—the teenaged ensign industriously applied all of his efforts and attention to his dish of boiled pork and potatoes, while the surgeon fiddled with his cup and looked embarrassed.

“No, colonel, the rations are adequate of quality and ample of quantity,” Erica answered quietly and seriously. “But I must inform you, I fear, that none of my men will be capable of marching for at least a week. So badly are their feet injured that they will certainly be too swollen in the morning for them to get into their boots.”

“Oh, really? How truly dreadful,” said Potter mockingly.

Realizing in advance that appeal to this sarcastic little man was pointless, Erica still felt that she must go on the record with her objections. She had told it all to Potter, alone, earlier in the past day, but now these other officers could bear witness.

“Yes, colonel, as I mentioned this midday, the boots of my men were fashioned for riding, not for extensive walking. Moreover, they are unaccustomed to marching, having spent most of their lives in a saddle. Besides, Brigadier Maklarin’s message said that we were to be ‘conveyed’ to him, as I recall.”

His narrow, pockmarked face twisted in anger, a feral gleam in his beady eyes, the colonel leaned across the table, heedless of the cup he overturned. “Can’t march, hey? Can’t get their poxy boots on, you say? Well, by God they can march without boots, barefoot, damn them! And any one of them not on his feet when I pass through in the morning will never need to worry about marching or anything else again, not in this life! D’you get my meaning, you insufferable sow? Conveyed, indeed! It’s more than enough that a wain had to be put to carrying your ratty gear and a tent. I’m damned if I’ll waste more wheeled transport on so scurvy a lot as yours!

“Now, get out of my sight and leave us to eat our dinner in peace. Female or no female, if you intrude on me again, come to me without my summons, I’ll have you stripped and well striped, woman!”

Much later, well after darkness had closed about the camp, the junior surgeon appeared with two other Skohshuns outside the tent into which Erica and all the rest were crowded. One of the Skohshuns bore a lantern, and by its dim and flaring light the young man cursorily examined the feet of the Ganiks. In his wake came the third Skohshun, bearing a wooden tub from which he scooped large handsful of some strong-smelling, greasy unguent with which he liberally coated the Ganiks’ feet. Then the surgeon took the lantern while the first man swathed each foot carefully in a square of clean linen cloth.

Beckoning Erica outside, the surgeon said, “Doctor, back in the glen, I never had the time to come and meet you, but I have heard much good of you, of the unsolicited medical work you did for our people, the new and most successful techniques you introduced. For this, if for no other reason, I deeply regret the shabby way in which Colonel Potter is misusing you and your followers. But, alas, nothing that I can say will in any way sway the man, now. When once we reach the siege camp, well, that will be another pot of beans.

“He ...” The Skohshun surgeon looked about before going on in a lower-pitched, conspiratorial voice. “Three large wagons and one wain were assigned to transport all you prisoners and your effects, as well as supplies for you for the trip, to include two tents of this size and a smaller one for you alone. I know this order for fact because my own orders followed on that same sheet, all signed by the brigadier’s adjutant.

“Now the proper numbers of vehicles are in this column, so I can but assume that the colonel found some other loads to fill those wagonbeds that were to convey you and the men. Whatever those loads, they’re obviously something he’s damned edgy over. Hell, maybe it’s all whiskey, for the man’s been drinking steadily all the day long, and he’s still at it this night.

“But drunk or sober, Potter is no whit less dangerous, doctor. Those pikemen and that child officer will obey him blindly, will maim or kill all of you, if he says the word. That’s the inbred discipline of our people and our army, for he’s a colonel and his mother was a Devernee. So please do nothing to provoke Colonel Potter, I beseech you.

“I agree with you, with your prognosis. Those men will not be able to don their boots tomorrow. My assistants have gone back to the main camp, and when they return they will have a quantity of rawhides and leather lacings with which to fashion rough brogans for your followers. Tomorrow night, I’ll have them bring enough woolen foot wrappings for all of your men. Their boots can be carried in the wain. But they must march, doctor, one way or the other, for now that that evil little man has publicly stated the intention, he will kill or have others kill every one of your men who is not on his feet on the road at dawn.

“But he will suffer soon enough for these misdeeds, doctor. You have the sworn word of a Devernee on that.”

Then he disappeared into the surrounding darkness.

Jay Corbett found the Dr. Harry Braun who was coptered up to join him with the special weapons and his replacement military commander, Colonel MacBride, a Broomtown man of late middle age, a far cry from the arrogant elitist he once had been. The body was different, naturally, but Corbett and all the other original Center people had long since grown accustomed to seeing their colleagues in new bodies. Under the best of circumstances, they had to transfer into new, young bodies on an average of every twenty-five years.

No, it was not the new body; Braun’s entire bearing and personality seemed to have altered quite perceptibly. For all of the muscular grace, the youth and radiant health of that handsome new body, Braun’s eyes seemed to hold fear, terror, really, and the memory of long-drawn-out agony. His arrogance was become courtesy to the point of diffidence, and this courtesy seemed to extend to everyone, even the Broomtown men and old Johnny, whom he formerly had patronized in even his best moods.

When this new and very different Dr. Harry Braun tried to thank Corbett for persuading the vindictive David Sternheimer to release him from the torturous imprisonment in that suffering, slowly dying body, he began to weep and, in the end, could only gasp “Thank you” over and over again between shuddering sobs. Embarrassed at the display of—in his mind, unmanly—emotion, Corbett left the tent as soon as he decently could, thankful that none of his men had witnessed it, giving as excuse the many and most urgent matters to be discussed in a very circumscribed time with Colonel MacBride, which was all true enough.

Pat MacBride, at least, was unchanged, still being the same man that duty and Corbett had long ago shaped. Not too different from what his father had been, and his grandfather before, thought Corbett. Jay had trained and worked closely with all of them, as well as with still more ancient MacBrides who preceded them, for Pat was the fifth generation of MacBrides who had soldiered for Broomtown and the Center. Nor was he the last, for his eldest son, Rory, was a captain in Gumpner’s regiment, two of his younger sons were sergeants and his youngest was presently in the training unit at Broomtown Base.

When he returned to his tent, it was to find the grizzled, prematurely gray officer, a cold pipe clenched between yellow teeth, studying Corbett’s handwritten list of the personnel and equipment for the northbound expeditionary force which he was calling Operation Erica.

Looking up at Corbett from beneath brows still coal-black, the big-boned man asked bluntly, “Why no long- or intermediate-range transceivers, sir? Those handhelds will be useless for anything more than twenty miles away, even the new type.”

Corbett shrugged and sank onto his cot, the only other place to sit in the spartanly furnished tent. “For what purpose, Pat? We’re going to be burdened with a long enough mule train, as matters stand—the heavy weapons and their ammo, extra ammo for the rifles and the grenade launchers, rations, grain for the animals, medical supplies, those explosives and pyrotechnics, and so on. I just cannot see burdening another mule or two ponies with one of the big transceivers.”

“But what if you get into big trouble, sir?” MacBride continued. “Admittedly, your reinforced company has the firepower of a battalion, or better, but you still could run onto more than even that could handle. You’ve always told officer trainees to keep at least one ace up the sleeve. Where’s yours, sir?”

Corbett grinned wolfishly. “Throwing my own words back at me, eh, Pat? Well, never you worry, old friend, my aces are in place when needed, and you and this contingent down here are not one of them.

“Your orders, as I said back down the trail, are simple and direct to the point: retrieve every bit of material you can of those buried packloads, repack them and get them started south to Broomtown with a reasonable guard under command of a reliable officer of your choice, with Dr. Schiepficker as a supernumerary.”

“You and the remainder of the troops are to stay up here with Harry Braun for a maximum time of three months. If I’m not back by then, I won’t be, ever.

“As regards Dr. Braun, he seems a changed man, but I am disinclined to accept him at face value. Watch him carefully. If he should snap back into his bad old ways, just recall that he has no authority of any description. You are the sole commander of this operation in my absence. Dr. Braun’s only function is that of explosives expert, aside from the fact that he and Dr. Schiepficker are expected to aid in evaluation of devices and parts for them that you get from under those rocks. If he causes you too much trouble, you’ll have written authority from me to either confine him or to shoot and kill him. Okay? And don’t worry about what the Council might say about it, Pat. David Sternheimer hates the doctor’s guts. If you have any personal qualms, just recall how Braun cold-bloodedly murdered Cabell, last year. He was a nephew of yours, wasn’t he?”

MacBride just nodded, his lips set in a grim line, a steely glint in the depths of his brown eyes.

Corbett went on, “I mentioned in passing those long, wormlike things. Well, Schiepficker’s principal reason for being up here is to study them, so cooperate with him insofar as you can, without getting any men hurt or killed in the process. If he tells you he’s got to have one alive, tell him where to go and precisely what to do with himself when he gets there. There is simply no way that that could be done safely. Those creatures are strong, incredibly hard to kill, and as vicious as a rabid wolf; their jaws easily lop off fingers and toes and their bite is invariably septic. Oh, and don’t get any of that slimy mucus they’re covered with in your eyes, either; it seems akin to the secretions of poison toads.

“Well, Pat.” Corbett stood up. “You might as well have your gear brought into this tent. It’s where you’ll be living in my absence. My force will be moving fast and as lightly as is possible, all things considered, so a tent and a camp bed will be luxuries I can’t afford. There’s room enough for us both to sack in here tonight. Gumpner and the force and I’ll be off at dawn.”

More than a month before that morning when General Jay Corbett led his force out of the camp by the landslide, another, considerably larger mounted force had crossed the ill-defined border from the southernmost reaches of the Ahrmehnee stahn into the unmapped, unknown and sinister lands to the west. This column was as heterogeneous as was the condotta of Bili of Morguhn. Middle Kingdoms Freefighters rode with petty nobility of the Confederation, with fierce Ahrmehnee warriors on their bred-up mountain ponies, with Maidens of the Silver Lady in their antique-pattern armor.

The Maidens were led by a woman who had been one of the missing brahbehrnuh’s lieutenants, one Rehvkah, who bore the scars of the serious wounds she had taken during the great battle against the Muhkohee on the Tongue of Soormehlyuhn. The Freefighters followed two renowned officers of their own ilk, Captains Djeri Guhntuh and Pawl Raikuh, this last him who had commanded the famous Morguhn Company of Freefighters throughout the hotly fought campaigns in the duchies of Vawn and Morguhn, then into the bitter invasion of the southern portions of the Ahrmehnee stahn.

Because the dehrehbeh of the Behdrozyuhn Tribe of the Ahrmehnee had been at long last persuaded to stay at home and restore order and prosperity to his twice-invaded, twice-shattered, extensively fought-over tribal lands, those of his tribesmen who rode with this column and the several hundred Ahrmehnee warriors from other tribes had chosen several of the more experienced and famous of their number to act as the Ahrmehnee lieutenants for him who was leader of the entire column.

Two knights rode in the lead, followed closely by their bannermen and attendants, who led the sumpter mules which bore their arms and armor. They jogged along side by side, the elder forking an iron-gray gelding spotted on the rump with darker gray, the younger on a big red-bay mare. They were engaged in the very same argument that had occupied them from almost the moment they and their two units had joined at the Behdrozyuhn village nearly a week agone.

“And I says horse turds, Sir Geros!” growled the elder from the deep chest of his big-boned, thick-shouldered, rolling-muscled body. “Don’t matter diddly what kinda he-cow thang thet Pitzburker hung awn me, I’m jest whut I alius was: Big Djim Bohluh, the meanest, drinkin’est, cussin’est, fightin’est, fuckin’est soljuh the Army of the Confederation evuh had an—”

“Yes, you see, Sir Djim,” the younger, slenderer, flat-muscled man put in eagerly, “that’s just what I mean. You are an experienced soldier, a veteran of many years with the army. You know what orders to give and just when and how to give them. Me, I needs must be watched over and prompted by Pawl Raikuh, else I often would be lost in matters of a military nature; but you, now, you would know it all. That’s why I think you should be the paramount leader of this force, not I. Why can’t you agree?”

“And I’ll say ’er one more time, Sir Geros, suh,” Sir Djim said tiredly, a touch of exasperation in his voice. “I wuz a damn good sergeant ... when I won’t drunk, I means. But I won’t never no of’ser, dint never wawnt to be one, won’t be one, now, neethuh. You say you younger nor me? Wal, the las’ ten, fifteen years I’s in the Reg’lars, ever dang of’ser I had ovah me was younger nor me, so you won’t be gettin’ no cherry, see.

“As for not knowin’ whatall to say or whin to say ’er, shitfire, man, you got all you need in thet Raikuh. Of’sers don’t give orders, mostly, Sir Geros, they tells they sergeants whatall they wawnts done and the sergeants gives the troops the friggin’ orders, thet’s SOP in eny dang army. If they good of’sers, they watches and listens and learns from they sergeants, thet’s the way it alius been.

“You wants me to be one your sergeants, I’ll do ’er, Sir Geros, and happy as a hawg in shit, but I ain’t gonna take ovuh runnin’ thishere hashup, and you wastin’ Sacred Wind tryin’ to tawk me into it.”

Farther back in the column, two other men rode side by side. These two were about of an age—a bit younger than Sir Djim, but considerably older than Sir Geros. They were alike too in other ways, some easily visible, others far less so. Both were Middle Kingdoms-born—though one was base and one of noble antecedents. Both had begun their soldiering as common troopers and clawed their way to command positions in the best tradition of their violent calling. Both had had the experience of fighting through the rebellion which had begun in Morguhn and ended in Vawn, then had served in the campaign against the Ahrmehnee which had followed hard on the heels of that rebellion.

The words of old Sir Djim, often nearly shouted, had drifted back to where Raikuh and Guhntuh rode. Guhntuh shook his head, saying, “Pawl, if you have the influence you seem to have over Sir Geros, for love of Steel, ask him to lay off Sir Djim and resume his command. That old man has stated nothing less than the unadorned truth, by his lights, and no argument by Sir Geros is going to change his mind.

“Archduke Hahfos of Djohnz privily informed me that Sir Djim is at least sixty years old, possibly half a score more than that—no one save him really knows, it seems.”

Raikuh grinned. “Yes, I remember that story. Whilst Bohluh was a staff NCO with the Confederation Army headquarters at Goohm, he so ‘doctored’ the records as to slice fifteen to twenty years off his official age. Had he not been a Golden Cat man and thus easily remembered by the Undying High Lord Milo, he’d most likely have gotten clean away with it, too, and died in the ranks of old age.”

“Well,” stated Guhntuh, “I’ll say this truth to anyone who wants to know it: For a man of such advanced age, he is without question the strongest, most active and supple, most personally pugnacious oldster I’ve ever run across. He can fence my top weapons master into the ground with almost any weapon you care to name, and can and will drink you, me or anybody else under the table. He knows curses I’ve never heard and can curse for a good hour without repeating himself once. While I’ve never seen him really fight—”

“I have,” remarked Raikuh, nodding. “He was seconded to my Morguhn Company just before we stormed those undermined salients outside Vawnpolis, and for want of time to think of another posting for him, I assigned him to help to guard the then-bannerman, Sir Geros, at that time a sergeant. I recall only bits and snatches of that action, of course. After all, I was fighting, too. But my recollections of him were of cool, almost detached precision of a near-mechanical nature in his strokes and parries and thrusts with that broad, heavy shortsword, even while he used that big, wide shield to protect not himself but Sir Geros. He sustained some near-fatal hurts that day, and when he was wagoned back into the Duchy of Morguhn, I assumed I’d seen the last of him. Steel, but he must be tough, all whipcord and boiled leather!”

The other captain briefly showed an expanse of gapped, yellowed teeth. “He is that, right enough, colleague; belike the tens of thousands of gallons of spirits and ale and beer and wine he’s imbibed over the years have pickled him to the consistency of campaign pork, and it takes a good man to cut a chunk of that stuff with a razor-edged poleaxe. Moreover, for a gentleman of later years, Sir Djim has got a better nose for scenting out easy women than far many a younger man. He found at least one in every Ahrmehnee village we rode through on our way down here; swived them all right and proper, too, or so I’m told. The old boar even got into one of the three Moon Maidens what rode down with us, if you can credit trooper rumors, and the way their captain, that Rehvkah, looks at him sometimes, when she figgers nobody be watching her ... ? Well, it leads a man to wonder why is all.”

“I’d keep a locked jaw on that, were I you,” warned Raikuh. “I’ve seen Moon Maidens fight, too, and every one of them is much younger and much faster than either you or me, friend.”

Guhntuh shrugged. “If that should ever come to pass, I’ll take my chances. I fear no mannish woman, no matter how fast or young. But the rumor I mentioned is none of my business, either, true enough. But I’ve had damnall success with the few convalescing Maidens who were at the Taishyuhn village over the last year or so; I’d come to the conclusion that they all were man-hating lesbians.”

Raikuh’s head bobbed once in the affirmative. “Most seem of that peculiar persuasion, Djeri, but a few seem more normal. There is one of whom I can think that I know would tumble with Sir Geros did he but slightly crook one finger ... but he hasn’t, to date. Nor do I think he’s bedded any of those hot-blooded Ahrmehnee girls who’ve been panting after him for so long. You know, sometimes I wonder and worry about him.”

Guhntuh grinned slyly. “Lahvoheetos? That’s Ehleen, ain’t it, Pawl? You know what lotsa them Ehleenees is like. Mebbe he’s just pining for a little boy’s bottom?”

“I think not,” said Raikuh in a tone that brooked no demur. “Before he was ennobled, Sir Geros and I were as close as two brothers. Were he bent in that direction, I would’ve known it long ago.”

“Mayhap his passion is war, fighting, killing,” suggested Guhntuh. “I’ve known men who would rather kill, see lifeblood flow out, than eat, drink, sleep or screw.”

Again Raikuh shook his head. “Not our Sir Geros. He’s at the base a very gentle man. He only turned to Steel when it became obvious to him that he’d die otherwise. He was heartsick for over a week after the Ahrmehnee and the rest of us executed all those captured cannibals in that village business of which I spoke yesterday; he knew it had to be done, but he could never have done it or ordered it done.

“No, I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s simply overshy, needs a really aggressive woman, probably. Given enough time, I’m sure he’ll find himself one.”

Captain Pawl Raikuh’s prescience was well known, but he rode completely unaware of just how accurate was his last sentence regarding the eventual seduction of Sir Geros Lahvoheetos.