But another, maddening chuckle was her only answer.
In a slow, stately advance, the couple came up the length of the room and took seats at one end of the wide table. While servitors set the places and brought food, the blind man rubbed absently at ink stains on his fingers, ran a hand over his neck-length ash-blond hair and then steepled his long fingers before remarking, “Ah, the good Father Skahbros is setting a new fashion in clerical garb, a robe bedecked with food stains rather than crusted with jewels. Most original, I must say, holy sir.” His dry chuckle came again, while the embarrassed priest hung his head.
“If all you’ve come for is to insult me and bedevil my priest, you are to quit this board!” Mehleena snapped, her voice quivering with the intensity of her hate. “I’m the lady of this hall and I’ll not have—”
The blind man’s palm smote the table with a sound like a thunderclap. All mirth had departed from his handsome face, and, when he spoke, ice shards crackled in his words.
“You will mind your words, my lady … and your manners! You forget yourself and overestimate your station. While still my father lived, you were lady of Sanderz Hall, and the years of pain and misery you brought us all were many indeed.”
“But the thoheeks is gone to Wind now, his body ashes for half a year. Ahrkeethoheeks Bili of Morguhn has appointed me regent over clan and thoheeksee until it is known for certain if Tim Sanderz will return to claim his patrimony—that office and rank to which he was born.”
“For the sakes of those of your children who are more like our father than like you, I have allowed—understand me, madam!—allowed you to retain the outward trappings and authority of chatelaine. But, as all save you and your creatures seem to know, you rule within your sphere only by my sufferance!”
“Were my sweet sister, the Dowager Princess of Kuhmbuhluhn, amenable, she would be in your place. But for all the evil you wrought and tried to wreak against her and Tim, she would not see you debased and humbled within this hall, nor will she allow me to send you, your cousin, your pervert of a son and your priest of an illegal cult packing.”
“But mind your flapping tongue, madam, and your manners around me. I have neither love nor even bare respect for you. I …”
But Sir Geros—whose hatred and contempt for the second wife of the old thoheeks was matched only by her hatred of him—had entered the room and, ignoring its other occupants, made his way rapidly to Lord Ahl. Bending, he whispered a short message into the blind man’s ear, then, at a curt wave of the regent’s hand, departed as quickly and quietly as he had come.
2
Captain-of-Lances Tim Sanderz floated on his back in the gently steaming, herb-scented bathwater, his eyes closed, allowing the soothing warmth to sink into tired muscles. From shaven pate to stubby toes, there was hardly an inch of visible skin that was not crossed by scars, and torso and limbs alike were ridged and callused at the weight-bearing points of armor. As he slowly moved his arms and legs to and fro to keep himself afloat, the muscles rippled under his skin.
Opening his eyes, he allowed his gaze to wander across whitewashed ceiling, down the painted stucco walls. How familiar it all was; it almost seemed that the past ten years had never been, that he was still the eldest boy growing up in his father’s hall.
“Father …” he mused, conjuring up the image of that aged and stooped, but gnarled and powerful little man, always smelling of the milk and curds and cheese that had made up so much of his diet. The long years I hated you and cursed you. And now I have returned, and you are gone to Wind and Brother Bili says that none of it was really your fault.”
Closing his eyes again, the captain thought back to that last conference with his half-brother and overlord, the arhkeethoheeks, Sir Bili of Morguhn.
For all his exalted rank, Sir Bili’s private office was Spartan in its simplicity. A refectory table, a few chairs and stools in a windowless and lamp-lit room, the thick, stone walls lined with cabinets and the floorspace cluttered with chests, the double-thick door fitted with iron bolts as thick as a warrior’s wrist.
Glancing about while the nobleman poured wine for them both, Tim felt certain that he sat in a second hall armory, was sure that the many chests would yield up plate and swords, dirks and axes and war hammers, that the cabinets held resting hornbows, bales of arrows, stands of pikes and bundles of darts.
For it was common knowledge that Bili of Morguhn had never gotten over the Ehleen-spawned rebellion that had burst forth in Morguhn and Vawn long before Tim was born. Bili remembered well the ruthless butchery of his kin, the besieging of this very hall. He recalled how he and his uncles, cousins and one of his brothers had had to hack their way out of his own capital, Morguhnpolis, and remembered also the death of that much-loved brother, Djehf Morguhn, ere the siege of Morguhn Hall had been broken by the approach of Confederation troops.
All of Bili’s personal servants were Middle Kingdoms men, as were his picked bodyguard. Not one servitor in Morguhn Hall was of Ehleen blood; moreover, all were, if not of the Middle Kingdoms, Kindred or Ahrmehnee from the western marches. He governed his own duchy harshly, as pitilessly as a northern burk lord ruling a conquered province, trusting none but his brothers, his sons and Kindred of proven loyalty. Few men of any race liked him, but there was not one who did not fear and respect Bili.
Sliding a cup of wine across to Tim, Bili said bluntly, “To me. Tim, you’re already thoheeks, and that’s a load off my mind, young kinsman. I’ve been worried sick these past months with no word from or of you, afraid I’d wind up having to confirm a thrice-damned Ehleen pervert to the Duchy of Vawn, your stepmother’s eldest, Myron. Not that he’d have ruled, of course; she would’ve, and she’s far worse than even such as he will ever be. Why, my informants tell me that, since your father’s death, she’s brought in a priest of that damned, baby-butchering, blood-drinking Old Church of the Ehleenee; that she flaunts the outlawed bastard before all at the hall, clothes him in silks and supports him in indolent luxury.”
Tim shrugged. “Well, my father’s been dead half a year. Perhaps this so-called priest is her lover.”
Bili smiled coldly. “That thought came to my mind when first I heard of this priest, but my folk tell me such is not the case. For one thing, Mehleena is as perverted as her son. Her lover is reported to be her cousin, the witch, Neeka; for another, this priest is what the Ehleenee call ‘one of God’s Holy Geldings’—before they’ll ordain a man into that order, they take his ballocks off, and most of his yard, too.”
Tim shuddered. “Sun and Wind! What kind of people are these Ehleenee of the Old Cult?”
“Fanatics, snapped Bili, adding, “to be born and bred Ehleen is to be inculcated with fanaticism and treason with your mother’s very milk. My peers speak most unkindly of, me, claiming that I blindly hate and unreasonably mistrust such few Ehleenee as remain in Morguhn. But their duchies did not—a bare generation ago—suffer civil war and ruin because of an Ehleen holy war. Yes, many of them did lose kith in the Vawnpolis campaign and in the mountain fighting that followed, but those dead are only memories to them now, and dim memories at that. Every time I ride over my lands, I am confronted by stark reminders of what evil deeds, were committed here.”
The passion faded from his pale blue eyes. “But, to your case, young kinsman. Could we do this the way I feel to be proper, we’d ride into Vawn at the head of your lances and my dragoons, put every Ehleen who looked at us sideways to the sword, impale that outlaw priest side by side with your stepmother, burn Neeka alive and cleanse your duchy of any taint of the Old Cult or like treasons.”