Robert Adams - Trumpets of War

“What exactly will you need to prepare yourself for this mission?” inquired Grahvos.

Stehrgiahnos shrugged. “Not much, my lord—a hooded robe of unbleached wool with a length of rope to girdle it, a traveler’s wallet and brogans of hide, a wooden alms bowl, a stout staff of ash or oak, flint and steel, a couple of knives, a brimmer hat. None of these things should be new, if possible; the more signs of long, hard use they show the better.”

“When can you depart?” asked Grahvos.

“Not for at least four to six weeks,” was the reply of his slave. “I must stop bathing, let my beard grow out and myhair lengthen ; I should acquire a modest colony of parasites, too. But, my lord, it were far better that I prepare in some private place well away from the city, where I can weather my skin naturally, hike about and let the brogans and robe and hat acquire stains, dirt and filth enough to be convincing. Can my lord trust his slave beyond supervision?”

Sub-strahteegos Tomos Gonsalos had been more than willing to stay on longer with this army he had had the largest part in forming for the Council of Thoheeksee, in large part because all that he had to which to return in Karaleenos was lands and cities; his father, mother and siblings all were dead, and his young wife had died of fever while he was on campaign with his cousin King Zenos, against the then foe High Lord Milo Morai, and her still carrying his unborn child in her belly.

For years, this army had been both wife and child to him. Around a nucleus of the troops loaned by the High Lord—a regiment of Freefighter pikemen, a squadron of heavy cavalry and one of Horseclansmen—he and Thoheeks Grahvos had gathered first the private warbands of the earliest members of the Council, then the flotsam and jetsam of units and individuals streaming back south from Zastros’ disaster in Karaleenos. As a blacksmith drives impurities from the iron by way of heating and hammering, reheating and hammering harder, so did Tomos and his cadre slowly rid their battalions and squadrons of the unfit, the undersirable, the criminal elements that had permeated the ranks of Zastros’ host, so that when finally Council had found a Grand Strahteegos to their liking, Tomos had been able to deliver into his thoroughly experienced hands virtually a finished product, needing but to be slightly altered, custom-fitted to the personal lights of the new commander.

Tomos had gone on more than one campaign in the capacity of a subordinate officer to Pahvlos, but he had spent most of his time since the old warhorse had assumed command of the field armies in the sprawling, permanent encampment below Mehseepolis, supervising the training of new units and replacement personnel for existing ones, as well as commanding the permanent garrison of the Military District of Mehseepolis, plus overseeing the supply and remount commands.

It had been more than enough work for any one man, and he had been far too busy to be able to find much time to be lonely. He received many more invitations to private homes and public fuctions within the city than he could ever make the time to accept, and he generally used the excuse of the press of his duties to decline almost all of them as a matter of course—the public bashes ran from dull to tedious, and the private dinners too often devolved into drunken orgies that left a man too shaky of the following mornings to get any work done.

The private dinner parties he liked most, which he tried very hard to not miss, were those of Thoheeks Grahvos’ Council faction—Thoheeksee Bahos, Mahvros, Sitheeros, and a few others. At these, the food was from good to superb, the wine was well watered, the conversation was stimulating, the entertainments were subdued; sex—in the form of well-trained slaves of both genders—was available for any guest so inclined, but said guests were expected to enjoy themselves in privacy in the guest chambers provided for the purpose.

He and his servants had lived quite comfortably in the oversized house that had been constructed along with two others for the higher-ranking commanders of the army who did not choose to live in crowded Mehseepolis or the settlements building up just outside the city walls. Occasionally, Thoheeks Sitheeros would come to stay for a couple of days, bringing quantities of foods, wines, spirits, cooks, servants and two or three young women, the number dependent on whether or not Captain of Elephants Gil Djohnz was off on campaign with the Grand Strahteegos and his hard-worked army.

So it was on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of Tomos’ birth, Sitheeros and Gil Djohnz having but days before returned from a month at Iron Mountain . While the servants were unpacking a wainload of comestibles, a half-pipe of wine, a keg of brandy and other items, Sitheeros and Gil kept Tomos outside his home in spirited conversation. When, at last, the newcome guests moved on into the house, Tomos’ surprise had been arranged by carefully instructed servants.

In the middle of the first room they entered stood a girl Tomos knew he had never before seen, and he knew that he would have remembered this one had he seen her before, for her beauty was striking—long, long blond tresses from which the sunbeams picked out hints of red, a face as freckled as his own, but heart-shaped, holding almond-shaped blue-green eyes, a narrow nose and the reddest lips he had ever seen. She was clearly nervous, and the tip of a red-pink tongue darted out a couple of times to wet those lips. Her clothing, though obviously in the barbarian mode, was elegant and richly embroidered, and the jewelry, if it was real, looked to be worth a good part of the ransom expected of a Vahrohneeskos, anyway.

When the three men entered the room, the girl hesitated momentarily, then, with downcast eyes, she made her way to the trio and sank to her knees before Tomos. As she raised her head and looked into his dark-blue eyes with her own—which, he noted, were swimming in unshed tears, which fact he found most unsettling for reasons he could not explain to himself—she also lifted her two hands, revealing that her wrists were encircled by brass cuffs connected by a length of gilded-brass chain.

Wetting her lips yet again, she parted them and spoke haltingly in an obscure dialect of Mehreekan, one he had never heard before, but close enough to that of his mountain-born mother’s to be understandable to him.

“Wilt not my master remove these fetters and free his handmaiden? She comes to thee a pure maiden; wilt my master not deign to render her a woman?” Her voice was soft and a little throaty; the words were a bit slurred, in the manner of the indigenous barbarians of the western mountains.

The wristbands, he saw, were fitted with catches, and the girl could have easily unsnapped and removed them herself, so he decided that this must be some variety of barbarian ritual, of which they seemed to have more than did the Ehleenohee.

With a smile and a shrug, he unfastened the bands and then glanced at Sitheeros. “Well? What’s the proper form now, my lord?”

The thoheeks grinned. “Take both her hands in both of yours, raise her to her feet, then bend and kiss her lips. Difficult, what?”

Tomos did as instructed, then started back from the girl, for it had felt when his lips touched upon hers as if some force of power had passed from her being to his. Had these jokers brought down from those mountains some ditch-witch to play tricks, then?

Before she could speak, however, Sitheeros had embraced him and was slapping his back and kissing his cheeks. “My heartiest and most sincere congratulations and felicitations, my old friend. You now are, by barbarian rites, wed to the daughter of one of the most powerful chiefs among all of the barbarian tribes, Chief Ritchud Bohldjoh, of the Tchatnooga Tribe. May you both live long and have many children.”