hand and foot to a pole. Yen Olass recognized him without any troubled at all: Volaine Persaga Haveros, sometime Lord Commander of the Imperial City of Gendormargensis. A violent argument was going on as to what should be done with him.
The argument ended when Lord Alagrace arrived.
'Cut him loose!' said Lord Alagrace.
Men with knives went to work. They sliced away the ropes and removed the gag from his mouth. Haveros lay in the mud with the rain falling on his face; he looked dazed, stupid. Lord Alagrace looked around. Yen Olass tried to shrink back into the crowd, but failed.
'You!' said Lord Alagrace. 'Make yourself useful. Give him some water.’
Yen Olass knelt down and began feeding Haveros some water. As he suckled on the half-empty skin, she wondered, belatedly, whether he would catch any terrible disease, as the Melski monster Hor-hor-hurulg-murg had already drunk from the same water skin.
Another woman joined Yen Olass. It was the Princess Quenerain. This high-born lady knelt down in the mud and began to massage the captive's hands, to get the circulation going. Ropes had cut deep into the skin, leaving ugly red marks, as if he had been branded.
'Haveros!' said a voice.
Yen Olass recognised that voice. It was General Chonjara. A moment later, the general grabbed her by the shoulders, pulled her away from Haveros and threw her backwards. Yen Olass landed heavily.
'Chonjara!' said Lord Alagrace. 'Have you gone mad?’
But the general paid no attention. He grabbed the Princess Quenerain by the scruff of the neck and pushed her aside. Then he drew his sword and raised it high, to strike the executioner's blow. Haveros lay helpless, waiting.
'No!' screamed the Princess Quenerain.
She punched Chonjara in the armpit. Soldiers leapt forward to overpower the general, dragging him to the ground and disarming him. Taken from behind, his sword-arm momentarily disabled by that punch to the armpit, he could do little to defend himself.
Yen Olass, still lying on the ground – she judged that was the safest place to be for the moment – was impressed. She had not credited the Princess Quenerain with enough physical initiative to take on a mouse, far less a warlord.
Lord Alagrace was calling for order. Haveros was trying to sit up. And Chonjara – struggling, biting, kicking, swearing, spitting – was going quite red in the face. How very interesting. Yen Olass propped herself up on one arm so she could get a better view.
'Are you hurt?' said a man, squatting down beside her.
She smelt his strength. It was Karahaj Nan Nulador, Chonjara's bodyguard. Although he was pledged to his master, Nan Nulador was not expected or required to assist him against a senior commander like Lord Alagrace – that would have been treason.
'I'll live,' said Yen Olass, unable to resist dramatizing her plight just a little bit. She allowed Nan Nulador to help her to her feet.
Chonjara, giving up the struggle to break free, gasped for air then shouted:
'Kill the traitor!’
'That's enough!' said Lord Alagrace. 'A traitor!' shouted Chonjara. 'Standing with the enemy! Kill him!’
Volaine Persaga Haveros, now sitting upright, turned his head to one side. He vomited. The Princess Quenerain tried to help him up, but he lacked the strength to stand.
'Behold!' shouted Lord Alagrace. 'The resident interpolator sent to the imperial province of Estar by the Lord Emperor Khmar.’
'A spy?' said Chonjara, incredulously. 'A spy? Sent here by Khmar? Would the emperor recruit such a man? After what he did in Gendormargensis? Take your filthy hands off me, you whoredog chickenlice!’
The soldiers holding Chonjara released him.
'Who told you to let him go?' said Lord Alagrace, more than a little frightened to see his authority so rapidly eroded. 'Seize him!’
A soldier made a tentative effort to take hold of the general, but Chonjara knocked him aside, and nobody else took up the challenge.
'Look at that,' said Chonjara, pointing at Haveros. 'That, an imperial servant? That's a drunk. A traitor. Whoring his favour to an enemy power.’
Haveros croaked.
'Poisoned,' said Haveros.
'Poisoned!' said Chonjara. 'Drunk – that's the word.' Lord Alagrace looked around.
'Who brought Haveros here? Who carried him here on the pole? You? Then tell us – how was Haveros taken?’
'The cavalry took him, sir. He was riding out of Lor-ford, on a horse. Captured, he claimed imperial warrant. Saying what you claim for him, sir. A security marshal gave him some nataquat to keep him quiet.’
'You hear that?' said Lord Alagrace, turning on Chonjara. 'He's not drunk, he's been doped with nataquat. You hear that? And he told his story before I told it for him. Understand? He's not the traitor – you are! You've defied my authority. You've defied your superior commander on the field of battle.’
This was said in a parade-ground bellow. Fear made Lord Alagrace vicious. He was acutely aware that his most senior officers were Yarglat clansmen. In a crisis, there was always the chance they would turn against him – the last survivor of the High Houses of Sharla.
Having seen his own authority stolen from him, and his men brought to the point of mutiny, Lord Alagrace was not about to give any quarter now that the power struggle had turned in his favour.
'Khmar sent this man!' said Lord Alagrace, invoking the power of the Lord Emperor. 'Just as Khmar sent me. Who here disobeys Khmar. Do you? And you? No? Then take him!’
On his command, men laid rough hands on Chonjara, who put up only a token resistance. Best to finish the business now. Take Chonjara's head, before he could put it together with his cronies and cook up a full-scale rebellion.
'Traitor,' said Lord Alagrace, addressing Chonjara, 'I find you guilty of treasonous mutiny, and sentence you-’
'I demand a reading.’
'And sentence you-’
'A reading! That's my right! I demand a reading! Bear witness, he denies me my rights! He's trying to have me killed before the truth can be heard! I demand a reading!’
There was an ugly muttering from the crowd. Lord Alagrace looked around to read the surrounding faces. He saw that if he ordered someone to kill Chonjara, he would not be obeyed. His hand went to the hilt of his sword – and was restrained.
'No,' said Karahaj Nan Nulador.
'As you wish,' said Lord Alagrace.
Lord Alagrace did not believe the stories that Nan Nulador could crush rocks with his bare hands, but he was glad when Chonjara's bodyguard eased his grip. He shook himself free.
'You realize,' said Lord Alagrace, quietly, 'this is mutiny.’
'What law says you can murder him?' said Nan Nulador.
While Chonjara's bodyguard was not one of the brightest lights in the intellectual firmament, he was not as ignorant as some people took him to be. He knew that Lord Alagrace had no authority to kill a man out of hand.
'Very well,' said Lord Alagrace. 'The forms will be obeyed.’
He turned to Yen Olass, hoping she would give him a 158
quick reading so he could get Chonjara killed. Or, alternatively, perhaps she could find some way to deny Chonjara a reading.
'Oracle,' said Lord Alagrace. 'This man asks for a reading. Is he entitled to a reading?' 'He is,' said Nan Nulador.
He was right, and Yen Olass, hearing him, knew that he knew he was right.
