Madman's Army

Chapter II

It not being a military operation, the party led by sometime Captain-of-elephants Gil Djohnz left on time, with the dawning of the Monday morning. Passing through the various unit camps, they noted them all to be abustle, but this was not in any way remarkable, for drills and training marches, practice alarms and parades were commonplace occurrences in the permanent garrison of the army of the Consolidated Thoheekseeahnee.

In the years since the twenty-five-year-old Horse-clansman had been forced—at barely twenty—to accept a captaincy in that army, he had grudgingly, and then only for the sake of army discipline, given lip service to the seemingly endless lists of rules and regulations and general orders and special orders and service customs by and under which that army lived and trained, marched and fought, but in his heart of hearts he had never ceased to thank them all—well, at least the most of them—every bit as silly and senseless as he had when he had first arrived here with Sunshine, Tulip and a handful of his kinsmen.

As he rode along on Sunshine, at the head of his column of elephants, horses, humans and carts, out of the camp and its environs and out onto the road to the west, he did feel a little hurt that his old friends Thoheeks Sitheeros and Sub-strahteegos Thoheeks Tomos Gonsalos had neither of them taken the time to come the night before and bid him a last farewell, share a mug of wine, at least; he had kept half each of an eye and an ear cocked for sounds of them throughout the preceding day and night … vainly, as it turned out. True, they three had enjoyed a feast and well-lubricated revel the weekend before at the quarters Sitheeros maintained in Mehseepolis, but even so … He sighed and shook his head.

Taking a look behind, he beamed, “Slow down, Sunshine, the pace you’re setting will tire the horses too quickly. It’s a very long journey, you know; we’ll not be there tonight, or tomorrow night, or for many and many a tomorrow night, my dear, so there is no need to race or rush.”

The elephant’s return beaming bore with it a tinge of exasperation. “Sunshine cannot understand why her brother felt it necessary to bring along those delicate, easily tiring little creatures anyway. They and their rabbit-eared cousins that draw those carts, they are superfluous, really. Do you and your two-leg brothers not have three powerful and very intelligent creatures of my sort to bear you along and draw your carts?”

Gil thought fast. “Sister-mine,” he beamed, “we two-legs were of a mind that it would not be dignified for our brave, brainy sisters, whom we so love and respect, to enter back into the Land of Elephants appearing as mere beasts of draught and burden; this is why the mules and horses accompanied us, that should fighting become necessary, my sister and her sisters will not be hitched up or burdened down and thus will be immediately able to put their awesome power into full use against such foes as we might face.”

At this, Sunshine beamed a warm, all-encompassing tide of pure affection into Gil’s mind, simultaneously renewing her vows of love and endless loyalty to him. She shortened her walking stride, and as she did, so too did the other, following elephants.

While beaming in return his own love for and loyalty to his massive mount, Gil thought deep within a carefully shielded recess of his mind that he was become over the years most, adept at elephantine psychology. Before many days had passed, he was to ruefully recall this smug expression of hubris.

Thoheeks Mahvros read the just-delivered message and turned back to the councillors—nineteen of them, this day—saying, “The party of our High Lord lies camped about the Monastery of Ayeeos Antohnios of the Stones, while the brothers ferry them as fast as human flesh may endeavor across the River Lithothios. Brothers and soldiers together are rigging cables to float the wheeled transport across, the ferry vessels being apparently too small or lightweight for such task.”

Thoheeks Bahos cracked the prominent knuckles of his big hands and shook his head. “Dammit, Mahvros, we’re going to have to get around to replacing that damned bridge … and soon, man! That used to be the main trade road, but of late years, the traders have been compelled to swing way north and west and make use of that damned treacherous ford up by the ruins of Castle Lambdos, and naturally they jack up their prices for the extra effort and risks.”

Mahvros nodded. “Yes, all true, but that’s just one bridge, and there are others placed in spots of more strategic importance that must still take priority. Moreover, now that our lands are settling down—the outlaws, the brigand bands, the renegades and all similar dangerous scum eradicated—the road crews are running short of state-slaves and we may soon start having to institute regular levies of farmers and townsmen to fill out the labor groups, are we to maintain the repair schedules originally decided upon.”

To the chorus of groans and incensed mutterings that this last evoked around the council table, he raised an open hand and said, placatingly, “I know, I know, gentlemen, such would play pure hob with activities of an agricultural nature. But please consider: What good to us, to our people, is an army that cannot move quickly from a place it is not needed to a place where it is needed? We all must begin to think of the best things for the realm, not merely of petty, personal concerns. Each and every one of you is fully aware just how much tribute-grain and other foodstuffs goes to our army, not to even mention other supplies, and in order to justify such sacrifices, we must be able to make full use of the army, which means decent roads, strong bridges, well-paved fords and safe passes in the mountainous areas.”

“The damned army and nobody else is going to eat regularly do we go about taking the workers out of the fields to sweat over roads,” said Thoheeks Pennendos bluntly. “Why not use part of the army to raid the northern barbarians for slaves … ?”

Jumping to his feet, leaning across the table, red-faced, Thoheeks Sitheeros shouted, “You half-wit ninny! Your lands lie far from the barbarian states, mine are tooth by jowl with them, and our realm has at long last hammered out a reasonably secure peace with them. Now you want to start a border war. What’s in your head, boy? No brains, clearly. Horse biscuits, perhaps?”

Involuntarily, Pennendos flinched back from the big, powerful man. In a tightly controlled voice, he said, “My friends will call on you shortly, Lord Sitheeros, and …”

“And nothing!” snapped Thoheeks and Acting Strahteegos Grahvos, in a tone of utter exasperation. “Sitheeros, sit down and shut up! Pennendos, you’re still a young man, but if you’re going to call out every man who ever names you a shithead, you will never make old bones; Sitheeros could make a bloodpudding of you with one hand only, and if you aren’t aware of that fact, you truly are a shithead. You and your overly hot head often make me wonder if perhaps Council did not err in confirming you to your lands and titles; the confirmation is not irreversible, you know, so beware.” The older man maintained a hard, cold stare until the younger dropped his gaze.

From Sitheeros’ side of the table, Thoheeks Vikos spoke up. “I’m as committed to the common weal as any man here, God knows, but really productive farming is a year-round job and a hard and time-consuming one, at that. Are all of the workers to be taken from off the land for even a couple of weeks, an entire crop could be lost.”

Mahvros nodded. “We are all as aware of the facts as are you, Vikos, and we have taken all facts into consideration in plotting out our contingency courses. In the event it becomes necessary to draft land-workers for road crews, we will expect those thoheeksee called upon to send us one able man in every three for forty days of work. When they return, the thoheeksee will replace them in equal number from those still on the land, and so on. At no time will more than a third of the land-workers be absent from the fields. This will be a sacrifice, true, but far from a ruinous one, you must admit.”

Vikos nodded. “Those remaining will just have to work harder and longer every day. And I suppose you’ll maintain a constant labor force by dint of staggering the arrival and departure dates of the levies due from the various thoheekseeahnee, eh?”

“Just so,” said Mahvros, then, sighing, he pled, “Now, please, may we get back to consideration of our overlord and his entourage?

“Lest he be further delayed on that onetime trade road, I suggest that we send out an honor guard commanded by one of us to bring him and his immediate staff on more quickly to Mahseepolis. Do I hear any volunteers to head up that guard of honor, gentlemen?”

Thoheeks Sitheeros nodded, saying, “I could use the exercise, Mahvros, I’ll lead them. Hell, I’ll even use some of my own lancers, if you wish, and we can just leave the army horsemen in camp.”

But old Grahvos shook his head. “No, Sitheeros, thank you, but it were better that the honor guard be of our common army, not of a great magnate’s personal following, for, if you’ll recall, private armies are just what caused our homeland so much grief within recent memory. We’ll have Tomos to pick us out a score of lancers, a sergeant or two and a young officer to actually command; you’ll be a noble supernumerary, Sitheeros, officially commanding only your personal bodyguards.”

“Only twenty measly lancers?” yelped Thoheeks Pennendos. “No, I think we should send out at the least a squadron each of heavy horse and lancers, my lord, possibly some war-elephants, too. Twenty lancers smacks to me as but the pitiful effort of some small, weak, utterly impoverished foothill principality of uncultured near-barbarians, and I doubt not but that any Ehleen gentleman would share and echo my sentiments.”

Grahvos sighed, while Mahvros snorted and opened his mouth to make reply, but the older man caught his eye and shook his head, then addressed Thoheeks Pennendos in a patient tone. “My young lord, this matter is but another example of one of the more important reasons why this Council exists: that the older and wiser heads may give guidance to the younger and less experienced of our number, lead them in the proper path and hope that they will afterward remember the way.

“My lord, one sends forth large and impressive forces either to make war or to impress and intimidate and thus prevent warfare from occurring. Neither is to be contemplated in this instance. The man, the personage, approaching Mehseepolis is our own, dear, very much respected overlord, Milos Morai. Compared to the lands and peoples and wealth and forces he could raise and command, ours is but little better than that poor, weak hill-principality you envisioned in your ill-conceived argument.

“Also, do not forget that we all still owe this man recompense, reparations for the damages wrought by the host of Zastros in its progress through the southerly provinces of Karaleenos; no doubt, while with us, our overlord will be of a mind to set the rates of payment on these old debts, so we do not wish to render a first impression to his mind of a fluid wealth that we do not, in fact, own.”

Thoheeks Pennendos shook his head. “I still don’t see why we should supinely allow this strange foreigner to easily set his foot down upon our collective neck, rule us as subjects, put an outlander prince over us and milk us of our remaining riches for who knows bow long to pay off debts incurred by a dead man.”

Mahvros stared down the length of the table, raised an eyebrow and asked, “My lord Pennendos, were you ever dropped on your head as a babe? If so, that might be the reason for your lack of wit, so often demonstrated to us all in this chamber.”

Thoheeks Bahos stirred his massive frame and rumbled, “Now, Mahvros, let us cease to sink to the level of personal insult. Our Pennendos, here, is bright enough, he’s but young and has not seen so much of life as have we. Remember, he was not on that ill-fated debacle of Zastros’ devising, he was then too young.

“My lord Pennendos,” the huge man continued, “you must know that the mighty host of the late and unlamented King Zastros did not suffer so much defeat as utter dissolution up there on the Lumbuh River, years back. Then and there, there was, there existed, nothing that might’ve prevented High Lord Milos from leading his own mighty host—which was nearly as large as Zastros’ had been at its strongest—down here to burn, pillage, rape, enslave and thoroughly wreak havoc upon the length and the breadth of the then kingless Kingdom of the Southern Ehleenohee. Had Zastros or full many another of us seen a former foreman so prostrate before us, you know that that is precisely what we would have done.

“But this High Lord Milos Morai of Kehnooryos Ehlahs did not. He acted with an unbelievable degree of humanity, restraint, magnanimity, Christian charity. He asked only that we deliver up to him the king and the queen, leaving us specifically free to bear away with us all that we could carry—weapons, gear, tents, animals, wheeled transport, everything—moreover, he had friendly guides come down from out the western mountains and show us to sources of un-poisoned water all along the way.

“Also, he freely offered us the loan of troops to secure and maintain order in this homeland while we reorganized a government and rendered ourselves once more a peaceful, productive land. In the early talks, he never mentioned the subject of reparations; Grahvos and I it was brought it up and had Mahvros—who did the actual negotiating—promise payment when once more the lands were reset on an earning basis, for right is right, young sir, and an honest man is owned by his just debts until he has repaid them to the last jot and tittle.

“As for the setting of feet upon collective necks, my lord Pennendos, I had much liefer have the foot of a generous and forgiving stranger upon mine than that of a grasping, greedy, cruel, arrogant poseur of a near relative. Though I have as yet to have the honor of meeting him, this High Lord Milos seems to me an overlord that I and you and the rest of us can easily live with and under, and I feel him and his overlord-ship to be a blessing of God upon us and our so long afflicted land.”

Milo Morai sat on a sandstone bench beside the aged, arthritic Father Mithos, eeohyimehnos of the Monastery of Saint Anthony of the Stones. The buildings behind them still showed clear evidences of the ruin that had been unremittingly visited upon them during the long years of civil warring, raids and general chaos. But even in its present state, stripped of most of its ancient treasures, portions of roofs here and there still undergoing repairs, the purity of line of laid stones and columns bore out as ever the skill and real love that had originally gone into the erection of the complex.

Father Mithos was one of the only three of the original brothers to survive. He was maimed and hideously scarred by steel, lash, rope and searing heat— tortures wrought upon his flesh by cruel men seeking the hiding places of the last few treasures of the order; vain tortures, as it turned out, for Father Mithos was possessed of great faith, a tempered will and the warrior heritage of his noble forebears.

More accustomed to the vain, proud, supercilious and often downright criminal churchmen of his northerly realm of Kehnooryos Ehlahs, Milo had at first found this erudite, deeply religious, but withal both gentle and humble man truly refreshing. As the days had gone on, with the brawny brothers working the long days through at ferrying the men and horses some bare handful at a time across the treacherous stretch of river in their tiny boats, the High Lord had found himself to be beginning to not only respect Father Mithos but to really like him, as well.

After a sip of the cider, Milo remarked, “Father Mithos, it is a bit surprising to me that the main trade road has not been put into better order and that the bridge, here, has not been rebuilt. I must remember to speak of both projects in Mehseepolis.”

Both of the old man’s thumbs were now but withered, bumpy, immovable claws, so he needs must use his two palms to raise and then lower his cider-cup, and he did this slowly, painfully, in deference to calcifications in joints sprung on rack and strappado. With a skill born of long, patient practice, he set down the cup and smiled, his scarred lips writhing jerkily aside to show his few remaining teeth.

“Do not trouble yourself of the thoheeksee, my son. They mostly are good, righteous, godly men, and they have done more than many ever expected they could or would to set this land to right within the space of bare years rather than decades.

“As regards the trade road, I can understand why it has not been improved more than it has. For one thing, there are few reasons to move the army in this direction, but many to move it to north and south and west, so understandably, those roads are foremost in the minds and plans of the Council and repair crews. Also, the traders have taken to using another track and a ford well up north of here, though I feel certain that were the bridge again sound and whole and usable, they would return to the old road.

“The bridge was the property of this house, you know, my son. We maintained it and, when necessary, repaired it, and we waxed wealthy on the tolls for use of it. But as our wealth grew, so too did our overweening pride. Truly it is averred that pride goeth before a fall, never doubt the words, Milo. We waxed proud and rich and slothful and the Lord God brought us down, far, far down, visited upon us deaths and sufferings and hunger and loss.

“Five years ago, brigands nested behind those walls and in the toll-castle down by the river, there. There were but three of us brothers left alive and we were all in sad condition, tramping the roads and begging, starving in rags. But then Thoheeks Grahvos—may God bless and keep him, ever—sent his army against the brigands and drove them all forth, killing some in battle, hanging others and enslaving the remainder. He freed their captives, then sought out Brother Miklos, Brother Thiodohros and me. He had us restored in body and brought here to re-occupy our lands and begin to restore our order and buildings to the use of the Lord God.

“Now, God be praised, there are three-and-twenty of us here, to sing of the glories of God and to do His holy work. Our vines and fruit trees have been replanted and they will, in God’s own time, produce the bounty of yore. We have harvested two crops of grain and soon will reap yet another. Early on, we gathered in poor, homeless, near-wild goats and sheep and cattle, two asses, two oxen and an injured horse which last we slowly nursed back to health, only to find that he is a war-trained horse and most ill suited to the needs of a band of peaceful brothers of God. According to God’s will, the beasts have multiplied and continue to do so. The pastures have been refenced, the folds and sheds rebuilt, and hayfields sown. God willing, we someday may again own swine to batten upon the mast of our forest. And also, someday, when He has fully forgiven us of our pride and sloth and other impieties, God will show us the way, will allow us leave to rebuild that bridge.

“Already has the Lord shone His face most brightly upon us here, my son, far and away more brightly than our many sins deserved for us. Therefore, do not trouble the thoheeksee in Mehseepolis on our account, for we all are fed, clothed, housed and content with the Lord God’s blessed bounty.”

As the sun began to set behind the monastery forest, the old abbot arose from his seat and, tenderly assisted by a tall, brawny brother who had stood behind him in meek silence for the hours he and Milo had sat and sipped and conversed, made his painful, hobbling way back to the main building. But Milo was not halfway back to camp when, with a pounding of bare feet, the tall brother caught up to him, perspiring lightly but breathing normally despite his run, for which he had rolled up his sleeves almost to the shoulder and tucked the hem of his robe into his waist-rope to display heavily muscled limbs bearing the puckered scars of a man who had worn armor and swung steel for many a year. Walking toward Milo, smiling, the monk strode with a pantherish grace, and Milo thought that the man had probably been a deadly swordsman in his salad days, no doubt still could be had he not traded his armor for a robe of unbleached wool and his sword for his faith.

He dredged the monk’s name out of his memory. “Yes, Brother Kahnstantinos? You would have words with me?”

The monk nodded brusquely, there on the trail along which other brothers were passing on their way up from the day’s atrocious labors on the river, too dumb with fatigue to do more than mumble to the tall monk and stumble on toward the monastery complex.

“Someplace private, and it please my lord.”

In Milo’s pavilion, the monk sipped at the wine, savored it on his tongue and complimented Milo on his selection of vintage, as well as on the workmanship of the gilded silver wine-goblet. His speech and bearing were unmistakably those of a gentleman to the manor born.

After thanking him no less elaborately, Milo asked bluntly, “Well, then, my lord monk, what have you for my ears only in privacy?”

The monk contemplated the dark depths of his wine for a long moment, then looked up with sad eyes and said, “That which I should not utter, for in so doing I will be gainsaying a man whom I respect and love above all other living creatures I ever have known in all of a bloody, violent, misspent life; but still I must say it, my lord, though it damn me.

“My lord, things are not nearly so good here as Father Mithos would like to believe. Indeed, he does not even know of the worst of our afflictions … I don’t think … for those of us who do know shield him from them. We know that he will not live much longer, you see, and we wish him to die in peace and in as near to comfort as this rude, poor place can afford him. For if any man born has ever earned the right to a peaceful, painless demise, it is him. They crucified him, you know, my lord.

“After the sacrilegious swine had done their worst to his poor flesh and bones to force from out his lips the hiding places of the holy treasures, they decided that he must not know that secret after all. That was when they fashioned a cross and bound his shattered, broken body upon it and rode off and left him to die among the other corpses of the murdered brethren. He might well have so died, there upon that cross, save that two shepherd brothers who had been absent in search of some sheep of the monastery herd and had wisely lain low until the raiders were beyond the horizon came back in time to cut him down and nurse him back to as close to health as the poor, mutilated old man ever again will know. Following a few more close calls while they still were nursing him, the two brothers sagaciously quitted the wrecked monastery as soon as he could walk for any distance, for here they were become only sitting, helpless victims.

“In my boyhood, this monastery was noted for the fine vintages its vineyards produced. My late father was a taciturn man, yet he rejoiced openly whenever one of his agents was able to buy a pipe of the wine produced here, completely disregarding the literal pounds of silver that that pipe had cost. But that famous vineyard is now no more, my lord, and it will be many a year before the new-planted ones can produce even a small keg of wine.

“The monks of earlier years also were widely known for their brewing of herbal- and fruit-flavored cordials, but that too is now a thing of the past, even had we the wherewithal. Some nameless idiot of a bandit tried his clumsy hand at it and managed to blow up the distillery, the building that had housed it and himself, as well. The copper-scrap, of course, was looted and borne away, and it will be years yet to come before we can afford to replace it, poor as we are here.

“You recall, my lord, that Father Mithos mentioned that someday again he would like to see a few pigs feeding on the oak mast?”

Milo nodded. “Yes, my lord monk.”

“The monastery once ran herds of fat swine and their specially cured and smoked pork-products were known far and wide. So, you see, it was not just the bridge or the bequests that made this place a famous and a very rich one. Lay brothers included, there were at times as many as seventy souls laboring at one thing and another hereabouts. Yes, they lived well, but it was all from the fruits of their own hard work, and they also shared unstintingly with those in need.

“Father Mithos is a good and a saintly man. He does not really, as I said, know it all. What he does know, I believe he unconsciously sees through a rosy mist, as it were, imagining the best where objects are unclear to him. He is aged, most infirm at his healthiest and … and I fear that the terrible, horrible torments he endured and, with God’s help and infinite mercy, survived may have beclouded his mind.”

“Quite likely true and fully understandable, if so,” said Milo, adding, “To my sorrow, I’ve learned more over the years about torture than I ever had any desire to know, and, yes, protracted torment does quite often affect the minds of its victims … and sometimes of its perpetrators, as well.

“But that aside, I take it you want me to, are imploring me to speak of the straits of you and your brothers, here, to the Council of Thoheeksee, in Mehseepolis. That is it, isn’t it, my lord monk? All right then, I will do so, you have my word on it, one gentleman to another.”

The man with the black, square-cut beard shook his head slowly. “No, my lord, I am no longer a gentleman or anyone’s lord, only a simple, humble servant of God. But … and it please my lord … there is one other thing that I would ask of you.” At Milo’s nod, he went on, “The stallion that Father Mithos found and took in and healed, he is a fine, beautifully trained destrier, obviously foaled of the very best bloodlines and sound as a suit of proof, now. However, he eats more than any other beast we own and, as he was never broken to aught save being ridden into a fight, is useless to us; I am the only one that he will abide astride him, and that must be bareback as we have no gear for him. Yet Father Mithos will not put him out. Would … does my lord think that perhaps he would be willing to trade a draught mule for the horse? He would make for my lord a splendid charger.”

The morning mist still lay in a thick, fleecy blanket over the rack-studded river when Milo, riding a gelding palfrey and leading a loaded pack-mule, rejoined Brother Kahnstantinos. The High Lord wore knee-high boots, leather-lined canvas trousers, an arming-doublet and a half-sleeved shirt of light mail. There was a quilted-suede cap on his head, and a wide, cursive saber hung from his baldric.

When he had dismounted and hitched the horse and mule to a brace of saplings, he followed the monk through the second-growth woods to halt before a split-rail fence enclosing a grassy expanse of pasture.

“I fed him and groomed him and turned him out about a quarter hour since,” said the tall monk. “He’s likeliest beyond that fold of ground out there drinking from the pond.”

A shrill whistle from the monk brought a tall, dark-mahogany stallion, with four white stockings and a long, thin blaze of white, up over the fold of ground. At a slow but distance-eating amble, the horse approached them and came to a snorting, stamping halt just the other side of the fence from the monk, who took the fine head into his arms and petted the beast with a gruff tenderness.

Silently, Milo sought the mind of the stallion. “How does my horse-brother call himself, think of himself?” he beamed.

The stallion started so abruptly that his jerking head flung the monk backward onto his rump, that man’s own surprise and pain being expressed in terms more heard in cavalry lines than in monasteries.

Moving slowly, warily, the big equine drew back just beyond the reach of either man. “How can you speak to me, two-legs? Your kind cannot really speak to my kind, every horse and mare knows that.”

“But I can bespeak you, horse-brother,” beamed Milo. “So, too, can most of the two-legs of my herd. For this reason, we need not place cruel, pain-making metal bits into the mouths of our horse-brothers, for they are truly our brothers, our partners, not our mere slaves.

“Now, what do you call yourself, horse-brother?”

Helping the tall monk back onto his feet, even while he silently conversed with the bemused but still-wary stallion, Milo signaled the man to fetch and lead back with him the palfrey and mule. The monk came back just in time to see Milo step from the topmost rail of the fence over and astride the bare back of the stallion. With his thighs tightly gripping the dark-red barrel and his sinewy hand grasping the full mane, the man kneed the warhorse first to his slow amble, next to a faster amble, then a canter, then a full gallop.

Lifetime horseman and veteran cavalryman that he was, Brother Kahnstantinos still was startled when, after galloping the full circuit of the pasture twice, Milo sent him sailing over the four-foot rail fence, out into the woods, then back over it again for yet a third circuit of the pasture at a hard gallop, maintaining his seat effortlessly and doing it all, incredibly, without a bridle and reins.

When he had brought the big horse over the fence a third time, Milo slid from off him and said, “He’s all you attested and more, my lord monk. I’ll take him into my service. This mule is now yours; he’s five years old and healthy and he’s as docile as any good mule ever was or will be. He’s double-broke—can be used for either draught or for riding or, as you can see here, for packing loads—he now bears two fifty-keeloh bags of grain, one twenty-keeloh bag of dried beans, one of shelled maize and a small cask of brandy for Father Mithos. I realize that in total this still is a dirt-cheap price for so fine a horse as this one, but there will be more yet to come to you, believe me, my friend.”

Walking over to the stallion, the tall monk once more took and embraced and petted his head, murmuring, “May God bless and keep you, old friend. I will miss your companionship sorely. But it were better that you be among warriors than among monks.”