The Cache (9 page)

Then, Joel’s face swam before him, and Benoni felt himself slumping down by the side of his enemy. He looked up and saw one of Joel’s companions standing over him, a stone mug in his hand. Confused through he was, Benoni knew that the man had struck him on top of the head with the mug. He felt wetness on his head and crawling down his face, but he did not know if it was blood from a cut or beer from the mug. It did not matter; he was too stunned to defend himself. He was done for; the man raised the heavy stone again to crush his skull.

But the man stiffened, and the mug fell from his hand. Two mugs struck the floor, one of them aimed expertly by Zhem at the back of the man’s neck. The man pitched forward, falling on Joel and knocking him backward again. Benoni, beginning to recover his senses, rolled to one side, away from the steps, and closed his hand around the leg of a stool.

At the same moment, Zhem flew into the other three companions. He kicked one between the legs, caught another under the chin with an elbow, and grabbed the third by the wrist. Turning, he brought the unlucky fellow over his back and sent him upside down through the air. But a stranger, probably not caring what the quarrel was about or who won, but wanting to get into a brawl, hit Zhem on the jaw with his fist just as Zhem straightened up. Zhem staggered backwards, and the stranger followed, throwing two more punches, one of which went wild.

Before Zhem could reply, a second stranger locked his arm around the neck of the first and began pummeling his face with his left fist.

That was enough. In a few seconds, every male in the place was fighting.

Benoni got to his feet just as Joel charged him. He brought the stool down on Joel’s back. But Joel had caught Benoni in the stomach with his shoulder, lifted him up in the air, and carried him backwards until he rammed him into the wall.

The breath went out of Benoni; he felt as if his entrails had been squeezed out of his mouth.

Then, he was falling, for Joel had not only smashed Benoni into the wall but had dealt his own head a hard blow against it.

Joel got up first, and his huge frame loomed over Benoni. He drew his sandalled foot back to kick Benoni in the ribs, and then he fell heavily. Zhem, coming up from behind, had kicked Joel hard in the ankle.

Zhem kicked Joel in the ribs and knocked him down again. A figure soared out of the smoke and carried Zhem face-forward to the floor. Benoni struggled to his feet, picked up another stool, and brought it down on the man on top of Zhem. The man quit trying to bend Zhem’s neck backward until it would break, and he crumpled.

Benoni whirled to face Joel, saw Joel had removed his belt and was holding it by one end and preparing to use it like a whip. The buckle on the other end, probably sharpened for just such an occasion as this, would slash like a knife if it caught Benoni.

Benoni loosened the strap around his chin, took his steel helmet in hand. As he saw Joel flick the buckle-end of the belt back before lashing it out at him, he hurled the helmet at Joel’s face. The helmet struck Joel a glancing blow on top of his head, for Joel had ducked. Benoni was on him, inside the reach of the belt, before Joel could recover. He struck at the face, felt his fist hit the big jaw, and then was enfolded inside Joel’s arms. His arms were pinned to his sides in the bear hug.

“I’ll break your back, you sidewinder!” said Joel. “How the hell did you ever get
here?”

“I’d find you in hell!” said Benoni.

“So now what’re you going to do with me?”

And Joel began squeezing.

There was nothing Benoni could do except try to bring his knee up, and Joel was too good an infighter to allow that. Benoni did begin to hammer the top of his head against Joel’s chin, but he was so close to knocking himself out that he quit. Then he began tearing at Joel’s neck with his teeth, and he ripped the skin and tasted the blood on his mouth. But the breath was being forced from him, and his ribs felt as if they would collapse. His senses dimmed. If he did not do something at once, he would die in Joel’s arms. And those arms were the last he wanted to die in.

Then, the arms fell away from him, and Joel was backing up to the wall, a swordpoint against his belly driving him.

Benoni turned and saw that the tavern was filled with armed soldiers. These wore stuffed hawks on top of their helmets. The civilian police.

Benoni was herded with the other brawlers outside the tavern and allowed to collapse against the wall while the police waited for the wagon that would bear the culprits to prison. By the time the wagon arrived, he was feeling well enough to stand and ask Zhem if he were all right. Zhem’s woolly scalp was bloody, but he laughed and said that this fight was better than the tankards of beer and a woman.

Benoni got into the big cage on top of the wagon and sat down. Joel was the last to climb aboard. He made a lunge for Benoni as soon as the cage door was shut. Benoni leaned back, kicked out with his feet, and his steelhard soles caught Joel’s jaw and drove him backward. Joel fell heavily to the floor and lay there, unconscious and breathing hard. He did not come back to consciousness until shortly before the wagon halted in front of the prison-tower. He glared at Benoni but did not offer to attack again.

One by one, the prisoners were taken out of the wagon, shackled by the wrists to each other, and led into an office. There they were identified, searched for weapons, relieved of their money, and led off to individual cells.

“Good thing we’re military,” whispered Zhem to Benoni just before they went behind the bars. “If we were civilians, we’d all be put into a den. And a man’s lucky if he comes out of one of those alive. The professional criminals beat you up, maybe kill you, just because they don’t like non-professionals. They gang up on you or wait until you fall asleep.”

Benoni was hungry, but he almost failed to eat when he saw the bowl of mush that was to be both his supper and breakfast. There was a blue mold over it, and he suspected there might be worms within. He ate anyway, knowing that he needed something to give him strength for whatever tomorrow might bring.

At dawn, he was awakened by a club scraped against the bars of his cell. He had time to eat the little left over from supper then was taken with the rest (six who had not fled out the back way of the tavern) before the judge.

The judge was a big white-haired man with a face like a lion’s. He wore a scarlet robe and a green three-cornered hat, and he held in one hand a baton topped by two wolves’ heads. He sat behind a big desk on top of a platform; two spearmen stood at attention beside the desk.

None of the prisoners were allowed to plead guilty or innocent. A policeman read out the charges; the judge asked the captain of the squad that had made the arrests to identify the guilty.

“According to the laws of Kaywo, you soldiers are under my jurisdiction if you commit crimes while off duty,” the judge said. “There is no doubt you are guilty of drunken and disorderly conduct and of damaging the property of a private citizen. Now if you cannot pay for the damages, which amount to six hundred
owf,
and the fines, which amount to six hundred
owf,
twelve hundred
owf
in all, then you will suffer the full penalty of the law.

“The full penalty is a flogging of thirty lashes, and losing your status of free men. You will be sold as slaves to pay for damages. And for every
owf
that is lacking from the sale, each of you will spend one year as a slave. Of course, after the flogging, you must be turned over to the military to be officially discharged and suffer any punishments they have for you before being sold as slaves.”

The six looked at each other helplessly. Their money had been taken before they were led to the cells. The amount had been written down, and the sergeant-of-the-day had told them they would get it back—minus the amount needed to house and feed them—after they were released.

Benoni started to open his mouth to protest that his money had not been returned, but he closed it when Zhem rammed his elbow into his side. Benoni, startled, looked at Zhem. Zhem put his finger to his lips and shook his head to indicate silence.

“Captain,” said the judge, “are these men penniless?”

“There isn’t a coin among the six,” said the captain.

“So? Then I find you guilty as charged.”

And the judge banged the end of his baton on his desk.

Benoni, furious at the injustice but knowing that Zhem must have his reasons for warning him, ground his teeth together. He marched behind the others out of the courtroom and back to his cell. On the way, he whispered to Zhem, “What about the money they took from us?”

“Wouldn’t have been enough, anyway. And the captain would have denied taking any from us. He’ll split it with his men, maybe with the judge, though I doubt that. The judge is
kefl’wiy,
and they think it a dishonor to steal. But he’s just as guilty as the police; he supports the system. I was trying to tell you not to open your mouth, because the captain would have knocked your teeth down your throat for contempt of court. And the judge would have doubled the lash-strokes. You aren’t allowed to speak unless requested to do so.”

“When will we be lashed?” said Benoni.

“If we weren’t military, we’d be getting it now,” replied Zhem. “But the civilians, no matter how high and mighty the judge talked, can’t do a thing to us until our case has been reviewed by our officers. We may get off with a few lashes, or we might end up on the block. Depends on how badly they need soldiers. I’d say that, with the Skego war getting hotter every day, we’re needed.”

Benoni had time to think about the Skego war, for he spent the next two days in the cell. He knew that, though the two nations had never officially declared war, fighting on a small scale took place every day in the forests to the north. Skego feared Kaywo now that Kaywo had devastated Senglwi. Skego wanted to fight before Kaywo recovered from her losses in the taking of that city. Trade between the two was being carried out as before the Senglwi war. That is, it was on the Siy and L’wan rivers. But the overland caravans no longer conducted business; too many from both cities had been robbed and the merchants and beasts of burden abducted. No official complaints were made; both sides seemed to accept the explanation that wild men or bandits were responsible. But each knew what the other was doing.

Perhaps, because Kaywo needed every sword she could get, Kaywo would give the six a suspended sentence. Or a few lashes.

Benoni nourished that hope, but it died the dawn of the third day when he was marched out with the rest into the open courtyard and saw the lashman waiting for him.

“We’ve had it,” said Zhem. “See that officer?”

He pointed at a captain of a Feykhunt sitting on his mount near the whipping post. “He’s here to see that we get just what the civilian court ordered and no more. Then off we go to the barracks to get it from the military.”

Benoni watched while the first of the six was stripped of his bobcat skin shirt and shackled to the post. He winced with each crack of the whip and wished that he had been first. Then, he would have been so concerned with his own pain that he would not have to suffer while the others were being lashed.

Two others followed. One of them, a burly yellow-haired Skanava, walked away from the post; the others had to be dragged away by their heels. Benoni, as next in line, waited.

But the officer on horseback spoke, and the three; Joel, Zhem, and Benoni, were marched out of the courtyard and into a cage on a wagon.

“What happened?” said Benoni softly to Zhem.

Zhem shrugged and muttered, “Don’t know. Maybe something good. Maybe something worse than the lash.”

Benoni had expected to be taken to the barracks, but the wagon stopped before the Pwez Palace, and the three were ordered to get out of the cage. The captain dismounted, and, as two guards with short spears kept the prisoners in order, he led them into a side door of the great building. Here, they waited a while in an office. Benoni still did not know what to expect. The captain merely announced that he had brought the three wildmen as ordered. After a half an hour, an officer, splendidly uniformed, appeared and relieved the captain of his charge. The shackles were taken off the three. Two palace guards replaced the Feykhunt, and the officer led the three through many rooms and up two flights of steps. He paused before a door, outside of which stood four fully armed soldiers, and announced that he had brought the prisoners. One of the soldiers went inside the door and reappeared a few minutes later.

“You wild-men behave,” he said. “The Usspika and the Pwez herself are going to speak to you. Don’t forget to bow as soon as they notice you. And don’t speak unless it’s clear that one of them expects you to do so. Too bad we didn’t have time to wash the prison dirt and stink from you before bringing you in, but we didn’t. No help for it. Now, follow me, and try not to disgrace yourselves.”

Benoni did not feel awed or ashamed; he was burning from the injustice of the judge. Moreover, though impressed by Kaywo’s superiority over Fiiniks in population, area of sovereignty, and military might, he still felt that one man from anywhere in the Eyzonuh desert was equal to three men elsewhere. Besides, what kind of people could these be that allowed a woman to rule over them? They might be great warriors, but they must have an effeminate streak in them.

He was led into a room which was twice as big as any room in Fiiniks, twice as large as the council-cave hollowed out of rock in Kemlbek Mountain. There were only four persons in the huge chamber besides the officer and the three wildmen. Two were spearmen who stood at attention, each at the end of a desk curved like a quarter-moon. The desk was made of some dark, red close-grained polished wood Benoni did not recognize. Two people sat behind it. On a chair set at floor level was a small white-haired and very wrinkled old man with a face like a fox’s.

On another chair, raised by a platform several inches above the other chair, sat a woman. A young woman. Very beautiful. Dark-skinned, dark-haired, and blue-eyed.