Steepling his fingers and nodding, Mahvros commented, “He’s shrewd, but then we’ve all known that for years. He knows full well that so heavy is Council’s schedule of business, so petty a matter might not come up for years. Besides, Council can seldom agree on any point, it would seem; I’ve seen smaller bones of contention than this one would be promote personal verbal attacks, physical assaults in the very Council Chamber, duels and the hiring of assassins, on more than one occasion. We refer to ourselves as ‘noblemen’ and ‘gentlemen,’ but I have seen more of nobility and gentility in certain mountain barbarians than in the persons of certain Councillors. But, nonetheless, there are ways to circumvent the sure delays and chaos of Council.
“Who suggested that you come to me? Tomos?”
“No, my lord.” Gil shook his head. “Lord Sitheeros was the first to say that I should, but Tomos agreed when I mentioned what Lord Sitheeros had said. Tomos dictated the letter to his secretary and I signed it.”
“Heheh,” chuckled Mahvros, grinning. “You have good advisers, Gil, among the best, really. The Wolf of Iron Mountain and the Karaleen Fox are two fine men to have guarding your flanks. Of course, they know what many men do not know: right many matters never even go to the full Council, for many and varied reasons. Really earth-shaking decisions, of course, must be decided by the ayes of at least two thirds of Council; that’s the way that Thoheeks Grahvos and the early Council set it up.
“But matters of lesser importance, and your case would surely fall into this category, can be approved by half the Council plus one more vote, nor do said votes have to be cast before the rest of Council, nor even in the Council Chamber. Of course, the full Council is almost never here and assembled together, you know that—many are just too busy on their lands, some are infirm, Thoheeksee Pahvios and Portos are away on campaign for at least two thirds of any given year—therefore, in order to give full votes on important matters, most of the thoheeksee have given their proxies to men of like mind who are likely to be here, in Mehseepolis, more often than are they.
“As chairman of Council, I vote five—my own vote and four proxies. Thoheeks Bahos votes for himself and for a cousin, Thoheeks Gahlos; Thoheeks Grahvos has two votes that are his because his is a double thoheekseeahn; and Thoheeks Sitheeros, as I’m sure you know, owns three votes due to his triple thoheekseeahn. But in addition, Grahvos holds and votes two proxies and Sitheeros has three from as many border thoheekseeahnee. So the grand total is seventeen Council votes, exactly the number needed to approve your request that you be allowed to leave the army, so you may consider it done and the matter settled, my friend, and if Grand Strahteegos Thoheeks Pahvios doesn’t like it, he can go somewhere alone and cry.
“But, as a matter of purely personal curiosity, I’d like to know why. Are you getting homesick, then, Gil?”
“No, not me, my lord.” The Ehleenicized Horseclansman replied. “It’s Sunshine and Tulip, my two elephant cows. They want to go back to the land where they were born, want to know once more their own dear kindred and browse again the forests that fed them in youth, wade and swim the rivers, be dried and warmed by the sun of home. They have both served me and this army well and long, so I think they deserve to be served equally well by me, and that’s why 1 wish to take leave of the army. I want to go with them to their distant homeland. Do you, can you, understand, my lord?”
Mahvros had always owned a deeply emotional streak that he had had to work hard to hide, over the years, and the plain, simple sincerity of the words of Captain of Elephants Gil Djohnz had brought a painful lump to his throat and a misting to his black eyes, so that he had to swallow hard before he could reply.
“Yes, my dear friend, I do understand. Your motives are selfless and distinctly laudable. How else may I help you and your elephants on your way?”
The Grand Strahteegos Thoheeks Pahvlos Feelohpohlehmos, newly confirmed Lord of Kahproskeera, had sent an officer of his personal horse guards to summon and escort Sub-strahteegos Thoheeks Tomos Gonsalos back to his headquarters complex on the other side of the sprawling camp under the walls of Mehseepolis. The gaze he had fixed upon Gonsalos when he had been ushered into the audience chamber had been as glittering and cold as the edge of a headsman’s axe.
Tomos had known damned good and well just what it was all about; therefore he had simply saluted his superior and then stood stiffly and in silence, returning the cold rage blazing from the old man’s eyes with bland calmness.
Finally, his rage getting higher than the dike of his control, Pahvlos had smashed the side of a clenched fist against the top of his desk and snarled, “You arrogant, insufferable, insubordinate son of a Karaleen sow! You knew that I wanted to, meant to, keep that cur of a barbarian bitch’s whelping for the good of my army. I imparted to you my reasons, good, sound reasons; I can now see that I should not have so wasted my breath on such as you, my lord foreigner. My decision has been overridden by a Council fiat, but I doubt not that you knew of that well before they chose to inform me of the outrage. Am I not right, you traitorous bastard, you betrayer of trusts?”
Tomos chose his words most carefully, not allowing a scintilla of his own rage—fully justified, in face of the personal insults that the old man had hurled at him, heaped upon him—to show in face or voice or actions. “My lord Thoheeks did, if he will but recall, say that the case of Captain of Elephants Gil Djohnz’s request that he be allowed to take his elephants and leave the army be adjudicated by the Council of Thoheeksee and—”
“Shut your mouth!” growled the Grand Strahteegos. “Try throwing my words back at me and I’ll see you stripped and well striped in a trice, noble officer or not; it would just now do me good to see your thin blood and your alien backbone.
“I meant for the case to go to the Council, right enough, but before the full Council, and you knew what I meant, too. It might’ve been as much as a year and a half before the Council got around to the matter, and my army would’ve had the full use of the barbarian and his beasts in the interim. At that Council sitting, I would’ve had the right to put forth the reasons why he will be needed indefinitely, and, finally, I would’ve been able to cast my vote and that of Thoheeks Ahramos of Kahlkopolis against the barbarian’s foolish request. In a civilized land such as this, the only use or place for barbarians of his ilk is my army ... or wearing a slave collar.
“But no, you and that brawling, boozing, woman-crazy, meddling, overindulged fool of a Thoheeks Sitheeros had to disregard my sound decision on the matter and send that barbarian ape to Thoheeks Mahvros, who’s thick as thieves with Thoheeks Grahvos and his crooked clique. Now I just have to sit here and let that damned barbarian go and let him take the rest of the barbarians and four of my army’s elephants with him! And I lay the full blame for it on you, you turncoat, you renegade, you half-barbarian scapegrace.
“I think the time has come for you to leave my army, take your skinny, barbarian whore and go back to your savage homeland and leave decent, civilized kath’ahrohsee to rule themselves without having to bear the unwashed stenches of your foul breed. Go on, you pig, get out of my presence before I lose complete control and run my sword through your putrescent body!”
Blankfaced, though with great effort, Tomos saluted, faced about and strode out of the audience chamber. But as he was fitting foot to stirrup, the officer who had escorted him to the place stepped out of the building and signaled him to wait. When they had ridden, side by side, in silence for enough distance to be out of sight and hearing of the headquarters buildings, the officer reined up close and said in hushed tones, “My lord Sub-strahteegos must know that he has full cause to issue challenge to the Grand Strahteegos, to meet him in a session of arms to the death. My lord is a thoheeks and so too is he, so he can have no slightest acceptable reason to decline a challenge from my lord. I heard all of his insults and I will so swear before the chosen seconds.”