A bare hint of sound from behind. She turned to see the sinister, ugly Iktis standing in the doorway. Laying a finger across his lips, he mindspoke powerfully.
“Say nothing aloud you don’t wish overheard, child. That hole in the stone is not for ventilation. There are few mind-speakers here, and no one knows that I am one, save you. I should be at my post. I come only to reassure you that steps are being taken to free you from this foul place. But Djoy Skriffen is a rich woman, and powerful in some quarters. And, since she obtained you illegally, it is felt that your freedom must be sought through legal channels. Such is the feeling of the Council. It will be a test of the power of our Klirohnohmeea.”
Neeka wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. “Heritage? ” That was the meaning of the word.
Iktis smiled toothlessly. “I forgot, you are from the Northern Ehleenee, child. Your lucky folk have not been ground into the dirt by presumptuous barbarians, as have we. The group that will succor you is properly called the Society for the Preservation of Our Ehleenee Heritage, but that is a mouthful, so most of us just call it Heritage. So you need not entertain any thought of cooperation with Our Lady Monster’s devilish schemes.”
“But…” Neeka beamed. “Did I truly slay that guardsman? If so, I’ll surely be arrested, imprisoned if not hanged.”
Iktis nodded forcefully. “Aye, he’s dead, and he had long earned it child. But do not fear punishment. At the behest of certain Heritage people, his accomplices in this morning’s infamy are even now being put to the severe question, so the new commander will know that your attack on Loo Fahlkop was nothing less than self-defense. Besides, the judge who will hear the case is on our Council.” He grinned again at her stunned look, adding, “We Ehleenee must look out for each other, child.”
Accustomed to a soldier’s bed and daily routine, Neeka woke before dawn, finished what food remained on the tray and drank some of the wine. Then, having too little water left to make even the skimpiest effort to wash, she dressed. It was well that she did for almost the moment she had finished, she heard voices, then Iktis was at the door.
Coldly, he snapped, “Come on upstairs with me, girl. Lady Djoy wants you.” Silently, he mindspoke, “Our people have come for you, child. Judge Oahbros himself came. Komees Pehtros Gahleenahnos of Esmith, the city governor, is with him. And Master Lokos, of course. Djoy Skriffen’s fat knees are rattling like dice in a cup, and the whale is white as curds.”
Neeka was ushered into a huge and garish parlor. Djoy, disheveled and puffy-eyed, sat in another of those padded, carven, overly wide chairs; the fat woman’s hands were tightly clasped in her broad lap, so tightly that the knuckles stood out prominently. And Iktis had been right, she did look pale, pale and ill.
Confronting the madam were three men. The most striking of them was a tall, stately, fine-featured old man, white-haired and richly but conservatively dressed. He was not armed; only a purse and a small, flat wallet rode at his belt, but in one manicured hand he held an ivory lahbrees set in a fluted golden shaft—the double axe of his office. His black eyes looked hard and cold and his face was set in grim lines.
The second man was not so richly dressed, though clearly as old as if not older than the jurist. He was almost bald; only a few skimpy strands of white adorned the top of his scarred scalp and but a bare fringe circled round the back of his head from temple to temple. His nose was as large as was Deris’ and, brooding over his thinner face, resembled the beak of a bird of prey. In addition to his purse and wallet, he had a sheaf of papers thrust under his belt.
The third man was much younger, no more than thirty, and was dressed for riding the hunt—suede-topped jackboots, leather breeches, canvas shirt and flat, velvet cap, with heavy hanger, dirk and sling at his belt. There was a dent across his high, scarred forehead—Djordj had had an identical mark and so Neeka knew that, since it was caused by long and regular wearing of a helm, the man must be or have been a soldier.
He turned his sloe-black eyes on her and smiled. “Very observant, little cheese,” he mindspoke. “In fact, Djordj Muh-kawlee was once an ensign in my company of infantry. It was through me that your apprenticeship-indenture was arranged.
“But enough for now. The judge will ask you questions. Answer them fully and truthfully.”
The tall man beckoned her forward and she halted before him, near the arm of Djoy’s chair.
“What is your name, my child?” he demanded. “And your age.”
“Neeka Mahreemahdees, sir,” she said softly. “I am seventeen.”
The other old man handed his sheaf of papers to the jurist, who unfolded and briefly scanned them, then he asked, “Did you sign an indenture contract of apprenticeship to Master Lokos Prahseenos of this city?”
“Yes sir.”
Then what are you doing in this pesthole? Why are you not laboring honestly in your employer’s shop?” His tone was stern and reproving.
Neeka was stunned. Did the old man think that she was here by choice?
The mindspeak of the hunter reassured her. “The questions are mere form, Neeka. Judge Gahbros knows most of the truth already. But the form of an inquiry must be observed, he feels. To simply march in here with a dozen spear-levymen or mercenaries, as I wanted to do when first I learned of this sorry business, and free you by main force would have been effective and personally satisfying, since I hate this sow and all she represents; but such a course would have been barely legal and detrimental to the aims of our group.”
Neeka recounted the tale of her abduction and told of awakening, nude, in a cellar cell, adding that a guardsman had told her that he had sold her to Djoy Skriffen for a whore.
The tall man nodded once, curtly. “Very well. It is my judgment that you, Neeka Mahreemahdees, indentured apprentice of Master Lokos Prahseenos of Esmithpolisport, were delivered against your will and choice to the woman Djoy Skriffen. I hereby order you to return to your lawful employer, to whose service you have admitted contracting yourself.”
He turned to the other old man, handed him back the papers, and said, “She is now yours, Master Lokos.”
At this, Djoy broke her long silence, speaking out in her fractured Ehleeneekos, “Now just a dang minrt, Jedge Gahbros. I’m out a hunderd silver thrahkmehs for her, not to mention what them clothes she’s wearing costed. It ain’ right I be robbed thisaway.”
The hunter growled audibly and grasped the hilt of his hanger, but the tall jurist waved him to keep his place.
Glowering at the fat woman, Gahbros snapped, “Mistress, you were well advised to hold your peace. I have a statement here that you bought a free woman. That statement is witnessed by the Komees Pehtros and by a respected craftsman, Master Lokos. Now, before those witnesses, you have just admitted to that crime.
“Mistress, do you know the penalties for buying or selling free men and women within this Confederation? The very minimum sentence you might expect on such charges would be ten years of hard labor—in the mines, perhaps, or building fortresses in the mountains on the frontier—plus forfeiture of all lands and possessions. If you are guilty, as I suspect, of more than one purchase of free women, then the sentence would be death by impalement… on a short, thick stake, at that.”
Djoy shuddered, her gross rolls of flesh rippling with the involuntary movement. She was unable to wrest her eyes from the piercing black ones of the grave, old judge, but it was not those eyes her mind saw. She had seen impalements before. The long stake—sometimes of a tough hardwood, sometimes of iron, dully pointed, five or six feet long and usually about two inches wide below the point—was a gruesome death, with the point jammed forcefully into the rectum and the body’s own weight pulling it down the tapering, blood-slimy shaft until the point burst the screaming victim’s heart; sometimes the point missed the heart and the suffering wretch choked to death on the blood gushing up from torn lungs.
The more bloodthirsty Middle Kingdoms burklords occasionally used the long stake to execute rebellious peasants or bandits. But the short stake was reserved for only the most heinous of crimes—high treason or crimes against the Sword Council. Short stakes were invariably of wood and were made to order, no higher than the victim’s navel, and the point was rounded and sanded smooth so as to slowly rend and tear rather than quickly pierce guts and organs; from the usual two inches below the tip, short stakes tapered to six inches or more at ground level. Sometimes the victim’s wrists were chained to a ring about his neck or waist, his legs wrenched apart and he was jammed down onto the stake. Djoy had seen strong men live for an hour or more in shrieking torment, first on their tiptoes, then on their heels, before agony and loss of blood made them too weak to stand, and even then, immediate death and surcease from pain were not certain, for the falling body might tip backward and the point of the stake tear up through the belly and out below the ribs.