Robert Hughes - The Prophet of Lamath

“That’s curious,” Pahd observed, his eyes on the soft contours of his down-stuffed bed.

“Anyway, we sent this slave master to Chaomonous to buy the magician for us and bring him here,” Sarie finished.

“Why?” Pahd asked simply.

“To try to bring you out of your stupor!” Chogi exploded. “To give you something to be interested in besides this bed!”

“Would he be able to do that?”

“We hope so.” Sarie sighed. Then she winked at her husband. “Maybe this is good news Dorlyth sends us. Maybe Pelmen has been found.”

“No,” Chogi grunted, “it’s not good. It’s bad news.

Listen: Tohn mod Neelis, Lord of the west before Dragonsgate and an elder of Ognadzu, marches against me, breaking the confederacy. Your Majesty, may I count on your sword? It’s signed Dorlyth, and there’s an added note: Speed is essential—decide now.”

“That’s presumptuous!” Sarie exclaimed, rubbing her husband’s neck. “To demand that Pahd decide today—”

“Presumptuous maybe, but it’s certainly practical,” said Chogi. She looked at her son, who was lost in thought. “Well?” she demanded.

“We do have an agreement, don’t we?” he asked.

“The King of the Mar has agreed to defend his Lords against those who break the Confederacy, yes,” Chogi replied.

“And he is sure Tohn rides against him?”

“Dorlyth wouldn’t lie about such a thing.”

“And he says he needs my sword, does he?”

“He does.” Chogi shook her head in dismay at this son of hers. Such a splendid physical specimen, and such a sloth! The fact was that, once roused to war, there was no finer swordsman in all the Mar than Pahd mod Pahd-el, Lord of the High City—unless it might be this same Dorlyth. But what did it take to rouse him? She had to build a small fire under him just to move him from this room. Perhaps a sorcerer could aid him, create some interest in the outside world within him, tell him stories, show him tricks—something.

“But if I go,” Pahd was saying, “I’ll have to raise an army, and you know how much of a bother it is to raise an army—”

“You have a standing force housed in the caverns below this castle!” Chogi yelled. “All you need do is order them to war!”

“Yes—I could do that, but it would take most of the afternoon to get the order worded just right, and I haven’t even eaten breakfast yet—”

“It’s dinnertime, dear,” Sarie whispered.

“Dinner then—maybe—”

“Yes?” Chogi lan Pahd-el sighed, knowing what was coming.

“Maybe if I started first thing in the morning—how would that be?” He was ringing the bell to call for service, and the serving lady appeared, bleary-eyed, in the doorway. “Do you think you could find me something to eat? I’m not dressed to come to the table—” The woman curtseyed and went out, and Pahd looked once again at that bumpy, inviting mattress.

Chogi had gone back to the mail. She knew him well enough to know his mind was made up on the question of aid to Dorlyth. He would wait to decide later.

“This is bad news, too,” she growled. “Production is falling off in the diamond mines. Whatever you’ve got, Pahd, it’s catching.”

“Oh really?” said Pahd. That was just before his head settled back into his favorite pillow. Before the girl returned with his tray, he was snoring again.

As Dorlyth had said, the assembly of warriors began around noon. Throughout the morning men and women had scurried about the keep, making preparation for their arrival. Wood was gathered for a fire in the inner court, and barrels of pitch, set aside long ago for just such an eventuality, were rolled out of storage. The pulley system was rehung on both the towers for fast transport of the heated pitch from courtyard to castle walls. Sheaves of arrows were carried to the battlements and placed loosely, tip down, in baskets spaced at ten-yard intervals. Certain of the warriors coming to join Dorlyth were powerful archers; in the initial battle shock, these bowmen would take the highest toll on the enemy. Tohn would not be expecting a siege situation, and a large number of early casualties could dissuade him altogether from further aggression.

There was a small village to the southwest of Dorlyth’s castle, where many of Dorlyth’s freemen lived with their wives and children. By ten in the morning, the village was deserted; all of its inhabitants had moved inside the keep. The children had arrived first, driving sheep and goats before them. These were housed in the stable. Older children and youths were then sent to the fields and the woods to collect all the fruits, nuts, and berries that could be found. There was little that was ripe, for it was still early in the season, but Dorlyth was less interested in providing food for the castle than he was in keeping it out of Tohn’s hands. Thus the children, though they complained about the waste, obediently returned with half-filled buckets of unripe foods.

The women worked together to help one another transport what was left of their winter stores to the storage rooms of the keep. The dirt road from village to castle was thick with dust from the constant motion of ox carts traveling back and forth.

The men of the village helped to strengthen the fortifications, and then dug pits and set traps in the surrounding areas, more for nuisance value than anything else. All bushes and shrubs within fifty feet of the castle walls were cut down, to rob the enemy of any possible cover from watchful eyes above.

Dorlyth’s greatest interest centered on filling the water cisterns, carved of the stone under the floor of the lesser tower.

There was no well, and the precious liquid had to be piped from the stream to the base of the rock the castle stood on.

There it flowed into a cavern below the lesser tower, and was hoisted up to floor level, bucket by bucket, by means of a water lift. Dorlyth feared that Tohn would cut his main pipe. Though buried for most of its length, it would still be quite evident to a careful observer on the river bank. Dorlyth cut down all the trees between the castle and the point where the pipe entered the water. His archers on the lesser tower would have their main responsibility in keeping the merchant’s people away from that line of pipe. If they failed, the water in the cisterns would have to go a long way—and already the keep was getting crowded.

It grew more so through the afternoon, for warriors from the surrounding areas began to arrive at the gates in twos and threes, then in groups of ten and twelve. By dinnertime, a hundred and fifty experienced fighters crammed the banquet hall, laughing and joking and enjoying the reunion. All had fought beside each other under Dorlyth, but they rarely had the chance to gather together anymore. Only at the winter holiday did many of them see one another, and then only in small groups, for Dorlyth’s castle was really too small to hold this many men in peacetime. But a new war had come; some soul as yet unknown to them was bringing them a battle; and so they jammed the tables of their friend and lord and ate happily what was placed before them. That wasn’t much—Dorlyth’s seneschal had not expected so many.

Now he fluttered at the doorway into the kitchens, telling the servers who passed in and out to cut back on the portions.

“Feed them well!” Doriyth thundered, overhearing his steward as he came into the dining hall.

“But Lord Doriyth,” the steward began anxiously. His voice was drowned in the greetings and cheers. These warriors knew Dorlyth’s gravelly bass voice, and they roared their approval of his appearance. The cheers and applause went on for several minutes, and Doriyth beamed back at them, choking a bit, wishing only that Rosha could be here with him to hear this welcome. Then an expectant hush settled over the room, as they waited to hear from Doriyth whom it was they were fighting, and why.