THE BAREFOOT GIRLS
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS Midsummer Sunday markt, for the Katharinians, not only the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, and the Miraculous Coronation of St. John the Holy, but also,in happier years, the start of a carefree fourtnight of feasting and merriment. Compromised as these festivities had to be by the grim reality of war, they were not to be abandon'd, for it was thought right, even in these circumstances, that all, high and low, should take some rest and some pleasure.
Margarita Bhozetsa had plan'd a number of pleasures for this period; and the first of these, on the morning of the first Monday, was a woodland walk with her anointed cousin. In a virgin forest they shared the simple joy of black earth under bare soles, and the sense that the pressing cares of their stations had been left behind with their greaves.
The Regnalka spoke of the girls to whom of late she had been almost a mother, and whom she now hoped would make worthy bhozamagh na in her new regiment. She would have far less time to give them now as their commander than she had had as their teacher, and she could only hope that she was now providing properly for them.
Andrew, she was glad to say, was seeing to the destinies of the men. Old George, in whom, as a fellow linguist, Andrew took such an obvious delight, would be staying on at the Embassy as an honourary member of the Order of Preservers. For Regis, Conrad, and Thaddæus, however, Andreæw had managed to arrange places in a rather special Imperial regiment, whereof the Empress Thelma was patron.
The Emperor, as a fovour to his barefoot consort, had permitted the formation of two such regiments, one male and one female, along Katharinian lines. There were no vows of celibacy, and certainly no eunuchs, but their armour was Katharinian in pattern, and they were strictly barefooted.
Even Dupa had to admit that after almost three months of the Regnalka's training he would be more comfortable that way. They would be sworn in the next day at the Imperial Embassy. Conrad and Thaddus would enter as what might be term'd cadet officers, ensigns as it were, with a deal more privilege than the more loutish ranks, but no command authority whatever, although it was expected that they would soon be promoted. Regis would be given a rank roughly equivalent to the captaincy that he had finally achieved in Franco's army, but would in fact serve only as a staff consultant. All three, however, would be secónded back to a Katharinian command until they could depart with the Imperial guard some two months later, following the celebration of the Imperial couple's 25th anniversary in Katharintisten.
KShena was to be transfer'd to Margarita's new regiment to allow her to become Harriet's 'aunt', in the Katharinian sense, and to train her as an executioner. Inexplicable as it was, especially to Sarah, it was by Harriet's own request that this arrangement had been made.
Sarah's 'aunt' was to be a much older woman, an artist now retired from any regimental service, but still prolifick in her craft, and well approved by the Sovereign Mother.
Halka could certainly have no better 'aunt' than Olga, but however devoted a protectrix she had, the problem of her age could not easily be set aside.
Harriet and Sarah would be taking their final vows in just three days. There would be no problem in this, as a 4 month noviciate, for girls of their age, station, and level of education, was quite within the appropriate range. They would enter at the blue-green level, and the Regnalka would promote her orderly to the same level at the same time. Could she, however, in good conscience permit the little Polka to take her final vows as well at this time? Halka was, after all only 12 years old, and to take it upon herself to lay a gorgett over a pair of breasts that would barely lift it, would be an enormity that Margarita would have difficulty in justifying to herself.
There was nothing that unusual in a girl of Halka's age being accepted as a novice, but such a novitiate would normally last until the girl was about 15. It would only be appropriate for a 12 year old to take her final vows if she had, by special dispensation, been allow'd to become a novice at the age of 9. There had, in fact, been cases of girls being permitted to become novices at 7 and take their final vows at 10, and these included some very saintly examples who more than offset the appalling example of Isidora V. Still in all, such dispensations were very rare outside the royal family. On the other hand, Halka would feel very alienated if she were separated from the others, and would, with her language problems, have quite a bit of difficulty with the ordinary noviciate. The little girl had already been an alien twice over, and it seem'd a pointless cruelty to take away from her the security of belonging to the Regnalka's little family. Last of all, Margarita had to admit that no matter how much of a problem her nonage (chronological only -- she was very mature for 12) might be, she loved the little Polka, who seem'd, in fact, to be everybody's favourite.
Philippa was not without sympathy for her cousin, but was not to be drawn into a matter which properly came within the purview of a regimental commander. This was the answer that Margarita had expected, but at least she had talkt it through.
Now she would waste no more thought on the matter. Halka's small bare feet would be in the blue-green vat with the others. The Regnalka prided herself on being a pragmatist.
The Regnalka had yet another matter to discuss with the Sovereign Mother: She wanted to form a mixt regiment whereunto the 50 or so eunuchs who over the years had chosen her as orchidophage might be transfer'd, and whereunto the Kingslynns and Dupa might also be temporarily sec¢nded. Reminding her magenta footed cousin that this was not the first time that she had approacht her with such an idea, Margarita now argued that the opening of such a new option might produce an increase in the number of male novices.
Philippa's at first would only repeat the same response that Margarita had had from her before -- the obvious, and rather opaque observation that such a request was entirely without precedent. This time, however, she would have to give the answer, and set the precedent. The Sovereign Mother walkt on for a while in barefoot silence. Then at last she turn'd towards her cousin, and give her formal assent with a royal kiss.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS Three days later, on Thursday morning, the Regnalka took the girls off to the dye vats. It would not normally have been thought proper for anyone to go to the vats during the Midsummer Fourtnight, and even in this war ravaged year, an exception was being made on only this one morning. The Regnalka was prest for time and sought to accomplish as much as possible without spoiling the holidays. What she really felt worst about was cutting short the systematic lessons which had only just begun to make her pupils (for she thought of them as being as much her pupils as Andrew's) familiar enough with both the Changeless Speech and Katharinian society to get by without panick if not without occasional embarrassment. They were in a very odd position, for while in some ways they already knew more about the language than the vast majority of her native speakers, and had command of an impressive number of technical terms; the day to day cat and dog vocabulary of the best of them would barely be comparable to that of the average 4 year old. Now, for good or ill, they were going in at the deep end.
The foot dying facilities in the basement of the Palace reminded Sarah of a bathhouse -- or a big kitchen -- or some enormous factory. The equipment seem'd to extend endlessly into the gloom beyond the light of the few lamps then in use. The great vats were made of oak lined with brass. The benches before the vats were also of oak, and the same wood cover'd the floor. The room swarmed with lengna, and it was probably their ubiquitous nudity, together with the uncomfortable heat, that made Sarah think of a bathhouse. Sarah did not want to think how hot the place might have been were all the equipment in use. As it was only three vats were needed, for apart from the four girls, there were none but six eunuchs. Sarah sat with Harriet and Halka. Karena sat farther down the same bench, but with her already green feet in a different vat. The eunuchs sat facing them, a few yards away.
The Regnalka stept silently behind these last, and taking each head in turn between her royal palms, bent down as if to favour it with a ritual kiss. She then explain'd to the girls that these were soon to be their regimental brethren, for she herself had been pleased to dine on their testicles on the day (now a month gone by) when they had received the gleaming gorgetts that they now so proudly wore.
The red vat was the first to be fill'd. Red dye, as the parents of Katharinians, who traditionally had a finger dyed (beginning with the last on the right hand) in the appropriate colour for each child who enter'd the order, often attested, had by far the worst sting; and this was now apparent, for although the eunuchs were silent and sat dead still, tears could be seen running down more than one cheek.
The girls were warn'd in their turn to hold their legs and feet perfectly still as the lengna fill'd their vat through a baffle to prevent splashing, and to keep them still until the vat was drain'd. The blue green dye actually stang no more than a good strong liniment might have, but the waiting seem'd horrendous. Nevertheless, each pair of bare, sweating breasts swell'd with a shiver of pride as they felt the cool chain fringe of the golden gorgetts wherewith the Regnalka herself vested them. Proudly placing their right hands over these most coveted pieces of armour, they took their final wows. Now they were BHOZAMAGÁNA.
On the afternoon following the foot dying the Regnalka held a garden party for the girls and for all of those who had been either permanently transfer'd or temporarily secónded into her new regiment. There were 47 eunuchs -- or 48 if she counted Fr. Philip, who was to be her regimental chaplain; Harriet, Sarah, Halka, Karena, and Olga; an indigofooted patrician and her yellow-greenfooted orderly; a handfull of relatively inexperienced bluefooted patricians; a slightly larger group of peasant novices who would have their feet dyed yellow-green after the holidays; and a few misfits scatter'd throughout the three green levels whose superiors in their previous regiments had suggested that they might benefit from a fresh start. These, together with the Kingslynns and Dupa and the Regnalka herself added up to just fourscore. She hoped that the recruiting campaign in the provinces would get her another four hundred by Christmas.
Everyone enjoy'd the party, especially the three who had only just taken their final vows. They were now especially proud to be wearing their new armour in full dress form. They did not understand the Regnalka's reluctance to wear her belt. Harriet and Sarah, little as they wanted to admit it even to each other, were having the most trouble with their greaves. They were accustom'd to leaving their feet simply bare, and the emerald toe rings felt quite strange to them, as did the brass plates which tended to shift uncomfortably over the tops of their feet. At Stephendale it had been fun for them on occasion to decorate their bare feet with soleless sandals, but those had been so light as to be almost unnoticeable. They were very thankfull that most of the time they would only be required to wear their gorgetts, for it was in these that they took the greatest pride.
Gorgetts were in fact the subject of a petition that was privily, but hardly discretely prest upon the Regnalka almost as soon as she had finisht her welcoming speech. The petitioner was an overly polisht, and if the truth must be told, overly pretty young eunuch whom she remember'd all too well as Ambrosex. The presence of a few characters of his type was inevitable in among the eunuchs, but it was definitely a type that she hoped that she would not have too many of in her regiment. Ambrose reminded his new commander that every eunuch regiment evolved and maintain'd a distinctive style of armour whereof they were justly proud, and inform'd her that he himself had served on the 'gorgett committee' of his former regiment. She feign'd surprise at this revelation. Then came the question: Would she now nominate a committee to develop distinctive armour for her new regiment?
The Regnalka call'd Sarah over and inform'd her that in view of Ambrose's experience, and her artistick talent, she was appointing the pair of them as her 'gorgett committee'.
Ambrose and Sarah sized each other up with a mutual sense of dismay. Sarah, however, quickly calculated that since she herself had no firm opinions on the subject of armour, she could steer a very happy course by simply deferring to her intended collaborator at every turn. Good for Ambrose.
Sarah gave Harriet her opinion of him in three words: "What a fairy!"
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS At last the day came for which the Regnalka had been striving for weeks to prepare her regiment. The Imperial couple stood side by side with the Sovereign Mother on a reviewing stand hung with both Imperial and Katharinian colours; while before them past, in full dress armour, first the two imperial regiments that the Empress had insisted on bringing with her as a guard, and then virtually the entire fighting strength of the Katharinian Order, with the respectfully noted exception of the three regiments that Philippa had sent to the aid of the Imperial forces defending Simontisten from the Lawless hordes, who, sailing from the West, had over the past year seized control of most of the coastline around St. Ponderus Bay.
Turning their heads as they past by, the girls were proud to behold their sovereign, and the Kingslynns and Dupa for the first time beheld theirs.
Ponderus II was a tall, handsome man of 45, with thick dark hair and a full beard. The Empress Thelma, who stood at his right, was taller than her husband, and larger than her sister. It was typical of the Bhozetsana to choose the larger sisters for breeding, and the wiser for the Katharinian Order; and so it was here. At Thelma's right stood Philippa, who as Sovereign Mother wore the most magnificent crown of all. Alexandra, as First Regnalka, stood by her aunt rather than her Imperial mother, and wore Katharinian armour. Ponderpent, the heir to the Imperial throne, had remain'd in Iohanetisten; but Timothy, the Emperor's younger son, had ridden by at the head of the regiment that his mother had given him.
It was to Timothy's regiment that the Kingslynns and Dupa technically belonged, and whence they were only secónded to the Regnalka's. They had yet to meet their proper commander, but there would be time enough. For the present they were pleased to enjoy the company that they had known for the past six months, and would keep, they were told, at least until they arrived at Simontisten, since it had been decided that Margarita's regiment would also be sent thither.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS They departed the city with a joyous fanfare, but they were not gone
half a day when an herald met them with the most disturbing news: Their
enemies had shot a catapult at the walls of Simontisten, and an huge
breach had open'd with a loud clap of thunder. The herald was quite sure
that this was the work of dæmons from hell.
A mounted courier might easily have made Alexandretisten in a day, but that would have been quite impossible for the Imperial party; and so the host rode along at a leisurely pace down the east bank of the river which connected the old capitol with the new. The spent the first night as guests of the princely parents of the Sovereign Mother and the Empress. The estate had proudly billeted countless regiments over the centuries at the very highest standard of hospitality. There was no sleeping in tents here. Indeed they were billeted as well as at the Katharinian Palace, and the food was delicious. The entire company, including the three rather unusual regiments (which by ordinary reckoning were all rather small), and a very respectable number of servants, number'd more than twelve hundred men, women, and eunuchs; and most of them were quite amazed that there was actually a great hall large enough to accommodate them all for dinner. The Sovereign Mother had thus far accompanied her Imperial sister, and they now sat together with their parents at the head table; but Philippa would be returning to Katharintisten with her personal retainers after one more dinner the next night in Alexandretisten, and her return visit to her parents would be a private one.
Andrew had stay'd in Katharintisten with George Kingslynn, but Nikonor was traveling south with his pupils, and at Andrew's behest taking it upon himself to make sure that their little group would all be billeted together whenever possible.
They spoke that first night of the herald's report, and all thought it probable that Freeman was now taking a very active part in the siege of Simontisten.
Conrad went to bed wondering whether he were now approaching a direct confrontation with his adversary.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS The Regnalka's regiment rose up early the next morning and departed well before the rest of the host. As they were all mounted and still traveling relatively light, they were able to reach the walls of the old capitol by mid afternoon. Having quickly concluded some final arrangements for their billeting that evening, Margarita told her troops to leave their mounts in the care of the eunuch in charge of the old royal stables and spend the rest of the day relaxing as they would. Most either went off to the bath house to enjoy the pleasures of the lengna, or wander'd into any of the various taverns that either surrounded the Old Palace or actually managed to occupy space within her walls.
She herself, however, took Nikonor and their pupils on a tour of the places that she had mention'd in her lectures, stopping first to offer her prayers at a small stone chapel that had been built against the outer wall of the Old Palace. Here, she told them, was the place where Isidora V had chain'd her sainted cousins and disembowel'd them with her own hands. Upon leaving the little chapel, she pointed to the balcony whereupon the shameless apostate had display'd herself in the nude before heaven and her subjects and pay'd both a final affront before taking her own life. Then there was the smouldering trash pit where her angry subjects had burnt her naked body along with a cartload of dung and the hastily exhumed body of her infamous mother. No one would build on that curséd ground, she told them, nor, indeed, would she have her friends set foot there, but only behold it from afar. After a much needed drink at one of the taverns, they finally visited the great Cathedral wherein every Sovereign from Alexandra I to Leona IX (with the exception of those two whose places were taken by grim stones calling for their eternal damnation) had been lay'd to rest.
The Imperial party caught up with them towards the end of the day, and join'd them for a great outdoor buffet in the gardens of the old palace just as the sun began to set.
Pilár, who had been given charge of Henrietta, had chosen to walk that day, as the previous days ride had convinced her that her bare feet were much tougher than her bottom. She and the little Spaniel were thus among the very last to arrive, and greeted their master with an all the more embarrassing display of canine devotion.
Some time later, as they spoke together, the Kingslynns and Dupa were surprised to see Prince Timothy standing alone in front of them and extending his hand. Somewhat at a loss as to how to respond, Conrad and Thaddæus follow'd Regis' lead in kissing the large ring on the proffered hand and genuflecting before its owner, even as they might have done before the Archbishop (who had departed the feast as soon as he had pronounced a brief blessing).
Prince Timothy motion'd to them to rise, and was thereafter willing to converse with them in a very easy manner. He explain'd that as an Imperial Prince he was privy to their origins and their importance to the work wherein Andrew was engaged; and that Andrew, in fact, had personally confer'd with him on the subject as soon as he learnt that his pupils would be going into his regiment.
At length the Prince, having raised a hand to acknowledge the silent signal of a distant servant, inform'd them that Their Majesties Themselves wisht to meet them, and led them into a small receiving room just inside the Palace.
The Sovereign Mother and the Imperial Couple were seated under a sumptuous canopy on a low platform; but the thrones whereupon they sat were not all that splendid, and the whole arrangement appear'd rather hastily made. Awestricken nonetheless, they all genuflected as soon as the Prince had presented them, and very deeply.
When they arose they noticed that the Regnalka was standing to the right of them with the female members of the little study group that they had so enjoy'd belonging to for the past several months, and their friend Nikonor as well. These had, they were later to learn, been brought into the presence of Their Majesties only a few moments earlier. The audience was rather a brief one, intended, as Timothy was later to tell them, to satisfy the Emperor's curiosity. There were a few general "How do you like it here?" questions, which Regis took it upon himself to answer as best he could in the Changeless Speech; then there were several questions addrest to Conrad concerning his estimation of Freeman's abilities and possible value to their enemies; and finally there were some questions addrest to Sarah by the Sovereign Mother concerning her impressions of Priscill‘ng. When the audience was ended, Their Majesties arose from their thrones and beckon'd them to come forward. First the Emperor, and then the Empress, extended their hands to them; and finally the Sovereign Mother used her purple toes to touch the right foot of each with her personal blessing. They genuflected again, and then departed with Timothy.
Prince Timothy was painfully easy to size up even without the background information that the Regnalka had, quite without malice, provided on him. He had been the third child of the historic union which had previously produced the Crown Prince and the First Regnalka, but his had been so difficult a birth as to render the Empress unable to bear any more children. There would be no second daughter, no possibility that the Empress could be ancestral to more than one Sovereign Mother. Although his Imperial parents regarded his mother's damaged womb as nothing other than the Will of God, Timothy felt that he had betray'd his ancestors by not having been born a girl.
Regis and Conrad felt profoundly honour'd to have been favour'd with a private Imperial audience; but they also felt profoundly troubled by what they had seen of Timothy and the regiment that they were to join in only a few days. They did not want to speak about it even to each other, but both felt that they were about to join a silly band of toy Katharinians.
Regis went off to sit with Henrietta and Pilár.
Conrad went off for a walk -- barefoot along the battlements of the outer walls of the city. He walkt out to the western corner of the old capitol, where the rivers met -- the rivers that Alexandra I had named for her father and grandfather, the great Wret ryetsisa, flowing down from Katharintisten, and the Iohannetsisa, flowing north to meet her. To the West was the Gwgw, the 'throat' of the old man whose face the Katharinians saw in the map of their homeland, and often thought of as Wret ryets himself, grimacing in resolute anger towards the Lawless Lands in the far West. The waters were turbulent where they met.
Conrad felt somewhat better for his walk as he return'd to spend the night in the great hall that had been provided for the billeting of the Regnalka's regiment. He spent his last waking hour huddled with Harriet, his late found sister. She could understand how frightfully empty the prospect of becoming a toy Katharinian would be to one who had shared, even temporarily, the pride that she felt in being a real one.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS The next morning the Sovereign Mother and the First Regnalka turn'd back towards Katharintisten with their orderlies and a half dozen eunuchs, while the rest prest on towards South Wretaryetsibhergh, the fortress that protected the `throat' from the great open expanse of water that was known as the 'mouth'. They were join'd by the Sovereign Mother's younger niece, the slow witted Regnalka Veronica, and a small company of skill'd diplomats. Veronica was normally based in Alexandretisten, where, with discrete prompts from her tutor, the Preserver Maximianex, who was in charge of his Order's 'Consulate' in Alexandretisten, she represented the Sovereign Mother in dealing with the Coffee Princes and the rulers of a few other very minor principalities who had never bother'd to build proper embassies in Katharintisten but kept what amounted to trade missions in Alexandretisten, which was still very much the commercial capitol.
It was hoped that by traveling to the far South, Veronica and her advisers could not only end the ridiculous coffee embargo but also get some real support for the war effort which was really in the interest of all the Christian realms.
The ride was a bit longer than the previous day's, but it was a pleasant and easy one through a number of picturesque villages. It was virtually a parade until they halted for 'lunch' in the largest of these, but afterwards broke up into small random groups. Regis and Conrad rode by themselves for a while and spoke to each other in English:
"I'm not sure I like this regiment were going into," said Regis rather uncomfortably.
"How do you mean?" askt Conrad, who was not at all surprised to hear such an observation from his uncle.
"Doesn't fit. All out of place. And the commander -- that Prince Timothy -- nice enough fellow but...Ach... I just don't know," reply'd Regis rather painfully.
"Too much of a `mamma's boy'? Is that what you mean?"
"Nancy boy too, by the look of him. It's just a bad business. No place for us: That I'll tell you. Even worse place for Tat, if I read things right." With these last words he lookt at his nephew intently, wondering if Conrad had made some of the same unspoken observations.
"Yes," said Conrad, nodding thoughtfully, "I think I know what you mean."
Wretaryetsibhergh was known to the Katharinians as the city of three fortresses. A great wall'd fortress rose up on either bank of the Gwgw and a third was poised on an island between them, all join'd by great archt bridges. Just before sunset the Regnalka Margarita led her regiment across the mote and through the massive gates in the towering black stone walls of the Southern Fortress. It was well equipt to accommodate far greater hosts than the three small regiments that now sought shelter within its walls. There was no grand royal buffet on that evening -- not for the Margarita's regiment anyway -- for the Imperial couple were dining privately that night with the Regnalka Theodora who commanded the small permanent garrison of BHOZAMAGHÁNA responsible for the central fortress, the two great lords whose duties to the Sovereign Mother were to garrison the North and South fortresses, and the city's aging bishop. The food and accommodations for the regiments were simple, but acceptable, and brought no complaints from the troops. Margarita Bhozetsa, however, spent most of the next day in a royal snit. She had never got on well with Theodora, but when she learnt from Veronica, who had been at the reception, that she was the only person of her rank who had not been invited, she was deeply offended. She quite naturally confided this to her orderly, but Karena had no more discretion than might normally be expected of a girl of her origins, and by evening the entire regiment shared their commander's displeasure.
They travel'd through tiny fishing villages along the southern shore of
the great bay known as Ghaw, the 'mouth', until they arrived at
Bhozetsasina, the port at the mouth of the river of the same name. Those
of the highest rank were the guests of the bishop of this once bright but
now shabby city in the rather dilapidated building that served as his
palace, while the others were billeted wherever space could be found for
them.
The next day they turn'd inland again along the east bank of the river and up into the hills at the narrowest part of the peninsula known as and up into the hills at the narrowest part of the peninsula known as Mnot,, the 'chin'. They spent the night in a rather Spartan hill fort that commanded a view over several miles and was normally held only by a half dozen eunuchs who maintain'd a beacon a short time above it.
The trail led south again to Margaritsisa, a port on the Katharinian side of the Break. They found this to be a pleasant city, an impression perhaps unfairly reinforced by the fact that as the next day was Sunday, they slept and rested there, heard mass at the cathedral, and were the honour'd guests of the bishop for a feast of roast beef that lasted all afternoon.
The next two days brought them to Iulisa and then to Pernebhergh, which, as its name imply'd, was the first settlement that Alexandra I had left on her way to her founding of Alexandretisten, two years later.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS Impressive as Pernebhergh may have been to the Regnalka, the sights of the following day were far more impressive to Regis and Conrad. Having left Pernebhergh after a good breakfast they were not gone half the morning before they beheld the great bridge to the Island of Peace. Its full enormity, however, was not apparent until they were almost upon it. Built of black granite, its enormous arches vaulted over a strait that was well over a mile long. It was higher than any could easily estimate, but Nikonor told them that it was something like 120' from the level of the sea to the great 40' wide road that ran along between its battlements. As they crost over onto the Island itself, this road continued in its pavement, but with unending blocks of stone buildings replacing the battlements of the bridge. Nikonor inform'd them that this great highway, which ran all the way to a similar bridge on the Imperial side, formed a single city. The monks who maintain'd it had chosen to continue to practice eunuchism, even as demanded by the infamous treaty which had both ended the First Isidorian War, and establisht them as custodians of the island. They had developed the resources of their island with such devotion that it had rewarded them with almost legendary wealth. They had also developed a close and friendly relationship with the order of Preservers, and had received their help in the building of the Great Road, a century and a half before the building of Katharintisten.
"Andrew spoke of the ravishing of this island during the last war," noted Conrad, "but it seems incredible that such fortifications as these could have fail'd to defend it."
"That is a point very well made," reply'd Nikonor, but would you mind letting it wait until this evening? I would prefer that the Regnalka and I take up that question together."
After supper the Regnalka did indeed manage to convene a final session of her little class in a small room wherein she would spend the night with her pupils of so many happy weeks. There was wine and coffee and snacks and cushions and a real Katharinian carpet that was just right for bare feet.
Nikonor began by describing how in addition to giving the monks who held the island their help with the Great Road, the Preservers had deign'd to let them share in the mystery of the Great Dream, and so be changed into the same sort of sexless beings as the Preservers themselves were.
"Most of the monks," he added, "both then and thenceforth, quite happily accepted this gift, and the longevity that it confer'd; but there were, both then, and in every subsequent age, some few who felt call'd to honour the very letter of the original treaty. The testicles of these rare zealots, carry'd to Katharintisten by Lenin couriers, have, in most reigns, been eaten by the Sovereign Mother in bitter memory of the atrocities for which Katharinians had at times been responsible. Leona XXI, however, came to share the dreadfull addiction that had damn'd the Isidoræ and these rare offerings only inflamed her lust, and incited her to demand that the original provisions of the infamous Isidorian Treaty be strictly enforced for her benefit.
"This gave the equally unworthy Emperor, Thaddæus VI, who himself coveted the great wealth of the monks, a pretext to station his soldiers on their island as their selfproclaim'd protector against Leona's demands and threats.
"Leona declared war the next day."
Regis shot a questioning glance at the Regnalka. Some of the more lurid details of this narrative had the flavour of Nikonorian embellishments, and he was not sure how large a grain of salt should taken with them.
"Well now," she said firmly, "we must thank Nikonor for providing such a full and accurate background to the story of our most recent war, a tale that I shale now take up myself." Having thus vindicated her colleague, she placed her purple feet in Harriet's lap in royal expectation of a sensuous massage, lent back against the wall of the richly carpeted little room, and resumed the story where Nikonor had left it: "Although her addiction to the Isidorian vice was her primary motivation, Leona certainly also shared her Imperial rival's more typical interest in the Island of Peace; and when the monks blockt off the bridge to her realm, she flew into a rage and launcht naval raids against their fishing ports and their thriving vineyards. The Imperial forces were quick to engage them, but far from being pleased, the old Abbot realised with dismay what a mistake he had made in allowing them to move in and make his 'Island of Peace' into a theatre of war. Within a few months the Abbot was murder'd. The question of whose agents were responsible has long been a favourite subject for debate among historians. None would suggest, however, that either would have given a second thought about such a thing if it seem'd expedient, for Thadd‘us VI and Leona XXI had both already establisht the most evil reputations for themselves within their own realms.
"From the start of the war, Leona had launcht raids against the northern outposts of the Empire, but Thaddæus, repeating the mistake that Simon had made against Isidora, assumed that the raiders represented a far larger proportion of Leona's strength than was truly the case.
"In the spring of 3467, the Emperor himself, together with his son, the soon to be Thaddæus VII, led about 6000 men against Katharintisten, somehow imagining that these would be enough to overthrow the entire Katharinian Order. Leona, however, could match that number in eunuchs alone, besides having at least as many BHOZAMAGHÁNA. She met Thaddæus just to the south of Bhozetsasina and so overwhelm'd his forces that he was quickly forced to surrender to her terms. She claim'd the testicles not only of the dead, but of the 5000 Imperials left alive, cutting off those of the Emperor and his son with her own hands, and eating them raw before their eyes. The shock proved fatal to the Emperor, who died the following day, but his son survived to lead his army, unarm'd and unman'd, back to their own homeland in disgrace.
"In laying this reproach upon the Empire, Leona in fact seal'd her own doom, for in 3470 Thaddæus VII, and of course the last, led his eunuch army, now reärm'd and reïnforced, back across the great bridge to the Island of Peace. Here, however, Leona met him," the Regnalka concluded, wondering if she would ever lecture again in English, "and both monarchs were kill'd in battle on the Great Road itself, not far from where we are now. As soon as Alexandra XV, and Ponderous I learnt of their simultaneous successions, they sued each other for peace. The fighting ended that afternoon, and the two realms have been on the best of terms for the past 50 years."
As they turn'd down the lamps, the Regnalka led them in the Night Songs of the Katharinians. These were somewhat like lullabies, sweet and childlike, innocent and trusting; but they also form'd a sort of order of compline. The tall, purple footed Bhozetsa, playing a rôle somewhere between priestess and mother, gave her barefoot blessing to each of her sleepy subordinates, and here and there kist a forehead miraculously recomposed in childlike innocence above a pair of heavy lidded, dreaming eyes. This was something wherein the girls would share, in some form or other, almost every night for the rest of their lives; but for the Kingslynns and Dupa, who had also learnt to love the Regnalka, this was a very special evening whose memory would long be treasured.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS The next day they crost the southern bridge into the Emperor's domain, but a part of it, known as the Apostolick Peninsula in honour of St. Ponderus, which had often been only nominally under Imperial control, and whereof a large portion was now in enemy hands. The first day's ride was safe enough, but as they made camp in a hill fort in the central part of the peninsula, the Emperor himself addrest the entire host to warn them of what dangers they might henceforth face.
Little was really known about the Lawless lands or their accursŠd inhabitants; for these lands had, from the time of the Settlement, been forbidden to men; and no Christian would dare set foot in them. The very idea of sending agents to spy them out had thus always been unthinkable. What little was known of them came from the almost untranslatable babble of the few defectors from them who had sought and been granted asylum (or at least absolution and a mercifull beheading).
Apart from short lived Christian heresies which vainly tried to establish themselves there, the Lawless Lands had no Church but only atheism, paganism, and out and out devil worship to feed the souls of their inhabitants.
From what could be learnt from those who had fled them, it would seem that, socially and politically, the Lawless Lands were a continual chaos whence at any time might have bubbled a dozen or so short lived orders of randomly variable constitution. For the most part these 'states' (to use that term very loosely) were the creatures of individuals, and rarely survived their founders by even one generation. Some of these men were at bottom only cannibal chieftains who saw the acquisition of a semipermanent domain simply in terms of rape, plunder, and the pot. Others hoped, generally in vain, to found dynasties for themselves; but while genius can indeed arise at random from even the most unpromising parents, the prospect of gross atavism in the next generation is far greater in such a case than in a line long bread for nobility. Others, particularly those of the much rarer sort that might be thought of as `social visionaries' seem'd aware of this pitfall, and sought to produce philosophical, rather than genetic descendants; but the passing on of any sort of philosophy was next to impossible among people whose multitudinous languages hardly ever surpast the thieves jargons whence they arose and within whose context literacy could never gain a foothold even with a leg-up from the most determined of visionary despots. Slave based, selfperpetuating oligarchies fared somewhat better; but in a world wherein the totally barbaric far outnumber'd the semicivilised no society could hope for even a century of stability. There was a story that one of the more promising 'cities' in the Lawless Lands was a sort of socialist democracy of some little culture that was in fact the fiercely defended preserve of a neighbouring tribe of cannibal warriors who used them more or less as a larder, but whose greed caused them to push to extinction what should have been a renewable resource. When Nikonor told this story Regis fell off his horse with laughter and was quite sore for the rest of the ride to Simontisten.
The leader of the Lawless Hordes had been named as `Roxusko', but although most asylum seekers seem'd to think that this name had something to do with bears, none had been found who actually knew the language whence it came. Whatever his personal history might have been, Roxusko had been quite successful in hiding it beneath a deluge of disinformation. More important was his very apparent and quite remarkable ability to overcome the linguistick and cultural chaos which divided the Lawless Lands, and put together a coälition of young idealists, petty tyrants, thieving nomads, and predatory cannibals, all bent on regaining the lands whence their ancestors had supposedly been driven, and replacing the tyrannies of Imperial law with the blessings of anarchy. Most if they had anything like a philosophy, were anarchists. This was a temperament that they simply inherited from forbearers who had gone to the lawless lands at one time or another to escape forever from any concept of law and order, and it needed only a slight bit of awakening.
The central paradox of this alliance -- barbarians who could not understand each other following an authoritarian leader in a war against the very concept of authority -- tended often to work to the Emperor's advantage. The invaders often fought amongst themselves. They also often disposed of leaders who had begun to annoy them; and although they had a veritable lust for battle which, taken by itself, might have made them good soldiers, they were generally unable to follow orders, except in the most immediate sense, and often diverted themselves to their private ends.
Of all the terrible things that they had heard about the invaders, the Emperor's subjects tended to find cannibalism the most frightfull. To be eaten by a WALPTR was generally consider'd a blessèd death; to be eaten by a wild beast was, at worst, just another way to die, and at least one had the consolation of providing food for another of God's creatures; but to be eaten by an unclean being who had rebel'd against his Creator was an unspeakable evil.
These cannibals were not the black, bone rattling Uba-Dubas of an Englishman's nightmares, but men who might (if a week's time were invested in washing them) be quite indistinguishable from the Emperor's own subjects; and yet they were regarded not as men, but as dæmons, whose very lives were an insult to God. Humans who had chosen to dwell in any of the Forbidden Lands were held to have separated themselves from the grace of God as totally as if they had gone off to make their abode in Hell. Saints had often gone to sacrifice themselves in the Foolish Lands to try to win the souls of those who had been sent there; but no Christian would dare to disobey the commandment concerning the Forbidden Lands. Many indeed were moved to pray for the souls of those who dwelt there; and thanks to these prayers some few were toucht by the grace to escape and repent; but the Church could allow no missionary ever to set foot there.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS The final two days of their journey to Simontisten were the most dangerous, as they past almost within sight of their enemies, but they arrived without incident.
The city had been founded by Simon II at the only point where the St. Ponderous River, for more than twenty miles wide enough to be call'd a lake, narrow'd to a defensible strait before emptying into the great bay that had also been named for the apostle who had, it was said, performed some miracles there during his missionary journeys. There was a large, roughly pentagonal wall'd city to the north, connected by a massive bridge to a somewhat smaller fortification, square in shape and roughly a mile on each side, on the southern bank.
It had always seem'd odd that emperor who had built this city, and named it for himself, had done so in a form which in all other cases betoken'd a capitol, rather than calling it `Simonbhergh', as might have been the expected form.
It was difficult, however, even for Nikonor to maintain an interest in such an etymological question in the face of a mounting siege; for although the area surrounding 'Northern City' was quite comfortably under Imperial control, fortress on the southern side of the bridge was surrounded by hostile forces who made repeated attacks on her walls and had now blown three great holes in them which the defenders had been working heroically to repair. Till now it had been a stand off.
Both of the newly arrived regiments were billeted in the Southern Fortress, and although spared the actual noise of war on their first night, they nonetheless went to sleep to the anxious sounds of men working on the walls that afforded them what protection they had. The Katharinian night songs were a welcome comfort, and a reminder of the Regnalka's inbred ability to be different things at different times. She padded among her sleeping charges like some thoughtfully barefooted night nurse, and many of those still awake kist the purple toes that here and there ever so gently patted a forehead or a cheek or a hand or a foot. Then she lay down and blest herself and went to sleep next to Karena, whom she kist and wisht she could cuddle on this dark and ominous night.
The next morning was Sunday, but all the host rose early to hear mass; and having taken communion reported to the great hall for a very excellent breakfast that was begun in haste but continued in leisure. They were waiting.
The Emperor's generals had determined that the present stalemate could not be allow'd to continue. They did not doubt that they could now hold the city indefinitely; but they knew that so long as their enemies lived, she would surely come under siege again once they left, and perhaps fall.
Expecting another attack on the southern fortress, the Emperor gather'd his forces there and order'd them to sally forth against their foes as soon as the attack came and to slay as many as possible before they had a chance to retreat.
As soon as the watchmen reported that their enemies were gathering for a charge, the defenders began to ready their mounts, and soon the streets before each gate were crowded with cavalry. Conrad and Harriet sat next to each other atop their horses. Both conscious that they had to avoid crushing each other, and carefull of their stirrups, they used their bare feet to comfort each other with the Katharinian blessing. As the long minutes past, their positions shifted, and they exchanged similar encouragements with their other friends.
Priests, standing on the balconies overhead, aspersed them with holly water, as they pronounced a final blessing.
Sarah toucht her toes to Halka's, as they watcht the hundreds of nervous hands trace the sign of the cross.
At last they heard the hellish roar of the oncoming hordes, and the bracing blast of the Emperor's clarions, before the gates were flung open in front of them.
Riding through those narrow gates seem'd the most difficult part of the sortie, and it was a relief to get out into the open, and meet their long dreaded foes at last.
The battle itself went entirely their way, as apart from a few commanders, their foes were all afoot and no match for them in numbers. They slew quickly, deliberately, and generally mercifully, but with a righteous vengeance. Once blooded, they felt only the simple pleasure that Samson had felt in slaying the Philistines. It was all over before the morning was half spent, and although the ground was drencht in blood and litter'd with the grim remains of their foes, they could see very few of their own side among the slain.
The Imperial forces had orders to ride down those of their enemies who attempted to flee, and then to ride out along the rest of the southern shore of ST. Ponderous' bay and recapture all of the coastal villages without allowing any of their foes to escape alive. They gave themselves totally to this task for rest of that day and most of the next, leaving behind in each village a handfull of junior officers to make sure that the local præfects diligently tried all those under their several jurisdictions who were said to have sided with the invaders, and execute all those guilty of such treason.
The Regnalka's regiment was given the task of cleaning up the battlefield. The Kingslynns and Dupa, along with most of the eunuchs and perhaps a third of the BHOZAMAGHÁNA, were given the task of taking into custody those of the enemy who had feign'd death, but now arose to mime an intention to become Christians and go over to the Emperor's side. Even had they been able to communicate with these barbarians, however, they could not have promised them their lives.
The Regnalka herself, along with Sarah, Halka, Karena, Olga, and the largest part of the BHOZAMAGHÁNA, tended to the wounded of their own side, carrying them off under the direction of physicians from among the Order of Preservers based at their consulate in Simontisten. Sarah herself came upon Ambrose, her gorgett committee colleague, with his foot badly damaged by a sword cut to the instep, and holp to carry him off. Then they set about carrying off their dead. Miraculously, considering that they had slain more than 4000 of their enemies, they themselves had lost only 4 score.
Timothy's regiment had suffer'd the greatest loses. Having gone into battle with less than 600 men, the young prince had lost a full 30, and the numbers of his wounded, in all categories, were equally disproportionate.
Margarita's regiment, by contrast, had been so fortunate as to have suffer'd no loss of life. The Regnalka recognised that only God could have so protected so many hastily train'd recruits, and she and her companions were quick to fall on their knees and thank Him for His favour. She also, however, felt moved to pray for Timothy.
Although not part of Margarita's regiment, there were three Katharinian dead -- Veronica and her two eunuchs. Veronica's orderly had been knockt from her horse and set upon by several of the invaders; and her mistress and fellow servants had jumpt to her defence without a moments thought on the danger of dismounting. Hardly aware of her own wounds, the orderly was found crying over the lifeless bodies of those who had gone to her aid. Holding the little peasant girl even as her own mistress might have, Margarita assured her that there would be no more remarks about 'stupid Veronica'.
Harriet's assignment was to be a much harder one, for now she would learn what it really meant to have chosen KShena as her 'aunt'. Only once before, at her private initiation into the grim guild that it betoken'd, had Harriet worn the blood red skirt. It was fine for KShena, who had, in her full armour that morning, probably cover'd herself for the first time in months. KShena had tan'd her bare breasts till they were as brown as chocolate: Harriet's were as white as milk. Harriet knew that in fact she had just about the same sort of skin as KShena -- white to black in a fourtnight if she wanted; but envy'd as it might have been in the world whence she had come, such a transformation had never been her pleasure; nor would she get a tan today, for although the ground was dry, the sky was dark, and a high wind scolded the bare breasts that were only now discovering how sensuous a gorgett could feel.
Once, during the purge of the lenxin order, KShena had told her would-be apprentice to behead a læng. Harriet had known that she could not balk at this, but she had been very nervous about it. At last the læng herself had become annoy'd at Harriet's hesitation, and demanded that she get on with the job. Harriet had then apologized that it was her first time at it; and the læng had then giggled, and said that she was pleased to hear it, but admonisht her to strike well. At last Harriet, having drawn a deep breath, raised her sword, and risen up on her bare toes, had brought it down so perfectly that the cleanly sever'd head had seem'd to smile. KShena had then wisely suggested that Harriet needed a drink.
Harriet pray'd that she would strike as well today, and pray'd as well that Father Philip, who walkt along with them with a great bottle of holy water, might somehow save the souls of at least some of the heathens that she was now call'd upon to dispatch. Some indeed did make their peace with God, and a very few of them, upon the advice of two very discerning physicians of the Order of Preservers, were even spared alive. Most, however, simply had to die, and Harriet knew that she was sending most of them to Hell.
By the time they were done Harriet had cut off more heads than she wanted to count, and she was so blood drencht that she understood why KShena thought it best that they work so nearly naked. She was coming to understand much about KShena.
In view of the fact that the Emperor and his regiments would not be returning until the next evening, the Archbishop of Simontisten order'd that while the beeves for the feast would indeed be sacrificed that afternoon, as it was indeed Sunday, and that a distribution would certainly be made, enough would be slaughter'd for a two day feast, whereof the greater part of the celebrations would be held on the Monday. Such a feast was in any case appropriate as a thanksgiving for so great a victory as God had vouchtsafe to them.
The Katharinians, including both Margarita's regiment and the three which had been sent to the city's aid three weeks earlier, did indeed participate in the feasting in the market square as was expected of them, but they also held a victory celebration of their own somewhat later in a hall reserved to their use. The Regnalka Iulia, as commander of the largest regiment, had taken personal charge of the preparations. There was plenty of excellent wine and all sorts of food, including, as a main setting, a very unusual and quite delicious meat dish prepared with green olives and garlick, for which everyone had the highest praise.
Father Philip, like almost everyone else, was more than a little drunk, and should have been in high spirits, but something about what was going on gave him a very bad feeling. The young priest had a strong feeling that his place was now at his commander's side, and he moved to take up that station. Sensing that some confrontation was about to occur, he waited in silence, knowing better than to try to initiate it himself. Thaddæus Dopa was about to do that for him.
The drunken Polak, sharing in the general euphoria of victory, and seeing his little cousin standing next to the Regnalka and blushing in a wine induced foolishness as a royal hand was lay'd upon her shoulder, approacht them with a wave and a broad grin; but finding, upon his arrival, that he could think of nothing intelligent to say, he simply stood next to them and began to eat from the same huge platter whence they almost unconsciously partook as they chatted and exchanged mutual congratulations. As it happen'd, Harriet and Sarah were standing only a few feet away, and the Kingslynns were walking over to join them as well.
"I say, these are good!" said Dupa aloud, forgetting the impropriety of speaking in English, "What are they?"
"Hm...Oh...Testicles," reply'd the Regnalka with a smile, going on to explain that the lenxin cooks attacht to Iulia's regiment had harvested them on the battlefield and prepared them according to a long favour'd recipe.
"T-testicles!" Stammer'd the trembling Polak, gaping in dismay first at the contents of the platter, and then at the small gaggle of giggling nudes who stood behind a similar platter at another table. His face turn'd ashen and he ran from the room, presumably to be sick.
The Kingslynns were also disgusted at this revelation; but they left more quietly, only whispering to each other that if this were the sort of thing they could expect from the Katharinians, they were indeed best parted from them.
Sarah, fascinated to learn what she had been eating, pickt up another testicle in her fingers, study'd it for a moment, and then popt it in her mouth to savour it.
Harriet had just the opposite reaction, so much so that she herself was quite startled by the depth to which she found herself scandalized. Seeing Sarah smile as she crusht the deliciously marinated testicle between her teeth, she slapt her friend's face. "Fat pig!" she shouted self righteously. "Regular Isidora, aren't you!"
Sarah, suddenly sober, burst into tears and ran outside.
"Harriet!" roar'd the Regnalka, in a tone intended to convey a personal reprimand, but betraying a frighten'd concern at an ominous change in the general mood in the hall.
Harriet suddenly realised that she had come close to striking the Regnalka herself, fell on her knees apologizing.
Father Philip had seen enough. He threw the shamefull platter to the floor, and began the most terrible sermon of his life. The Regnalka had made him her chaplain, and he was going to say what he felt he had to say even if it cost him his head. He began by reminding all present that he and the other chaplains had pronounced their blessing on the feast before the lengna had brought in any of the testicles. They could never have blest such things. The flesh of beasts was one thing: The flesh of devils quite another. How could any Katharinians hope to defend the sacrifice which Leona the Great had instituted, when they defiled it by such a travesty. Was not this the sin of the Isidoræ, or at least the root thereof? Had not Iulia now defiled not only herself and the other Regnalka, but all the lesser ranks of the order as well?
Iulia was livid with rage, and would have certainly had the head of this brazen young priest if she could have, but he was Margarita's chaplain, and before his short but biting sermon was half ended, her own chaplain and all the other chaplains and underchaplains moved behind him in an shew of solidarity. Before long many of Iulia's own BHOZAMAGHÁNA hung their heads in shame and walkt away, not wishing to behold the shame of their commander. Finally, Iulia herself stormed out of the great hall, defiant even now in her moment of disgrace.
Harriet stood tall with vindicated pride. She had told off that sinfull Sarah even as Fr. Philip now rebuked the very Regnalkána. As soon as Fr. Philip had had his say, she marcht off to tell Sarah just what a sinner she really was.
Margarita's regiment had been given a typical Imperial barracks, in that it had the form of a great hall with tiers of tiny sleeping chambers built along its sides.
Sarah lay on her pallet in the thick darkness of her little cubby hole, sobbing, and crying out like the last soul left in a godforsaken purgatory. "Fat pig! Fat pig!" she cry'd -- as if hoping the very darkness might answer her.
Harriet heard those cries as soon as she enter'd the otherwise empty room, and hot tears of remorse fill'd the eyes that only moments before had held such a self righteous gleam. She fear'd in that instant that she had dealt a mortal blow to the most precious friendship she was ever to know, and she would have run back and eaten every one of those damn'd testicles right off the floor to save it. "Sarah, I'm sorry," she cry'd, as she ran to the little black hole that echoed with her friend's reproachfull cries. "Sarah, please forgive me. I love you so much." Harriet was the one sobbing now -- but her friend's forgiveness was total and instantaneous. Harriet's fear was relieved, but her guilt compounded.
"Take those things off and let me hold you," insisted Sarah, who had herself been hiding naked under a quilt.
Harriet stript off everything -- her armour, her clothing, and her pride -- and drew up next to her, still sobbing -- the rotten friend in the arms of the good one.
Sarah, feeling her friend's hurt as keenly as her own, instinctively offer'd a breast to comfort her.
Harriet took it to her mouth just as instinctively, and drew up ever so much more tightly to Sarah's soft, naked body. How could she have call'd her a `fat pig'? Sarah was the softest, warmest, most loving thing that she had ever known, and she wanted now only to melt into her.
They made love for hours in absolute silence, neither feeling any need for human speech while their tongues spoke a lovewrought language to every part of each other's bodies.
Sarah tasted the surging tide of Harriet's passion as they let those tongues explore the dark secrets of each other's womanhood. She knew what they were doing. She had heard about it often enough. This was what bad girls did. She was a very bad girl. An hour ago she had been eating testicles. Now she was eating cunt. Fine. They could have their heads cut off in the morning for all she cared. She and Harriet would go to the block hand in hand, and happily pay the price for this night of forbidden love.
Margarita Bhozetsa went to bed drunk that night, but she had not drunk nearly enough to drown her troubled conscience. She knew that her chaplain had spoken the truth. How could she have eaten the testicles of cannibals? How could she have let her girls eat them? Cannibals indeed! Was she any better than a cannibal herself? These were very troubling questions; but a more basick, and potentially even more troubling question managed to present itself to her, albeit only in the form of bad dreams, even in her present wine besotted state: Was there something about being an orchidophage which, in and of itself, drew one into sinfull excesses; and if so, did one have to admit that there was something inherently sinfull in the practice that Leona the Great herself had instituted?
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS Margarita was not the only Regnalka with a troubled conscience. Iulia had left the feast in an attitude of defiance, but within an hour she sent for her own chaplain, who then remain'd with her through the night.
The next morning she climb'd to the top of the city wall and pray'd aloud that a WALPTR might come and eat her. All the Katharinians and all the city gather'd as she raised her voice to sing the song to call one of the dreadfull beings who were just then finishing their grim work among the dead. Within moments one of the larger males arose, spread his great wings, and flew up over the wall, and with a terrible non human voice call'd Iulia's name. All of the onlookers fell to their knees, but Iulia was not to be this creatures death meal. Iulia had the stature of a typical bhozetsa, but the great creature took her like an eagle taking a mouse, swallowing the once proud Regnalka in one gulp after snapping her neck in his jaws. The WALPTR mounted back to the sky and flew in a slow wide circle high above the city, and then return'd to spit out Iulia's bones on the very spot whence he had taken her. Iulia had taken the full blame for the sinfull feast upon herself, and thus saved herself from total disgrace in the only way possible.
Harriet and Sarah had begun their morning in silence, facing each other at breakfast as if each had simply had a very embarrassing dream which the other could not possibly have shared in, and certainly needn't be told about. When the news from the wall reacht them they had gone with the others to see the terrible spectacle for themselves, and at first managed to speak only of this; but at last they had to confront each other with their guilt, and when they did they knew that they must go and talk to the Regnalka together.
The Regnalka counted herself fortunate to be able to make time for them without delay, and suggested a walk outside the city walls. She knew, by some royal instinct, that the sin that had lain in wait for these two girls had finally caught them. She did not force them to speak of it right off, but let the goodness of the earth work its healing magick under their bare feet, while they spoke of the general sin whereinto the entire order had fallen the night before. They spoke of Iulia's self sacrifice; and the Regnalka explain'd that grim as it was, without some such expiation, the angry Archbishop would surely have demanded that the Emperor, whose return was expected that evening, send the Katharinians home in disgrace, and Iulia would, in any case, have been forced to resign her command. The Regnalka then made a point of telling the girls how sorry she felt for her own complicity in the sin that had corrupted all the Katharinians.
It was Sarah who first found the courage to confess the private sin that she and Harriet had committed in the hours after that dreadfull feast, but the Regnalka could see that both girls were utterly crusht under its weight.
I have never known that pleasure with another woman," said the Regnalka, warming them with cheerfull frankness for a confession of her own, "but I have sin'd in my flesh -- years ago, with a young eunuch."
"An eunuch?" question'd Harriet. "How could that be?"
"We met before either of us join'd the Order," she began. "I think we were both just short of 16. It wasn't long before we were hopelessly in love -- hopelessly. He was from a minor patrician family -- not a permissible consort. Neither of us would marry anyone else, so we both join'd the Order. I can't tell you how much I wanted him. I hid behind a curtain and watcht when the lengna cut off his testicles, biting my hand till it bled to keep from crying out; then when I ate them I..." She paused, as competing emotions chased each other across her face before she found the words to continue: "My doing so only inflamed our desire for each other until that desire overcame our respect for our vows. We sin'd with each other a fourtnight later. We made love as men and women do. An eunuch castrated as a full grown man remains quite capable of satisfying a woman for many months -- sometimes even for several years -- after the removal of his testicles. An eunuch can not, however, easily bring himself to climax. Our loving lasted most of the night. For me it was the greatest pleasure I would ever know in my body; but for him it became very painfull, and at last I had to run out and fetch a læng. She managed to relieve him in what seem'd only moments -- and then it was over, and she left, assuring me that she would have herself beheaded rather than betray me. I knew that we could trust her silence, but that didn't help things much. I still felt very guilty, and very ashamed -- we both did."
"What happen'd to him?" askt Harriet.
"He's a member of our regiment now -- but that is really all that I am free to say," she smiled, knowing full well that since her regiment had only a handfull of patrician eunuchs, the girls could easily discover him if they wanted to be nosy.
"Aren't you afraid that you might sin again?" askt Sarah.
"No. We both know that we will always love each other, but we both value the discipline of our Order far above our own foolish desires." She paused for a moment. "We do not have our heads cut off for our sins as the lengna do. Our lives belong to our Sovereign Mother. There are far too many in our order who have given themselves over to sins of the flesh. There are others who have never fallen. There are a great many, however, who having fallen once, have learnt the secrets of their own souls well enough never to fall again."
Reëntering the city through the largest of her southern gates, they beheld the seven nudes that they had seen giggling at the feast. They were still naked, but now they were quiet and serene, for these seven lengna sat propt against the wall cross legged with their sever'd heads in their laps. Their sacrifice had been a complement to Iulia's, as they had had themselves beheaded to expiate not only their own sin, but that of the entire Katharinian order. They had gone to the block as soon as the WALPTR had eaten Iulia, and the patricians of Iulia's regiment had seen that their bodies were composed exactly as they had requested. The idea that the sins of the group could be expiated by the penitential sacrifice of one or more individuals seem'd to teeter on the edge of the most dangerous heresy paradoxically because it was, from one point of view so definitively Christian. Neither Harriet nor Sarah were theologians, nor could either begin to understand the spiritual and moral questions involved; yet they stared transfixt at these lengna, who had in life managed so many things for the Katharinians, and had now in some way died for them. They fear'd somehow that if they stared too long it might all melt into gross pretense and sinfull folly.
As they return'd to their barracks the girls' faces betray'd the anxiety they felt, but could not voice, as to their own ability to keep themselves from further sin. They could not understand how they could have fallen so easily.
The Regnalka, however, wisely took it upon herself to answer this unaskt, but obviously troubling question. Without further belabouring the uncomfortable subject, she managed to assure them that the unusual ardour that they had felt for each other could be blamed almost entirely on the unholy food which had been provided them. She herself, she confided, normally call'd upon a læng to put her in a trance and relieve her tensions after a good pair of testicles, and that after the half dozen pair that she must have polisht off before Fr. Philip had thrown that shamefull platter to the floor, she had been tempted by more potential sins than she wanted to think about before she managed to lock herself in the small private room which had been provided her. It was to this room, at one end of the barracks that she now admitted the two girls. She embraced them both and they all wept together.
Harriet and Sarah knew that they loved each other, but they would find the strength never to sin that way again.
The Katharinians attended the great feast that afternoon, but they were very uncomfortable about it. The Archbishop, willing as he was to absolve them, was not very comfortable about it either. When the emperor return'd he was anger'd not only to hear of the scandal that Iulia had caused, but also to learn that her quite necessary death had left the four Katarinian regiments at odds with each other, and without any general commander with whom he could effectively treat.
The huge regiment that had been Iulia's own was now under the command of her former 2nd officer, a patrician who had only recently been promoted to indigo rank, as her 1st officer had been badly wounded and was now under the care of the Preservers with no hope of being able to leave their consulate until well into the autumn. The two other regiments that had arrived with Iulia's were commanded by the Regnalk na Vrsula and Leona. These were both nieces of the elder Vrsula, senior advisor to the Sovereign Mother, and eldest of the living Regnalkàna. The younger Vrsula and Leona were first cousins top each other and both were of the same age, 37. In general they had always got along well as individuals, but there was a very intense rivalry between their regiments, the embarrassing excesses whereof could largely be blamed on Vrsula's niece Vulpecula, a 17 year old Regnalka who served as 1st officer in her aunts regiment. Willfull and often cruel, Vulpecula was well known as a predatory lesbian who was not above using her position to seduce her subordinates.
Like all the Katharinians, Margarita's regiment left the feast as soon as they could politely do so. Ostensibly this was to prepare for their departure from Simontisten the next morning, but in fact it was a case of their wanting to avoid unnecessary contact with either their Imperial counterparts or the townspeople. Margarita did, however, force herself to overcome her uneasiness in order to seek out Prince Timothy. She wanted to tell him that his regiment was in her prayers both on account of their heavy losses the day before, and because she would, on the morrow, be returning' three of their number whose sec¢nding to her own regiment had allow'd an all too brief continuation of a very special set of relationships. The Kingslynns and Dupa had become very dear to her, and she would very much miss them.
She arranged for all who had been part of her little class -- Regis and Conrad, Harriet and Sarah, Thaddæus and Halka, Olga and Karena, and not least Nikonor, who was glad that business at the Preservers Consulate had prevented him from accepting an invitation to the sinfull feast the night before, but was delighted to be able to accept this invitation -- to pass a final watch with her in her room that night. Andrew and George, who had been left behind in Katharintisten, were nonetheless present in the thoughts an conversation of those who were there. Warm and informal as the gathering was to be, the Regnalka began it by receiving them with all the formalities of her rank. They had come to expect this. She let Dupa undo her greaves and honour her purple feet. He was honour'd indeed; but he would better remember the end of their evening together, when at the last she embraced and kist him with an almost maternal intensity. She parted with the Kingslynns in the same warm way.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS Conrad Kingslynn watcht with mixt emotions the next morning as the barefoot girls mounted their horses and set off for Katharintisten. He had learnt to love these strange and often frightfull women, and yet he was also at least partly glad to be seeing the back of them. Thanks to them he had had a culinary experience the night before that he would probably not want to tell his grandchildren about; yet thinking about it now, standing next to Regis and Tat, he had to laugh out loud: "Balls! Those rotten little bare-arses ran around and cut them off -- and fed them to us -- with olives no less! And now? Now they're back there with their stupid heads cut off and stuck between their legs with shit eating grins on their faces. Blasted lengna! And the girls? There they go -- no shoes on their feet -- no cares in their heads -- live or die -- sing their lullabies tonight, and chop off more heads tomorrow. Don't you love them though?"
Tat and Regis stood by and smiled and shook their heads wistfully. There was no need to answer that question.
Despite the fact that they had, in theory, belonged to Prince Timothy's regiment for several weeks now, they had never met a single man in it other than the Prince himself, and they knew that their adjustment to it would not be easy. The easy thing would have been to ride back to Katharintisten with their balls safely invested in the Regnalka's belly. They had come to understand the eunuchs by now, or at least half understand them; but they did not know what to expect from these men whom they thought of as 'toy Katharinians'. Perhaps that was unfair, but what else might they be? What might attract men who had grown up as subjects of the Empire to such an outfit? Perhaps they just had a deep affection for their Empress. Perhaps they just liked going barefoot. Such motivations might indeed account for most of them; but perhaps there might also be all too many of the sort of silly buggers that Regis most fear'd might be found among them -- especially judging from the opinion he had form'd of their commander -- all shine and polish, smile and strut; and no real willingness to train. Regis hoped that this had not been the reason for their disproportionate losses, but he fear'd that it had.
At supper, however, they learnt with some relief that an unusually
generous bonus had prompted most of the enlistments. They learnt also that
they were not unique here in the matter of their origins. There were an
half dozen other acquisitions from the Parent World serving in Timothy's
regiment: Three Americans, an Italian, and two Swedes. All of these were
their `contemporaries' in that the date relationships were closely
sequential. Nikonor inform'd them that this had been his Order's normal
practice throughout the recent centuries of both worlds. This was a
convenient, if not a necessary discipline, as it avoided a number of
needless difficulties. It was more common to find such acquisitions in the
Imperial realms than in the Katharinian, and far more common to find them
in the military than in civilian life.
Prince Timothy, as they were to
learn, was very much a xenophile. Had he not been a Prince, he would
surely have wanted to join the Order of Preservers, with one of whose
consuls in Iohanetisten he had enjoy'd such a privileged relationship as
might well be compared with the Regnalka's friendship with Andrew.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS The Kingslynns and Dupa were met on Tuesday morning by their Commander himself, and led to the Preservers' Consulate, a building far smaller than their Embassy in Katharintisten, but partaking of the same Octagonal architecture. Entering a great octagonal room, they were seated next to the Prince at a great wooden table of the same shape, which had already been spread with maps. There was an unexpected but very familiar face at this table, that of their abductor, teacher, and now valued friend, Andrew. Nikonor sat next to him, and with them three other members of their Order, two of whom the recognised by subtle markings on there robes as being of the same consular rank as Andrew. These were Timothy's tutor and friend Raphælex, and the Chief Consul for Simontisten. The third was introduced as an expert in the languages and customs of the Lawless Lands, who had questioned dozens of prisoners and defectors from the Lawless hordes over the past two days. The Emperor himself was also present, as was the Archbishop of Simontisten, each accompany'd by two advisors.
All had been wondering why the battle had gone so easily for them, and why they had seen none of the dreaded bombs. They now learnt that the remains of a catapult had been found a good way behind what had been the enemy positions, along with several bodies that had been torn apart in a way never before seen by those who had found them. This evidence suggested that an accident of some sort had consumed all of the explosives available to their foes at the very start of the battle, and the statements of the prisoners interrogated pointed to the same conclusion.
All of those interrogated seem'd to know of Freeman, but they all insisted that he had visited the front lines at the siege of Simontisten only once, more than a week before the final battle; but opinion vary'd as to whether he were now back in the Lawless Lands working on even greater forms of magick, or traveling with Roxusko himself in some other part of Apostolia, or perhaps some part of the Katharinian front. Most also seem'd to have some knowledge of a mysterious naked woman who wrought the most powerfull magick, and had gain'd her power by cutting off her own right hand as a sacrifice to the d‘mons who sustain'd her. This one-handed witch, who apparently had the power to appear and disappear at will, had figured in the stories of such prisoners for some time now.
Andrew nodded grimly when askt if he thought this woman the same Priscillæng of whom he had alerted his superiors.
The idea that she had indulged in some self butchery to gain the favour of the powers of hell would have been quite in keeping with the perversities practiced among the Lawless. Their sacrifices were full of the most unspeakable cruelty and contempt for the Creators handiwork. The Emperor and his subjects abhor'd these beings, obviously of their own race, who made them feel ashamed of being human. The idea that any of Gods other creatures might behold these devils in human form and think of them as men was almost as appalling as the gratuitous cruelties for which they were so infamous. Imperial policy towards them was thus frankly genocidal. They felt no desire to repay these monsters for the evil wherewith they had stain'd their world, but only to remove them from it as quickly and as thoroughly -- and as painlessly -- as possible, so that their might be no more remembrance of them.
This deep sense of disgust with the inhabitants of the lawless lands had been felt by the Emperors and their subjects for as long as they had known of the evils that went on there from those few who had been given the grace to escape them. Now, however, there was a sense of urgency -- of a real and present danger not only not only to the Emperor himself and to his subjects, but to the whole of their world as they and their ancestors had always known it.
Ponderus II rose up wringing his hands. He assured everyone that his soldiers would hunt down and destroy their enemies throughout his realms or die trying. He could not, however, pursue his enemies into their own dens as he would in any other case. He made eye contact with Andrew and with each of the other Preservers, and then with the Archbishop who sat next to them. He had already thought the unthinkable, but he could not bring himself to say the unsayable, he could only gesture towards them with an open hand, and ask if they could think of something, before he left the room.
Those towards whom he had gestured regarded each other fearfully. They knew what he was asking. The also knew the Commandment which bound them all. Even if there were some possibility that some sort of Exception might be found in that Commandment, none of those present had the authority even to discuss such a thing. If that were what the Emperor wanted to talk about, he would have to talk to the Patriarch and the Grand Master of the Preservers. It was also very likely that in a matter like this, which toucht on the very constitution of their world, they would have to find some way to consult with the WALPTREINA. Ultimately, they agreed, in husht whispers which still skirted the subject, They would have to consult with God Himself in some way that would be clear to all and satisfactory to everyone's conscience, and nothing in their history provided a precedent for any such consultation.
As the gathering broke up, Prince Timothy call'd Andrew over and suggested that he and Nikonor might like to have some time alone with their former pupils.
Pleased at this opportunity, Andrew led the way to the suite assign'd to him at the Consulate.
All three of the men felt a deep sense of refreshment as they sat down with their friends. They spent the afternoon, and in fact the night, with Andrew and Nikonor, forgetting the war and simply enjoying the food, the wine, and the company.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS The Katharinians, despite the fact that in numerical terms their losses had been very light, moved with a very definite sense among themselves that they were bringing home their dead. Reduced by the Walptrena to bones and armour, they were nonetheless borne with a sense of dignity and pride which seem'd to lend them a much greater weight than they had had in life. The sight of Veronica's catafalque, surmounted by her coronett, brought tears to the eyes of many who remember'd making remarks about her stupidity. All hoped that her diplomatick party, who continued on their journey south, would negotiate treaties that would honour her memory. Iulia's catafalque evoked more mixt emotions: The shame that they felt over the sin to which her indiscretion had brought them (and they had almost all partaken of the testicle platters) was temper'd with the pride that they felt in her willingness to sacrifice her life to save both her own honour and theirs.
Unable as she had been to protect them from the repeated random raids of vicious cannibals and plunderers from the Lawless Lands, the Sovereign Mother had order'd the evacuation of the sparsely populated and very exposed coastal villages of Mnot. These people were mostly fishermen and lowland farmers, but it was necessary to temporarily resettle them in the much more defensible highlands near Philippisa, the seat of the bishop who had the care of them, and the only fortify'd city in the area. Now, for the first time, large numbers of the enemy, in a much more organised state than had been observed before were approaching the city, and it was fear'd that it would soon come under siege.
This information reacht the four Katharinian regiments even as they arrived at the Island of Peace. They decided to rest there overnight, determining that if they left early in the morning and moved as quickly as possible, they would be able to reach Philippisa by nightfall. They pusht themselves and their horses to the limit, but they nonetheless arrived too late. The city had been overrun, and her defenders and inhabitants slaughter'd for the pot.
Now drunk and engorged, the cannibals were no match for the Katharinians. The battle to retake the city was quickly over, but the Katharinians had taken some losses. The Regnalka Vrsula had been slain, a loss which placed her regiment under the command of her unworthy niece Vulpecula.
Two thousand of the enemy were slain, and another thousand captured; but these last would not be kept alive for long, for among those whom they had butcher'd, and already partly eaten, were the bishop himself, and the three hundred BHOZAMAGHÁNA who had been sent to help defend the city along with their young commander, the Regnalka Augusta.
Harriet happen'd to catch sight of Augusta's bare, purple feet extended helplessly in death between the filthy rawhide boots of the barbarian who had butcher'd her and was now feasting upon her entrails. Red with a rage that had her all but spitting blood, she sent his soul to hell with a single stroke, and watcht his grim and ugly head roll into the dust. Seeing what he had been doing to the beautiful young Regnalka, she try'd to think how she might visit some further punishment upon the body of this fiend who even in death mockt the Creator by daring to wear an human face, but saw that nothing could match the ugliness that twenty odd years of sin had already stampt upon it. She knelt to compose Augusta's body, closing the royal eyes and kissing the purple feet.
Margarita herself found the Bishop in his desecrated Cathedral. Five of the devils were bent over his remains. In her rage she order'd them drag'd from the building and impaled, and then burnt alive; for she would that flames might consume their bodies in token of the flames that a righteous God had long ago prepared for their wretched souls.
Father Philip fell on his knees in front of her, imploring her to have them beheaded before any more of their screams defiled her own soul and the honour of her Sovereign.
The rage fell from her face, and she ran to countermand her order. She return'd to kneel before the priest who still knelt himself, but whose voice she had heard as that of God.
Harriet blest the wind that whip'd her blood red skirt about her loins and stang her naked breasts as she and KShena wrought. She loved the way that wind reminded her of her first barebreasted day at Simontisten, and she would soon be glad of its chill, for today she would hack off heads until her arms ached. She and KShena laught and sang as the unseen hosts of heaven applauded them with muted thunder, for theirs was a cleansing work, however dreory, and thus a simple joy.
Sarah watcht her wistfully. Her own body was indeed much firmer now since the Regnalka had begun training them, but Harriet's, always leaner, had attain'd an athletick perfection comparable to KShena's. She thought again of the night when every last inch of that glorious body had been totally hers. They would never know each other again in that way. They were both too proud of being Katharinians. Still, if it had had to happen, she was glad that it had been with Harriet. Thinking these thoughts in this battle ruin'd city, she at last understood that she had long been fighting a battle within herself, a battle which she had both lost and won.
Harriet hated the thought of their sin at least as much as Sarah did, but she found it easier to deal with, for Sarah, as Harriet saw it, was the only one who was really a Lesbian. She had long suspected that Sarah desired her in that way, but she had also respected Sarah for having kept herself from it, and she loved Sarah very deeply, just for being who she was and for being her friend. She had askt herself, long before it had happen'd, what she would do if Sarah wanted her that way, if Sarah needed her that way, if Sarah askt her; and she had decided that if it came to that, yes, she would give her body to Sarah -- she loved Sarah that much: Yet as soon as she had savour'd the feeling of martyrdom that this 'decision' had brought her, she had realised how wrong it was; and had it not been for the most trying of circumstances, her folly had never prevail'd over her wisdom.
Harriet was also aware that she and Sarah had not been the only ones to fall into such sin that night. By the next evening, the most lurid stories had been making the rounds -- stories of how the shamefull Vulpecula had organised the whole of her aunt's regiment into a single naked orgy from which no one had been permitted to abstain. Even Vrsula herself had supposedly been drag'd into this sin against her will. Such a thing was definitely in character for Vulpecula, and the idea that such a wicked and wanton voluptuary was now in charge of a regiment disturb'd almost everyone.
Vulpecula began to assert herself almost immediately against the other regimental commanders. The inexperienced locum tenens of Iulia's former regiment was in no position to challenge her: and Margarita did not, for the moment, see any harm in allowing Vulpecula her pretensions, reckoning that if Vulpecula overstept herself, Philippa could be counted on to put her in her place. Leona, however, would not compromise her position as senior commander simply to keep the peace.
Two days after the Philippisa tragedy, the Katharinians engaged a very large enemy force. When the battle was over, Leona was dead, decapitated from the rear, as Katharinians were taught to dispatch their enemies. Everyone suspected Vulpecula, but no witness was willing to come forward.
Harriet askt her commander if any would stop this Vixen, but the Regnalka, while assuring her that the overly clever Vulpecula would soon outsmart herself, order'd her to speak no more of it for the present.
When Vulpecula announced that they would be returning immediately to Katharintisten, Margarita happily defer'd to her greater wisdom. Within three days of their arrival at the Palace, Vulpecula was denounced as a murderess and a traitor. She was try'd and convicted, and executed upon the order of the Sovereign Mother. Her cruelty, once given free reign, had been such that by the time she went to the block even those who had been closest to her were glad to see her go.
KShena, who had been a palace executioner before her assignment to Margarita's regiment, was chosen to do the honours, with Harriet assisting. Because what she had done was tantamount to treason, Vulpecula was led to the block naked and in chains, and placed upon a wooden bed before it. Before beheading her KShena first cut off her purple feet exactly at the die lines. Harriet took them up and placed them in front of the victim's face, while pronouncing the ancient curse wherewith traitors were cursed. Then, within moments, Vulpecula's chaplain absolved her of her sins and KSh,ena struck off her head. The intent of this grim ritual was to lay shame upon the traitor, rather than to cause any physical suffering. Vulpecula had in fact been anæsthetised before it began. KShena felt that it was important to make Harriet aware of this.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS For several weeks after this neither the Emperor's forces nor the Sovereign Mother's had any substantial contact with the enemy. Margarita's regiment was kept in Katharintisten for this time. They grew in strength to almost a thousand, and the Regnalka train'd them as well as the time permitted. Apart from their training they took on various duties about the Palace, one of which was the provision of guards for the room wherein the sever'd hand of Priscillæng was being kept.
As it would happen, Harriet was standing guard over the hand on the day it call'd its owner back across the void. Priscillæng, appearing out of nowhere, stood over the box with her back to Harriet; but Harriet knew exactly what to do: She raised her sword and struck off the head of the one-handed nude as neatly as KShena had once removed her hand. The naked body fell to the floor, but the sever'd head disappear'd without a trace, never to be seen again.
Andrew moved so quickly that he all but overtook the 16 year old greenfoot who had been sent to fetch him, but he nonetheless found the room quite full of Katharinians crowding around the headless body by the time he arrived. The Regnalka, who was herself standing among them, order'd them to make way. He bent over the body and study'd it for some time. He open'd the box containing the sever'd hand, and noted that the two golden wrist caps did indeed match perfectly. At length he order'd both the hand and the body taken out under guard and burnt, and the box and wrist caps seal'd in a guarded vault, noting that none could really know what powers Priscillæng might still possess, and that no chances were to be taken.
Harriet put her arms around the old Preserver for a long, tight hug. She felt that only he could understand how lucky she had been, and how differently things might have gone.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS Once Harriet had got past her brief brush with celebrity, Andrew judged that the time was right to permitt an encounter which he had thitherto thought it better to delay. A company of eunuchs from Alexandretisten was visiting the Palace, and among them was a face that Harriet might recognise as that of an old friend (or, depending on her mood, perhaps an ex-friend). Andrew's strategy was quite simple: He askt them both to a meeting, and then sent word that he himself would be late. Harriet found herself facing a young eunuch about whom there was definitely something familiar.
"Harriet?" he askt incredulously, in a boyish voice that she suddenly recognised.
"Chad! How the hell? It is you, isn't it!" she laught. "That devil, Andrew -- this is just like him! See if we see him again today." She paused. "Chad, you little shit, you've got to tell me where you've been and what you've been up to."
Chad's face broke into a mischievous grin which Harriet knew very well, and wherein she now took an instant delight despite an earlier vow to wipe it off his face if she ever saw it again. It was a grin he had not worn, in its full glory, in a very long time. They sat down together and he began to relate the events of his life since she had last seen him.
Like Harriet, Chad Tinker had grown up alone with a drunken father; but Chad's home life had seem'd a good deal more fun. John Tinker had generally been happy drunk, and, disgracefull as it might have been, his son had been his drinking companion since the age of five. Happy as their home might have been in this perverse sense, Chad's performance in school had been correspondingly poor, and his father's performance as Warden of the Watershed even worse.
When Chad was 14, there was a dam break and a flood for which his father, being held responsible, was removed from both his position and the little house that went with it. John Tinker's drinking became much worse, and his once jolly disposition was replaced by a black despair, as he saw his boy taken into care and himself become a virtual tramp. One night about a year later he was run down by a car outside the doss house where he had been sleeping away his shame.
What happen'd to Chad after that was lost in nightmare. He ran away to spend the rest of his 16th year in one of the drug ridden demimondes that had begun to blight '60s America. This splash of wild war paint on dirty city streets had little in common with his once happy life at the Watershed save that it was strictly barefoot and rarely sober. His new companions were all running from beer drinking fathers; but Chad mist his terribly, and became consumed with a desire to avenge him.
He return'd to Upperdale and set fire to the home of the commissioner who had made his father redundant. The blaze was a minor one, and easily dealt with. Chad was even more easily apprehended. He made no attempt to deny his guilt.
The facility whereunto Chad was finally remanded had been establist as a home for troubled youth by a private foundation that had for some years operated a similar and very successfull home in another state. Unfortunately, however, this facility would bring only shame to the once respected foundation whose name had been lent to her, for she had quickly fallen prey to all of the evils which shame the worst of such places.
Here Chad's drugridden nightmare reacht a dreadful climax whereof he would never have any sane recollection. All that the Preservers could later piece together was that he had been incarcerated for less than a month when some unspeakable event had left him an eunuch only hours before a member of their Order rescued him from a secure cell in the infirmary wing. Chad came up with several quite different, and mutually contradictory accounts of his castration; and yet seem'd genuinely convinced of each during the time of its telling. He seem'd to be most disturb'd by the account wherein he had been castrated by a gang of vicious sodomites, and least troubled by the account wherein he had castrated himself on a dare, and in respect of which it was decided to settle him within the selfcastrated regiment of Alexandretisten.
Bizarre as this situation might have seem'd to any of his contemporaries, it suited Chad perfectly. He had not been nearly so content anywhere since he had lived with his father. His new comrades were a jolly lot, much given to drinking and boasting and singing songs of their past glories. Every night they drank a toast to Leona the Great. Yet beneath the revelry which Chad enjoy'd, there was a steadfast dedication which he admired. All that they were and did exprest a deep veneration of traditions which they insisted had not changed since their first commander had been the first to offer his testicles to the first Leona. It was for this reason that they insisted on making eunuchs of themselves in exactly the same way; and unquestioning as their loyalty to Philippa was, they made it known that they felt that their novices had the right to expect that the testicles they sacrificed be eaten by none other than the Sovereign Mother herself, and that it was unfair of her to defer to a subordinate in this matter. In their case this would tend to be the First Regnalka, as none of them would deign to exercise the right, which Philippa extended to all eunuchs, of naming an alternate orchidophage.
Andrew and Nikonor had play'd some part, over the past 4 years, in helping Chad adjust to life in Alexandretisten. It had been through knowing Chad that Andrew had become interested in Harriet Bronwynn, and had decided to bring her first to Stephendale, and then to Katharintisten.
Having a somewhat exaggerated sense of the mistake that he may have made in introducing Chad to Anthony and Silvia, Andrew had been very carefull to avoid any contact between Chad and Harriet untill he thought the time to be right, and Harriet was later to agree that he had been wise in this.
Sarah, as Andrew was glad to see, quite happily accepted Chad, and seem'd fascinated when Harriet introduced them. She had no prejudice favouring definitive accounts of past events, and so enjoy'd his multiple self histories.
A short time later Chad accepted an invitation to join Margarita's regiment. The time was right for such a move. He had found some happiness in the Alexandretisten regiment, but he knew that he must now complete his quest for sanity by rediscovering, with Harriet, a bit of his own past.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS ?OLMUNG, the great Prince of the WALPTREINA, heard the call of Simon VIII, Grand Master of the Preservers. Gathering two dozen of the greatest of his kind, he brought them south from their own islands to the Great Island which had been reserved to the Preservers since the foundation.
The Preservers alone among humans could converse with these great beings, and they had much now to talk about. Together they form'd the terrible plan whereby the Lawless Lands, as they had been known for so many centuries, would be rid of their illegitimate human inhabitants, and return'd to the dominion of those creatures for whose happiness and safety they had been originally reserved. These twice fallen humans may have seen themselves as superior to the dumb animals whom they tortured to please their devils, but in their presumption they had fallen far beneath them in the estimation of God. Justice was now about to be done.
First would come a day when the Patriarch himself, together with all of the bishops, and all of the priests and deacons and monks nuns, and all of the laity as well who were moved to do so, were to fast and pray, all as one, that by some miracle all those among the Lawless Peoples whose souls retain'd any worth would repent; and again by some miracle be led out of places whither their ancestors had migrated in sin. These prayers were offer'd up on a Friday; and on the following Sunday some 12,000 souls were suddenly seen on the shores of a small island just west of the Island of Peace. The monks who dwelt on this island claim'd to have seen them arrive as through a dense fog, led by saints shining in redeem'd glory who disappear'd when they reacht the shore.
The monks were further dumfounded by the fact that for the rest of that day they could fully understand the speach of all of the erstwhile heathen who had just been baptised in the sea. Some spoke of having walkt upon the surface of the water, while others spoke of flying through the air or swimming under the sea with the fish. Some confest with painfully clear memory to past sins which they now regretted; while others, though old in years, were as new born babes, remembering nothing prior to their arrival on the island. This gift, however, past with the day, and Monday found them barbarians once more, speaking in scores of unintelligible tongues.
Ordinarily, refugees from the Lawless Lands would have been settled into monastick communities totally isolated from the general population; for they were seen as contaminated by an hereditary evil both transcending and compounding that which all men inherited fron their first parents. This was not an official position of the Church -- indeed there was no official position -- but it was very much the popular view. There was nothing in this instantly famous miracle per SE to challenge this concept; but it was clear that no precedent from the past could properly be apply'd to this new situation. The monks thought it likely that the Almighty had some extraordinary destiny in mind for these 12,000, and this was likewise the consensus among all those with whom their Abbot was able to consult. The Abbot therefore determined to provide for the needs of the women and children on the island whereupon they had arrived, and to move the men to the main island (but not to geld them as would otherwise have been the custom) until their final fate could be determined.
Sixty Four of the greatest adepts among the Preservers were chosen to converge on the eastern shore of the Island of Peace. They were met by an equal number of the WALPTREINA. Each Preserver took his place sitting astride the neck of a WALPTR. These were those who could call the WALPTREINA and speak to them, but even they had never heard of such a thing as this.
The WALPTREINA took to the sky and flew out across the island and then across the sea to the West, speaking the while to their awestricken guests in the colours that play'd across their headstones, till at last they beheld beneath them the lands forbidden since the Foundation to man and WALPTR alike. They spent the rest of the day forming themselves into a great circle, fully encompassing the Lawless Lands, and barely within sight of each other. Then they, as well as the Preservers who rode upon them, each bent their minds to the task before them. Each felt the joining of the minds of all the members of both their orders directed through them. Then they felt the strength of Another Greater Order joining with theirs as they lifted their voices to lay their curse upon the men of Lawless Lands.
By this curse they stript them of all those things (save the outward form of their bodies) that would have defined them as men -- of all the advantages that had permitted them to shew such a contempt for their fellow creatures as to exalt themselves, in their own estimation, from the status of animals to that of dæmons. The first power stript from them was that of speach. Their conversation descended by degrees from the barbarism that it was to meaningless babble and finally to grunts and growls. The last thing that they were permitted to understand was the curse itself that echo'd down upon them, vouching safe to all eternity that even should their evil race survive, neither they themselves nor their descendants would ever again be able to share a single thought either with others of their own kind or with any other beings, for their sins had long since foreclosed to them the wordless communication of God's 'lesser' creatures. The cannibals could hardly care; but those who had achieved the most, those whose vision had been the greatest, raised their voices to howl in inarticulate horrour at what they knew themselves to have lost forever: No parliaments would ever sit among them; No schools would ever teach their unborn children to reach for the stars. Their hopes, and all the promises that they had made to themselves, now deafen'd them as they rang empty. Once the gift of language had been taken from them, the rest of their human cleverness began to depart as well.
Then another long overdue justice fell upon them, as the gifts which they had lost were vested, by small and carefull degrees, upon those creatures for whom the lands which they had sinfully presumed to inhabit had rightfully been reserved. The wild beasts began to look at each other with a greater understanding of the things that they had suffer'd at the hands of men; and now, no longer afraid of men, found within themselves the courage and the will to rise against them, and the power to communicate well enough to do so effectively. They feasted for weeks on former humans, finally exterminating the miscreants who had long threaten'd to exterminate them.
In their tireless circling of the Lawless Lands, the WALPTREINA stopt for `lunch', as it were, on the island of Ultha (litterally `yonder') to the north of the forbidden mainland. Although not counted within the lands forbidden to either men of WALPTREINA, this island, and the much smaller island off its northeast corner, had been inhabited only by the most vicious cannibals. During the three days that they circled the Lawless Lands, the WALPTREINA managed to consume every one of these worthless beings, so that these lands could, after the war, be safely given in possession to the 12,000 souls whom God had chosen to save from the Lawless Lands.
The WALPTREINA and the Preservers agreed that together they would prevent any of the Lawless men from returning to their former homeland, but that neither order would directly involve itself in the war in any other way. The Preservers judged it best that the Imperial and Katharinian forces win the victory for themselves. They did not, as a rule, involve themselves in the wars of princes; and although in this case they had determined that the threat to the greater order of their world had necessitated their involvement, they nonetheless abstain'd from the actual fighting. The Preservers were neither afraid to kill nor afraid to die, but they were very reluctant to take to themselves the glory that belonged to princes.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS Thaddæus Dupa watcht from the edge of his bed as Prince Timothy adjusted his gorgett and mantle and stept out of the embarrassingly well appointed room that might easily be seen as a commander's imprudent gift to a favourite subordinate. Dupa was very well aware of his position in this regard; and the thought of it contributed to the bad taste in his mouth. Here he was involved in the very last thing that he had ever wanted to be involved in again; and, as he saw it, it was all his own fault. This was the same damn thing that had haunted his school days; but now he had stain'd the life of a Prince.
The seduction had happen'd so easily. It was almost as if he had seduced himself as well. It had been neither a premeditated seduction, nor a sudden fall in a moment of weakness. It had rather been something he had slipt into by imperceptible increments. He could, looking back, find no moment when he had led the young royal into the realm of sin.
Perhaps he should have known the first time he had knelt before the Prince in unholy homage, and durst drink the royal river that ran through time from the loins of Wretarjets; but he had crept up thither over many days, and by the most delicate degrees -- and so even to that forgotten moment when he fallen into the full foulness of sodomy.
A moment ago he had clutcht the royal testicles to claim the last drop of it, but now the bitterness of sin ran down his throat and claw'd at his inwards, setting off that terrible panick that makes a man look about for a door to run through -- before he realises that he cannot run from himself. He now wisht that he had traded his own testicles for a place among the Katharinians. He had once wanted to. Why had he not given in to that desire? It would have pleased him far better than this. Now he felt that he had no way to expiate his sins but to die for them.
Dupa sin'd with his commander for the last time that night in Simontisten, for the next day the regiment was sent to Zeda Apostolisa, which was as the name imply'd, the seat of the Bishop of Apostolia. The eastern end of St. Ponderus Bay had by this time been clear'd of all remnants of the invaders; and with Simontisten now safe, Zeda was the logical place to billett the bulk of the Emperor's forces. Timothy's regiment was in fact the last to be moved thither.
Thanks in part to Regis Kingslynn, the regiment had improved its readiness in those apparently idle weeks. Regis had expected to be virtually an emeritus officer, but his protestations concerning the vital importance of drill had resulted in his being cast in the rôle of drill instructor.
About a fourtnight after the cleansing of the Lawless Lands, their former inhabitants, whether of not they knew that they were now without a homeland, began shifting their positions in Apostolia and overrunning more territory in the northern part of the peninsula, so that they appear'd to be moving steadily eastward towards the Island of Peace. Timothy's regiment was among the first to depart to meet them; and acquitted itself well when the imperial forces won a decisive victory on the northern plains of Apostolia. Timothy himself, however was mortally wounded.
Dupa was very glad to hear that his commander had had a chance to make his confession to a priest before he died; but he had yet to work up the courage to make his own. He was soulsick in the worst possible way -- to ashamed to talk to anyone -- even to God -- about what he had done. Even in the guilty prayers he made every night, he mention'd his sins only obliquely. He imagined that his seduction of Timothy had somehow weaken'd the young prince and made him vulnerable.
If only he could have heard his commander's confession...
The Empress Thelma would never fully recover from the news that Timothy had been kill'd in battle. She had always been much closer to him than to either of her other children, and now she was devastated. The Emperor was also deeply sadden'd, but he was proud as well, and in a sense relieved, that Timothy had died bravely and with honour. He had been aware for some time that his younger son's life contain'd an element that might at any time have brought him into open disgrace and placed his father in a terrible position. Sodomy was not tolerated in the Empire. In fact it was punishable by death (or at the least galley service and final exile to the Foolish lands). The rumours about Timothy had in fact begun long before the arrival of Thaddæus Dupa, who still did not figure very prominently in them. Now a scandal had been averted in what had perhaps been the only way possible, and Timothy was a hero.
Ponderus had return'd to Iohanetisten several weeks before, but the Preservers, willing in the current situation to share their virtually instantaneous communications, had brought him the news of his son's death on the very the day that it had happen'd. They brought other news as well, for they had learnt from recent defectors that Roxusko was planning to cut the Emperor off from his allies by siesing the Katharinian side of the road through the Island of peace.
Seeing that the time had come for a final confrontation, Ponderus made haste to return to the North, taking with him his firstborn, and now only son, and the last four fully active regiments that had hitherto remain'd in Iohanetisten. Meanwhile he sent orders that half of his forces now in northern Apostolia were to take to the road through the Island of Peace, and the other half were to depart for Pernebhergh by ship across the Break. The regiment that had been Prince Timothy's, fortunately now under the command a fairly able first officer, was to go by sea.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS The voyage across the Break lasted from early morning till late evening. It was a relaxing time for Regis and Conrad, who among other diversions enjoy'd a long chat with one of the ship's officers. Some of the things that they learnt quite surprised them.
The fleet belong'd to King Leo VI of Petretisten. Leo's shipyards alone could produce such large vessels, and although they brought handsome profits from foreign contracts, they also insured that his own navy was by far the largest. Protocol placed him third among princes, behind only the Emperor and the Sovereign Mother; yet he could also be seen as hardly a sovereign prince at all, but simply the Emperor's hereditary Lord Admiral. The officer to whom they spoke did not actually say this, but much of what he said about the close relationship between the two realms seem'd to imply it, and others to whom they later spoke tended to agree.
Leo's fleet provided him with another important monopoly, for apart from officers and a few arm'd guards, the entire crew of each of these vessels was composed of convicts. Some had offended Leo's laws, but many others had offended against the laws of various other rulers and been sold to Leo for various terms. At Leo's own insistence a rota or priests from the various other realms provided observers on each ship to care for the souls of the convicts, and to insure that there were no abuses of the system and that each convict was released on the shores of the Foolish Lands within a month of the time limit set for his service. It was Leo's policy to segregate convicts with others of similar class, and never to accept such violent criminals as would in his own realms be beheaded. Regis and Conrad were told that their ship was in fact man'd by a crew of sodomites, but that they had all been castrated, as was always the practice with sex offenders, and often with other classes of criminals as well. This was a service provided by a small chapter of lengna attacht to the Katharinian Embassy in Petretisten. It made for less trouble. Nothing about the rowers made it obvious that they were eunuchs, nor even, to the uninformed, that they were convicts. They were not in chains, nor did they appear to be under any threat of force from their overseers. They appear'd well fed and none shew'd any sign of abuse. The songs that they sang seem'd no less cheerfull than those of other sailors.
There was, however, one very striking aspect of their appearance which the ignorant might have taken for war paint. Each convict had four diamond shaped tattoos on his face, one above and one below each eye. These marks were also the work of the lengna, and were apply'd in a colour pattern indicative of the month and year when each convict's term of service would be completed and he could expect transportation to the Foolish Lands; but they were also completely indelible, and markt for death anyone who bear them on his face in any part of the Emperor's realm's, or indeed those of any Christian ruler, with the exception of a few small islands where custom allow'd them shore leave.
Among the songs that the rowers sang were some that Conrad found quite haunting, for they sang of their future home in the Foolish Lands with the same sense of comforting expectation wherewith other men sang of the home that they hoped to have in Heaven. The Foolish Lands were indeed a fool's paradise from what Conrad had been told -- a life of ease and laughter, nonsense and nonentity -- no wants, no fears, no desires, no troubles -- one great party that lasted untill the fool neither knew nor cared who he was, nor where he was, nor why -- untill some legendary predator, somehow immune to the waters that render'd humans daft and impotent, came and ate him in his mirth.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS Pernebhergh gave the vanguard of the Empire as glad a welcome as they would give the Emperor himself three days later, and for the barefoot regiment which had been Timothy's the welcome was especially warm.
The day after the Emperor's arrival there was another division of forces. The Emperor and his son were to remain in Pernebherg, while the three now rested regiments, including the one that had been his younger son's, rode off a half dozen miles to the west to encamp beside those Katharinians who lookt down upon the enemy from the higher ground to the north.
The two Katharinian regiments remaining in Pernebhergh were pleased that the barefoot female regiment founded by the Empress Thelma, and commanded by her husband's niece Sophia, would be encampt with them.
Four Imperial regiments had been left station'd on the great bridge that their enemies had appear'd to be targeting; and Leo's navy had also landed two of Leo's own regiments, and another two recruited from the Southern Kingdoms, some way to the west of the bridge. If all went according to plan, they would converge on their enemies from four sides on the morrow. The Emperor reckon'd that the Christian forces included 26 full regiments of varying sizes and parts of others -- perhaps 35,000 men, women, and eunuchs by the most generous estimate, but at least 32,000. He was unsure of the enemy's strength, but the best intelligence that he had indicated that it was roughly comparable. He and his tromps and his allies were prepared for the probable use of explosive devises against them, but frightfull as such things might be, he was confident in that most of the Imperial and Katharinian forces were very well disciplined, while the largest part of Roxusko's were a worthless rabble. In any case, this was where Roxusko had chosen (or, if the Emperor durst flatter himself, been forced) to make his final stand. Whatever happen'd would happen here.
Morale was high in the camp of the Katharinians, and their numerical strength was somewhat better than the Emperor had estimated. Of Philippa's 12 regiments, 10, including the two newest, were present in full strength. The other two were needed to defend Katharintisten and Alexandretisten, but they nonetheless sent small contingents south so that their banners might fly at the battle with those of the rest of the host. The standing garrisons of the other cities, whose bhozamaghana belonged to no regiments as such, were also allowed to send standard bearers to represent them at what all knew would be the last great battle of the war. The total Katharinian presence was just over 12,000. These represented virtually every bhozamagha and eunuch who was fit for battle and could be spared from other duty.
Margarita's regiment, perhaps because it was a mixt regiment from the start, was given the task of training 500 lengna who had askt to be allowed to go into battle. Like most lengna they had some training in archery, as it was thought prudent that they be able to help defend the Palace in the event of a siege; but as there had been no time to teach them to ride and fight on horseback, they had to go afoot and simply fight as archers. Harriet and Sarah, having had the honour of taking them out to toughen their bare feet, learnt that there were some among the lengna well worthy of their respect. Try as Margarita had to convince them to wear armour, these proud archers had insisted that as lengna they would go to battle naked but for their gorgetts.
Philippa also had the military support of her patrician vassals, especially those in the southeastern portion of her realm; and their private armies, together with those common men who were of a mind to join themselves to them as temporary volunteers number'd over 6000 in place and ready for battle, and another 2000 were expected to arrive in the morning. These were position'd to the west of the Sovereign Mother's camp to stop the gap between Leo's tromps and her's.
As Sovereign Mother, Philippa was call'd by destiny to be many things, but she was seen by most of her subjects as first and foremost the living icon of the Majesty of God. All of her authority was seen as deriving from this analogy of participation and it was thus consider'd necessary that everyone and everything connected with her participate in some appropriate degree in her grandeur. Thus the Katharinian camp was set out in what some foreigners might have thought an extravagant folly, but which was by Katharinian standards a quite necessary and appropriate splendour. Not only was the Sovereign Mother's pavilion magnificent, but each of the thousands of others on the field were so crafted and arranged that, like jewels in a common setting, each shared in the splendour of the largest and brightest.
Harriet and Sarah shared with Olga and Halka a small pavilion near their Regnalka's. Wrapt in conversation, they had fail'd to notice that the others had already left to hear Philippa's address to her armies. As they shared a kiss before stepping out into the night, Harriet suddenly remember'd the dream that she had had during her last night in Stephendale. The walk now seem'd a good deal longer, but the scene before Philippa's pavilion was almost exactly as she had dreamt it.
The exhortation was what one would have expected on such an occasion -- the Katharinian equivalent of "Cry God for Harry!" -- but it was very heartfelt and moving. Philippa's chaplain said Mass, and when everyone had taken communion they all return'd to their tents to pass an uneasy night.
After sharing some carefully selected wine with their tentmates, Harriet and Sarah lay down to sleep end to end, cuddling each other's bare feet as always. Their 'bed' was really nothing more than a sort of air bag, but with the help of the wine they slept very well.
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS Early the next morning all of the host, Imperial and Katharinian alike, prepared for battle and arranged themselves by regiments and by companies to await the clarion. The girls saw that their Regnalka had bolted her coronet to her helmet. It was the first time that they had seen her wear it.
Father Philip rode up and down their ranks to give them his final blessing and absolution, shaking holy water over their heads as they blest themselves and pray'd that they might have the grace to uphold the honour of their Order in whatever moments of trial they might face.
When the horns finally sounded, echoing and re‰choing for miles, it was a thrilling sound like Gods own judgement descending upon their enemies, and they rode off in glory to execute that judgement, charging forward in close formation with banners waving. Then, within moments, in the midst of their exultation, a nightmare of Chaos broke over them. Bombs began to fall in the midst of them. The fire and smoke and the thunderous noise terrify'd their horses, who had never seen nor heard the like. A few rear'd up and threw their riders, but many more managed to race off for hundreds of yards in random directions before being brought back under control. Regiments were scatter'd and intermingled; but the warriors had been warn'd to expect such thing, and simply turn'd and rode on again towards the enemy lines as soon as the smoke clear'd after each blast. The bombs caused few casualties of themselves -- they were mostly sound and fury and smoke -- but they had a profound effect nonetheless.
Sarah, her sword ready, was riding confidently down upon a shabby looking batch of barbarians only fifty yards in front of her when a bomb burst behind her. Her mount rear'd and threw her, and within moments her foes were upon her. She try'd to rise and face them on her feet, but fell back as a sword struck her gorgett and smasht into her right shoulder. Looking about, she saw that she was alone on the ground, and that the dozen of so heathen surrounding her had something far worse in mind than simply killing her. Suddenly she saw a rider charge out of the smoke on a black horse, and having slain three of her foes from his saddle, prepare to dismount. "O God! Tat, no! There are too many of them!" she heard herself shout, just before she lost consciousness.
Thaddæus Dupa knew that this was what he had been praying for, deep down in that part of his soul where prayers durst not even vest themselves in words. "IN MANIBUS TUISDOMINE," he whisper'd, as he traced a cross over himself and jumpt down into the fray.
Harriet soon lost track of most of her regiment amid the noise and smoke of the bombs, but somehow managed to meet up with Chad. They nodded to each other and kept fairly close thereafter, but made no attempt to converse until suddenly he shouted to her.
"Harriet, look!" he cry'd, pointing and waving as he turnd his horse to the right.
Following his lead, she soon knew why he had hail'd her, for yonder she beheld the Sovereign Mother herself in a desperate situation. Philippa had become separated from all but two of her personal guard, and a swarm of their enemies, including three mounted chiefs, had set upon them.
Philippa fought valiantly, and slew the three riders; but the groundlings were far too many, and her Harriet knew, even as they rode, that they were too late to save the life of their Sovereign.
Still they rode on, both knowing that it was still no less their duty to defend the Crown of Alexandra with their lives, even though the odds seem'd hopeless.
Just as they approacht, however, a badly placed mortar changed the odds in their favour by blasting several of the devils to the ground and scattering many more. They rode in, swords flailing, and quickly cut down most of the rest.
At last only three remain'd, crawling about on all fours like vermin over the body of the fallen Monarch. Chad and Harriet had to dismount to attend to these. Yet even as they did, one of the devils arose, and lifted the sever'd head of Philippa IX, helmet, crown, and all, high above his own.
"Touch not mine Anointed!" Harriet scream'd, giving no conscious thought whatever either to the words that left her lips, or to the perfect overhead swing of her sword that neatly cut off both the unclean hands that had presumed to touch that holy relick. Even in her wrath, she would not have deny'd the mercy stroke, but the devil ran off waving his blood spurting stumps in the air, and she had no intention of following to see where he finally exsanguinated. Chad in the meantime had slain the remaining two. Then another bomb fell behind them and their horses ran off and left them on foot.
"Here, take it and run with it," Harriet insisted, picking up the royal head with a hurry'd reverence and handing it to Chad. "I'll cover you from behind." They ran with sorrow for their fallen Sovereign, but with pride in having upheld the honour of their Order and thanksgiving that God had deliver'd them. Their bare feet barely toucht the ground.
Then another bomb blasted Chad's legs from under him. Coming upon him and seeing that he had made the necessary preparations, Harriet sent him on to his next adventure by striking off his head. As she stood over him to say a silent goodby, her horse found her again. Taking up the head that Chad had held in such proud custody, she rode back to the Katharinian camp to return it to the royal pavilion.
As it happen'd, the bomb that claim'd Chad's life was the last to fall that day, or ever thereafter in the lands of the Katharinians, for a few moments later the Emperor's forces overran the mortar positions and captured the black magician who had devised this devilment for Roxusko's benefit. Roxusko himself, however, had not been seen in that part of the field.
KShena too had lost her bearings amid the bomb blasts, but managed at last to catch sight of her regiment's banner, and riding up to it, was pleas'd to see that their ensign at least had managed to stay with their Regnalka. Only about a dozen had been able to control their frighten'd horses well enough to stay with their commander, and another dozen had found their way back to her. This situation was not unexpected. All had been warned that their horses were likely to shy at sights they had never seen and sounds they had never heard for which their had been no way to prepare them in training. Their orders were to hang on and abide this mischief until the smoke clear'd; and then to regain control and ride towards the front, placing themselves under the command of their nearest superiors if separated from their proper commanders.
The enemy moved forward in waves, each only a few men deep, but a mile or more in length, and each separated from the next by a few hundred yards. The stupidest and worst were sent first, to target those who had been separated from the rest, or thrown from their horses. Although they claim'd a few lives in this way, the Katharinians, closing to defend their comrades, quickly butcher'd them.
Just as KShena reacht her commander's side, however, an hostile band of quite different character approacht them. They number'd about two score, and all were mounted. They wore helmets and some armour and were generally much better turn'd out than the rag-tag shock troops that had been sent to their deaths ahead of them. Their leader, in fact, was quite splendid by the standards of his cohorts. They seem'd to be making directly for the Regnalka, as if attracted by her coronett. The small remnant of her regiment would have been far outnumber'd had not a dozen eunuchs of the Alexandretesten regiment who had lost contact with their own officers seen the impending fight and ridden to the aid of their fellow Katharinians. A half dozen stray imperials, whose bare feet attested that they had once been Timothy's, also join'd them.
The leader of the hostile horsemen rode up to the Regnalka and engaged her in a duel. The fierce sound of their parrying, and even the clatter of their horses hooves, seem'd by some odd power of pre‰minence to be audible above the sounds of the other quite similar conflicts that surrounded them. At last she struck him from his horse with a blow to his side which cut beneath his cuirass and into his bowels. The field was now quiet around her, the rest of this enemy band having already been dispatcht, and the bombs long since silenced.
The Regnalka order'd KShena to dismount and mercifully end the life of her foe by cutting off his head and then to fetch it back to the Katharinian camp. KShena in fact beheaded all of the fallen barbarians who offer'd any signs of life. That was her duty. But this one head was obviously that of a very important man among them. Only later would she learn that it had been Roxusko's.
As far as Margarita could see or hear, the battle was now over; and the cries of the wounded, until moments ago overridden by the pounding of hooves and the clash of steal, now rose up to claim the anguisht attention of the warriors. She rode off to let her heart, her horse, and the hosts of heaven guide her to wherever she might be able to do the most good, having dismist her small band of followers to go and do likewise as each might be moved. * * * * *
At the same time, Father Philip, having set out with a physician of the Order of Preservers and a half dozen young monks from the Island of Peace who had volunteer'd to care for the wounded, came upon Thaddæus and Sarah. It was clear that Tat was the more seriously wounded, and the monks would have carry'd him off first, but the Preserver, having knelt down and examin'd him, motion'd to them to attend to Sarah instead. There was nothing to be done for Thaddæus Dupa. His neck was broken and he had also been partly disemboweled and was now slowly drowning in his own blood; yet he was still conscious and able to speak, though mercifully free of pain.
Despite her own pain, Sarah had moved up next to him so that they could comfort each other. "Thank you for being my brother" she said, as they lifted her onto a litter, knowing that she would not see him again.
"Thank you for being my sister. Take care of Halka."
Sarah's heart hurt her far worse than her smasht shoulder did, but she knew that this was no place for tears. She lookt back at him with a fierce pride.
The physician departed, and Father Philip, who had just given Sarah's hand a reassuring clasp, knelt down beside Thaddæus and heard his confession, and, when his burden of sin was finally lifted, gave him the last rites. Then the priest began to speak in a language he himself had never heard: "PROFICISCERA ANIMA CHRISTIANA DE HOC MVNDO, IN NOMINE DEI PATRIS, QVI CREAVIT TE,..."
Guided by that unseen hand wherein she trusted, Margarita Bhozetsa found her way to the litter that had now borne Sarah some 200 yards from her late found brother.
"Never mind me," she cry'd to her dismounting commander, in the tears that now overwhelm'd her. "Tat's back there and he's hurt really bad. You've got to go to him, Regnalka."
The Regnalka, now dismounted, toucht Sarah's hand and kist her forehead. In the distance, whither Sarah strain'd herself painfully to point, she saw Father Philip bent over the fallen Thaddæus. Seeing that the young priest was not yet finisht, she elected to walk, barefoot across the battlefield, saying her own prayers as she went. Father Philip finisht just as she arrived, and seeing from a slight nod of her head that she wanted to be left alone to give such comfort as was hers to give, he genuflected to her and departed.
She wiped her bare purple toes on the grass and toucht Tat's cheek with them, somehow sensing, though she had not been told, that the rest of him had no feeling. As she did so, Dupa lookt up at the magnificent coronett that surmounted her helmet. Therein was set the headstone of the WALPTRÁ INGMÁ, whose great soul now spoke to her from a world above and beyond her own. A part of her was shockt by what it told her, but she would nonetheless obey. Her royal toes moved down to caress Tat's gorgett. It was that of her own regiment, rather than Timothy's, and she was moved by his choice of it. Bending to kiss his forehead, and drawing upon that gift of composure that her royal birth confer'd, she spoke in a well chosen tone: "You owe me something for that gorgett, Mr.Dupa," she smiled. "I'm having them raw."
He smiled back at her with satisfaction; and then he was gone from her world forever.
Looking down at him, she saw that his once all but black hair was now streakt with gold -- almost like a lion's mane.
He found himself standing before a man whose garments shone brighter even than those of the Preservers, and whose face shone brighter yet. He bent low and cover'd his face.
"Imie I nazwisko?" the bright one demanded, asking his name in clear Polish.
"Dupa, Taddeusz Dupa," he reply'd, still downcast.
"Nie Dupa! Nigdy Dupa! Nie tutaj! Ztotylew! Taddeusz Wtadimir Ztotilew!" the bright one corrected, with a firmness that was thundering, and yet paternal. "Czes'c', Ztoty Lew, twój przodki czekaja ci!"* He turn'd and pointed to an embattled wall beyond them.
Tat recognised it as the wall in front of the lion on his family arms, even as he recognised the motto carved in shining gold letters on the white stones: IN DEO MEO TRANSGREDIAR MVRVM -- "with the help of my God I shall leap over the wall"
He was the lion now, and he bounded over it with ease, into the waiting arms of the father whom he had not seen since he had been two years old, but now instantly recognised.
* "Be honour'd, Golden Lion, thine ancestors await thee."
The trials of the dark Polak were at an end, but the life of his small cousin would hang in the balance for some days. Halka had managed to stay at Olga's side despite the bombs; and when they engaged the enemy she fought like a tigress and cut down two of her foes before a spear tore through her byrne and pierced her just under the ribs on her right side, passing through her liver and diaphragm and into her lung. She fell from her horse, compounding her injury.
Desperate to save her beloved Halka, Olga slew the rest of their foes with a superhuman strength, but when she had hackt off the head of the last, and knelt down beside the little Polka, she could find no vital signs. Throughout the whole of her life, as far back as she could remember, Olga had never been capable of tears -- never untill now.
Quaking and bellowing like an erupting volcano (and, if the truth must be told, honking and bellowing at both ends) the great monster pour'd out her heart to Heaven, recounting to the angels how proud they should be to have so brave and worthy a companion as the little girl who had, for so brief and precious a time, been hers. Olga had had no idea how much she had loved Halka. Now that love, and the pain it brought, came bounding across the barrier of her consciousness, along with all the other loves and joys and sorrows of her life, like an army breaching the walls of a once safe fortress.
Father Philip managed to catch up with the physician and the monks who served him as litter bearers just as they arrived at this scene. It having been determined that Halka just might, if God were willing, be call'd back from the edge of death, she was carefully placed on a litter and carried off towards the ambulance wagon wherein Sarah already lay. Father Philip walkt along on her right, anointing her as they went and praying for her recovery, while Olga went on her left, carrying on with all the horrendous histrionics of a monstrous megasuprano lifting a low budget opera from the depths of tragedy to the height of farce.
The Regnalka, now remounted, still savour'd the bitter taste of the quite exceptional arrangement whereby Thaddæus, his bare feet red fron the blood of his slain foes, had been made forever a Katharinian.
Hearing Olga's loud lament, she was moved to investigate this odd procession; but when she saw the body of the little girl who had, by her own dispensation, been gorgetted as a bhozamaga, she was moved to such tears as had the bitterness of a grief deeply tinged with guilt.
Harriet rode up to the splendid pavilion which had been that of Philippa IX, not knowing what she would do, nor what would happen when she arrived there. She fear'd that she would be taken for a regicide. Every moment she expected that in the next she would be met by the blue footed patricians of the royal guard, who might well slay her on the spot as soon as they saw that she held, with common, bloodstain'd hands, the crown that even they scarcely durst look upon.
She hitcht her horse and enter'd; but no one met her. Perhaps the guards were watching. She durst not look to see. Lifting the head high above her own, she walkt up and placed it upon the throne. She then prostrated herself before it, praying aloud in the changeless speech that God might have mercy upon the soul of Philippa IX, that He might bless and prosper the reign of Alexandra XVI, and that he might forgive Harriet Bronwynn for having held in her unclean hands the holy crown of Alexandra I.
As soon as she had finisht this prayer, her new Sovereign, having padded up in silence to stand over her, bad her arise.
Lifting herself at first only to her knees, Harriet kist the royal hands and feet, her silent tears falling over then.
Alexandra XVI, Sovereign Mother of the Most Holy Order of St. Katharine the Barefooted, and thus Queen of all the Lands North of the Break by the Grace, and, thankfully in this case, the very clear and undisputed election of Almighty God, took Harriet's hand; and, drawing her to her feet, gave her the blessing of her purple toes, swearing by the very crown that Harriet had saved that her bare feet would be dyed blue on the selfsame day that her Sovereign's would be dyed the Royal Magenta that would set her apart from all her subjects.
When Harriet finally found her own commander outside the Medical Pavilion, she was thus fairly pregnant with the news that she brought -- untill she saw Sarah and Halka being offloaded from the ambulance wagon. Concern for those now at the gates of death dampen'd all eagerness to tell or to hear the tales of those who had already past through them. Only when they had watcht the physicians sedate Sarah into a sleep whence she would not awaken for three days, did they speak at last of the dead.
A few hours later Conrad met them. He had fought well and slain several, but had no great news to relate. He had come to this pavilion to see Regis, who had been thrown from his horse when the first bombs fell and had so re‹njured his bad knee that there was no question of his ever riding again. Conrad was to late to talk with his already sedated uncle, but listen'd in sadness as the Regnalka told him that Dupa was dead and that Halka was even then in surgery. He made a point of stopping by Sarah's bed even though she was in a deep sheep. It was clear now that Sarah's shoulder had been ruin'd beyond repair, and that she had been dead but for her gorgett.
Conrad would have liked to spend more time with Harriet and the Regnalka, but he was met at Sarah's bedside by an Imperial Herald who insisted that he come away immediately.
A moment later a young monk approacht the Regnalka to say that one of the eunuchs in her regiment was dying and had askt for her. She and her little party follow'd this sad messenger to the eunuch's bedside. She motion'd them away, and knelt down beside him alone. She held his hand and they appear'd to exchange a few words before he died. When she came away from the bedside her eyes were full of tears and she bit her lip so hard that it bled; yet she made no sound at all.
"It was him, wasn't it?" askt Harriet softly as she drew up next to her commander, "The one you told us about? I spoke with him once. He was nice." She knew how the Regnalka must be hurting and she long'd to throw her arms around her; but that barrier of rank, which had often seem'd no more than a light veil, now stood between them like a wall of ice. A superior might comfort a subordinate, but she could never permitt things to go the other way.
Fortunately for Margarita Bhozetsa, her orderly Karena, as a personal servant, could claim an exception to this rule and take her mistress in hand at such a time, clutching the royal head to her breast that the healing tears might flow. Margarita thankt God for having kept Karena safe for her.
Katharinian losses had been much heavier in the final
battle than in all the previous battles combined. All told, almost a
quarter of the order's active fighting force, or nearly one in seven of
its total members, had been lost during the war, and an equal number at
least temporarily disabled. Among the Regnalk na the losses had been
even heavier, for of the 28 of them who had seen the start of this war,
only 17 saw the end of it. The final battle had claim'd five of their
lives (Maria, Justinia, Constantia, Lucia, and Paula) as well as that of
their Sovereign Mother.
Philippa had also foreseen an even greater problem within the Royal family. The senior lines, descended from Paula the Prolific had been dying out for some time; and all future hope of Paula's progeny had been lost when the Regnalka Augusta's mother and two elder sisters were butcher'd along with her at Philipisa. The order of succession among the more distant Regnalk na was open to question, but it now seem'd almost certain that a claim to the throne would someday be made by a most unworthy branch of the Bhozetsa family who dwelt in the far off city of Leonisa.
The matriarch of this nasty little clan had provided for herself by marrying the prince of Leonissa; and her daughters had provided for themselves by murdering the male cousins who should have succeeded to their father's dukedom. The Regnalkána Katherine and Elizabeth were a very wicked pair of sisters. Bound together by a perverse relationship which defiled both senses of their sisterhood, they were infamous for every vice, including that of the Isidor‘. Alexandra XV had banisht them from Katharintisten, and they had not been seen since by any respectable regnalkána.
Although it was not all that likely that either of these now middle aged sisters might come to the throne and hold it for any time; their two nieces, Michæla and Patricia, had somehow managed such a pretence of virtue as to gain them admission into the Order. Philippa had insisted that they remain under her supervision and they had in fact been present at the final battle. Their survival was generally counted as a misfortune, as it was now apparent that this pair of nasty little lesbians were imitating their notorious aunts in more ways than anyone wanted to imagine.
Philippa IX had imagined the very real possibility that one of them might someday claim the throne. This claim would be clouded, both by the fact that they were soon likely to be banisht even as their aunts had been, and by an ambiguity in the law of succession that had never properly been resolved.
Philippa had also dreamt that she would die in the final battle, and that her realm would be torn by a war of succession 20 years later. In light of this premonition she had added an edict to her exhortation which added much to the already heavy burden carried by Margarita. Philippa decreed, in carefull and unambiguous detail, an amendment (or, as she saw it, a clarification) to the Katharinian law of succession.
The general force of her proclamation was to give secondary consanguinities through male lines precedence over primogeniturial seniority in determining the order of succession among the Regnalkána whose degree of primary, female line consanguinity to the Sovereign Mother was fully equal.
The effect, from the point of view of the Regnalka Margarita was that, upon the accession of Alexandra XVI, she found herself only 7th in the order of succession; and this was clearly reäfirm'd by the new Sovereign in her first formal address to the order. By the formula hitherto favour'd by the Archbishop of Alexandretisten, but upon which there had never been anything like universal agreement, she had been 23rd at the start of the war, and would have been 11th now. She and Phillipa, however, in addition to being 3rd cousins in the direct female line, also shared a common greatgrandfather, and were thus also 2nd cousins by the sort of secondary consanguinity' that the new proclamation recognised. Since Katharine and Elizabeth had no secondary consanguinities, whereby they were closer than 5th cousins to Philippa, Margarita would have to be prefer'd ahead of them by any system taking account of such things. As the primary beneficiary of this proclamation, Margarita was placed in an uncomfortable position.
Conrad rode with the herald who had summon'd him until he found himself in front of a grand pavilion not far from the camp of his own regiment. By its banners he recognised it as that of Prince Jacob, the Emperor's younger brother, and the commander of the leading regiment of the task force that had included his own. As Conrad and the herald tied their horses, Andrew stept out of the pavilion to meet them.
"Well, Conrad,", he greated him in an ominous tone, "I see that by God's grace you are still in one peace"
"Andrew!" he responded, glad to see his old friend, but sensing that bad news awaited him. "Have you found Freeman?"
"Yes," said the old Preserver, "we think so; but there are some things that I must tell you before you go in there."
"The Emperor was very badly wounded this morning by a blow to the back of the head. His helmet saved his life, but his skull was fractured nonetheless. He is in one of the smaller pavilions behind us with a physician looking after him. I am told that he will probably survive, but there is no telling in what state. He regain'd consciousness for a while, if one might call it that, but he could not speak and appear'd not to be able to see. Prince Ponderpent has proclaim'd himself regent with his uncle's full approval.
The Prince Regent, in fact, is even now waiting to see you in his uncle's pavilion. We've won the war, Conrad, but it has been a very bad morning just the same. You may have heard that the Sovereign mother was kill'd."
Contrad blest himself with a slow nod and a sad smile; and then spoke with an uncomfortable impatience: "Yes, but why me?" he askt, "Why should the Regent want to speak with me?"
"Well, for one thing, to tell you that your regiment is being disbanded and absorbed by Prince Jacob's, but also to inform you that you and I together are to have charge of interrogating Freeman; -- and -- something else -- but I must let you hear that from the Prince Regent himself."
Entering the pavilion at last, Conrad rather wisht that he had not had the benifit of Andrew's briefing. It had only given him an uncomfortable sense of foreboding which was sure to disturb his ability to concentrate on what the Regent would say to him. He genuflected, first to the Regent and then to prince Jacob, and told them, formally, but nonetheless sincerely, how honour'd he was to be there.
The first part of what the Regent had to say was indeed only a more formal statement of the things that Andrew had mention'd, but his orders concerning Freeman went further: Conrad was indeed expected to take part in the interrogation, but he had also been chosen to personally cut off Freeman's head the next morning.
These final words struck Conrad with such force that he had all he could do to keep his jaw from dropping open; but he quickly regain'd his wits and nodded his assent. Then, when the Regent rose slightly to dismiss him, he stept foreward, and taking the royal that was extended to him, kist it and genuflected. He backt out of the room with head bow'd.
Walking out of the pavilion, he took comfort in the fact that Andrew had waited for him, but for a time neither spoke.
"How sure are you that we have him?"Conrad at last began.
"Fairly sure. I haven't seen him myself; but Prince Jacob is sure that the fellow thay have had charge of the mortars."
"Very much his way," nodded Conrad grimly, "He always try'd to put himself at the front of everything. Always in the school paper, from what I remember. Well, where is he, and when do we start? I don't think I caught that part."
"They tell me that he's in an old building not far from here that they've managed to convert into a sort of prison. They must have hundreds of the devils there. Nothing I look forward to either," said Andrew flatly, "but it can wait untill we've had something to eat."
The field mess was a simple one -- some mutton stew, bread, and wine. They went off to eat by themselves.
"This other business..." began Conrad nervously, finally getting to what was really bothering him, "...this business of my having to take off Freeman's head in the morning...I suppose I have no choice about that?"
"None whatever, I'm afraid," answer'd Andrew, not looking at him. "That had already been determined by the Emperor himself." He paused for a moment and then continued: "I know the question you want to ask, Conrad: Why?' Why must he die, and why must you kill him?"
"I know the answer to the first."
"And you must learn for yourself the answer to the second." Andrew nodded."I think you will know after tomorrow."
They spoke no more.
The herald met them again and took them to a very large and very old stone building. Redone many times over the centuries, and now at last a prison, it was quite impossible to say what purpose it may originally have served. Most of those held within were chain'd together and kept in a great hall to await a mass beheading in the morning. Priests and preservers still moved among them with urgency, but most who were fit for a milder fate had already been separated out.
Andrew and Conrad were led past this sad lot to a small room wherein a single prisoner was chain'd by himself and kept under heavy guard. The man turn'd to face them as the door was open'd, and Conrad instantly recognised his former schoolmate. Forebearing to use English, he affirm'd to Andrew in the Changeless Speech that this was indeed Jeff Freeman. Jeff, with a J' and two ff's, he thought to himself, formerly of Stephendale. Damn. He had half hoped that it might not be -- that this might be some nameless barbarian, and that the real Jeff Freeman might be safely dead back there on the battlefield. Now his destiny was closing in on him, and he saw that it was about to speak.
"I know you!" he said pointing. "Your name is Conrad, isn't it? Yes! Conrad Kingslynn. You were at St. Dunstan's, right? And at Stephendale. What are you doing here? How did you get here?" the prisoner demanded.
Conrad was very much taken aback by what he took as a bad attempt to appeal to a former relationship. He stared at Freeman coldly for a long moment before replying. "I was brought here," -- he paused to consider for another moment -- "by those in legitimate authority."
"By whom? -- and by what 'legitimate authority'?"
"By me," declared Andrew forcefully, "and it is I, Mr. Freeman, who shall be asking the questions here , and you who shall be answering them. Now you tell me, Mr. Freeman: How did you happen to come to our world?"
"I have no intention of telling you anything."
"I can get around your intentions', if need be, Jeff; but that's not the way I like to do things; so please, coöperate with us."
"Or else what? Will you torture me? Threaten me? Promise me my life? What? Kill me if you like, but see if I say anything."
"Listen to me carefully, Mr. Freeman: You will be executed tomorrow morning no matter what happens here now. It is not in my power to spare your life. As to my torturing you, or threatining you with some suffering: I suppose that I might do such a thing if I found it necessary, but I honestly can't imagine any case wherein it might be necessary, and I can assure you that it will not be necessary in yours."
"I'm as good as dead then. Is that what you're telling me?" askt Freeman, as Andrew nodded grimly. "Well, if that's so, why the hell should I tell you anything? Huh? Why?"
"Because the only choice that will be yours to make is whether you want to tell me your own story in your own words from your own point of view -- the way I'd like to hear it -- or to have me virtually take the truth from you word by word."
"You'll hear nothing from me," reply'd Freeman defiantly.
"Fine then, we'll try it the other way. Now tell me:" he commanded, "Who brought you to our world?"
"Priscilla," came the almost mechanical reply.
"Who is this Priscilla?" prest Andrew.
"Priscillæng...naked...witch...one hand."
"Why have you now decided to answer my questions?"
"I did not decide. You are forcing me."
"Have I made my point then?"
Freeman grimaced. "What do you want to know?'
"How you came to our world; why you came to our worldl; and what you've been doing here;" enumerated Andrew, smiling politely, "but first, let's take a moment to make ourselves more comfortable, shall we?" He then order'd the guards to unchain the prisoner and bring in three chairs, and finally to remove themselves and wait outside.
"Where do you want me to start?"
"How did you come to meet Priscillæng?"
"Through my girlfriend."
"Robyn Hillman?"
"Yes. How did you...?"
"Tell me how you met Robyn, and how long ago," demanded Andrew, waving Freeman's question aside, "and go on thence."
"It was last year at the start of the second term. I was in the SDS and she came to a meeting. She was a firstyear and lived in town with her parents. Told me what a drag that was, and how she wanted to move out, and what hypocrytes her parents were, and how great the SDS was, and how great it was that I was doing Chemistry -- as if she knew anything about any of that. Pretty plastick really, but then most girls are, aren't they? Anyway, I took her up to my room that night and we started seeing each other all the time. She seem'd to be a good head -- or at least she gave good head -- but then things started to change.
"She moved into the art building -- sort of unofficially I mean -- it wasn't meant to ever have anybody actually living in it, but it had all these weird unused spaces, not what you'd really call rooms, just empty spaces between the walls. The architect had done some really far out things there.
"Anyway then she started telling me about this Priscilla person that she was spending time with there. Lived in one of those damn little holes herself. Never left the building. Royden's mistress, or so people said, but she liked girls too. Really weird. Workt as a nude model, never left the building, no clothes ever, and no right hand -- just a stump with a golden cap over it. Robyn was totally gone over that. Fucking witch gave her some shit about how she had been at some sort of peace rally and wanted to to something as a protest and that was it -- she just up and did it -- cut off her own right hand -- ugh -- who the fuck nows -- Priscillæng had a different story for everyone. Anyway, Robyn ate the hand thing right up. She just worshipt that damn whore -- couldn't get enough of her...oh shit...neither could I, not once she had started on me." Freeman was up and pacing about the room. He seem'd, in his distress over these ghosts from the past, even to have forgotten the doom he would face in the mornin.
Andrew drew a flask from under his cloak, and call'd to a guard to fetch some glasses. "Priscillæng told a great many lies, and cast a great many spells," he said as he handed Freeman a glass of wine. "Have some of this and continue."
The prisoner drank the wine gratefully, and then returnd to his grim tale: "I thought once the really heavy Lesbian shit started that I was through with Robyn, and that she was through with me; but Robyn had different ideas -- or someone did. Robyn did stay away for a while -- maybe a month or so -- but then she insisted on seeing me again; and as soon as she could get me by the hand she practically pull'd me to that damn art building. The next thing I knew, I was in one of those stupid, odd shaped little spaces with both of them -- Robyn and Priscillæng together -- and before I had time to think, we were all naked as that damn witch under a pile of whatever it was that served the two of them for bedding, and we were all having sex. I'd never done anything like that before -- not with two women. The whole thing got more and more unreal -- like we were all on acid or something -- but I dont think I had done anything like that. And then... well... it seem'd to go on for hours -- just warm and naked under the covers -- and damn it, that witch was good at what she did. Then it was over, and there was a light, candle light in a large room; and well... we weren't in the art building anymore.
"Priscillæng was obviously in charge of wheatever place were in, but I wouldn't know where it was. My guess would be somewhere in Roxusko's country. I cant tell you either how long she kept us there -- maybe days, maybe weeks, maybe months. I lost all track of time. I think I lost track of just about everything. She sang her songa and wove her spells and told me how important I was, how I somehow had the knowledge to set a world free. I hardly could have thought that I myself was not free.
"It's all so much more like a dream than like anything real. You expect the truth of me, but now that I call them up for you, all my memories are nonsense," Freeman laught. "Funny, isn't it? You son of a bitch. I'm just as useless to you now being coöperative as I was being defiant."
"It's more or less what I expected. Never mind. Go on." The old Preserver smiled as the prisoner refill'd his glass.
"Well one day...or one night...however or whenever...I mean...it all changed. Well, damn it..."
"You were an eunuch," Andrew said firmly, knowing what Freeman was trying to say.
"Yes," he he said heavilly, "and Robyn was dead."
"How?"
"I don't know. Sometimes I kill'd her. Sometimes the witch kill'd her. Sometimes she kill'd herself. Sometimes... no, it's all too horrible, and none of it makes sense. The witch had an hundred stories. Could they all have been true? How did I loose my balls? Did I cut them off myself? Did the witch do it?-- or maybe Robyn? Maybe you can tell me."
"Well, Mr. Freeman," said Andrew indulgently, "maybe I can. Let me begin by telling you that Priscillæng belonged to an enclosed order dedicated to service and to healing, a noble calling which she in every way disgraced and perverted. Her years in this order had given her a deep knowledge of spells and potions, and other things one might call magick; and it was for her misuse of these skills that she had been condemn'd to have her hand cut off. It is now clear that she had quite deliberately placed herself in such a position as to incur this punishment, and that she she would have been quite capable of cutting off the hand herself had that better served the purposes of her witchcraft. You were quite correct in refering to priscillæng as a witch, and I would suggest that what you were just attempting to recall was a repettion of an evil sacrifice that was first performed many centuries ago. The fact that your recollection of it was confused does not surprise me in the least. Priscillæng would certainly have wanted to becloud your memory of it. She would have had no trouble at all arranging both the events themselves and your subsequent recollection of them to suit her own purposes.
"I am fairly certain, Mr. Freeman, that you quite willingly cut off your own testicles and handed them to Priscillæng at her command. She would have made the actual process quite painless -- the better to leave you with several totally different memories of it. She would then have taken your testicles and soakt them in a pungent black liquid before giving them to Robyn to eat.
"I am sure that Robyn too would have play'd her part without question. Then Priscillæng would have engaged in some sort of sexual act with Robyn, during the course of which Robyn would have died. This final sexual act would probably have been one of very violent passion, and might well have included some ritual mutilation and perhaps cannibalism. The name of Isidora Panpá would doubtless have been invoked."
Freeman's contenance changed as Andrew spoke, going from fearfull disgust to sad nodding assent, to proud defiance. "I must say, Professor:" said the previously dejected prisoner with a wicked smile that seem'd foreign to the face that wore it, "You don't seem to need any help from me at all, do you? You think you've got it all down pat, don't you? Get the contrite schoolboy to blame the wicked witch before you cut off his head: Is that it?
"We are all one, Dr. Gregory, you stupid shit. Robyn, Priscillæng, and Jeff. I live for all of them, and they all live in me. Robyn chose to die the way she did, and I chose to cut off my balls for her, just as Priscillæng chose to have her hand cut off. Each of us sacrificed with pleasure, and each shared in the sacrifices of the others."
"Go back to Hell, witch," commanded Andrew in English, before pronouncing an excorcism in the Changeless Speech.
Then Jeff Freeman again stood before them, as what was left of his natural self. Andrew drew a deep breath, and then continued: "Let's go on to the next question, shall we, Mr. Freeman: Had Priscillæng, to your knowledge, ever taken anyone from your world other than Robyn and yourself?"
"None that I ever heard of," he reply'd flatly.
"When did you furst meet Roxusko?"
"When? Shit. I don't know. Some weeks later."
"What was happening in the meanwhile?"
"Priscillæng took me as her lover. She taught me Roxusko's language. She sang it to me and I knew it. She confided in me. She taught me how to ingratiate myself to him. She said that when we had won the war we would have done with that barbarian, and she and I would set up a peoples government together."
"She and you," nodded Andrew.
"Yes, she and I. Who else? These poor wretches have known only oppression. How could they govern themselves?"
"Did Roxusko have any other advisors?"
"Only barbarians, cannibals, idiots. I was the only scientist, the only political theorist, the only idealist."
"Thank you, Mr. Freeman, we have no more questions."
"Well, I have one for you: How and when do I die. Shall I be beheaded like Priscillæng was? Oh yes, I felt that with her. She died without any place to die, in the void between worlds. Do you plan the same for me?"
"Not quite so exotick as that," quipt Andrew with a contrived cheerfullness, "but you will be beheaded. In fact Mr. Kingslynn here will do the honours himself tomorrow morning. You will die in this world, and unless you make your piece with God first, your remains will be burnt with this world's dung"
"You?" he sneer'd, looking at Conrad. "In cold blood, no less. Well, that I must see. As to your God, you can grovel to Him yourselves. I will no more kneel before any god than I will kneel before any king."
"Am I to soppose, then, that you never knelt before Roxusko?" askt Andrew sarcastickly, "-- or don't would-be kings count here?"
"Oh, you have no idea what I had to do to please that filthy bastard; but I did what I had to do. That was different. We needed him. He was our only chance to smash this stinking empire of yours and set the people free -- and we almost did it. I have no regrets about sucking up to Roxusko. Would you like to know how we had plan'd for him to die?" reply'd the prisoner, savouring the last word.
"I wonder how Priscillæng had plan'd for you to die, Mr. Freeman," mused Andrew. "However she plan'd to dispose of your wretched body when she no longer had need of you -- and believe me, that day would soon have come -- I doubt if she would have cared a damn about what became of your soul. You have seen far too much to remain a materialist, Mr. Freeman. Please think about that. You stand to loose far more than you have lost already."
Freeman spat and blasphemed.
Andrew took Conrad by the arm and led him out of the room, instructing the guards to reënter and return the prisoner to his chains.
"Well," said Conrad with grim relief, "It's certainly clear now that he can't be left alive."
"If you mean because of Priscillæng," caution'd Andrew, "we have no way to know that her evil will end with him."
"Well, I suppose not, but still...."
"But nothing, Conrad," interupted Andrew sternly. "Stop trying to justify a decision that was never yours to make. A subject has only two choices: either to obey without question; or to repudiate his allegiance."
Conrad was tempted for a moment to ask the old Preserver if there might not at times be some middle ground; but something told him that only a fool from the Parent World would ask such a question; so he nodded his grim but not ungratefull assent and parted company, mounting his horse and riding off to the camp of the Katharinians to find Harriet. He needed both her professional and her sisterly advice, for sure as he was that the Emperor had chosen him as executioner primarily as a test of his loyalty, he was nonetheless afraid that he might fail in his duty in one of the several ways that would have nothing whatever to do with his intelectual committment to it.
He was fortunate enough to find her very quickly. They went for a long walk and talkt for hours.
"I've often dreampt about it happening that way," he said at last, "but I never took those dreams litterally. I suppose I try'd to prepare myself to take off his head with a sword on the block; but I always thought that it would really happen in battle -- you know -- something heroick'-- stupid of me I guess. I don'd know, Harriet, but I'm scared and I can't tell anyone but you. I'm afraid that I might run away; or freeze and not be able to strike; or worst of all, strike and miss and only wound him, and have to strike again.
"You won't do any of those things, Conrad," she insisted firmly. "You'll raise your sword and bring it down and strike his head clean off."
"But you've done it so many times. It's easy for you."
"It was just as hard for me the first time; but I listen'd to KShena. Now you listen to me: Don't think about Freeman at all. Just think about the ground -- firm under your bare feet -- and the sword balanced over your head; and think about burying that sword in the wood of the block after it has past clean through his neck."
THE BAREFOOT GIRLS Harriet stood at the front of the crowd the next morning as Conrad stood over Feeeman at the block. Freeman had already told the priest that he would see him in hell; and Conrad knew that the moment had come to send him thither. He thought of Harriet and felt her join her mind to his. He raised his sword and struck. The broad, blood quencht blade bury'd itself in the oaken block by a full inch, and the once reluctant executioner watcht a world roll away on the scaffold.
There, Conrad knew, lay stricken from his world forever all the grand ideas his children would never learn about, nor ever hear debated. He thought of the last lecture that he had attended at Stephendale: Johnson going on about Wilson. What would either of them think of Conrad Kingslynn now that he had made his final choice to obey his Emperor and strike the final blow to keep a world safe for Autocracy. He walkt away, willing to let some other fool play Arthur to his grim Excalibar.
Conrad was call'd back to Prince Jacob's pavillion once again that afternoon. Prince Ponderpent handed him back his sword, now clean'd and polisht, and apologized for having had to put him to such a distastefull test of his loyalties. The Emperor had had plans for Conrad, however, and had had to know. Conrad now realised that he himself had had to know as well. Now he was to be given a patrician rank so that he would have, if need be, unquestion'd access to the Imperial throne. His experience had been an unique one, and might prove valuable in future; but meanwhile Prince Jacob would have the benifit of his experience as a staff officer.
Harriet Bronwynn sat alone on her bed in the room that she had shared with Sarah in the Palace of St. Katharine. A month had gone by since the great battle, and it had been a month of loneliness for her, but she had just been assured by the physicians at the Embassy that Sarah would be back with her the next evening. Sarah would never fight again, and perhaps never ride. Her shoulder was paralysed, and ruin'd beyond repair; and she had to keep her arm in a special sling to keep it from dislocating; yet she still had full use of her arm and hand, and could still paint; and the next time that she painted a portrait of herself and Harriet she would be painting their bare feet blue.
