The Patrimony (20 page)

Neeka made no attempt to leave a message for Ahrohnos. For one thing, the cook’s reading ability was minimal; for another, he was not a member of
ee Klirohnohmeea
and would have had no idea how to help or whom to approach for advice. On the other hand, Iktis was a member—a high-ranking member, at that—of the Heritage, and he would certainly be at the brothel, for Dejoy Skriffen never allowed more than two of her four goons to be absent at any one time.

Even so, Neeka’s mind was awhirl with thoughts of vengeance upon the evilly grinning Froh. From his comment about his thought of having her killed
too
, she was now dead-certain that he had been responsible for the fatal attack on
Komees
Pehtros. Ahrohnos had gone to tell his tale at the fort, but it was just possible that the wily thief and murderer, Pawl Froh, rich with the proceeds of Master Lokos’ estate, might be able to elude justice—slip secretly out of the Duchy of Esmith or even take ship and leave the Confederation entirely.

As the party left the better sections of Esmithpolis, the streets became narrower. Finally, almost within sight of the bordello, a street was completely blocked by an enormous wain with a broken axle, two huge oxen and a half-dozen shouting, gesticulating men. Stoo insisted they backtrack a few yards and enter a parallel alleyway down the length of which they could see the windowless facade of Mistress Djoy’s place of business.

When Neeka and Froh, in the lead, were but five yards from the mouth of the alley, a cur dog ran past them and began to snarl and snap at the two bravos, behind. When the men stopped, cursing and kicking at the animal, Neeka saw her chance. Swiftly, her right hand went to her nape and drew the small stiletto from her hair. She allowed Froh to advance a step ahead, then jerked aside his cloak and drove the sliver of steel with all her force between his belt and the lower edge of the brigandine, deep into his left kidney.

Hissing, close to his ear, “This is for
Komees
Pehtros, you barbarian ape!” she withdrew the stiletto and stabbed again, and once more, nearly deafened all the while by her victim’s shrill, falsetto shrieks of agony.

Then a big, powerful hand clamped onto her wrist. Letting go of the bloody, imbedded weapon, Neeka got her slender body beneath the arm and exerted the leverage Djordj had taught her so long ago. The new bravo, Alik, whooped in surprise as his feet left the ground, screamed briefly in his flight. Then his breath left him as his body slammed down upon the greasy cobbles of the alley, the ringing clash of his scaleshirt drowning out the snapping of his neck.

Stoo Shif did not make the same error of judgment. He wrapped both brawny arms about Neeka, effectively securing her own arms, hugging her body close against his own and lifting her feet clear of the pavement. Snorting with laughter, the man proceeded rapidly down the alleyway, ignoring both the still-screaming Froh where he stood slumped against a wall and the unmoving corpse of Alik.

Drawn by the screams, Djoy Skriffen, trailed by Iktis, had come out of her front door and descended the steps to street level just in time to watch Stoo Shif trot out of the alley with the kicking, struggling Neeka hugged tight to his chest.

Grinning like an opossum, he spoke when still several paces distant. “Lady Djoy, she ain’t changed one damn bit, I tell you. I searched her and me and Alik watched her ever step of the way, and somehow or’t’other she still had her a knife or got one. Give it to that humpbackted asshole three, four times, right under the loose ribs in the bastid’s back.”

“He the one what’s a-screamin’?” demanded the madam.

Almost choking on his laughter, the bravo just nodded, then gasped, “And the bugtit’ll be howling like a fucking wolf till he finely does die. It’s damn near as long and hard a death as a frigging stab below the belt. Atop of that, I think she kilt ole Alik, too. I warned him to stay clear of her, I did.”

“What happened to him?” Djoy Skriffen asked, conversationally. “Did Neeka attack him?”

The bravo shook his head. “Naw, Lady Djoy, we ‘uz two, three steps back of her and the gimpy humpback, and like I say she’d put paid to him ‘fore we hardly knowed whatall’d happund. Well, ole Alik just run up and grabbed her knife arm and then I cain’t really say just whatall she did, it all was so fast. Next thing I knowed, Alik was flying down the fucking alley and a-yowling and all and then he hit so hard I ache to think about it, I do. I think his neck is broke, Lady Djoy, mebbe his frigging back, too. But I warned him she “uz a killer.”

Djoy Skriffen smiled. “Don’t fret about it, Stoo. You know and I know that Alik must’ve been out for a piss when they passed out brains. I told you all Neeka was valuable to this business, well worth the price that ugly little cripple demanded. For all Iktis and Neel thought it was a mistake to bring her back here, I knowed I was right. Soon’s she cools down a mite, she’ll likely see things that way, too.”

Iktis had spoken not a word, aloud, nor had Neeka. Their communications had been silent. To her appeal for help, he had answered, “Even with poor Pehtros dead and Judge Gahbros still away, you’ll be free soon enough. There are more ways in and out of this house than Lady Sow ever imagined. Now stop struggling. Stoo Shifs sex drives are warped, perverted—a resisting woman arouses his lusts.”

But it was too late. Iktis could see that it was even if Neeka could not. A pulse had commenced to throb visibly in Stoo’s temple, his eyelids were twitching and he repeatedly extended his tongue to wet his lips. Iktis knew the signs, and knew all too well what they portended.

When Stoo again spoke, his voice was thick with desire. “Lady Djoy… ? Please, ma’am, give her to me, to us, for a little while. Me and Iktis and Neel will cool her down quick enough, and I promise you we won’t mark her up none, or not bad, enyhow.”

“Well…” Djoy scratched her head “Well, Stoo, maybe a little gentling will put her in a better mood to talk to me. Maybe she’ll see, then, jest how much I’m offering her.”

Unnoticed by either Djoy or the preoccupied Stoo, Iktis sauntered a few steps forward. He mindspoke to Neeka. “Child, the bitch has just consigned you to several hours of torture and rape and humiliation. I’ll not allow it to happen, but you must do just what I say. When you see my left hand come to rest on the hilt of my hanger, duck your head as far down and forward as you can. I’m going to slit Stoo’s throat. The moment his arms relax, throw yourself to the ground; the old bitch has a throwing knife up each sleeve, and she’s deadly with them at short range, so this will be a chancy thing.”

Horrified by the pulse of the hard maleness she could feel against her leg through Stoo’s clothing and her own, Neeka, beamed her assent. Even so, she instinctively flinched when Iktis, leering, reached out to fondle her breasts. Chuckling evilly, Iktis stepped back and, with a natural, casual appearance, his left hand came to rest on the hilt of the weapon slung from the left side of his body.

Neeka ducked her head, felt her hair ruffled by the wind of the blade’s passage, then her head and neck and shoulders were suddenly drenched in a shower of hot liquid. Behind her, her captor was making horrible gurgling noises. Then he loosed his bold upon her and she threw herself forward and down onto the pavement Lady Djoy shouted something, but her shout was cut off in the middle of a word by a meaty
thunnk
and her next sound was a gurgling gasp.

Up at the head of the alley, there were yells and the thump-thump-clankety-rattle of men, armored men, running. Pawl Froh’s ceaseless screams of agony finally had brought a patrol of guardsmen. Similar sounds caromed off the window-less walls of the street, as well, indicating that a patrol was proceeding from a second direction.

Iktis grasped Neeka’s arm and pulled her to her feet. She gasped and almost retched at what she saw. Stoo Shif had sunk to his knees, his arms hung limply by his sides; bright blood and bubbly pink froth gushed regularly from the deep wound just beneath his stubbled chin. His eyes followed Iktis with a pleading, questioning look and his lips shaped words, but his severed windpipe could provide no air to give those words life.

Djoy Skriffen sat on the pavement, leaning against the house wall, the thick plaster of cosmetics and the thin trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth standing out in garish contrast to the grayish pallor of her skin. The skirt of her red silk gown had ridden up to bare her fat, splayed legs almost to the crotch. Her big, square, beringed hands lay palm up beside her massive hips; near the right one lay a flat, hiltless iron knife, its point smeared thickly with a viscous venom. Her little piggy eyes, though glazing, were fixed upon the hat of the hanger standing up from a thick roll of fat, just below her well-padded ribs and centered between the mountainous breasts.

Iktis pulled Neeka by main force along with him. “Snap out of it, girl! It will be far better for us both not to be on the street when those armored barbarians get here. True, we could flee toward the docks, but we’d be seen by these, certainly, and possibly run into another patrol down there, as well. But just let me get into the cellars and they’ll never find us.”

Leaving Neeka on the stairs for a moment, he turned back to Djoy. Planting a foot to steady her, he drew the hanger out, drawcutting downward, his face twisted with the disgust and rage which had so long seethed within him.

Inside the foyer, Iktis slammed the heavy, iron-banded oak door and dropped the three hinged bars in place, after shooting home the thick iron bolts. “Lucky for us,” he mindspoke, “that these ancient buildings are constructed like little fortresses. It’ll take those guards a considerable time to knock down this door, and there’re no windows on the front or the sides, so neither Neel nor Hobp Leebos will have any idea what happened out there. Come on, the quicker we get downstairs, the better.”

But it was not to be so easily accomplished. Neeka had but barely gotten out of sight under the front stairs when Hohp appeared at the head of them, her hair disheveled and her eyes heavy and swollen with sleep. But those eyes popped open wide when she saw Iktis, who had caught the fringes of the initial spray of Stoo’s blood, had had more rub off on him as he manhandled Neeka into the house and was gripping the gory hanger just pulled out of his former employer.

“
Neel!”
The tall redhead screamed in alarm. Then, “What happened, Iktis? Whatall’s going on out there?”

“Go to the head of the cellar stairs, child,” Iktis quickly mindspoke. “Shut the door behind you and stay there until I join you.”

Neel had come up behind Hohp, stark naked, but with a lead-filled leather cosh in one hand and a wide-bladed dirk in the other. “What’n shit’s goin’ awn, Iktis? Soun’s like they skinnin’ some bastid out there.” He referred to Pawl Froh’s screams, hoarser now, but still audible even through the stone walls and thick door.

“Guardthmen and tholdierth!” lisped Iktis, excitedly. “They theemed to think we all had thomething to do with the murder of
Komeeth
Pehtroth. They’ve already cut down Thtoo and Alik and that hunchback. Before Lady Djoy fell, the thaid to bar the front door and get everybody out through the thtable tunnel. If the can talk or buy her way out of it, the’ll join uth at her warehouth. Hohp, you get the girlth up and drethed and out Neel, you get the thtrongbokth out of Lady Djoy’th bedroom. I’m going down and thlit that new-bought girl’th gullet, then I’ll meet you there.”

There might have been questions, save that fists and sword pommels bad already begun to hammer at the barred and bolted door, and, rising above the tumult, an authoritative voice could be heard shouting for a timber suitable for use as a battering ram. Hohp whirled about and began to open doors and scream orders to the sleepy whores.

After hurriedly wiping his blood-dripping blade on the rich samite draping the entrance to the front parlor, Iktis sheathed it and raced down the hall to the cellar door. He and Neeka descended the broad steps, their way lit by another of those large, chain-hung brass lamps that Neeka remembered had lit the cellar room to which she had been confined during her brief stay here, years back. All the rank of doors facing them at the foot of the steps were identical—thick, iron-studded and ironbound, and each wide enough to allow, when opened, the passage of a rolling wine tun or a barrel of pickled turnips or cabbage.

Without hesitation, Iktis strode to the third door from the right and inserted an iron key into the big padlock, then waved Neeka through the opened door. Immediately, Neeka became aware that they were not alone down here, for she could hear the whimpering sobs of a woman somewhere ahead. The passage, for all its darkness, seemed vaguely familiar, and, when they emerged into the stone-paved room full of huge, age-darkened wine casks, kegs and shelves of jugs and bottles, she knew where she was. Iktis had lingered to secure the door behind them; now he strode past her to the high, open-topped cell built into the corner, jerked back the bar and flung wide the door.

At the first sound of the bolt, the occupant of the cell began to scream. Iktis stood for a moment, then turned and beckoned to Neeka. “I’d thought to take her out of here with us, but she’s hysterical, and with cause. Stoo and Neel and Alik were at her early this morning so I haven’t the heart to hit her.” He mindspoke. “She’s an Ahrmehnee girl, but she speaks both Ehleeneekos and Mehrikan, as well. See if you can calm her down while I open the passage.”

The naked girl who had flattened herself against the stone wall in the farthest corner of the cell was as tall as Neeka, though she seemed barely pubescent. Both her long-lashed eyes were blackened and her face was swollen and discolored, while her olive-skinned body was one mass of welts, bruises, abrasions and scratches from neck to knees. Neeka felt ill; this poor child could have been her, but for brave Iktis.

She tried in vain to establish mindspeak communication with the girl. If the Ahrmehnee was a mindspeaker, she was too upset to use the talent; nonetheless, Neeka continued to beam a meaningless but soothing reassurance which did have its effect. By the time Iktis beamed that the passage was clear, the girl, trembling like a foundering horse, sat beside