Two to Conquer (37 page)

and I can’t have that in my army.” He grinned wickedly and said, “Anyhow, the officers have a little leniency—and you’d get first choice since you led the charge. We may not be so like after all—you’re braver than I, to lead the charge right through that nest of harpies! Or did you simply begin to suspect, earlier than I did, that they were illusion?”

Paul shook his head. “Neither,” he said. “I simply didn’t see anything.”

Bard stared. “You didn’t—not at all?”

“Nothing. I began, after a little, to see them through
your
mind—but then, I was only seeing what
you
saw, and I knew it.”

Bard pursed his lips and whistled. “That’s very interesting,” he said. “You picked up the burning of the Tower of Hali— gods above and below, that was a ghastly business! Wars should be fought with

swords and strength, not with sorcery and fire-bombing! That hellish stuff they use is made by sorcery in the Towers; no normal process can manufacture it!”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Paul said, “but I picked it up, again, through Melisendra’s mind. I didn’t see it myself.”

“Yes. Sex creates a bond. And I’ve often suspected that Melisendra’s a catalyst telepath. In a Tower she’d be used to awaken latent
laran
in someone who for some reason can’t use it. I suspect, without meaning to, she’s awakened what little of it I have. God knows, she’d never think she owed me any favors! And there are times I suspect that it’s no favor at all, though most people would think it so; there are times I wish I was immune to
laran
, or at least to illusion. If you hadn’t led the charge this morning, we’d have lost the last bit of our advantage. As for being immune to
laran
—unless you pick it up directly from my mind, or Melisendra’s, or from someone very close to you—well, that might be an advantage. We’ll talk about that afterward, maybe. I can think of a service you could do me.” His eyes narrowed and he looked sharply at Paul. “I’ll have to think about it. Meanwhile, I have this rebel village to deal with. Stand back there and listen to what’s happening; you might have to deal like this sometime.”

Paul, admonished, listened as he gave the commands about the men who had actively assisted the

Serrais army. They were to pay double taxes this year; anyone who could not pay the taxes to do forty days of free labor on the roads— Paul had already learned that the forty-day cycle, corresponding to that of the larger moon, served the social purpose of a month, making up four tendays. Women, too, followed the forty-day menstrual cycle of the largest moon. At the end they cheered his leniency.

One of Bard’s fellow officers said, “With respect, Lord General, you should have burned them right out,” but Bard shook his head.

“We’re going to need good subjects to pay taxes. Dead men support no armies, and we need the work of their hands; and if we hanged them we’d somehow have to support their wives and children… Or are you suggesting we emulate the Dry-towners and sell the women and children off into brothels to earn their keep? How would people like that feel about King Alaric, to say nothing of his armies?”

Master Gareth said quietly behind him, “I am surprised. When he was a boy, no one ever suspected that Bard di Asturien, brave as he might be, would have grown up to have any political sense at all.”

A pretty, red-haired, round-bodied girl came up to them, bending in a low curtsy. “My father’s house is your headquarters, Lord General. May I serve you wine from his cellars?”

“Now that,” Bard said, “we’ll gladly accept. Serve it to my staff as well, if you will. And all the more for your serving it, my dear.” He smiled at her, and she returned the smile.

Paul, remembering that the women of the
leroni
had all been quartered at the far end of the village, in a house set apart, and that four guardsmen had been told to protect their privacy, remembered tales among the soldiers that Bard had a hell of a reputation with the women.

But before the girl could return with the wine there was a knock on the door, and one of the Sisters of the Sword, her scarlet tunic slashed and still battle-stained, burst into the room.

“My lord!” she exclaimed, and fell on her knees before Bard, “I appeal to the justice of the Kilghard Wolf!”

“If you are one of those who fought for us in the battle,
mestra
,” Bard said, “you shall have it. What troubles you? If any man with my army has laid a hand upon you—I personally do not think women

should be soldiers, but if you fight in my army, you are entitled to my protection. And the man who has touched you against your will shall be gelded and then hanged.”

“No,” said the woman in the red tunic, laying a hand upon the dagger at her throat. “Such a one should have perished already by my hand or that of my sworn sister. But there were mercenaries of the

Sisterhood in the army of Serrais, my lord. Most of them fled when that army fled, but one or two were wounded and some of them stayed by their sisters; and now that the battle is over the men of your army are not treating them with the courtesy which is allowed by custom to captured prisoners of war. One of them has already been raped, and when I appealed to the sergeants to stop it, they said that if a woman took the field in war she should be sure not to lost her battle, or she should be treated not as a warrior but as a woman—” The woman soldier’s mouth was trembling in outrage. Bard rose swiftly to his feet.

“I’ll put a stop to that, certainly,” he said, and gestured to Paul and one or two of his officers to follow him as he strode out of the tent.

They followed the woman in red through the village and through the hurly-burly outside that was the army making camp, but they had not far to go past the village when they knew what the woman had

been talking about. They heard a screaming of women, and a group of men had gathered around one of the tents, making lewd noises of encouragement. At one side a fight was going on, where a group of women in red were fighting to get through. Into the noise and confusion came Bard’s bellowing voice.

“What the hell is this all about? Stand back!”

“Lord General—” Murmurs, shocked noises of recognition. Bard thrust back the flap of the tent, and a minute later two men came staggering out under a savage kick. A woman was sobbing wildly inside.

Bard paused to say something to the guard that Paul could not hear, then raised his voice again.

“Once and for all, I gave my orders: no civilian is to be touched, and no prisoner ill-used!” He jerked his head at the men he had kicked. They were sitting dazed on the ground, already drunk, their clothes undone, confused. “If these men have any friends here, take them back to their own quarters and sober them up.”

There was muttering in the ranks, and one of the men called out, “We can take what the other army has, that’s custom in war! Why do you refuse us what’s customary, General Wolf?”

Bard turned toward the voice and said harshly, “You’re allowed by custom to take their weapons, no more. Have any men in the opposing army been made your minions by force?”

There was a mutter of outrage at the notion.

“Then hands off these women, hear me? And while you’re at it, let me repeat what I told the soldier here.” He gestured toward the woman of the Sisterhood. “Any man who lays a hand on one of the

Sisterhood who has fought beside us for the honor and strength of Asturias and the reign of King Alaric, shall be first gelded and then hanged, if I have to do it myself! Understand that, once and for all.”

But the woman in red flung herself at Bard’s feet.

“Won’t you punish the men who have outraged my sisters?”

Bard shook his head. “I’ve put a stop to it; but my men acted in ignorance, and I won’t punish them. No one else will touch a prisoner; but what’s done is done and I won’t give the women who fought against me the same kind of protection I give my own armies—or what’s the good of being in my armies at all?

If the mercenaries in your Sisterhood want to swear allegiance to Asturias and fight alongside my armies, I’ll give them that protection; otherwise not. Although,” he added loudly, glancing around at the assembled men, “if anyone touches a prisoner except as custom allows, I’ll have him whipped and his pay stopped, is that clear?” The woman was about to say more, but he stopped her. “Enough, I said. No more fighting. Come on, men, break it up. Get about your business! Any more fighting and there’ll be whippings and broken heads tomorrow!”

Back in the commandeered house, the staff had finished their wine and were going to make their own arrangements. The red-haired girl, who reminded Paul elusively of Melisendra, put a cup into his hand and smiled.

“Here, my lord, finish your wine before you go.”

He raised his face to her and drank, sliding his arm about her waist. Her flirtatious smile made him understand; this was not an unwelcome advance, and he pulled her close. A hand fell on his shoulder, and Bard’s voice boomed out, “Let her be, Paul. She’s mine.”

Mentally Paul cursed, knowing he should have expected this. Already, on campaign, he had discovered that he and Bard had the same taste in women. Naturally enough, if they were the same man, they’d want the same thing in women, and it wasn’t the first time their eyes had fallen on the same camp follower or woman of pleasure in a fallen city. But it was the first time it had come to a direct confrontation. Paul thought, he owes me something for leading the charge, and his arm stayed

stubbornly around the girl’s waist. This time, damn it, he would
not
give in!

“Oh, hell,” Bard said.

Paul realized that he was already drunk; also that the rest of the staff had gone, leaving them alone with the girl. He put a hand under the girl’s chin and asked, “Which of us do you want, wench?”

Her smile turned from one to the other. She had been drinking too. He could smell the sweet fruitiness of wine on her breath, and either the drink had heightened her perceptions or she had a trace of
laran
, for she said, “How can I choose between you when you are so much alike? Are you twin brothers,

then? What is a poor girl to do when if she chooses one she’ll have to give up the other?”

“No need for that,” Paul said, as he swallowed the wine, realizing it was much stronger than what he had had before, and was consolidating his drunkenness. “There’s no need to prove one of us the better man this time, is there, brother?” He had never voiced this knowledge of their unconscious rivalry before this. And if Bard were somehow a hidden half of himself, was this not a way to come to terms with it?

The girl looked from one to the other of them, laughing, and turned to lead the way. “In here.”

Paul was just drunk enough to retain a merciless clarity. Bard made some show of flipping a coin. Paul wasn’t surprised—that kind of chance-choice was common in some very unlike cultures—but he

stepped back, watching the clouded and elegant dance of bodies, Bard and the girl,
his
body and hers, as Bard sank down, pulling the girl atop him. Paul felt a momentary flicker of surprise—
he
would have pinned her down beneath his own body—but the thought was remote, dreamlike. He sank down beside

them, his hands straying along her curving back, through the silken hair. She turned a little and her lips fastened on his even while she drew in a gasp of excitement as Bard entered her. She found a moment and a free hand to tease his manhood with her fingertips. Paul, embracing her, found that he had them both in his arms, but it didn’t seem to matter; it was dreamlike, nothing now seemed forbidden, and he knew their three bodies, enlaced, became a shifting dance. The woman’s softness seemed somehow

only an excuse to savor
himself
, knowing Bard’s excitement and sharing it. It was dreamily perverse; he knew that when he took her, Bard, in full rapport now, shared the pleasure even as he had shared his twin’s. He never knew, never wanted to know, how long it lasted, or at what point, the girl forgotten, he found himself in Bard’s hard clasp, all softness gone now, a struggle almost to the death, locked together in what he could not isolate as either passion or hatred; and in a final sardonic flicker of apartness he wondered if this could be called, if they were actually the same man, sex or the ultimate masturbation, and then it did not matter whether the violent explosion was orgasm or death.

He woke alone, his head thundering. The girl was gone, nor did he ever set eyes on her again. She had meant nothing, she had only been the excuse for that violent confrontation with his dark twin, his other half, his half-known unknown other. He sluiced his face with the icy water in the bucket, and was still gasping with the shock of it when Bard came in.

“My orderly brought me a pitcher of hot
jaco
. If your head’s doing what mine is, you could use half of it,” he said. The stuff smelled like bitter chocolate, but the effect was about the same as extra-strong black coffee, and Paul was glad to get it. Bard poured himself another mug.

“I want to talk to you, Paolo. You know you saved the day yesterday. That damned harpy illusion is a new one, and the
leroni
weren’t prepared for it. It was so real! And you didn’t see it at all?”

“Only through your mind, as I told you.”

“So you’re immune to that kind of illusion,” Bard said. “I wish I dared confide in Master Gareth! He might be able to explain it. And among other things, it gives you an edge if you should have to lead the army some day. And the men will follow you; but you’ll have to be careful about the
leroni
, they’ll sense something strange about you.” He barked short laughter. “One good thing about Varzil’s God-forgotten Compact—we can fight without having those wretched corps of wizards along with us, if

they ever decide to put the Compact into effect!”

“I thought you and Master Gareth were friends—that you depended on him!”

“True,” Bard said. “He’s known me since we were boys, my foster brothers and I. But I’d still be glad to dispense with his services and send him to spend a nice peaceful old age in a Tower! When this land is at peace again, perhaps Alaric will swear to the Compact after all. I don’t like my future subjects being bombed out of their homes, and down where they spread bonewater dust last year I hear the