His Conquering Sword Read Online Free Page A

them, reciting an old story to keep them company on a dark night.

CHAPTER THREE
    B OREDEOM AFFLICTED JIROANNES. HE had nothing better to do than to interest himself in the goings-on in his guardsmen’s encampment. At dawn each day, he sent Syrannus to request an audience with Bakhtiian. Each day Syrannus returned with a polite refusal. In the mornings Jiroannes inspected the camp, ostensibly to make sure the women and children were being treated well by their keepers but in fact because the simple human contact with people other than Syrannus and the two slave-boys was as salve to him, who was otherwise alone.
    There was something pathetic about how gratefully the women greeted him, eyes cast down, knowing as they did that it was on his sufferance they were allowed to be there. Sleeping with men of another race, soon to be pregnant with their children; and yet, most of them would otherwise have starved to death, or met a worse fate. They knew they were the lucky ones. The little children sucked on their fingers and stared at him. The older ones attempted to help out around the guards’ camp. A few bold children even assisted Lal and Samae and the other slave-boy—whose name was Jat—in hauling water and beating carpets and collecting fuel for the benefit of Jiroannes himself. The guardsmen’s camp tripled in size in ten short days. By the time Bakhtiian made his triumphal entry into camp, Jiroannes felt that he was master of an entire little tribe of his own.
    When the citadel fell, his men went out searching for refugees. This time they brought back a princess. Waiting women and peasant women had been sheltering her, but the delicacy of her complexion and hands and the fine gold-braided shift she wore underneath the filthy gown her protectors had given her to camouflage herself in betrayed her high station. The captain brought her directly to Jiroannes as dusk lowered around them. Trembling, the woman knelt before him, hands crossed on her chest, head bent so that it almost touched the carpet, and begged him for mercy.
    He took her to his bed. She was a virgin, which proved how great a prize she was. She wept a little afterward, silently; he was annoyed to discover that her grief made him uncomfortable. She was a handsome woman, insofar as any of the Habakar women could be called handsome, and she had a pleasingly full figure and soft, yielding flesh. A few drops of blood stained her inner thighs, but he had been gentle—as gentle as he could be, considering how long it had been since he had lain with a woman.
    But now that he had satisfied his craving, he wondered if the jaran women, if Mother Sakhalin, would consider this night’s work as any different from a rape. Still, the woman had begged him for mercy, and she had given herself into his hands of her own free will. This was war, after all, and in war, the conquered must expect to become servants. Yet his captain had remarked that he had yet to see jaran riders carrying off any khaja women.
    Jiroannes tried to talk with her, but they spoke no language in common and she seemed either stupid or so frightened as to be stupid, so he soon grew bored with the effort. She called herself Javani, but whether that was her name, or a title, or a word describing her feelings he could not tell. He called Lal to him and had the boy lead her away to the women’s tent, which now she would share with Samae.
    In the morning, a rider came by to say that all ambassadors were required to attend court at midday.
    “Eminence,” said Syrannus as he and Lal helped Jiroannes dress in his most formal sash and blouse and turban, “what would you have me do with the woman?”
    “She will remain in seclusion, as befits her station,” said Jiroannes. “I will send for her again tonight. Make sure she is comfortable, Lal, and see that she is allowed to wash.”
    Lal accepted these orders with his usual gratitude. Jiroannes wondered if the boy was ambitious. After all, since Lal was a