The Patrimony

4

“I saw them myself, Hwahltuh!” Mehleena’s dark eyes were wide with horror and her voice strident with emotion; her soft, beringed hands were clasped tightly at her heaving bosom. “Tim and Giliahna, in her chamber, on her very bed! Clipping, they were, Hwahltuh, and …” Her voice sank to a horrified whisper. “And kissing!”

The bearded, white-haired man looked up from the arrows he had been fletching for his short, powerful bow. His bushy brows bunched and merriment shone from his light-blue eyes. “Well, Sacred Sun be praised for that much, wife. Or would it more please you to see them trading dagger thrusts or seeking to poison each other, as is the wont of siblings in some noble houses? I’d hate to go to Wind leaving the makings of a battle royal within my own house.”

“But, Hwahltuh, no.” She bent closer. “It … it was not as brother with sister, Hwahltuh, it was as man with woman, they were! Embraced, kissing, their hands … their hands, husband, moving under each other’s clothing in private places!”

Mehleena moved back, expecting violent rage. But her husband just straightened a bit on his chair, shook his head slowly and chuckled.

“Sweet Jesus save us!” burst out the stupefied Ehleen woman. “Don’t you understand me, Hwahltuh? Your depraved son is about to have his incestuous way with his own blood sister, your daughter! You must do something to stop this nastiness or send him away until she be safely wed.”

“Send my heir away? Nonsense,” grunted the old chief, then voiced another throaty chuckle. “He’s a Sanderz, right enough, shows good taste in woman flesh. Randy young colt, he is, as I was, and for all she’s only thirteen, Giliahna is a handsome filly and no mistake.”

Mehleena’s earlier horror was magnified by his attitude. Hastily, she crossed herself to ward off evil and clutched her jeweled cross for comfort and strength.

“Hwahltuh, Hwahltuh, he will take her flower. Then how will you find a decent husband for her? And … and everyone knows that if a child be gotten in incest, it always is either born dead or born an idiot. Have you thought on that?”

“Hogwash!” the old man snorted derisively, casting down his arrow and split quills. “Ehleen hogwash, woman! Do I look like the spawn of idiots, eh! My great-grandfather married his sister and got my grandfather on her. If Tim wants Giliahna to wife, he’ll have her with my blessing and that of the clan. What better bloodline could he choose for breeding chiefs and warriors? And if his dalliances quicken her, he’ll have her to wife, like it or not. As for her maidenhead, pah, it’s of no importance. She’s a comely chit, wellborn and well-dowered, and there’ll be no lack of noble suitors, wife, believe me.”

He picked up the arrow again, adding, “Mehleena, love, this is not your father’s hall. We are Kindred, here, not Ehleenee, and you must always remember that our ways, our customs, are not your people’s. I have allowed you to cleave to your preferred religion since you wed me, for all that it’s proscribed the length and breadth of our great Confederation, but don’t try to force Kindred into that narrow mold, dear.”

“We are free men, we Kindred. We reverence Sun and Wind as did our Sacred Ancestors back to our very beginnings on the Sea of Grass. We never have been priest-bound and saddled with those silly, childish rituals and taboos which your religion has foisted upon you Ehleenee.”

“Now, please let me get back to these arrows, love. There’s not much light left and I’d like to finish them today.”

Mehleena left him. Pale and shuddering with frustrated rage and soul-sick of her—to her, justified—horror at the mortal sin her husband was countenancing under his very roof. But, heeding Cousin Neeka’s advice, she did nothing more, said nothing further … until the chiefs next headache.

By the time that Hwahltuh recovered his will, nearly a month later, Tim was beyond the borders of the Confederation … and Giliahna was on her way to be wed to the Prince of Kuhmbuhluhn, a man but ten years her father’s junior and recently widower of his seventh wife.

The aging chief sent a letter north with the next Confederation rider to pass through his duchy. In it, he humbly asked his son to forgive his temporary weakness to Mehleena’s importunings, begged him to return at once to his home, his father, and his family, but that letter was never answered. Nor were any others of the scores the repentant old man sent north. At length, his hurt pride surfacing, Hwahltuh stopped writing directly. Instead he entrusted weights of gold to Chief Bili, Ahrkeethoheeks Morguhn, that Tim might at least clothe himself well, own the protection of good weapons, decent armor and a well-trained destrier. Nor did the saddened Thoheeks of Vawn ever again hear directly from his heir. Only through Archduke Bili—who had been reared and war-trained in the Middle Kingdoms and who had kin and old comrades now in high places—did bits and pieces of Tim’s career trickle south, of Tim’s appointment as an ensign of dragoons in the Freefighter regiment of a well-known and renowned noble officer; of Tim’s knighting into the Order of the Blue Bear of Harzburk by King Gy, himself, on the blood-soaked field of Krahkitburk; of his defeat and capture of a famous champion in another battle; and, later, of the lieutenancy Tim purchased with said champion’s ransom.

It was on Hwahltuh’s last visit to the arhkeethoheeks’ hall that he heard of the purchased promotion. In the few years of life he then had remaining, his infirmities precluded travel, and the yearly taxes were, perforce, delivered to the overlord by his brother, the tahneestos, and Tim’s brother, Behrl.

“You know these strange northern ways, Chief Bili. What does it mean, this title my boy’s bought himself? How many bows will draw for him? Is he still an underling to this Colonel What’s-his-name?”

Bili nodded. “Yes, Colonel Sir Hehnri, Earl of Pahkuhzburk, is still his commander, but the title means that Tim now commands a contingent of fifty horse archers—they call them ‘dragoons,’ up there—with an ensign or two and a senior sergeant to assist him. Tim’s now responsible for the training of his troop, for their welfare and provisioning in garrison or on the march and for recruiting replacements after battles. Their weapons and armor and their horses, however, are provided by Sir Hehnri, except for those men lucky enough to own their own.”

Hwahltuh sighed his relief. He still meant to provide for his loved son, but he had suddenly realized as the archduke spoke that he could beggar his duchy if he had to buy trained warhorses and weapons and armor for fifty-odd men.

Bili went on, grinning, obviously inordinately proud of this younger half brother who had succeeded so well in the land of their mother’s birth and Bili’s own fond boyhood memories.

“Give Tim a couple more good ransoms, if his luck holds, and he’ll be a captain in his own right. He’ll be totally independent of his present regiment and able to negotiate contracts for his services.”

“With only fifty horse archers, Bili?” the old thoheeks asked. “What sovran or lord would be willing to hire on so small a contingent?”

“Ask any one of the hundred I might name, Hwahltuh,” attested Bili bluntly, adding, “You’ve never been in the Middle Kingdoms, good stepfather, so you’re thinking in terms of the vast host of Lord Milo’s army. But none of the states of the north is even a tenth the size of our Confederation, and even if the three largest could somehow be brought into alliance, even that alliance could not pay either the hire or the maintenance of a force the size of our Regular Army.”

“Oh, yes, there’ve been the rare times in years agone when one kingdom or another briefly fielded fifteen or twenty thousand fighters, but not recently. They’ve been fighting among themselves for so long that warfare there is almost a game—a violent, bloody and sometimes fatal game, but a game, nonetheless. Quality of troops is of far more importance to the prospective employer than is numbers—quality of the troops and the fame of their commander.”

“You can bet your last silver thrahkmeh that Sir Tim’s exploits have by now spread far and wide. So if his luck holds and he can manage to put together a good, independent command, he’ll soon be able to pick and choose among some very lucrative contracts. His fortune will be assured. You can be justly proud of him, Hwahltuh. Sun and Wind know that I am.”

“I could burst of my pride in my son, Bili.” The old man’s voice was low but filled with feeling. “But his place is—should be—here. He should be in Vawn, Bili. I’m an old, old man, even for our race, and … and I’m not well. If … if something should happen to Tim, if he should be killed or badly crippled … well, I just don’t know.”

“You know how it is with Ahl—he’d never be confirmed chief. As for Behrl, well, hell make a fine tahneestos, he’d be a first-class war chief, but he’s just not the temper for the kind of chief a Confederation clan needs, and the Kindred know it as well as I do, too. And his mindspeak is a chancy, come-and-go thing, atop it all. So, I doubt me that the Clan Council would ever confirm him.”

“And,” his voice assumed grim overtones, “you and I both know who that leaves to succeed me. She is forever preening the lout in front of any Kinsman of Sanderz who’ll hold still long enough to watch the act. And act it is, Bili. Myron is totally Ehleen, the worst kind of Ehleen. I cringe to think how my duchy and kin and our folk would fare under so unnatural a creature.”

Bili squirmed uncomfortably in his high-backed armchair, then shrugged, “Well, if the act is really so apparent, the clansmen might not confirm him, and, even if they should, I can always refuse to recognize that confirmation, you know.”

Hwahltuh sighed. “Be realistic, Bili. Admittedly, I was born in a hide tent on the Sea of Grass, but I’ve dwelt among your eastern Kindred for near a score and half of summers now. Men will be men, whatever their birth or race, and they have their pride.”

“Prince Zenos is first cousin of Mehleena, and you know as well as I do that he’d never allow you to override a Clan Council confirmation of a man of his house. No, you wouldn’t dare but recognize that pervert in my place.”

Bili cracked one big knuckle, then another. “Hwahltuh, I am not without certain influence at Kehnooryos Atheenahs, the Undying …”

Hwahltuh slowly shook his head, raising a hand. “The High Lords are up to the eyebrows in the mountain business, and the last thing they want to see is any bare trace of internal discord. Neither the High Ladies nor God Milo could afford to countenance your barefaced insult and defiance of your overlord.”

The two noblemen finished their honey mead in silence; there was nothing more to say. But as Hwahltuh was mounting his easy-gaited mule for the long ride back to Vawn, he leaned close to the archduke and said, “I have a strange feeling, Bili, that I’ll never see you again. Please, promise me one thing. By the love my dear Mahrnee so freely gave to the three of us, swear that immediately I seem about to go to Wind you will see Tim in Vawn to take his lawful place.”