“Yes, Dili,” nodded Vaskos. “Some of the lay leaders were women. And right horribly were they treated.
“The priests and the male leaders were gelded, then pitch was poured on their wounds. That barbarity done with, the Ahrkeethoheeks set his guardsmen to striking the heads from every man, woman, and child of Gafnee, forcing the priests and leaders who had not died of their maltreatment to watch the butchery.”
“All of the female leaders naturally died of their sufferings, but some score of the priests and male leaders lived. They were set on the road, still naked and with their lips stitched shut, loaded with a manweight of manacles and chains, in two wagons and heavily guarded. Less than half lived to reach Kehnooryos Atheenahs!”
Failing to note the disgust and horror on Vaskos’s swarthy face, Bili commented casually, “Sewed their lips shut, did he? Well, that’s one march Lord Eevahnos has stolen on King Gilbuht. It was a good idea too, keep the bastards from spreading their poison along the way or from plotting amongst themselves. But, tell me, Kinsman, how did the rebel swine eat and drink?”
In lieu of answer, Vaskos asked in a tight voice, “Have you no feeling, then? That civilized men could do such things in the name of justice and our Confederation sickens me! To so mistreat conquered enemies…”
“Conquered rebels,” corrected Bili. “There is a considerable difference, you know. That, Kinsman, is the only way to handle the kind of rebellion you and Klairuhnz have described. You must put it down so hard and so thoroughly that no commoner or priest or noble will ever forget the fate of a rebel. I, for one, would like to make the acquaintance of this Lord Eevahnos. He sounds like a wise and most astute man. Why, King Gilbuht himself could not have done a better job!”
“But to slay women and children … even babes …” Vaskos began.
“Nits make lice, Kinsman!” Bili shrugged.
Vaskos’s visage darkened perceptibly, and he straightened in his chair. “I have been a soldier for above thirty years, and while I’ve had to put my steel into a few barbarian women, I’ve yet to slay a child. Nor will I, ever!”
Bili raised his right hand, palm to Vaskos in the ancient gesture of peace. “Kinsman, I but requested a tale, not an argument. There is no need for your anger. But ere I see it grow, I shall take my leave.” Arising, he smoothed his suede gambeson and started to buckle the tops of his jackboots.
“Now, hold!” snapped Klairuhnz, unmistakeable authority in his voice. “You, Kinsman Bili, sit down! You, Kinsman Keeleechstos Vaskos, act your age and your rank! The Confederation has scant need of hotheaded Strahteegoee!”
With Bili once more in his chair and Vaskos silent, the Bard leaned forward and continued, slowly and forcefully, his black eyes hard. “None of us here is as innocent as you would have us believe you to be, Kinsman Vaskos. I have slain children, Kinsman Bili has slain children, and so too have you! Think you, how many men have died under your steel, do you suppose? In above thirty years soldiering, the number must be large, considering all the small wars and skirmishings against the mountainfolk. So how many children starved to death, because you had slain their fathers?”
Vaskos shifted in his chair, looking down at his big hands, and mumbled, “But that’s not the same.”
The Bard nodded vehemently. “Correct. Correct, Keeleechstros Vaskos, it is not the same at all. For the sword offers a clean, quick death, while the death of hunger is long and slow, torturous and incredibly horrible, with the body ravenously feeding upon its own flesh and blood and muscle. Many of those children, Vaskos, would have welcomed the cold, sharp kiss of your sword … aye, and blessed you for your mercy!”
And suddenly Bili was there, was one of them! One of the horde of shadowy, emaciated little starvelings all sunken, hungerbright eyes and swollen abdomens, arms and legs fleshless and reedthin, hands like tiny claws and faces like skincovered skulls, suppurating, dripping sores and teeth dropping from bleeding gums. His hand weakly fumbled for his winemug … anything to fill his gaping, agonizing emptiness.
Then the nightmare dissolved as suddenly as it had come. “Sorry, Bili,” came a mindspeak from Klairuhnz, on a level which Bili had thought he alone possessed, having never before met another who could communicate on it. “That was intended for Vaskos, not for you.”
The Bard would then have broken off the mental connection, but Bili held stubbornly to it, demanding, “Who in hell are you, truly? What are you? No common mind-speaker could’ve done what you just did that I know! And no man, possessing such powers as you have would waste his life and talents as a mere traveling bard. Are you then a sorcerer in disguise?”
“Sorcerers are nonexistent, Bili,” came the quick reply. “There are only men and women who use their inherent powers to the detriment or death of others … much as you effected the death of Earl Hahnz, or magnified the sound of your warhorses’s hooves, so that those brigands thought a troop was charging them.”
Bili started, and his right hand clamped onto the hilt of his dirk. “How… what do you know of… ?”
“Only what I was able to glean from your mind, earlier in the dininghall. But fear not, Bili, those secrets are safe. Nor do I fault you, for in a fight to the death, only a fool would refrain from employing every weapon or skill at his disposal.”
“Who and what,” Bili repeated insistently, “are you?”
“You shall know, in time,” was the Bard’s curt answer. “You shall know all that you now ask, and much, much more. But for now, drink your wine and allow me to finish Vaskos’s education, for I… we … may soon have need of him.”
On the mindspeak level, the exchanges had taken bare fractions of seconds. And Vaskos, whose mindspeak talents were marginal at best, was unaware that Bili and Klairuhnz had even conversed.
“Perhaps all that you say is right,” he answered the Bard’s most recent statement. “But even so, that is but scant justification for the atrocities and wholesale butchery at Gafnee. The rebels could’ve been dispersed to other places, or even sold overseas. But to coldly slaughter them … I, for one, could never …”
Slowly, Klairuhnz shook his head. “Vaskos, you have a great capacity for compassion. Used properly, it will aid you in being a better-than-average Strahteegos. Utilized imprudently, allowed to rule rather than serve you, at the wrong time and toward the wrong people, as you are presently doing, it will lead to your downfall, if not your death.
“Vaskos, Vaskos, you are thinking with your huge loving heart, and not with the mind of a talented and experienced soldier, a leader of men. Think, man, think!”
Vaskos’s forehead furrowed. “What mean you, Bard?”
“All right, look at it this way,” Klairuhnz tried another tack. “You have fought the Tcharlztuhnee, I take it?”
Vaskos nodded brusquely. “Aye, our most recent campaign was against those devils.”
Klairuhnz went on. “They steep their arrows, darts, and spearpoints in a fermented dung. So what do the eeahtrosee to such a wound, say to a deep thrust in the leg?”
Vaskos’s lips tightened. “They slash the leg to the bone, let the man’s own blood wash and cleanse the wound, then they poultice it with pledgets of molded wheaten bread. But what has such to do with… ?”
“All in due time.” Klairuhnz cut Vaskos’s question off short. “And if the bleeding and the poultices fail, Vaskos, if the toes blacken and the leg purples and starts to stink, what, then, do the eeahtrosee?”
Vaskos sighed gustily. “What can they do, if the man is to live? They dose him well with hwiskee or strong cordials, bludgeon him unconscious, then cut off the leg.” Absently, he rubbed at his scarred thigh: