“But, Chiefs,” Milo continued, “to save the honor of such a clan as produced the Heroes of the Rock, I ask that the council grant a boon.”
Several of the chiefs growled at once. “What would you, War Chief?”
“Allow Rik—who is clan-chief as well as chief malefactor—to personally expiate his clan’s dishonor. Allow him to reject his chiefhood, divorce his wives, give up his title to any clan-property, save only some clothing and a little food and a mule. Then allow him to ride away, bearing only dirk and ax and spear, for he has lost, by his blasphemies, the right to bear sword or bow or shield. And let him be declared outlaw, to be slain if ever he returns.”
No longer moaning, the Linsee warriors looked up, hope glimmering in their teary eyes; but Rik shattered their hopes.
12
“No!” Rik shouted hoarsely, his two fists clenched until the knuckles shone as white as his face. “No, no, I’ll not go alone. They all are as guilty as I of Law-defilement! Every one of them has had the slave-bitch, too. Let the clan be banished! I’ll not go alone!”
Where she sat on the dais, between Milo and Aldora, Mara rapidly mindspoke to her mate. “Why don’t you just have the lying pig killed and end this business rapidly and permanently, darling?”
“I can’t,” his answer beamed back to her. “The Law forbids it. To slay a fellow of the kindred in cold blood is a crime worse than Rik’s. Kindred may only be slain on their request or in defense from unprovoked attack. I hate to do what I now must, but…”
Aloud, Milo spoke slowly and solemnly. “So be it. Chiefs, you must assemble your warriors and all your free-women and all children older than eight winters at the second hour of the Sun tomorrow, that they may see and hear and remember.”
Blind Hari came abruptly to his feet. “War Chief, may I be heard?”
Milo nodded and resumed his seat. “Kindred,” began the bard, “from my earliest memory,. , have I heard of the bravery and honor of Clan Linsee. Though their valor has brought them honor and more honor over the hundreds of years, it has cost them dearly, for honor of clan and tribe has ere meant more to their warriors than limbs or life. These are good memories. They sing well and I have no wish to forget them.”
The oldest chief, Djeri of Hahfmun, stood. “But Tribe-Bard, the Law is the Law. You yourself brought the charges and they have—after much false-oathing—been admitted true. The honor of a clan is carried by its chief and, if that chief be not only criminal but craven, the clan must suffer. None here deny that Clan Linsee has long possessed honor, but by the Law-defilement of all the warriors and the perjury of Chief Rik, all the centuries of honor are dissipated. If the chief will not go and bear the dishonor away with him, what is there to do but drive off the clan?”
Hari’s reply was quick. “There is this, Chief Djeri: Rik is chief by birth, but, if his father were to declare him ill-got and not a true Linsee, his dishonor would be his alone and not of the clan.”
Chief Rik had regained some of his arrogance. He laughed harshly. “You’ll grow wings before then, old -Dung-face. My father is dead these seven years!”
“Chiefs,” asked Hari, “who among us bears the clan-name sacred of prophecy? Who was affirmed ‘Father of the Tribe’ when we began this march nearly twenty winters past?”
Almost as one the council members murmured, “Milo, Milo of Moral, our War Chief, he is ‘Father of the Tribe.’”
Hari nodded. “So as ‘Father of the Tribe’ is he supposed father of the man, Rik.”
Milo recognized his cue. “Him called Rik, I declare ill-got! Such a one cannot be of Linsee or any other honorable clan, his attributes are got of dirt; he stinks of swine.”
As Milo slowly pronounced the ritualistic words which declared Rik’s bastardy, that man commenced to tremble and, when all was said, he screamed, “No, no, what you do is unnatural! I… I am my father’s son!”
Milo shook his head. “I suppose you are, strange man, but none knows who your father might be, or what.” He addressed the Linsee warriors. “Kindred, if aught is unnatural, it is that a clan should be without a chief—especially, a clan so ancient and honorable as Linsee. Who is your oldest chief-born?”
Bard Vinz replied, “Hwahlis, brother to … to Haenk, who is next oldest.”
“Then, kindred,” asked Milo, “can any Linsee say good reason why the clan should not have chief-born Hwahlis for the Linsee of Linsees?”
“But,” shouted Rik ragingly, “he brought the Ehleenoee shoat in the first place, and te was first to use her, too!”
“Horseclansmen of true purity of blood,” declared Milo shortly, “need not listen to the rantings of a perjured man-thing of doubtful lineage. If yonder dog-man yaps again, teach him respect for his betters.”
Before the Council of Chiefs, Hwahlis was declared successor to his father, Haenk. The new chief paced the circuit of council, stopping before each chief who then rose to declare his recognition of Chief Hwahlis and to exchange with Hwahlis sword-oaths and blood-oaths of brotherhood. Meanwhile some of the Linsee clansmen threw Rik and stripped him of everything which bore the Linsee crest (and everything else”of value), so that, at the last, he was left barefoot, wearing his sole possessions—drawers and a badly torn shirt.
The moment that Clan-Bard and Tribe-Bard had finished reciting his genealogy and the more spectacular exploits of his family and his clan, and he had been invested with the trappings and insigniae of his new rank, Hwahlis set about his duty as he saw it. Striding to the dais, he took Aldora’s small ankle and removed the ownership cuff from it and dropped onto his knees before the wide-eyed Ehleen.
“Child,” he said, meeting her eyes steadily, “I have caused you much to suffer and have allowed others to do the same. Your face and your body are good to look upon and we thought you woman, not child. So, being men, we behaved as men will. This is not excuse, only statement.
“For the price of your blood, spilled by me and by my clan, will you accept your freedom as payment?”
Patient and silent, he waited until, in a tremulous voice, the girl answered. “Yes,-Master.”
Hwahlis shook his head. “Master no more, child. If any be master, it is you, for I and all my clansmen owe you suffering-price. We will send word to your father, your kin, that he and they may come to set the price and collect it. Mine is not a wealthy clan, but all that we have, if necessary, will go to pay your suffering-price. Until your kin and your noble father arrive, our tents are yours. You are Clan Linsee’s honored guest and every
clansman and clanswoman is your … Why, child, what now, have I done to …”
Aldora’s great mental powers—and later years were to see just how great they truly were—had been awakened for but a few hours, yet already could she feel the emotions of others with painful clarity. So sincerely sorry was her former master, such utter goodness of spirit and true repentance did his mind radiate, that she could not but weep. But what began “as weeping for the soul-agony that Hwahlis was suffering, merged into weeping for herself, for her aloneness, with no kin to come for her.
“My … my f … father, he … come … never,” she sobbed in halting Merikan.
Hwahlis took Aldora’s tiny hand and patted it, roughly but gently. “Why, of course, he will, child! What sort of father would not come a thousand thousand days’ ride to fetch his loved daughter?”