“But if you’d rather enter Duke Tcharlz’s service, I could easily arrange…” Sir Wolf looked wounded. “My lord should know that I’d never leave him, in good times or foul.”
Aware that his barb had penetrated more deeply than he had intended, Martuhn laid a hand on his old retainer’s shoulder. “Oh, Wolf, I was but jesting. You’re ever so serious.”
Lolling in a chair, Nahseer had been observing while sipping at hot, spiced cider. Now he said, “Whilst your overlord be in a good mood, Martuhn, would it be too much to ask that you get my freedom and that of the boys in writing? You could get your adoptions of them legally attested at the same time, you know.”
“Oh, aye,” responded Martuhn, “and my last messenger to Pirates’ Folly requests those very things, among others. But he has not yet returned with answers.”
“But you sent the last messenger over a week agone,” Nahseer said worriedly. “He should be back, long since.”
“Why so perturbed, friend Nahseer?” smiled Martuhn. “Likely the fellow was trapped somewhere for a few days by last week’s blizzard, or his horse could’ve turned up lame, or he could’ve reached Pirates’ Folly only to find the duke in the field with his cavalry. He’ll be back, soon or late.” Nahseer squirmed in his chair, his features revealing real concern. “You’re most likely right, Martuhn. Nonetheless, I’ll not feel even marginally secure until I can hold in my hand the legal documents that declare Bahb Steevuhnz, Djoh Steevuhnz and one Nahseer ibn Wahleed al-Asraf Ahkbahr to be free and unindentured or apprenticed.
“And I warn you, my good friends Martuhn and Wolf, do not ever make the error of underestimating Lord Urbahnos of Karaleenos. He is shrewd and cunning. But then, most successful merchants are so; such traits are needful in their work. But in addition, the Ehleen is stubborn as a cur with a bone when he truly wants something. He has vast wealth and influence in high places, and he is utterly without morals or scruples.
“Urbahnos desperately needs little Djoh to gift to some-high-ranking pervert in Karaleenos, hoping that in return that man will see to the reversal of the order of exile that sent Urbahnos hence, years agone. Bahb he will probably torment until his spirit breaks or he dies. Me he means to torture to death, very slowly.
“Had matters progressed his way, he meant to sell me into the hellish living death of the barges. But, too, he meant to take his family upriver just far enough to be out of Duke Tcharlz’s sphere of influence, then sell them, his own wife and children, into slavery!”
Few men had ever seen the peculiar cold light that then beamed from Martuhn’s eyes… not and lived to tell of it. “You’re not describing a man, Nahseer, but rather a beast, a loathsome monster. I wonder if his grace knows the truth, knows that his duchy holds so debauched and terrible a thing?” “If he did not before, he will as soon as my messenger gains his ear,” said Martuhn grimly. “And then I would not care to be in this Lord Urbahnos’ shoes, my friend.”
However, although Martuhn was not to know of it for some time, that messenger never reached Pirates’ Folly or Duke Tcharlz, and no trace of him was ever found until, with the final melting of the deep snows, his remains and those of his horse were discovered in a deep gully… and by then it was too late. Milo of Morai and Blind Hari of Krooguh had worried needlessly. With the spring thaw, all the clans of autumn plus a few new arrivals, began to converge at the chosen location. At the first full meeting of the Council of Chiefs, Chief Rahn, the Patrik of Patrik, arose, cleared his throat and said, “War chief, revered bard of the tribe, brother chiefs of the Holy Kindred, we all have waited patiently through a long winter, but now it is time. Let us gather our warriors and our maiden archers and help our brother, Henree of Steevuhnz, avenge himself upon these despicable dirtmen. How says the war chief?” Milo’s head inclined. “Yes, my brothers, it is time. But I have had word that three other clans are on the march and nearing this place. Let us delay for two weeks, that their warriors and chiefs be not cheated of a chance to share in this mission of honor.
“But, although we delay the war ridings, yet will the tribe continue eastward, for all must be across the Great River ere next winter’s snows overtake us. “Plan to divide your fighters into three war parties, for there are three of those little forts along the border in our line of march, and if we strike but the one, the others will try to come to its aid. “Chief of the cats,” Milo mindspoke the huge, gray brown, winter-shaggy prairiecat that sat in the circle, thick tail lapped over its big forepaws, red-pink tonguetip slightly protruding from between its three-inch incisors. “Yes, war chief?” replied the immense feline, Elksdeath. “Choose six of your best to accompany the twolegs scouts. It will be the mission of the twolegs to observe everything about the forts and the mission of your cats to see that no dirtmen live to tell that the scouts are about.” “The cat chief hears and will obey, war chief.” Stehfahnah, the mare and the ass had wintered well. She had had time to clean the cabin, rechink its walls with new clay, chop and stack a decent amount of firewood and mow a good supply of wild hay grasses before the really bad weather commenced.
Soon after the first, deep snows, she located a deeryard not far from her cabin, and so seldom lacked for fresh meat to eat herself or trade to her otter friends for fish or smaller game. Her only moment of real danger came when a big, solitary male wolf began to openly stalk her as she bore home parts of a butchered doe, but two quick-loosed arrows crippled him enough for her to be able to finish him with the man’s fine, heavy spear. She still used her low-topped felt boots inside the cabin, but for outside wear, she had fashioned for herself a pair of thigh-high boots such as she had seen on some of the traders. Drawing liberally upon the man’s store of cured hides, pelts, skins and hanks of dried sinew, and adding her own expertise at felting and compounding fish glue, she whiled away the long hours within the cabin working by firelight The finished footwear was fine by any standards. Soles were compounded of no less than four thicknesses of shaggy-bull hide, triple-stitched with heaviest sinew and sandwiching thick coatings of fish glue. She had even made provision for easily attaching the high, horn-sheathed wooden heels of her felt boots when she took to horseback in the spring.
The uppers, which came to midthigh, were of two thicknesses of soft, pliable deerskin, with a layer of her felt quilted between them. She had found in rechinking the walls a small leather bag containing a double handful of the discs of gold, silver and copper that dirtmen used in trading, and these, plus discs of horn and bone, had gone to decorate her new boots. But boots were not all that she fashioned or improved upon that winter. By the time that the winter ice began to weaken, then crack apart to be swept downstream on the high-surging waters of the river, she was well clothed and equipped for however far she might have to travel to find her clan. Following the receipt of a shattering message, and a hurriedly concluded conference with Duke Tcharlz—which had included some highly painful concessions, among them a document conferring full ownership of the transriverine cable and all its appurtenances to the Duchy of the East Bank (which was Tcharlz’s newest title for his holdings)—Duke Alex was allowed to make use of the cable barges to ferry his decimated and dispirited army back across the river to his own domain. For his lands were now threatened by a horde of prairie nomads, who had overrun three of his border forts and were presently playing merry hob in the croplands and raiding to within sight of the very walls of Traderstown. Besides his guard of hard-faced cavalrymen, Duke Tcharlz brought with him to the citadel a large, fattened ox, a wagon-load of other eatables and a wain the sole lading of which was a full hogshead of splithead cider—a very potent variety of tipple, so called because of the aftereffects of imbibing too deeply of it. After he had reviewed the garrison, the duke first praised them, then thanked them in blunt, simple terms for their help. Then, in view of every man jack of the assembled troops, he formally invested their captain to be the count of the city and of a broad swath of farmland and pastures and forests round about it. When the men had cheered themselves hoarse, they were dismissed to gather about the massive hogshead and the beer barrels, with empty but expectant jacks, cans and buckets. And Martuhn led his overlord up the stairs to his tower chambers. While they awaited the serving of their meal, prepared by ducal cooks brought along for the purpose, and of course far more elaborate than the simple roast ox, cabbage and potatoes the garrison would soon enjoy, Martuhn described in detail the farcical investment of the citadel by the inept or unlucky Duke Alex. The duke, draining off flagon after flagon of beer, was clearly in a rare good humor throughout, but at one point he threw back his leonine head and rocked the very stones of the tower with his deep laughter. “So after burning up all their stores and a good part of that traitorous city, as well, your engineers threw your garbage, by the bushel, into the palace square? Ah, Martuhn, Martuhn, I’ve always said it, you’re a man after my own heart. Had I but an hundred like you, I’d be master of every acre from the Great River to the Eastern Sea.