The Coming of the Horseclans

19

A half-smile curled Mara’s lips. “No, ’Lekos, you are not mad.” She glided to a point beside his chair, lifted his wine cup and took a long draught of its contents. Then she laid the warm palm of one smooth hand on his scarred, gnarled knuckles and, gazing into his bewildered eyes, said, “Nor was the wine drugged, ’Lekos, nor am I a ghost.”

Lord Alexandras’ mind was whirling madly. He felt as if he had been clubbed. He shook his white-maned head vigorously. “But… but… Mara … my love … it… it’s impossible! Impossible! You … not one white hair… no change at all … and … and it’s been nigh to forty years! It’s impossible, d’you hear me? You cannot be her!”

Her voice became tender. “Poor ’Lekos, I could not tell you then; so you do not understand now. ’Lekos, long years ago I gave you a token. It was a cameo executed in the milk-stone with the gem for its setting. In the gem, which is an amethyst, is a tiny cavity filled with liquid. On the back of the stone was carved a single word.”

“Remember,” whispered Lord Alexandras with awe and reverence. “Then, impossible as it is, it must be. None other, even my wife, ever knew of that stone. Many years ago in a battle, the chain which held the golden case in which it was sealed was torn from my neck. After the battle, I went back and scoured the bloody ground until I found it. Something—horse-hoof or chariot-wheel—had crushed the case flat against a rock and ground the stone within to dust. Since then, my only links with you have been my memories and … my love.”

Bending over him, Mara tilted back Alexandras’ head and kissed his lips. Then, leaning back against the table, she said, “Oh, God, I had almost forgotten! I loved you so much, my ’Lekos, loved you more than I have ever loved another man in all the years of a long, long life.”

“And I, you,” replied Lord Alexandras. “And I waited, hoping against hope, long after all my old comrades were wed. At last, bowing to familial pressure, I married. For twenty years was I wedded to Katrina and, though I got children upon her and the fondness of familiarity inevitably developed, I never loved her. It was ever you, my love, you who inhabited my dreams or fantasies, you whose name I called in sleep or delirium. Oh, why, why Mara? Why did you go away? Why did you never return to me?”

She took his old hand again, and stroked it as she answered him. “Because I could not, ’Lekos. You’ll never know how every fiber of my being wanted to stay with you. For years, each time I thought of you or heard of your exploits, I ached to be with you once more. But to have done so, ’Lekos, to have surrendered to my desires would have been wrong, terribly wrong.

“For one thing, ’Lekos, I could never have given you children…”

When he opened his mouth to retort, she gently placed her finger athwart his lips. “Wait, my love, hear me out

“The second thing is this: I could not have borne watching you grow old and finally die, while I remained as I am; and I could not have left you a second tune.”

Lord Alexandras’ eyes seemed to be bulging from their sockets. “No!” he gasped vehemently. ‘No, I'll not believe it! You? My Mara … one of the Cursed? No, there is nought of evil or devilishness in you. For some reason, you’re lying to me! Can’t be!—”

Mara shook her head. “Milo, give me your boot-dagger and come around here to restrain him, if necessary. I’m going to have to give him proof that he will believe.”

Before he rose, Milo drew his short-bladed sgain dubh and handed it to her, then came around the table to stand close behind Lord Alexandras’ chair. The old man was wonderingly glancing at first one then the other of them.

Mara handed the Ehleen the small knife. “’Lekos, assure yourself that this weapon is genuine, that it is sharply pointed and that the blade will not retreat into the hilt.” Then, she set about dragging over another of the heavy chairs and placing it so that she could sit facing him. That done she held out her hand to Lord Alexandras.

“The knife, please, ’Lekos.”

Taking the blade, she laid it on the chair-arm and began to undrape the upper portion of her torso, not ceasing until her entire left side—shoulder to waist—was exposed. Then she picked up the sgain dubh and tested its point on her fingertip.

“You are satisfied that the knife is genuine, ’Lekos?” she inquired.

All but frozen by what he suspected was to come, the white-haired man could only nod dumbly.

Mara used one hand to lift her brown-nippled left breast, then placed the needle-tip of the little dagger in the flesh just below the breast’s proud swell. Gritting her teeth and tightening her lips, she commenced to slowly push the short, broad blade into her chest.

“NO!” shouted Lord Alexandras, starting up. Only Milo’s powerful hands, gripping the elderly nobleman’s biceps, restrained him from his purpose.

When the guardless hilt was pressed against her skin, Mara said, “Dear ’Lekos, you were but twenty years of age when I fell in love with you; and at that time, I had lived over two hundred and fifty years already! Now, I am nearly three hundred.”

Gathering a handful of the stuff of her gown, she held it in readiness as she slowly withdrew the steel from her chest, being careful not to cut the sensitive breast in so doing. When she was sure that the Strahteegohs had gotten a good look at the wound, she pressed the bunched cloth against it, nodded at Milo to release his hold and started to speak again in a slow, gentle tone.

“’Lekos, I’ve no idea how that terrible myth originated—the ‘Curse of the Undying.’ For the only thing that makes our lives cursed is the unremitting persecution of us by those who believe that ancient fable. Fortunately, these Horseclansmen don’t share that murderous misbelief and, for the first time in more years than I care to remember, I’ve been able to relax, be myself, let down my guard and live at peace with others of my kind. The tribesmen all revere us, you see.

“’Lekos, now you see why I could not marry you, why it would’ve been so terribly wrong. I never married anyone until quite recently. When I did, it was to the god of these people, one like myself.” She extended her right hand to Milo, who took it and came to stand beside her.

“So,” Lord Alexandras nodded. “You did lie to me after all. You stated that you were not a ‘god.’”

Milo shook his head. “I am not a god, only a man like yourself. That I differ from you, hi some respects, is the norm, for in nature no two things or beings are or can be precisely similar. I did not ask to be what I am, nor did Mara, nor did little Aldora. Both of them were born as they are, perhaps I was, too, I don’t know; I was born nearly six hundred and fifty years ago, which makes it difficult, sometimes, to remember. Until about two hundred years ago, I had thought that persons like me were a by-product of that man-made catastrophe of over half a millenium ago, which came quite close to exterminating man. Now, I am not so sure but what we are a superior mutation of man. We have probably been cropping up, here and there, since long before the catastrophe of which I spoke. But in a world of several billions we were not so noticeable as we are and have been in the more recent past. Too, it is logical that a larger proportionate number of us should have survived, where most of the races of man did not, for—as is well known—we are much harder to kill than our non-mutant kindred—nature’s recompense, I suppose, for the fact that we are sterile.

“You state yourself to be one flesh with the people whom your house should, by right, be ruling. I can understand this, Lord Alexandras, for I am as one flesh with the kindred, my people, too. Hundreds of years ago—realizing that, hi the world as it was then, a nomadic existence offered my people’s ancestors the best chance of survival—I established among them the rudiments of their culture and way of life. Though rude and barbaric and cruel in some respects, it has been a good life for them. From a beginning of a few dozens of terrified, pre-adolescent children—the orphaned remnant, who were all that was left of a city which had died of all-consuming fire—the Kindred are become a strong, independent, self-reliant people.

“Because I knew that, without it, they had little chance even of life, I gave them the Law and taught them to reverence their gods. Although I was absent from them for over two hundred years, they never wavered in that reverence, and not even I could sway them from its path today.”

Lord Alexandras had regained his composure. Both Milo and Mara were surprised at the speed with which he had done so, considering the severity of the emotional shock he had just undergone. Keeping his eyes fixed on Milo’s face, he heard him out.

“You know, Lord Milos, strange as it may sound, I had never connected the ‘Undying God’ legends of the western barb … nomads with the well-known facts that certain persons existed who were all but invulnerable to most forms of death. Knowingly, I had never met one of you—your kind—and knew but little of you save what the priests say, ‘evil, unnatural, creatures of the Antichrist, agents of die Devil.’ Truly, I knew not what to believe. Had you alone confronted me with your … peculiarity, I should probably have bade you a courteous farewell, promised to think on this matter of an alliance, then gathered my mercenaries and marched against you to crush your evil before it could spread.

“But, with Mara, too … Husband or not, I’ll tell you, Lord Milos, that forty years agone, we were much in love and there was such between us that I know her as I know myself! No army of priests could ever convince me that there is aught evil or unnatural in her! So, by your leave, I’ll put my questions to her.”

After Lord Alexandras was satisfied, he, Milo, and Mara came to an unofficial agreement. Then they and the two mercenary captains went before the Council of Chiefs.

Some seventy-odd of Milo’s personal troop had agreed to assume the surname Kuk and had elected Hwil Kuk to be their chief, whereupon, the council—in session two weeks agone—had unanimously welcomed Clan Kuk to the tribe. So now, forty-three chiefs sat in council.

After a certain amount of orderly debate—which to Lord Alexandras, Djeen, and Sam appeared to be a but barely controlled state of chaos and set them to nervously fingering their hilts, expecting a pitched battle to erupt at any moment, as furious rhetoric and deadly insults flew thick and fast among the chiefs—the agreement became official. Mara produced documents setting out the provisions of the alliance, in both Ehleeneekos and Old Meri-kan. Milo, Lord Alexandras, Djeen, Sam, and five of the chiefs signed it; the other chiefs made their marks.

In partial payment for aiding Lord Alexandras to ascend to the throne of his ancestors, the tribe was to receive clear title to whatever site Wind chose for then: city and its environs. In addition, High Lord Alexandras and his people were to render them every possible assistance in the construction of said city. While in no way subjects of the High Lord, the tribe willingly accepted the responsibility of continuing to provide troops for the High Lord’s armies. These troops were to be armed and mounted at tribe expense, but to be paid regular wages by the High Lord or his paymaster. In the present campaign, the tribe’s fighters were to function as skirmishers, shock-troops and/or a screening-force of horse-archers, while the Maiden Archers were to provide concentrated covering-fire where needed. Though the bulk of them were not to penetrate Kehnooryohs Atheenahs when it fell (a wise precaution, both Milo and Mara agreed, as: not even Milo himself could predict how the Horseclans-i men would behave), they were to be paid their fair shares of whatever loot might have been taken, had the city been properly sacked—something Lord Alexandras did; not care to countenance, knowing that only Demetrii and certain of the nobles were truly his enemies. Anoth provision was that, from the signing of the alliance hei forth, the nomads were to desist the despoiling the countryside and killing or enslaving its inhabitants. Lord Alexandras saw no need in attempting to forbid them to fight, if attacked, but they were not to initiate hostilities in future.

The moment formalities were completed, Lord Alexandras and his escort enhorsed for Lintchburk to begin preparations to move his camp and men to Theesispolis; as well as to dispatch certain trusted individuals to Kehnooryohs Atheenahs, Petropolis, Nohtohspolis, Lee-stispolis, and certain other ports and cities, to sound out the various elements of the population and place the word of Lord Alexandras’ imminent arrival in the proper ears. Within a fortnight of Lord Alexandras’ condottas’ appearance at Theesispolis, Milo had the chiefs pass the word to break camp. All spies were back and had made favorable reports, all conferences were completed, and it was time to begin the final advance.