“This may be a trick,” said the woman holding the torch. “How do you know that these wild-men haven’t been hired by the Greens or the Skego?”
“I don’t,” said Lezpet. “But if they are assassins, why are they unarmed?”
Benoni knew then that she was not in a panic but was thinking coolly.
“We have risked our lives, Your Excellency,” he said. “Do not waste that risk and throw away our lives, and yours.”
“I think it is a trick,” said the other woman. “Let them stay there. As long as they are on the other side of the bars, they can do nothing to harm us. Even if they do mean to help us, we don’t have time or the strength to remove the bars. After all, they’re just two wild-men.”
“If they leaped from the other wall to help me,” said Lezpet, “they are more than just wild-men.”
“You don’t have much time,” said Benoni, pointing down the hallway.
“But we don’t have the strength to pull the bars out,” said Lezpet.
For answer, Benoni grabbed one of the bars with both hands, and he was quickly imitated by Zhem. With a strength they would never have thought themselves capable of, but doubtless pumped into their muscles by the fear of death, they bent the bar. This time, it was not necessary to pull the bar from its retaining sockets. They managed, with much loss of skin, to squeeze through between the bar and the wall of the window.
Zhem and Benoni pushed past the two women and ran down the hall and into the anteroom. This was a tremendous chamber with a huge fireplace on one wall. On both sides of the fireplace, placed in racks against the wall, were many weapons, trophies of victories.
Benoni took a short bow made of two joined horns from a longhorn bull and picked up a quiver full of arrows. He also strapped a belt and scabbard around his waist, then removed the long sword and stuck a shorter one in it.
“Not enough time or room to swing a broadsword in these quarters,” he said.
Zhem, although armed with a bow, arrows, and sword, picked up five javelins in one hand. He laid the weapons down when Benoni ordered him to help in piling furniture just before the door.
The blows outside were having their effect; a crack suddenly appeared in the bar across the door; the door was already shattered but still hanging together.
“Come with me,” said Benoni, and he retreated to the hallway. Here, he and Zhem stood within the dark of the hallway and fitted arrows to their strings.
At Benoni’s order, a woman hastened to the other end of the hall to draw the drapes across the window.
“They won’t be able to see us in the dark,” said Benoni. “Not at first, anyway.”
He called to Pwez. “Stand to one side. When the door breaks, and they charge in, throw spears at them.”
“You,” he said, addressing the woman who had argued against admitting them. “Take that lamp and spread the oil across the floor between the door and the barricade.”
He told two others to do the same, and when they had finished, he said, “Just as they come in, throw a torch down on the oil.”
There was a loud cheer outside, then a great crash as the ram slammed into the door. Abruptly, the bar snapped in half, and the men carrying the ram, a thick hardwood beam, fell into the room.
At the same time, a woman threw a torch on the oil and flames and smoke shot up around them.
They screamed and leaped to their feet and then jumped to the top of the barricade formed by the piled-up furniture. Some were on fire, their long green cloaks and kilts burning.
Benoni and Zhem shot their first arrows, aiming as planned by Benoni. He shot at the one on the extreme left; Zhem, at the one on the extreme right. Both arrows struck their mark, driving through the chainmail corselet and into the flesh beneath. Benoni’s man fell backward into the fire. Zhem’s victim spun around and knocked the man by his side into the flames.
Lezpet threw a javelin and caught a man in the unprotected region of his neck, between helmet and corselet. Two more javelins hit their targets, though one only wounded.
Benoni and Zhem fired again, and they dropped two men in their tracks. Lezpet’s rapier darted out like a frog’s tongue and thrust into the eye of a man and drove into his brain. He fell, wrenching the rapier from her grasp.
But the men behind the fallen were brave and determined. They charged from the hall and through the fire and threw themselves over the barricade. Benoni and Zhem shot for the third time. Benoni’s arrow missed and stuck quivering in the wooden jamb of the door. Zhem’s arrow went through chainmail and into the belly of a man.
Then, seeing that they had as much chance to hit one of the women as they did the attackers, Benoni and Zhem dropped their bows, seized a javelin, and ran up at the melee.
Benoni lunged at a man swinging a short sword, and he drove the javelin point into the man’s throat. Another man slashed at him; Benoni interposed his javelin; the sword cut through the shaft.
Benoni flung the butt at the man’s face, drew his short sword, and chopped down. His blade slid down the other’s, was stopped by the hilt. Benoni stepped back and, as he did so, drew the edge of his sharp blade across the man’s hand. Tendons cut, the hand dropped the sword. Benoni cut halfway through the man’s neck.
Two men leaped at Benoni. Benoni had to retreat. One of the men fell, the red point of a javelin sticking through his chest, the shaft protruding from his back. Benoni had time to see that it was Lezpet who had killed the man. Then, he was trying to defend himself against the big redheaded man who was a master with the blade.
Twice, he suffered cuts, one on the arm, one on the leg. And the man was driving him backwards, hoping to catch him in a corner of the room. Benoni thought he was good with a sword, but this man, bigger, longer armed, and about five or six years older, was his superior.
No man, however, no matter how excellent a swordsman, can do anything against a chair thrown against his back. He was forced forwards, his guard momentarily down from the shock. Benoni brought the edge of his weapon down on the wrist and half severed it. The red-beard whirled to run but did not get to take one step in flight. Zhem’s blade drove into his Adam’s apple.
Then, the ring of blades ceased. It was over. Over, at least, in this room and for the time being, for the sounds of shouts and steel came from elsewhere in the building.
All the attackers were dead except for two badly burned men. Three of the women were dead and one was badly wounded. Nobody was unwounded.
Lezpet, wrapping a scarf around her arm to stanch the flow of blood, said “You have proved yourself, Rider. Guilty or not of leaving your Eyzonuh companion to die, you have proven yourself.”
Benoni said, wonderingly, “You have not determined yet? But I thought the Usspika said . . . ?” and his voice trailed off, for it was evident that the Pwez was thinking of something else. She had plenty to think about. About treachery, how the fight was going in the palace, about her future even if the traitors in the palace were killed.
Presently, there was the sound of running feet and clanking armor, and Lezpet said, “If those are not my men, and there are many of them, kill me at once. I will not be taken prisoner or suffer indignities at their hands.”
“I will be too busy killing them to spare a swordstroke for you, Your Excellency,” said Benoni.
He stood just on the roomward side of the furniture barricade. The oil had burned out, and he was wondering if he should pour some more on the floor. Then, he saw the leader of the approaching party and breathed easier. The man was the general of the First Army and wore a scarlet cloak. Since all the attackers had worn green cloaks (marking them as members of the party opposing the family of Mohso’s policies) and since the members of the Scarlet party wore cloaks to match their title, this man must be loyal.
Yet, there was no use taking the chance this man might not be a traitor. So Benoni fitted an arrow to the string of a bow and held it on the general until he would declare himself.
The general, a middle-aged g
rey-haired man, stood in the doorway, glaring about, his bloody sword in hand. Then, seeing the Pwez, his face lit up, and he cried, “Your Excellency! You are safe! Praise to the First!”
“Yes, dear cousin,” said Lezpet, “I am. Thanks to these two wild-men and my brave ladies-in-waiting. Tell me, what has been happening?”
“The situation was nip-and-tuck for a while, but we are victors. At least, within the palace we are. I do not know the details, of course, but it looks to me as if the Green Party, or some members of it, anyway, conspired with Skego agents to assassinate you. Some of your own bodyguard were in the plot. They are all dead, the traitors in your bodyguard, that is, but we have taken several of the Green traitors alive and have at least one Skego agent. He will die soon, however, for he is badly wounded.”
He paused a moment, and then he said, “I have very bad news. Your uncle and mine, Jiwi, the Usspika, is dead!”
Lezpet gave a cry, and she swayed. But, mastering herself, she said, “Where is he?”
“We found his body within his room, Your Excellency. You will be pleased to hear that, though an old man, he acquitted himself as a Mohso should. He killed a strong young man and badly wounded another. No lion like an old lion. But they cut off his head and took it with them. We ran across the desecrators a few minutes ago, and we took off their heads. I have already turned over his remains to the slaves, so that they might prepare him for the state funeral.
“We will give him a hundred, a thousand, heads to repay him for the loss of his,” said Lezpet grimly. “But there is no time to think about a funeral now. I am sure that the filthy Green took other measures to insure the success of their treachery. Send out men to find out what is going on in the city.”
The general saluted with his sword, wheeled, and left, leaving twenty men to protect the Pwez.
Benoni and Zhem patched up their wounds and followed the Pwez to the office in which they had been interviewed the morning before. Here, Benoni saw what a great leader the woman was. She became a whirlwind of energy and quick decisions. If he had any doubts left about her qualifications as a ruler, he lost them. Her men, too, seemed to think the same, for they asked her many questions and went away satisfied with the answers.
At this time, Joel appeared. He carried a bloody sword and boasted, loudly, that he had broken from his room on first hearing the noise made by the would-be assassins. He had taken the sword from a fallen soldier and killed three Greens with it. Now, he was here to serve the Pwez, to defend her with his life.
Lezpet thanked him, though briefly, and said that it was her good luck to have had the three wild-men as guests this night.
Nevertheless, when Joel was out of earshot, she told an officer to investigate his story—after more pressing business was out of the way. Benoni, overhearing her, wondered what she suspected.
But the officer was killed that night, and she must have forgotten about the order.
As the night wore on, the picture of what had happened became clearer. Benoni got a deeper insight into Kaywo politics. He had known something of Kaywo history, that the city had originally been a democracy with a government elected by people who owned more than five acres of land. But only a hundred years ago, the Mohso family had gained a practical monopoly on the presidency and a majority of seats in the House of Speakers, the unicameral legislature. Either a member of the family or of families closely related had been elected president. Meanwhile, the Speakers had raised the requirements of the voter eligibility. Now, a man or woman had to own three hundred acres to be a voter. To qualify for a chance to run for seat in the Uss a Spika, he had to own a thousand acres or the equivalent in property.
Some of the lower classes had been agitating for a long time to lower the requirements. The Greens, the aristocratic opponents of the Scarlet or Mohso party, had allied themselves with the commoners. They knew that old Jiwi Mohso wanted to get rid of the electorate system entirely, that he wished to establish a dynastic rule of his family. He had succeeded in suspending the constitution, the so-called Eternal Agreement Of The Elders Of Kaywo, during the recent wars with the Juju and Senglwi. And he had planned on the coming war with Skego to continue the suspension and keep his brother as the Pwez. However, his brother and two sons of the brother had died during the storming of Senglwi, under suspicious circumstances. The Greens rejoiced, for they had a chance to elect one of their own. The wily old fox had forestalled them. According to Kaywo law, a Pwez had the right to name his own successor in case he died while holding office. The successor had never been officially named; the Greens were content to think that Jiwi’s brother had forgotten the matter. Jiwi produced his late brother’s will, witnessed by the high priest of the First (a Mohso) naming his daughter as the Pwez.
The Greens had protested violently, saying, first, that the will was a fraud. Second, that no woman should be the Pwez. But Jiwi had pointed out that the ambiguously worded Eternal Agreement did not specify a male should hold the office. The Greens, thinking that when an election did occur, it would be unlikely that a woman would be elected and also that she must inevitably shame the Mohso family through inability, agreed to accept her.
To their dismay, she proved to be a very successful ruler. Part of this was because she leaned heavily on her uncle’s advice. But she was popular, as long as she was successful.
And so, the Greens, rationalizing that a war with Skego might ruin Kaywo in her weakened condition and that killing her was their patriotic duty, had conspired with Skego.
That night, a number of Greens and a lesser amount of Skego agents had made the attempt. The Third Army, whose officers and non-coms were largely Greens, had attempted an insurrection. They were fighting the loyal minority of the Third Army. If they won, they would march on the palace and recruit on the way.
There was bloody fighting in the streets and on the housetops that night. Part of the city caught on fire. Before morning, a quarter of the city (the poorer quarter) was burned to the ground. But the city’s garrison and part of the First Army, which had hastily moved in from their camping grounds five miles from the city’s outer limits, had won.
Benoni and Zhem got in some more fighting that night. Lezpet left her office and led her followers in the street battles. Though she took little part in the actual swinging of a sword, she was close to the front, and she revealed a strategical genius that night. Why not, said her victory-flushed followers? Was she not the grand-daughter of Viyya Mohso, the great general who had decimated the barbarian invaders of Tenziy?
All that next day, instead of resting, Lezpet interrogated prisoners through means of the whip and the fire. She ordered the arrests of all Green speakers and their families. Some of these, understanding what would happen, had already fled northward with their families. Or, in some cases, left them behind. These poor unfortunates were stripped of their citizenship and sold as slaves. Their property was confiscated by the government.
By the evening of the fourth day, Lezpet held all of Kaywo firmly in her grasp. The Eternal Agreement had been suspended—only temporarily, of course, during the emergency—most of the Greens had been killed, arrested, or had fled. And a group of enthusiastic commoners and Scarlet kefl’wiy offered her a crown. Pwez, henceforth, was to mean Emperor.
She, however, refused, saying that the Eternal Agreement must be restored, that being a Kaywo citizen must always mean being free, and so on.
The crowd cheered her enthusiastically and said that she could not have made a better Pwez if she were a man.
Benoni marvelled and wondered what would happen to Kaywo now. If she had been weakened before, how strong was she now? Destruction of part of the city, the Third Army reduced in half, many of her officers slain or fled the country to fight on Skego’s side. If the Eyzonuh did come to battle for Kaywo, could they get here before the Skego had come down from the Northern Seas and put the inhabitants to the sword and the slave block?
The fifth day, while standing on a corner after a triumphal parade by
the First Army, he met a strange man. This fellow was tall, wore a green turban and flowing white robes, and a veil over the lower part of his face. The veil was, obviously, only worn for decorative or religious purposes, for it was too transparent to conceal his features. These consisted of a very dark skin, dark blue eyes, a hooked nose, and thin lips. His beard hung halfway down his chest and was black with a sprinkling of grey hairs. His brown slippers were made of some animal hide and curled up at the ends. Around his neck he wore a string of beads which he constantly fingered.
Benoni had been watching him for some time and soon became aware that the fellow was also watching him. Finally, as the crowd melted away, the man spoke to Benoni. His speech, though fluent Kaywo, contained some odd sounds.
“Stranger and brother,” he said, “permit me to introduce myself. I am Hiji Affatu ib Abdu of the land of Khemi, although I sometimes facetiously, sometimes seriously, call myself Aw Hichmakani. Which means ‘from nowhere,’ if you will allow me a liberal translation. Stranger, would you think me rude if I asked you your name and from what far-off land you come?”
“Not at all,” said Benoni, smiling, yet a ‘ little ill at ease. “I am Benoni, son of Hozey, and I come from the nation of Fiiniks in the land of Eyzonuh. But tell me, how did you know I wasn’t a Kaywo?”
“I overheard you say a few words to that black man just before he left you,” said Aflatu ib Abdu. “If you will pardon my seeming immodesty, I do have an extensive knowledge of languages, probably more than any man on earth—no matter what my enemies and some of my friends say—and a keen ear. I could tell instantly that you did not come from this general area. Although your language is distantly related to Kaywo.”
“It is?” said Benoni. He had surmised that his speech was descended from the same parent tongue as Zhem’s, but Kaywo was so foreign that he had not considered it any relation to Inklich.
“Eyzonuh, heh? Then what I’ve heard is true. That two wild-men, if you will pardon the term, have come a thousand miles or more from the west, from a terrible desert, a land of fire-belching mountains and house-toppling shrugs of the earth?”