“We’ll have him, aye, and his rascally Kataki Strom. We have more reinforcements coming in. We’ll have that Kataki by the short and curlies, and hang him higher than any of the whiptails we’ve hanged today, by Vox!”
“Amen,” said Leone Starhammer.
Drak roused himself.
“After today’s standoff,” he said, and he put force and dynamism into his words. If he was supposed to be the leader, he’d damn well lead, by Zair! “Today has shown us that we will win. Strom Rosil Yasi must know his strength will dwindle as ours increases. A few days to rest the troops and put fresh heart into them, the reinforcement sent from Vondium joining us — and we shall sweep the Kataki Strom away!”
Growls of savage agreement rolled throatily around that group of people clustered about the Prince Majister of Vallia.
And then Chuktar Unstabi, the Undurker mercenary, said: “It will not work out like that, majister. If you gain any significant victories here and threaten his own province of Kaldi, the kov will gather all his forces from the islands and hurl them against you on the mainland.” He stared about the group. “I thought you realized that.”
With the Jikai Vuvushis
The two ladies, stripped stark naked and with bodies heavily oiled so that the mingled lights streaming from the high windows ran liquid runnels over their skin, sized each other up and then grappled with savage ferocity.
“Hai Hikai!” screeched Chuktar Gilda Failsham, and hurled herself on Silda, grasping hands cunningly reaching for holds on that smooth slippery body.
Both ladies had their hair bound up tightly. They gripped fast, chest to chest, squirming to change grips and so throw the other onto the matting floor. That coarsely woven matting might be softer than the hard boards beneath; a heavy fall and a sliding slip across it could scorch up skin woefully. Silda was not prepared to let that happen to her so she slid Gilda’s first impetuous attack. She twisted the heavier woman over and instead of depositing her upon the mat held her long enough so that she could flail out an arm and seize Silda by the upper leg. Silda rocked aside and Gilda, a hoarse cry of triumph bursting unstoppably from her, crashed down — underneath.
Silda allowed the Chuktar to do the obvious next step and roll over. The matting stuck to her bottom; but it was nowise as nasty an experience as falling upon it with that portion of her anatomy. She took a professional’s pride in thus allowing the Chuktar to win. She felt it politic to win the odd fall or two — and then she’d let poor Gilda Failsham drop down to feel what it was like — but as for emerging the victor in these bouts, why that, she’d decided, might not be clever in a spy.
Gasping and panting, heaving herself up, rosy and oily, Failsham blatted out: “You are improving, Lyss; but you have a long long way to go in the art before you best me.”
“Too true, by Vox,” said Silda, and stood up in a single fluid motion that would have knocked out the eyes of any mere male spectator. Here, in the private villa given over to the Jikai Vuvushis, any man venturing in might not return with all he brought with him.
The girls sitting on the benches arranged around the salle laughed and cheered. Silda was not convinced that not one of them had the skill to penetrate her deception; probably Mandi Volanta could. She’d chosen her time, pounced, catching Mandi as she was toweling her hair, and said in her most winning and at the same time most compelling voice: “It were better, Mandi, if we pretended not to know each other, and most particularly to keep secret that we are Sisters of the Rose. Do you agree?”
“I am shattered, Silda! You — here — why, I—”
“My name is Lyss the Lone. You do not know me.”
“As to that — by Dee Sheon, you gave me a start!” The towel slid down Mandi’s neck. Then, recovering herself, for she was, after all, one of the SoR, she went on: “Of course I agree we know nothing of the Rose. But — why should we not acknowledge that we know each other?”
“It is best. Do you agree?”
“Oh, yes, if you wish it, Lyss,” said Mandi, crossly. Silda did not heave a sigh of relief. She was well aware that the intolerant yet basically kind and sound training of Lancival produced people perfectly capable of handling this essentially simple circumstance.
“Although,” and here Mandi looked studiously away from Silda. “I own I am most surprised to see you in the service of Kov Vodun. Why — I thought you were devoted to the emperor and that ice block of a son.”
Silda took the proffered opportunity.
“I thought he was not an ice block.”
“Well, he must be with that Queen Lush for all one hears. A dreadful family, all told, don’t you agree?”
“Oh, quite dreadful.”
So Silda was gratefully aware that one problem was neatly overcome by the process of Mandi’s quick wits and native cattiness constructing the theory that Prince Drak, the Prince Majister, had turned his face away from Silda Segutoria. She had, then, Mandi’s theory went, taken herself off fuming with anger and frustration and bitterness, and joined up with Kov Vodun. Out of spite.
After a few more cautionary words, Silda added: “Oh, and Mandi, by Dee Sheon, it is good to see a familiar friendly face here.”
“Is that why they call you Lyss the Lone?”
“Life sometimes presses down with the weight of all the marble in Pentellharmon’s Quarries.”
Mandi looked meaningfully at Silda’s brown canvas and leather bag hanging at her side.
“I see you carry your—”
“The bag passes muster as an ordinary knapsack that any soldier might have. It contains other items, as well.”
“I shall do the same. But, do you use—?”
“Only when forced. We in Vallia know of the Sisters of the Rose, and I sometimes think folk begin to know too much.”
“They will never know, not while the mistress lives.”
“That is so.”
With that problem if not out of the way then temporarily shelved, Silda could concentrate on her upcoming meeting with Crafty Kando. Lon the Knees, when they next met was full of apologies.
“He is not to be found, Lyss. I have searched out all his usual haunts, and I had to stick a weasel of a fellow who tried to rob me. But Crafty Kando has gone to ground.”
“I will try to be patient, Lon.”
She could guess that Lon was rather pleased. The delay meant he had the excuse to see her again. She had summed up Lon as a man who would not lie too much to gain his ends with her; with those for whom he had contempt, for the slavers whom the poor folk slanged as greeshes, he would pile lie upon lie and joy in it.
So, perforce, Silda had to wait in patience, and drill and discipline her pastang of girls, and stand guard duty, and ride out with the kov on his journeys. He was now King Vodun — at least in his and his cronies’ eyes — and she would have to get used to addressing him thus. It stung.
When the girls sitting around the walls on their hard benches cheered Chuktar Gilda Failsham on yet another victory, Silda carefully avoided looking at Mandi Volanta. Flushed, rosy, shining with oils, the women passed through the warmed corridor to the Baths of the Nine. There they wallowed in luxurious steam, hot, warm and ice cold water, and so emerged at the end, spruce, glowing, filled with vigor and ready for what the world of Kregen might bring.
“Mind you, Lyss,” said Gilda Failsham in a reflective tone of voice as they walked toward the refectory. “As the kov — the king — keeps us as his personal palace bodyguard and we have not seen a proper fight for a long time, we cannot expect to receive too many of the new girls into the regiment.”
“They are to form a new regiment, I believe.”
“Yes. By Karina’s Steel! Some look likely. But there are far too many I would not trust on the field at my side, let alone at my back.”
Thankfully, Silda knew that would not occur for her. She could not face the prospect of actually having to go into a battle and fight against Drak and his soldiers. She’d just up sticks and desert and return to her proper allegiance. She would have failed in her task if that happened; but the thought of fighting against her own friends disgusted her.
“We are to have a few of the new girls, Lyss. And we can send some of ours in replacement.” Failsham slid a sidelong look at Silda as they sat at the scrubbed wooden tables and the slaves scurried with food. “I suppose you will send Sosie the Slop into the new regiment. You are to have five more girls to add to your pastang.”
This was an eminently sensible arrangement. Any commander would dismiss her worst soldiers, get rid of them to some other unfortunate. The best girls would be taken into Alloran’s own private regiment of Jikai Vuvushis.
The delicious aroma of vosk pie wafted to Silda’s nostrils. Momolams, yellow and succulent with butter, piled on the side dishes. There were vegetables in abundance. She indicated to the serving wenches what she required, and as her plate filled, she said: “Well, Gilda, no. I would like to keep Sosie. Oh, yes, she is a Slop. She is a mess. But she fights well.”
“I cannot pretend to be surprised. Just make sure the king never catches her looking like the wet end of a mop.”
Silda smiled, and went on: “I would like to claim one of the new girls for my pastang. Mandi Volanta. She looks useful.”
Jiktar Nandi the Tempestuous leaned across the table and waved her knife in Silda’s face.
“You have sharp eyes, Lyss. But I will not claim her, for her name and mine — well, confusion is to be avoided in a fight.”
“If you cannot remember or disentangle names,” said Chuktar Gilda Failsham with prim smugness, “you will soon find yourself cut down and shipped off to the Ice Floes of Sicce.”
“Oh, yes, of course!”
“As to this Mandi Volanta, Lyss. Yes, you may take her into your pastang.”
“Thank you, Gilda.”
Nandi used that dangerous knife to spear a chunk of vosk pie. “She and you, Lyss, are of the Sisters of Renunciation. A strict Order, I hear. I do not see why you don’t join us in the Sisters of the Sword.”
The name Sisters of Renunciation was often used by members of the Sisters of the Rose as a cover name. It was a well-concealed secret. Now Silda smiled again and chewed her vosk and cabbage without replying.
The deception was not quite meaningless, for the vast majority of the SoR had not gone over to Alloran. They had remained loyal to the empire and the empress. And, that meant they were loyal to the emperor as well. Once a Sister of the Rose went into action as only a girl of the SoR could, why, then, there would be no concealing the secret from anyone who understood. She felt that even had Lon the Knees seen the fight with the chavonth clearly, he still wouldn’t really have grasped what he was looking at.
There was no doubt about it, in the special and particular Disciplines of the SoR, Silda Segutoria was quick, was extremely quick, was a most rapid lady...
The brown bag called a knapsack she wore might not be as easy to open and close as a more normal jikvarpam, which besides being designed for the job with specially strengthened corners and sides and a fastening that would not delay nimble fingers by a hairsbreadth, would have a few rows of bright red stitching to distinguish it from the next girl’s; but the knapsack looked just as it was supposed to look. Any girl was entitled to a bag to carry her kit in, surely? No one was going to think for an instant the humble canvas bag was a jikvarpam, were they now?
Silda sincerely hoped not.
The refectory began to fill as the officers of the regiment drifted in, sniffing the food, licking their lips at the odors of wines.
“...kicked him where it made his eyes water,” said one of the Jiktars, casually, sitting down and reaching for the wine, evidently finishing a story.
One of her Hikdars, sitting at her side, laughed and said: “Apt, Jik.”
The Hikdar on the other side said, “Of course, Jik, if you go on like this you’ll cause a calamitous population drop—”
“A what drop?”
So they all three laughed.
Bright conversations, laughter, the clink of cutlery and glass, the rich odors of first class foods and wines, the taste of luxury all about, all these sensations crowded in and they made Silda Segutoria hopping mad. Confoundedly angry! These stupid women all enjoying themselves and living high off the vosk were avowedly out to destroy what was left of the responsible and caring part of the structure of management for Vallia. They were going to install a creature like Vodun Alloran. It was outrageous.
Nandi the Tempestuous, gesturing widely, knocked over her glass of wine. She swore and laughed, and flung a taunt at Silda.
“You’re looking down-in-the-mouth, Lyss! Drink a little wine—”
“I was just thinking that we are underemployed here.”
Now she’d opened the ball, as it were, she’d go on.
“Yes, Lyss?” put in Chuktar Gilda Failsham. She spoke in that tone of voice that brought a waiting silence around the refectory table.
“Why yes, Gilda. Badly so. By Vox! All we do is stand sentry along the corridors.”
A nodding of heads confirmed her words.
The Chuktar said: “We are paid by and in the service of the kov — the king — and obey orders.”
“That may be so,” objected Nandi, speaking only just in time as she swallowed a chunk of juicy fruit. “But what about the king’s apartments beyond the green door?”
“Yes, yes,” called a number of the women. “We are excluded from duty there.” “The king keeps us at arm’s length.” And: “He reduces our status as a guard regiment.”
“This may be so.” Gilda Failsham frowned. “But the king employs his own Katakis and Chuliks within his most private apartments. That is his privilege.”
“By Janette of the Cunning Dagger!” burst out Nandi the Tempestuous. “I’d like to know what goes on in those secret rooms!”
Gilda Failsham shook her head. “I think not, Nandi. It is sorcery, surely. It must be, thaumaturgy, necromancy, witchcraft. We’re much better off having nothing to do with sorcerers, as any right-minded person knows.”
Arachna
Chuktar Gilda Failsham was perfectly correct.
The ordinary folk of Kregen steered well clear of sorcery of any order higher than the corner mage who might find a strayed animal, or cure warts, or make up a potion to entice a negligent loved one.