Chapter V
Upon arrival of the victorious cavalry column at the crossroads just beyond the army’s camp, Captain Bralos, having rather urgent business in the commerce district of Mehseepolis, ordered his senior lieutenant to take the squadron into camp, while he and his personal guards accompanied the lancers and Horseclansmen guarding and guiding the hundred-odd chained prisoners bound for the state slave pens, these situated behind a palisaded enclosure just beyond the city’s west gate, the ever-present stenches of it, the main abattoir and the tanneries nearby borne away from the city on the prevailing winds.
A low hill with a wide, flattish top a few hundred yards west of the tanneries had become the new location of executions, the former one, when Mehseepolis had been merely a ducal city, having been used as the site of the slave pens. Bralos and the column of horsemen and stumbling war captives slowly passed the place of terror, of torment and death. There apparently had been no recent crucifixions, for all the line of uprights sat without crosspieces, bare save for black crows perching atop three of them, with wistful hope. Beyond them, Bralos could discern the bulk of the permanent gallows, large enough to hang as many as a dozen miscreants at once. A powerful shudder suddenly coursed through the length of him, and he tore his gaze away to look up at the blue skies … only to see the buzzards patiently gliding, circling the abattoir and slave pens.
Inside the outer palisade, a quartet of burly, cruel-looking men shoved and cuffed and cudgeled the bone-weary captives into several files, counted them and reported to a languid, bored-appearing man who had earlier introduced himself to Bralos as one Kahsos of Ahkapnospolis (his lack of title indicated him to be a younger son whose patrimony had been a small city or walled town, but in polite conversation, he would still be addressed as “lord,” of course).
Leading the way to the smallest of the buildings, the gentleman ushered his noble military guest in, saw him seated, then poured two battered brass cups half full of a sour, unwatered wine, before seating himself and starting to dictate a receipt to a scribe whose ankles were fettered and joined by a chain.
When he was done and the slave scribe was busy with the sanding and the affixing of the seal to the document, the gentleman said, “My lord Vahrohnos, you could not have brought these slaves to us at a better time. When the last batch were gelded, an appalling number of the bastards had the effrontery to die on us, many more of them than is at all normal after geldings, so old Thoheeks Bahos, who heads up the Roads and Walls Committee in Council, is fuming, fit to be tied, swears he’s going to send out a real surgeon or eeahtros and insist he and his helpers do all future geldings.”
“Who had you had doing them before, Lord Kahsos?” asked Bralos. “Some of your guards?”
The reply made him sorry he had asked. “No, my lord Vahrohnos, a man name of Pehlzos, used to be a swine-breeder, works now over at the abattoir. He’s going to be madder than hops at the loss of his three coppers for each pair of balls if the man lived, one copper was he to die.
“Very funny story, my lord Vahrohnos, about the time we threw a slave and Pehlzos come to find out when he went in his bag, the damn bastard didn’t have but the one ball, and while Pehlzos was squatting down there with that single ball in his hand, arguing about how we was still going to owe him the going rate and all, that slave bastard, he jerked one hand loose of the straps, took up one of old Pehlzos’ knifes and put it through his own heart, right there. I ended up giving Pehlzos a half-copper for that one, and he was bellyaching about it and over it for weeks; still brings it up now and then.”
A few yards outside the city gates, Bralos signaled his guards to rein up, kneed his horse over to the side of the road, leaned from his saddle and retched until nothing more would come up. To solicitous words from the guards, he remarked, “That country gentleman’s wine, or whatever the stuff really was, was fouler than swampwater or ditchwater running off a new-mucked field. Far better that it be back at home in that ditch than sloshing about in my poor belly.”
“Well, then,” remarked his guards-sergeant, Tahntos, slyly, “will my lord be wanting to stop by a wineshop to get the taste of that brew from out his mouth?”
“No, my good Tahntos.” Pausing long enough to see the disappointment register on Tahntos’ face and that of the others before continuing, he said, “But all of you have my leave to visit Master Keemohsahbis’ place while I call upon Master Haigh’s smithy, across the way … just so long as you all stay sober enough to easily stay on a horse and ride with me back to camp, that is.”
Seated again in the crowded little chamber off the smithy, Bralos gratefully savored the tart bite of Master Haigh’s strong winter cider for a few moments before broaching his reason for coming this day.
“Master Haigh, that fine mailshirt I bought from you, away back when first we two met, saved my life on this last campaign, making it to my mind worth every last thrahkmeh of that steepish price.”
The master smith did not appear at all surprised at the news, only inquiring, “Would my lord care to tell what happened?”
Bralos shrugged. “Not much to tell. We were chasing after bandits in the northern foothills, up on the border. That particular day, the unit I was leading was following a very winding and extremely narrow trail through heavily wooded terrain. I had just ridden past an old tree when one of the bandits leaped down from a place of concealment on a thick limb and hacked at my back with a heavy saber.
“Now it was a shrewd blow, delivered with full strength, and had I been without that mailshirt, I’d’ve been down dead or dying with a severed spine and some hacked-through ribs and that bandit would’ve been up in my saddle and spurring away, leading the rest of my unit into the maw of an ambush at the gallop. As it was, the edge did no more than cut through the straps of my breastplate and ruin a shirt, though the force of the blow drove the air clean out of my lungs and sent me up into the withers of my mount.
“Not having expected to have to strike a second blow, my attacker paused for a split-second, then, when he drew back to hack again, the back of his blade struck a tree limb, and by that time I’d regained at least my balance if not my breath, gotten my own saber uncased and come close to taking off his sword-arm between wrist and elbow.
“It is a well-known fact that lancers are armored only on the fronts of their bodies, you see; indeed, two of my men were slain in just that same way during this campaign just past, and I mean to do my best to put a stop to it … at least within my squadron, Master Haigh. But I’ll need your services in order to do it.”
The smith shook his head. “My lord, I cannot go any lower on my price for those double mailshirts … well, not enough lower to matter, at least. Much as I respect and admire your solicitude for the welfare of your warriors, wealthy as I know you to be, still must I say that I entertain doubts that you could or should pay the two or three hundred thousand thrahkmehee that so many shirts would cost, and besides, it would take me over a year to get so many down here to you. A great deal of time and painstaking labor needs must go into each and every one of them are they to be perfect and of dependable quality. In addition, did my lord not tell me upon the occasion when first we met that the somewhat silly traditions of his army forbade additional armor for lancers?”