Fantasyland 02 The Golden Dynasty (7 page)

Diandra took one look at me when I was done
and smiled with happy approval, stating, “Your king showers great
bounty on you. This is very good.”

I stared at her.

Bounty. Right.

Whatever.

Then out we went into the camp.

And it was, mostly, a camp. A bunch of tents
with firepits out front, some had tables at the side of the tent
with primitive looking cooking stuff on it, big buckets resting
beside them and other tools like axes and hatchets and the like.
Some had smaller tents around them which Diandra told me were where
slaves slept or where food and supplies were kept and meals
prepared (around my tent, we had one of both).

There were a lot of torches stuck in the
ground on the pathways which I knew from the night of the parade
but also from seeing it hit the side of the king’s tent were lit at
night. The only official area, as it were, was the dais which I
noticed now was roughly carved from a huge, wide, long, cream slab
of stone, the area in front of it deep and wide, made up of the
same stone. A firepit did, indeed, run the length of the back with
two pits at the top, though while we wandered the camp, these were
not lit mostly, I guessed, because it was sunny and, I knew, it was
stinking hot. The drums, incidentally, the big ones and small ones,
were still set up.

And there were people. Lots of them. All of
them looked at me and many of them smiled, many of them nodded,
many of them looked happy to see me. Some of them, however, looked
at me with interest or intensity, not exactly happy – cautious, I
figured, undecided. And a few avoided my eyes.

This, I didn’t get. I also didn’t dwell. I
had enough to dwell on.

Diandra chattered on and she tucked my
hand in her elbow and kept me close as we walked. She informed me
this was only a camp, not a settlement, The Horde was nomadic. They
came to this location for the Wife Hunt every two years and the
warrior selections, three times a year. They had homes, of sorts,
in some Korwahk city but they visited them infrequently during
their roaming although, she explained, they did settle in them for
two months over the winter.

She told me tents were called
chams
. She told
me
shahsha
was
thank you. She told me
poyah
was hello.

“
What does
me
ahnoo
mean?” I asked after the words the king had spoken to the
cruel warrior and she looked at me, her brows up.

“Me ahnoo?” she asked back.

“The king said, ‘Kah Dahksahna me ahnoo,’ to
that warrior he threw off the dais during the wedding rite. What
does that mean?”

She patted my hand in the crook of her
elbow, looked forward and smiled. “It means, my dear, ‘my queen
does not like’.”

“What?” I asked.

She looked back at me. “He told Dortak
that you do not like… in other words, you did not like what he was
doing to his bride. And, I will add, not many of us did. Definitely
not the peasants, merchants, slaves or wives and, I’m certain, many
of the warriors.” She bobbed her head at me. “You made that clear,
even though you do not speak their tongue, it was plain for all to
see you didn’t like what he was doing. He was challenging you by
continuing to do it even though you told him not to. It is, in
truth, not a woman’s place to command a warrior, even if that woman
is queen.” She looked forward and I got the sense she was avoiding
my eyes when she went on. “Sometimes,” she paused, “I will admit,
the wedding rite can get lewd, the warriors get wound-up, if a
battle is mightily fought to claim a bride, they need to expend
some energy and sometimes do so in…” she paused again then finished
cautiously, “
unsavory
ways.”

Fabulous.

Diandra carried on after looking at me
again. “But
you
are not just
any queen. You are King Lahn’s Lahnahsahna. But more, you are the
Dax’s golden warrior queen. You made a command. It went unheeded.
The king acted to make Dortak adhere to your command.” Her fingers
squeezed mine. “It was a bold statement. This is not done. In
saying simply that you do not like, but in punishing Dortak before
all, he was telling his people you rule at his side.” She grinned
at me. “It was very sweet and
very
uncharacteristic… of a warrior, of a king but
especially
of Dax Lahn. He, my dear, is
not normally sweet. Seerim was even shocked.
” She looked away and muttered, “A sight
to see. A good one.”

I looked forward too and these words moved
through me. I wasn’t certain I believed he was sweet, that would
take a lot of convincing. But she had told me he’d bragged about me
to his people and he had acted on my wishes to stop that girl from
continuing to be defiled publicly.

Not to mention, he made it clear I ruled at
his side.

I supposed that was nice.

“That warrior’s name is Dortak?” I asked
because I needed a change of subject, pronto.

She nodded, didn’t look at me but her face
lost its friendliness. I still saw it, even in profile.

“
Dortak. A bad seed. As was his father
before him and, as Seerim’s father tells me,
his
father before
him.
He covets the throne of horns. They all did. He will
challenge the Dax.”

My body started at this pronouncement. “But
King Lahn tossed him bodily down a flight of steps,” I reminded
her.

She looked back at me. “I said he was a
bad seed, Dahksahna Circe,” she leaned in and grinned, “but I did
not say he was a
clever
bad
seed.”

I knew what she was saying.

“The king will defeat him,” I whispered and
she looked forward again murmuring, “Without doubt.”

“This Dortak tried to claim me, the Dax
severed his chain and –” I stopped talking when she abruptly halted
us and her eyes snapped to my face.

“He severed his chain?” she whispered.

“Uh… yeah,” I confirmed.

“Oh my,” she breathed.

“What?” I asked.

“Oh my,” she breathed again and her eyes had
a faraway look in them.

I shook her arm and hissed, “What, Diandra?”
and her eyes focused on me.

“
Warriors battle for their brides, as you
know, my dear, and there are very few rules with anything to do
with any fight, indeed anything to do with The Horde
or
the Korwahk nation, but the
warriors of The Horde
do
honor their brothers. Although it is not unheard of for
things to get out of hand and one warrior kill another for his
bride, or, perhaps, deliver a wound that will eventually kill or
one that festers and brings the warrior low. But this is very
infrequent. Because of this, there are other whispers around the
Daxshee, not just those about you. These other whispers are about
Dortak and the Hunt. It is known that Dortak took the life of a
warrior for the bride he was claiming. I just did not know it was
you.
Was
it
you?”

I nodded and whispered, “It was me.”

Her eyes went soft as she realized what I
witnessed then she carried on. “This has not been taken positively
as the warrior he brought low was well-liked and Dortak is not.
Although the kill was not witnessed, because of his reputation many
believe that it was not due to both warriors descending into
bloodlust as the battle raged on but that he did not give the
fallen warrior the opportunity to surrender before he delivered his
killing blow.”

I didn’t know if this was true or not. I
hadn’t been paying that much attention mainly because I was freaked
right the fuck out.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know enough about this
stuff to know if he gave that guy an opportunity to give up or not.
And, I have to say, I honestly wasn’t taking much in, I had other
things on my mind,” I told her.

She gave me an understanding smile and
said softly, “Of course not, my dear.” Then she took in a deep
breath and went on, “That said, although there are few rules, like
I mentioned, there is also honor and you do
not
sever a chain.
Never.
It is a slap in the face. An insult. It says you hold no
respect for the other warrior. If a warrior has attached their
chain to you the other warrior battles until that warrior is
beaten, surrenders or has fallen and only
then
can they detach their chain and hook their own to
their chosen bride. To sever the chain is to say you feel the
battle will be won before it is even started. It’s actually
worse
than a slap in the face. It is
akin to spitting in it.” She looked away and started us walking
again. “Another bold statement,” she kept talking quietly, “King
Lahn is forcing a challenge, I see. He grows impatient with Dortak.
He wants him defeated.”

“But, if that’s true, why didn’t he kill him
when he challenged him for me?” I asked.

“Because, my dear,” she patted my hand again
and kept walking, “that would bear no witnesses. He will wait for
Dortak’s challenge so he can humiliate him before all. He wants
that shame to be the last thing he feels before the Dax takes his
head.”

Oh God.

Takes his head?

Oh God!

At that, I decided I was done talking.

Diandra didn’t and chattered away as we
walked through the encampment then she walked me back to my tent.
Then she spoke to my women who hurried off to do whatever it was
that they did. Not long after, bunches of large, square pillows,
some with fringe all around, some with tassels at the four ends,
some with no adornment, all silk, satin or brocade and all in rich
colors, were arranged on some thick hides on the dusty stone around
our tent and we reclined in the cool (ish) shade of the tent as the
women brought us flat bread, strong cheese, dried, spiced meat,
almonds and crisp, fresh, deliciously
cold
(if it can be believed) fruit juice.

I couldn’t say I was comfortable being
waited on while lounging and five women rushed to answer my every
unspoken whim. What I could say was that that particular
conversation with the Dax was for some future time,
if
I was still around at that time
(which, God, I hoped I was not) and
if
I ever decided I intended to try to speak to the
brute.

A lot of people passed our tent as Diandra
babbled at me and I part listened but mostly I tried to figure out
what to do next. After awhile, it occurred to me that it was
unlikely that many people passed the Dax’s tent on a normal day and
it was much more likely that they’d come to check me out.

This made me feel weird, on show and I
didn’t like it but then again, I didn’t like a lot of things so I
kept my peace, kept my lounge and listened to Diandra talk.

In late afternoon, promising to come back
the next day and take me to the marketplace bringing her daughter
Sheena with her, Diandra left me.

And when she did I realized I’d forgotten to
ask after Narinda and the evil (and apparently stupid) Dortak’s
unlucky bride.

And after she left, I lay on the pillows
noting that my women were busy bustling around doing whatever they
were doing. But whatever they were doing, they were doing it no
longer looking anxious but happy, smiling at each other while
working and chattering.

I watched them and smiled whenever they
caught my eye. They smiled back.

They seemed like nice ladies.

Shit, if I didn’t wake up home soon, I was
probably going to have to get to know them and figure out what to
do about them. But one thing I knew, whatever this world was or my
place in it, I was not going to own slaves.

Then I sighed, fiddled with the tassel of a
pillow, tried to sort my head out and smiled at anyone who passed
by who smiled at me. I also nodded to anyone who caught my eye. And
I took the lovely, pink flower from a little girl who dashed up and
handed it to me, murmuring, “Shahsha, honey,” as I took it. She
giggled and rushed back to her beaming mother.

It was after a dinner of roasted, spiced
meat, more flat bread and potatoes cooked in onions that I took at
the table in the tent when I decided what I was going to do.

And it was after my women – Jacanda
(petite, chubby and seemingly outgoing), Packa (also petite, not
chubby and somewhat shy), Gaal (tall, thin and quiet but not in a
shy way, a careful, watchful one that made me slightly uneasy) and
Beetus (tall, skinny, the youngest I was guessing, mostly because
she looked it but was also extremely giggly in a way I
almost,
almost
found
infectious) – washed my face, slathered it with heavenly smelling
stuff they gouged out of clay bowl, stuff that made my skin feel
divine, took off my jewels and clothes and ran their fingers
through my hair to pull out the gunked up twists. Then they helped
me don an actual nightgown made of pale pink satin (no joke,
a
nightgown
, it, like the
robe, had slits up the side, thin straps, the skirt to the ankle,
it fit snug at the boobs and hips but it, like the outfit I wore
that day, was
awesome
). They
tried to take my turquoise undies but I flatly refused and after a
brief verbal tussle that made no sense to any of us, they gave in,
murmured words that I took as goodnight and left me
alone.

So I climbed in the bed, sat cross-legged in
the middle of it, pulled the silk sheet up to my lap and waited for
my warrior king to come home so I could carry forth my plan to get
a few very important things straight.