Maia (20 page)

Immediately to the west of the Zhairgen lay the Terekenalt province of Katria, the northern part of which comprised the wild and dangerous Blue Forest. Keril, the principal town of Katria, had more than once been menaced by a Beklan raiding force, but never as yet taken.

So matters stood some two or three years after Sencho's inheritance of the wealth of Fravak. About this time there appeared two figures-one on each side-whose respective effects were to strengthen Terekenalt's ambition to take Suba; and to weaken the resistant power of Paltesh and hence of the empire itself.

On the one hand, King Karnat succeeded to the throne of Terekenait. Even in a long line of warlike kings, Karnat was egregious. In the first place he was, physically, almost a giant-immensely tall, and well-made in proportion. The very sight of him was enough to inspire his subjects and followers with admiration and confidence. Secondly, he soon showed himself an active leader, aggressive and darings-the kind of man whose latest exploit is related from mouth to mouth. Finally he was, in a rudimentary way, a diplomat, taking pains to conciliate local nobility in outlying parts of the Beklan Empire. It was rumored that his agents had even travelled as far as Chalcon, the wild and mountainous country lying between Tonilda and Yelda, though of this there was no real proof. What was clear, however, was that Karnat the Tall was hell-bent on an effort, more determined than any made by his predecessors, to conquer and integrate Suba.

On the other hand, upon the sudden death of her father, the High Baron Kephialtar-ka-Voro, a young woman named Fornis became, at seventeen, the eristic ruler of Paltesh. Fornis was Kephialtar's only child and he, foreseeing disputes following his death without a male heir (for he had

lived many years in the shadow of this virtually certain eventuality), had already made two attempts to marry her to suitable young men, either of whom he would have been glad to regard as his successor. That Fornis should have succeeded personally in bringing both matches to nothing was matter for head-shaking in a country where daughters commonly did as they were told. At fifteen she had effectively subverted her father's choice of Renva-Lorvil, the eldest son of his most trusted commander-a young man, as everyone knew, ready to live and die for Paltesh. What had finally tipped the scale had been the puzzled, half-incredulous realization of the suitor himself-a likable, straightforward youth-that in some odd way he was afraid of the girl and unmanned in her presence. She, for her part, while never saying or doing anything which could be singled out for rebuke, contrived to convince everyone that she despised Renva and found him ludicrous-and this even while seeming to obey her father's injunction to encourage and be pleasant to him. In time the sound of her detached, mocking laughter, simulating courteous reciprocity, became almost more than her father could bear. It was the young man himself who finally told Kephialtar, almost with tears, that he felt unable to go through with the business. Fornis's sustained front of self-possessed mordancy and contempt had defeated him. Frankly, he had no wish to spend the rest of his life with her.

The second rejection was a far more dramatic affair. Fornis was formally betrothed to Eud-Ecachlon, heir of the High Baron of Urtah-a less attractive young man than Renva, but politically an even better match from the point of view of her father and of Paltesh as a whole, since in time it would unite the two provinces and thus strengthen both against Terekenalt. Eud-Ecachlon, though not a fool, was a rather stolid and insensitive young man; not at all the sort to be either thrown off balance, like Renva, by a cold and malicious girl or, conversely, unduly inflamed if he had happened to be offered a warm and passionate one. Fornis's father-by the standards of his own society kindly and humane-thinking that the girl's unenthusiastic attitude might be due to a secret fear of marriage or of sex, and half-expecting some sort of trouble similar to that with Renva, talked seriously to her about her duty as his sole heiress and about the desperate need of Paltesh for political security. Fornis, seeming to acquiesce, met her bride-

groom and complied with all the customary formalities.

A week before the wedding day, during a night of full moon, she vanished, taking with her her personal maid, Ashaktis, and two young men from the crew of her father's boat on the Zhairgen. These lads had happened to be the watch on the High Baron's moorings for the first part of that night, but whether they were secretly in Fornis's pay and had already agreed to come with her, or whether she had suborned them on the spot, no one ever knew. By the time they were missed it was reckoned that the light, swift boat they had taken must have had a start of a good thirty miles. Another was at once dispatched to follow and find them, but everyone knew that unless they had come to grief, any serious hope of overtaking them-wherever they might be bound-was out of the question. Kephialtar's anxiety was greater than his anger, for he loved Form's dearly and knew that she must be sailing straight down the lower Zhairgen-several hours in full view from the Katrian bank.

Forms, however, did not come to grief. Six days later, having sailed nearly two hundred miles down the Zhairgen and then the Telthearna, she landed at the Ortelgans' sacred island of Quiso and sought sanctuary of the Tuginda and her priestesses-a request never denied to any fugitive woman not guilty of a grave crime. And here she remained for two months, while the scandalous news of her exploit was bruited from Ortelga to Urtah, Dari and all over the empire.

Before the end of those two months, Kephialtar was killed in a brush with the Katrians.

Fornis, an exceptionally strong, energetic girl, returned to Dari on foot by way of Gelt and Bekla; a journey lasting three weeks. She was escorted by Ortelgans, for although Ashaktis was still with her, the two young sailormen were not. Indeed, where they went no one ever found out; but it was commonly supposed that they must be afraid of the probable consequences of showing their faces again in Pal-tesh. A few days after her arrival, having summoned her father's barons and commanders-all those who were not in the field against Kamat-she told them that she, the indisputable successor to her father, intended to rule Pal-tesh in her own right: she called upon them all for loyal allegiance and support.

Her announcement fell upon the province like hail in

harvest. Everyone had hitherto supposed that if the girl had fled from her bridegroom and her wedding, it could only be because she had secretly promised herself to some other lover-an affair of the heart. Her tomboy reputation-though nothing scandalous was known against her- tended to support the notion. There were those who, unen-thusiastic about Eud-Ecachlon, were ready to take her part, despite the appalling effect of what she had done on relations between Paltesh and Urtah. Ah, well, but she'd shown herself a fine, spirited girl, now, hadn't she?-too good by half for that thick Urtan fellow. She'd displayed dash and courage: she was her father's daughter all right. Depend upon it, her heart was already fixed on some young blade of lower birth than her father would have welcomed. Good luck to him, whoever he was! But who
was
he? It took them some time to become convinced that nothing like this was involved at all.

That the people in general were ready to condone and support her if they possibly could was in large measure due to Fornis's appearance and style. From the age of thirteen or fourteen the girl had been strikingly-almost magically-beautiful, the talk and pride of the province, her fame extending to Bekla and far beyond. Her exquisite, rather pale face and wide, green eyes were framed by a great mane of auburn hair which actually seemed to glow with a kind of incandescence so intense as almost to transcend nature. People stood and stared at her as they might have stared at some magnificent summer sunset, or the migrant purple
kynat
returned in spring. Beauty of this order (which again and again had blunted the edge of her father's anger) conferred on Fornis a power beyond her years. It was very difficult to resist her. Doors opened easily and objections tended to dissolve.

Together with this, however, she had tastes and leanings over which her uncles-her mother's family-had often expressed misgiving among themselves. Kephialtar had been much engaged in campaigning and all the other affairs of a border province. His wife was a placid, indolent woman, not given to taking a long view or considering consequences. As a child Fornis, lacking brothers and sisters, had been left a great deal with the servants. From their company she had acquired a racy elan, a sly and cunning opportunism in getting her own way, a great belief in the value of intimidation, an appetite for material possessions

and a general conviction that principle and responsibility were so much pretentious rubbish. Whatever else she might have acquired was as yet uncertain; but there had been a whispered rumor, never allowed to reach the ears of her father, that once, when she was fourteen, she had been seen with her maid on the balcony of a room overlooking her private garden, pointing and laughing as though at a play, while below her, on the grass, her groom supervised the serving of a sow by a boar.

In company she was free and bold and from an early age well able to converse and hold her own with her father's subjects of all degrees; but particularly with soldiers, huntsmen, tradesmen and the like. Peasants on the whole she despised, preferring sharper performers and quicker wits.

When her father's barons had at length realized that in fact there had never been anyone whom Fomis wanted to marry, that she had no intention of marrying and seriously intended them to regard her as the actual ruler of Paltesh, there was grave disquiet. Inheritance by a female in her own right was unknown to Beklan tradition and custom. No female had ever attempted it. Yet since there was no written code of law, Fornis's design could not simply be declared invalid. If a man had daughters but no sons, then by custom the inheritance passed to his eldest daughter's husband. If his daughters were unmarried, then the male next of kin-his brother or cousin-had prior claim. As her maternal uncles were not slow to point out, there was no precedent for what Fornis meant to do. But among those with no personal interest the disquiet was scarcely less. For a girl of seventeen to rule a province herself, let alone a province at war, was of course out of the question. Who then was to be the real and actual ruler?

Fornis might, of course, have chosen a small executive council of five or six nobles and governed in her own name with their advice and support. If she had done this, she would probably (dependent upon results) have had sufficient baronial backing, despite her immodest audacity. But a responsible approach of this kind was altogether foreign to her character. Wayward, domineering and headstrong by nature, she enjoyed risk and excitement for their own sake. She also enjoyed provoking her father's former friends and flouting propriety and custom. At this time in her life she placed a high value on luxury and frivolous pleasure,

and delighted in exploiting her appearance. Regarding this last, however, she was shrewd enough to realize that if once she gave herself to any man-whether in marriage or otherwise-its general power would diminish; and accordingly she took care that whatever older people might say about her behavior, no one could credibly allege that she had ever been loose in the hilts. Here, however-as will be seen later-her natural propensities helped rather than hindered her.

By the customs of the society in which she lived, she should have been reprehended and brought to comply with what was expected of her and of womanhood. This her uncles attempted, but what Fornis had realized was that while she might be advised, browbeaten, importuned, even entreated to act in a conventional manner, she could not be compelled. The province was hers and this could not be gainsaid or altered. At one point an attempt was made to keep her under house arrest until she saw reason, but this failed on account of her widespread popularity among the common people who, as soon as they knew what was going on, demanded her release.

Gradually a
modus vivendi
evolved. The truth was that Fornis, in asserting her own right to Paltesh, had never intended actually to govern-a task far too tedious and demanding for her taste. What she wanted was simply to do as she pleased and have the spending of as much money as she could get her hands on. Left to herself, she would probably have beggared the province in five years and then sold it to the highest bidder. Her uncles, understanding the risk, finally made the best of a bad job. What this came down to was that they paid her a large allowance and governed the province in her name.

With this Fornis at first appeared content. But her uncles had underrated her. If they had known what she was capable of they would certainly, despite the unforeseeable consequences, have had her assassinated. For a time she amused herself with various extravagances in Dari, spending not only her own money but also that of any young noble or rich man's son sufficiently infatuated to give her more. Her personal daring and bravado added greatly to her popularity among those with no responsibility in the province, and stories were always circulating of her audacious exploits; how she had joined in following up a wounded leopard in close country; scaled a sheer cliff for

a wager; or plunged forty feet from a promontory into the Zhairgen.

After a time, however, beginning to tire of Dari, she started making trips to Bekla. Here, naturally enough, she soon became all the rage among the younger men in the upper city, where she bought a house and entertained lavishly. In reply to those who condemned the shameless freedom of her behavior-nothing like it had been seen before in the empire, where women of good family lived in relative seclusion-her adherents pointed out that at all events her chastity was indisputable and beyond question; she was just a fine, spirited girl. And since she spent much time in the company not only of young nobles but of influential and well-connected men such as senior army officers, most people assumed that her real intention must be to find herself a husband, one who could rule Paltesh with her or for her. In this, however, they were mistaken.