Ganne


09 - Golden Eyes.


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Today she was going to die.

Marika Bah Clousaard lay in the great soft bed, in the sumptuously
appointed apartments, calmly contemplating this fact.  A dim, pre-dawn,
greyness was filtering in between the bars of the narrow window making
grey shadows of the expensive, yet tasteful furnishings.  None of the
luxurious fixtures and fittings could disguise the fact that these
apartments were her prison.

The rooms were situated high up in the southern tower of the fortress, the
windows looking out upon the pine clothe foothills of the Vardenai
Mountains.  Behind the richly embroidered hangings, the walls were grey
stone; the door was a thick slab of oak, banded with iron; and all the
windows were barred.

Yet these were only tokens of her imprisonment.  No walls of stone could
contain a Ganne Witch is she desired not to be kept within them.  No, the
real "walls" of her prison were the Bellalini twins, working as a matched
pair, to hold her in check.

There had been a lot of Far-Speaking activity earlier.  Marika was a
powerful Far Speaker, and although the actual content of the Speaking was
not accessible to her, no link could be entirely closed against her.
Melanne, the garrison Far Speaker, was old; her shields were weak; so it
had been easy for Marika to catch the gist of the communication...

Today, she was going to die.

The thought brought no fear.  In truth, she had died over a year ago when,
in an ungovernable fury and hurt, she had obliterated the man she had
loved unwisely, but too well.  Even as she destroyed him, a part of her
mind was marvelling at the stubborn courage of the man.  It was not for
the murder of her husband that she was condemned, for that was no crime.
Among the Commons, it was widely known that those who played with fire
must expect, at the last, to be burned.

The brutal murder of her husband was no crime.  But she should not have
laid waste her family's Province.  That had been wrong, very wrong.  She
really ought not to have done that; but her anger and hurt had been
ungovernable.

A grim little smile settled on her wide lips.  She did, after all have the
family tradition to keep up.  Was she not a true Bah Clousaard?  Did she
not possess, in full measure, the infamous temper and the equally infamous
Golden Eyes?  Even so, it had been wrong to lay waste the Province.  For
that, at least, she deserved to die.

Indeed, after the murder of her husband, she had set out with that
intention.  Guara would come and put an end to her, a proper and fitting
end for a Ganne of such an ancient and noble family to exit the world.  So
she had set out on a rampage to draw the queen's attention, and vent some
of her rage and hurt at her husband's betrayal.

That Guara had not ridden out in righteous anger to put her down, at first
had seemed a rather pointed insult; but when she had learned that the Soul
Speaker, Phaedra, commanded the expedition to bring her to heel, it had
taken all the sting out of any possible insult.  In the end, she had gone
more or less quietly.  Two High Gannes, both Bah Dishone, had been sorely
maimed in the fight.  Marika herself had been taken without a scratch.

Phaedra had appointed Sulis Bah Clousaard as Ganne Witch Pro Tem.
Doubtless, Guara would rather have put one of her political cronies in the
Seat; but low born commoner she might have been, she was still a political
animal of the first order.  She knew well that there would be a lot of
animosity to be expended by the Commons against the Ganne; and it would
seem to her that the only proper receptacle for such hostility should be
another Bah Clousaard.

Within three days of her fury made manifest upon the countryside, Marika
found herself on horseback, tracking through the devastation she had
wrought in her fury, as a prisoner of the force sent to bring her to heel.
The five remaining Gannes, and their retinue, were escorting her to
Shennon Vale for the judgement of the Ganne Council, which effectively
meant Guara, the Queen.

Their really could be only one outcome; and long before they had ridden
down into the Shennon Vale, Marika had settled her mind to the
inevitability of the verdict.  She no longer cared.  Her life had ended
with Brollin's words to her in the seconds before she obliterated him from
the world.

That had been a year ago.  Instead of a tedious interview before the
Council, and a speedy execution soon thereafter, they had brought her to
the far western border province of Navarre, close under the towering peaks
of the Vardenai Mountains.  Here, in this old border fort, she had
languished for that year, waiting on Guara's pleasure.  Well, her time of
waiting was over.

Marika pushed off the covers, and climbed out of the comfortable bed.
Taking up a soft bed wrap, she pulled it around her shoulders, and waded
through the deep pile carpeting, patterned in autumnal golds and browns,
to her dressing room.  She would have to look her best for the execution.
It would be expected of a Golden Eyes.

Before the full-length mirror, she threw off the wrap, and slipped the red
silk nightgown from her shoulders.  The soft material swished as it
settled about her ankles.  She regarded her reflection in the dim light of
the lamps.  Her Golden Eyes gleamed in the subdued lighting, looking like
exotic gems set in her classic Bah features.  Her face was framed by brown
tresses, tousled from the bed, lending her appearance a certain air of
abandon.  The line of her body did nothing to belie this impression.  She
still had a good figure; five children had done some damage; but at forty
eight, she fancied herself still attractive.  Not, of course, that she had
ever wanted any man other than Brollin to look upon her in that way.

At least, she mused with a wry smile, she would be spared the sight of her
body wrinkling up, and shrinking with age.  That would have been hard for
her deeply ingrained vanity to cope with.  She was happy to be spared
that.

Marika opened the door of her closet to pick through her abundance of
dresses.  Something suitable would have to be worn for this special day.
She toyed for a long time with the idea of a provocative red dress, but at
last settled for a long gown in pale blue.

Taking the filmy material over her arm, she pushed the closet doors
closed.  "Emily?" she called for her maid.

When the girl did not appear, Marika scowled.  In growing impatience, she
called again.  Outside, the sun was already setting the peaks a-flame.
Time was growing short; but she was determined to look her very best for
this final occasion of her life.  Where was that good for nothing bumpkin?

"Emily?  Where in the Goddess's name are you?  Get out here at once, you
good for nothing?  I have to get dressed."

"I'm coming, My Lady," came the sleep roughened voice of her maid from an
inner room.  A moment later, Emily entered wearing a rumpled white linen
nightgown.  She was dragging her long black hair from her pudgy face.  She
flung a rather untidy curtsy.  "Lady?" she inquired.

Marika looked the girl over with undisguised distaste.  "Run me a bath,"
she snapped.  "I have to get dressed."

"But Lady, there's no hot water in the tank," Emily protested.

"Then you will just have to bring some up, you lazy good for nothing,"
Marika snapped.  "And be quick about it, do you hear?"

Grumbling, Emily went out, not even bothering to fling one of her untidy
curtsies.  Marika sighed.  Honestly, the girl had no manners at all.
Well, it would serve her right to have to drag up a dozen or so buckets of
warm water from the hot cistern by the East Barracks.

Whilst she waited, Marika toyed with her hair.  When Emily had made six
treks up and down stairs with a double yoke of buckets on her shoulders,
Marika decided that the girl had been suitably chastised.  Marika sent the
girl out to prepare her clothes while she bathed.  In an hour, Marika was
done with her toilet, and had taken up a book of poetry to divert her
mind.

The waiting was the worst part of the whole business.  If she was going to
crack, Marika knew, it would be while she waited.  She toyed with the book
a while, then got up and went to the window to peer out at the mountains,
aware, deep inside, of a small fluttering of nerves.

Marika felt them in the Ganne, long before she heard them on the winding
stairway.  She drew back from gazing through the bars to the sun struck
mountains, and moved quickly to the padded arm chair she had decided to be
discovered in.  Seating herself, she took up a large book of poetry.  The
leather bound volume was Valentine's "The Flowers of Passion", a
collection of erotic poetry and ballads.  It was deemed (quite properly) a
work of high art, though in essence they remained no more substantial than
artful masturbation fantasies.  Marika had found endless amusement in the
manner in which the long dead poet Valentine had bent such an elegant
artistry to such a base and crude purpose.  She flipped open the book, and
began a pretense of reading.

The bolts were thrown with a metallic grinding.  The panel swung inwards.
The Bellalini twins entered and took up station to either side of the
entrance.  Marika feigned not to have noticed.  She went on reading.  Two
more Gannes entered.  That was surprising enough for Marika to glance up
to see who they were.  One was Melanne, the garrison's Far Speaker,
wearing a long green woollen dress.  The elderly Ganne stood back to the
right to admit another Ganne.  This one was younger, tall and handsome,
rather than beautiful.  She was wrapped in a dark blue riding cloak which
hung to half way down the calf length riding boots of black leather.

So, thought Marika, they were going to do this properly.  The tall Ganne
was Geraldine Bah Reegan Guara's personal representative on the Guiding
Council of the Ganne Seat for this province.  In essence, Guara's
enforcer.

Marika turned her attention back to the Seduction of Lothian's Lady.  She
continued to watch the doorway under her lowered lids.  Next through the
door was a thickset man of around fifty.  He had sparse grey hair and a
luxuriant moustache.  As he moved over to stand before Marika, two guards
took up position outside the door, a mere detail of form, there was enough
Ganne concentrated in the cell to ensure that Marika would behave.  The
Bellalini twins and Geraldine were all powerfully endowed with Ganne - any
two of them together could pound her brain into jelly without working up a
sweat.  They were taking no chances with her execution.  A little bud of
the old Clousaard pride flowered in her soul.  Whatever else, she still
commanded respect.

Coming to the end of a stanza which left the heroine naked in the woods,
completely at the mercy of the dastardly Sir Grimwald, Marika finally
deigned to notice that she had visitors.  She looked up, and smiled.

"Why, Commander Grelson?  How nice of you to visit me.  Is there something
I can do for you?"

Grelson saluted.  He said formally: "Lady Marika Bah Clousaard, I have a
warrant under the Seal of the Ganne Council for your disposition which I
must serve upon you and see to the execution of this day; it being First
Week, Six Day of the Autumn Quarter."

The sudden flutter inside Marika's chest made no mark upon her voice when
she answered the man.  The aloof, faintly disinterested tone she aimed at
was perfect.  "I see," she said in acknowledgement of the pronouncement of
her death.

"I must ask you to accompany me, Lady, if you please?" Grelson said.

Marika nodded.  She sat back in the chair and closed the book.  She
regarded the man steadily for a long second, then contrived a tiny sigh to
express the thought that this was a mildly wearisome nuisance; but as it
was a matter of duty...Setting the book aside, she rose, settled the folds
of her blue dress, took one last look around the cell that had been her
home for the last year, and turned back to Grelson.

The Bellalini twins stiffened.  Geraldine leaned forward ever so slightly.
If there was to be any unpleasantness, it would come now.  Marika noted
the stiffening of pose; any false step now and they would send her to
commune with the Ganne Dragon.  Marika held herself in check; she was
experiencing no wish to "get it over with"; that would be too undignified;
she was a Clousaard, the "Golden Eyes", she had, after all , a long family
tradition to uphold.

She gave Grelson a demure smile, nodded her head and said.  "Certainly,
Commander.  Shall we go?"

The Gannes relaxed.  Marika moved to the door.  The Bellalini twins
preceded her out, Geraldine and the aged Far-Speaker fell in behind her.
With the two guards leading the way, and Grelson bringing up the rear, the
little party wound down the steep steps to the ground floor of the tower.
As they came into the lower hall, Marika went to turn right, to take the
passage that led to the small inner court, where all executions were
carried out; but Geraldine laid a hand on her shoulder.  "That way," she
snapped, pushing Marika towards the front entrance to the main well of the
fortress.

In the misty grey light contained within the high walls, a dozen or so men
sat mounted on horses.  Grooms held six more riderless horses.

Marika faltered to a halt, puzzled.  Once more, Geraldine shoved her
roughly in the back.  "Keep moving," she ordered.  "The brown mare's your
mount."

"But..." Marika started to question; but Geraldine cut her off by flinging
a riding cloak at her.

"Put that on," she snapped.  "Then mount up, bitch!  We've not got all
morning."

Puzzling over this strange turn of events, Marika pulled on the cloak.  If
she had known they were to be travelling, she would have worn something
more appropriate.  She could not now demean herself by asking for time to
change; nor would she risk the indignity of being refused with all these
common spectators.  Lifting her chin to enhance her noble bearing, she
turned to the brown mare, and swung up into the saddle.  All the chatter
of the soldiers had stopped abruptly on her emergence from the tower
entrance.  All were now peering at her curiously in the grey light.

The Bellalini twins mounted, urging their mounts to flank Marika.
Geraldine swung up into the saddle of a white gelding.  She sat a moment
surveying the group, before accepting the parchment warrant from Grelson.
She tucked it into an inner pocket of her cloak, and moved her horse to
the head of the troop.

She raised a hand and gave the cavalry sign for "Walk Horses".  With much
clattering of hooves and jingling and creaking of harness, the cavalcade
rode out under the gate.  They turned down the steep road which wound
around the crag on which the fort had been built.  At the bottom of the
crag, they rode across a guarded bridge over a small river running between
deep banks and onto the main road.  The troop turned north.  Geraldine
signalled "trot"; and the troop set off northwards towards the Great River
some six days ride distant.


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