The Patrimony

11

Djoy Skriffen had been miscast by nature. Only her genitals and her huge breasts imparted a hint of female appearance; otherwise her physique was masculine—broad shoulders and muscular arms ending in big square hands, narrow hips and once-flat buttocks. Her jaw was square and her chin prominent; prominent too was her nose, and when she allowed them to grow out, her eyebrows were bushy. Nonetheless, twenty years before, she had been a highly successful camp whore, following condottas and armies on the march and to the rear of siegelines, ready and willing and able to take on a dozen or more men in a night.

Then, during the great rout at the Field of Hats, as she leaned forward on the seat of the cart she had hurriedly stolen to lash the mules to a full gallop, a war dart near the end of its cast had penetrated her hipbone after tearing through the flesh of her right buttock. Due to its angle, she had been unable to get either hand in position to remove it and so had, perforce, ridden the jolting cart on away from the lost battle, screaming with agony.

Eventually, the cart lost a wheel and she was thrown from the seat, to roll down a steep bank. This stress caused the ill-tempered dart point to snap, leaving only the few millimeters of steel that were imbedded in her bone, while the shaft and the rest of the head were jerked out of her flesh. Fortunately, she was shortly found by a small condotta of Freefighters from the victorious forces of the Count of Keelzburk. The men knew Djoy of old, and seeing her grievously hurt, they halted, kindled a fire and doctored her on the spot, laying a red-hot spear blade to her lacerated, blood-spouting buttock.

Even after her burned wound was become only puckered, purplish scar tissue, Djoy found sitting on the seats of wagons or carts or sitting even the best-gaited mule pure torture, and such activities or even damp weather would cause her right hip to swell and to ache intolerably, so she knew that her days as a camp whore were numbered. She spent her last few months in her initial profession servicing the winter siege lines around beleaguered Balzburk and, when at last a general attack proved successful and the camps were almost deserted, she and a pack of carefully chosen noncombatant ruffians murdered the guards at the pavilion of the siege commander and made off with the army’s pay chest and everything else valuable-looking and portable.

In the course of the long flight from Balzburk in the western mountains, across the widths of both the Kingdom of Pitzburk and the Kingdom of Harzburk, to the port city of New Filburk, on the seacoast, almost all of the ruffians had met with “accidents” and a large part of the loot had been frittered away. Even so, after she had paid for the murders of the last two of her original companions, Djoy still had enough gold to establish and set herself up as madam of a fine bordello, wherein she prospered for a number of years.

But then came the night when, in a drunken rage, she stabbed one of her silent partners—several dozen times. He was not the first man or woman she had slain in New Filburk, but he was not just some nobody of a seaman or whore who could be dumped into a convenient cesspit or weighted and dropped into the harbor. She packed a small trunk with the contents of her strongbox, her jewel chest and her victim’s well-stuffed purse, a few items of clothing and a few personal possessions.

She bought passage on the first ship she found and, thus, came ashore in Esmithpolis, where she scouted about, greased the proper hands with gold and set herself up in another bordello. After twelve years of her experienced, ruthless operation, Djoy Skriffen was more than prosperous and had run to fat, being almost as broad as a huckster’s table, though there still were hard muscles, a harder heart and a cold, calculating mind lodged within the mounds of jiggling adipose tissue.

Neeka was not the first kidnapped girl she had bought, but most of her whores were in her house on a voluntary basis, originally at least, though they all soon found to their sorrow that getting in was much easier than was getting out—alive, at least. Djoy handled some of the inevitable discipline problems herself: most she left in the hands of her four resident goons, all former Freefighters and sadistic murderers, all with prices on their heads in the Middle Kingdoms. Recalcitrant “recruits” were given to the foursome for a day and night, sometimes for a weekend; few visible marks were ever left on their flesh, but subsequently a girl so treated would accept, would perform, any act a customer demanded, rather than chance being again turned over to Stoo, Neel, Djimi and Iktis.

On her way down to the lowest cellar to inspect the girl offered for sale by three city guardsmen, a servant reminded his mistress of the unfortunate incident of the previous night—a valued and regular customer had been bitten by a rat.

“Send a boy to the fortress,” she snapped. “Tell them to send me a hungry fencat—maybe two, since we have no idea how many rats we have.”

As Neeka’s consciousness slowly returned, she thought at first that she was back in that horrible, freezing cell in the fortress wall, for she had been stripped of every shred of her clothing and she lay on a narrow cot set against a stone wall. Then, as things became a bit clearer, she could see differences. This cell was wider and she was lying on a true bed, not in a trough of straw. Two walls were of stone, but the other two, including that in which the door was set, were fabricated of wide, age-darkened boards; the board walls reached to within a couple of feet of the timber ceiling, fourteen feet up, from which hung a large brass oil lamp. The cell was comfortable—cool, but not cold. Aside from the bunk, there was a covered slop bucket, a box of hay balls, a stone jug and a clay cup.

She heard voices from somewhere beyond the door, but could not understand what they were saying. The language sounded much like Confederation Mehrikan, but also differed in many ways. Her first attempt to sit up resulted in a sick dizziness. But her mouth felt dry as sand and she was just mustering herself for another effort at reaching the water jug when the door was flung open, then shut and bolted behind a guardsman.

She was taken quickly, brutally. Then, while her ravisher lay still atop her, he said, “Likely you don’t know me, bitch, but you will, oh, how you will. I’m Loo Fahlkhp and it wuz my own first cousin, Garee, was striped and sent off to fight in the friggin’ mountins ‘cause of you. Damn barbarian run a spear right through his dang belly ‘cause of you.”

“Well, I done fixted you good, now, bitch. You ain’ no off’ser’s piece no more. I done sol’ your ass to ol’ Djoy Skriffen, and ever payday I means to come back here and screw you silly. Now, turn your ass ovuh, I ain’ done yet. I’m gon’ plow your othuh hole.”

He rolled off to stand beside the cot, one hand on her shoulder and the other on her hip, leering cruelly. Suddenly, Neeka spun on her buttocks, flexing her legs, then driving both her heels into the man’s lower belly with all her force. The guardsman was slammed into the board wall so hard that there were crashes and thuds from the other side. Neeka sprang to her feet and leaped for the door—only to find it secured, immovable.

Neeka spun about. The man was staggering toward her, face red, eyes shining hate, lips twisted into a snarl. But her lover had taught her well. She ducked beneath the extended arms, arose on the outside. Grasping his hairy wrist, she slammed the heel of her other hand into the back of his elbow, hard. The guardsman screamed once and staggered backward. Neeka got one leg behind him and pushed. Good arm flailing wildly, he fell back onto the cot, half of him still on the floor.

The guardsman’s canvas breeches had become but two separated legs, the center seam having parted. With all her weight behind it, Neeka slammed her small heel down on her rapist’s genitals, then began working on his face with the nails of one hand while fending off his good arm with the other. She was still at it when his screams brought in three more people.

She was dragged off her erstwhile attacker and held as easily as if she had been a child by an immensely fat, immensely strong woman, who all the while laughed uproariously and made cutting jests at the expense of the crippled, battered guardsman. His face streaming blood, the half-nude man had to be literally carried out of the cell, groaning and sobbing.

When the men had gone, the big woman released Neeka and pushed her down to a seat on the edge of the cot. Wiping at her eyes with the backs of her big, blubbery hands, she chuckled a bit more, then addressed the girl in tolerable if thickly accented Ehleeneekos.

“What’s your name, girl?”

“Neeka. Neeka Mahreemahdees. Is what that … that man-thing said true? Has he sold me to some brothel?”

The fat woman showed yellowed teeth in a broad grin.

“Not just some brothel, Neeka, the very best brothel this side of Kehnooryos Atheenahs. My brothel, mine, Djoy Skriffen’s.”

Neeka felt lost, then, helplessly sinking, but she spoke strongly. “Then you’d better get whatever you paid him back before he leaves … because I warn you, I’ll kill the next man to lay hands on me!”

The fat woman chortled again. “I believe you would, Neeka, if what you done to ol’ Loo is a example. ‘Course, we have ways to gentle frac’shus fillies, in this house. But I like you, girl, you got spirit, more’n any other Ehleen girl I ever seed. You’n me’ll talk some more in a day or two, whin it’s safe to bring you upstairs. I think we can strike us a bargain.”

Some hours later, she was brought a tray of food—fresh-baked bread, roast pork, cabbage boiled with onions and caraway, a pint of wine—by an attractive, red-haired girl who looked to be some years older than Neeka. That same girl returned later for the tray and dishes, but also brought a low stool on which she perched.

“You’re a kath’ahrohs, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yes,” Neeka replied, “I’m pure Ehleen. Why?”

The ghost of a smile flickered briefly over the redhead’s full lips. “I never heard tell of a Ehleen woman could mess up a grown man as bad as you did that guard bastid. He couldn’ even walk when they took him away from here. They had to lug him in a cart. An’ they think you done blinded one of his eyes, too. Lady Djoy like to died a-laughin’ at him. She ‘lowed what-all you done to him and her gettin’ a chancet to see it was worth what she paid for you, by itself.”

As her visitor was garrulous, Neeka just let her talk on, glad for the harmless company and anxious to learn all she could that she might plot her escape.

Hohp Leebos claimed to be twenty-two, but looked a bit older. She was three-quarters Ehleen. Both her parents were long dead and her husband, a fisherman, had been lost at sea only a few months after their marriage, leaving her almost destitute. Finally, near starvation and having exhausted the charity her late husband’s former mates could afford, she had taken to the streets, whoring in the dockside taverns, as had Neeka, briefly. One night, having narrowly escaped being taken by the infamously brutal city guards, she had asked the advice of a friendly tavern keeper, and so had made her way to Djoy Skriffen’s house.

Honest, kind and merry in her quiet way, Hohp Leebos was now possessed of a large clientele of regular, faithful customers and was one of the very few of her whores whom Djoy Skriffen trusted to leave the house unescorted by one of her goons, or to serve food to secret purchases such as Neeka. And Neeka soon found out why.

Hohp shook her dark-red head and said, “Aw naw, Neeka, I couldn’ do nothing like that. Lady Djoy, she’d jest skin me alive and, for all we’s friends her and me, likely she’d hand me to them house guards of hern, an’ I sure don’ think I could tek that; them fo’ treats women like animals.”

Leaning forward, she patted Neeka’s hand. “Listen, honey, Lady Djoy’s gonna bring you up in a coupla days, soon’s the fella you’s the mistress of gits outa Esmithpolisport. Things’ll be a whole lot better, then, you’ll see. ‘Cause Lady Djoy, she really likes you, honey, likes your spunk an’ likes the way you tore inta thet bastid guardsman. You jest do whatall she tells you to an’ you gonna make out just fine. Most the customers is good men and with Lady Djoy bein’ your friend an’ all, like she’s mine, you won’ have to lay with any lessin’ you likes ‘em, an’ too, Stoo an’ the rest will halfway kill any bastid what tries to mark you up.”

Neeka reiterated with cold intensity, “Hohp, I shall kill the next man who lays hands to me. Believe that, for I mean every word of it.”

Hohp shook her head again. “Aw naw, honey, like I done tol’ you, mosta the men is real fine fellas, Lady Djoy, she don’ let no town trash or dock scum in here. O’ course,” she puckered her lips as if to spit, “them friggin’ guardsmen is another breed of cat, they is.”

Then her face brightened. “Come to speak of cats, honey, did you ever see a fencat kill a ol’ wharfrat? I tell you, that’s a pure pleasure to watch. Them cats moves like pure lightnin’. I wuz watchin’ one of them what come down from the fortress chase this here rat out’n the house an’ kill ‘im in the back courtyard whilst I ‘uz awaitin’ for cook to make your tray up.”

“Well,” Hohp stood up and lifted the tray, “I better be a-gittin’ back. We’ll talk some more after you had your nex’ meal, honey.”

It had been long since she had mindspoken one of the fen cats, and Neeka carefully framed her mental projection. Almost immediately, dear Ratbane was there.

“What are you doing in this unhealthful place, friend Neeka?”

“Oh, Ratbane, please, you must go back to the fortress and tell Djordj what has befallen me. Three guardsmen kidnapped me and have sold me to the evil woman who owns this house.”

“The male two-leg called Djordj is no longer in Esmithpolisport. He and his man rode north as we fen cats were coming here,” replied the animal sadly, for she had been very fond of the young captain. “And the new chief of the fortress cannot mindspeak.”

Neeka thought hard and frantically. “Then … then, Ratbane, do you know Master Lokos Prahseenos? I have signed a contract of apprentice-indenture with him. Surely he would deliver me from this place?”

“Friend-of-fencats Lokos?” beamed Ratbane. “His is the most powerful mindspeak in all of the Thoheekahtohn of Esmith. Yes, I shall go and find him.”

Neeka caught Ratbane’s instructions to the younger cat to continue exploring the house until she returned. Then the fen cat’s mind was gone, and Neeka could but lie and worry and wait.

Hohp Leebos brought her next meal—several small rolls, half a baked guinea hen swimming in a rich sauce, peas stewed with garlic and young carrots, a dish of pickled vegetables, a steaming pudding of breadcrumbs and dried fruits with spices and honey, a full half-leetrah of really good wine—the heavy tray was fitted with a baked-clay cover and Hohp indicated that the food was to last her needs until midmorning when the kitchen came to life. Despite her earlier promise, she did not linger this time; as soon as she had unfolded the stubby legs of the tray and disjointed the fowl with the knife from her girdle, she departed.

Aside from greetings and goodbyes, her only comments were, “Soon’s you git upstairs, you’ll be able to carve your own vittles, honey. Lady Djoy, she ain’ the leas’ bit a-feared you’ll kill yours’f, thet bein’ why we don’ give othuh new gals enythin’ sharp,” the redhead chuckled. “Aw, naw, honey, she ‘spects you; she’s afeared you might use it to carve up me or somebody ‘nd try to git away.”

Though she was not really hungry, Neeka forced herself to eat part of the well-prepared and tasty repast. It was a way to pass the time without worrying herself sick over whether or not Ratbane had been able to find and summon help. The wine was a fine vintage, and she was sorely tempted to seek the temporary solace of drunkenness, but she forced herself to dilute it with a large proportion of water from the jug.

She had barely finished and recovered the tray when she had a second visitor, Djoy Skriffen. Under one fat arm, the huge woman carried a bundle and, in the other hand, a silver decanter and a brace of tiny goblets. Behind the brothel keeper strode the most thoroughly evil-looking man Neeka had ever seen.

The male was tall, but small-boned and very slender, and the wide, padded, carven and inlaid chair he bore so effortlessly looked to be as heavy as he was. His beardless face was heavily pocked, crosshatched and misshapen with the puckered traces of old scars, and a pair of beady, rat-like, black eyes were separated by a great, hooked beak of a nose. The nose was dripping, and he wiped it from time to time on the shoulders of his shirt, breathing through open lips and the gaping void where his front teeth once had been.

Djoy set the bundle on the cot and the decanter on the stool and, after indicating where she wanted the chair, sank into it gratefully. The chair creaked alarmingly under her weight, but held. Noting that Neeka was trying vainly to cover her naked body from the gaze of the man, the big woman chuckled.

“Neeka, don’t you worry about Iktis, here. That damn Loo Fahlkop come in here drunk last year and knocked out Iktis last two front teeth. He was happier than I was when you tore into that bastid this morning. And sincet we got word you killed him, well, you can figger Iktis’s your friend for life. Much as he likes hurting women, I doubt he’d do nothing to you, even if I told him to.”

While talking, Djoy had unstoppered the decanter and filled the goblets, now she handed one to Neeka, tossed down her own and quickly refilled it.

“He … that guardsman is dead?” Neeka felt stunned, weak with the knowledge she had killed, though she endeavored not to show her real feelings, sensing that an appearance of tough callousness was all that would impress these evil people and retain their grudging respect for her.

Djoy chuckled again, echoed by the lounging Iktis. “Aye, he’s dead, and good riddance, say I. Stoo brought word down from the fortress, about an hour ago. While that Zahrtohgan, Master Hahmeel, was setting the bastid’s elbow back in the socket—you gonna have to show me how you done that, sometime, Neeka—Loo started puking up blood and in five minutes, he was dead. The fortress surgeon cut him open and said somma his innards was just split opened.”

“This here little Ehleen cunt fixted Loo Fahlkop good, didn’t she, Iktis?” Djoy poked at the thin man with an elbow.

Iktis’ smile broadened enough to show that his jaw teeth were still in place. “Yeth, my lady. I but with I had been down here to thee it.” Despite the lisping impediment of missing teeth, the slender man’s Ehleeneekos was pure and unaccented.

“You take your post, Iktis,” said Djoy. “I’ll be out in a while, but I wants to talk to Neeka a little bit more.”

With a nod, the man spun on his heel and departed, moving lightly and almost soundlessly.

Djoy waved a fat, beringed hand at the bundle. “I brung some clothes and things there for you, Neeka. Nothing you could use for a weapon, of course.” She grinned yellowly. “The Blue Lady knows, you’re dangerous enough without one. I never done all this for no new girl afore this, but you is special. You got guts and you knows how to handle yourself, too. And on top of that, you a Ehleen.”

“Neeka, I was borned a Kahlinzburker and I been a-whoring the mosta my life, all over the Middle Kingdoms with the Freefighters, and in my first house in New Filburk, and then here. I done never had me no trouble learning new languages, they comes natcherl to me, like. Like you can tell, I learned Ehleeneekos right off the bat and I talks it good.”

Neeka had seldom heard the tongue of the Southern Ehleenee so misspoken, thickly-accented and generally butchered, but she wisely kept her thoughts to herself, simply smiling noncommittally.

Djoy poured herself another measure of the fiery brandy and went on. “But, Neeka, these here Ehleenee is a stiff-necked bunch of bastids. I gets along just fine with sailors and soldiers and Confederation folks, but mosta these here Ehleenee treats you like pure dirt lessen you is a Ehleen your own self, and I thinks some of these here rich Ehleenee what lives in Esmithpolisport would make me damn fine customers, if I just had a real Ehleen to deal with them.”

“Now, yeah, I got me some Ehleen girls upstairs but none of the whining bitches what I can trust or would trust any further’n I can th’ow a warhorse. Ain’t none of them got the frigging sand to even spit, much less maim a man or kill him, like you done. I had plans when I got Hohp, but she’s too damn easygoing, she trusts dang near ever’body. But with you working the Ehleen trade, Neeka, I think I could really make something down here.”

“And not just whorehouses, neither. I got gold, Neeka, lots and lots of gold, but the dang Ehleenee won’t take none of it, for all they always crying, I hear tell, for folks to invest in all the big, money-making schemes they all got going. Now, you’re a young girl and just as pretty as you can be. Anybody what sees you or hears you talk wouldn’t have them no doubts but you’re one of them kath’ahrohs Ehleenee. I thinks you just what I been a-looking and a-hoping for, for years.”

Djoy heaved her vast bulk onto her big feet and the chair squealed its gratitude. “I’m leaving the resta the brandy here. Help yourself. You may need it to get some sleep, ‘cause it gets kinda noisy upstairs some nights. But you can sleep tight and not worry ‘bout no mens a-pestering you. This here’s a corner of the wine cellar and it’s always a man a-guarding the door down from the main cellar. Iktis’ll be there tonight, and he’s the fastest, bestest man with a short sword or a hanger I ever seed, and I seed a heap of fighters in my time.”

“You think on whatall I told you, Neeka. You do right by me and you can be a rich woman afore long. You need anything tonight, you yell for Iktis.”

Then she turned about and waddled out the door, closing it behind her but, Neeka quickly noticed, not bolting it.

Unfolding the bundle, Neeka found two undergowns of soft cotton, an overgown of bright-orange silk, a pair of gilded leather sandals, a hair-band of beaten copper set with turquoise, a hairbrush, a horn comb and a hand mirror of polished brass, all rolled in a quilted coverlet for the cot. She clothed herself immediately; the garments and sandals fitted as if they had been cut to her very measure.

Seating herself in the wide chair, she poured another thimbleful of the brandy and sipped at it thoughtfully. She had had no more contacts from Ratbane or any other fen cat and was beginning to lose hope. Djordj had said that Master Lokos was an old man. Possibly such a man would be loath to take on so wealthy and ruthless a woman as Djoy Skriffen over a girl he had never even seen.

If escape was impossible, she must make do, make the best she could of a bad situation. She reflected that the fat woman’s offer was tempting. Neeka was certain that she would be well treated as long as Djoy had a use for her, and as long as she did not openly defy her owner. If the guardsman she had attacked had truly died, in fact, she might be safer here than in Master Lokos’ employ, for Djordj had been very harsh to those who had slain any of his men and she had no reason to believe that his successor would be less so.

A bare hint of sound from behind. She turned to see the sinister, ugly Iktis standing in the doorway. Laying a finger across his lips, he mindspoke powerfully.

“Say nothing aloud you don’t wish overheard, child. That hole in the stone is not for ventilation. There are few mindspeakers here, and no one knows that I am one, save you. I should be at my post. I come only to reassure you that steps are being taken to free you from this foul place. But Djoy Skriffen is a rich woman, and powerful in some quarters. And, since she obtained you illegally, it is felt that your freedom must be sought through legal channels. Such is the feeling of the Council. It will be a test of the power of our Klirohnohmeea.”

Neeka wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. “Heritage?” That was the meaning of the word.

Iktis smiled toothlessly. “I forgot, you are from the Northern Ehleenee, child. Your lucky folk have not been ground into the dirt by presumptuous barbarians, as have we. The group that will succor you is properly called the Society for the Preservation of Our Ehleenee Heritage, but that is a mouthful, so most of us just call it Heritage. So you need not entertain any thought of cooperation with Our Lady Monster’s devilish schemes.”

“But …” Neeka beamed. “Did I truly slay that guardsman? If so, I’ll surely be arrested, imprisoned if not hanged.”

Iktis nodded forcefully. “Aye, he’s dead, and he had long earned it child. But do not fear punishment. At the behest of certain Heritage people, his accomplices in this morning’s infamy are even now being put to the severe question, so the new commander will know that your attack on Loo Fahlkop was nothing less than self-defense. Besides, the judge who will hear the case is on our Council.” He grinned again at her stunned look, adding, “We Ehleenee must look out for each other, child.”

Accustomed to a soldier’s bed and daily routine, Neeka woke before dawn, finished what food remained on the tray and drank some of the wine. Then, having too little water left to make even the skimpiest effort to wash, she dressed. It was well that she did for almost the moment she had finished, she heard voices, then Iktis was at the door.

Coldly, he snapped, “Come on upstairs with me, girl. Lady Djoy wants you.” Silently, he mindspoke, “Our people have come for you, child. Judge Oahbros himself came. Komees Pehtros Gahleenahnos of Esmith, the city governor, is with him. And Master Lokos, of course. Djoy Skriffen’s fat knees are rattling like dice in a cup, and the whale is white as curds.”

Neeka was ushered into a huge and garish parlor. Djoy, disheveled and puffy-eyed, sat in another of those padded, carven, overly wide chairs; the fat woman’s hands were tightly clasped in her broad lap, so tightly that the knuckles stood out prominently. And Iktis had been right, she did look pale, pale and ill.

Confronting the madam were three men. The most striking of them was a tall, stately, fine-featured old man, white-haired and richly but conservatively dressed. He was not armed; only a purse and a small, flat wallet rode at his belt, but in one manicured hand he held an ivory lahbrees set in a fluted golden shaft—the double axe of his office. His black eyes looked hard and cold and his face was set in grim lines.

The second man was not so richly dressed, though clearly as old as if not older than the jurist. He was almost bald; only a few skimpy strands of white adorned the top of his scarred scalp and but a bare fringe circled round the back of his head from temple to temple. His nose was as large as was Deris’ and, brooding over his thinner face, resembled the beak of a bird of prey. In addition to his purse and wallet, he had a sheaf of papers thrust under his belt.

The third man was much younger, no more than thirty, and was dressed for riding the hunt—suede-topped jackboots, leather breeches, canvas shirt and flat, velvet cap, with heavy hanger, dirk and sling at his belt. There was a dent across his high, scarred forehead—Djordj had had an identical mark and so Neeka knew that, since it was caused by long and regular wearing of a helm, the man must be or have been a soldier.

He turned his sloe-black eyes on her and smiled. “Very observant, little cheese,” he mindspoke. “In fact, Djordj Muhkawlee was once an ensign in my company of infantry. It was through me that your apprenticeship-indenture was arranged.”

“But enough for now. The judge will ask you questions. Answer them fully and truthfully.”

The tall man beckoned her forward and she halted before him, near the arm of Djoy’s chair.

“What is your name, my child?” he demanded. “And your age.”

“Neeka Mahreemahdees, sir,” she said softly. “I am seventeen.”

The other old man handed his sheaf of papers to the jurist, who unfolded and briefly scanned them, then he asked, “Did you sign an indenture contract of apprenticeship to Master Lokos Prahseenos of this city?”

“Yes sir.”

“Then what are you doing in this pesthole? Why are you not laboring honestly in your employer’s shop?” His tone was stern and reproving.

Neeka was stunned. Did the old man think that she was here by choice?

The mindspeak of the hunter reassured her. “The questions are mere form, Neeka. Judge Gahbros knows most of the truth already. But the form of an inquiry must be observed, he feels. To simply march in here with a dozen spear levymen or mercenaries, as I wanted to do when first I learned of this sorry business, and free you by main force would have been effective and personally satisfying, since I hate this sow and all she represents; but such a course would have been barely legal and detrimental to the aims of our group.”

Neeka recounted the tale of her abduction and told of awakening, nude, in a cellar cell, adding that a guardsman had told her that he had sold her to Djoy Skriffen for a whore.

The tall man nodded once, curtly. “Very well. It is my judgment that you, Neeka Mahreemahdees, indentured apprentice of Master Lokos Prahseenos of Esmithpolisport, were delivered against your will and choice to the woman Djoy Skriffen. I hereby order you to return to your lawful employer, to whose service you have admitted contracting yourself.”

He turned to the other old man, handed him back the papers, and said, “She is now yours, Master Lokos.”

At this, Djoy broke her long silence, speaking out in her fractured Ehleeneekos, “Now just a dang minit, Jedge Gahbros. I’m out a hunderd silver thrahkmehs for her, not to mention what them clothes she’s wearing costed. It ain’ right I be robbed thisaway.”

The hunter growled audibly and grasped the hilt of his hanger, but the tall jurist waved him to keep his place.

Glowering at the fat woman, Gahbros snapped, “Mistress, you were well advised to hold your peace. I have a statement here that you bought a free woman. That statement is witnessed by the Komees Pehtros and by a respected craftsman, Master Lokos. Now, before those witnesses, you have just admitted to that crime.”

“Mistress, do you know the penalties for buying or selling free men and women within this Confederation? The very minimum sentence you might expect on such charges would be ten years of hard labor—in the mines, perhaps, or building fortresses in the mountains on the frontier—plus forfeiture of all lands and possessions. If you are guilty, as I suspect, of more than one purchase of free women, then the sentence would be death by impalement … on a short, thick stake, at that.”

Djoy shuddered, her gross rolls of flesh rippling with the involuntary movement. She was unable to wrest her eyes from the piercing black ones of the grave, old judge, but it was not those eyes her mind saw. She had seen impalements before. The long stake—sometimes of a tough hardwood, sometimes of iron, dully pointed, five or six feet long and usually about two inches wide below the point—was a gruesome death, with the point jammed forcefully into the rectum and the body’s own weight pulling it down the tapering, blood-slimy shaft until the point burst the screaming victim’s heart; sometimes the point missed the heart and the suffering wretch choked to death on the blood gushing up from torn lungs.

The more bloodthirsty Middle Kingdoms burk lords occasionally used the long stake to execute rebellious peasants or bandits. But the short stake was reserved for only the most heinous of crimes—high treason or crimes against the Sword Council. Short stakes were invariably of wood and were made to order, no higher than the victim’s navel, and the point was rounded and sanded smooth so as to slowly rend and tear rather than quickly pierce guts and organs; from the usual two inches below the tip, short stakes tapered to six inches or more at ground level. Sometimes the victim’s wrists were chained to a ring about his neck or waist, his legs wrenched apart and he was jammed down onto the stake. Djoy had seen strong men live for an hour or more in shrieking torment, first on their tiptoes, then on their heels, before agony and loss of blood made them too weak to stand, and even then, immediate death and surcease from pain were not certain, for the falling body might tip backward and the point of the stake tear up through the belly and out below the ribs.

At a brief hearing a few days later, Neeka was officially declared blameless in the death of Guardsman Loo Fahlkop, since the deceased had kidnapped her, robbed her and injured her and was attempting to ravish her when his fatal injuries were sustained. Her Ehleen attorney immediately demanded return of her silver ring, the value of her clothing and the sum of five hundred silver thrahkmehee as suffering price, the last to be collected from the estate of the dead guardsman and from his two living accomplices.

“That will be, counselor, from two estates and one living guardsman,” remarked Judge Gahbros, dryly. “Guards Corporal Lyl Ahnyel showed the discourtesy of dying while being … ahhh, questioned about his part in the incident. But this court feels that it is unreasonable to expect that all the worldly possessions of any six guardsmen, much less a mere three, would total a value of five hundred thrahkmehee. So let us be realistic and set suffering price at half that figure, eh?”

Eventually, Neeka received one hundred and eighty-seven thrahkmehee and her silver ring.

At her worktable, Neeka chose a stone mortar and began to compound an herbal decoction to relieve the cramps and usual discomforts of Treena Sanderz’s moon-sickness. Since she habitually kept her equipment and ingredients in meticulous order, she moved quickly and surely.

“Order,” dear Lokos had told her so many times. “Order and neatness are the elements of success in our craft, and they are the salvation of those sufferers for whom we labor.”

She recalled how the quick, spry old man would take a pinch of crushed, dried herbs between thumb and forefinger of each hand and extend them for inspection by a new apprentice, prospective client or casual visitor. “Observe, two pinches of herbs. They appear identical, eh? If you steep this pinch in a brandy-cup measure of boiling water until the water colors, then strain it, stir in a dollop of honey and drink it down, it will cure your headache. Yet do the same thing with this other pinch … and you’ll be dead in an hour!”

“How?” She put her weight on the pestle and ground viciously. “How did I, carefully and so patiently trained by Lokos to heal the sick and ease the sufferings of the hurt, get myself into this nasty business of killing old men with slow poison and young ones with quick poison?”

Her line of thought was interrupted by a forceful knock upon her door. Since her present task was in no way dishonorable to her mind or harmful to anyone, she said loudly, “Ehrkohmai.” Then she completed her compounding before she turned.

Expecting her visitor to be the Thoheekeesa Mehleena, a servant or, perhaps, Lady Treena in a hurry for her medicine as she was in a hurry for most things, Neeka was taken aback to see the richly robed Zahrtohgan physician, Master Fahreed, standing just inside the closed door. From his dark fingers dangled a slender golden chain, from which depended a lovely crystal prism. The prism caught the light, threw off shafts of it. Neeka thought it the most beautiful thing she ever had seen … and she could not seem to take her eyes from off it.

She did not see any movement of those night-dark fingers, but suddenly the prism was moving, spinning, spinning, faster, faster, and her eyes could only follow the spinning light. And she was so tired, so very tired and sleepy. Her eyelids weighed so heavily, so heavily …