2435 B.C.E.    The Julian Alps.

Sometimes, not very often, an age of human life on Earth comes to an end.

For so many of us to live on the Earth at the same time, a great many things have to go right, and to keep going right.    When one of them goes wrong - and it only takes one - we die.  A few survive - in shacks amid the fallen towers.    One such catastrophe, a drought, happened around 2150 BCE, in the eastern Mediterranean; and perhaps as far east as the Punjab.    A time of troubles comes to an end, always, and the towers are built again.    And those who build think, once again, that the towers will stand forever.
 

NOTE: This story contains what is sometimes called "adult content."   The recent practice of trying to keep children ignorant of sex has not proven to be a good idea.   Nevertheless, if you are a child, and you are reading stories about sex on the internet, you should tell your parents.  Until you do, don't read this story.

This is the third story of a trilogy.  These links go to web postings of each story; the web postings contain a few illustrations, some music I wrote for the songs, etc.  
home page (  http://adult.pornparks.com/dnds ) | mirror   ( http://www.asstr.org/~Davo )  

1.  "... and run between the fires on a warm midsummer night."    
     (  http://www.asstr.org/~Davo/Arkwan.htm )  
2. Brothers of the Ox-Yoke  
   (   http://www.asstr.org/~Davo/tektu.htm  )
3. The Song of Kala Khoam 
   (   http://www.asstr.org/~Davo/kalakhoam.htm )

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"Soon, Bard.   But Nute will wish to know of Nakien.   And Fiya is with him, who was Nakien's student."

"Even Fiya may not be safe - the student of a bard.    So far, she has not made war on peddlers.   Or sea-captains."

"They must be warned, Ghoiokh bard.   If you go on the cart-track, toward Ishan's kingdom, you can overtake them."

"I do not overtake anyone, and I can walk no faster than I do.    Captain, could you send a sailor to warn them?   I have no wealth besides tales, but whatever service a black bard can do, I will give you.   For Nakien's sake.   If you will send a  warning to save his student."

"Honor, bard, and I will do you service, and give wealth too, for this news.    But no one shall go but me.    And I will go now.    Go to the ship, and tell them to put out to sea.    You are a black bard, they will believe you.    Go with them - you are safest from storms on the open sea, far from land.    Come back at the dark of the moon - on the night of the Gathering of Cattle."    And Dragnric ran off, before Ghoiokh had time to say he had no idea where the ship was.    And that there were many things about the High Queen, that Nute would need to know.

But if he found the ship, and they went to sea until new moon, then the sailors would have no choice but to listen to him.   He need not pick some crowd-pleasing tale.   He could give them a serious work, an important song.   After all, what are they going to do - swim away?   He could even - Ghoiokh counted the days on his fingers - sing them The Battle of Kala Khoam.

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"But why won't you let her go?" Fiya shouted.   "Her price is nothing to you!"

"Why you want I give her you for nothing?" - that was the Ekoopti's squeaky voice.  "I have say, I not fuck her.  What you want more."

"Because she is unhappy.   And I love her.   And she is my brother's wife.   Can't you understand?"

Imhuotpa said nothing.   Then Fiya said "And she's not a slave anyway - she's been rescued.   She was taken in a stock-raid on the High King's lands, and she is back in them."

"Fiya!" Nute thundered.   "That's a lie!   You're Nakien's student, and you've turned into a liar.    He's the most respected bard there is - even if he is the most disreputable one - and you're a liar.    You know Sujasa was taken from the land of King Kahul - not under the High King.  Not then."

"You should buy her, Nute."

"I will not.   I'll whip you right now for being a liar."

But then Dragnric came up to them.   "Fiya!" he gasped.   "son of Aher."    His lungs were hungrier now he had stopped running.   "Health and," ...  "Safety."  ...  "Wvak...."   His head spun, and he had to lie down.    He breathed deeply for a while, then Fiya helped him sit up.   Nute took a wineskin from his pack.

"Wvaksa," he said, when he could speak.  "there is danger.   Nakien white bard has been killed.   By the High Queen.   All bards are in danger, and Fiya most of all.   You must come, and we can sail away."

"Nakien dead!   Dead!   Killed by the Queen?   But why?"

"I don't know."

"But how did you learn Nakien was dead?"

"A man called Ghoiokh told me.  A black bard, he said.  He wanted to escape on my ship.   He said all bards were in danger."

"The High Queen is killing bards!   And you didn't ask him why?   Did he say anything else.?"

"No.   Well, he said he didn't want his penis shoved in the Queen's fire."

Imhuotpa said: "We away go, if ankle danger.  I want not penis shoved in fieh."

Nute said: "Go if you want.   But I'd like to know what is going on.   The High Queen gives many gifts to priests, makes many sacrifices.   She thinks we should serve the Gods more, rely on them more - that when bad things happen, it is punishment from the Gods.   The bards quarrel with the priests.   That's the only thing I can think of.   But killing bards - killing even one bard.   Surely she can't think the Gods want that."

"We should at least go back and talk to Ghoiokh.   He can tell us what is happening." - It was Sujasa.   She spoke in her own tongue.

Fiya understood a bit of the northerners' tongue, but spoke in his own: "Sujasa.   You sound as if you are well again."

"I was not ill, son of Aher.   And it has pleased me to see one face that I knew from the time before.   I have just been sad.   I lost my husband, my baby, everyone.   My father.  My son.   And as a whore I had to pretend.  That every man's penis filled me with lust.   And with the nomads ..."   She stopped.   And the brief flame of life that had entered her face, sputtered and died away.

Fiya said: "But Arkwan isn't dead.   Didn't we tell you?"    "Arkwan is not dead," he repeated in the northerners' tongue.

"Not dead?   You said - but I didn't understand.   Not dead - he must be - are you sure - what have you heard?   No, it is impossible - I saw his father's house burn to the ground, and I know he was in it.   There's a mistake. Someone is lying!"

Fiya ripped his loincloth off so violently he made red marks on his skin.   He pointed to his two lines of tattoo.    "When I got that line, that one there, Arkwan was there, getting his penis tattooed on the same day, by Nakien.   We clasped hands and said we would be brothers.   And this was the first moon of summer.   This summer.   I cannot have been mistaken.   There is no lie.  Nute will say the same, and say that Nakien knew Arkwan also."

"Where is he?   Where was he going?"

"He may be in danger, I think," Fiya said.  "Nute knows the story.   I don't understand it.   But I think Arkwan had something to do with the quarrel between bards and priests.   If the High Queen is killing bards...."

Sujasa used the southern tongue, as much of it as she had learned in a whorehouse, to talk to Imhuotpa:  "Wvaksa Imhuotpa, I am your slave - I want serve you any way.  Any way.   But I must go my husband now.    We must go polestar.   But no, we must go back.  Best is talk to Ghoiokh, to, to, ... to listen more.  Master, you are kind master, very good to Bitch.   Can you rent me Wvaksa Nute?   Do you are sail away, Master?    Arkwan my husband in danger.   Go you, stay Bit ... Sujasa."

Fiya asked: "Teacher, What did Nakien tell you?   What was the story about Arkwan?"

"Nakien told me you did not listen.   I hope I have taught you that, at least.  Or I had a lot of pain in my shoulder for nothing."

"I revere my teacher, and my friend.   I have no one on the green Earth now, except you.  And Arkwan.  And Huwh, if he is still alive.  What is the story - how is Arkwan involved in this quarrel with the priests?   What should we do?"

"Father, who ankle this Arrehkwan," Imhuotpa asked.    "Goddess Cunt - I mean who is this Arrrkwan!"

"You cuss in the tongue of the wild men, at least," Nute said in Ekoopti.

Nute told the story of the midsummer dance, and told it again in Sujasa's speech.  And he babbled some in Ekoopti as well.  He said: "And they were all talking about the Kohiyossa.   A man said to me  'I knew the baby was the Kohiyossa, when she rescued him from the tree.   Now the God has come and planted his seed again.   And they say babies have been born overnight!'    And this was an intelligent man, the man who plans their tunnels and mines.    I think there is some story about this Kohiyossa.   But I don't know it."

"I do," Fiya said.

Nute continued: "Gods come to that dance often.   And as for the God using a man's body - why not?   My disgusting little cousin Koo'wi, who once rubbed his penis till the seed came out, in front of a party of foreign ambassadors, is God.  He calls himself Nofarirku'Rugya - Beautiful as the Sun God's light.   I hope Arkwan is the God.   I paid too much for him if he isn't."

Dragnric said: "You bought a God?   Where did you sell him?   Did you make a profit?"

"I gave him to that liar, Nakien.    That liar who was my best friend.  Who saved my life.  And my son.   And saved Nofariptuc, if only for a while."    Nute stopped talking.

Fiya said: "Teacher, honor.  We should go east to the village of the law-singer.    I know bards.   If Nakien has been killed, the white bards will fight back - in some way.  Using their knowledge.   The gathering at the village of Sugga is the heart of the white bards' power.   The Queen may bring warriors against the village - and we should help them, defend the bards."

Nute said: "You are known as the student of Nakien, Fiya.   You are in danger just walking along a track."

Imhuotpa said: "Fiya ab'Aher go ship talk Ghoiokh maker of signs.  Stay with Ghoiokh.   Send message.  Ship safe at sea."

"Ghoiokh is already at sea," Dragnric answered, "and I told him to stay until the dark of the moon."

Nute said: "None of us is a warrior, Fiya.   If a village of bards is attacked by trained warriors, we can do nothing."

"Safety, Teacher, one of us is warrior - a hero for her skill.    I saw Sujasa shoot before King Kahul and Queen Mea of the mountains of the north.  None of their warriors could match her."

"I might have guessed Arkwan would teach his wife."

"What do you mean, teacher?   Arkwan has no great skill with the bow."

"He can shoot four arrows while I shoot one.   He can hit a stick tossed in the air.   I think this is skill."

"Health and riches, teacher; I lived with him and Sujasa for a moon and more.  Slept with them.  Practiced with them.  Switched him, most mornings, for missing his target.   I saw no skill."

The peddler and his student looked at Sujasa.

"He has his tricks," Sujasa said, in her own speech.   "And he is very good at shooting rabbits.    He claimed his tricks would be good in battle or on raids.   But targets that stayed still, didn't interest him.  He missed targets he should have hit.   That's why I whipped him."

"You had me whip him, Wife of my brother.    I hated it.   I saw no great skill but he was better than I was.   Why did you want me to whip him when it was Tanyata who won?"

"Huwh's Tanyata.   And her breasts had no tattoos.  But that didn't stop my husband's penis from swelling when she scampered about flashing her red bottom.   I wasn't going to let her whip him, as well."

"His wasn't the only swelling penis.   But his sister?   What did you think?"

"His sister?"

"You didn't know?   But they were like twins!   They even talked alike.   And they lifted their bottoms for the switch the same way.   How could you not know?"

"They were alike - but I don't think they were brother and sister.  And I'm quite certain Arkwan didn't think they were."

"We asked Karipas.  Huwh and I.   She told us, but we had to promise not to tell anyone.   Tanyata was the daughter of Eos.  Karipas said there was no doubt: there was only the one time with Eos, at a dance, but she had quarelled with her husband.   He couldn't be the father.  I can't believe Huwh didn't tell his father.   He must have seen that bulge in his father's loincloth as well as you did."

"Huwh would not have broken a promise, Fiya."

"When I switched Tanyata, she spread her knees and waved her cunt at me.    It made my little penis rise every time - and she knew it.    I had to bring the seed out with my hand.    I think she wanted Huwh to fight me.   Or maybe she wanted me to fuck her, to make Huwh beat her for it.  But Huwh just laughed.    He knew he had nothing to fear from me.    Huwh would have trusted his father, however stiff our penises got.   Trusted us more than we deserved to be.   At the Midsummer dance, when she ran between the fires and the Sex Frenzy took us, Arkwan and I ..."

Imhuotpa put his hands in his ears, and howled.   "Ka - Ka - Ka.   You talk talk ankle ugly gibber-gabber.  I go look water, wash ears."

"Are they making a plan?"  Dragnric asked Nute.

"They are not - they are talking about something else altogether.   And I don't know what to do.   Fiya can try to keep out of sight from now on, but we passed through a village.   Fiya may have already been seen and known."

"He has been, Wvaksa.   I asked at the village.   They said Wvaksa Nute had come through.   They said you were with Fiya student of  Nakien, a woman, and the strangest man they had ever seen."

"They may have sent word to the King's warriors.   Well, the worst thing would be for Fiya to continue on.   We must head back to the ship.   Go around the village.   Food is a problem, but we'll hunt, and stay out of sight until the new moon."

Sujasa jabbered quickly with Fiya about what Nute had said.   Then she said: "Safest is, we not stay together."

"Right ankle."   Imhuotpa struck himself across the mouth.  "Right is.  She right is."

"Very well, Sujasa goes with Fiya.   My son and I will go north.   Fiya, from here to Doleinth peddlers now know you as my student, and will help you for my sake.  Ask my friend Ulabasja - you know, Gilku's father.  You can be a peddler, or a red bard, or a white.  We will be peddlers of the islands together, if that is what you want, and if we both live.   Sujasa, my wishes for your health and safety."

"What of me, Wvaksa?"  Dragnric asked.

"Don't you want to go back to your ship?"

"You and the Ekoopti are heading into danger.   I think you need someone who can fight.   You hardly even have weapons."

Imhuotpa unsealed the heavy jar that he carried strapped to his back.   He reached in, grabbed a handful, and passed it to the captain.   It was gold.   Beads and bars and chunks of gold.   A bead of dark blue, streaked with gold.  A Queen would give a hand of cattle for it.   Beads of ivory.   A bead of a hard cold stone, like amber but more the color of fire, a thing too beautiful to be of this green Earth - as strange and wonderful as the arrows of the Lord of Storms.

"We weapon have ankle very good.   This wars win."

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He should have dodged the arrow at the distance.   But he must have expected a parley before the shooting started, and had not been on his guard.   By the time his men responded, Sujasa had drawn again.   And they knew now she was an excellent shot.   Fiya held his shield in front of her, and had his bow in the other hand, with an arrow nocked but not drawn.   "They can take us, but some of them will die," Sujasa said.   "They are thinking about how many.   I don't think these warriors want to die for the High Queen.   And they must have orders to take us alive - they would be shooting now if they didn't."

"Can we back up, slowly?   If we can reach the trees, we might be able to slip away." Fiya asked, also using the speech of Sujasa's village.

"We can't.   But it is you they are after."

"I will stay, and you go, then.   And may the Lady protect your husband, if he lives."

"Shoot, Fiya.   If you can kill one now, I can reach the trees while you hold them."

Fiya dropped his shield, and aimed carefully at a warrior.   I must make this, he thought.   He shot high, because of the distance, and the warrior easily, casually, moved his head aside.   He heard a moan to one side, and when he looked there was a warrior with one of Sujasa's arrows in his crotch.   The man must have been watching Fiya.   Sujasa could have put an arrow in his eye at that distance - in a corner of his eye - but she must have chosen the low shot to make it more difficult for him to dodge.    The poor fool had raised his shield when he saw the arrow coming.     And by the time he groaned Sujasa had drawn again.

Fiya said: "You can shoot better than I can.   But we knew that.   I still think you should go, while I hold them."

"It will not work, Fiya.   But I can hold them while you go."

"I will not leave you."

"Fiya, in my village, when it was attacked, we were trapped in a house, surrounded by enemies.   We knew that our best chance, the best chance for anyone to live, was to run in different directions.   Huwh refused to leave me - I was having a baby.    But I made him do it.   He knew it was the best chance.   You once told Huwh you would do anything for him.  In his name I say what he would say: Fiya, go!"

Fiya went.   He had not yet reached the trees when  he heard Sujasa shout to the warriors, in the southland tongue,  that she was throwing away her bow.  An arrow caught his calf.   His stumble saved him from an arrow that passed where his head had been.   He ran, despite the pain, dodging and weaving as best he could and kept running some way into the trees.  An arrow went into his buttock.   By then the warriors had reached the wood, and Fiya could not run fast - his foot was dragging.   He hid.   The warriors knew he was somewhere in the wood, and could search it carefully.   But Fiya could do nothing but keep still.

Somehow, the warriors missed him.   He heard them searching, looking in places much cleverer than the leaf-filled hollow where he was.   They combed and probed.   Fiya kept still till the sun set, kept still through the night, and kept still through the next day.   The warriors searched the wood again.   The wounds festered; he began to see visions.    Toward morning of the second night, with no thought except a desperate thirst, he slithered across the forest floor, one leg useless, no plan except to find water.   The warrior on watch did not bother to waste an arrow on another animal of the forest night.

"Your heart's desire, Princess.   And  it is only if you wish it.   But we did say that if any of us missed with two arrows ..."   And little Dafnya blushed and covered her face.

Kahela, who had been thinking of other things, removed her tunic.   "Honor, Arrow master.  It is not, if I wish it.   You must order us to bend, when we miss - Princess, captain, everyone the same.   You are the arrow master, and I'm your pupil who missed the target, twice.   You shouldn't have had to ask me to take my tunic off.   Whip me more for that."

"I could not do that, Princess."

Kahela knelt, and dropped to her knuckles.   The sting was breathtaking.    She was a good enough archer, usually, so this was her first switching since they had made this astonishing girl their arrow master - and this little girl, thin as a switch herself, whipped as hard as she fought.  She used her whole body, not just her arm.   And Kahela's bottom was soft.  She hadn't been sitting bare on rocks, or getting a lot of switchings, like the boys.   The stinging pain woke Kahela from her daydream mood - and she wished she hadn't allowed herself to shoot so badly.   "You don't learn by singing it wrong and getting whipped," her father used to say, "you learn by singing it right."   Kahela shot another hand of arrows, with the little arrow master standing behind her.  Shooting naked, with a switch that stung like a bee, poised ready to strike, she shivered in the warm fall morning.  She was not daydreaming now.   She had eyes only for the target.   She used the draw Dafnya taught them, the draw they called "the dance."  Kahela's body spun and and bent, so that the force of the spin went into the bow - more force than she had in the strength of her arms.   The wild dance seemed stronger, now she was naked - even her breasts, slammed across by the force of her spin, seemed to add to the draw of the bow.  Every arrow found its home - and sank deep.   That was the power of the dance.

Dafnya watched her pupil, and put her hands on Kahela's body as she drew the tightly strung bow.    "Use your hips, Princess.   The hips help the shoulders, the legs help the arms.   A woman's strength flows from the womb.   The womb between Earth and Sky."   Kahela had not understood until now.   "You hit the wolf, but you didn't kill the wolf."   That was what Dafnya would say to a weaver-boy, when his arrow hit the target, but did not sink in.    And  the boy got a whipping for that, more than for missing the target.    "It hurts, when the wolf bites," Dafnya would say as she whipped.    But until today none of Kahela's arrows had sunk deep, and Dafnya hadn't whipped her for it.   This little girl turned weavers and shepherds into warriors - telling men twice her size to bend and bare their bottoms.   It can't have helped that Royalty was allowed to shoot badly and not be punished.  Kahela said: "From now on, Arrow Master, whip me like the others, when I hit the wolf, but don't kill the wolf."   Kahela kept shooting.   On the mountain, with no fine cloak and no bullhide shoes, but bare feet on earth and bare body under the sky, her buttocks whipped and sore, she flung her body into the bow - she had the strength of the wind, the hardness of the Earth.   The sinew bowstring snapped like a linen thread.

Then she looked up.   The men and boys were watching her.    The men's cloths bulged.   The boys looked away, blushing and covering their penises with their hands.  Except one.    Hyaramon.   He looked her straight in the face, grinning like a fool, proud of his rod.    It's a good thing I don't have to shoot any more, Kahela thought, I wouldn't have eyes only for the target.

Kahela said: "Arrow master, have everyone shoot another hand.   And stand behind them with the switch, as you did with me.   Young Hyaramon first."  Kahela didn't put her tunic back on, but stood talking to the stiff-rodded boy as he shot.   His first arrow missed.   Serve him right.  Good practice for the distractions of battle, Kahela thought.   Dafnya spun around, and put force and speed into her stroke, but if it hurt, Hyaramon wasn't going to let it show.  He stared at Kahela's teats, licking his lips, and when the stroke fell he said "Oooh," with a look on his face like a man shooting his seed.   Perhaps the stokes did not hurt him much - his skin was tanned leather from running naked through the woods; his bottom toughened from sliding down rocks in the streams. War was a holiday for the boys, so far.   After his second miss he made a fucking motion toward Kahela, as he was whipped, watching her face to make sure she was not laughing at him.

His next arrow sank deep into the center of the target, and he winked at Kahela.   Then he sent his next arrow into the ground, about half-way to the target.   And he winked at Kahela again.  He began to sing softly, a lullaby:

Oh sweet little baby oh why do you cry -
  have you got a tum-ache, or ash in your eye?
Do you need a teat or to give me your dick?
  Oh sweeter than honey is little boy prick.

I've suckled your pricky and offered my breast,
   but still you keep crying and won't let me rest.
How much will you cry when your bottom is red -
   do you need a spanking to put you to bed?

Kahela wanted to feel this hard young body against her soft skin.  Wanted that long sharp penis skewered into her.  Wanted to take him in her arms - not take him, and the other boys, into battle and death.   Why this morning does every man's strong back and every boy's bottom switched, make my cunt hunger?   Hunger for Aru, I mean - it would never do to fuck one of my boys.   But all the same Kahela wished Hyaramon would be touched by the Frenzy, and grab her and fuck her.  Fuck her as roughly and urgently as if she were one of his ewes - bare penis smashed into tattooed cunt, all Law and the Sky-Father forgotten.   Speaking with her eyes, she told him she wanted it.   Told him if he came to her, in secret, he would have her.  The other boys, when they saw those eyes, shot very badly indeed.

But she had a job to do, and it was important.  Hyaramon's body, beautiful as it was, told her that - every rib could be seen.    Their task was to gather food, but they could barely feed themselves.   "Practice with the sling," Kahela ordered.   Kahela watched the boys - naked, beautiful, confident - skilled as heroes with this shepherds' weapon.    The women were the same age as the boys, but they were tattoed, every one of them, except the arrow master.  Among shepherds, girls who bled were tattooed, just like that.   Held down and pricked at the next dark of the moon, without sympathy or fuss - sheep-raising villages couldn't risk trouble with the Lady of the Wombs.   But Hyaramon had a mustache, and a fine piss-beard, and a man's penis under it.  And some other boys were the same.  Young men in every way, except the tattoo.   Perhaps they were afraid of the pain.   Or perhaps they wanted to be boys as long as they could.   Some shepherd boys didn't get tattooed until they wanted to marry.

"Princess, if you wish it.   But you did say everyone should practice with the sling."   It was Dafnya, holding out a sling, and a stone.  They both knew - everyone knew - that Kahela was useless with the sling.   "It is not, if I wish it, arrow master, everyone must practice."    Kahela spun and released, and the stone went in roughly the right direction.   But still, a miss.    With as much dignity as she could, she walked through the laughing shepherds, and bent over with her hands on a stone.  The boys stood around her, rods pointed; some of them used their hands as Dafnya applied the switch.   Hyaramon kept his hands away, but pointed - a wordless promise that his seed would stay inside him - until it could go in her.   He asked with his eyes if it was true, if he really could come to her.  She nodded.   Dafnya whipped hard.    My bottom will be as tough as the boys', she thought.  I wonder if I might get fucked if I go swimming with them.   She kept her eyes on Hyaramon; he was holding one hand with the other to keep himself from touching his rod.   She hardly felt the blows.

They put their loincloths and tunics on, those who wore them, and they all lifted their packs, and climbed uphill through woodlands of broadly spaced oaks.  Ancient trees.   The deep silence now broken by trudging feet, bleating lambs, and the young warriors' shouts and laughter.  And all at once Kahela was overcome with shame.   She could hardly believe it had been her, that shameless queen, waving her cunt at a boy - tattooless boy!     What had possessed her?    But she knew.   It was the Sky-Father.   She had defied Him - asked for His punishment, even.   The Sky-Father had sent Lust, to show His power.  He could have made her fuck young Hyaramon.   If the boy had asked, if the Sky-Father had made him bolder, she would have taken him - Lust had been that strong.   Fucking a bare-penis boy.   Naked on the ground, in front of everyone.   She would not be the rebel Queen then.   The rebellion would be over.

On the ridge, there was an open grassy space, with half-burned logs poking through the grass, in a rough circle.   An aisle with no logs crossed the circle in the direction of midsummer sunset.    So this was a place of dancing at midsummer.   A shepherd played a pair of notes on his pipe, and the dogs led the sheep to the grazing.  Gur made a sacrifice - a bit of hard bread.   "Accept this, Sky-Father.  It is small, but I can spare no more.  Accept it as you would a piglet - given by a man with enough to eat."

"Only large villages hold midsummer dances."   It was Old Hyaramon.  He was young Hyaramon's father and Gur's uncle, an old dyer who had never left the village of Nohas, but he had kept his ears open when the bards sang.   "Only rich villages, with a wvaksa as headman, and other wvaksas, can hold dances - the wvaksas join together to provide for the feasting, when so many come.   A triad of dances in the lands of the High King - ours, the bronze makers', and the High King's village itself.   Perhaps there are some smaller ones.   And the kingdoms that give tribute; they hold their own dances."

"This one is not small," Gur said.   "And the King's village is further west, I think.   And we are not as far north as Taslan's kingdom.  So this is the place.  The dance ground of the bronze makers.  The God we ... He ... "  Gur choked.    Shepherds and dyers, spinners and weavers, hushed and looked at their knees.   They all knew Gur had been tortured for saying the God had danced on this spot.  When the followers of Nohas had tried to return to their homes, after the battle of the King's Messenger, they had found the High Queen in their village, with a few warriors.   The High Queen, with Taucon beside her, demanded they deny that the God had danced.   Tektu had refused, and the Queen attacked.   Not expecting a fight, and not even willing to fight about whether the God had danced or not, quite a lot of them had been killed, until Erdiosh and Tektu had managed a retreat.

Erdiosh had been splendid.   He asked the survivors if they wanted to deny the God, and live under Taucon and under the High Queen's rule.   If not, then Aru would lead them, and be High King.   "Isn't that right, Princess Kahela?" Erdiosh had asked.   And Kahela, with no time to think, had agreed.   They returned to the village ready to fight, and the Queen and her few warriors had fled without an arrow shot.   Gur, who had been gelded in the fire, and a few other prisoners, were still alive.  Many had been killed.   And now Gur stood on the spot where his God had danced - the God he'd refused to deny, even when the coals were piled in his crotch, and fanned to white heat.

And so Kahela found herself here, with a troop of half-trained warriors, at the spot where the God had danced.  After they drove the Queen from the weavers' village, Kahela and Erdiosh had gone to tell Ishan that they had fought against the High Queen, in Aru's name.   Ishan had been furiously angry, and began to cough blood.  Aru shouted in rage, and smashed Erdiosh's backpack over his head.   But the rage passed.   Ishan realized they had no choice - the High Queen would not believe their loyalty.  And so the little girl from the law-singer's village was, except for the actual running of the mare, the rebel Queen.

Queen she did not want to be.   And in becoming Queen she had lost the thing that, now she had lost it, she wanted most.   Aru would not fuck her - not since she had called herself Princess, when she was not in fact his wife.  In private, they did not speak - in public they were the rebel King and Queen.    King and Queen of villages she had never heard of, full of men ready to fight and die for her.  King and Queen of rebels who had every chance of success, except one - they had nothing to eat.   The High Queen's warriors had taken food as they retreated.   Men and woman joined the rebels every day, and the problem of finding food was desperate.   And so they had divided into three: Kahela had gone north, and Tektu south, while Aru with the largest band went west, toward the High King's own village.

Kahela's task was to claim these northern lands for the rebels, to gather farmers and shepherds who wanted to fight, and to bring food for Aru's host.    Each village had welcomed them, and proclaimed hatred for the High Queen and support for the rebels.    This meant little - if the High Queen passed through with her warriors, the same villages would loudly proclaim loyalty to the High King.    Many wanted to join Kahela's band, so many that Kahela took only those who brought food.  The villagers were not starving, but they feared they would need their food before the next harvest, and would give none away.   Gur refused to consider demanding food with torture, but they had to do something.   From one village, they had stolen some sheep.

"There will be a path to this dance-ground, from the village that holds the dance," Old Hyaramon said. "More than a path - a sacred road.   For the procession.   Shall we go down?"

"We are not strong enough to attack the bronze makers' village,"  Gur said.

 Kahela said: "We can't rejoin Prince Aru - my husband - with no food.   They will be starving.    We must do something, Gur headman."

"Tektu son of Girtu is village headman, Kahela Queen."

"And I am no more a Queen, than Tektu is a headman."

"Do not mock the fight.  And when you are High King and Queen, there must be a king of these lands, to give you tribute.   Who will the king be?   Who but the headman of the largest village in the kingdom, a man on the winning side.  The man who made the winning side.  Tektu.  He must be headman now, because later he must be king."

"Tektu!"

"I know, I know - he's no king.   I know.   He's from my village.   He and the other weaver brats piss on our doorposts, and get into fights with the dyer boys.  But he will grow up, and he's a wvaksa born.   I'm just an old man who can dye cloth.  And anyway the king can't be me, Royal captain.   I don't have the tool.   The running of the mare would be quite a disappointment, if I was the one trying to fuck the cow."

"But - Erdiosh and ...."

"Erdiosh will make Tektu marry, so Tektu will have a queen for the king-making.  Some wvaksa's daughter, perhaps even a princess.   The King West of the Mountains probably has some plain cousin he needs to marry off."

"Erdiosh will not like it."

"Erdiosh will arrange the match!    But the wife Erdiosh picks for him will be as ugly as the cow.   You'll see."

"So Erdiosh will be satisfied as second wife."

"All Erdiosh has ever wanted is to be Tektu's wife.   But Tektu was to marry Ardaha - that was his mother's plan.   An alliance with an important house.  Tektu was willing - he only worried she didn't like him enough.   And once Tektu married - well, a second wife is always an insult to the family of the first wife; and if that second wife were to be a man, that would be worse.   But they could have done it.   If Tektu kissed Ardaha in public every day, and fucked her at every festival, and if Erdiosh was discreet, it might have worked.  Provided her babies looked like Tektu, and provided Nohas was still alive.   But not now."

"Why not?   If Tektu is made King, he can do what he wants."

"Whether Tektu is King of the Earth, or just headman of my village, Erdiosh will care more about Tektu's alliances and standing than he does about his own happiness.   He will sacrifice for Tektu's sake, his chance to be Tektu's wife."

"You trust Erdiosh better than I do."

Old Hyaramon interupted: "Honor, captains.  And harmony.  Tomorrow night is the Gathering of Cattle.   My son and I could go into the bronze makers' village.   There will be a lot of people coming in."

Gur asked, "Do you think they will give you food, Uncle?"

"We may learn something, Captain nephew."

"We need food."

"We must try something, Gur,"  Kahela said.   "And I will be the one to go."

"Queen - no!"

"The mare has not run, Captain.   Headman.   And if my life is to be High Queen over King Tektu and Erdiosh - well, I'm not ready for it yet.   And I'm taking the arrow master with me."

He hated the cloak and the undercloak.   He despised the shoes.   But most of all he hated the hat.   Stinking fur of some wild animal he had never even heard of.   And for all this heavy, ugly clothing, he was cold.   The damp cold soaked into his bones - colder than nights on the desert.   And tonight, Father had said, there would be something called "snow."

"Why should I dress like a wild man," he whined in Ekoopti.  "They'll know I'm a foreigner as soon as I open my mouth."

"You, they will know before that.  Do you have to strut about like a scribe?    And if you don't like the loincloth, I have a needle in my pack."

"What was it like, getting your penis tattooed."

"What do you think it was like, you fucking idiot?"

"You still cuss like a prince of the two lands."

"I was never a prince."

"Ah.  Well.  Well. ... I see you have a simple design."

"I'd like to see how many lines you ask for, Son.   Want to try it?   I do have a needle - and you can get the burns as well.   They hurt even more - but they say women like the scars, going in.    And some men wag their scarred penises about."

They looked at Dragnric, who was drying his loincloth over the fire.   He noticed what they were looking at.   "I got these in a quarrel, if that's what you're talking about.   A quarrel with a fisherman.   About some badly dried fish.   I was a bit tied up at the time, or I might have objected.   He is scarring penises for dolphins, now."   And he stood up and proudly showed off the marks.   Too much mead at a midsummer dance, was what Nute thought - he didn't believe the fisherman story.    A disappointed boy at his first midsummer dance, showing the woman how much pain he would take for her pleasure.  Touching the red-hot bronze to his penis, telling her he would not stop until she promised a fuck.     That was the usual story behind a scarred penis.   It did not count as a tattoo, according to Nakien, but boys who were desperate burned themselves, called it a tattoo, and tried to win the woman they burned for.  Nute wondered if she ever let him put it in, when it healed, and felt the tickling pleasure of the scars that Dragnric had won for her with so much pain and danger.

Dragnric rescued his loincloth from the fire, and draped the hot cloth over his shoulder, as he pissed on the fire.   Then he put the cloth on, hooting a bit, and dancing, but enjoying the heat of the cloth on his frozen bottom.    The plan for today was for him to go into a village, while Nute and Imhuotpa kept out of sight.   He had gone to a farmstead the day before, to buy food, and shepherd's clothing for Imhuotpa, but he hadn't learned much - only that two of the King's warriors had passed through, asking questions.   So Nute wanted him to try a village.  At sunset, they would return for the gold, buried under the fire, and carry it north during the night.    Dragnric hadn't thought about digging up the fire when he had pissed on it.

Nute and Imhuotpa spent the day sleeping in the forest.  Nute had heard so much news from Ekoopt, that he didn't want to talk about it any more.   All his old mates were now rich men, with important jobs.  All but the ones who had stood up to Nofarirku'Rugya - they had died in the desert.   Imhuotpa told him all the gossip, and names of children, and children's wives.    The names were starting to tumble together in Nute's ears.    And Imhuotpa couldn't tell him about his real friends, the girls and boys who had played with the jar-cutter's children.  Mu'gya's gang - that was what they had called themselves.   Little Koo'wi had been in the gang too.   Even then the little snake had cheated in a game, and the sandal-braider's son - who was the leader - said Koo'wi had to ask for a whipping, so they'd know he wouldn't cheat again.   Koo'wi wouldn't ask, so the leader said he couldn't be in Mu'gya's gang any more.  When Khuntkawanut had vanished, their old playmates might have been suspected.   Questioned.  Tortured.   Little Koo'wi paying them back.  No scribe and judge for such as them - just a strip of river-horse hide.    But Imhuotpa didn't know what had happened to them.

So Nute didn't want to talk about Ekoopt any more.   They slept by the stream, between two fallen logs, and the yellow leaves, blown about by the cold wind, settled on them until they were almost covered, another lump on the forest floor.   Imhuotpa stopped complaining about his bearskin hat, and snuggled close to his father's bony wrinkled back.    Hunger woke him.    He got up and dressed without waking his father, and went to the camp, starting a fire with the skin of coals - in a different place, so they could dig up the gold.    He was about to drop a red stone into the cooking skin when Dragnric walked in.

Dragnric's eyes darted from side to side.     Kneeling, he dipped his loincloth into the skin of cold water, and dabbed tenderly at his thighs and penis.   "It is not as bad as I thought it would be," he said, still looking into the distance.  "From the way it hurt, I thought my skin would be coming off in sheets.  It is just red.  There is only one spot on my thigh where the puss is coming.   But I didn't learn anything from that village; I'll have to try again."

Imhuotpa took the cloth and washed the burns more thoroughly.   Dragnric clenched his fists.  The burning was worse than he had said.  There were blisters starting in many places, and the sea-captain's burned foreskin would likely fester and slough off.   But except for the penis itself, when the skin came off there would be new skin under it.   Imhuotpa had helped his father stitch cuts and set bones, and he knew the difference between an ugly swelling pussy burn that would heal, and a clean dry deep burn that would not.   "What questions fight men ask?" Imhuotpa asked.

"The same questions we already knew they asked - I learned nothing!    I told them I was a trader from the islands, here to trade - I think they believed me, or they would have killed me.   They wanted to know if I heard any news.   I asked what sort of news they wanted, but they didn't let anything slip.    I'll have to try again - find a village where the villagers are ready to talk."

"Maybe man woman live alone on farrum heah some thing.   Not so dangewous it ankle."

Dragnric sighed.  "Not likely a shepherd would have heard anything.   We need to know what is going on!"

"Why we need - what we do if we know?"

"I don't think the villagers are happy.   These villages - with no bards, no traders, they will die.    How can they reap, with no copper and no flint?  They have cloth no one wants - who wants cloth in a village of weavers?   Traders would give them beads, or salt, or spices, or copper blades, for their cloth - and then the weavers could give to the farmers who give them food.   So when the warriors tortured me, just for being a trader, the villagers could see death.   The bards are gone. If the traders go, they will die.  If the villagers knew that we are gathering men to fight the High Queen - and have gold to give - many might come.   Gold will save their lives, if there are no traders to take their cloth.   They can give gold and get food."

"Why we not do that?   Why not get fight men?  Gold give.  Why we need to know what Queen does?"

"Because, son,  we can't fight a war if we don't know what we are fighting about."   It was Nute, who was standing by the fire - or at any rate, where the fire had been, since Imhuotpa had let it go out.   But there were a few embers.   Nute took tinder from his pouch and blew the embers into flame.

"That was what they did.   They heaped coals on me.   That was bad.   But when they didn't like an answer they blew on the coals, or fanned them.   I thought I was burned through to my bones."

Nute gave Imhuotpa his handful of twigs, and led the captain away from the fire.   He took his blanket from his pack, and held the captain in an embrace, his own cloak and the blanket wrapped around them both.   He handed the captain a strip of dried mutton.   "You went to find out what is happening, sea-lore master.   We needed to know.    If we fight against the High King, we fight to kill him.   Only a man who wants to be king, can fight a king.    We are foreigners.   No one will fight to make me king, or you.  No matter what gold we give.  I had hoped that someone else was fighting.   A rebel king.   Someone the people know - Taslan of the north, or Ishan of the east.  Or some wvaksa or hero.   Or the headman of a big village.  If someone was fighting, and we joined him with our gold - Imhuotpa's gold - we could bring victory.   But we can't do it ourselves.   That was why I wanted you to go to the village.   But I won't let you go to another one.    You are no safer than we are - than anyone is in this kingdom."

"Are we defeated, Kunt - whatever your name is - Nute of Ekoopt?"  Dragnric asked.   "Do we slip away, back to my ship, and never come to this land again?"

"I owe Nakien more than that.   And I can't go back to Ekoopt, and neither can my son.    What you said to him was true - the High Queen has driven away the bards, and the peddlers will go too, and people will starve.   These are my friends.  This is my homeland.  But I don't know what to do.   And you, Wvaksa of the deep dark water - the sea is your homeland.   I have asked too much of you already."

"Tomorrow night is the Gathering of Cattle.   There will be strangers in every village where the Gathering is held."

"It is still too dangerous."

Nute would not allow the gold to be moved that night. When they had cooked what little food they had, they lay down. bodies pressed together, with their cloaks and blankets around them all.   Snowflakes drifted down from the cold calm sky.   Dragnric talked, talked loud and fast, about the fire that had burned between his legs.   The Ekooptis, although they had slept through the day, yawned.   But they tried to talk with the captain.   Most of the snowy night passed away before they slept.

Tlossos had died staked out and killed by a fire lit in his crotch.     But Pataka was not thinking about that.  The High Queen's men would come for him next.  But Pataka was not thinking even about that.    Pataka had a toothache.

He had stolen a blanket, and went from man to man, begging for something that would help.   Kneeling as a slave should, and offering the blanket.   But no one could help him - or would help him.   No one wanted to be seen with a slave of the house of Tlossos.    It was the Gathering of Cattle, so the village was crowded - shepherds drove flocks into brushwood pens; farmers carried huge sacks of barley on their backs.   Shouting, and embracing friends they had not seen for a year.  But none of them knew what to do for a toothache.   Pataka knew them all, almost.   There was a woman he did not know, driving a few sheep with a thin pretty girl to help her.   A big man Pataka had never seen before, offered to look at the tooth - but he seemed to be some sort of fool or madman.   He claimed to be a peddler, but was dressed in rags.   Pataka passed him by, and knelt before a farmer - everyone knew farmers had worms in their teeth.   The farmer took the blanket, but gave no help; he just told the slave dog to sacrifice to the Wvaksa of the Storm.    Pataka was so angry that for a moment he forgot the pain in his tooth.   Someone threw a pebble at him - dogs and slaves have to expect that.  He was lucky it wasn't bigger.   But he looked to see who had thrown it.   It was the ragged madman, and he had a larger stone, ready to throw; a yellow stone that shimmered in the sun.   Pataka picked up the pebble that had struck him and fallen to the ground.  It was an amethyst bead.

Without attracting too many eyes, Pataka slipped away from the milling crowd.   The peddler followed.   Pataka went into his master's house, through the stable door.   There were people about, but he hoped they weren't paying attention.   In a little while the peddler came in.  "It is loose enough," he said, when Pataka opened his mouth.   "I can take it out."

"Can't you fix it - make it stop hurting?"

"The worm has gone too far - this tooth will never be whole.   You may as well have me take it out - that will stop the pain."

"You are no peddler.   Are you a bard?"

"I am a warrior.  I am here with the warriors of King Tishan.  We are going to kill the High King."

"King Tishan?   You mean Queen Ishan?"

"That's right - and her husband, King - oh - what is his name?"

"Her son, you mean - Prince Aru.   Ishan and Aru are fighting against the High Queen?"

"We are just outside of town - do you want to join us?   We can give gold - we've got lots of it."   And the mad peddler lifted a handful of gold from his pouch, and let it slip through his fingers.     Pataka said nothing to this.   His master's tools filled the stables, leaving no room for any animals, and each was sharp and polished and carefully hung on its peg - that was one of Pataka's jobs.   The peddler whittled a stick into an odd claw-like shape, and then selected a thin pointed bronze blade.   Holding the wood on top of the next tooth, he stuck the point of the blade down the side of the rotten tooth, pried against the wood, and popped the tooth out.   It hurt - and then the toothache was over.

"I am in danger here," Pataka said, "so I will go with you.   But I do not believe you."

"But it is true.   Queen Ishan is going to attack - and she has piles of gold to give to anyone who fights for her."  The peddler gave Pataka a gold bead.   "I want to gather more men - can you take me to others who hate the High King's warriors?"

"Everyone is frightened of them.   Since Kros was killed and Kafassios was made headman, there has been fear.  No one knows who to trust.  But I can't help you - and if anyone sees me with you, they will be afraid to talk to you.   You will be in danger if anyone sees you leave this house.   Wait - follow me."

Pataka climbed a ladder to the room above the stables, and opened a sealed pottery jar.   Inside, laid away with herbs, was a fine cloak.   From a box, Pataka found a loincloth - and a winter undercloak.   The mad peddler gave him another gold bead, and took the folded clothing under his dirty tattered cloak.   He slipped out the stable door.    Pataka waited a while, then went out the front door; he wandered among the thronging crowd.    In the press of the crowd, people could not avoid Pataka altogether.    "Queen Ishan is coming," he said to no one in particular.  "To challenge the High King.   She is just outside the village."    Pataka hadn't believed the madman; he didn't believe that Queen Ishan was really outside the village with a band of warriors.  But, if people thought she was, they would not be in such a hurry to kill the High Queen's enemies.  If anyone listened to what he said, they gave no sign.

A warrior with a spear climbed the bench outside the headman's house, and made a speech:

 "Bronze makers - health and safety to you!   Men and women of the High King - joy and happiness at the Gathering: The High King wishes you the favor of the Wvaksa of the Storms - may the crops be safe from hailstones.   Hear me!   Two men have been taken - foreigners.    They are spies.    Do not listen to such men, when they come with lying tales about new and different gods - keep the Gods of our mothers and fathers.    We will question these men - and we will question any who listen to their lies."

Ropes were tied to the projecting rafters, and the captives' arms were tied above their heads.   Their legs were pulled apart, and a rope tied to each ankle - the ropes were pulled forward to stakes in the ground, so the captives were in sitting position, but hanging by their arms, above the bench.   Then coals were brought, and fires were started  in clay hearths under each man.    The fires were small, but even so the captives arched their backs desperately to pull their bodies out of the rising heat.    They could not hold this position for long, and each man would drop back in agony; his bottom was then just above the fire.   Then he would strain again.   After a while, the fires were pulled aside, and the questioning began.

"What stories have you been telling?   What lies have you foreign spies been telling?"

"I am a peddler - I come to this village to trade for bronze - nothing more."

A boy in the front of the crowd - the son of a wvaksa - threw a handful of snow and frozen dirt at Nute's face.   "Roast  him!   I want to see his skin peel off.   Let me build the fire."    The boy was dragged off by his father.    Pataka saw the madman who had popped out his tooth - now he was dressed in the fine clothing Pataka had given him, and was talking to some young men, handing out bits of gold.

The torturer said: "We know you have told stories, peddler.   What you have said?   But I think you need to warm yourself some more."   And he pushed the fire back under Nute's bottom, and added a few small sticks to it.

"Are you with Queen Ishan?" someone in the crowd shouted.   "Have you come to kill us all?"

Nute strained, but he was worn out; he could no longer arch his back, no longer get his bottom away from the fire.   He shouted: "Ishan!  Yes!  I am with Queen Ishan!  Bronze makers: you know my word is good.  Queen Ishan has come with many warriors.   Help her, and be rewarded.  The High King has killed Nakien - best of bards!   Ishan told me of the Kohiyossa.    What you all saw at midsummer - Queen Ishan knows to be true.   The God we ..."

The torturer drew his dagger, and jabbed the tip into Nute's ballsack.   Nute stopped talking.   There was a sound - a thwump - and then a thump and the clatter of the dagger on the mudbrick bench.   The torturer was on the ground with an arrow in his head.   Everyone turned.    A girl - a thin girl, naked except for a cloak that draped down her back, was clinging with her heels to the protruding beams of a house, just below the thatch.   She had an arrow in her drawn bow, a quiver on her hip.   She shot, and everyone turned to see where the arrow would go, and heard another thud of a falling body - a warrior, with his hand on the fledging of an arrow, the head still in his quiver.   When they turned to look at the girl again, she had already drawn.

The captain of the High King's warriors shouted: "When she shoots again, everyone grab an arrow and shoot her!"    The villagers began to run away, but Pataka moved closer to the tortured men.   His friend Nute was still straining.   He could no longer arch his back, but  he could swing a bit from side to side, so only one buttock at a time was in the  flames.   The ropes cut into his wrists.  As the villagers cleared away, Pataka saw the mad peddler - he was standing under the girl.  And he also held a drawn bow.   Beside him were three men of the village, holding javelins and daggers.   The mad peddler shouted "I am Prince Aru - I am going to kill the High King!    I am here with my warriors.   Praise to the God we do not name!   Long life to the Kohiyossa!"

Pataka moved closer to Nute, grabbed the clay hearth, and pulled it out from under the peddler's bottom.   It burned his hand, and he yelped.    The captain of the King's warriors turned to look.   The girl dropped to the ground, and took off, with the mad peddler and his three followers close behind.    The warriors followed, shooting.   Pataka picked up the torturer's dagger, and cut the ropes on Nute's ankles, and the other man's.    With the tip of the dagger he could just reach the ropes around Nute's wrists.  It took a while to saw through the ropes.  Then he had to use Nute's body as a block, and stand on it, to reach the wrists of the other man.   When he had cut them both down they just lay on the ground, curled up, unable to stand or even to straighten their bodies.    A few men and women of the village had not run away, and they stood watching, but no one helped.   They watched dumbly as the peddler who was the source of their wealth, moaned and twitched on the frozen ground.

But then a plump, cheerful body came out of the house.   It was Szhasthar, the old headman's simpleton daughter.   She carried Nute's arms, and Pataka took his feet, and they carried the screaming peddler into the house, and then the other man.   The simple woman brought blankets, and rugs, and hot soup with wine in it; they propped the men up against posts, in a kneeling position, wrapped them in blankets, and Szhasthar fed them soup.    Pataka massaged Nute's feet and hands.   He did not know what to do about the wound to Nute's balls.  The bleeding had stopped already, but the penis hung crookedly, as if the dagger had severed it at the root, deep inside the body.  Szhasthar took  the other man's penis in her mouth, like a doting aunt relieving the pain for a whipped boy.   Pataka had done that for Tlossos - just once, when Tlossos was a boy and Pataka was first a slave.   He'd been whipped for it - and the boy had been whipped too - whipped again on his bruised bottom for letting a slave dog's mouth touch his penis.   But Tlossos had never forgotten it.   He wanted Pataka to do it for his own boy, but Idrossos, though he wept uncontrollaby from a whipping, had always refused any comfort.

When the King's warriors had dealt with the girl, they would come looking for their captives.    If Pataka wanted to save Nute, he had to find a way to carry him to a hiding place.    Leaving his friend and the stranger with the simpleton, Pataka took a bow and quiver from pegs by the door, and ran out into the village.    A miner asked him if he knew what was happening.    Pataka told him: "Queen Ishan has attacked the village.   She will kill everyone on the High King's side!"    Pataka had not believed the madman, but now Nute had said so too.   Many, perhaps most, of the villagers had believed that the rescued red-haired boy, was the Rescued One - the Kohiyossa.   But only a few had helped Tlossos - and those were dead.   The High Queen had done the tortures herself - and many had brought lying tales, to save themselves.    Pataka did not have anyone to trust - no one who would even listen.    And he would need help, to move Nute and the other man to some hiding place.  He had the gold and amethyst beads.   But the beads might be taken, and no help given.   Only the mad peddler could help, if he was not already dead.

In the middle of the village, the fires of the Gathering feast were still burning, but the cooks had fled, and the meat was being roasted without being turned.    But there were people standing about.   A lot of farmers, come in from their lonely homesteads for the Gathering.    Honest folk - not touched by the lying and betrayal that soaked through the village.   But they had seen Nute tortured, and they would be loyal to the High King - they wouldn't help Pataka hide Nute.

"Queen Ishan has attacked the village!" Pataka shouted.  "From the west.    Everyone should come!   Defend the village!"    The farmers ran - ran east, as Pataka had thought they would.    Pataka went in the direction he had seen the mad peddler run.     He found the madman, the girl, and three village men trapped on the roof of a house, with the High King's warriors all around them.   The madman, and one other man, were wounded.    Pataka shot the captain of the High King's warriors through the back of the head, and ran away.

A milling crowd of confused, frightened men had gathered in the center of the village.    Pataka, running with his bow, smashed into them, picked himself up, and ran back the way he had come.  They chased him.   There were shouts about Queen Ishan - but no one knew where she was.   Pataka, waving his bow and shouting "Queen Ishan, Queen Ishan," with the crowd at his heels, ran into the space where the High King's warriors were, and the warriors shot him dead, and shot at the crowd of villagers behind him, as well.   Many of the villagers had their bows, and they shot back.  Then the warriors, leaderless but well trained, made an orderly retreat out of the village.  The crowd of villagers ran after them.

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The big man was badly hurt, and Dafnya needed his men.   He stared at her, not denying her lie that she was his daughter.    Perhaps he understood what she intended to do, or perhaps he was just too wounded to speak - in any case he said nothng.    She said: "Men, we will have to leave the wounded.   Give them your cloaks.    Be brave, Father, help will come soon."    She didn't look much like a princess - didn't look like a daughter of this man, who was obviously a prince or a wvaksa from his clothes.  But without a glance behind her, as if she expected to be obeyed withoug question, she swarmed down the side of the house.    All three men followed, even the one with an arrow in his shoulder.   She said: "Good man, Stranik."

The center of the village was crowded, when Dafnya strode in, followed by the three men.   She stood on the bench in front of the headman's house, and the three men placed themselves around her.    She shouted to the crowd:

"Bronze makers!  Queen Ishan is outside the village, preparing an attack.    Princess Kahela, Prince Aru's wife, will enter this village from the other side, to defend you.   The village is rising.    The High King's warriors have been driven out.   But they are fighting back, and Queen Ishan is not here yet.    Men of this village are fighting.  We must go help them."

"After them - or they will charge again," Dafnya shouted, and ran after the retreating warriors.   But no one followed.    Seeing a little slip of a naked girl, with a bow much too big for her, come running at them, did not cause the High King's warriors to scatter, but only to laugh - and the villagers gaped too, to see a girl run headlong into death.   But Dafnya, while still running, jumped and twisted, bent double, curled into a ball, and then untwisted with a violent jerk that bent the huge bow, drawing and releasing without a pause.   The shot did no damage - a warrior caught the arrow on his shield - but still, it was a fine shot at a range a strong man could hardly have bettered.   Dafnya turned and ran back to the villagers, as of course she had to do, since they hadn't followed her, and the King's warriors were shooting at her.    The villagers cheered her as she came back.

"They will charge," she shouted.   Then she jumped up to stand on one of her men's shoulders.   "They will charge," she repeated.   "Scatter.   Some that way, some this.   We have to be around them!    Those without bows or shields, take off your cloaks.   Roll them up and use them as shields.   Guard yourself and guard the archer next to you!   Hurry, here they come!"   Dafnya shot while still on the man's shoulders, then jumped down and ran uphill.    The High King's warriors ran right through the villagers, who parted and let them through.  The warriors did not pause to be shot at from two sides, but kept running, toward the village.  The leader shouted an order, and the warriors began a turn - having divided the enemy in two, they planned to deal with the two groups one at a time.

A few villagers, and some of the farmers who had come in for the Gathering of Cattle, had come out to see what was going on.   When the villagers who were fighting split apart, and the High King's warriors ran through the middle, they found more villagers in front of them, and they shot at them.   The watching villagers did not shoot back, but they scattered, and the King's warriors found themselves completely surrounded by a huge number of men and women, some shooting at them and some not.    Their captain had been killed - their javelin master was in charge now, and they were not familiar with him.    When he seemed not to know what to do, the warriors scattered, running in all directions, slaughtering all who got in their way with their spears.

Dafnya was with the largest group of villagers.  This crazy girl who shot like a hero, who knew what to do - somehow they thought she would keep them alive.    "Stand! she shouted.  Don't run!    Not too close together!   Dodge the points!   Get close and grab the shafts!"    And then the High King's spearmen were on them, but scattered and spread out, not charging in a mass - and one by one they were pulled to the ground and sliced to ribbons, by the villagers who surrounded them.

But in other parts of the field the High King's warriors had better luck.    The villagers who had not wanted to fight turned to run; they ran into each other, pushed, tripped - and the King's spearmen killed scores of unresisting villagers - men and women who had not even drawn their daggers to resist, not expecting the King's soldiers to be their enemies.    And for those who fought back, the warriors' better training made the difference - the villagers were more numerous, but without a commander's voice they fought one to one, and not many villagers won dagger fights with warriors.  It wasn't long before the King's warriors held the ground.    Most of the villagers had gotten away - but still, there were a lot of bodies on the ground.

The ground the King's warriors held was a barley field.   In front of them was the village hill, the gentle slope planted in peas and strawberries, with the houses of the villagers like a crown around the hilltop.  There was no village wall - the outlying houses straggled down the hill - and between those houses the villagers waited.    They had run from the warriors once.    But they would not be surprised and confused any more.   Behind the King's warriors, on the other side of a bit of swampy ground, planted with basket reeds, there was another slope, the foothill of a snow-covered mountain.     This steeper slope was terraced, and now in fallow, waiting for the fall ploughing.   On the terraces stood a compact mass of villagers, now armed with spears.   In front of them was the naked girl who could bend a hero's bow.   In the earlier fighting, the villagers had not had spears; those were the King's spears the villagers now carried.  The King's warriors looked at each other, and counted.   The men on the barley field had slaughtered at will, the blood lust pounding in their temples, killing men who could barely fight back - but now they realized that half their force was missing - and the villagers had their spears.  The sun now setting in the west, had risen that morning on many of their companions, who would never see another.

The men on the barley field did not know where their leader was, the javelin master.  An old veteran, the closest they had to a leader now, looked at the villagers on two sides.   He looked behing at the spear-carrying villagers, led by the naked girl, and he looked up at the houses on the brow of the hill, where lines of bowmen were waiting - alert and organized, under someone's command.    The old veteran did the only thing he could do; he led his men in the only direction that was open, sideways into the scattered trees, up the valley, toward the mountains.   A freezing night was starting, the warriors did not have their packs, a storm was coming, and the valley they had entered, went nowhere.   A rampart of snowy mountains could be seen in the fading sunlight - mountains surrounding the valley, making it a trap. 

"March into the village" Dafnya ordered.   She marched with her two men - Stranik had been killed - and the villagers marched after her.

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Kahela was exhausted from running up the road, and she could she not keep up as they ran back down.    Gur had not wanted to risk attacking the village, and he didn't understand why Kahela thought they could win.   She had come running back from spying out the village, without Dafnya, shouting that they must attack at once.   Something about a rising against the High King.  But Gur knew something about the difference between trained warriors and angry villagers, and in any case it did not sound like much of a rising.    But he had obeyed her.  His warriors - so many of them were just boys.   They could shoot well enough, but they were hopeless at obeying orders.   They will be slaughtered in this battle, he thought. 

 The boys and young women had been playing, when Kahela had come running in.   Holding their own Gathering of Cattle, they said.  They played their pipes and drums in the mountain style, and held races and wrestling matches.    The weaver boys solemnly pretended to give each other the sheep.   Gur's cousin Hyaramon danced around the circle, and ran the aisle.   "I've run between the fires!" he shouted.   He ran towards a naked woman.   "I'll fuck you!"     "I was naked for wrestling, I wasn't dancing," the woman answered  "And anyway it's not midsummer.   And you can't catch me."    But she laughed as she ran away, looking over her shoulder, and she didn't run very fast.   And then suddenly, all the women were naked, and all the boys were running after them.   Gur ran about, with a few older women, using their belts as whips, trying to stop young women who wanted to play at being fucked at Midsummer, from being actually fucked on the day of Gathering the Cattle.   And everyone laughed and laughed.   It was this place - there was Frenzy here.   He ... The One who had danced  ... touched them all.   The boys laughed as they were whipped.   And Gur laughed most of all.   Since his balls had been burnt off, he felt lust all the time.   Watching boys fuck women between their breasts, between their thighs, between their buttocks, was inflaming, but also satisfying.   Gur thought this pleasure was a gift from the God.   Caught up in Frenzy, he licked and suckled on a woman's cunt, and as she scratched his paps he felt a peak of pleasure that he never expected to feel again.   Truly only the God could give a peak of pleasure to a burned-balls man.  He was happier than he had been since before the torture, and he laughed with joy, even when he caught a boy planting seed in a tattooed cunt.  Laugh-Frenzied.   Randy boys and laughing women.     And in no time - in the time from the thought to the action - in less than a heartbeat - they were warriors.    When Kahela had run, shouting orders, onto the sacred ground.   These laughing, beautiful, naked boys.    Gur would lead them into a hail of arrows, into spear-play and slaughter.

They all ran together, down the sacred road, from the ground where the God had danced, to the village of the bronze makers. As they approached, Gur formed them up for an attack.   He had been a warrior as a young man, but had never seen a battle.   What he remembered from his training as a spearman, was not much use now.   It was hard to plan a battle with no idea where the enemy was.    Gur led his warriors up a slope, and captured some outlying houses, which were empty, except for a boy who was cooking his supper.    "Good appetite, warriors," the boy said.   "I'm afraid I don't have enough."  Gur continued on into the village, and the boy took his pot off the fire, and came with his new friends.   They marched into the middle of the village, sharing out the boy's stew, a spoonful each.    Kahela Queen caught up with them, still panting.    Villagers came and greeted them.

A gray-haired woman spoke: "Honor, warriors of Ishan; health and happiness to the Queen.   The favor of the Lord of Storms be yours.   The hero, Prince Aru, fought for us, and helped to drive out the High Queen's warriors.   We give him honor.  But he has died of his wounds."

Kahela thought, this can't be happening!   Aru can't be here.   Can't be here alone.   But a chill gripped her, and she shrieked.   She too had come into this village as a spy.    Aru must have done the same - chosen himself as his own spy.   It was exactly what he would have done.  Kahela didn't want to be Queen, and Aru hadn't wanted to be High King.   To be prince, and when his mother died (he had given a bronze horse, more than he could afford, to the Lord of Oaths, as a prayer for her long life) to be honored as the chosen king of his little kingdom - that was the life Aru had wanted.   And to have a son - Kahela's son - to be king after him.   And Kahela and Erdiosh had taken it away from him.   And so he had gone as a spy.   If he must be High King, Aru would need to win it - not to have it given to him by others who fought in his name.

"Our hearts are stone-like for your loss, Princess."   And the bronze makers bowed to her, selecting her from among the warriors by her obvious grief.   Brave, loyal, Aru.   A fool, nearly.   But he had needed her, in a way Huwh never did.   Would she ever love a man this strongly, while he was still alive?   The gray-haired woman led Kahela into a house where a dead man was curled up, naked on his cloak, with two arrows in him and a mangled right arm.  His penis had been burned, and there were burns on his thighs.  The blood had been washed away.   His weapons were beside him, and the honor cup as it would be in his grave.  Kahela had never seen him before.   "It is not Aru!"

Gur's shepherds filled the space in the middle of the village.   The great fires had burned low; the roasting sheep were burned to char on one side, raw meat on the other.   But the boys plunged their daggers in, and found some meat they could eat.    And they revived the fires, and began to roast the raw mutton, on skewers.   A few villagers came out of their houses.    These shepherd boys, stealing mutton, were not very frightening.    There were pots of stew, burned on the bottom, and cold, and the villagers put them back on the fire.   A man brought out a pot of mead.

A young village man stood on a stone:

"Warriors of Queen Ishan!   My father, Laiohtegh, was killed by the High Queen - tortured and killed.    Mudan daughter of Koradan brought the tale - her lies killed him.    Mudan is your enemy as well as mine, warriors of Ishan.   Let me have my vengeance on her!"

The woman and the son of Laiohtegh drew their daggers, and began to circle, looking for an opening.   Other villagers began to shout - all at once.

Young Hyaramon looked around for someone to tell him what to do.    Conquering a village was not at all what he had expected.   But there were no leaders.   The Queen and Gur had gone off somewhere.   The arrow master - and she was just a girl, anyway - hadn't been seen.   The javelin master - just a baby, even if he did have his tattoo - was roasting mutton, not paying any attention.     And why were these villagers calling them the warriors of Queen Ishan?

Then four things happened, all at the same time.  An ugly, lanky man, with very short hair, staggered out of a big house, wrapped in a blanket.  Princess Kahela and Captain Gur came back.  The sun set.   And a mass of villagers, carrying heavy spears, marched into the village center, led by Dafnya, his own arrow master.   Kahela's warriors stood up.   The villagers were all around them - they had been sharing mead and charred mutton together - and now Gur's boys were surrounded by villagers with drawn weapons.  It was a trap.    Hyaramon drew his dagger, and raised his shield, as his father had taught him.  So this was the day.    He had thought about this day often; his first battle.   He had been training for it, ever since his Little Penises day.   He had thought about the killing he would have to do as a man.     Were these the ones?  These women?  One woman had been sharing her soup with him, passing the spoon back and forth.   A spoon for you, a spoon for me - the way his big sister used to do.  Was she the one, his first kill?    Kill her so she doesn't kill me?    This good dagger in my hand - stick it into her belly?   He looked at his dagger, and at her belly.   Just stick it in?   Just like that?   Hyaramon pulled back his hand for the blow.  There was a spot on her tunic, over her belly button.  Spilled soup.  Hyaramon had spilled it there himself, and she had laughed, and slapped him for spilling on her clean dress, and he had licked it off, his cock rising, but too shy to kiss her.  That's the spot, he thought, - stab her in the belly.  If only she would look at me!.   But the woman wasn't looking at him, she wasn't afraid of him.   She wasn't acting like someone who had just sprung a clever trap.   She was looking at the ugly mouse-haired man.    Some villagers ran into the house the ugly man had come out of, and came back helping another man to walk.   Hyaramon knew him, it was Nute, the peddler.    Everyone knew Nute.

"Vengeance for Laiohtegh," a man shouted, and he waded into the fight, waving his dagger about, and not using his shield properly.   The son of Laiohtegh turned - and was cut by the woman Mudan.    His ear hung loose, half cut off; blood gushed out.   Others joined in the fight on both sides. Some of the shepherd boys were fencing against the villagers, with daggers and shields.   Now their was real fighting, Hyaramon tried again to stick his dagger into the woman who had given him soup, but still he could not do it.   He lowered his shield - unable to kill, as he had been trained to do all his life, he felt frozen, as if he was dead already, and if this woman wanted to kill him, he was ready to die.   But she was just looking around, still not looking at him.   A villager, one of those who had marched in, lowered his spear to charge.   It looked as if Gur's shepherds would be attacked from both sides.  More daggers were pulled out, and arrows nocked in bows.   Gur began to bellow orders, telling his warriors to pull back, to form up.   Someone shot an arrow.    Dagger blows were knocked aside with shields, as the fencing began.

Hyaramon saw Dafnya, his arrow master, on the other side of the fires.   She had climbed on someone's shoulders, and was shouting orders.     But he couldn't hear above the noise.    Why was she on the side of these villagers?  The villagers were shouting at each other, shouting of lies and betrayals.   Gur managed to pull his boys back to one side of the fires, and the son of Laiohtegh, who was now giving orders, gathered some of his followers on the same side.    Dafnya had managed some sort of order on the other side - and the defenders of Mudan gathered there, rallying to her spearmen.   But some villagers were trapped on the wrong side of the fires, and there was some desperate fighting, and they had to run through the cooking fires to safety.   It seemed there would be a battle - Gur's boys and half the villagers on one side, and half the villagers, led by Dafnya, on the other side.   They faced each other across the fires.  The shouting grew less, and Hyaramon could hear that Dafnya was yelling to the villagers not to fight;   Kahela Queen was yelling to her warriors not to fight.   But many were fighting, on both sides.     There was no moon, only the fading sunset and the flickering fires.  No one knew who was a friend, or who might be an enemy.

"Form lines!" Gur bellowed.   "Spears to the front - archers and slings behind.   Villagers - fight for us!     That girl - she's on our side.   Don't be against us - you don't have a chance."

There was a little pause in the shouting, as if everyone had to draw breath at the same time.   And in that little breath of quiet, there was a crash, and a volcano of sparks climbed into the dark night air.   Everyone looked.    Peddler Nute, and his ugly companion, had tried to climb a cooking spit, and it had broken under them.   They had fallen into the fire.

Fighters cautiously stepped back, keeping their shields raised, but pulling their dagger hands in.   Drawn bows were lowered, and spearpoints raised, as men dragged the peddler and the other man from the fire.   Nute raised himself to his feet.  He was naked.    A few drops of freezing rain fell.  Nute shouted:

"Bronze makers!  I have never cheated you!  Hear me!   If any are to be punished, bards will judge them.    Do not fight!  Vengeance has been claimed - vengeance for the death of Laiohtegh.   A good man; I knew him well.   I will hear this case, if both sides agree.   Do not fight.   Do not fight tonight - beware the anger of the Wvaksa of Storms!    His Stallions of the Sun will run you down, followers of Laiohtegh, if you fight on His holy night.   You offend the Gods, if you draw the blood of vengeance before the words of your enemy have been heard."

"For my part, I forgive Mudan, and would clasp the shoulder of friendship with her, and take the kiss."

Mudan gave him the kiss of friendship, a bit coldly.   He hugged and kissed her like a long lost sister, getting blood from his ear all over her cloak.   She spoke:

"Peace and joy to all!  I do not ask Nute for judgment.  For the house of Koradan, we forgive without blood-money all those, whose words may have led to my Father's death.    All except Kafassios.   Against him I will speak - and claim vengeance before any judge.   And when his lying words have been heard, with the Mares of the Lady beside me I will  trample him down - I pledge my life to it!"

It was Szhasthar.  The villagers didn't know if she was talking sense, or if this was part of her madness.   But she had a long dagger in her hand.    Her father's masterpiece, the longest dagger ever made; as long as a forearm, yet strong and sharp as chipped Doleinth flint.  But it did not shine in the flickering firelight - it was covered with a sticky liquid.  In the dim light of the fires, the liquid looked black.

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The storm had borne down on the village.  Strong gusts of wind lifted snow from the mountain and carried little flurries down to the valley below.   Kahela tried to get the villagers to go to bed - but no one would leave the fires, except to come back carrying more wood.    In the debate, two sides had formed, the same sides that had fought and spilled blood at sunset - Mudan and Laiotegh.   For all the blood that had flowed, no one had been killed, no eyes put out.  So they argued with good will - and got nowhere.

Young Laiohtegh supported the house of Tlossos.   

Mudan objected, in her booming voice: "But Tlossos is dead, and his son Idrossos is only a boy - he cannot be headman.   Why waste our time with foolishness?

Exhausted from fighting, and his voice almost gone, Laiotegh croaked: "A boy can be headman; there is no law against it, for all you say, Mudan.   His mother Frah is head of the house of Tlossos, and can be regent for her son."

"But Frah is not likely to be alive," Mudan protested.

"Well, then I could be regent for him; I will foster him."

"You want to be the orphan boy's foster father, not for his sake, but just so you can act as headman, Liaotegh.   A bard would never allow that.   And anyway he is not in your clan."

"But Frah is.    She's my cousin.   Was my cousin."

"So what?   The boy's foster father should be - let's see ... his ..."  Mudan worked out the family tree on her fingers - "his father's father's nephew's boy.  No, his younger boy, not his oldest - what's his name?  Idian?"

"His name is Idarian son of Kotarian, Mudan, but he is not yet tattooed."

"Well, then ..."

Liaotegh climbed on the bench of the headman's house.   "Someone find Idarian - tell him he's going to have a sore penis tonight.   And tell him he's the richest man in the village.   Call him Wvaksa Idarian - he will guard the doorposts of the house of Tlossos and have wealth beyond dreams - Oh, and by the way, tell him he's regent headman of the village.   And if that doesn't kill him, you can tell him he's a daddy."

Mudan said, "No, I don't want Idarian as regent.    We know nothing of Queen Ishan, and I have had enough of Queens.    We must have a strong headman, to defend the village against our new Queen."

"You want to be headwoman yourself - don't you Mudan?   And you betrayed my father!   You will never be headwoman!"

Kahela was finding that conquering a village was not what she had expected it to be.    She had her armed warriors about her - they had marched into this village and taken it.  She was the rebel Princess.  And the villagers wouldn't even listen to anything she said.  No one spoke words of honor to her.   By shouting as loud as she could, she could make herself heard, but the villagers didn't stop wrangling even for a moment to listen to her.

She shouted - "Queen Ishan has been wounded.   It is Prince Aru who has led a host into this kingdom.   I am his wife."

"But Prince Aru is dead."

"No, that man was not Aru."

"But his cloak - and the gold!"

A shy little voice said "He saved me."    And every villager was quiet.   The wind had stilled, and the only sound was the fire.   A little snow had begun to fall.  Dafnya stood up, and the villagers made signs with their hands, that everyone should be quiet and listen.   She was now wearing a thick yellow woolen cloak on top of her own, a man's cloak that draped to the ground.  A wvaksa's cloak, dark dyed with saffron, with beads of lapis lazuli set into the embroidery around the collar.

"I came into this village to spy," she said.  "I think he did too, the man who was killed.  He could have slipped away, but he was trying to save me.   And so he called himself 'Prince Aru,' as a trick, and started a battle with the King's warriors.    He died saving me."

Kahela said: "The real Aru is alive, and will claim the Kingship by victory.   We will surely win.   We hold already the two largest villages in this kingdom; the village of Nohas, and now this one."

Mudan asked: "So Aru will be our new High King, and his mother will give tribute for her kingdom?"

Kahela said: "No, this kingdom will choose its own king - who will give tribute to Ishan in her own kingdom."

"I think it will be the conqueror, who will tell us who to choose." came a boy's voice from the other side of the fire.

Mudan said: "Idarian is right.   So tell us, - Oh, and health and safety to you, Your Great  Royal Queenyness -  tell us who we are to choose as our king?"

"You will choose," Kahela insisted, "in council.   I will have a voice - for I am of this kingdom; I am from the village of the law-singer - but Aru will not force a king on us."

Gur spoke: "The weaver village of Nohas has chosen Tektu son of Nohas as our headman, and will stand by him for king in the council.    He is a hero for his weapon, he is a hero's son, and victorious in battle; wise and just, and with many friends.  He was the first of the warriors of the Kohiyossa.   But we will hear how the bronze makers stand, and we will abide by the voice of the council."

Mudan said: "The house of Nohas is well known to us.   We will meet this Tektu."

Idarian said: "But this village will stand by Idrossos of the house of Tlossos, my foster son."

Liaotegh and one or two others shouted - "The house of Tlossos!"

Mudan said: "You can't be whipped by your mommy any more, Idarian-boykin - but that won't stop me from pulling your cloth down.  You may be a doorpost-guarder, but the village council can still have you whipped.   You will not be regent headman, you're just a boy - and you most certainly will not be regent king!   You will be whipped right now for claiming such a thing.   Let he who says other, speak."

Kahela said: "Well, Tektu is also rather ... young."

No one spoke in his defense, and Idarian gulped and rubbed his bottom.     So he'd be whipped in front of everybody, a whipping with a leather pig-whip.  People said that really hurt - he had watched his cousin Idrossos get one once, but he'd never felt the lash on his bottom himself.  Mudan was having him whipped to put him in his place.   Her house, - the house of Koradan - would be strong again now, now that the High King's warriors were gone.    But he himself, guarding the doorposts of the house of Tlossos, would be a wvaksa too.    He would be a power on the council himself, her equal, if only he could keep esteem.     If he cried like a baby when she whipped him, and begged for her to stop - and he would beg, and scream, and cry - well, no one would respect him after that.  They would find out he was just a little boy, not a wvaksa who could talk to the council.   And after the whipping, the tattoo.  The village would watch that too, to see if the new wvaksa had courage.   Would he ask for many lines or few?   Many - horrible pain - or few - marked for life that he was afraid of pain?   Idarian didn't feel like a hero.    Why did he have to get the whipping and the tattoo on the same night?   That was too much to expect him to bear.

But the whipping and the tattooing were still to come - for now he wasn't ready to be quiet.  He spoke in a loud bold voice, playing the part of a wvaksa in the council, even if he didn't feel like one.  "If we choose this Tektu - who is no older than me, I guess, - as king, how can he give tribute to Ishan?   It has always been her kingdom that has given tribute.   It has always been our kingdom whose king was called high king."

The villagers looked at Idarian with respect.    Kahela sputtered: "but it is Aru who is conquering - driving out the evil High Queen."

"That did not happen here, Princess.   We drove out the King's warriors ourselves.   I helped.    And it was ..."  and he turned and looked at Dafnya.    She had slipped the man's cloak to her back, standing by the fire, and her own skimpy cloak did not close across the front.   There was a handsbreadth of bare skin, lit by the firelight.  Idarian's eyes dropped from the small high breasts to her not-yet-tattooed crotch.   He looked down at his own not-yet-tattooed penis.   She saw where he was looking and blushed so darkly it could be seen in the firelight, and she covered her face with her arms - which slipped her own cloak to her back.    She could not recall tha