A Cat of Silvery Hue

VI

Sleep finally had claimed Mairee, but the throbbing of her feet made it a light slumber at best, and when the arms slipped under her body and the lips pressed down on hers, she instantly came to full, shuddering wakefulness. All that she could see of the face above her was as black as the hair. Then she became aware that those lips on hers were surrounded by a beard, a full beard! And she knew the feel of that beard … and those arms and those warm, tender lips. And she knew also that she was certainly dreaming. The knowledge that she could not live on and on forever in that blessed dreamworld, but must soon waken to the horror of her real existence, wrenched a groan from the depths of her being and flooded her eyes with hot, salt tears.

Beside her the snoring suddenly broke off, the bed shook to the lady’s ponderous movements. Then her strident voice shrilled, “A man! A dirty man! What are you doing in my bedchamber, you pig? Get your filthy hands off my girl!”

Ehrik’s deep bass rumble answered her, his tone hard and cold as polished steel. “Komeesa Hehrah, I done come to fetch back my wife.”

Lumbering her bulk half off the bed, Lady Hehrah turned up the lamp and stared in utter disbelief at the visitor, clad in dark-brown tunic and breeches, face and hands smeared with soot, wide dagger and shortsword hanging from his belt

“May God damn those blunderers!” she shouted wrathfully. “I told them to kill you! They swore you were dead! But you’ll not escape me this time!

“Klohee, Ahtheena! Call the guards at once! Do you hear me, you bitches?”

Ehrik did not move a muscle other than to treat the lady to a gap-toothed, derisive grin. “If it’s them two hussies in the antechamber you be callin’, you can save y’r wind. With crushed gullets and snapped necks, they’ll be bavin’ trouble answerin’.”

Black eyes widened in terror, the lady backed across the bedchamber, screaming. “Captain Danos! Guards, to me! Guarrds!”

Ehrik chuckled again. “We done sent all your bullyboys to Wind, too, komeesa. Lord Hari, he give us leave to butcher ever’ boar an’ sow an’ shoat in this here hall, ‘ceptin’ you an’ your damn priest”

Lady Hehrah started as if arrowpricked. “My … my husband is dead! He’s dead, I tell you! Myros promised Hari would be among the first to die!”

Ehrik’s bass laughter filled the chamber. “Well, I’ll not gainsay you, komeesa, but Cousin Hari do make the livelies’ corpse I ever come to see. He be a-ridin’ ’crost the wes’ pasture right now, him an’ near three hunnerd C’nfederashun kahtahfrahktoee. An’ I hopes to Wind he crucifies you, you unnatcherl thing, you!”

He stepped over to the bed, gathered his sobbing wife into his thick arms and would then have departed, but at the length of the chain she was almost jerked from his grasp and caught her breath in agony. It was as he gripped the chain to wrench it from the massive bedstead that his blue eyes lit upon Mairee’s feet and saw what had been done to them, and he roared his rage.

Setting his wife down gently, he slipped his forefingers between her lacerated ankle and the iron cuff circling it. Setting his jaw, he pulled once, and half the brass rivet sped through the air to clank against a wall and fall to the floor. Two more metal-rending efforts and he was holding a six-foot length of fine chain.

Then he slowly advanced upon the komeesa, who backed before him, stuttering, “B-but you—you said—Hari said—not kill me!”

“I ain’t gon’ kill you, you bitch,” Ehrik grated, swinging his length of chain from his huge right hand. “But whata’ your folks done to my Mairee’s pore feet that calls for sufferin’ price.”

Lady Hehrah hastily stripped all the rings from her shaking hands, cupped them in one palm, extended them before her. “There! There’s enough to buy you half of Morguhnpolis. Take them! But don’t touch me … please don’t … I … I cannot stand pain!”

Ehrik never halted his slow advance. His open left hand slapped her quivering white one, sending a vahrohnos’ ransom flying in all directions, the faceted gems scintillating in the lamplight.

Whimpering, nursing her hand, Lady Hehrah dropped to her fat knees, and Ehrik, after knotting the chain about her wrists as if it had been twine, dragged her over to an iron wall sconce, effortlessly lifted her heavy body and suspended it by those pinioned wrists. Lady Hehrah began to scream even before he started to unbuckle his rawhide belt, as all her weight drew upon that chain and its links bit into her pampered flesh, bringing bright spurts of blood to trickle down her depilated arms.

Mairee wanted to bid Ehrik desist, wanted to close her eyes to what she could see coming, but she sat mute, staring in horrified fascination. At the first swish and solid whack of the swordbelt, the lady emitted a piercing shriek, and the left eye—the only one Mairee could see—seemed about to spring from its socket. Ehrik exacted his suffering price thoroughly, methodically. When he had done and stood panting, the thick belt trailing on the floor tiles, the lady’s back was one red-purple weal, from nape to knees, and the blood from innumerable cuts and splits in her soft skin trickled down to drop from her toes.

Ehrik rebuckled his blood-smeared belt, snapped on the weapons, wrapped a rich coverlet about his wife, then gathered her up and stalked out of Horse Hall.

As Ehrik descended the broad steps and paced resolutely toward the gate, no one who saw what lay within his eyes even asked him his destination, much less moved to block his way—not even the old komees.

Geros Lahvoheetos, since he was one of the few who had ever been in Horse County, had been sent by young Thoheeks Bili as one of Lieutenant Hohguhn’s score of Freefighters. He had but just ridden into the familiar courtyard and stiffly dismounted from his mare when he observed the press of men parting, making way for that big, black-bearded farmer who had led first that frightening ambush back in the forest, then the raiding party which had cleared the way and opened the gate to the rest He saw in the smoky red glare of the torches that the fanner bore in his arms a willow slip of a pretty girl. She was wrapped about with a splendid dark-red coverlet of woven silk and her slender arms were clasped about the big man’s bull neck, while her head lay pillowed on his chest.

The circumstances which had, almost overnight, transformed Geros into a respected warrior had failed to rob him of his gentle, polite demeanor or helpful nature. He had, of course, heard the shocking tale of what had befallen this man and his lovely young wife, and he surmised that, having freed her of that odious bondage, Ehrik was now bearing her home to the village, which was a long walk to Geros’ mind.

Still leading his mare, he stepped out into the farmer’s path. The blackboard halted abruptly an arm’s length away, stood glowering for a long moment, then snarled, “Out of my way, damn you! I be done in this place!”

He might have added more, but was disconcerted by Geros’ obviously sincere smile. The dirty, dog-tired sometime valet-musician said softly, “Sir, your wounds are still almost fresh, nor are you as young as the men you led here this night; it is a long walk to your village and you must be near to exhaustion now at its beginning. My mare,” he proffered the reins, “is strong enough to carry two for that distance and more. Will not you and your lady wife accept the loan of my sweet Ahnah?”

Ehrik glowered a minute longer into Geros’ open, honest eyes, then, with a smile that was almost shy, he closed the gap between them, saying, “Freefighter, would you then hold my wife and hand her up to me, an’ I be mounted on your pretty mare? Ah … be you careful of her feet, man! She be … hurt.”

When Ehrik had swung up and was settled betwixt the high cantle and flaring pommel of the battle kak, Geros gingerly passed the feather-light girl back to him. The headman reined about, heading the mare toward the entry passage, then thrust his big, callused hand down to grip Geros’ own crushingly. Geros was shocked to see tears glistening in the deep-blue eyes of this man who had suffered so much so stoically.

“What be your name, Freefighter?” asked Ehrik huskily. “Geros Lahvoheetos, sir.”

The thick black brows rose perceptibly. “A Ehleenee Freefighter?”

Geros shook his helmeted head. “Fm not really a Freefighter, sir, though I’ve ridden with them much of late.”

“Well, Geros Lahvoheetos, be you whatever you be, you done been a good friend to me and my Mairee. When you need a friend, you yell for Ebrik Goontehros, an’ sure as Sacred Sun’s a-comin’ at dawn, I’ll be with you. Heah?”

He trotted the mare to the mouth of the entry passage, one big arm steadying his wife on the mare’s withers. Then he reined about one last time and roared the length of the courtyard. “Cousin Hari, your lady warn’t dead, whin I left her. But I took sufferin’ price out’n her fat carcass, give her a good hidin’, I did! I’ll git this here lil’ mare back here t’marra mornin’. An’ you tek good care of Master Geros Lahvoheetos—he be a friend o’ mine.”

And thus was that friendship which was to affect the lives of so many-noble and common, Kindred and Ehleenoee—born in the crowded, torchlit courtyard where the legend of Geros first began, with a mule and a spear.