A Cat Of Silvery Hue (14 page)

Such had been the extent of the neglect of growing crops in Vawn and the senseless destruction of flocks, herds, barns and storehouses that the foraging parties ranged far and wide with but scant success.

And even while they feverishly prepared against its coming, the leaders secretly prayed for the arrival of the heathen host, hopeful that the immediate proximity of a common foe would help to unite the faction-ridden, mutually hostile inhabitants of Vawnpolis. For the Church, which might have been expected to exercise a steadying and cohesive influence, had wreaked just the opposite to the point where it was frequently all that the overworked soldiery could do to keep the rabid adherents of no less than three self-proclaimed
kooreeoee
from one another’s throats. Also, all was not sweetness and light betwixt the other disparate elements seething in the overcrowded, underfed city—original urbanites, Vawnee villagers, Morguhnee villagers and city folk, with a leavening of out-and-out bandits from both duchies, all thieved upon and battled with each other when they were not in flight from or in combat with the few thousand loyal spear levymen and nobles’ retainers who composed the only dependable troops.

Danos, now troop sergeant of Lord Drehkos’ Morguhn Cavalry, had never in all his life enjoyed himself so much. In a city filled with boasters, he had only let slip references to the bloody battle at Horse Hall, his own heroic part in it and the gory path he had finally hacked through the ranks of attackers to make good his escape. So the rank and file respected him, and, as he was a reminder of better times, of golden days spent in the company of good old Hari, Drehkos favored the former hunter as much as he did any man.

He loved the charging down upon a street packed with rioters, loved the shock of his whip or staff or swordflat on unprotected heads and bodies, while his own stout plate gave him sure protection against such few, pitiful weapons as might be turned on him, since the inhabitants had been forcibly disarmed. Further, through clandestine sales of the food he stole from the citadel stores, he had become a wealthy man.

And his sex life had never been so rich and varied. In a city full of hungry strangers, it was breathtakingly easy to entice peasant girls—and even the occasional destitute noblewoman—to a certain rat-infested cellar hidden under a wrecked building, there to be tortured, raped and eventually killed. In the constant danger of life in Vawnpolis, no one with a grain of sense investigated nighttime screams of unknown origin, and Danos was careful to dump the mutilated bodies far from his hideaway and not in the same area twice, depending on the starving hordes of rats and packs of dogs to effectively camouflage the traces of his gruesome pleasure. It was all he could do to restrain his mirth when a comrade-in-arms told him the grim tale of a woman of his acquaintance who had apparently been torn to bits by the ravening curs; Danos had wondered briefly to which of his victims the man had referred.

Drehkos Daiviz reined up before a heavy gate set in high sandstone walls. A man of his strong escort toed forward and pounded his brass whip pommel on one of the iron-studded portals until a small panel opened behind a grid of bars.

“I am
Ahthelfahs
Mahrios,” growled the bearded warder in an archaic dialect. “What is it you want?”

“A word with your
eeloheemehnos
, monk!” snapped Drehkos impatiently. “And quickly, mind you. You may tell him his visitor is
Vahrohneeskos
Drehkos.”

Now old Drehkos in all probability would have waited the quarter-hour the gate warder was gone, then shrugged and gone on his way. But this Drehkos, radically forged by stress and circumstances, was of a stronger metal.

Turning to Danos, he snapped, “Sergeant, order the ram up; that bastard’s been gone long enough!”

At Danos’ shouted order, a double file of riders trotted forward, a massive, iron-beaked timber slung by thick cables from their horses’ triple-weight harnesses. With the projecting beak a few handspans from the gate, the riders dismounted and, with the expertise of much recent practice, took hold of spikes driven into the beam, essayed a few short swings to build momentum, then sent the ram crashing against the center of the monastery gate with a sound almost deafening in the narrow street. At once, a chorus of panic-stricken shouts erupted from behind the high walls, at least one of them loudly promising eternal damnation to all without should one more blow be struck. But at a nod from Drehkos, the men swung again, and again and again and yet again. On the third blow, the point of impact splintered and with a whine of tortured metal, the great iron lock bolt snapped. The fourth buffet tore out the hinges and the gate groaned and sagged, now supported only by its bar, which resoundingly parted at the fifth impact. The rammers drew their horses aside so that Drehkos and most of his force might ride through the archway, hooves booming hollowly on the shattered portal. And even as the
vahrohneeskos
and his men entered the courtyard, several large oxdrawn wains queued up behind them.

The burly, white-bearded abbot strode forward, his black eyes flashing, rage afflicting his deep voice with a tremolo. “You Morguhn barbarian! You’ll be made to pay for that gate, sure as my…my…and…and get your men and beasts out of our courtyard! D’you hear me? And
what
are those wains for?”

Blank-faced, his voice dripping caustic sarcasm, Drehkos answered, “Why holy
eeloheemehnos
, to collect your freewill offering of stores for the Vawnpolis larder, of course.”

“But,” spluttered the abbot, “we
did
contribute. Why, a wagonload was driven to the Citadel but a week since!”

Drehkos struck his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Of course! How could I have forgotten so
generous
a gift—a bare score of moldy hams, some barrels of weevily flour and two tuns of inferior wine. Wasn’t that the inventory, holy sir?”

The elder put on a long, sad face, while his arrogance dissolved into restrained patience. “We gave our humble best, noble sir. You must realize that as holy men devoted to lives of quiet and contemplation, the eschewing of sinful, worldly pleasures and mortification of our flesh for the betterment of our souls…”

When he could stop laughing, Drehkos wiped at streaming eyes and, leaning aching sides across his saddlebow, said, “I could almost love you for that, you lying old bugger; you’ve given me the first real laugh I’ve enjoyed in nearly two weeks. But you may cease trying to delude me with your pious hypocrisy. It’s a well-known fact that you set a better table than did the late
Thoheeks
Vawn. So show my men to your magazines. I warn you, if we must waste our time in searching for them,
you’ll
be very unhappy.”

“I tell you, we have nothing left!” shouted the abbot, his anger returning. “Do you doubt the word of a one sworn to the Holy Orders of God? I trow your faith must be as pale a thing as your eyes, to behave in so heathenish a manner when in so sacred a place!”

Turning to the Ehleen-appearing Danos, he demanded, “Have you and the others looked to your souls’ welfare, that you follow the sinful commands of an obvious heretic backslider?”

Though Danos just grinned, then spat between the abbot’s sandaled feet, several of the troopers squirmed uncomfortably in their saddles, but the ready laugh of their revered leader reassured them.

“Divide and conquer, hey?” exclaimed Drehkos. “Why holy sir, I’d thought you but a simple monk. “Perhaps I should have a man of such quick and shrewd mind on my staff? But you waste your breath and our time.”

“Sergeant, take a squad and search this warren…and, be there complaint, you and your men will know whose word will weigh heaviest.”

The abbot threw up his hands, apparently having already been apprised of what had ensued when, on the previous day, the prioress of the House of Saints Ehlaina and Faiohdohra foolishly remained adamant in the face of this resolute and unbiddable lord. “Wait, wait,
vahrohneeskos
, please, no search will be necessary; one of the brothers will conduct you to our pitiful storeroom.”

Seeing it, Drehkos agreed that pitiful was indeed the proper adjective. The contents would not have half-filled one of the wains. “Now, sergeant, take that squad and let us see where these reverend gentlemen hide their real stores.”

The heavily guarded caravan of wains had to make no less than three round trips ere the monastery’s cupboard was finally bare. In the course of finding the concealed storerooms, some of the building suffered unavoidable structural damage and a number of small valuables disappeared, but Drehkos would hear none of the abbot’s complaints.

“You pompous, lying jackass! These men will shortly be fighting to save your scaly hide. You should be on your knees thanking them, giving them anything they might desire. Without a doubt, I should drive you and your band of useless mouths into the countryside, let you try to make a separate peace with the Kindred…if you can.”

The abbot visibly trembled. This was precisely what had been done to the holy sisters of his order on the previous day. Weeping and wailing, they all had been herded out the east gate into the barrenness which Vawn had become. And their sacred precincts were now housing refugees.

The old abbot crumbled. “Please…sir, you could not be so…so cruel…?”

“Could I not?” growled Drehkos. “It might be interesting to see just how well God appreciates your services, just how well He would provide for you beyond the city walls. But it is because of those very walls that I desist.”

“You and your monks may draw daily rations at the Citadel, starting tomorrow morning. At that time, certain of my agents will inform you as to where you will report to labor on our defenses.”

A bit of the abbot’s old fire briefly rekindled. “But…but this is…is unbearable! We be holy men; many of us are as noble as you, sir! You cannot ask us to do the work of common laborers. We have dedicated our lives to contemplation and prayer.”

Drehkos frowned, knitting up his brows. “Holy sir, it would pain me to watch you and yours starve.”

“You would not dare!” hissed the abbot.

Drehkos shrugged. “I would have no choice, holy sir. You were delivered a copy of our proclamation, that I know for a fact, and you must have at least glanced at it. Those who do not work toward the defense of Vawnpolis do not eat of our meager stores.”

“You cannot be a true Knight of the Faith.” The old man shook his head vehemently. “For such a decent, Christian man would not rob holy men of their poor all, then give them so hideous a choice: forced labor or starvation!”

Clenching a handful of the abbot’s fine silken robe, Drehkos slammed him up against a wall, snarling, “Oh, I be one of your damned Knights, right enough, the more fool I! Like many another in this stinking dunghill city, I’ve forfeited nearly all I own to your damned, doomed Holy Cause. I turned on a much-loved brother and saw to the murder of a nephew who had never harmed me or mine. Along with a pervert whose guts I detest, I besieged the hall of a young man I honestly liked and admired while his old father lay sick and dying within! To escape the righteous wrath of those I’d wronged, I took a group of brave men through country unfit for goats and, to my shame and sorrow, left the bones of far too many of them bleaching there.

“While you and your precious ‘holy men’ have been gorging yourselves on viands of the sort we just commandeered, we Knights of the Faith, up at the Citadel, have been faring but twice daily—and then only on bread and wine and a noisome stew of ‘Vawnpolis squirrel,’ which beast you better-fed types would call a rat! And why? So that such slender resources as we have might be husbanded against a long siege.”

Releasing the shaken churchman and stepping back, Drehkos’ voice became flat and unemotional. “You have your choices,
eeloheemehnos
: work and you eat and remain here; try to remain idle and not only will you not receive rations but tomorrow’s sunset will see you and any other nonworkers sharing the same soul-enriching privation which the holy sisters are now, no doubt, enjoying.”

None of the noble Vawnpolitan rebels had known Drehkos Daiviz well. There was not that much contact between the minor nobility of neighboring duchies—this was a long-established custom which was designed to prevent inbreeding of noble houses and to assure the certainty that
komeesee, vahrohnoee, vehrohneeskoee
and city lords owned allegiance to but a single
thoheeks
.

But, of course, ill gossip always traveled like wildfire, so most of the surviving noble rebels had heard of the ne’er-do-well wastrel scion of the House of Daiviz, who had offended both Kindred and Ehleenee by marrying a woman of common blood whose kin worshiped neither Sun nor Son, then had spent the most of his life squandering her fortune on harebrained commercial ventures. But they had difficulty in seeing anything of the luxury-prone, self-centered profligate of rumor in the person of the frighteningly competent, masterful man who led them now.

Before Drehkos’ fortuitous arrival, the three nobles of Vawn had been at an utter loss as to how to even try to defend the city they had so recently wrested from its rightful owners, while instigated and led by
Kooreeos
Mahreeos. Word of his disappearance—dead or captured, no one could say which—during the frightful debacle under the walls of Morguhn Hall and, even worse, of the entrance into Morguhn of Confederation Regulars had sapped their resolve and rendered them almost as panic-stricken as the commoner Vawnpolitans and the hordes of refugees flooding in from Morguhn. They had been promised and had expected instant and continuing victory. For was not the only True God with them? But the Holy Crusade had been broken in Morguhn, with the very flower of its forces extirpated. And, facing unbeatable odds, their backs were truly and irrevocably to the wall, with now hostile duchies to north, east and south, and grim death to the west.

A bare seventy years prior to the ill-starred rebellion, Vawn and its neighbors to north and south, Skaht and Baikuh, had for the most part been the uncontested domains of certain fierce tribes of mountain barbarians, whose constant and bloody raids on the lands of Morguhn, Duhnkin and Mahntguhmree had at last impelled the High Lord’s armies to advance along a wide front, driving the mountain men, foot by bloody, hard-fought foot, out of their ancestral hill country—which, because it was difficult to farm and because the Karaleenos Ehleenee had been sowers and reapers rather than herders, had never been previously subdued.