Ganne


07 - Guara Rides Out.


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Guara entered the small court next to the stables in company with Sehko
and the Viper.  She paused a moment to survey the scene.  Grey, two story
stone walls enclosed the space, trapping the soft grey light.  Tall
windows, arched, narrow and dark, looked down on the scene in the court
with an indifferent blind stare.

Ten women stood in a loose group, bundled up in riding cloaks.  Grooms
moved about among the saddled horses, making last minute checks on saddle
girths and panniers.  The Witches watched this in a moody silence, faces
sullen.

The youngest, Marleena, had a particularly sour set to her features.
Guara could remember what it was like to be in love.  She almost felt
sorry for the girl; but they were going far, the expedition needed a
powerful Far Speaker, and Marleena was the most adept to have come to the
Palace in fifty years.

Barras was there too, loitering inconspicuously, clutching his "Most
Immediate" satchel and portable signing board.  Guara acknowledged her
Chief of Security with a slight inclination of the head.  The thin,
rat-like man scampered forward, his grey livery lending him a ghostly
aspect in the dawn light.  Before his Queen, he executed a neat bow, and
swung up the signing board on his forearm.  With a deft flick, he
materialised a thin sheaf of papers on the tray.  He proffered a stylus.

"Can't Waits only," he assured.

Guara took the stylus.  She smiled thinly at the man, and glanced at the
top paper.  Her lips drew into a thin line.  It was the "Special
Disposition Warrant" for Marika Bah Clousaard that she had been so
assiduously avoiding for the last year.  Guara flipped it over to expose
the next sheet.  This was a Warrant for the Execution of Marika Bah
Clousaard.  Guara scanned it briefly; it seemed in order.  The woman's
Bayonne drawn across her throat would be kinder than the "Special
Disposition" order.  Guara poised the stylus over the signing box, then
hesitated.  The murderous bitch was owed no duty of kindness, not by the
Matriarch, nor any in the Ganne Lands, especially not those of the
Clousaard Province.

Guara flipped the top form back and signed it quickly.  As she did so, she
caught the look on Barras's face - disapproval.  That look accused Guara
silently; it said plainly: "Not ANOTHER one down that road?" The surge of
guilt left a bitter taste in Guara's mouth.  Quickly, she signed the other
orders, before dismissing her Head of Security by turning her back on him.

One day, she would have to deal with that impertinent little man...  One
day...  Her gaze roved over the assembled throng in the court, settled
upon the two sapphics; but before that day came, she would have to deal
with that pair.

The two sapphics stood apart.  One was tall, with a long cascade of wavy
brown hair, framing a long oval face.  She had the classic Bah features.
Hard brown eyes watched the activity in the court with a sullen
malevolence.  Her name was Karrellanne Bah Clovis.  She would be the next
Matriarch of the Ganne Lands.  That honour would not fall to Sehko; for
though Sehko was a competent administrator, she lacked the killer instinct
to go for the throat - and the murderous savagery necessary to make it
stick.  Karrellanne had those qualities in abundance.

She was holding the plump hand of the shorter, darker woman at her side.
This other was stocky and rounded, where Karrellanne was tall and
graceful.  Her name was Beruth Bah Raimanne.  She had wavy black hair,
worn long and loose, so that it spread over her shoulders.  The face
framed by that mane possessed a succulent sensuality.  It was the sort of
face that spoke to the body direct, by-passing the intellect entirely.
The lips were full and pouting, the eyes large and black; they fairly
smoldered with the promise of rampant sexuality; but for the unfortunate
men trapped by the allure in those eyes, it was an empty promise.  That
face now was soured by a sullen expression.  The pair of them, Guara noted
with a savage satisfaction, looked distinctly bedraggled.

The only voices in the court were those of the grooms as they soothed the
restive horses.  All horses were Ganne Sensitive; and the concentration of
so much Ganne in one place made them nervous.

It was time to get the show on the road.  Guara moved in the Ganne,
calling for the women's attention.  The silent women all turned resentful
eyes upon her.

"Mount up Ladies, if you please," Guara commanded.

Guara, as was the proper protocol, mounted first.  She sat in the saddle,
waiting patiently while the rest of the party mounted in a flurry of
cloaks.  Hooves clattered sharply on the cobbles as the horses shifted to
accommodate the weight of their riders.  These old walls had not seen such
a sight in two generations - a Ganne Witch raiding party riding out to
dispense justice.  It was a result of Guara's return to the old style of
"hands on" government which had made the Ganne Witches feared through the
centuries.

They made thirteen.  These women now settling cloaks over the rumps of
their mounts were here this morning solely because they were the nine
women that Guara could simply not afford to let out of her sight.  Sehko
was coming because Guara knew the woman had a genuine affection for her,
and would be a relief from the hostility of the others.  Marleena was
chosen to keep the party in communication with the rest of Guara's
administration at the Shennon Palace.  The Viper was coming to watch
Guara's back, and discourage thoughts of treachery.

Guara urged her horse forward to the arch.  The others fell in behind.
Sehko raised up the standard, a golden dragon on a blue field; and the
troop clattered out into the Great Court of the Shennon Palace.  The file
of riders detoured around the ceremonial well in the centre of the Great
Court, and passed out under the Grand South Gate.

A breathtaking vista of the Shennon Vale opened before them.  At the foot
of the almost sheer hillside, the shining ribbon of the Shennon Water
wound past the rocky upthrust on which the palace was built.  The river
meandered lazily away eastwards through the fertile fields of the circular
vale, towards the great rift in the eastern wall of the crater.  Beyond
that gap, it divided the town of Shennon Freeport, before snaking out
through the lower marshes to lose itself in the Eastern Sea.

Just risen over the eastern ridge, the sun was shooting level rays across
the vale, setting fire to the magnificent water fall where the shennon
entered the vale.  The two hundred foot waterfall was known as the Fire
Falls.  At its foot, Burning Lake smoldered in a smoky orange haze shot
through with shimmering rainbows.

The troop of horse turned sharp left, and rode down the gentle slope of
the way, under the forbidding walls of the ancient fortress palace.  At
the base of the hill, the road ran out into the valley bottom, among the
villas of the wealthy, which ringed the Palace Mount.  Beyond the
clustering dwellings, the fertile fields, which kept the palace fed,
spread out under the wide winter sky.  Shorn of their crops, the fields
possessed an atmosphere of forlorn desolation.  Frost glittered on the
stubble - winter's calling card.

The seasonal gleaners were busy among the stacks and stubble.  The flocks
of migrant birds, moving south ahead of the white hem of winter's snowy
mantle, were feeding on the leavings of man's industry.  They whirred into
flight as the troop of horsewomen clattered past.  Uttering thin piping
cries, the flocks swirled in smoky clouds in the crisp autumn air, before
settling back to their urgent feeding.

The figures of men, women and horses paused in their early morning labours
to watch the troop go by, standing out starkly in the cruelly clear light
of sunrise.

Guara led the party on at a smart trot.  In fifteen minutes, the road
angled towards the river.  There, it turned and hugged the north bank,
passing among stands of willow.  Eventually, it came to the eastern wall
of Shennon Vale, and entered the tunnel cut through the rock by the
ancients.  At the far end, the way debouched right in to the heart of the
old town of Shennon Freeport.


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