Horseclans' Odyssey

13

Even before the last clumps of snow had melted from under the shrubs and around the rocks, Stehfahnah had begun to exercise herself, the mare and the ass—toning and toughening muscles, perparing for the long trek ahead. She pulled the nails and removed the shoes from both of them, carefully trimmed and filed down the winter growth of hoof, then reshod them as best she could. Some of the poorer clans rode their mounts unshod or, in rocky country, wearing close-fitting ‘horse boots’ of rawhide and leather; but Clan Steevuhnz was one of the larger, wealthier clans, and the girl had seen horses shod since she had been a toddler and knew well all the intricacies of that art.

The nights she spent in constructing two travoises—a set of two long trailing poles of hardwood with a net of woven strips of rawhide between, one of customary size for the mare to draw and a smaller one for the ass; for, in addition to her weapons, equipment and supplies for her journey, she intended to bear away with her all the furs and hides, all the metal tools and every single one of the steel traps with their chains. No single tiny scrap of metal went to waste among the thrifty Horseclans, and the girl could already picture the delight on the face of Dan Ohshai of Steevuhnz when he saw and hefted the weight of the cluster of traps she would bear into camp. She fashioned two more water skins, larger than those she had inherited from the man, sewing the seams as tightly as she could with wet sinew—which would shrink as it dried— then smearing all surfaces, inside and out, with a compound of beeswax and pine resin. She had to make sure they would last, for it was sometimes far between springs or watercourses on the vast stretches of the prairie.

She dug a long, narrow pit in the clearing, constructed a rack of green wood with forked posts to hold it, then built a low, smoky fire and began the curing of strips of flesh from the carcass of a lean springtime deer and fillets of fish brought ashore by the three otters.

At long last, as the flowers began to drop off the dogwoods along the riverbank, Stehfahnah led out mare and ass, saddled them and lashed the pole ends of the loaded travoises in place. As a parting gift for the otters who had done so much for her, she left the carcass of a small-horn buck anchored in fairly deep water near the underwater entrance to the den of the mustelids to make it difficult for other predators to rob her friends. She had taken only the needle-tipped, six-inch horns and the liver, which she munched raw as she rode west toward Sacred Sun’s resting place.

Despite her lack of a saber or any armor worthy of the name, Stehfahnah considered herself well enough armed to deal with any contingency. Over the winter, she had strengthened the wooden dirtman bow of the man with strips from the long, thick horns of the shaggy-bull she had taken on the night the man had captured her. Carefully, patiently, she had carved and smoothed the edges of the hern strips, affixed them with fish glue and tightly bound them with fresh deer sinew. The result was, while not a true Horseclans horn-bow, considerably better than the bow had been to start with. She also had a deerhide, water-repellent case for the bow and two others to hold the thirty-two arrows she had made, fletched and tipped with fire-hardened bone.

She had shortened the shafts of her pair of horn-tipped spears and balanced them for darts, then made a case for them and for the throwing stick. The man’s belt axe she had fitted with a longer shaft, and it now hung in its rawhide case at the mare’s withers. The handsome silver-mounted dirk with its S monogram was at her belt, as were a couple of other knives from the cabin in the woods. She had considered reshafting the steel spear as well, to make it longer and more like a horseman’s lance. But with no time to properly cure the wood, even if she could find an un-flawed sapling of the proper species, size and length, she had wisely reconsidered.

Horseclans-fashion, her long hair had been braided and the two thick braids lapped over the crown of her head, secured in place with thorns and some thin slivers of bone. Atop her coiffure, she wore the only piece of armor the man had owned—a plain steel helmet, lacking both nape and face guards, pitted with age and lack of care, dented here and there and with only a backed-off stub of metal where the spike should have been.

Aside from the hide-and-horn bracer on her left arm, the girl’s only body protection was a double-thick deerhide jerkin, into which she had quilted strips of horn and antler and, over the most vulnerable areas, the few odd strips of metal from the kit the man had kept to repair his traps. Through all of the first day of travel, the mare had incessantly mindspoken complaints to Stehfahnah about the weight of the load she must bear and draw. Meanwhile the patient little ass trotted along at the end of his lead rope, having to take two steps to the mare’s one, and bearing a proportionately heavier load without pause or complaint.

The petulant equine was even more indignant when, at that night’s camp, Stehfahnah hobbled and picketed her, while only picketing the friendly, good-natured ass.

“Horse sister,” the exasperated girl finally told her, “when we reach the camp of my clan, you will be unsaddled and may then run to the high plains, to be eaten alive by wolves, for all I care. But for now, you are the only one big enough for me to ride, and for your size and strength you are far less burdened than is sweet Brother Long-Ears. You are staked and hobbled for the very good reason that, despite the fact that I kept you alive all winter and have delivered you up out of bondage to a dirtman, I simply do not trust you not to run away in the night and leave me afoot. If you don’t stop your complaining, I’ll give you no grain this night.”

On the afternoon of the third day, now well into prairie country, with the riverside expanse of forest far behind, extreme good fortune favored Stehfahnah. She cut the trail of a clan on the march. The hoof-trampled and wheel-rutted expanse was a good half mile wide, nowhere straight and probably a month old. New grass sprouted up all over it, but the girl could easily recognize it for what it was. There was no way to tell which clan it had been, of course, but it could be none other than a Kindred clan, all non-Kindred clans having been driven out of this part of the prairie or exterminated long years past. Moreover, it was headed in the direction Stehfahnah had selected as her best bet, northwest, so she followed it the rest of that day and camped on it that night.

She had been sleeping. Suddenly the little ass began to bray loudly, his uncertain mindspeak projecting incomplete message-images which told only of a horrendous danger out in the man-high grasses a hundred yards distant The hairs prickling on her nape, the girl shucked off her blankets and crouched, her back against the load of the larger travois and her steel-headed spear clutched in both her grubby hands. When there was no immediate attack, she lit her small fire of cattle chips and some splintered wagon spokes she had collected during her day’s ride.

In the sudden flare, she saw a pair of eyes reflecting the firelight, just at the edge of the higher grasses beyond the new growth in the clan trail. And the eyes were large, set as high as her waist above the ground. Wolf? Not likely. Bear? They were fairly common on the high plains to the west but rare on the eastern reaches of the prairie. Then what… ?

Hesitantly, she sent out a mental beam. “Cat brother? Cat sister?” The answer was immediate and beamed with the well-remembered power of a mature prairiecat. “You were sleeping soundly, twolegs sister, so I have been conversing with our horse sister. She tells me that you are of the Kindred and are riding to seek out and rejoin your clan. She also tells me that you have been most cruel to her and that you are uncaringly overworking her.” There was an undercurrent of dry amusement in the cat’s mindspeak as he related the mare’s complaints of Stehfahnah’s misuse of her.

“That miserable mare is lazy, treacherous and rough-gaited, and nothing would please me more than to get a decent mount between my legs again. But why does not my cat brother or sister come into my camp?” “Cat brother, it is, Kindred sister; I am called Steelclaws and I was cat chief of the cat sept of Clan Danyulz last spring; now I am a subchief of the tribe’s Cat Clan. I will come in if that strange, woolly, horselike beast with the ears of a desert rabbit will stop making those terrible noises.” The campaign that Duke Alex had tried to wage against the nomads had been even more of a disaster than had been his ill-starred incursion into the lands of Duke Tcharlz.

Once his army was back on its own side of the river, he let them rest in Tradertown for only as much time as it took him to scrape together horses and mules to remount most of his cavalry. Then he marched southwest toward the border, with the primary intention of remanning the forts situated at the points at which the three principal trade routes from off the prairie entered his duchy.

The forts had first been erected fifty years prior to Alex’s birth and improved upon or at least kept in repair by most of his predecessors. The steady flow of monies from the transriverine cable had seen most of the original sod interior buildings rebuilt in brick and the more vulnerable stretches of the outer works—gateways and corners—done in brick and stone, with the addition of deep, broad, dry ditches fronting the gates and winch-controlled bridges to span them. But what the conquering nomads had left of the three formerly stout fortifications caused Alex to rant, blaspheme and chew his fists in rage. He would have to forget about re-garrisoning until there was time and peace for extensive rebuilding to be accomplished. The stretches of wooden palisade between the masonry strong points were become rows of charred, jagged stumps, and everything within that was susceptible to the ravages of fire had been subjected to it, which meant that not one building retained a roof. Weapons, armor, horses and their gear, wheeled transport, metal tools and artifacts and everything else that a nomad might fancy had been lifted, of course. Only the unburied remains of the defenders were left.

Even though his recent luck was bad and his judgment sometimes faulty, no one ever had need to question Alex’s personal courage. Sending the foot back to Traderstown, he rode on at the head of his dragoons and lancers—although many forked scratch horses and half-broken mules with no hint of war training—deliberately seeking out the bands of nomad raiders, widely acclaimed as the most savage and dangerous light cavalry known. There were, over the next weeks, a few inconclusive running skirmishes between small bands of raiders on their speedy, skittering pony-size beasts and units of his heavy-armed force on their larger, slower mounts. He lost a few troopers and the occasional nomad was killed, but the bands always escaped onto the prairie with their loot and captives—mostly nubile girls—leaving their pursuers sweating, red-faced and drooping and their mounts near foundering. Duke Alex then did the only thing that he could under the circumstances. He sent riders to every rural hall and village. Their message was simple: in its present poor condition, his army could not offer any measure of protection against the inroads of the nomads, and the border forts were no longer tenable. Therefore, they all should gather up their families and serfs, animals and valuables, and leave the land to seek the protection of Traderstown’s high stone walls and numerous well-armed soldiers.

Alex himself stayed in the field with his cavalry, returning to the city only long enough to draft and dispatch requests for troops, materia militaris and as many trained war horses as could be quickly located to King Uyr of Mehmfiz and to his late mother’s nephew, Ehvin, Grand Duke of Ehvinzburkport. Then he scraped again the already scraped barrel and, with the scanty supplies, replacements and remounts thus obtained, he went back to his sorely tried field troops.

Even with sails, favorable winds and a full complement of husky oarsmen on the benches, the war galley took an entire week to reach Ehvinsburkport up the winding loops of the river and against its swift current. In receipt of the plea from his cousin, however, Grand Duke Ehvin IX—reflecting on the plaintiffs well-known wealth and upon the possibility that he, too, might be in so tight a difficulty sometime or other— moved quickly and generously. The first ships to arrive were loaded with foodstuffs for both man and beast. The next ships brought a full squadron of mercenary dragoons and their mounts, with wages paid for a month, at which time their contract with the Grand Duke would expire. Ehvin had found their terms crushingly expensive, and he felt that Alex, rich as Croesus, could better afford them. Ehvin also cleaned out some old armories and sent down a shipload of archaic but still serviceable weapons and armor.

Last, he shipped some two hundred horses and sixscore mules. He also sent a letter. It profusely apologized for the fact that, lamentably, he was unable to bring his own huge armies downriver to the aid of his esteemed cousin in the hour of need. It gave as explanation the fact that the bulk of those armies were, even as he wrote, massing in his northern marches for the full-scale war that now seemed imminent, in the wake of the repeated raids and other treacherous acts of the brazenly aggressive Duke of Tehrawt. Alex saw to it that neither the mercenaries nor the remounts remained within Traderstown for any longer than it took them to disembark, form up and trot through the streets to the West Gate. His conscience told him that with the advent of nearly six hundred fresh cavalry, he should give at least that number of his run-ragged veterans a couple of weeks to rest and refit in Traderstown. But he knew that he could not, that he dared not, for he had urgent need of every man and mount.

In the tribal camp, which still sat upon the eastern verge of the prairie, Milo of Morai and Blind Hari of Krooguh squatted on the dais in their huge yurt, facing each other across a low folding table laid with mutton, cheese, fresh milk and dried fruit. At Hari’s side sat a gangly year-old prairiecat cub, whose vision the bard used whenever he needed to see something. “The chiefs are all exultant,” remarked Hari. “They and their tribesmen are growing rich on the pickings of these raids, and precious few warriors of the tribe have even been wounded, and only a very small number slain. Many have said to me that had they but known how weak, how vulnerable and defenseless this particular aggregation of dirtmen really was, they should long since have banded together—a dozen or so tribes at a time—and regularly plundered them.” Milo shook his head. “Had they been so rash, we’d now have considerably fewer Kindred clans, Hari. We have been very, very lucky, you know. Those three forts’ garrisons were at half-strength or less. Had they been fully manned—built, situated and equipped as they were—I assure you that they would never have fallen to the attack of unsupported light cavalry. “As for the success of our raids, the earliest were made against no opposition worthy of the name. I have questioned captives, and all told me that the chief of this land and people—one Alehks, whose title is ‘Duke’—had called up all his subchiefs and their warriors, had all but stripped the forts and the city of fighters and had hired on hundreds of warriors from far-distant tribes in order to cross the Great River and make war on a rival chief, one Tcharlz, also called ‘Duke.’ He had been across the river for some moons when we struck his forts. “More recent captives say that this Alehks suffered great reverses in his war-making across the river. They say that he lost many men, all his horses and oxen, all his wagons and supplies, many of his weapons and armor and gear. They also say that those who survived to return with him to this side of the river had nearly starved to death during the winter past. “I can well believe these stories, Hari, for the warriors who have recently been opposing us were fine-drawn when they first rode against us, most of them riding mules or poor crow-baits that were likely pulling dung carts a week before. But, old friend, our luck will not hold forever. It is a certainty that sooner or later this Alehks will bring in fresh, well-equipped and well-mounted troops. When that day comes, any chief or subchief who tries to deal with them as the clansmen so often have with the poor exhausted bastards we’ve faced up to now will find some sharp, painful surprises and all will probably awaken in the Home of Wind.”

Hari smiled, showing teeth worn down almost to the gums. “I think you exaggerate, war chief. I know, I know, you carry your duty to husband the tribe’s warriors, so your intentions are good. But our horses can easily outdistance these dirtman breeds, can run rings around them. And our bowmen…” “Hari,” put in Milo, “recall the breed of horse that the chiefs of the traders ride, the tall ones with the long legs and (he small, fine heads. You’ve observed races between them and clansmen on our horses, haven’t you?” At the bard’s nod, he went on, “Well, have you ever seen a Horseclans mount win one of those races?”

“Yes,” answered Hari slowly, trying to bridge the gap of years. “It was a… young subchief of Clan Makinnis, I believe.”

Milo snorted derisively. “All right, one win out of how many races, eh? Those horses, Hari, are of the eastern breed of warhorses, but those of the traders are far from the best ‘examples; those are either culls, rejects from war training or retired warhorses. Even so, they are invariably faster than our own short-legged, big-headed breed over a short stretch. Also, being bigger and bulkier and heavier, they will be able to bowl over our mounts as easily as a prairiecat knocks over a lance-horn buck.

“As regards our bowmen, and the maiden archers, they’ve inflicted frightful losses on those scantily armored wretches, true enough. But properly equipped heavy cavalry are going to be armored from knee to pate, Hari, and all of steel, mind you—mail or scale or plate, but steel, none of this leather boiled in wax and, perhaps, covered with thin sheets of brass. Now, Hari, I would stake great odds that nine out of every ten arrows in this camp are tipped with either chipped stone or fired bone, both of which materials are cheap and first-rate for hunting; and, loosed at the proper angle and at close enough range, they’ll even pierce good-quality leather armor.

“But, my wise and musical friend, a clansman or maiden could loose such shafts at a steel-armored man all day and still do him no harm; both bone and stone shatter against steel plate or scale, as I know of experience in the far south among the Mehkskuhn tribes.

“’So pray start informing the chiefs not to try to make a stand or play any of their bloody games against any new bands of warriors they encounter. You’d better also tell them to get every smith in this camp to the task of forging every available scrap of iron or steel or even bronze into arrowheads.” Hari said drily, “The mighty war chief speaks, the aged and most humble bard obeys.”

“Humble, you?” Milo chuckled, then licked the grease from his fingers and began stuffing his pipe.

The squadron of heavy cavalry—for all that they were well-disciplined veterans, splendidly equipped, masterfully led by hard bitten and intelligent officers and sergeants, and mounted on fresh, big, powerful warhorses—accomplished far less of a positive nature than Alex had hoped. Within a week in action, they had taken casualties of near a hundred killed and wounded and had lost at least a half of that number of their highly valuable chargers to death, serious wounds or capture. The squat, beetle-browed, very muscular commander, Captain Sir Jaik Higinz, in conference with Duke Alex was crushingly blunt. “Yer grace, I knows you ain’t too pleased with my boys and me, and I cain’t fault you none, rightly, ‘cuz I ain’t no way pleased with the sitch’ation my own se’f. So I tell you what I’ll do: I’m contracted to the grand duke till the end of this month. He done sent us here to fight fer you, and I’ll “bide by my sworn word till the time runs out. But that’s gonna hafta be it, Yer grace. God knows, I’ll like as not be down to half a squadron or less, in thet little time. I’s to sign on with you fer any longer, them screechin’, howlin’ little bastids on their ugly, runty hosses will’ve most like kilt us all.” Duke Alex nodded stiffly, though he had the overwhelming urge to hang his head in despair. He knew that the fine, fresh troops had done their best, all that could reasonably be asked of men and horses. He was getting the nagging thought more frequently as disastrous day followed disastrous day that nothing could or would stop this horde of nomads—not him and all his horsemen, not the infantry or the walls of Traders-town, not even the Great River. Knowing in advance that it was hopeless, still the unhappy duke made a try. “If it is a matter of stipend, captain, fortunately I can afford to pay a higher figure for your serviced than could my esteemed cousin… ?” “No, yer grace.” The captain shook his shaven head. “The squadron ain’t afeered of no civilized troops on either bank of the whole damn Ohyoh Valley, but what we’re up ‘gainst here is another kettle of fish, and I’ve done had to hang or stripe some deserters a’ready.

“And I’m not the onliest one, neither, yer grace. My old comrade Captain Barnz, his contract with you expires ‘bout the same time as mine with the grand duke does. Him and me figgers to merge what’s left of our troops by then and sail downriver to the Kingdom of Mehmfiz where a civilized war’s going on. “Now, yer grace, I ain’t a edjicated man; I thinks God give all the brains to my older brother, along with the title and all, but in near on twenny-eight years of sojering, I done learned me a few things here and there. Fergive me fer patting it like this, yer grace, but you done got your parts in a crack and them Horseclanners are “bout to lop ’em off. “But yer grace ain’t the only one’s almost eyebrows deep in the shit, ‘cause we took us a wounded nomad las’ week and afore he died, he tol’ me that all of them clans, forty or fifty of ’em, means to cross the Mizipi—what you folks ‘round here calls the Great River—and then they means to march on due eas’ till they gets to the salt sea, living off any lands they come onto and killing anybody tries to stop ’em.

“And so, yer grace, it seems to me—a poor, iggerant wight of a perfeshunal sojer—that you should oughta mend yer fences with yer brother-in-law, ‘crost of the river, and let him know what-all’s going on down here ‘fore it’s too late for him or anybody elst to help you out.

“If the two of you’s to fight together, mebbe you can stop them scrawny devils or at least head ’em in a diffrunt direck-shun. Seems to me it’s come up a question of hang together or hang one at the time… no disrespect meant, yer grace.”

Tcharlz had as quickly, if not as painfully, learned just ‘ how difficult it was to bombard the fortress he had built. He knew better than to try to dig emplacements in the Lower Town, of course, recalling the cofferdams that had been necessary in order to get the walls and foundations down to bedrock. Therefore he tried to add to and improve upon the charred ruins of the semicircular protective wall that had brought a disaster to Duke Alex’s abortive siege.

There was no wood to be fired in Tcharlz’s construction, but this did not deter Captain Martuhn, nor did it save the duke’s siege engines. After raining a few bushels of small stone over the emplacements to keep the engineers pressed close to the wall and away from their own engines, the massed engines of the citadel accurately hurled large crocks of oil to burst and soak the engines, then followed these in short order with blazing spears and fire arrows. From the Upper Town, Tcharlz watched his engines burning merrily and cursed them because he could not yet bring himself to curse Martuhn, for all the man’s rank insubordination and disloyalty to him.

When first he had arrived before the citadel at the head of his troops, Tcharlz had sent in a messenger with a letter of demand that Captain Martuhn come out, unarmed, and bringing with him the two boys, whose adoptive father had accompanied the army.

The messenger returned with an oral message from the captain that neither he nor the boys would come out. However, the duke was welcome at any time to come inside, alone.

“ Tcharlz then sent in another messenger bearing an order for all troops within the citadel to come out with their arms and beasts and join the siege brigade in bringing the rebel. Captain Martuhn, to the duke’s justice. After a wait of several hours, the messenger returned… with a scant dozen common soldiers and two shame-faced officers. At this, Tcharlz rode into the citadel alone, as invited by his rebellious officer.

Stiffly, formally, he explained his purposes to Captain Martuhn, who then had all of the citadel’s garrison assembled in the forecourt to hear the duke. Duke Tcharlz made no threats, he simply reminded them that they were his troops— either natives of his duchy or client states, or mercenaries hired by his order and paid by his gold—and that their loyalty belonged to him, not to any of his officers, and especially not to a former officer now in open rebellion against the duchy. Then he asked that all men and officers who would accompany him out of the citadel and help in the overthrow of Sir Martuhn—formerly Captain of Ducal Infantry and Count” of Twocityport—take two paces forward. Not one man or officer moved from his place in ranks, and the duke’s face reddened, while his jaws worked and his left hand tightened on the hilt of his broadsword until the scarred knuckles stood out as white as snow. At long last, one officer left his place and approached the livid duke, who growled with the beginning of a grudging smile, “Well, Baronet Fahster, you took long enough to make up your mind. At least one of you assholes knows which side his bread is buttered on.”

The tall, blond man shook his head forcefully. “Your grace, I’ll not be leaving with you, but in fairness to you, I felt you should know why. Have I the permission of your grace to speak?”

‘Talk away, rebel bastard,” snarled Tcharlz, all hint of the smile fled from his lips. “I trow your next speech to me will be from the gallows at Pirates’ Folly… just before you swing for your treason.” “Lord duke,” began the baronet, “I have served your arms long and faithfully. I have taken agonizing wounds in your service, but you rewarded me graciously and you have been a generous patron.”

“Then why do you now turn on me, Baronet Fahster… Hal?” For a fraction of a second, the deep, hidden pain tinged the old nobleman’s voice, glittered from out his eyes. “You and I, lad, we’re natives of the same county. Your father was one of my dearest friends, a staunch supporter whose courage and strong right arm did much to put me where I am today. When he died in my arms, he committed you to my care, and I reared you and sponsored you as if you had been my own flesh and blood.

“So, why, Hal? What have I now done to you that you would forsake me?” The young man’s own inner turmoil was patent; tears coursed down his cheeks and his voice shook with emotion. “Your grace has ever been good to me, to all my house, and is loved for his goodness. But, your grace, I now must follow the dictates of my conscience, which tells me and all these other soldiers and officers that your grace—who is, after all, but a mortal man like us—has been ill-advised and misled by those men closest to him and that he is, therefore, in the wrong to so persecute one of his best, bravest and most loyal officers in an attempt to force him to turn over two of our young comrades to an alien and unnatural creature who has already offered one of them shameful abuse. “It will hurt me more than anyone can know to draw my sword against your grace, but I—on my honor—can do no other unless your grace relent in his purpose.” The duke whirled on Martuhn. “What have you done, damn you? Bewitched them all?” “Your grace,” answered Martuhn in a quiet, controlled voice, “I simply told them all your side, my side and my decision. Then I allowed the boys to tell of what had befallen them and Lieutenant Nahseer to speak of what he knew from his years of slavery about this Urbahnos’ true nature. What the men and officers then decided was of their own choice.”

Turning back to the assembled troops, the duke roared,

“You’ll live to regret this defiance of the law, of the duchy and of me, every man jack of you!” Then he jumped down from the platform, found his stirrup and hurled himself into the saddle of his dancing stallion. Jerking the reins from the horse holder, he almost rode over the man -as he spur-raked the big horse into a fast canter toward the gate.

A few miles to the southwest of Pahdookahport lay the ruins of a long-deserted hall, one of the victims of Duke Tcharlz’s land reforms, two decades and more agone. Although the complex appeared to have been slighted, it actually had not. Rather, two generations of the new breed of yeoman farmers and stockbreeders had used it as a quarry— carrying away brick and cut stone, roofing tiles and even massive timbers, when and as they felt the need. The larger, less easily manageable stones of its outer walls had been carted away by the duke’s men and were now incorporated into the fabric of Pirates’ Folly, while nearby smiths and countless vagabonds had torn or prised away all reusable metal of any description.

But though the half-picked skeleton of the once gracious home lay with most of its interior exposed to the effects of wind and weather, now only providing permanent lodging to birds and bats and the small, scuttling creatures of the fields, the deep, roomy, extensive cellars were almost intact. And of a late, stormy night, they were used by Sir Huhmfree Gawlin and certain of his retainers.

Within the large, earthen-floored subcellar room once used as a winecellar, a small slice of hell had been constructed and was in use. Brightly lit in its center by torches and lamps, and thick with their smoke and the commingled stenches of sweat, spilled blood, charred flesh, dung and heated metal, there were chairs to make some of the observers comfortable and devilish devices to inflict varying degrees of discomfort upon the flesh and bones of the one female in the room.

Despite the oppressive heat, all five of the men seated in the chairs were voluminously cloaked, with hoods and masks that made identification impossible. The woman, on the other hand, was naked. Her gross, corpulent body hung by its wrists from a rope threaded through a big iron pulley spiked to a ceiling beam. All parts of her fat body showed the marks of whip or sharp knife or heated iron or pincers.

Her name was Yohahna and she had for many years operated and claimed to own a Pahdookahport “business,” the Three Doors. Her swollen and discolored feet and nailless, charred toes hung a few inches above the floor, and blood from various parts of her battered, horribly disfigured body had dripped down to form a clotting pool on the hard-packed earth.

Her hands had been tied behind her back before she had been hoisted up; her immense weight had long since dislocated her shoulders and she now hung, panting hoarsely in agony, her one remaining eye bulging and bloodshot. “Would it not be better to lower the wretch while she ticks off her silent partners for us?” inquired one of the cloaked men, aged by the sound of his voice.

The cloaked man on the far right shrugged. “She’s as comfortable where she is as she could be. She can no longer stand or sit, you see. I suppose that we could put her on the rack again…” The woman’s hoarse panting was suddenly replaced by a low, bubbling whine, and the blood trickling from her burned and mutilated pudenda was briefly diluted with urine. “Aw, don’ hurt me no mo’,” she whimpered huskily. “Pleez don’ hurt me no mo’, mistuh. I’ll tell yawl enythin”, everthin’. Yawl wawn’ gol’? I c’n show yawl where two hunnerd pounds is bur’ed. Jest, pleez, pleez Gawd, don’ hurt me no mo’!”

One of the other cloaked figures, not sounding anywhere near as aged as the first, remarked, “The fat bitch sounds considerably different from when last I spoke with her about that matter some years back of kidnapped girls. This exercise in chastisement has obviously purged her of her unseemly arrogance. She now has recalled how to properly address her betters.” The aged man said rebukingly, “You say too much. She is of scant use to us dead, so it is imperative that she be given no clue to our identities… yet.” Then, to another of the hooded ones, “Are you ready, then? Take down every word from now on spoken in this room. Identify us and yourself as numbers one through five, counting from left to right. Her, you’ll list by the letter Y, but note the full names and ranks or offices of anyone she mentions; there must be no mistakes or omissions to legally trip us up.”

“All right, Yohahna,” said the man at the far right, “you will now repeat for these gentlemen what you told me earlier. First, who are the actual owners of the Three Doors?”

There followed a chorus of gasps and exclamations of incredulity as the tortured woman whisperingly stuttered the list of more than a dozen names—nobles, gentry and commoner-merchants of the duchy.

The man on the right spoke again. “And how, Yohahna, do you usually recruit your whores?”

“I buys me purty slaves, if I can,” she gasped. “But I got me this gang of fellas, goes outa the town and tries to get farm and village gals to run away with ’em. If the gals won’ the mens ushly knocks ’em inna haid and brings ’em back to me. Then I gentles ’em down till they is broke proper.”

“These girls you have kidnapped, Yohahna—are they all the daughters of citizens of this duchy?”

“Yessuh, far’s I knows they is. None the slaves is,” she replied. “I buys them, leegul and proper, I does.”

“And these partners you have named, do they all know just how you obtain your girls? Of your highly illegal methods?”

“Sure they does,” she affirmed. “Lak I done tol’ you, suh, oncet the baron hisse’f tol’ me which gal he wawnted took up and brought to mah place. It ’uz the daughter of some piss-poor gentleman, and the baron, he’d offered her a dang good living to be his mistress and the crazy lil wench’d turned him down flat, and he had the itch, bad, had to get in ’er, he did.”

He of the aged voice growled, “And did you kidnap this gentle-born girl, then, you piece of filth?”

“I got ’er inna place, a’right,” the dangling woman replied. “Bat it won’ no gentling ‘er, and me and my mens tried near everything we knows, short of flat-out raping her—and we couldn’ do thet ‘cause the baron was set on being the firstest man in ’er.

“Fin’ly, the itch got to ‘im so awful bad, he come down and took ‘er by main force. But after he’d done had her, she come to git holt of his dagger and come at him and afore he could git it away from ’er, he’d done kilt ’er.” The man with the aged voice snarled behind his mask like some beast of prey and started up from his chair, his heavy dirk half out of its sheath. But hands on either side gently restrained him, murmuring to him until he had regained his composure and sheathed his weapon.

The man on the right then asked, “And the Ehleen merchant factor, Urbahnos of Karaleenos, Yohahna—is he, too, one of your partners?”

“He useta be, suh, but he just up and sol’ out his shares to me’n the baron, ’cause he ’uz going back eas’, he said, as soon’s he’d done got him back them two lil slaves what had got ’way from him.”

“You mean his sons? The two nomad boys he’d adopted?” her main questioner prodded.

“Aw, naw, suh. That there adopshun was jus’ a way him and the baron come up with to keep from him having to pay part of what-all they costed him to whoever caught ’em. The lil’es’ one he was gonna give to some Ehleen mucketymuck in the place he come from what likes te bugger lil boys as much as Urbahnos does; then this other Ehleen was’s’posed to make it right enough that Urbahnos could go back home.

“He offered to sell me his wife afore he left, but I figgered she’s a mite too old, and b’sides, her paw was to find out she’d done been sol’ to me, that’ll be a purty mess. So I tolt ’im to wait till he got upriver, somewheres pas’ Ehvinzburkport, and then sell her and his kids.”

They went on, the hooded gentlemen, until the scribe had run out of materials. Twice the woman fainted and had to be revived by the application of hot irons to her vulnerable flesh.

At length, the man of the aged voice said, “All right, we have what we need, more by far than was really needed to achieve our aims. Confine the hag closely, but see to it that she is well fed and nursed back to health and strength. For at the conclusion of this, I want to see her last a long time, a very long and painful time, impaled on a thick stake. Then and only then will justice be truly served.”