The Pixilated Peeress

X – Sanguinary Swords

When Thorolf finally dropped off, he slept heavily, so that the sun was well up before he awoke. As he crawled out and started for the patch of ground on the leeward side of the village used by the trolls for toilet purposes, Chief Wok hailed him:

"Ho there! Know ye what hath become of your Bza?"

"Nay," said Thorolf. "What has?"

"Disappeared, along with young Khop. Methinks they've run off together."

"I'm not surprised. She took Khop as a lover whilst I dwelt with her."

"Oho! Then why haven't ye slain Khop, or at least given him a good drubbing?"

Thorolf grinned at the idea of a human being, even so powerful a one as himself, thrashing the mighty Khop. "I already had my bow trained upon the Count­ess. My junction with Bza was what we call a marriage of convenience. If she prefer Khop, I shall send good wishes after them."

Wok shook his head. "Ye lowlanders are strange be­ings. Ye are plainly no coward; and yet ..."

"Any notion of whither they've gone?"

"Belike to the Dorblentzes to join Chief Yig's horde."

"Perchance Khop can arrange peace betwixt the hordes. You trolls need all your combined strength to resist lowland encroachments."

"Me, friends with that louse! ... But it could be that ye have an idea there, Thorolf. I'll think upon it. Now what of the twain ye brought hither? I found places for them—the woman in mine own tent, though I had to toss out one of my wives."

Thorolf: "They won't be here long." He looked around and sighted Berthar and Yvette, sitting in a cir­cle of trolls and making the best of a breakfast of smoked goat's meat and barley porridge. They looked up as he approached.

"Heigh-ho, Thorolf!" said the Countess. "When canst arrange my safe return to Zurshnitt?"

Berthar said: "I must spend a day or two seeking my salamanders ere returning to the city."

"Zurshnitt won't be safe until we've drawn Parthe­nius' fangs," said Thorolf. "I shall have to get in touch with my father—"

"Nonsense, Thorolf!" snapped Yvette. "A man as able as you can surely cleanse that nest of vipers with­out going through your tedious Rhaetian legalisms!"

"I thank you for the compliment," said Thorolf, "but I fear you overstate mine abilities. I'm no demigod, like that fellow Zorius in your Dualistic religion—the one they sacrificed. What's your True Faith, by the way?"

She shrugged. "I bend to local beliefs and preju­dices, having no fanatical faith of mine own. But why can't you lead the trolls through the tunnels, burst in upon Parthenius and his creatures, and slaughter the lot? If Orlandus be dead, they'll have no wizard to ward them with spells."

"I have broached the idea," said Thorolf. "Wok re­fused it as too risky."

"But that was ere Orlandus' death, was't not? Now you'd have a better chance of striking quickly."

"Much depends," Thorolf explained, "on my fa­ther's persuading the Senate to recognize the trolls as human."

"But that might take months, whilst your politicians trade favors and strike deals! I'll not endure to be mewed up here amongst these stinking ape-men—"

"Watch your tongue!" Thorolf snapped in Helladic, the international language of scholars. "Some under­stand you."

"I care not! I gat no sleep last night, jammed in with a lot of trolls, snoring and stinking, and betimes old Wok awakening to futter one or another of's wives, whilst the rest looked on and made ribald comments— I suppose on his performance, if I could have under­stood their hoggish speech. He asked me if I expected the same service and seemed relieved when I did assure him that I did not. He explained that he was willing to tup me as a matter of simple hospitality, albeit he found me repulsive." She gave a little sputter of laughter. "But you can perceive why life in troll-land has for me no allure."

"Oh, come, Countess," said Berthar soothingly. "We shall get better sleeping arrangements. Whilst we be in exile here, ye can help me to search for my sal­amanders—"

"Oh, bugger your little lizards!" cried Yvette. "I'll not abide such treatment—"

"My dear," said Berthar with a pained expression, "I have explained that they be not lizards—"

"But I will not be cooped and confined—"

"Sorry, your Highness," said Thorolf, "but I know not what else you can do."

He started to walk away. Then something soft and moist struck him smartly in the back of his head. As he spun around, he clapped a hand to the spot. His hand came away with a flattened gob of barley por­ridge.

Yvette, still seated beside Berthar, dug her spoon into the porridge bowl. She held up the spoon, grasping the stem with the thumb and two fingers of her right hand while with those of her left she pulled back the bowl of the spoon, so that it acted like the throwing arm of a one-armed catapult. Furious, Thorolf shouted:

"If you do that again, I'll spank your pretty pink arse!"

"You wouldn't dare!" she cried, raising the spoon to take aim.

"Try me!" barked Thorolf.

"My lady!" said Berthar, grasping her arm. "I beg you! We dare not fall out; we must stand together—"

He broke off as a troll rushed into the village, shout­ing: "Foe! Foe! Foe!"

"To arms!" roared Wok. The village burst into fran­tic motion. Females snatched up their cubs. Males dove for their tents, to emerge with weapons. All yelled at the tops of their powerful voices until the noise was deafening.

Berthar and Yvette sprang up, the latter crying: "Where? Whence come they?"

Shading his eyes, Thorolf peered about until he saw a flash of the sun on armor, along the trail to Zurshnitt. "Yonder!" he cried. "I'll get my crossbow."

Wok hurried the trolls into a ragged line athwart the path of the oncoming force. As the figures grew larger, Thorolf saw that in their van marched three ogres, each half again as tall as a man and bearing a huge club. Behind them came Parthenius, in helmet and half-armor of plate. After him strode a score or so of chain-clad guards from Castle Zurshnitt in Sophonomy's sky-blue surcoats. To Yvette and Berthar, Thorolf growled:

"We need not seek out Parthenius and his merry men; they come to us."

Thorolf felt a tug on his clothing and realized that his dagger was being drawn from its sheath. He turned to see Yvette secreting the weapon in the cloak she had taken from the renegade Carinthian.

"Yvette!" he exclaimed. "What dost? Mean you to stab me?"

"Nay, Thorolf dear. I shall need it in case that swine again lays hands on me."

Beside Parthenius came another figure who, being small, Thorolf did not at once recognize. This turned out to be the fat little treasurer of the Magicians' Guild, Avain.

Real ogres, Thorolf knew, could mash flat ten times their number of human beings, or even trolls. But he had suspicions of these. By looking hard, he could see the twinkle of the sun on the guardsmen's armor through the ogres' scaly bodies; Bardi's spell had not worn off. He turned to Wok, saying:

"Chief, those ogres are mere illusions, cast by—"

At that instant, Wok shouted: "Sorcery! Flee!"

"Wait!" cried Thorolf. But as one troll, the horde turned and ran, bounding up the slope above the vil­lage. In a trice Thorolf found himself standing with Berthar and Yvette alone, facing the oncomers. The Sophonomist guards bore swords, pikes, halberds, and bows. When the ogres loomed over the trio, Parthenius cried:

"Halt! Sergeant Thorolf and Countess Yvette, I want you twain; the beast-keeper I care not about. Will ye yield quietly? 'Tis useless to resist; if ye essay to flee, as did the trolls, my archers will bring you down."

"What does Doctor Avain in your ranks?" shouted Thorolf. '

"He is our new Psychomagus. Do ye yield?"

Rage had been building up in Thorolf. It seemed to him that, no matter what he did, the Sophonomists were always thwarting him in one way or another. Now, al­though cooler reflection might have indicated some other course, he whipped the crossbow to his shoulder. The bow thumped; the bolt whistled through one of the illusory ogres and buried itself in the midriff of Avain, whom Thorolf judged to be his most dangerous single foe. With a shriek, the little magician doubled over and sank down. The three ogres vanished.

Thorolf snatched another bolt from its case and stooped to put his foot in the stirrup to recock the weapon, hoping for a shot at Parthenius. Before he could complete the task, the flat of a halberd caught him on the side of his head and knocked him sprawling. He sat up, shaking the stars out of his vision. Two of Parthenius' crew had laid hands on Yvette, despite her struggles, and two more had seized Berthar.

As Thorolf rose, still groggy, guards tried to lay hands on him likewise. He knocked one down and grabbed for his sword, but others clutched at him from all sides. His struggles sent them staggering back and forth, but they hung on. Parthenius stood before him, grinning. The man took off his helmet, exposing a mass of coppery curls.

"I had thought ye'd make a prime diaphane," grated Parthenius, "wherefore I told my men to take you alive. But ye've slain our new magus as well as the old. To keep you captive until we find another were too risky, knowing what a mighty and self-willed wight ye be. The Countess were easier to handle." He turned to a halberdier. "Off with his head!"

The guards holding Thorolf tried to bend him down to afford a fair target for the ax blade, but Thorolf con­tinued to struggle. Parthenius said:

"Come now, Sergeant, wouldn't ye prefer a quick, clean chop to being slowly whittled to death with knives? If ye persist in your contimacy, the latter fate shall be yours."

"Futter you!" snarled Thorolf.

"Ho!" shouted a guard. "Look yonder!"

The trail from Zurshnitt skirted the village and con­tinued along the mountainside. Along the trail, from the direction opposite the city, came another troop of armed men, about equal to that led by Parthenius. At the head of the column rode a man on a huge white horse. He bore a lance with a flag near its tip, display­ing the red boar on a white ground of the Duchy of Landai.

"Form double line!" shouted Parthenius. "Archers on the flanks! Do not let go of the prisoners!"

The mounted man, also in plate, halted his horse and turned his head to shout, in the accents of Carinthia: "Deploy right and left!" He handed his lance to one man, dismounted, and gave his reins to another.

The column split, half the men filing to the right and half to the left, until they formed another double rank facing the Sophonomists. The man in plate stepped for­ward and, like Parthenius, removed his helmet. He showed a head of graying blond hair with an expanse of pink bare scalp rising through it like a mountaintop above the clouds. Below it were a pair of bulging blue eyes and a large red blob of a nose. While his chin was shaven, he wore a huge mustache, curled at the ends like the horns of a buffalo. He addressed Parthenius:

"Sirrah, who are ye who holds my affianced bride? Release her forthwith, or ye shall die the death!"

"I," said the other, "am the Reverend Doctor Par­thenius, Prophet-in-Chief of the mighty Church of Sophonomy. As for the woman, she was happily rising in the ranks of my church when this miscreant—" he in­dicated Thorolf "—snatched her away. I have rescued her. And who in the seven hells be ye, to question me?"

The blond man gave the ghost of a nod. "Gondomar, Fifth Duke of Landai, at your service. Release the woman at once!"

"I will not. She is under the evil influence of this soldier and must be brought back into the light of the true spiritual science!"

"I shall count three," said Gondomar, "and if by that time those three under distraint be not released, ye and all your men shall die!" He turned his head and bellowed: "Prepare to charge!"

"One step toward us, and the woman's throat shall be cut!" yelled Parthenius, seizing Yvette and pinion­ing her arms.

"Harm one hair of her head, and ye shall die—but slowly!" replied the Duke.

"Ready to receive the enemy!" Parthenius called out to his troop. Both lines bristled with weapons.

"Listen to me!" came Yvette's high voice. "Why should all you brave warriors perish in a fribbling quar­rel over me betwixt those two bravos? Let those twain settle it by single combat!"

"What? Ridiculous!" roared the Duke.

"Absurd!" echoed Parthenius.

"A daft idea!" said Gondomar.

"A childish notion!" said Parthenius.

"Why not try it, your Grace?" said one of Gondo­mar's officers. "Ye are a mighty battler."

" 'Twere a splendid sight!" said one of Parthenius' warriors. "Go ahead, Master; take him up on it! Ye'll trounce him soundly!"

" 'Tis a fair contest, since ye be well-matched!" added a Landaian.

Both the Duke and Parthenius were pushed forward, vehemently protesting, by groups of their men. Then the men fell back, leaving the two leaders facing each other a couple of yards apart.

The Duke put on his helmet and buckled the chin strap. "Never hath it been said that a Landai quailed!" he growled. "Art ready?"

"Aye forsooth!" said Parthenius, adjusting his hel­met and drawing his sword. "Have at you!"

The swords met with a clang. Back and forth they went, swords scraping and banging. Now and then came the duller sound of a sword striking armor. Round and round they staggered. The shiny armor became dented and scratched. A few scarlet trickles told where the blades had penetrated the plate. On and on went the fight.

A Carinthian called out: "Ten marks on the Duke!"

"Taken!" cried one of Parthenius' guards.

Unable to inflict a mortal wound, the two grasped their swords in both hands and hewed at each other. As they tired, the fighting came in fits and starts. Between times they leaned on their swords, glared at each other, and drew breath in gasping pants.

At the beginning of one of these pauses, Parthenius stepped back and lowered his blade. Quickly as a vi­per's strike, Gondomar lunged and drove his point be­neath the bars of Parthenius' helmet into the flesh below his jaw and up into the skull. Parthenius reeled back and fell with a clang.

Gondomar stepped back and took off his helmet. One of his men handed him a piece of cloth to wipe his face, covered with sweat despite the coolness.

"So much for that lozel!" he said. "Now, who are these ye hold pinioned? The lady I know; but the other twain?"

Berthar and Thorolf identified themselves.

"Oho!" said the Duke. "So ye are the terrible Ser­geant Thorolf, who hath caused such scathe to the men I sent to fetch my affianced bride! What do ye here with her?"

"Sergeant Thorolf," began Yvette, "has rescued me—

"Please, Yvette, let me talk!" swore Thorolf; but the Countess rushed on:

"—rescued me from your bravos, once on the way to Zurshnitt and again in the city; and then from the castle of this villain lying dead."

"Hath this fellow been intimate with you?" barked Gondomar, pointing at Thorolf.

"That's no affair of yours!"

"Oho, so he hath indeed! We'll soon put him beyond such temptations for ay!"

The Duke started toward Thorolf, who stood with the Sophonomist guards who had seized him but who had released their grip with the fall of their leader. In the rush of events, nobody had thought to disarm Thorolf, who now drew his sword.

"Oho, so the baseborn thinks he can fight!" said Gondomar, pulling on his helmet. "We shall soon see!"

He bored in upon Thorolf, who parried the Duke's angry thrusts and swings. Thorolf knew that, the Duke being armored and he not, there was little chance of defeating his opponent save by a stroke of luck. If the Duke had been a tyro, or if he were exhausted from his previous fight, Thorolf might have had a reasonable chance. But the Duke was a seasoned warrior and had recovered his second wind.

"Unfair!" cried Yvette. "He wants armor!"

"This is no duel but an execution," growled the Duke, whirling his sword in circles and figure-eights.

"We have never fornicated!" cried Yvette. "He's un­der some silly vow of chastity!"

The Duke paid no attention. Round and round they went, with Thorolf ever backing away. If by defense he could wear down the Duke, there was just a chance ...

"Stop them, somebody!" shrilled Yvette. None heeded.

A slash from Gondomar opened a slit in Thorolf's breeches and inflicted a shallow cut on the thigh be­neath. Blood began to soak the cloth in a widening stain. The cut stung but did not handicap the sergeant.

Gondomar growled as he fought: "I'll have you im­paled, knave! .... Ye shall be flayed and rolled in salt ... I'll bind your feet to a tree and your hands to my horse, and spur the beast ... I'll roast you for a day and a night over a slow fire ... I'll cut off your members, little by little ..."

Thorolf saved his breath for fighting. A thrust from Gondomar scratched the shoulder of Thorolf through his jacket. A return thrust from Thorolf skittered off the Duke's battered armor.

Gondomar wound up one of his fierce two-handed cuts. As he stepped forward, a flash of motion behind the Duke caught Thorolf's eye; something metallic flut­tered through the air. Thorolf could not heed it, being busy parrying the Duke's slash so that the blades met at a shallow angle.

Then the Duke gave an angry grunt. His left leg folded beneath him, so that he went down on one knee. To steady himself, he took his left hand off his hilt and pressed that hand against the ground.

Instantly Thorolf lunged and brought his blade in a slash against the back of Gondomar's gauntleted sword hand. The Duke dropped his sword and shook the bruised hand. Thorolf put a foot on the Duke's sword, seized the crest of Gondomar's helmet with his free hand, and inserted his point through the bars in front of the helmet, a finger's breadth from Gondomar's prominent right eye.

"Yield!" commanded Thorolf.

The Duke looked steadily at him and at the sword blade. His eyes swiveled right and left to the clustered crowd of warriors. At last he said:

"I yield. What would ye? Ransom?"

"I'll tell you. First, command your men to march back to Landai forthwith, and yarely!"

"So ye can slay me at leisure?"

"Not if you follow orders. Go on, command them!"

Duke Gondomar sighed. "Very well. Men! Hear ye me? Ye shall return to the duchy forthwith."

"But, your Grace—" began the officer who had urged the duel with Parthenius.

"Hold thy tongue, and obey!" yelled the Duke. "Wouldst slay me with your havering? Go!"

The crowd of Landaians trickled back along the trail by which they had come. Gondomar shouted after them: "Be sure my horse gets back with you, hale and flush!"

When all were out of sight, Thorolf called: "Berthar! Tie me the Duke's wrists behind his back!"

"What with?" said Berthar.

"Here!" Thorolf held out the strips of cloth that he had used on Yvette. When Gondomar's arms were se­curely bound, Thorolf said:

"Stand up, your Grace; let's see what ails your leg."

Thorolf discovered his dagger embedded in the mus­cle of Gondomar's unarmored calf, just above the boot. The Duke's movement dislodged the blade, which fell in the dirt.

"Good gods, Yvette," Thorolf said, "I knew not you were a knife thrower!"

"I have skills you wot not of," she said. "What shall we do with this lump of a Duke?"

"He must be haled to Zurshnitt to stand trial!" said Berthar. "Armed invasion, threats to Rhaetian citizens, duelling, attempted homicide ..."

"Oh, bugger your legalisms!" said Yvette. " 'Twere best simply to cut his throat!"

"Dearest!" cried Gondomar. "I did but come for love of you!"

"Nay!" said Thorolf. "I promised—"

"But I did not!" said Yvette, reaching for the knife she had thrown.

"Stop her, Berthar!" said Thorolf. As the Director seized Yvette from behind, Thorolf continued: "See what a lucky escape you had, your Grace?" Then to Berthar and Yvette: "He's a valuable property. The Commonwealth can get some splendid reparations from this fellow in return for's liberty."

Yvette swore: "You're so damnably practical! Not a trace of romance!"

Thorolf ignored the statement. "Bind up his leg, Ber­thar; his wound is not grave. Then you might take care of mine." He turned to the Sophonomist guards. "What of you fellows? Your employers are dead, and your so-called Church is about to follow them into oblivion. What will you do for a living?"

An officer said: "Well, sir, we hadn't thought yet. Hast any ideas?"

"Aye, I have. Our regular army is short of men. If you'll return to Zurshnitt with me, I'll put in a good word for you at the barracks."

Days later, Thorolf dismounted from his mare and en­tered the Green Dragon, shaking snow from his cloak and stamping it from his boots. He wore his best civil­ian suit of scarlet doublet and azure breeches; his hair and beard were newly trimmed.

He found the Countess Yvette in the common room, gorgeous in a new emerald gown and holding court to a circle of adherents who had followed her into exile. She introduced Thorolf around:

"Sergeant, behold my loyal subjects: Sir Maximin, Coppersmith Clodomir, Tanner Gundobald, Attorney Siagro, Merchant Ursus, Captain Magnovald, Free­holder Cautinus ..."

She turned back to the group. "That is all for today, good people. I shall see you a sennight hence, when you shall tell me of your progress in raising loans and enlisting others in our righteous cause. Good night!"

When the followers had departed, Thorolf said: "How goes the government in exile?"

"Not so well as I should like, but better than I feared. My partisans pay my maintenance here. What of the Sophonomists?"

"Gone with the flowers of autumn. Parthenius had told the diaphanes to stay in the castle, knowing they'd soon be slaughtered in any fight. When he died, they wandered off; I ween their deltas have abandoned them, freeing them to return to normal lives. Orlandus' other officers have fled. When Lodar sent a squad of consta­bles to the castle, they found no one within save a hand­ful of gray-clad probationers who, refusing to believe that the cult was destroyed, continued their sweeping or polishing or whatever other duty their Masters had laid upon them."

"Couldst try to recover that golden gown they gave me?"

Thorolf shrugged. "I'll do what I can; I have filed a claim for the money we gave Orlandus to change you back to a woman. But others have also filed claims, and they speak of auctioning off abandoned property in the castle. So count no unhatched fowls."

She sighed. "A pity; in it I truly looked my rank. But what of you?"

"Not altogether well. Berthar failed of election to his Board; so my academic career seems as far off as ever."

"Why did Berthar fail?"

"For a fribbling reason. A member of the Board, Banker Gallus, sent his old horse to the park with a request that it be given a home for its final years. Ber­thar, who's a stickler for rules, told the fellow he'd do so if Gallus would furnish a stipend to cover the ani­mal's food and care. The Board member refused, Ber­thar sent back the horse, and Gallus blackballed Berthar at the next meeting. This despite that she-dragon I cap­tured for them! It confirms Doctor Vipsanio's philoso­phy of Chaoticism."

"Poor Berthar! Such a pleasant man, too. What of Duke Gondomar?"

"The Supreme Council got him to agree to a ten-thousand-mark reparation and a new commercial treaty. Some lawyers sniffed 'twas unconstitutional to let him go without trial, but the government overbore them. They're holding him till the money arrives. How much to heart his popeyed Grace will take the treaty, since it was extorted by duress, remains to be seen."

"How did he track us to the trollish village?"

Thorolf grinned. "I wondered, too. So I bought a keg of our best Rhaetian ale and had it borne to the cell where he waits. As cells go, it's comfortable. When I proposed that he and I have a beer guzzle, he huffed and puffed a bit, blowing his mustache out like a win­dow curtain and popping his eyes at me like one of Berthar's snails. But at last he came round. I pointed out that, whereas we were foes in the last affray, we might be allies in the next.

"When he'd drunk enough to float a skiff, he told me. He was lurking in a secret camp when one of that trio who robbed Berthar straggled in and reported. Thereupon Gondomar set out with his company to seek our trail. They got lost or they'd have found us sooner. The uproar the trolls made when the Sophonomists ap­proached revealed the direction they sought. At the end, he and I were singing drunken songs together, and he offered me a post in his forces."

"What wilt? Take up's offer?"

Thorolf shook his head. "I thought about it; I could do worse. But I'll apply for a permanent sergeancy here, unless I decide to go to Tyrrhenia as a mercenary."

"Why do that?"

"The Duke of Aemilia is raising a force for war with the Republic of Brandesco. He offers over twice what I'm now paid, and more than I should get from Gon­domar. With care, a year with the Aemilians should save me enough to see me through my doctorate." Tho­rolf paused. "Yvette, I love you. If you'll wed me, I will stay and make do on my present pay."

She turned to him. "Dear Thorolf! Forsooth, I love you, too, after a sort. But I will marry none not of noble blood, nor one so prosaically practical as a Rhaetian." Watching Thorolf s face fall, she continued: "I confess I owe you for all you've done, and honor demands repayment. You are a true hero in your stolid way."

"Just luck, my dear, as when Orlandus obligingly fell out the window, or Regin warned me of the Sophonomists' plot, or you pinked Gondomar in the leg. But—ah ..."

"If you mean money, all the funds I can raise are bespoken for recovery of my country."

Thorolf snorted. "I would not take money! Really, Yvette, I may be a Rhaetian, but I'm not so crassly commercial as all that!"

"Well, then, I could give you the pleasure of my body for the night—or even several nights, until I depart for Grintz."

Thorolf shook his head. "Your offer mightily tempts me, but that's not what I seek. I'm thirty, and it is time I were properly matched. We call it 'settling down.' "

She flared up. "You have the insolence to reject me!"

"My apologies, your Highness."

"Eunuch! Androgyne! Capon!" She calmed herself. "I'm sorry; I suppose you have some priggish Rhaetian reason. What were the harm?"

"None whatever, save that I should then become your slave, unable to leave your side to pursue my academic career. I am not cut out for a lady's fancy man."

"So, it's well and good for me to become your slave, which is all a Rhaetian housewife is? You know I'm abler than most men!"

Thorolf shrugged. "So we have an impasse, like one of those paradoxes professors tell of, with no true, just, and sensible answer. Hence I'm off to Tyrrhenia. Belike I shall meet one of that gang who slew my friend Bardi and use him as he deserves."

"If only you had a drop of noble blood and weren't so damnably Rhaetian!"

Thorolf rose, saying:

"That's my problem!" she snapped.

"Good night, my dear!" He rose, picked up his cloak, threw it around him, and strode for the door. Did he or did he not hear behind him a faint whisper of: "Oh, Thorolf!"? Whether it was real or only imag­ined, he kept resolutely on out the door and into the snow.