Bili acknowledged the salute, saying, “Lord Komees, shortly I will be taking a half-dozen troopers on a patrol of the surrounding area. My brother will be Chief in my absence. However, as I have just informed him, you and Kinsman Sami will share exclusive command of the troops, the Hall, and preparations for its defense, as well as arrangements for such Kindred as come here for refuge.”
“It might be well that you closet with Bard Klairuhnz for as long a time as he needs to take the ‘Lament of Clan Morguhn’ from your memory. We will give Chief Hwahruhn’s smoke to Wind at the return of Sun, tomorrow; and if Clan Bard Hail is not back by that time, Bard Klairuhnz’s services will be needed.
“Also, please have wagons and teams and guards for them ready. Choose the guards from among Captain Raikuh’s men; they appear to be experienced looters. If there are no hostile forces in the hall village, Til send back a messenger, and the wagons and men can come down and strip it of anything we can use.”
At the time of the conquest of Northern Karaleenos by the Confederation, all land had belonged either to the king or the great nobles, who had resided only in the cities. Those who had lived on and worked the land had been accounted as much a part of it as the animals and crops; nor had their lives and well-being been considered of much importance by their owners, save as a source of revenue. Even then, over a hundred years agone, had they been a people of mixed antecedents-part Ehleen, part indigenous native.
With the settlements of the Horseclansmen, the old order had been drastically changed. The Kindred had been nomadic herdsmen for hundreds of years, and though in Karaleenos then- felt-and-leather lodges were become stone halls, farming was to them an alien and despised occupation. They remained herdsmen, breeders of horses, cattle, goats, and sheep, taking what lands they needed for pasturage or for the sites of their halls. What was left was freely given to those who wished to farm as their own property, to use or dispose of as they should desire.
What few of the Ehleen nobility as were left slavishly copied this practice-indeed, copied any practice, no matter how barbaric in their own eyes, that would allow them to retain the remainder of their much reduced lands and stations. Things were more or less chaotic for a decade or two, until the former land slaves became adapted to the new order and their unaccustomed role of landowners, responsible only to themselves.
So had it been for over a hundred years. And as generations of the younger sons of Kindred Houses had wed the daughters of merchants, tradesmen, and farmers, while their titled brethren were blending their own blood and genes with scionesses of the houses of the surviving Ehleenoee nobility, there became less and ever less distinction between Kindred herder and Ehleenoe farmer stocks.
To Komees Djeen and most of the other so-called Kindred Nobles, it seemed incomprehensible—and smacked strongly of sorcery—that so large a proportion of the nonnoble classes should be involved in what had become an open revolt supposedly directed against the Kindred, for many of these very rebels had fully as much or even more Kindred blood than did the bulk of the nobles!
One did not, of course, have to sympathize with Vahrohnos Myros of Kehnooryos Deskati to understand at least some of the reasoning which underlay his treason. Before the defeat of Karaleenos and its forced merger with the Confederation, his ancestors had been overlords of three cities and three-quarters of the lands which now made up the Duchy of Morguhn, as well as parts of the neighboring Duchy of Vawn. This was not the first revolt spawned by the broodings of Ehleenoee minor nobility on past grandeurs, but it was the first in this part of Karaleenos in nearly a hundred years, as well as but the second in all of the Confederation to have such wide backing of the common sorts.
While the House of Deskatios had produced many highly intelligent men of rare talents and value to the Duchy and Confederation, it had also produced more than its share of scions who had been considered at least “odd” by their contemporaries. Indeed, Myros himself had once been a brilliant and promising officer in the Army of the Confederation until after over ten years of exemplary service, he had been suddenly relieved of his command, stripped of his military rank, and forbidden ever again to display his Fourth Class Silver Cat.
No one in all the Duchy ever admitted to knowing the truth in the matter, but there were rumors … one of them that had he not already succeeded to and been confirmed in his title, his neck would surely have made the short, sharp acquaintance of an Army executioner’s sword, so grave had been his offense.
So Myros had scant reason to love the Confederation and at least some reason to envy the Thoheeks of Morguhn and Strahteegos Komees Djeen and even Substrahteegos-to-be Vaskos Daiviz, since all three held titles of which he felt himself to have been cheated. A return to the ancient order would therefore place him squarely in the very lap of his dreams.
But for the humbler sorts, a return to the ancient order—the bad old days—would be a return to the status of dumb, enslaved beast of burden. So none of the noble Kindred could fathom any gain these common folk might hope to secure in turning on their present rulers.
XI
The village of Hohryos Morguhn-service and garden village of Morguhn Hall-lay not quite two Ehleenkaiee from the Hall. Beyond it, a few hours by horse and half a day by wagon, lay the city of Kehnooryos Deskati, squarely athwart the north-south Traderoad and consequently the main commercial center of the Duchy.
The village was deserted, as Bili had felt it would be. But the evacuation had been very recent, for the blacksmith’s forgefire still was very hot and a scytheblade, which had snapped while being straightened, was yet warm to the touch. All wagons and carts, all mules and oxen were missing, along with their owners, which meant that the villagers must have gone by road, and since the patrol had encountered not a single person on their ride down from the Hall, the people must have fled to Kehnooryos Deskati.
The young Thoheeks sent one of the troopers galloping back to the Hall to fetch the wagons and guards. It was a safe bet, considering the amount of loot they had appropriated along with the horses, that most of Pawl Raikuh’s men were old hands at pillaging and could go through the outbuildings and the village’s twenty-odd homes like the proverbial dose of salts.
By the roadside, just beyond the village, they found a savagely mutilated corpse. From its general build and masculature, they assumed it to be a man’s body. There was no remaining way to tell the sex, much less the identity of the hacked, charred, incomplete carcass. Bili could only hope that the poor creature had been dead before the dreadful mutilations had been done.
Leaving the grisly discovery where it lay, Bili led his five troopers in a wide crosscountry sweep to the south and west. At the crest of the first hill, they spied a mounted party laboring up its south slope-half a dozen appeared to be women and twice that number well-armed men. As the party neared Bill’s concealed position, he recognized the leader and trotted downslope to meet him.
”Thoheek’s son Bili, you are a welcome sight to clap eyes to!” Vaskos reined up knee-to-knee and gripped Bill’s hand with fierce geniality. The thick-thewed man had a few fresh cuts on his face, a bulky wad of bandage protruded from under his helm, and he rode somewhat stiffly, as if his armor might conceal other wounds, but he greeted Bili with a smile. “And how fares my father? Have you seen aught of him?”
The smile was infectious and Bili found himself sharing it. “Komees Hari is at Morguhn Hall, Vaskos, and he’s well enough, physically; but sight of you will do wonders for his spirit. Your loving uncle, Drehkos, swore that he’d had you murdered, you know.”