“Uhhhh … lets see. Well, personal, of course, and broadbeam, farspeak … within limits, of course. That’s about it, unless my, uhhh … ability to foresense danger be considered a part of mindspeak.”
She shrugged. “Some would say yes, some no, but the fact that you can is not really important in itself. What is important, Bili, is what your possession of that rare ability reveals to those who can recognize its hidden meanings.”
“I don’t follow, Aldora.”
She sat up and crossed her shapely legs, running a fingertip along the scar of an old swordcut slanted across his chest. “Your formative years were spent either in warfare or in preparation for it, and is not your foresensing a very valuable ability for a warrior?”
“Yes, Aldora, it’s saved my skin on numerous occasions.”
Nodding, she then asked, “How many of your peers in Harzburk possessed mindspeak ability?”
Reaching out, he brought her hand to his lips, kissing the fingertip which had brushed his chest. “Well, it’s not really rare in the Middle Kingdoms, though it’s not customarily used as much as it is in the Confederation for some reason. I’d say maybe three burkers out of five have it to a greater or lesser degree. Why?”
“And,” she inquired, arching her brows, “how many “of your peers possessed the ability to foresense danger as accurately as you do, love?”
“None,” he answered flatly. ‘Tve never met anyone here or there who could actually sense as I do. Oh, many men have premonitions; I have those too, but it’s not at all the same.”
“No,” Aldora nodded slowly, “it’s not. It’s as a lampflame to Sacred Sun. But as I said, the ability itself, while valuable to one who is practically a professional warrior, means less than what your development of it means.”
“Sun and Wind, woman,” he snapped, “will you stop speaking in ciphers? After all, Tm a poor, short-lived man. I lack the wisdom of an Undying.”
She threw back her head and pealed her silvery laughter at the high, frescoed ceiling. “If I knew a way to make you such, my young stallion, you would be, and less for your mattress prowess than for your wit.
“But more seriously, what your rare talent indicates is an equally rare mind, Bili; a mind which not only recognized and fulfilled the need for a definite survival trait, but was capable of such fulfillment! For, if your mind is sufficiently versatile and adaptable without proper training, what stupendous feats might you accomplish when provided with the skills to consciously call forth who knows what from within yourself?
“And, apropos hidden abilities, I spoke with a merchant in Kehnooryos Atheenahs who told me a very interesting tale. It seems that he and some of his associates were journeying from the Kaliphate to the Confederation by way of the Eastern Trade Road, their wagons loaded with rich goods. At some spring camp in the County of Getzburk they and their Freefighters were set upon by a large and determined pack of brigands, and though they fought with stern resolution, it seemed certain that they must all soon be slain.
“Then, from the hill behind them came the unmistakable tumult of a full troop of kahtahfrahktoee or dragoons at the charge. Not only the merchants and their servants and Freefighters heard this troop, the robbers did too, and they consequently beat a quick, if disorganized, retreat—though because of rain and fog and ground mist, none could see the patrol.
“Yet, when the brigands were all fled and the rescued would have thanked their rescuers, what did they discover but that there was no troop, only a single armored axeman and his black warhorse. Yet all had heard the shouted commands, the chorus of war cries, the clanking and clashing of arms and equipment; they’d felt the drumming of scores of hooves and seen brief glimpses of a full patrol!
“And that merchant told me the name of his rescuer, as well. And do you know, love, the name he gave was yours. Sir Bili Morguhn?”
Bill’s mindshield snapped into place like a steel visor, and so his answer was, perforce, spoken aloud. “It’s as I told the merchant, Yahseer—it was just a case of fog and mist and, on the part of the brigands, fear, and, on the part of the others, wishful thinking, that let them imagine my sortie was the charge of a patrol … though, naturally, I did shout the orders and tell my horse to make lots of noise, but…”
She only grinned, her disbelief obvious, then went on, “And I recently spoke with another man who told me of a grim little set-to under the walls of besieged Behreezburk. He told me of a young axeman who rode out as surrogate for his king to meet the lord of that burk in personal combat. He told me of how that burk lord had, most dishonorably, concealed two armed, armored and mounted members of his bodyguard and how, when it became clear to him that his strength and weapons skills could not prevail against his opponent, he basely whistled up his dogs to cut down a man who had met him with the understanding that theirs was to be a single combat.
“This man told me of how the two guards charged in on their lord’s flanks, yet suddenly threw up their shields and commenced to flail their swords at empty air, as if engaging enemies no one else could see! Then he told of how this young axeman cut down first the treacherous burk lord—who would, he said, have been slain by his own men had he survived, since he had so dishonored a sacred Swordoath—then the two bodyguards, who until their very deaths continued to flail away at nonexistent foemen.
“This man said that throughout the rest of that siege all in both armies called that valiant fighter ‘Bili the Axe’ and that, as a result of his prowess in that encounter, the King of Harzburk knighted him who slew the burk lord. This man attests that this same Bili the Axe is now called thoheeks and Chief of Morguhn. Those are your titles, are they not, beloved?”
“You know damned well they are!” Bili growled from betwixt clenched teeth.
“Then,” she asked lightly, “is there not another talent of which you wish to tell me, sweetling?”
He glowered at her, snarling, “Damn that Hohguhn’s wormy guts! He’s Swordoathed to me, dammit When he gets back from Horse County, I’ll—”
Her demeanor and tone became serious, then. “Thoheeks Bili will do nothing of a foolish or hostile nature to Freefighter Bohreegahd Hohguhn … not if he be truly the shrewd and sagacious chief that all believe him, that I would hope the man I have honored with my love to be.
“Besides, Hohguhn has no faintest germ of an idea that you had aught to do with bemusing those two would-be murderers. He thinks they must have been drunk or had mixed hemp juice with their tobacco. And this seems to have been the consensus of those who watched the combat from within Behreezburk.
“I can understand and appreciate your desire to keep the way you really triumphed a secret, since in Harzburk the knowledge that you had so slain three men might have seen you haled up before a Swordcouncil on charges of dishonorable conduct and witchcraft; nor would the owner of such unheard-of powers be either knighted or invested with the Order of the Bear of Harzbruk.
“But, sweetheart, if ever again you return to the Middle Kingdoms, it will be as but a visiting nobleman from another realm. Nor will you, if ever that day comes, wish to display your bear, since, at the conclusion of this present unpleasantness, Milo means to see you wear a cat”
At his stunned expression, her laughter pealed once more. “Oh, poor Bili, you look as if smitten with your own great axe.” She sobered and her voice softened perceptibly. “But if anyone in this duchy deserves a cat, it is you, my love; so says the Undying High Lord Milo of Morai. Though bemused by a blow on the helm toward the end, he was conscious during the whole of that fight you commanded at what-do-you-call-it Bridge, and he avows that seldom in all bis centuries of life has he witnessed such feats of prowess and selfless valor as you displayed, Bili.”