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The scarred, wrinkled features flushed hotly. “The young whippersnapper! To so abase me before my wife and daughter and everyone else in this hall! And after all I’ve done and tried to do for him! That act, alone, shows how dangerous is his immaturity!”

“Now hold!” Mother Mahrnee’s tone was cold and brittle as midwinter ice. “Lord count, think you. When did you ever shrink from patronizing or upbraiding Bili before all and sundry? How long did you think a proud man would submit to such abuse and humiliation?”

The nobleman’s lips made as if to spit. “But he’s no man, dammit, he’s a murderous, hotheaded boy in a man’s body. He needs guidance, discipline!”

Mother Mahrnee smiled grimly. “Bili, your lord, is less than two moons shy of eighteen summers, lord count, and he is a seasoned warrior … as you have reason to know, would you but admit the fact He has fought battles and single combats; he has commanded men and earned their respect. King Gilbuht of Harzburk saw fit to knight him on the field, investing him with the Order of the Blue Bear!

“He has done as much as any veteran. He has bedded noblewomen and tumbled serving girls, one at least within this hall, he has fought and pillaged and razed and raped his way through at least two intakings. Though he is as stark a warrior as you are likely to meet, he is no braggart or hector, preferring to let his scars and his honors and the strength of his arm tell of his prowess.”

“Fagh! The accomplishments of a northern barbarian pocket princeling!” snorted Komees Djeen, derisively. “But, as I told him, a thoheeks must have more than a strong arm and an overgrown battle-axe to rule in Morguhn! Why, the arrogant young puppy even attempted to murder the High Lord. Sun and Wind, my ladies, this isn’t some blood-soaked barbarian kingdom, where the lords rule by steel and rope!”

Mother Mahrnee’s laugh was harsh. “No wonder you were so successful a strahteegos—your maneuvers were nothing short of amazing! Up until the eve of the very day that his illness claimed him, were you not urging Bili’s sire to rule in that very way you now claim to abhor—badgering him to hang the Ehleen hooreeos and all his priests, and to have off the heads of Vahrohnos Myros and half a score of petty lords of the old blood! One might think, on the basis of your past preachments, that you’d be overjoyed with your new lord, not ceaselessly nitpicking and criticizing him in public and in private.”

The old man stamped a foot in his angry frustration. “But last night, to try to slay a Kinsman over so petty a matter—”

“The High Lord does not fault him,” stated Mother Mahrnee flatly. “Why then should you? The High Lord told my sister and me that, had he been in Bill’s place, considering last night’s dangers and turmoil, he might well have done the same thing to a subordinate—Kinsman or no—who had seen fit to disobey orders and desert his assigned post. I repeat, Count Djeen, why do you continue to harp on a matter which the Undying High Lord, who was the only injured party, has seen fit to utterly dismiss?

“I’ll tell you why!” Mother Behrnees’ blue eyes flashed fire and her voice cracked like a lash. “Pique, petulance and pettishness are what now drive our Komees Djeen, sister! So yon waste breath trying to reason with him. Showing his breeding, Bili respected age and deferred to military experience; whereupon the good Komees seized upon this respect and deference as a lever to cant his lord in directions contrary to his nature. After swallowing far more censure and disrespect than would the average nobleman, our son enlightened Count Djeen, made it clear to him whose hand holds the whip. Count Djeen has for so long been issuing uncontested orders and manipulating the lives of younger men that he is now peeved beyond bearing to be confronted by a young man who not only owns the power to command him, but who refuses to be manipulated!”

“Madam, you go too far!” His gnarled right hand had unconsciously sought his dirk hilt and his single eye glowered.

Hotly, Mother Mahrnee’s voice cut in. “Oh, no, Count Djeen, not nearly far enough! Do you truly think you’ll need that dirk to still us from stating the bare truth? Or don’t you think you’ve enough Morguhn blood on your hands?”

He opened his mouth, but so enraged was he that he could not speak, as she ruthlessly went on. “Poor Bili blames himself for his brother’s death, but it is you who must bear that onus, Count Djeen. You and Spiros browbeat him into allowing Djef—who though but six moons younger was much less seasoned, having been reared at Eeree, which fights fewer wars than Harzburk and is internally peaceful—to lead last night’s sortie.

“As you well know, Bili had envisaged and laid out a plan to simply fire the stores and engines, then slay as many of the officers and priests as darts or arrows could reach, capturing an officer or two, if they chanced to run in the proper direction, but on no account closing with enemies who so far outnumbered the sally band. But Djef, in his youthful inexperience, chose to disregard not only his brother’s very good plan but the equally good advice of Captain Raikuh. He charged an armed and fully aroused camp with only a dozen dragoons, and no one of them even mounted! It was only because Chief Hwahltuh, seeing their predicament, led his clansmen to their aid and then covered the withdrawal with his bowmen, that they—any of them!—got back here.

“Well, Count Djeen, your insistence that all men’s lives be so ordered as to always accord with your selfish dictates has exacted a high price. Six of those brave dragoons are now dead, along with two of the Sanderz clansmen. Djef paid the ultimate cost for his rashness, and Bili, because he is a man who accepts full responsibility for his actions—no matter whose words may have influenced those actions—will probably castigate himself for the rest of his life.”

At last he managed to get a few words past the rage-constricted tightness of his throat. “I will now return to my duties, ladies, I—”

“You’ll withdraw when you’ve our leave, Count Djeen!” stated Mother Behrnees. “For we are not the ‘barbarian trollops’ you once saw fit to name us, when you were attempting to dissuade our late husband from marrying us. No, we are the granddaughters of a duke, the daughters of a duke, the cousins—german of a duke, the sisters of a duke, the widows of a duke and the mothers of a duke! You’ll accord us the respect due us or, by Sun and Wind, you’ll suffer the consequences!

“Yes, Count Djeen, you might do well to remember that you no longer are dealing with poor, weak-willed Hwahruhn, whom you could accuse of foolishness and cowardice with virtual impunity. An open affront to my sister or me will be an open affront to our son; and Bili, already quite wroth at you and your arrogances, just might decide to treat you as King Gilbuht, long his mentor, would treat an impertinent noble.”

“Now, by Sacred Sun, madam,” grated the komees, from betwixt bared, yellow teeth, “I’ll not see my homeland ruled in the bloody manner of an unlettered northern barbarian!”

“It is you who are the fool,” hissed Mother Mahrnee, “not our late husband! You make a loud noise of despising the Ehleenee and their ways, yet you talk just like one, as well you should, since you are at least half-Ehleen by blood. You, of all men in this duchy, after your years of soldiering in the Middle Kingdoms, should be aware that they and their peoples are in no way barbarian. Our civilization is much different from that to which you were born, but it is in no wise inferior and, in many ways, superior to yours!”

Hate lanced from his eye as he cackled, “Ha! Hit a nerve, did I? Your kind have always been thin-skinned, proud as peacocks of the stinking middens which spawned you. Yes, I peddled my sword from Hwehlzburk to Hahrbuhnburk, and right often did I find it hard not to laugh at the unlearned apes you call noblemen—who marveled at a noble officer’s abilities to read and write—even while I tried not to gag at the stenches of their long-unwashed bodies! When did one of your kind ever do anything to support your claim of civilized status, eh? They can but fight and kill, breed and wallow in their own filth and ignorance. You’re, none of you, any better than the mountain barbarians; you’re even of the same race!”