The Betrayed (19 page)
Authors: Igor Ljubuncic
“We do not know.”
“And who is this leader you have spoken of?”
“We do not know. They seem to have several leaders, in fact, high priests of some kind, but they keep their identities secret for fear of assassination. Only the followers really know who they are, and then not all. The army jealously protects these priests.”
I need a name, something to work with,
Armin pleaded silently.
He emptied another glass of brandy.
Q
ueen Olga and Archduke Vasiliy stood on the parapet, waving.
Beneath the sandblasted walls, a huge host had assembled, milling like ants in a thousand colors. Summoned by their king for the war council, the dukes had arrived, bringing along thousands of knights and footmen and convoys of armor and weaponry miles long.
A city of tents had sprawled outside Sigurd, housing the armies of her demented husband’s ambition. But it was slowly receding, just like the sea tide, leaving behind nothing but debris.
Mornings were brisk in most of Parus all year long. Wrapped in one of her own pullovers, Queen Olga watched the brilliant pinks and yellows of dawn slowly coalesce into the pale creamy miasma of another scorching day. Within hours, it would be almost too hot to stay outside, and she would retreat into the cool recesses of the castle, now entirely her own to rule.
Vlad the Fifth and his entire council were on the plains below, readying to leave. Most of the light units had already departed, a smudge of road dust on the horizon, heading north. As custom decreed, he had bedded her last night, her sad excuse of a husband, grunting like a pig, droplets of sweat raining on her bored forehead. She sincerely hoped she would not have to bear another child, another poor thing that would have to suffer the abuse of his madness.
She had drunk her potions for quite some time, knowing what to expect of him the night of the departure, but there was no knowing. Even the seed of the Vlad lineage was crazy. Well, at least he did not bother her often. Vlad the Fifth found the notion of copulation unwholesome. It drained his good spirits, he said.
All of the patriarchs and matriarchs in Sigurd had come to bless the king on his new endeavor. They viewed him as the savior of faith, a champion of the gods. His quest was a holy mission to destroy the infidels who had dared invade the Territories.
Olga hoped he would remember what his true goal was. Parus was not a land blessed with good soil. Most of it was hard limestone that would not let roots of many plants take hold. Parus traded for many of its goods by sea and with the dark peoples of the south. But the key to true power was independence. If ever Parus was to become the one true kingdom, it had to have everything. The Territories had lots of rivers and green pastures; they could breed horses for their knights and sow grain and barley.
She had devoted the last three weeks of her time to negotiations with her husbands’ men and the religious leaders in the city, making promises that her husband could not think of or would not bother offering. She believed that when Parus won the war and seized half the Territories for its own, there would be no one to protest.
The lords had been rather easy to bribe. They were all hungry for more power, more land. The notion of carving the Territories into fresh duchies sounded very appealing. She had only had to send whores to bed one stubborn fool to make sure he would not get confused.
The patriarchs and the matriarchs had been much more difficult to appease. Luckily, she was well-known and loved among the clergy, especially the women. Her rumored gift, the ability to talk to her goddess, had made her very famous and even feared.
Women in Parus did not have many rights. Although both the Eracians and the Caytoreans worshipped the same gods like the Parusites, there was a world of difference between the status of women in the other two realms and her own. Parusites had their ancestry in the nomadic peoples of the Red Desert, who treated women as property, equal to household animals. Although both sexes were equal before the gods, the old, primitive tradition was deeply rooted in the souls of men. Generations of belief in the true gods and goddesses had not changed that.
In Parus, women had always had to use cunning and subterfuge to see their plans through. Fortunately, men regarded the warm cubbyhole between a woman’s legs almost as sacred as the sweet gods themselves. It took very little to persuade them.
Wise and strong queens had always been able to achieve more than their weak, mentally fragile husbands ever could. For generations, her predecessors, unknown, unnamed ladies of the court, had kept Parus alive and breathing while Vlads of all sorts ran off to foolish wars.
It was her time now.
And so, she had promised a lot. To the patriarchs, she had promised many new temples and shrines and libraries and monasteries all over Parus. To the matriarchs, she had promised one simple thing—the right to dissolve marriages.
It had never been done before, not even in the two other realms. But if Sirtai could do it, then so could the continental peoples. Once married, a woman was destined to live with her master for the rest of his or her life, whichever came first. But if a woman fornicated and got caught, she was to be killed. On the other hand, men could love and fuck whomever they pleased. It was simply unfair.
It had been almost too easy. The eagerness, the hope…it had felt almost like cheating.
She knew it would take many years, maybe all the years of her life. But it was her own war, her own dream. Vlad was such an amenable creature, even if he did not know it. He was so easily manipulated.
At first, there would be all sorts of decrees from various houses of goddesses. Then, there would be a royal blessing of the changes. It would take time. And time was the only thing a married Parusite woman could call her own.
Archduke Vasiliy stood by her side, holding a parasol above her head. Usually, it was the job of a lady-in-waiting, but she had dismissed them all. She wanted the two of them to be alone.
In a pompous ceremony, Vlad had appointed Vasiliy to be the steward of the kingdom and given him the chain of office, which had been kept locked in the royal coffers until such a time came. Vasiliy had spent the night in prayer and fast, to cleanse his sins and clear his mind for the somber task ahead. It was all a splendid farce.
Vlad had taken the ceremony much more seriously. He had had a pair of oxen slaughtered and their entrails read by a blind child. Then, he had spent the night in a tub of cows’ blood, praying.
This morning, he was kneeling naked on the sand while patriarchs and matriarchs came and poured oil and wine and water on his head and blessed him. A black stain of mud marked a very long procession of clergymen. His nobles sat on their mares and watched passively, their identities hidden beneath gray and beige desert burnooses.
She was dressed like a distressed queen ought to be, in black. On her side, Vasiliy was handsome in the steward’s uniform, a dark purple robe, the thick gold chain with the ornamental keys to the royal coffers round his neck.
Parusites never traveled in full armor. The heat would be disastrous. Instead, they wore light garbs and ferried their chain mail and coifs in wagons. Almost every aristocrat had two or three full wagons of weapons. They made for very long convoys.
“I want to touch you,” Vasiliy whispered, looking forward.
“Soon,” she whispered back. “But not here. Someone might be watching.” She had dismissed the servants, but they hovered in the nearby shadows like ghosts. Olga was not sure if Vlad did not have spies following her. He was so unstable he might as well have spies following himself.
Vasiliy had promised to kill his wife if she ever became a widow. She loved him and trusted him. They had been together for almost their entire adult life. If Vlad the Fifth had not chosen her to be his wife, she believed she would have been with Vasiliy now, openly, without shame or fear.
But she could not. Not in Parus, ruled by male stupidity and prejudice.
She could almost feel sorry for Nadia. But the woman was barren. Vasiliy had no heirs, and it pained him gravely. Killing her would be a matter of mercy. The woman had never wronged her, she was always shy and polite, but there was no place for her in Olga’s world.
The blessings were over. A pair of retainers was scrubbing Vlad clean. He stood with the crown tilted on his head at an absurd angle, holding the sword aloft like a child would wield his favorite toy.
Shortly thereafter, he was dressed in a cream-colored robe, just like so many of his men. He turned toward her and shouted like an imbecile.
“Farewell, my lady queen. I will return victorious and bring you glory!”
“Farewell, my king. Be safe!” she shouted back.
Vasiliy and Vlad exchanged no words between them. Public displays of emotion between men were not encouraged. Trumpets and drums sounded. Units stirred, like living carpets, snaking over the arid ground. It was getting hot already.
A ragged crowd of commoners cheered, assembled before the fat curtain wall of the castle-city. They looked like a stain of dirt from high above, the grease and axle of her kingdom.
One by one, nobles led their men away, toward war, banners flapping limply. The noise soon became one long groan of metal and wood. A cloud of dust rose, obscuring everything. Her eyes watered.
“Let’s hope he gets killed this time,” Olga murmured.
“Yes. Let’s hope so,” Vasiliy said.
T
hey called it the Second Battle of Bakler Hills.
Mali sat near the scribe, dictating her own part in the story. The little man’s head bobbed with excitement as he devoured the details and spun them into heroic verses.
Not far away, Adam stood, old blood drying on his face and pulling at his skin. The stench of death filled his nostrils.
He had lived through another battle, unscathed, when so many had perished, on both sides. It had been a gruesome battle, lasting for almost an entire day. The enraged Caytoreans had stormed the camp, without resting or sketching a plan, believing it defended only by a small garrison of Eracians.
The use of the enemy uniforms to disguise the scouts had proved extremely effective. The Caytoreans mistook them for their own, which lulled them into a false sense of security.
While waiting for the enemy, the Eracians had concocted a solid defense strategy. They would pack all of their ranged troops inside the camp, including the pleasant addition of crossbows, and fill the trenches with spearmen. The cavalry and shock infantry would retreat to the north and south of the camp, beyond the hills, waiting to pounce on the enemy from the flanks.
And so it had happened. Expecting an easy prey, the enemy had charged almost straight for the camp. The bows sang, felling the first ranks of knights. Next the crossbows fired, at point-blank range, puncturing thick plates like paper, devastating the enemy cavalry in a single swoop.
Then, the Eracian troops had attacked, hurling into the sides of the Caytorean charge, biting hard and deep. Crumbling before the powerful onslaught, the enemy had finally retreated with the dusk, sunset and arrows in their eyes, a carpet of bodies leading across the hills. The trenches were fronted with a thick mass of bodies that looked like a heap of swept leaves.
For his fellow countrymen, the battle had gone remarkably well. Their losses had been heavy, but the enemy had lost ten times as many. Most soldiers were cheering, dancing, and drinking, celebrating the victory. Adam just felt empty.
It was Adam who had suggested the strategy of their defense, using nothing but his common whore’s sense of survival to plot the best way of defending one’s own skin. And it had worked all too well.
He had thought Commander Mali and her colonels would object. But they had simply nodded and given him the command of the battle order. Having taken the camp seemed to have impressed them mightily.
Lieutenant Beno was wounded, hit by a chance arrow in the leg. He managed to limp about, a grin of pride twisting his features.