Neither he nor Nahseer had been required to surrender their weapons or doff their armor, but they, the two boys and Milo of Morai had been escorted at a polite distance by fifty or more well-armed clansmen with strung bows, as they rode through the shattered city of Traderstown. In the Clan Steevuhnz enclave, after Count Martuhn had formally returned the boys to their sire along with vociferous praises of their bravery, cunning and war skills, and when Bahb and Djoh had opened wide their minds and memories that their father might know of all the striving and scheming that the count had performed in order to keep them out of the perverted clutches of Lord Urbahnos, the Steevuhnz of Steevuhnz flatly refused to allow the two easterners to leave his camp.
So Martuhn and Nahseer had, perforce, bided the two nights and a day it took Milo to assemble the council in the camp of Clan Steevuhnz, as deeply honored guests. There he first met a prairiecat and was thoroughly impressed at the high intelligence of the beast, as compared to horses, which were the only other animals with which he had mentally communicated. Nor were the human clansfolk quite what he had expected. For all the grim, blank-faced taciturnity they showed the world, among themselves they were a merry, active people, living by a strict code of honor—both personal and clan— bound together by loyalty to their clan and duty to their chief. As for the myth of “stinking savages,” he had found it to be a patent falsehood. No member of the clan but washed or was washed at least once each day in the waters of the lar-gish creek that separated their camp from that of Clan Mak-loor—often in large, mixed parties of young and old, male and female, and always with much horseplay and laughter— and most seemed good, if unorthodox, swimmers. Clothing and most of the horses’ were washed by slaves. A few of the cats swam on occasion, but most avoided the water except when thirsty.
From the first hours in the Steevuhnz camp, Martuhn felt oddly as if he had returned home after a long campaign. He could not recall feeling so much that he- was in his rightful place since his exile from Geerzburk. “I could live with these good folk,” he thought. “I could be truly one of them and happily live out the rest of my days as a nomad. I wonder… ?” Then he sighed, as reality once more confronted him, dashing hopes and daydreams alike. “I could, oh, aye, were it not for these damned duchies and my cursed responsibilities, my sworn word to a dead man.” Martuhn’s flexible mind had quickly accepted the differing customs of the clansfolk, even the unabashed nudity and the frequent and openly sexual fondling of couples, young and old. But when, just as he was settling into his bed in the chiefs yurt on that first night, none other than the chiefs nubile daughter slipped from the surrounding darkness to press her warm, naked body close to his and nibble at his ear while her hand groped downward toward his manhood, he was appalled. The very last thing he needed or wanted was a row with these folk over the matter of a debauched maiden.
Stehfahnah read his surface thoughts, inchoate though they were, and mindspoke him matter-of-factly, “Maiden? Oh, you mean untried. You’ll find none such in this camp. Chief Martuhn, and fear you not my father. What I do is as fitting as it will be—I believe—enjoyable. Both his younger wives are too near to their foaling to receive your seed safely; one of his new concubines has her time of the moon and the other is with him. So my sisters and I cast the bones for you—I won.”
“But, my dear child,” Martuhn began in a whisper, “I am more than old enough to myself be your fathmmmp!”
She stifled his words by pasting lier hot, wet mouth firmly over his own, her little pointed tongue thrusting deeply into his mouth, there to twist and writhe like a maddened serpent. One of her little hands clasped the back of his thick neck, kneading at the corded muscles under the skin; the other crept to his crotch and began to knead that which it found there.
“Oh ho,” she mindspoke him amusedly. “You misled me, Chief Martuhn; you are not so aged as you would have me believe. But as the proof of a stew is in the eating, so the proof of a new horse is in the riding. We must try your gaits and stamina, my stallion.”
Neither Martuhn nor Stehfahnah slept very much that night… nor the night following.
In the end, his staff proved harder to convince than did either of the duchy councils, noble or common, but all came around eventually. A balding, sun-browned yeoman-farmer hailing from somewhere down in the late duke’s home county stood in the commoner council and stated their reasoning bluntly and succinctly.
“We’uns all would hev his worship fer our new duke, an’ if thet means a-herdin’ five hunnert winter wolfs th’ough the dang duchy, we’uns’ll do thet too!” In the much-shrunken council of nobles—which numbered a few graybeards, but was mostly filled by the fresh young faces of younger brothers or distant cousins of those men who had followed Duke Tcharlz’s banner to their deaths—Sir Manfred, Baron Kehrbee, had the last words prior to the oral vote. “My lords. I do not stomach the idea of a horde of nomads traipsing across the duchy any better than I would a dish of rotten stockfish, but Count Martuhn believes their assurances of a peaceful passage, and I believe him. And I’ll speak true, far better them, who only wish to pass through and then be gone forever, than the incursions of foreign armies who mean to stay… and well have just that unless we immediately unite behind Count Martuhn and acclaim him publicly as our new overlord.
“You all, even you younger lords, know what usually occurs when the overlord of one of our neighboring states dies with no legal heir—the countless assassinations, the chaos and, like as not, outright civil war, with three or four or more factions jockeying back and forth. One always wins eventually, of course, but by then the land has lain idle for too long, the humbler folk have been butchered or driven into hiding, the treasury has been scraped clean and the flower of the nobility either hacked to death or hanging from gibbets in chains. Over the years, Duke Tcharlz took advantage of more than one such debacle to enlarge our duchy.
“Well, now Tcharlz is dead and precious few of his male issue—legitimate or otherwise—survived him. But our duchy is fortunate in that he legally adopted and named as his heir none other than his long-faithful captain, Count Martuhn of Twocityport. I mean to tender Count Martuhn my fullest support, and I shall expect all true noblemen of this duchy to do no less. “Moreover, before She died, Duchess Ann authorized a long and deep investigation of Count Martuhn, received him and spoke with him in private for several hours, then exacted the solemn oaths of all her followers to support him as their new overlord.