The Iron Wars

FIFTEEN

“By the beard of the Prophet, who were they? Clad in our own armour, galloping out of nowhere and then disappearing again. Can anyone tell me, or are you all struck dumb?”

Aurungzeb the Golden, Conqueror of Aekir, Sultan of Ostrabar, raged at the huddle of advisors and officers who remained kneeling on the beautifully worked carpet before him. The walls of the great tent shuddered in the wind, and the dividing curtains billowed like rearing snakes.

“Well?”

A man in gorgeously lacquered iron half-armour spoke up. “We have spies out by the score at the moment, my Sultan. At this time, all we have are rumours picked up from captured infidels. They say this cavalry is something new, not even Torunnan. A band of mercenary savages from the Cimbric Mountains to the west led by a disgraced Torunnan officer. They are few though, very few, and we damaged them badly as they withdrew. They are not something we should be unduly concerned about, a… a unique phenomenon, a freak. It merely shows the desperation of the foe, when he must resort to hiring barbarians as well as the accursed Fimbrians.”

“Well then.” Aurungzeb appeared somewhat mollified. “It may be that you are correct, Shahr Johor. But I do not want any more surprises such as the last. Had it not been for those scarlet-clad fiends, we’d have destroyed the entire dyke garrison, and the Fimbrians as well.”

“Our patrols have been redoubled, dread sovereign. All Torunnan forces are now within the walls of their capital. There is little doubt that they will stand siege there and then we will be free to send forces through the Torrin Gap to Charibon, that nest of disbelief. Thus we will have destroyed both centres of the heinous Ramusian faith. The Ramusian Aekir is but a memory-soon it shall be so with Charibon and its black-robed priests.”

Aurungzeb nodded, his eyes bright and thoughtful in his heavily bearded face. “Well said, Shahr Johor. Though they have a Pontiff in Torunn now also, the one we missed in Aekir, he is no friend to Charibon. Such is the squalid state of the Ramusians’ faith that they fight amongst themselves even as the sons of the Prophet knock on their walls.”

“It is God’s will,” Shahr Johor said, bowing his head.

“And the Prophet’s, may he live for ever.”

An especially violent gust of wind made the entire massive fabric of the tent twitch and tremble. Aurungzeb’s face darkened again. “This storm… Batak!”

A young man in a coral-coloured robe stepped out of the shadows. “My Sultan?”

“Can’t you do anything about this cursed storm? We are losing time, and horses.”

Batak spread his hands eloquently. “It is beyond my powers at present, lord. Weatherworking is an arcane discipline. Even my master-”

“Yes, yes. Orkh would have had this snow melted in a trice and the wind made gentle as an old man’s fart. But Orkh is off chasing rainbows. See what you can do.”

Batak bowed low and withdrew.

“That is all,” Aurungzeb said. “I must commune with my God. You may all leave. Akran!” This to the tall, skeletal vizier who stood like a starved golem in one corner. “See I am not disturbed for one hour.”

“Yes, lord. At once.” The vizier banged his staff on the floor of the tent. Back in the palace it would have rung impressively against marble, but here it produced only a dull thump. Such were the indignities of following his Sultan into the field. The officers and ministers took the hint, rose, bowed and backed out of the tent into the baying blizzard outside, the vizier following with a resigned look on his face.

Aurungzeb stirred and glanced around. He looked now like a hirsute but mischievous boy.

“Ahara,” he called softly. “Light of my heart, they are gone. Come out now, my little sweetmeat. Your master calls.”

A slim shape filmy with gauze emerged from the curtained rear of the tent, and knelt before him with head lowered. He raised her by the chin and peeled away the veil which hid her features. A pale face, grey eyes, dark lips touched with rouge. He wiped it off them. “You do not need paint, my sweet. Not you. Perfection brooks no improvement.”

He clapped his large, hairy-knuckled hands. “Music, there! The slow dance from Kurasan!”

From an adjoining, closed-off portion of the tent came the sudden chimes and pluckings of musicians, somewhat ragged at first and then growing in speed and harmony.

“Dance for me. Dance for your weary master and make him forget the cares of the turning world.”

Aurungzeb threw himself down on a pile of silken cushions and commenced to suck on a tall water-pipe whilst his concubine paused for a second, and then began to move as slowly as a willow in a summer breeze.

Heria’s mind blanked out when she danced. She liked it. The exercise kept her supple and fit. It was the aftermath she did not care for, even now. Especially now. She had listened in on the report of Shahr Johor as she listened to everything that went on in the tent of the Sultan. Her command of the Merduk language was perfect, though she still pretended to have only a rudimentary grasp of it. She had hidden her grief at the news of the dyke’s fall, and her heart had soared at the account of the recent battle and the last-minute intervention of the mysterious and terrible red horsemen. Debased and soiled though she might be, she was still Torunnan. The man whose life she had shared until the fall of Aekir had been a Torunnan soldier, and it was no more possible that she should forget it than that the sun should one day forget to set.

The pace of the dance quickened. Aurungzeb, intent on the whirling movement of her white limbs, puffed out smoke in swift little clouds. At last it ended, and Heria froze in position, arms above her head, breathing fast. The Sultan threw aside the stem of his water-pipe and rose.

“Here. To me.”

She stood close to him. His beard tickled her nose. She was tall, and he had not far to bend to nuzzle the hollow of her collar bone. His hands twitched aside her gauzy coverings. “You are a queen among women,” he murmured. “Magnificent.” He stripped her naked whilst she stood unmoving. His fingers brushed her nipples, erect and painfully sensitive.

“My Sultan,” she began hurriedly as his hands wandered down her body. She had been depilated, after the fashion of the harem, and her skin was smooth as alabaster. His fingers became more urgent. She forced herself not to flinch as they explored her.

“My Sultan, I am with child.”

He went very still, straightened. His eyes glowed.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, lord. A woman knows these things. The Chamberlain of the Harem confirms it.”

“Name of the Prophet, a child. A son. And you danced before me!” He was outraged, furious. He raised a hand to strike and then thought better of it. Instead he brought it down to rest on her taut belly. “My child-my son. I have never had a son that lived. Miserable girls, yes, but this-this shall be a boy.”

“It may not be, my lord.”

“It must be! He was conceived in war, at a time of victory. All the omens are favourable. I shall have Batak examine you. He shall see. An heir, at long last! You must dance no more. You must keep to your bed. Ah, my flower of the west! I knew your coming would be luck to me! I shall make you first wife, if it is a boy-it will be a boy.” He started to laugh, and crushed her in a bearish embrace, releasing her an instant later. “No, no-no more of that. Like porcelain you shall be treated, like the rarest glass. Put on your clothes! I must have the eunuchs find something more fitting for the mother of my son, not these damn slave-girl silks. And maids-you shall have servants and a pavilion of your own-” He stopped. He felt her over as if she were some rare and delicate vase that might be shattered in a moment. “How long? How far grown is he?”

“Not far, lord. Two months, perhaps.”

“Two months! My son’s heart has been beating these two months! I shall burn a wagonload of incense. Prayers shall be said in every temple of the east. Ha, ha, ha! A son!”

A son, Heria thought. Yes, it would be a boy-she knew that, somehow. What would her Corfe have thought of that? She bearing a son to some eastern tyrant, a child of rape. Corfe had always wanted children.

The tears burned her eyes. “You weep, my dove, my precious beauty?” Aurungzeb asked with concern.

“I weep with joy, my lord, that I have the honour of bearing the Sultan’s child.”

Why was she still alive? Why had she not found some way to end herself? But she knew the answer. Human nature can bear many things, unimaginable things. The body eats, sleeps, excretes and lives, even while the mind prays for oblivion. And in time the mind adapts itself, and the insupportable becomes the everyday. Heria wanted to live, and she wanted her child to be born. It was his son, but it would be hers also, something of her own. She would love it as though it were Corfe’s, and her life might yet become worth something after all. She hoped that her husband’s ghost would understand.