To help in relieving some of this overcrowding, while at one and the same time keeping the former combatants—Skohshun and Kuhmbuhluhner—living cheek by jowl, Bili quartered the larger part of his own squadron and the reinforcements led by Sir Geros and Sir Djim in the much-battered camp of the former besiegers. He justified his actions with the excuse that there simply was insufficient space for so many horses and ponies in the keep stables and that the animals would, in any case, be happier and healthier grazing on the plain.
He retained his staff and that of Sir Geros in the city, along with enough of his veteran cavalry—mostly Moon Maidens and Freefighters of the old Morguhn Company—to provide him a loyal nucleus did the negotiations get out of hand and overt warfare between the Kuhmbuhluhn nobility and the Skohshun officers recommence.
Sight of a Kleesahk in the city confines was a rarity for a week and more after the “battle,” Pah-Elmuh having led the huge hominids down to the battle site and the ruined camp as soon as he had heard that there were hundreds of sick and hurt and wounded men and horses in and about the area, all in crying need of care and healing.
Hard beset as he found himself, Bili saw it imperative to delegate authority and duties. All of the operational and logistical planning of the return march—first to Sandee’s Cot, then through the southern tribal lands of the Ahrmehnee stahn and so on east through the Thoheekahtohn of Vawn into his own Thoheekahtohn of Morguhn—he piled onto the combined staffs. Governance of the fortress city of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk he placed in the capable hands of Sir Yoo Folsom. The overlord of Sir Yoo, Count Djohsehf Brahk, had had the misfortune to have one of the missiles thrown by the weapons of the Witchmen land squarely upon him (had the occurrence not been witnessed, no one would ever have known exactly what had happened to him, so little of him and his horse had remained of an identifiable nature), and, before all was done, Bili intended to see the royal council about the now-vacant peerage.
But even so, the young commander had no free time to devote to his wife and his children. His infrequent visits to his suite could only be for the purposes of snatching a few minutes of sleep, bathing, being shaved, changing his clothing, then returning to the council chamber and the disputatious men it contained.
But Rahksahnah sympathized and empathized with her harried, usually exhausted husband. A sometime war leader herself, she managed the suite and their personal entourage well, saw to it that he was properly served and provided for, that he ate and drank at least once each day and that his short snatches of rest were undisturbed until the time he had designated. Nor did she allow him to be troubled by such petty bothers and ills as her new spate of harassments by her once lover, the Moon Maiden Meeree.
All the way up from Sandee’s Cot, Meeree had done her utter damnedest to poison against the brahbehrnuh the minds of the Moon Maidens who had ridden from the east with Sir Geros and Sir Djim. But her lies, accusations and exaggerations had held them only until they had had words with Rahksahnah herself, and Lieutenant Kahndoot, and had seen just how happy the other Maidens were become with their men and, some, with their children.
But obsessed as she was become, Meeree could not accept the loss of power over the newly arrived Maidens any more than she ever had been able to accept the Goddess-ordained loss of her sworn lover, the brahbehrnuh, Rahksahnah, to Bili of Morguhn and the new order. She continued to agitate, haunting any place where the Moon Maidens congregated.
Then, of a day, as she walked down a palace corridor, a powerful hand grasped the elbow of her good arm and dragged her into a dimly lit and smallish chamber. The door slammed behind her and, before her eyes had as yet adjusted to the gloom, her ears were recipients of the grating of a cold, familiar voice. She turned to behold the strong, stocky figure of Kahndoot.
“You stupid, ever-whining bitch,” snapped the Maiden officer, “did a year of suffering and ostracism teach you no one thing? It is not simply against the brahbehrnuh you speak, but against Her, the Silver Lady, the Will of the Goddess, and that is blasphemy. If any woman—or man, for that matter—doubts mat She will not tolerate or forgive such as your cesspit mouth churns out, they only need think of what you once were and look upon that which you are now become. No, keep silent; open that foul mouth before I give you leave to do so and you’ll need to seek out a Kleesahk to see if he can help you grow a new set of front teeth!
“Look at yourself, Meeree. Once you were the second or, at least, the third best warrior of all the Maidens, but you in your foolish pride incurred Her wrath, Her terrible wrath, and what are you now become? You—”
But Meeree jerked her arm from Kahndoot’s grip and put as much distance as the confines of the small chamber allowed between them, then her good right hand produced from the folds of her clothing a long, slim, double-edged dagger. “Get away from that door, damn you!” she snarled. “What I am now is nothing to do with the so-called Goddess, but the fault of Rahksahnah’s parts itching unnaturally for that lumbering, hairless thing, Dook Bili. He it was smashed and ruined my shield and bridle arm, first took my own lover, then spoiled me for war; but he will pay. Soon or late, Meeree will see him pay with his own misbegotten life. Just as you, you sow, now pay!”
With the last, half-screamed words, the crippled woman lunged, all of her weight a strength behind the dagger she thrust at Kahndoot’s thick body. But, with an audible snap, the slender blade broke off short and tinkled on the stone floor. Off balance, Meeree stumbled against her intended victim, whose strong hands grabbed her and hurled her lighter body into a corner. Then Kahndoot paced to stand over her. She opened her gashed shirt, and the lamplight imparted a rippling sheen to the short hauberk of fine Ahrmehnee mail which had underlain the shirt.
Smiling coldly, she said, “Has hate and envy driven all reason from your mind, woman? Did you think I’d immure myself alone with such a creature as you now are without some sort of protection against such infamy as you just displayed? I’d be thoroughly justified to slay you, here and now, and no doubt I would save much suffering for other people if I did just that. But I say again what I said on the night of that duel at Sandee’s Cot—there are few enough of us Maidens of the Moon Goddess left as it is, and I do not want any of that now-rare blood on these hands of mine.”
Bili had Pah-Elmuh summoned back up to the palace for the penultimate meeting of the new council, which henceforth would not style itself “royal,” but rather the Council of the Aristocratic Republic of Kleesahkyuhn—named after those who had preceded all of the present twoleg disputants to the area. The initial council that Bili would leave behind him when he marched would consist of three Kuhmbuhluhn noblemen, three of the Skohshuns and one Kleesahk, but eventually there would be a total of fourteen men and three Kleesahks to constitute the council, though most of the day-to-day affairs would be conducted by the smaller, seven-chair assemblage.
After seeing them all seated and a surprisingly peaceful meeting commence, Bili departed to his suite and slept for the best part of two full days and nights. He then arose long enough to dine, bathe, make long, unhurried, gentle love to and with Rahksahnah, then sleep for another day. Then he once more arose and threw himself into the preparations for the return to Sandee’s Cot and then, eventually, Morguhn, into which he had not set foot for almost three years.
Things had been far less complicated, he thought, before he had been burdened with a household for which to arrange transport and supplies for the trip. In addition to himself, Rahksahnah, the twins—and, when they arrived in Sandee’s Cot, young Djef Morguhn, now some year old—there were his hornman, Gy Ynstyn, and his woman, Meeree, his bannerman, his three orderlies, his secretary, his cook and that worthy’s two helpers, his three horse tenders, Rahksahnah’s three servants, the wet nurse and her young husband, six Freefighter bodyguards and four muleskinners to handle the household pack train on the march and in camp. Moreover, the prairiecat Stealth—now, once again, pregnant by Chief Whitetip—would be accompanying his personal entourage.