died on the battlements of Castle Vaunting. Out of hate, superstition, jealousy, and, in some cases, a genuine desire for justice, they decided that he would be stoned to death with the women.
All things being equal, their commanders would have 182
talked them out of it. However, all things were not equal. Chonjara dearly wanted to see Haveros dead. Chonjara remembered his father dying of a heart attack in the Enskandalon Square in Gendormargensis; before he expired, the old man had begged his son to come and help him. Thanks to the old combat rule invoked by Haveros, Chonjara had been unable to take a single step toward him. Chonjara wanted Haveros dead, and Chonjara's lobby was a powerful one.
Lord Alagrace saw only one way to save any of the three. Remembering how he had saved Haveros in Gendormargensis by getting a dralkosh to claim responsibility, he went and spoke to Yen Olass Ampadara:
'Admit your guilt. Admit that you're the one to blame. Say you bewitched the others. Say you dreamed their dreams for them. Say it's your fault.’
'But it's not,' said Yen Olass.
Unlike the dralkosh in Gendormargensis, Yen Olass had no child for Lord Alagrace to hold to ransom.
'I'm asking you to do this because I saved your life on the Yangrit Highway.’
'Saved my life!’
'You were a runaway slave, yet I spared you.’
'Tratz! I saved my life! In front of Khmar, I spoke for my life. Now you want me to save your life as well. That's not how it works. It's for you to save us, all of us, not for us to save you.’
'I'm not asking you to save me, I'm asking-’
'You want me to save Quenerain to stop Khmar skinning you alive. I want to save me! I want to live! I'm Yen Olass Ampadara, I have my own life, I'm me, I want to live. And Khmar will-’
'You must realize-’
'I must realize that I can't be there to see it, but that won't stop it happening. I hope he starts with your testicles.’
After a long and very distressing interview in Lord Alagrace's private sleeping tent – Yen Olass painted such a vivid picture of Khmar pulling his toenails out and biting his testicles off that Alagrace began to wonder if she really was a dralkosh – Yen Olass was taken back to the other prisoners.
And Lord Alagrace…
… did nothing.
Because it had already occurred to him that, since Chonjara had been able to secure a death sentence for Haveros, he might be able to do the same for Lord Alagrace, who was generally known to have had a long association with the oracle Yen Olass Ampadara.
The three prisoners were kept in a tent through the dying hours of the day and all through the night. They were not tied up, but there was no chance of escape: the tent was ringed with campfires and an ever-changing audience of men, talking, drinking, gambling. This time, there was no talk of rape, because now there was genuine fear mixed with the hatred; by the time the men had shared the true stories, the gossip and the rumours, there were few who believed the condemned women to be safe to touch.
For his part, Lord Alagrace became convinced that Yen Olass had used sorcery against him, because he woke in the night after enduring terrifying dreams of desexing and torture. He woke just in time to strangle a scream in his throat; for a few moments he was convinced that the Lord Emperor Khmar was actually in his tent.
Truth to tell, Yen Olass had done her very best to slip suggestions into his mind. She had succeeded in giving him nightmares, but had failed to compel him to action. When they had confronted each other, both had been very angry and, in their separate ways, very frightened; Lord Alagrace, all his energies mobilized for argument, had been a poor subject for skills of mind control which work best when the subject is relaxed, unsuspecting and concentrating on something else. Yen Olass, her skill rising briefly to genius, had planted suggestions which now conjured up the very shadow of the Lord Emperor Khmar in Lord Alagrace's tent. But Khmar was far, far away; Chonjara and the army were very close…
Morning came.
Signals came from the battlements: no food, running out of water, heavy casualities, our wounded are suffering.
Nothing could be done to help.
The mood of the army was grim, cold, hostile. The three condemned prisoners were hustled down to the Hollern River and pushed into the shallows just upstream of the bridge. Men lined both banks and the bridge itself. Those who had gambled for the privilege of casting the first stones chose their rocks.
Yen Olass Ampadara, her eyes red with crying, stood ankle-deep in the water. She looked around for Karahaj Nan Nulador, her only hope. She did not see him. And in any case, what could he have done? Nothing. She was wearing wool under her league rider's weather jacket and her mud-stained fur coat, but she was shivering. Why? Because she was tired, she was hungry – how ridiculous to be hungry at a time like this – and she was frightened.
They were really going to do it.
They were really going to throw stones at her and smash her face and smash her fingers and smash her and smash her till she fell down into the cold ugly water which was hungering into her boots, and they would carry on smashing her and smashing her till she was an ugly raggage of dead fur and naked bones gulleting away down the river to the cold claws of the sea.
She wanted someone to come and hold her and help her, but there was nobody. And Haveros and Quenerain both stood like statues, as cold and silent as stone. Both looked as if they were only waiting to die, they accepted it, how could that be?
The first man threw the first stone.
It hit Haveros on the side of the head. He grunted, and folded up. Dead? No. He steadied himself, managed to hold himself steady in a crouch, arse in the water, one hand thrusting down to seek for balance.
The second man threw the second stone.
It caught Quenerain a glancing blow on the side of the head. She grimaced slightly, turning her head to one side. Blood ran down her cheek. She was going to die like an aristocrat.
The third man threw the third stone.
It came flying through the air and hit Yen Olass on the shin. The pain was agonizing. She screamed. Snatching rock from water, she hurled her strength against them.
She screamed:
'You smegma-eating arsefuckers!’
She threw another rock. Saw a man go down. Screamed:
'Goatsucking shiteaters!’
Everywhere men were muscling forward, picking up rocks. A shower of stones came flying through the air. Yen Olass dived. Hit the water and struggled for the depths. She was out of luck. The river here was at its widest and shallowest, the water scarcely waist-deep. Men stormed into the water. Yen Olass swam into a thicket of legs, spears and bamboo poles. She was grabbed, punched, slapped and forced back into the shallows.
Then the men drew back, so everyone could have a good view.
Yen Olass sat in the water, crying, sobbing, covering her face with her hands. She cried with the hopeless misery of a hurt and hunted creature with no refuge. The Princess Quenerain, looking down on this bedraggled creature, permitted herself the faintest of smiles.
Then a rock took her in the chest.
Quenerain gasped, sinking to her knees in the water. With open eyes – in the end, she had something of her father's undying courage – she faced the men. And saw them waver. Like a reflection in water.
Water, yes.
Quenerain sketched a picture in the water with her finger. She drew it very carefully, yet when she looked, there was nothing to be seen. Why? She smoothed the surface of the water with her hands and tried again. No picture. Puzzled, she looked around for a stick. Perhaps with a stick she could draw a better picture.
