Slowly, Klairuhnz shook his head. “Vaskos, you have a great capacity for compassion. Used properly, it will aid you in being a better-than-average Strahteegos. Utilized imprudently, allowed to rule rather than serve you, at the wrong time and toward the wrong people, as you are presently doing, it will lead to your downfall, if not your death.
“Vaskos, Vaskos, you are thinking with your huge loving heart, and not with the mind of a talented and experienced soldier, a leader of men. Think, man, thinkl”
Vaskos’s forehead furrowed. “What mean you, Bard?”
“All right, look at it this way,” Klairuhnz tried another tack. “You have fought the Tcharlztuhnee, I take it?”
Vaskos nodded brusquely. “Aye, our most recent campaign was against those devils.”
Klairuhnz went on. “They steep their arrows, darts, and spearpoints in a fermented dung. So what do the eeahtrosee to such a wound, say to a deep thrust in the leg?”
Vaskos’s lips tightened. “They slash the leg to the bone, let the man’s own blood wash and cleanse the wound, then they poultice it with pledgets of molded wheaten bread. But what has such to do with… ?”
“All in due time.” Klairuhnz cut Vaskos’s question off short. “And if the bleeding and the poultices fail, Vaskos, if the toes blacken and the leg purples and starts to stink, what, then, do the eeahtrosee?”
Vaskos sighed gustily. “What can they do, if the man is to live? They dose him well with hwiskee or strong cordials, bludgeon him unconscious, then cut off the leg.” Absently, he rubbed at his scarred thigh:
“Odd, but I was wounded, just so, by a Tcharlztuhnee spear. But the bleeding and poultices worked, in my case. Very odd, indeed, Kinsman Klairuhnz, that your example should have been a wound so like to mine own.”
Bili smiled into his winecup. Considering what he had just learned of the so called Bard’s abilities in delving minds, he did not consider the incident at all odd.
“Just a coincidence,” Klairuhnz shrugged, adding, “But that course of treatment is used on a fresh wound, Vaskos. Let us say that the wounded man was pinned under a dead horse, and lay on the field for a day or so, ere he was found by the eeahtrosee. What then?”
“They’d take no chances,” stated Vaskos soberly. “They’d have the leg off almost at once.”
“Why?” demanded Klairuhnz.
“Sun and Wind, man,” Vaskos burst out. “Because if they waited too long, or didn’t take the leg at all, the poisons would possibly spread throughout the entire body and kill the man.”
Then Klairuhnz said, “Vaskos, the Confederation is a social body. The Gafnee rebellion was a wound to that body, a seriously infected wound. That infection was well commenced, ere Strahteegos Kuk and the Ahrkeethoheeks came to treat it. To have dispersed the rebels would have been to insure the infection of other parts of the body,
the Confederation. Therefore, like eeahtrosee, they excised the infection, removed it cleanly, did everything within their power to halt its spread.
“Yes, Vaskos, the Gafnee executions were an extreme measure and the hearts of many would brand them cruel, but the mind must see it for what it truly was: a necessary expedient, intended to restore the health of the Confederationl”
CHAPTER IV
Komees Djeen Morguhn was tall, even taller than Bill, and spare. He marched rather than walked, striding to the silent beat of a personal drum. His face would have been handsome as Bill’s, save for the long scar, which in healing had twisted his upper lip into a perpetual grin, and had taken his left eye as well. He was also missing most of one ear, the last two fingers of his swordhand, and his left hand and wrist, which had been replaced by a shiny brass cap and hook. His scars and his limp were the marks of his former profession. Despite the aches and pains, which increased with every year and were accentuated by damp weather, Komees Djeen counted himself very lucky, for precious few career soldiers ever saw their sixtieth year.
He never really felt dressed unless some manner of armor weighted his shoulders. Tonight it was a hiplength jacket of brigandine, cinched about his narrow waist by an Army swordbelt supporting his purse and plain, well-worn dirk. Between the lower hem of the brigandine and the still buckled tops of his jackboots could be seen his sensible, linencanvas breeches.