Hamati withdrew it.
“The wine will make the pain go away,” Eskkar suggested gently. “It can’t hurt to have some wine, can it? Or should I tell the women to continue?” The man’s eyes moved back and forth, but he said nothing. Eskkar turned toward Nisaba and nodded. The woman’s hand clenched again.
Another scream split the air as the man’s body arched up off the ground, twisting and trembling helplessly as it fought against the ropes.
Eskkar let it go on, waiting impassively for the man to break. It didn’t take long. Shulat began to shout that he would talk. Eskkar called out to Nisaba, and she opened her hand. This time he saw blood on Nisaba’s palm and fi ngers.
Eskkar waited until the pain subsided and the man could speak again.
“If you lie to me even once, Shulat, you’ll suffer for a long time. You will answer my questions instantly, or there will be more pain. Do you understand?”
“Yes… yes. Wine!.. Give me wine!”
Hamati started to move the wineskin to the man’s mouth, but Eskkar held him back. “Remember this, Shulat. If you lie, or hesitate, you will be very sorry.”
Hamati dribbled the wine slowly into the man’s mouth. Eskkar let him have as much as he could take. At this stage, the wine would loosen his tongue even as it dulled his nerves. When the man began to cough on the wine, Hamati lifted the wineskin away from Shulat’s lips, and he began to speak.
It took some time for Eskkar to learn all he could. Only once did he find it necessary to turn to Nisaba and for her to clench her fist again. By then, Hamati had emptied the wineskin and Shulat was barely conscious.
The wine, combined with the pain and exhaustion, had greatly weakened him, and now he drifted in and out of consciousness.
“I think that’s all you’re going to get, Captain,” Hamati said, as the two men took a few steps toward the house.
“Yes, he’s finished. How much of it is true, we’ll find out soon enough.”
Eskkar was thoughtful, his face grim. Darkness had fallen and the cooking fires were well under way, the smell of roasting horsemeat overpowering even the scents of death. With nothing left to do, most of the soldiers and villagers still stood there, fascinated, watching Shulat take the torture, enjoying the spectacle, no doubt wondering what they would do in his place.
“What shall I do with him?” Hamati asked.
Eskkar looked back over his shoulder. Nisaba still knelt between the man’s legs, waiting permission to continue. One of the women had lit a torch, to provide more light for everyone.
“Nothing, Hamati.” Eskkar took a deep breath and let it out. “Just give him to the women. They’ve earned their revenge. When they’re finished, load him on the cart with the others and dump them in the river.”
He walked away and entered the house, then climbed the ladder to the roof. Mitrac had remained there, though darkness made it difficult to see much of anything. Eskkar told him to go down and find something to eat. As Mitrac started down, the first of another long string of Shulat’s screams pierced the night as the women unleashed their fury on him.
Alone on the roof, Eskkar sat there, sword across his knees, staring out toward the north, and cleared his mind. Shulat’s words had given him plenty to worry about, and he thought long and hard about what to do next. Eskkar had several courses of action to consider. He could return to Akkad, to wait there until he gathered more men. He could even stay here for a while and scout out the lands to the north and east. Or he could continue on to Bisitun.
Going to Bisitun now would almost certainly mean a battle, not just a few skirmishes chasing down some ill- equipped and poorly led bandits. A fight for the village would cost men, and he had too few of those already.
Eskkar’s veteran bowmen had taken months to train, a huge investment in time and effort, and he didn’t want to lose any of them, certainly not without some surety of success. But turning back would leave the inhabitants of Bisitun at the mercy of their occupiers, and for each day he delayed, the stronger his enemy’s position would become. It might take weeks or even a month to gather and train more men, and by then, Bisitun might be beyond saving.
The consequences to Akkad might be as serious. Without a pacified countryside producing crops and herds, the city’s growth might falter, and construction of the great wall itself might be delayed or even halted. That would bring ruin to Trella’s plans. For most of his life, Eskkar had concerned himself with his own problems; now he had to think and plan for a whole city, even the entire countryside. Thousands of people would be affected by whatever he decided, and the wrong choice might plunge the land back into chaos or open war, as devastating to Akkad as the Alur Meriki invasion.
Eskkar didn’t consider himself a quick thinker, and Trella had advised him to take his time, to take into account all the possibilities. Now he had many choices, and each choice led to yet more possibilities, all of them carrying their own risk and benefit. He went over them again and again, weighing the consequences and considering all the things that might go wrong. At last he made his decision. With that settled, he began planning, working out in his head how the entire campaign would go. Only after finishing that did he know what he would need, and how to proceed.
At last, Eskkar felt satisfi ed. It might not be the best course of action, but only time would answer that question. He never wanted this kind of responsibility, never dreamed that some day his decisions would affect so many people’s lives. Or even bring about their deaths. Nevertheless, Trella believed in him, and he didn’t want to disappoint her. Eskkar shook the dark thoughts from his mind. Right or wrong, he would continue the course he had chosen.
He stood and stretched muscles grown stiff from inaction, looking up at the star-filled sky. The little glittering points of light that moved across the night sky had fascinated him as far back as he could remember; his father had taught him the stars’ names, and how to use them to travel at night.
The moon had risen, shedding its own pale gleam on the land. For the first time, he noticed the silence of the night. Shulat’s screams had ended long ago. No doubt the women of Dilgarth regretted their revenge had ended so swiftly. The bandit’s demise had been the first of this campaign. Eskkar knew there would be many more death cries in the next few weeks. Just how many would depend on the course of action he’d chosen.
3
And so, Lady Trella,” Drakis said, finishing up his report, “Lord Eskkar dispatched me on one of the captured horses back to Akkad, to tell you and Gatus what took place.”
Trella shifted her body slightly in her chair as she listened to the soldier’s tale. The meeting had lasted for some time, and her pregnancy had reached the stage where she felt uncomfortable if she sat too long. Into her seventh month, she already looked forward to the child’s birth. Her body kept distracting her with one thing or another, making it more difficult to concentrate on the task at hand. Not that anyone in the room noticed.
Trella had grown very skillful at keeping her emotions and thoughts under control.
In the middle of her fi fteenth season, Trella’s fi gure would have been slender except for the coming child. She was slightly above average height; her hair was her best feature, very dark and thick, reaching just below her shoulders. A thin silver headband held the tresses away from her face, leaving cheeks and neck bare. Around her neck a loop of thin leather held a small gold coin, hidden between her breasts, a gift from Eskkar for saving his life. Aside from the unadorned fillet and necklace, she wore no other jewelry, though Akkad’s shopkeepers produced some of the finest bracelets, rings, and earrings sold on the river. Strangers tended to notice her eyes first, deep brown and set wide apart, which seemed to overlook nothing, as if they stared directly into your mind. Hardened soldiers twice her age often got flustered in her presence.
Not that her eyes revealed the power of her mind. Her father had trained her well, teaching his precocious daughter to listen, observe, and think. Her sharp wits did the rest. When anyone spoke, she listened intently while she watched his face, his hands, the shuffling of his feet, to better analyze his words. She perceived much by noting not only what men said, but how they said it and what they omitted. Few could hide the truth from her.
Many men underestimated her abilities at first, seeing only a young woman. Those who knew her did not.
