A week later, after Pahvlos had watched an artificier's hands maimed for the heinous offense of having sneaked both a woman of easy virtueand a quant.i.ty of cheap barley hwiskee into the camp, the entire company of artificiers had packed up their wagons and marched away, too, on the northern trade road.

The old man knew, then, that his eyes never would see the ancient city of Sahvahnahspolis. For, lacking artificiers to lay out camps and build temporary brid-ges and mend damaged roads, with only a scant hand-ful of scouts and three lousy troops of lancers under an officer he no longer trusted, with no elephants at all, he knew that it might well be worth his very life to try to push what was left of the army into those swamps and their very real terrors. This reverse deeply disap-pointed him, made him begin to wonder if all of the many changes that he and Ilios had promulgated might have been too much, too soon, perhaps.

As always, these days, in time of trouble or anger or distress of any nature, he went to Ilios-sultry, dark-eyed Ilios, always seductive, willing and pleasing, the most satisfying lover, male or female, he ever had enjoyed. But after he had poured it all out, Ilios had not seemed at all displeased or disappointed;rather had the nearly beardless boy nodded his small head of blue-black curls.

"Don't consider these things a loss, love, rather have you done a winnowing of your army-yours, not theirs, the army of Pahvlos, not the army of those silly, deluded creatures who make up the Council- you have driven out the alien barbarians who would have aided the Council in submission of all these lands to rule and domination by that devil-sp.a.w.n thing Milo Morai. You have beaten the chaff from off the pure grain so that your army, though now smaller, is be-come all yours and still is big enough, more than strong enough, to allow you to take over this land whenever you feel ready to so do.

"So be not so glum, my own. I'll tell you, let us order honey wine and cheese and biscuits, then go out and watch that personal guardsman of yours who tried to desert punished. He is to be executed anyway, so indulge me ... please? I always have wondered how long it would take a man to die after boiling pitch had been poured down his throat.

"After that, we can come back here and make love, love. It's always so very much more exciting after we've watched punishments ... at least, it is for me."

Old Pahvlos indulged his Ilios, of course; he could not but indulge the dear, sweet boy.

Mostly through Sub-strahteegos ThoheeksTomos Gonsalos and Captain-of-brigadeThoheeks Portos, Thoheeks Grahvos was able to keep his clique of the Council of the ConsolidatedThoheekseeahnee up to date on the sad state into which their painfully ac-quired army had sunk and was continuing to sink under the baleful aegis of their once-revered GrandStrahteegos.

"Let us all hope . . . and pray, too," said Portos during the course of another clandestine and tightly guarded meeting at Tomos' headquarters, of a night, "that there is no large-scale disturbance at any time soon, out in thethoheekseeahnee or, worse, on the borders, for to all intents and purposes our army might as well be chained in place here, unable to move any meaningful numbers of troops anywhere for any purpose."

"Is it so bad, then, Portos?"Thoheeks Bahos had rumbled in a worried tone.

The tall horseman nodded. "That bad and far worse than that, my friend. Cavalry Brigade is become a distinct misnomer, a very sick and very grim joke. My own heavy horse is down by over a third of its former full-strength numbers, and in addition to them, there are only three understrength troops of lancers and the elephants. Captain-of-squadronOpokomees Ehrrikos flatly refuses to lead his light horse out of garrison for any reason until he is in receipt of a full, formal and public apology for the many wrongs done him by the GrandStrahteegos, and he and we, here, and the rest of the army all know that h.e.l.l will have frozen over solidly before old Pahvlos so humbles himself."

"What of the other squadron of lancers, the Wolf Squadron,Vahrohnos Bralos' men?" askedThoheeks Pahlios, who had but recently returned to Mehseepolis from his distant lands.

Portos shrugged. "He and they are gone, gone south to his holdings, I presume. He was treated far worse by Pahvlos than wasOpokomees Ehrrikos and for far longer a time; immediately the old man was constrained to drop all his pending charges against those two offi-cers and thus release them from arrest, Bralos packed up and mounted up and left with his men, their fami-lies and anything movable that any of them owned. Hisvahrohneeseeahn lies many leagues away, close to two weeks of marching time, I'd say." ThoheeksBahos knew better than that, but he kept silent and just listened, even in this gathering of n.o.blemen who all were, they averred, of like mindsets. Young Bralos and his effectives were actually camped in a seldom-visited area of Bahos'thoheekseeahn, much closer to the capital than anyone else thought, and they there const.i.tuted Bahos' ace in the hole. Should the drastically changed old man who once had been loved and deeply respected by them all try anything like forcing Council out of Mehseepolis with his shrunken army, Portos and his heavy horse would know what to do and the elephants and remaining lancers most likely would back them. They, combined with Tomos' training brigade and Captain Guhsz Hehluh's mercenaries, the Council Guardsmen, the city garrison and Bahos'

ace should be more than enough to put down any coup dreamed up by Pahvlos, thought the big, silent n.o.bleman to himself.

"What of the foot and the specialists, my lord Por-tos?"Thoheeks Pahlios inquired further. "And Lord Pawl of Vawn and his beautiful, fearsome-toothed panthers?"

But it was Tomos Gonsalos who answered this time. "Captain Guhsz Hehluh's mercenary Keebai pikemen are camped just south of the perimeter of my enclave, officially because Grahvos ordered them to be trans-ferred to duties with the city garrison, unofficially because it was either something of that sort or see them march north, out of the ConsolidatedThoheek-seeahnee entirely, probably looting along their way in revenge for getting only half-pay for six months by old Pahvlos' harebrained order. That was just the way that Chief Pawl and almost all of his squadron left, and for the same basic reasons: half-pay or none at all and always very late at that, being stringently forbidden such soldierly solaces as strong drink, hemp, tobacco and the company of females within the camp, while at the same time being most strongly forbidden to leave the camp to seek out such pleasure under enforced penalties of flogging, hideous torture, maiming, muti-lation, even death."

"But ... but why, my lord Sub-strahteegos Tho-heeks?"demanded the newly rearrivedthoheeks in stunned astonishment. "I've spent more of my own life than I would've preferred in armor in armies and I've never before even heard of such stupidities; why, every commander worth his salt knows that withhold-ing of a common soldier's simple pleasures for reasons other than announced punishment is the surest way to breed discontent and desertions. Why was the GrandStrahteegos punishing our mercenaries and underpay-ing them? Is Council so low on fluid funds, then?"

Portos took over the sorry recountal at that point. "Lord Pahlios, it is not and was not, then, only the mercenaries who were being so cruelly and stupidly abused by Pahvlos. No, his strictures apply and ap-plied to the entire army, officers excluded, of course. He claimed that in the old royal armies, it had been determined that congress with females decreased the vitality of common soldiers, and I suppose that he hoped that if he kept them all pent up for long enough, they would end up takingpooeesosee as he did some two years ago, just before all of this insanity com-menced."

"Rubbish!"snappedThoheeks Pahlios scornfully. "A man is a man, common or n.o.ble; I've futtered more females in my lifetime than I can begin to count, but never a single man or boy, and I've fought and won some d.a.m.ned hard battles, too."

"That Pahvlos, even at his rather advanced years, has taken a young man to camp-wife is not at all surprising or outside his nature, you know," remarkedThoheeks Bahos, speaking to them all. "If you'll re-call, I was in the royal army for a stretch myself. Even then, Pahvlos kept his wife and children at his hold, far away, and a handsome young ensign or three in the army enclave, hard by the capital. Everyone knew him as a carrot-grabber, back then, not that he was the only one of exalted rank in the royal army, of course; I think that that practice, especially amongst n.o.ble officers, was much more common in the days before the rebellions and civil wars than it has been since." "And I, for one, am just as glad for it, too," saidThoheeks Grahvos gravely. "For in my own royal army days, I saw more outright murders and senseless duels rise out of the b.i.t.c.hinesses and jealousies that seem to proliferate out of man-on-man s.e.xual liaisons like flies from out a cesspit than I could recount if I lived twice my present age. Indeed, I was most pleased when I noted so little of it in Council's own army."

"As for the rest of it," Portos went on, still speaking toThoheeks Pahlios, "smoke of any sort seems to upset the nose of the delicate Ilios-that's Pahvlos' love-boy, my lord. It makes him sneeze, makes his eyes to water, so everyone is dead sure that that's why the ban on smoking either hemp or tobacco in the army. And, incidentally, our GrandStrahteegos has taken it solidly into his head that the army, what's now left of it, at least, is not Council's, but ratherhis, and he so refers to it. As regards the proscription of any alcohol save only the well-watered mess-wine, I and those with whom I've discussed it are all utterly in the dark, for widespread misuse of alcohol was never any sort of real, recurrent problem in our units.

And this last does not sound to have come from the delicate Ilios, for he does drink; in fact, he and Pahvlos regu-larly sit in the shade behind the headquarters building, sip wine and eat fruit and dainties while they watch common soldiers flogged and tortured and, occasion-ally, killed."

"Theywhat ?" burst outThoheeks Pahlios, horror and incredulity reflected on his face and in his brown eyes.

"Just so, my lord," drawled Tomos Gonsalos in his Karaleenos accent, "and then, or so I am told, they both retire to his quarters and make love."

"It's nothing less than monstrous!" Pahlios remon-strated. "How is it that such an animal still commands our army, Grahvos? Though it does sound a bit to me as if this catamite has twisted him about a finger and adversely influenced him, robbed him of most of his wits insofar as running an army is concerned.

Has there been any thought of having this boy, Ilios, quietly . . . ahh, eliminated?"

ThoheeksMahvros, new chairman of Council and for long Grahvos' protege", sighed. "Of course we've tried, Pahlios, we've hired certain men to kill both of them on occasions, no less than three attempts on the old man, but he's got more guards than you could shake a stick at, not to mention a seemingly charmed life. His food is prepared in his private kitchen by cooks who have been given to know that they will a.s.suredly be praying for death long before it is granted to them if anything that even might be poison sickens or kills him."

"But back to your question about the regular foot and the corps of specialists, my lordThoheeks Pahlios," said Tomos Gonsalos. "He did his usual number on the artificiers-denying them women, strong tipples, hemp, tobacco, restricting them all to the confines of the camp as if he commanded some slave-army, paying them only half of the contracted monthly stipend- but, oddly enough, they stayed on and merely grum-bled until he had both the hands of one of their sergeants mangled and crippled for some trifling of-fense against his new rules. It was then that the entire unit of artificiers, officers and men alike, packed up and marched out of camp. And my lord must know that without a corps of artificiers, the remnants of our army might as well be sunk four feet deep in the sand for all of the moving any large number of them can do, for only some of the roads and bridges are pa.s.s-able for heavy transport, even yet." Responding to the beginnings of a contraba.s.so growl, he added, "This last, through no slightest fault ofThoheeks Bahos and his committee, but simply through a dearth of state-slaves, suitable materials on hand where and when needed and difficulty of transporting said materials elsewhere quickly."

"And as regards your earlier question about the finances of our government, Pahlios," put inThoheeks Grahvos, "we are sounder now than we ever have been before, and sufficient monies were transferred toPahvlos to meet all of the army's expenses, in full, and regularly. He simply chose to not pay his troops more than half the money they had coming."

"So where's the rest of it, Grahvos, or does any-body know? Where does old Pahvlos say it is?" asked Pahlios. "And does anybody believe his a.s.sertions?"

"Never you fear, it is all safe and fully accounted for," he was a.s.sured byThoheeks Mahvros. "For all his other and heinous faults, the GrandStrahteegos is no thief or embezzler of army funds. The army pay-master, who recently retired, tells me that he had a full accounting done before he turned everything over to his successor and every last half-copper could be seen or traced to fully justified usage."

"All well and good, then," saidThoheeks Pahlios, "but still I must pose the question: What are we going to do about Pahvlos? When and how and how soon are we going to put him out to pasture or put him down?-which last is more along the lines of what he deserves for all the harm he has done us and so many others."

No one had an answer to his questions, however, not then and not there, but less than two weeks later, the GrandStrahteegos Thoheeks Pahvlos the Warlike lay dead upon the floor of the Council Chamber, the hilt of a slender dagger standing up from his back, he having been killed byThoheeks Portos, but only after he had run up to the weapons racks, grabbed out his sword and a dirk, threatened to sword Thoheeks Grahvos and others, dirkedThoheeks Mahvros in the shoulder and called on his adherents to come and join him in what would have amounted to civil war. And such a war would have almost certainly rent the new-made nation apart, destroyed all that so many had labored so long and hard to erect.

Two hours after the necessary murder, newly ap-pointedSub-strahteegos Thoheeks Portos rode into the enclave of the army headquarters at the head of his sometime brigade of cavalry, fully armed for war.

Leaving his officers and troopers to round up all of the late GrandStrahteegos' people and explain to them the new, hard facts of what was now to be, Portos dismounted and stalked through the main building, back to the private quarters of his late victim in search of his next chosen victim.

The brace of personal guardsmen in the corridor outside the door had been chosen more for their good looks and youth and grace than for any attainments of combativeness or fighting skills, so they were but a momentary hindrance to the tall, thick-muscled vet-eran warrior. He left one of them stark dead and the other crawling slowly up the empty corridor, sobbing weakly, in great agony and leaving a broad smear of gore behind him. Portos doubted the guardsman would make it far. He stooped, wiped his blade clean on the fancy cape of the dead one, sheathed it, then pushed open the door to the suite and entered.

Ilios was sitting on the edge of a bed, dark eyes still heavy-lidded, when Portos stalked in. "Wha . . .

what are you doing here, and unannounced, Captain Por-tos? Those d.a.m.ned slothful guards will be well striped for this."

Portos grinned coldly. "No they won't, boy. One of them lies dead out there and the other will be dead soon enough. If it's protection you want, you should put scarred, ugly warriors on guard, not pretty pop-injays."

Ilios paled, put one hand to a cheek, his eyes wide. "You mean youkilled them, both of them? Pahvlos will likely see you hang for such ..."

Coldly, contemptuously, Portos stepped closer to the bedside and slapped the boy on the other cheek.

"Pahvlos will never again do anything for or to another living soul. He's dead too. I drove a dagger intohim less than three hours agone. The newStrahteegos isThoheeks Tomos Gonsalos, and he's a lost cause for such as you, boy; he and his wife live together in this camp and are, I am informed, most congenial and contented, one to the other."

Seating himself unbidden beside the shocked boy, he gripped one of the bare, dimpled knees with a big, hard hand and said, "On the other hand, boy, there is me. I am now sub-strahteegos,and I always have been most susceptible to such treasures as you."

Ilios realized that, objectively speaking, he had no other options there and then. Turning his head to look up into the hard, black eyes of Pahvlos' admitted murderer, the boy smiled shyly, then puckered his lips for a kiss, letting the merest trace of a tongue-tip show behind those lips, enticingly. Such had always worked well on Pahvlos, Ilios' first and only lover. . . .

Ilios gasped when he saw Portos' body stripped of his weapons, armor and clothing-extremely hairy, seamed with scars from head to feet, tall, of a darker than Ehleen average and muscle-corded-but those features were not what brought the gasp. Nature had endowed the man hugely.

Portos padded over to an opened chest of toiletries, rooting through it, then turning with a flagonette of sweet-scented oil. Rubbing a small measure of the stuff onto both hands, he sat back down on the rum-pled satin sheets and drew the boy's slight body nearer.

Ilios gasped when the big, oily hand commenced to work in his crotch. Later, lying in the glowing after-math of his blissful fulfillment, it took him a good minute to realize that the man, his new protector and lover, was speaking to him.

"What did my love say?" he purred.

"Your body is incredibly small and narrow, I said," declared Portos, adding, "But then, as I recall, Pahvlos never was able to effect penetration of me."

To the boy's look of astonished surprise, the man nodded. "Oh, yes. Did you think to be the first? I, too, was one of Pahvlos' boys, when I was but a new ensign of barely fourteen years of age and he was a fortyish brigade commander, asub-strahteegos already. But I seriously doubt that he remembered me in more recent years, for he had so many like me, keeping precious few around for any great length of time.

"But enough of reminiscing now, Ilios. I am not yet done with you."

Ilios quickly a.s.sumed a sitting posture, shaking his head with vehemence and saying firmly, "No. Oh, no.

I can't . . . won't let you do that, not yet, no. You're so ... sohuge, love. You . . . you'll hurt me terribly, probably injure me. No, I ..."

And that was as far as he got before Portos' big, hard, oily palm smashed against the side of his small head, stunning him for a moment. However, he recov-ered enough to try to resist when he felt those h.o.r.n.y hands begin to start rearranging his body and legs. He discovered to his immediate sorrow that such resis-tance was not only in vain, it was a serious mistake.

Portos' fist struck his hairless chest like the kick of a warhorse, forcing all the air from Ilios' lungs, and before he could once more breathe normally, if pain-fully, the brutal man had shredded a sheet, tied him to the bedstead by wrists and ankles and was returning to the bedside with a waist-belt in one hand and a look of grim antic.i.p.ation on his face. "I understand that you enjoy watching men flogged, Ilios. I've heard that it excites you. If so, your own flogging should arouse you even more. And even if it doesn't, it will be a salutary lesson to you that you must never deny me my desires . . . ever."

"No ... oh, please,please, no. Don't do it to me, oh, don't!" Ilios whimpered, straining at his bonds, tears of terror streaking his pretty face. "I ... I can't . . . cannotabide pain, don't you see? It ... it ... I ... my heart will . . .NONONO !"

Ilios had never gained any real friends among Pahvlos' officers, guardsmen and servants, having always been sullen, aloof, demanding and often downright b.i.t.c.hy, tolerated and catered to only through the underlings' fear of Pahvlos. As the loud whacks of hard-swung leather impacting upon flesh and the shrieks of pain and shrill pleas for surcease, for mercy, penetrated easily out beyond dead Pahvlos'

private suite, all of the a.s.sembled officers and lesser men exchanged grins and nods. The spoiled, overindulged little piece of pig dung was finally getting part of what was, in his case, long overdue.

Portos was no novice at delivering beatings of all sorts, and he tried not to draw blood from the tender, pampered flesh, but he did not stop, to stand, panting, until the entire expanse from Ilios' neck to his knees was but a single, raised welt and shrieks and pleas and shouts were become moaning sobs.

He left his victim long enough to track down a ewer of wine, splash out a cupful and drink it off before going back to the bed, loosing the ankles momentar-ily, then retying them to the ornate posts at the foot of the overwide bed, thus splaying the slender legs widely.

Portos took his time, knowing his victim to be com-pletely helpless, enjoying himself to the fullest and beginning to half wonder if, after all, he might not be well advised to keep the boy about until he had had the pleasure of completely breaking him ... or he found a wife with a fat dowry, whichever came first.

But, as he spent finally within the boy's quivering, agonized body, he came back to his senses. It was most imperative to Council that this Ilios be "per-suaded" to immediately quit the environs of Mehsee-polis, for Pahvlos, in his bemused dotage, had named his lover his heir, and such as Ilios was not at all what the Council envisioned as a fittingthoheeks and mem-ber of the ruling n.o.bility.

After scrubbing himself well with the sponge and toweling dry, he went to his pile of clothes and gear and began to dress while whistling the tune of a merry harvest-dance popular when he had been a boy, more than forty years now past, virtually unmindful of the steady, low moan and occasional gasps, sobs and whim-pers from the brutalized boy still secured to the bed with strips of satin sheet, his small hands and feet beginning to discolor from the biting tightness of the makeshift bonds.

Ilios lay in certainty that he had been injured, possi-bly fatally injured, in the course of the rape, and he wondered if his wounded body could stay alive for long enough to reach an outpost of his people, far to the south, in time. Moreover, he was almost as certain that he had one or more cracked ribs, thinking that the sharp stabs that breathing sp.a.w.ned in his chest could come from no other source.

But terror took over his thoughts again when he saw the redressed, armored man approaching the bed with a slender, sharp-glittering dagger in his hand. The very dagger with which old Pahvlos had been slain . . . ?.

"No, please," the boy croaked weakly, his tear-filled eyes unable seemingly to leave those six inches of bluish steel blade. "Haven't you hurt me enough?"

Portos smiled icily. "Oh, no, little Ilios. Today was only our beginning, yours and mine." Extending the dagger, he sliced through the strips of satin that held Ilios' wrists to the headboard, did the same for the ankles, then said, conversationally, "When once you've washed and dressed, pack up your things and come to my quarters. You'll not be welcome at any other place in the camp, city or thoheekseeahn, you know. Tonight, I'll fit you with a nice, thick peg and start stretching you to my size and tastes, eh?"

Then he turned on his heel and left the suite, step-ping over the two dead guardsmen as he strolled up the corridor, his weapons and armor clanking, clashing and ringing.

Chapter IX.

"You must understand, Tomos," saidThoheeks Grahvos bluntly, "that I consider myself to be only a figureheadstrahteegos, holding a rank-of-honor, as it were; you and only you will command, save for those functions you choose to delegate to your sub-strah-teegohee.I accepted in Council only because I thought it just then impolitic to further upset those few who might've been leery of a foreigner taking over com-mand of our army. As you surely know, things might've been much stickier than they really were in the wake of old Pahvlos' . . . ahh, demise.

"Have you made any decision as to who will take over the training command?"

Tomos nodded once. "Sub-strahteegoheePortos and Guhsz Hehluh will share that function, for once we get the army built up again it will be just too much for one man to handle alone-believe me, my lord, I know of hard experience. Hehluh will also, however, command all of the unmounted troops, and Portos all of the mounted."

"How of Hehluh's Keebai mercenaries-will he be expected to wear three hats, then?" asked Grahvos dubiously.

"Oh, no," replied Tomos, with a chuckle. "He was the first to point out that did I want anything done right, I had best not give him too many jobs to do at once. No, one of his senior lieutenants, a man named Steev Stuhbz, will be taking over field command of the mercenary foot, although for contract purposes, it will still be Hehluh's unit, of course."

"And the heavy horse that Portos has led for so long?" demanded Grahvos.

Tomos shook his head. "Now that presented me something of a problem, my lord. The man I wanted to captain the heavy horse, Captain Bralos, refused the posting, preferring to stay with his own light horse.

He recommended Captain Ehrrikos, however. I talked with Ehrrikos, but he declined, saying that he'd take it only if I couldn't get another qualified officer to com-mand it, strongly urging me to approach Captain Bralos. And I did, not quite knowing just what else to do under the circ.u.mstances, reapproach Captain Bralos, but he was most adamant in his refusal. However, he did point out a something to me that I had forgotten: Captain Ehrrikos has held his squadron command longer than any other officer still with the army. When I flatly ordered him to a.s.sume command of the heavy horse squadron, giving him no other option but to leave the army, he obeyed. Yes, it was a risky gamble, for we can ill afford to lose even one more experi-enced man or officer, at this sad juncture, but Bralos was certain that the gambit would work on Ehrrikos, and he was proven right, it did."

Noting the low level of wine inThoheeks Grahvos' goblet, Tomos refilled it and his own. "I take it thenthat my lord will continue to make his residence in the city?" At Grahvos' wordless nod, he went on to say, "Then I must resolve another problem of a sort, my lord. You see, Hehluh is going to take over my old bachelor quarters in the training-command headquar-ters, Portos is planning to move into the other senior officer house near to mine, I mean to stay just where my wife and I are now, so that will leave Pahvlos' suite completely untenanted, vacant."

"You can't have it converted to other uses?" asked Grahvos.

"Certainly, my lord, I could, but it would be a d.a.m.ned shame, in my way of thinking, to do it over. In the years that he lived in that suite, Pahvlos in-vested thousands-maybe tens of thousands-of thrah-kmehee in renovations and furnishings. It covers the whole northeast quarter of the main headquarters build-ing, my lord, on the ground level, with a commodious wine cellar under that.

"There's a long, narrow foyer that opens from the central hallway, a large sitting-room with a hearth for heating, a short corridor from there to the master bedroom with an attiring-room on one side of it and a combination closet and personal armory on the other; beyond that bedroom, the corridor runs on to let to several guest bedrooms. On the other side of the foyer are a very s.p.a.cious bathing-room with a small pool and piping to a roof tank for sun-warmed water in good weather, as well as to the detached kitchen for heated water in cold seasons. The remainder of the s.p.a.ce is taken up by servants' cubbies and storage rooms."

ThoheeksGrahvos shrugged, then suddenly bright-ened. "I know, Tomos, just lock up those rooms and keep them as is for housing very important guests, heh? That suite sounds to be far more comfortable than anything Council can provide visitors of rank in that crowded city, up there. Also, there's the incontro-vertible and unvarnished fact that anyone would be far safer from a.s.sa.s.sins in the middle of this army's camp than lodged up there in that unhealthy warren behind the walls of Mehseepolis."

"Too," added Tomos, "in a suite so capacious, a large retinue can mostly stay hard by their lord, rather than being lodged here and there, wherever they can be squeezed into the palace complex. I tell you, my lord, sometimes when I'm walking those endless, twist-ing and turning corridors of the palace, I would not be at all surprised to round a corner and find myself face to face with a snorting, man-eating minotaur."

ThoheeksGrahvos smiled. "Yes, I too know that feeling, my friend, and I freely admit that the addi-tions to the onetime ducal palace were done in a rather slipshod manner, but it was at the time a crash-ing necessity to provide more room yesterday, if not sooner. Apropos that, are you aware that for some time Mahvros and I have been looking over architec-tural and layout plans for a new capital city, a roomy city with acreage allotted for eventual expansion at every hand?"

Tomos shook his head, and Grahvos went on, "Well, we have, down there on the plain, just the other side of the river."

Tomos wrinkled up his brows, visualizing the an-nounced location, then commented dubiously, "Even if you moat it, my lord, you'll play h.e.l.l and pay high to make a city there in any way really defensible. And, if moat it you choose to do, it will end as the centerpiece of a lake or a bog during flood season, you know. That is, unless you build so far from the present rivercourse as to make it easy for a besieger to inter-dict the ca.n.a.l that will have to supply your moat."

Grahvos smiled again, nodding. "There speaks the trained military mind. Man, have faith in the beautiful world that your own new High Lord envisions: a world wherein cities need not be built primarily with defense in mind, all cramped into too-small areas and basically unhealthy places in which to live. A worldwherein country n.o.bility may exchange their strong but cold and draughty and devilishly uncomfortable holds for s.p.a.cious, luxurious halls set amongst their croplands and pastures. Have faith that your children and theirs will live happily in a sunny, productive land of peace and law and order, with no single bandit lurking along the roads and no armed bands riding about to trample crops and steal livestock and burn villages.

"Have faith in this glorious dream, man; I do. I know that I will scarce live to see it, but you most likely will, and Mahvros, too. This is the dream, in-cluded in the High Lord's first letter to me, that has sustained me through all the vicissitudes of the last few years, that when I am only a handful of ashes and no living man can even recall what I looked like, I still will be remembered for being one of the men who helped to finally bring peace and prosperity to the land wherein I was born, a land that I saw suffer so much and for so long."

ToThoheeks Sitheeros-who, save for the rare hunt or h.e.l.l-ride or the rarer mountain interlude to visit with Chief Ritchud or others of his barbarian friends, had been virtually deskbound for years-it was akin in many ways to his early years as a youngthoheeks, riding out with his picked guards or warband, this riding along sun-dappled roadways beside CaptainVahrohnos Bralos, trailed by their two bannermen, bodyguards and the twenty-four lancers, these led by a young lieutenant, one Pulos of Aptahpolis, with the small pack-train and spare horses and single cart trail-ing behind in charge of the handful of military and civilian servants and a brace of muleskinners.

As they usually camped near villages or holds, they made scant inroads on their supplies, instead buying fresh foods and grain from farmers and petty n.o.bles along the way, folk who were overjoyed to see and accept and who gave good value for hard silverthrahkmehee and bright copperpehnahee with their sheaves of barley on their one side and the stylized head of a ram which the Council of these new ConsolidatedThoheekseeahnee had adopted as its symbol on the other.

As almost all of the once extensive olive orchards had been destroyed by the roving combatants during the long years of revolt and counterrevolt and minor skirmishings and settlements of personal vendettas by the n.o.bility, the bread they bought-fresh and hot from village ovens-was perforce topped with slathers of new-churned b.u.t.ter or savory, oniony goose grease. Most vineyards had met the same sad fates as the olive groves, so they bought and drank barley beer, ciders of apple and pear, fermented juices of peach and apricot, honey meads or ales flavored with wild herbs.

The land was good and under the hands of caring man was once more producing the riches it had for all of the centuries that had preceded the awful two de-cades so recently past. Herds and flocks once more grazed upon the meadows and leas and uplands. Fields of green, immature grains rippled to soft breezes that also set rows of tall maize arustle.

Small boys came running to roadsides to watch the lines of riders all ajingle on their tall chargers, the pennons fluttering at the sparkling steel tips of the long, polished lances of ashwood, sunbeams flashing from plumed helmets, cuira.s.ses and hilts of sabers and dirks. Their elders might still feel the urge to hurriedly gather up small valuables and then run to hide in the woods, but these children had not in their short life-times learned to equate soldiers and riders of Coun-cil's army with death and destruction, with lootings, rapine and burnings. The pa.s.sage of the small column of lancers was, to the young, simply a welcome break in their own, endless, wearisome war fought with sticks and stones against the vermin-insect, animal and avian-that haunted the fields of melons, squashes, aubergines and cabbages.

In one domain that did not yet have a full-time resident lord to hunt out the larger, more dangerousbeasts, Sitheeros, Bralos, Lieutenant Pulos and a few carefully picked lancers exchanged their troop horses for hunters and spent the best part of two days in the destruction of a sounder of feral swine which had been despoiling the country around and about, then spent another two days at helping the farm-villagers butcher and cook and eat the rich, fresh pork, it being a very rare treat in summer for their hosts.

In another domain,Thoheeks Sitheeros earned great and universal admiration when he rode his blooded hunter in at the gallop and, with his long, heavy Pitzburk sword, hamstrung a ferocious wild bull, so that lancers could finish it off in far less danger to man or horse. Everyone gorged that night on fresh, spicy, spit-broiled beef, a bit tough and stringy, but still satisfying with black bread, brown ale, sweet maize and boiled cabbage.