The Chronicles: Notomol Ch. 11

- "Yes."

- "She wanted to see how you would take it, I think. Look, Guenna ... she's seen the way you look at Notomol. She's seen many other women do the same. She recognizes it, because she looks at him the same way. Part admiration, part longing ..."

- "But they're together. Why would she long for him? She has him."

- "Does she?"

I didn't quite understand what that meant. Was Nelime afraid that their relationship was being threatened? "Senderra, I would never ..."

- "It's alright. I know that. She knows it, too. I simply meant that you find him interesting - not that you would try to take him away from her. Nelime wants you to understand him a little better."

I was confused. I hadn't denied that I was interested in Notomol. Part admiration, part longing ... was that really me? And why would Nelime want to help me understand her lover?

- "Is she not at all jealous?"

Senderra shook her head. "There's no point. That's what she realized the first time she read Motekin's journals. Notomol will never accept being led - being ordered about, or forced to do anything. If we win this war, and if Nelime is somehow confirmed as a Hospodar -"

- "If anyone deserves it, she does."

- "I agree. But those are still two very large 'ifs'. Even so, if both came true, can you see my brother being happy living in a steading, as the Hospodar's consort?"

- "You're saying he wouldn't?"

- "Not likely. Notomol is his own man. Whatever he experienced in the Guards, or at the beginning of the war, one thing he learned was to value his independence. Nelime knows that. Even in the very best of outcomes, she knows that there isn't likely to be a 'happily ever after' for them."

- "Does Orsho know that?"

- "I think so. You've been paying attention, haven't you? Yes, I'm quite sure that he loves her. It's all a little bit complicated, isn't it?"

Senderra was being very open with me, considering that I was an Uplander, and that we hadn't known each other for very long. Perhaps it was the fact that we had fought together. Whatever the reason, she had been more than fair to me. I felt very close to her.

- "Listen, Senderra. There's something you should know: the child Borna may be the Duchess' son, but he isn't related to Duke Richwin. The Duke died months before he was conceived."

She didn't look all that surprised.

"You already knew?"

- "People talk, Guenna. Sometimes secrets are like water; they flow downhill. But even if no one had told us, several of your people mentioned the fact that the Duchess delivered her child in the Uplands. It wasn't hard to figure out. Still, I appreciate you telling me."

- "You're welcome. And thank you for telling me ... all of this. I'm not sure that I understand what it all means yet - but I can see that you and Nelime are being kind."

It gave me food for thought for several days.

Was it unfortunate that the first Lowlanders I'd actually met were the Duchess and her party? She was 'a piece of work', as my father put it. Iduallon was an ass, Gerimir put loyalty above all other things, and Prosquetel ... well, he was dangerous.

But if a lowlander had come to the Uplands, and the first people he'd met were Bacho and Kestutis ...

I suppose I was mildly surprised that I liked many of the Lowlanders. Liesma in particular, of course, but also Senderra and her friends. Nelime and Orsho were both impressive. Did the guslars count as Lowlanders? I somehow thought that they belonged to all of us.

And Notomol, of course.

Wasn't he what this was all about? Did I really look at him the way both Nelime and Senderra thought I did? Admiration, I could understand - though I might have simply called it respect. But longing ...?

I even asked Berilde. "Have you noticed anything unusual about the way I look at Notomol?"

She thought about it for a moment. "No." she said. "He's a very appealing man."

That wasn't quite the answer I'd been expecting. I certainly couldn't go to Giedra to ask her opinion. She was far too direct - plus I didn't want her to laugh at me.

So I kept it to myself. That didn't stop me thinking about it, of course. But I was able to concentrate on my hunting a little more.

A few days later, three men arrived on horseback. They'd come from Hvad town, and the news they brought changed the whole war.

***

Notomol summoned a council of Captains to hear it. But the word had spread, and hundreds more people joined us. The three newcomers looked exhausted, and they had plainly already told their story, but now they were going to repeat it for our benefit.

- "This is Laar." said Notomol. He and his friends have ridden from Hvad town without stopping to rest. Let Laar tell his tale, so that all can hear. Please - no interruptions. No questions. Let him speak."

Laar stood up so that most people could see him a little better.

- "The army that you defeated returned to Hvad town almost two weeks ago." he said.

- "Louder!" shouted someone in the crowd.

Laar tried. "Everyone could see that they were beaten. They had many wounded among them, and their numbers were considerably reduced. But it was a few more days before we learned that they had lost over 200 men. The people in the town were greatly cheered to hear it. The Izumyrians were angry, but the townsfolk could not hide - well, they didn't really try to hide their joy. Enemy soldiers were taunted in the street, and there were several acts of vandalism. The Izumyrian patrols were increased, both in terms of number and of frequency."

Laar had to pause to catch his breath. The crowd behind us was still growing as more and more people arrived.

"A few people openly mocked the soldiers. Little children sang insulting songs. You have to understand: it's been a long time since folk in the town dared to show their feelings. A few were arrested, but that only seemed to increase the acts of protest. Then a boy threw a rock at a soldier. The response from the Izumyrians was completely disproportionate to the crime. The boy was savagely beaten - along with a man and a woman who tried to protect him. All three were arrested."

Laar had to stop again, out of breath. One of his friends stood up, and put his hand on Laar's shoulder.

- "My name's Haimo." he said. "I'll tell you the rest. After what happened to the boy, everyone and their grandmother wanted to throw rocks. And then two soldiers was found dead. Their throats slit. The Izzies went mad. They brought out the people they'd arrested - almost two dozen of 'em. Yes, the boy included. And they hanged 'em. Hanged 'em all."

The crowd around us softly groaned. It might have been more a collective sigh.

"Then they dragged out a dozen of the men from our castle garrison, held prisoner in the dark for so long that they could hardly see, nor stand. And the soldiers hanged them, too!"

Now the noise from the crowd of listeners was more like a growl.

"That weren't all!" shouted Haimo. ""They went n' arrested the guslars! Every last one they could find. The very next night, six soldiers disappeared. Some say they was killed, but we think they was taken prisoner - to trade for the guslars. Only it didn't happen that way. The soldiers came into the town in their hundreds, and began to search every house. If anybody said a word, they killed 'em."

The noise around us grew louder. Notomol had to raise his arms and ask for quiet. Haimo was breathing heavily, obviously affected by his own emotions.

"Some people began to run. A few fought back. The soldiers started killing anybody they could find. It was a massacre."

Every crowd is a gathering of individuals. But some are more easily influenced or led, and the entire group can sometimes be swayed as one. In this case, though, there were several different reactions. Many were simply too shocked to respond. I saw a few in tears. Some of the people among us had come from the town. Perhaps they were thinking of family or friends who were still there.

But a number of people in the gathering reacted angrily. Muttering turned to growling, and voice were raised - along with fists. A few began shouting. At first, it was merely noise. I heard "We have to do something!", and "Revenge!".

Then, in a moment of relative quiet, one man shouted. Most everyone heard him clearly.

- "Kill the prisoners!"

There was the briefest of pauses, as if people were gathering their breath - and then fifty voices roared their agreement. It might have been a hundred, even. It was very frightening.

This had the potential to get ugly.

Notomol stepped into the centre of our circle. Once again, he raised his arms for silence - which he didn't get right away. Quite a few people were thoroughly worked up.

- "NO ONE!" he shouted. "No one touches the prisoners. Those men laid down their arms because the Duchess gave her word that their lives would be spared. You CANNOT break her promise. The first man - or woman - who harms a prisoner will hang for it. I will put the rope around their neck myself."

There were a number of groans from the crowd. Was it disappointment? Resentment? But there were also a few hotheads who angrily shouted back.

I realized that the more Notomol said, the more it would come to resemble a debate. As it happened, I had some things to say which might help. I stepped forward, halfway to Notomol, and raised my arm.

I wasn't sure how many of the folk gathered here knew me. Many were going to be hearing from me for the very first time. Curiosity, at least, worked to my advantage. They would let me speak - for a moment, anyway.

- "You are angry." I said. "I understand that. The Izumyrians burned the small village where I grew up, and killed my uncle." That was literally true. "If you could, would you go to Izumyr and burn their villages in retaliation? Would you kill children, and old men? Would you rape their women?"

I glanced at my friends. Rion and Eliv's faces were like stone. Giedra was nodding - I think that she understood what I was doing.

"Because if you would do that ... then you are NO BETTER THAN IZUMYRIANS!"

I think that I shocked them. No one had an immediate answer for that. I didn't give them time to think of one, but pressed ahead.

"They have done evil things in Hvad, and in the Uplands. That's why we're all here - to fight against them! Not to be like them!"

I wasn't sure that this was a winning argument. But I had them on their heels, so I continued to press my advantage. I'd been frowning ever since Haimo had taken up Laar's story. Something about it ... just didn't feel right. In the time since then, I'd been able to figure out what was making me uncomfortable.

"Laar? Haimo? I have a question for you."

That served to turn the crowd's attention back to the newcomers. Both men looked at me.

"You saw the hangings? You were there, yourselves?"

- "Yes." said Laar.

- "'Course we did." said Haimo.

- "And the massacre? You saw that firsthand, as well?"

Laar didn't answer. Haimo seemed to have caught my drift - he had a sense, at least, of where I was headed.

- "You callin' us liars?"

- "Absolutely not." I said. "But I am wondering if you watched the massacre from horseback, and then rode out of town - or whether you were on foot, and then ran to a stable to get horses."

There might have been twenty, or possibly thirty people who understood what I was driving at - and Laar and Haimo were two of those. I had to hope that at least some of the captains would be able to see it. I turned my back to the men from town, and addressed the larger crowd.

"I believe that Laar and Haimo saw the hangings. I believe them. As to the massacre ... I would like to know more, especially from someone who was there. Most importantly, I would not act on this information until I was sure of it."

The gathering was largely silent. Even if no one had understood me, I had blunted the edge of their anger. They were still simmering, but the pot wasn't about to boil over just yet.

That was when Iduallon made his presence known.

- "Shut up you Upland bitch! You have no idea what you're talking about!" he screamed.

Now - now there was complete silence. People were quite simply taken aback by the sheer vitriol in his voice.

But there was one person prepared to answer.

- "I must have missed something." said Dubek. He came forward, and turned to look directly at Iduallon. "Did you get promoted to Captain while I was somewhere else? I would have remembered something like that."

Dubek took three slow steps towards Iduallon. "This is the last time I'm going to warn you. Keep - your - festering - gob - shut. Otherwise, you and me ... we're going to come to blows."

Iduallon simply stood there, staring at his doom. Prosquetel, though, swiftly intervened. "The Lieutenant is only saying what we are all thinking."

- "Oh?" said Dubek. "And what is it that I'm thinking?"

- "She is an Uplander." said Old Whitehair, with a dismissive wave of his hand. "She has a limited understanding of these matters."

The sheer audacity of that response took my breath away. Thankfully, there was someone else prepared to answer.

- "DID WE NOT UNDERSTAND," shouted Giedra, "when you and your pregnant Duchess came to the Uplands, and sought the aid of Veran Hammerfist and his daughters?"

I hoped that the guslars were paying attention. She was magnificent. She'd even slipped in a reference to the Duchess' pregnancy. Giedra was out for blood.

"You didn't scorn our hospitality, on Prospal Hill. Nor did you complain when we fought the Izumyrians to protect you. Oh - wait - you DID complain. The accommodations weren't to your liking. And there were no servants to wait on you."

I have no idea what the crowd were making of this. But Giedra was paddling with the current, and there was no stopping her now.

"Did you forget how we fought the Izumyrians, to keep you safe? Do you remember Weyl? You don't, do you? He died fighting, the night your Duchess gave birth. And do you know what else you've forgotten? Or never cared about in the first place? Weyl was Seva's brother. That's right - the woman that Iduallon here has impregnated twice - without a care for where the little bastards end up. So long as someone else has to look after them, that's fine. Or did we not understand that, either?"

It was absolutely superb, to watch her. Giedra had presence. How she remembered Weyl I have no idea. I also wondered why she thought of my father as Veran Hammerfist - and not One-Eye. But she was amazing. The guslars should have been fighting each other for the privilege of telling her story. Thuruar was an idiot.

She achieved what I hadn't: the crowd was stunned (or distracted) into silence. The idea of killing the prisoners had been forgotten - or at least shelved for the moment.

Notomol took full advantage.

- "The Captains will meet, tomorrow night. You may speak your thoughts to one of us."

The gathering dispersed, and no one died that night.

I put my hand on Giedra's arm. "You were ... magnificent."

- "You went first. I just followed your lead."

- "No - you were ... there should be a song about what you did. And said. I want to name my first three children after you."

She laughed. "It's not the best name for a boy."

I was not the only one to congratulate her; most of the Uplanders and some of the female fighters (many of whom had been subjected to Iduallon's advances) wanted to come by and praise her for her intervention. I was pleased to discover that most of them also seemed to understand exactly why she'd done it.

For the rest of that night, and through the next day, much of the talk was about the prisoners and what should be done with them. The Uplanders had a very good idea of where Giedra and I stood on that subject, but there were a few who disagreed with us.

- "Kill them all." said Bala, a woman who fought with a spear.

- "Who?" said Giedra.

- "Hunh? The prisoners!"

- "No - I meant who is going to do the killing? Are you volunteering? How many of them will you kill? And how do we go about it? Do we have two or three of us hold a man down, so that you can deliver the killing stroke?"

- "I imagine that the other hundred prisoners will stand by patiently and wait their turn." I added.

Bala hadn't thought it through that far. She certainly wasn't prepared to argue with us. She waved her hands in the air and retreated.

Giedra and I discussed what we would do at the Captains' Council.

- "I'd prefer not to speak again, if I can avoid it." I said. "Just hearing the sound of my voice seems to set Old Whitehair off."

- "That's not necessarily a bad thing." she said.

- "Maybe. But I don't want to make things more difficult for Notomol."

- "Then you should go ask him." said Giedra. The way she said it made me realize that she was talking about more than the fate of the prisoners.

- "Giedra ..."

- "It's not such a big secret as you suppose, Guenna. We've all seen the way you look at him. Hey - you're not the only one, either. You've just got a worse case of it than most."

- "I can't ... I can't act on it. I couldn't do that to Nelime. I like her too much."

Giedra nodded. "I know what you mean. I liked Sulcen too much to go after your father. If not for her, I'd have been all over him."

- "Giedra ..." I could only shake my head. "I never know when to take you seriously."

- "Always, Guen. Always."

The Council of Captains was ... complicated. For one thing, it was considerably more crowded than I had originally envisioned. Notomol had sent word to us during the day, asking us to bring all of our fighters who were not on watch or guarding the prisoners.

Notomol himself stood up first. "I want the fighters to hear what will be said. If this Council decides to execute the prisoners, these are the men and women who will have to do the killing. For that same reason, I have asked the non-combatants to stay away. They've had the opportunity to tell the Captains how they feel about the matter. Let their involvement rest there - for now."

Notomol then gave each of the leaders the chance to have their say, whether it was the opinion of their followers, or theirs alone. Of course, no one wanted to be first. Eventually, though, many of them came forward - and delivered some surprisingly nuanced views.

- "Most of my men believe that we have to send a message." said Aldur the Wall. "If we allow the Izumyrians to massacre our people without retaliating, they will only grow bolder."

- "But the Duchess gave her word." said Mailis. For her, that was the sticking point. "What if we fight again, and put the enemy in a position where they should surrender - but they know that we kill our prisoners afterwards?"

- "There is no question," said Ban Lemek, "that the Duchess, by her quick action, saved many lives that day. By that, I mean Hvadi lives. It would not have been easy to kill every last one of those soldiers, and many of our folk would have died in the process."

- "They eat a lot." said Yadha Snakehand.

- "We could put the prisoners on short commons." said Eiven Cloudy-Eye. "Perhaps half of what our fighters get?"

- "I have friends in Hvad town." said Heras Koymil. "My family are there. How many still live, I do not know."

- "They kill prisoners." said Thuruar Honey-Tongue. I was already quite disappointed in him, but this was a new low.

Orsho spoke, but very reluctantly. "Some of you know me. If so, you may have some idea of the cost of being forsworn. You promised these men their lives. To kill them now would make your word of honour a synonym for treachery hereafter."

Giedra leaned over to whisper in my ear. "What's a synonym?"