Hugh Cook: The women and the warlords

'I do not want any more duels!' said Lord Alagrace.

'That,' said Yen Olass, 'is not my problem.’

'Wrong,' said Lord Alagrace. 'I've been looking for you all day so you can help me to stop a duel.’

'Is that so?' said Yen Olass. 'And who are the fighters?’

'Lonth Denesk and Tonaganuk.’

Lonth Denesk was the father of Volaine Persaga Haveros, the apostate Yarglat clansman who had been daring enough to steal horses which the Ondrask had dedicated for sacrifice. Tonaganuk was the father of Chonjara, the Ondrask's follower who had, all unknowingly, bought those horses and butchered them for his banquet.

'Tell me,' said Yen Olass, 'how did the fathers come to be involved in the quarrel of the sons?’

'It all started when I tried to solve our little problem

'Yes,' said Yen Olass. 'I thought it might be something like that.’

'There are women in Gendormargensis,' said Lord Alagrace, 'who have had their tongues torn out for less than that.’

'The Sisterhood,' said Yen Olass tartly, 'would not approve of such damage to the Sisterhood's property.’

She was reminding him that they were not master and slave. They were, if anything, partners in crime. Lord Alagrace sighed. When he had to work with flawed tools like Yen Olass, it made things very difficult. But then, everything was difficult these days.

During the Blood Purge, in which the Yarglat had run amok in Gendormargensis and elsewhere, they had killed out almost the entire intellectual elite of the Collosnon Empire. The administration of the capital had gone into the hands of one of Khmar's cousins – briefly. Lord Alagrace was still trying to repair the damage.

'Tell me about the fight,' said Yen Olass. 'Are they going to use axes?’

'They're not going to fight,' said Lord Alagrace. 'They're going to apologise to each other, then go back home and behave themselves.’

'After they've hugged and kissed,' said Yen Olass, in one of the moments of whimsy which she usually hid from him.

'If you can make them hug and kiss, then go ahead,' said Lord Alagrace. 'But first let me tell you the problem

Gendormargensis: capital of Collosnon Empire; military and administrative city situated on Yolantarath River, commanding strategic gap between Sarapine Ranges and Balardade Massif. Extensive fortifications and notable archives; centre of fur trade; famous for annual horse fair and river tournament; pop. (est. Khmar 18) 273,460.

In the eighteenth year of his reign, the Lord Emperor Khmar was absent from the city of Gendormargensis. Accompanied by his second son, Meddon, he was at war, forcing the command of the Collosnon Empire south to the shores of the Pale. Nevertheless, even though the Lord Emperor rode elsewhere, the customary intrigues of court life continued.

Most secret and most scandalous of all those intrigues was the liaison between Volaine Persaga Haveros and the Princess Quenerain. By now, many people knew that Haveros had taken the Ondrask's horses, but few would have thought him rash enough to bed the Princess Quenerain.

Haveros, a high-caste warrior and the hero of seven campaigns, was Lord Commander of the Imperial City, answering only to the Lawmaker Lord Alagrace during Khmar's absence. Haveros was a big man with a big-built appetite for food, laughter, song and bawdry. He was also a drinking man, with a drinker's broken-red veins in his battle-scarred face: but his alcoholic thirst had yet to destroy his virility.

The Princess Quenerain, nineteen years old, and virginal more in deed than in thought, had pearl-smooth hands and milk-warm thighs. When she conspired with Haveros, her eyes did all the talking; before their first words kissed, they knew their destiny.

And so it came to pass.

While her father was at war in the south of the continent of Tameran, the Princess Quenerain lay with the warrior Haveros, offending against both law and custom.

The princess had already been ordained as head of the Rite of Purification, which was important for both war and peace, as it served to absolve soldiers from war guilt; the dignity of the Rite demanded an unblemished virgin to oversee its rituals.

But the Princess Quenerain did not think of this as she grappled with Haveros, her breathing flushed, his flesh defying gravity, lips closing, heat clenching, thighs thrusting, her hands clutching his rhythm home to hers.

And afterwards, fever relapsing toward sleep, neither of these two drowsy and sated animals thought of anything in particular as they lay there, heat declining, pulse slackening, sweat cooling, vague disconnected images already prefiguring their dreams.

This act of copulation was rash but not suicidal. The lovers had secured their privacy by choosing to fornicate within the confines of the Princess Quenerain's private quarters in Karling Drask, the War Archives complex; for contraceptive protection, Haveros had consented to wear a hand-tailored condom fashioned from a section of the intestines of a reindeer.

And so they slept in peace, untroubled by any intimations of disaster; they both knew exactly what they could get away with – or thought they did.

Elsewhere, snuggled down under her dreamquilt, her body burdened by the encroaching weight of her cat Lefrey, Yen Olass Ampadara was already asleep. And dreaming. No man lay beside her, and no lover figured in her dreams; though she was now officially a virgin, as a child she had been gang-raped by a dozen of Khmar's soldiers, and had subsequently failed to develop romantic yearnings.

Yen Olass was dreaming of a rabbit. This small, frightened animal lay mewling in the snow. It had ben skinned; thin purple veins obtruded from its rasp-raw flesh.

Yen Olass dreamt that she cradled this hubbly little thing deep within her comfort, snuggled it down into the feather-warm quilting of her weather jacket, and soothed the air with a growing song which made the raw flesh renew its bonds with a pelt of luxuriant fur.

Floating from dreamsleep toward wakefulness, Yen Olass imagined herself, for a moment, as Earthmother, healer of the hurts and pains of the universe, infinitely tender and unstintingly generous.

Then she woke, and knew otherwise.

Dawn.

The Yolantarath River lay empty-wide outside the battlements of Gendormargensis. Sheer-frozen, as it had been since Winterblade, it lay beneath drifts of snow; the rising sun spiked both ice and snow with that blinding dazzle known, in Yarglat parlance, as 'caltrops'.

Sentries guarding the walls of the Imperial City stamped their feet, and watched a few early-rising ice fishermen trooping onto the river to reopen holes which the night cold would have sealed.

Engulfed in a warrior's embrace, the Princess Quenerain slept, dreaming of pumping honey.

The warrior, Volaine Persaga Haveros, woke, and sniffed first the hair then the flesh of the woman who slept in his arms. Disentangling himself from her embrace, he dressed; he had no intention of washing on a morning as cold as this one. He armed himself, then left.

The corridors of Karling Drask were utterely silent. Haveros strode along those deserted marble avenues, paying no attention to the mosaics which adorned the walls. He was thinking of all the things he had to do that morning. His father, Lonth Denesk, was due to fight Tonaganuk later that morning. The fight might spark off a clan battle within Gendormargensis. If that happened, Haveros wanted to win the war. Even now, his people would be assembling in the clan drillhall; Haveros would see that they were properly armed and instructed before the duel started.

Haveros wished Lord Alagrace had not involved his father in this business. What had the old fool been thinking of, calling Lonth Denesk and Tonaganuk together? He should have realized that was the worst possible thing he could have done. The old man was slipping.