Delia of Vallia (17 page)

Presently the other musicians stopped scraping and blowing and banging.

Presently the dancers stopped dancing and crowded around.

Delia played on. Her repertoire was vast, culled from many races and cultures of Kregen, and she played now with a release of her feelings, letting herself, for the moment, forget her problems in the spiritual uplift and the earthy chuckle of the music. She forgot she was slave, she forgot she was empress; she was just Delia, playing the harp.

When she finished and the strings thrummed into an echoing silence, she sat back, at once filled and exhausted.

No one said anything until the Lord Cranchar, slapping his thigh, exclaimed: “Sister! You have a slave there worth a sack of gold!”

“Yes,” said Nyleen comfortably approving of this new source of wealth dropped upon her. “When I decide to sell her.”

In his decorated evening robes, flushed from the dance, high of color, Cranchar might consider that he looked splendid in the eyes of many a woman. The women here, except one or two including his sister, kept away from him. He always had ample body space. They did not look squarely upon him, and if by chance their glances happened to meet his, they would look away with a furtive sliding motion to which he could only respond with a bear-like roll of his shoulders.

In looks he superficially resembled his twin; but his hair was of the darker Vallian brown, and his face, far from being of an icy complexion was fiery, choleric, and with the veins sprouting blue. He stamped his feet a lot. Delia rose from the harp and, demurely, made her way to where she had been bidden to sit in attendance upon the kovneva.

From then on Delia was commanded to play the harp as a regular part of her duties. She still had to run with the fur-rimmed silver bowl and the towels. But more and more as the days passed, the harp-playing overtook all her other work.

Fresh batches of slaves arrived, and a certain amount of readjustment took place in slaving duties. The fortress was being turned into a luxurious palace, and remaining a fortress despite all. She was unmolested, and as she played she listened to the conversations between brother and sister, between the kovneva and her cronies — and she learned no more of the plot against the empress.

The witch, who was called Fiacola the Gaze, remained closeted in the chambers reserved for her use. She was regularly attended by Sissy and some of the newer slave girls whom Sissy attempted to train. Delia was content to remain with Nyleen, play the harp, and listen. But, she promised herself, she would not wait forever. If nothing more transpired of this famous plot, she’d escape and bring the army down on this decadent place. If they were all swept away down to the Ice Floes of Sicce, there’d be no more plot. Yes, by Dee Sheon!

Chapter thirteen

Nyleen Enjoys Herself

When Delia was thrashed she told herself that she had had enough and that as soon as her back stopped hurting she would escape.

The afternoon before had not appeared any different from any afternoon. The twin suns shone. Food was eaten and wine drunk. The harp was played. Toward evening the woman in the green gown, girded with keys, Paline Pontora, the chatelaine, told her mistress that a batch of male slaves had been brought in. Nyleen nodded. Her teeth caught up her lower lip. A slumberous look about her eyes and a marked flush of her cheeks denoted a greater significance to this information than was at once apparent.

This time the refectory was cleared of tables and benches, not for dancing but for games of a more sinister nature. The Lord Cranchar did not attend. He bore the cognomen of Cranchu, and this, alone, was enough to mark him as a man of savage temperament and cruel ways. Yet he did not attend.

The bewildered men slaves, stark naked, were herded in by Jikai Vuvushis, armed and armored. Spear points prodded narrow buttocks, whips licked expertly around shanks and backs and ears. The men yelled in pain and shuffled on in their chains. They were an unremarkable collection of men, some tall, some short, some fat, some thin. They stood in a bemused huddle as first two and then another two of their number were selected. The ladies sprawled in fascinated attention on divans and chairs about the cleared central space. Guards stood at alert, waiting for any rebellion. No doubt some of them relished the chance to lick a whip around a fellow’s bottom. The sports were varied and ingenious.

All of them meant pain, humiliation and indignity for the men, and death at the end. That death was not quick in coming. The screams bouncing from the ceiling of the refectory would have chilled a listener’s heart. The men were not gagged. That, it transpired, would have blunted the women’s pleasure.

Delia watched not so much in horror and pity, as in a dull and futile rage.

Whatever of inhumanity woman could show to man was performed there, in iron and lash and blood, in sporting events that led through agony to fresh agony, until death could be the only winning post.

The races of the iron spikes, the hurdles of the sawed blades, the fights between men who believed that the winner might be allowed to live — only to discover their mistake when they screeched their triumph — the whiplash contests between girls who prided themselves on the skill and cunning of their whip arms — all these passed in a miasma of distant horror to Delia. She had to believe what she was witnessing. After all, many a girl had said in a passion that this was what she’d like to do to a man, to any man, to all men. It was understandable.

Nyleen craned forward on her chair, anxious to catch the moment when a man with a shock of fiery hair decided he had had enough and would beg for his death.

She snapped her fingers at Delia.

Dutifully, Delia brought forward the silver bowl.

She did not care to look at suffering and death. Also, she did not much care to watch Nyleen. The kovneva moved. Just how it happened, Delia was not sure. Nyleen was sure.

“You stupid bitch! I’m wet! Look—” Nyleen lifted herself. She shouted: “Ilka! Drag her off. Stripe her! Thrash her!”

“Yes, mistress. How many?”

“How many? There cannot be too many...”

Ilka lifted her silver rod. “The harp, my lady?”

“Oh, yes, of course. Sissy, bring a fresh towel. Give the bitch twenty, then. Mind they are good and strong — no, wait. In the morning. Yes. I will watch myself in the morning.”

So, in the morning, they stretched Delia’s naked body out and chained her down and so thrashed her with a thin and whippy rod. A Jikai Vuvushi hit her. Ilka counted on her slate. And the Kovneva Nyleen watched.

Because she was acting the part of a slave, Delia shouted.

Truth to tell, she was not sure that she possessed the fortitude and willpower not to scream her head off.

She felt terrible. She did not faint, but the world went away from her for some time. The fire traced scorching fingers down her back. Liquid agony poured into her. Each narrow stripe shocked through her, as though some devouring monster closed his fangs on her head and chewed her right down to the soles of her feet and then back again — each time.

They let her rest all that afternoon. In the evening she was expected to play the harp.

The harp badly needed tuning, which was a difficult task. She did not consider herself to be particularly adept at tuning, although, of course, this she could do. Nyleen came in and watched her for a space, and then said: “And are you sorry, slave?”

Delia was sorry, all right. But not for what Nyleen imagined caused her that sorrow.

“Yes, mistress.”

“You will not be so clumsy in future.”

“No, mistress.”

The girl wearing the black and white skins hauled on her couple of werstings, and the hunting dogs snuffled and followed obediently after the kovneva. There were other hounds in the other ward, opposite the yard holding the kitchens, but just how many couples Nyleen owned Delia had no way of knowing.

The kovneva walked toward Delia. Her icy face showed no emotions of compassion as she said: “They have treated your back?”

“Yes, mistress.”

“That is good. You are valuable.”

Nyleen put her hand on Delia’s shoulder where the pearl beads clustered. She ran her hand down, over Delia’s bare and scorching back. Delia gasped. The kovneva turned her hand, moved it down around the ribs and onto Delia’s stomach. She rubbed, reflectively.

“When your back is mended I will have other tasks for you. More enjoyable tasks. If you have learned your lesson.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Nyleen fondled for a moment more and then walked off trailed by her retinue. Seething with emotions that in this situation were ludicrous, Delia returned to the harp. Sissy had said Nyleen was gentle. Given the opportune moment, Delia did not believe that the empress would be gentle.

To make an effective escape she would have to have a riding animal. Those werstings, tame and blunt-fanged though those she had seen might be, could still run down a poor half-naked girl escaping through the forest. Run her down and hold her for the hunters to ride up with their whips and chains and nets.

She could barely manage the harp. She had no great hopes of riding an animal until her back mended.

Because she had dipped in the Sacred Pool of Baptism her back would mend far faster than these slave-handlers could expect. There was need, therefore, to pretend she was worse than she truly was. Well, by Vox, that was not so difficult!

As though her punishment was the signal for jealousy to break out, Delia found that many hitherto smiling faces were now frowning. Fault was found with her. During this period as her back mended she hoped that she sustained her spirits not by mere thoughts of revenge. She was acutely aware that she could so easily succumb to this nightmare. She could go under without a trace. But she hoped she managed to last out on a little better spiritual fare than mere revenge.

The practical teachings of the SoR as well as their mysticism helped. Perhaps she was most fiercely sustained by her loving thoughts of those dear to her. The idea that she would never see them again tortured her far worse than the scouring pain of her back.

The kovneva’s personal needlewoman, a pinched-faced soul who was seldom seen, had been refused permission to practice her arts and insert acupuncture needles to ease the pain.

“Through pain shall the shishi learn to cleanse herself,” pronounced the kovneva.

As a principle of life, that was pretty shoddy, considered Delia. That it sometimes occurred made no difference. Pain could so often turn a person inside out and drive them savagely against any form of kindness or human warmth, embitter them, make of them soulless devils.

She took not a grain of comfort from the fact that she had brought this on herself. If she had escaped when she had the chance, she’d have been clear away, this place would be a smoking ruin, and her back wouldn’t hurt. So much for going out and seeking adventure!

And then, being Delia, she knew damn well that she couldn’t have done any differently. As for doing it all again if the chance should come — well, that she would have to take under advisement, with counsel for the defense her sense of the rightness of the universe, and counsel for the prosecution these damned pains scorching down her back.

Already, therefore, she was feeling better.

Her husband often said that Kregans had a funny old sense a humor. People said that the emperor seldom smiled or laughed, yet with her in the good times he was always laughing and joking. When the bad times came and he put on that expression people called his devil face, her heart ached for him. He had been forced to do many things he abhorred, as had she. Such was the price of being fetched to be emperor and empress. She was coldly aware that without him her career as empress, had she succeeded her father, would have been much harder, more bitter and infinitely unhappier.

She knew also, without pride but with much thanksgiving, that without her he would have been morose, even more savage, intemperate and utterly lonely.

The evening passed. Delia played the harp and was aware that she did not play particularly well. Nyleen remained unrelenting.

“Play, slave!” she commanded. “Do not stop until I give you leave.”

A few of her cronies gathered in her retiring room, hard, ambitious, cold women. Most of them came from Evir. They followed Nyleen Gillois in the hope that her schemes would bring rank and riches. “When the empress is dead...!” were words heard more than once. Delia did not catch just what the plans were after that occurrence.

She marked these women, their faces and characters, their names. She had once had a very good friend who came from Evir, and she had been totally unlike this bunch. Thelda, who had married Seg Segutorio, had been pushy and over enthusiastic, yes, always attempting to do the right thing and more often than not ending up in total confusion. But Thelda had been good-hearted, and she’d considered herself Delia’s best friend, as she never tired of telling everyone, including Delia. Well, she was believed dead, now, and the last Delia had heard about Seg was that he was just about over his grief for his wife. Now he was making attempts to build a new life — going off adventuring with the emperor, for a start.

One of these sycophants, a woman hard and grainy, with a face like the blunt end of a tent peg, said: “It is a pity, Nyleen, that the fool girl died. She, at least, knew what the empress looked like.”

“Do you criticize me, Ethanee?”

“No, kovneva! Of course not.”

Nyleen picked a paline from the silver dish. Sissy was most attentive. “That is well. The girl died before I could make proper inquiries. I think the pity is that none of our girls went through Lancival at the time the empress was there, when she was princess majestrix. We must recruit more.”

“Assuredly, kovneva.”

Nyleen sucked another paline, and her face resembled the outer crags of ice that wall off the Ice Floes of Sicce.

Favoring the scorch that was her back and playing minor melodies, Delia listened. She kept her attention on two items, and two items only. One — playing the harp. Two — listening to what these people said. She would not allow her thoughts to dwell on what had happened to a Sister of the Rose who was questioned about the empress. Not yet.