Empire of Women & One of our Cities is Missing (Armchair Fiction Double Novels Book 25) (5 page)

Celys did
not even pause in her long, lithe striding.
 
Her voice was subtly mocking.
 
“I
had thought to find our conquerors spending the first night in celebration, in
drinking and lewd wallowing with their captive women.
 
Yet here is a great, brawny hero crying for
bed like a sleepy boy.
 
For shame!”

Gan was
really tired, and her attitude was getting under his skin.
 
He growled in utter irritation.
 
“It might behoove your petty mightiness to
keep a civil tongue, at least until this brawl really settles down.
 
Anything can happen, including those things
you have mentioned.
 
They
will
happen if I don’t guard you!”

In sudden
meekness, Celys turned about and they returned to the main chamber, where the
assembled female followers of the mysterious All-Mother still sang in weary
voices.
 

Gan
asked:
 
“Isn’t there
any place where you study; any classrooms, laboratories, workshops where you
teach crafts?
 
Is there nothing but
sleeping and praying rooms in the whole place?”

Celys’
voice seemed to catch in her throat as she
said:
 
“Not…not in the holy temple, Captain.
 
In the schools, which lie without the temple
walls, and in other places, are such things taught.
 
Here we teach the Word of the All-Mother
only.”
 

“Hmmph!”
Gan grunted, and turning on his heel, left
her, calling over his shoulder, “Goodnight, Mother.”
 

He was a
little surprised that she only returned silence.
 

WITH THE
morning sun Tor Branthak came, at the head of two-score gorgeously uniformed
personal guards, to “check the temple for resistance”.
 
He greeted Celys where she waited at the
center of the great doorway into the shrine of the All-Mother.
 
The Regent knew very well that no male was
allowed to cross the white line upon pain of Myrmi-Atla’s infinite anger.
 
So he strode across and, into the very center
of the clustered young priestesses, smilingly eyeing them right and left as if
measuring them for girdles.
 
Celys
pursued him with horrified face, catching up with him as he turned in wonder
that no common soldier of his guard had followed him into the ancient
shrine.
 

“It is
forbidden!
 
You intrude!”
 
Celys was crying out, over and over, as if
the words were a ritual.
 
Her repeated
cry at last angered the Regent.
 

“Young
woman, it is the custom to address me as ‘Your Majesty’, as I am the virtual
emperor of all the might of Konapar, and lately of Phira also.
 
But of course, you being a woman, you could
not be expected to recognize any authority but your own willfulness.
 
Or can you?”

Celys
stood frozen, shock overcoming her at meeting the one being she had most
dreaded to meet since the first hostilities.
 
Tor Branthak went on speaking.
 

“Well,
well, my charming priestess, had I known there were such attractive morsels of
femininity here, I should have arrived much sooner.
 
Somehow I had expected the Matriarch’s
intimates to be much older and much uglier than you.
 
Now, dear lady, could you direct me to the
creature in charge of this antiquated pile of obsolete masonry?”

Celys’
shock was turning into anger at his disrespect for all things Phiran and she
found
herself
unable to answer.
 
The Regent prodded her.
 
“Come, come—someone looks after all these
god-addled female wits, do they not?
 
Where would I find such a one, or have her tasks overcome her mind,
too?”

Celys drew
herself up, anger and pride and humiliation all mingled in her voice.
 
“I am known as the Supreme Matriarch, Your
Majesty.
 
You must forgive my not knowing
who you were.
 
I had no warning you would
arrive at this time.”
 

The Regent
snorted.
 
“You have had warning enough,
woman.
 
When the fleet settled down over
Alid yesterday, you might know the temple would be visited today.
 
But, you look so very young for such a high
position.
 
Tell me, what is your age?”

Celys
remained silent, smiling aloofly, as if she had not heard his question.
 
The Regent eyed her, his black eyes snapping
with suppressed anger, his fingers clamped on the hilt of his decorative sword
at his waist.
 

“You must
know, if you are a Supreme Matriarch, something of the legend of longevity
that is commonly related about you.
 
In
the records of Phiran events, there has been a certain Celys in office for
some two hundred years.
 
I want to know
if you are that woman, or some other?”

Celys’
voice was low and calm now, and her eyes veiled as if she recited words from
memory.
 
“My name is Celys, it is true,
but that is a ritual name.
 
All Supreme
Matriarchs take the name of Celys.
 
It is
but
custom
.
 
I
have not been in office for so very long.”
 

The Regent
pushed his face forward almost into hers.
 
“
Just
how long, and what is your real name?
 
Answer me!
 
You were the Supreme Matriarch forty years ago; I have that from several
eyewitnesses who recognized you.
 
I want
to know what
is the secret of your perpetual youth
?”

“There is no
secret, your Highness, believe me.
 
We of
Phira come of a long-lived stock.
 
There
are, the shorter-lived breeds scattered among us, so that our life spans vary
from the so-called norm to three and four times the normal.
 
That is
all of the
secret, and it will do no good to question me, for I can tell you no more than
the truth.”
 

GAN ALAIN,
who had been awakened by his orderly, hurried up, buckling his belt, tugging
his leather corselet straight.
 
He
hesitated at the forbidden white line, then grinned and strode across as the
assembled young virgins glared at this repeated desecration.
 
Gan’s words were still slow with sleep.
 

“How went
affairs in the city overnight, Commander?”

The Tor
turned from his intent regard of the Matriarch’s masklike white, face and
smiled broadly at Gan.
 
His answer came
with a chuckle:
 
“The householders of
Alid put up a spirited resistance, Captain, but aside from several flurries of
armed resistance, all went well.
 
The
women resented our masculinity vigorously, and they repeatedly attempted to
put our warriors in their place—namely out of doors.
 
But all in all, love won, and the militancy
of the female population seems much abated today.”
 

Gan
grinned, realizing that it must have been quite a night for all concerned, and
looking at Celys’ white and furious face, at her jaws clamped on the furious
rhetoric she would like to have used, he burst out laughing.
 

“That’s
capital news, Your Highness.
 
It would
have been too bad to have been forced to fight.
 
The women of Phira are too pretty to kill.
 
And the men do not fight, it seems.”
 

Tor
Branthak turned back to the Matriarch.
 
“You say there is no secret?
 
I
would like more in that vein.”
 

Celys
composed herself with an effort, forcing her words into a semblance of
civility.
 
“It is just that you are
unacquainted with the teachings of the All-Mother.
 
Everyone who worships in our shrines; all
over Phira and over some ten other
planets,
knows that
the principle figures of the Matriarchate are supposed to be immortal.
 
Few believe it, accepting it only as a
pleasant fiction, a survival from a more ignorant time.
 
As I have told you, the truth is we come of
long-lived blood lines, and our offices are hereditary.”
 

The Regent
snorted again, his eyes cold now, his face no longer smiling, but with a black
look like a gathering storm:
 
“So it is a
pleasant fiction?
 
As it happens, my dear
no-longer Supreme Matriarch, I have the records of the Matriarchy in my
possession.
 
Those worn books give rather
intimate details of the inner workings of your fantastically powerful
organization, reaching back some eight centuries.
 
I know the truth, Celys.
 
Why do you think I risked my life, my
position
and the honor of the Empire of Konapar in this
war?
 
I want that information!”

Celys’
sudden laugh was superb acting.
 
It was
scornful of the Regent’s ignorance and credulity.
 
It rang with merriment at the impossibly
devastating results of one man’s simple-minded belief in the impossible.
 
It rang all through the gamut of ridicule,
and as she laughed, the Regent’s face paled, his eyes grew stormy and filled
with a terrible anger,
his
ruddy cheeks sagged into
murderous lines.
 

Celys,
glancing into his eyes, paled suddenly and her laugh choked in her throat.
 
She put out a hand as if to hold back the
death she saw in his face.
 
Her words
were hurried and frightened.
 

“Of course
the fiction is kept upon the books, Your Highness.
 
Our people believe in their goddess and her
infinite powers.
 
They believe in us,
her immortal representatives.
 
But surely
a worldly man like you, who know the religions of a dozen sun-systems, must
understand such anachronisms in all mysticism?
 
It is an ancient religion, this worship of the All-Mother, surviving
from a dark past, kept up because of the simple natures of our more lowly
supporters.
 
Surely you can’t believe…”

GAN ALAIN
looked at her in open admiration.
 
She
was gambling her life upon her ability to lie, and doing a superb job—or else
he was a fool, and the Regent a bigger one.
 
Gan rubbed his chin, bristly with the early-rising kinks that only a
brush would remove, and eyed the Tor quizzically.
 

Tor
Branthak’s eyes narrowed.
 
He studied the
woman’s pale, exquisite countenance for a long half-minute.
 
Then he growled:
 
“You will submit proofs of the deaths of your
predecessors, the dates, and show my men their graves.
 
And you will do the same for every other
supposedly immortal member of your female conspiracy against the natural
dominance of mankind over womankind.
 
That means I want proof of births and dates and no trumped-up forged
papers will serve.
 
You’ll either prove
what you have just said, and that soon, my yellow-eyed beauty, or I’ll have the
truth out of you with hot pincers.
 
No
woman can sport two hundred years as if they were but twenty-five and keep the
method secret from all other human beings—not while Tor Branthak has a will
and a way.
 
Now get out of my sight,
before I order worse to happen to you.”
 

The Tor’s
black eyes burned into hers with an intensity that left her no doubt as to his
sincerity.
 
She put a hand to her face,
and seemed about to falter, her knees bending with the effect of his anger upon
her, then she turned slowly and moved away, weaving slightly with a sudden weakness.
 
The hearts of both men went out to her, then
they caught each other’s eyes and the signs of sympathy upon each face, and
suddenly both burst out laughing at allowing a woman’s pretense of weakness to
disarm them.
 

“A damned
fine actress,” murmured the Regent.
 

“A very
experienced one, at the least, Tor Branthak,” muttered Gan Alain in reply.
 
“But are we mere mortals strong enough to put
our threats into force?
 
Will she not
cozen you some way into believing that it takes no special equipment to outlive
others until you tire of life?
 
Could you
actually put a hot iron to that lovely flesh?”

Tor
Branthak’s face grew dark again, and the sympathy disappeared.
 
“I can and I will, Captain!
 
But first you will try every other method
that may occur to you, for I must confess I admire the woman too much to want
to kill her.
 
But know the truth we shall
before too long, and you can place your money on that.”
 

Then the
Regent spun on his heel and left, his boots ringing metallically on the stone
pave, the virgin priestesses watching him go with horror in their soft young
eyes.
 

Gan moved
off in the wake of the vanishing figure of Celys, determined to spend as much
time as possible with her, and to leave no stone unturned that might save her
from a position that might actually be as she said—a mere relic from the dark
past, an ancient artifice that was kept alive to fill the coffers of the
temple.
 

Gan caught
up with her where she stood alone in a corridor, leaning with one hand against
the wall as if she had no strength to go further.
 
It was in fact the first time in her life
that she had been face to face with the threat of torture; and as she looked up
from her reverie to find the scarred, bronzed visage of Gan Alain beside her,
the reality of the horror that might be visited upon her found ample
substantiation in his grim eyes.
 
For Gan felt that if these women
did
conceal such a secret
behind the facade of religious mummery, no fate was too evil for them.
 

NEITHER of
them spoke, but they measured each other with intent eyes, looking for the
hidden things behind, and finding in each other much of deep interest and attraction.
 
The silence and the deep regard became
embarrassing
as there slowly flamed between them the inevitable
fascination of vitality, which each possessed in so great a measure.
 
Gan was looking for some slight evidence of
a continued effort toward masquerade, toward the false drama he felt she knew
could be her only defense.
 
And he found
that evidence, for he knew enough of women to know that the next card she would
play would be her sex.