“No!” whined Froh. “No, it won’ thet way atall. She come an’ got me, brung me in here, she did. Then … then, when I wouldn’ pay her all what she ast fer, she hurt me, she hurt me bad. You cain’ put me in jail on jest the word of a dang ole whore. An’ everbody in this whole dang town knows my crazy ole uncle got her outen a friggin’ whorehouse. An’—”
He was interrupted by the Freefighter’s craggy knuckles. The buffet knocked his twisted body completely off the bed, to roll across the chamber into a corner, where he lay moaning. Lay at least, until he was grasped ungently by his scrawny neck and dragged out of Neeka’s room by the clanking soldier.
The moment captor and captive entered the master’s suite, Pehtros grabbed Koominon and jerked him into the smaller room, slamming the door behind. When he had shoved the priest-cook to a seat on the mussed, blood-smeared bed, he but furious whisper. “Now, father, will you speak the truth or two, that these may know it’s safe to talk.”
With a small smile, the tall, heavily muscled, black-haired man’s thick fingers sketched certain signs in the air before him, signs known only to sworn members of ee Klirohnohmeea.
Pehtros then turned upon Koominon, speaking in a low but furious whisper. “Now, father, will you speak the truth or not?”
Koominon looked up, met those hard black eyes briefly, then returned his gaze to the floor as he said, “But … but I have told the truth, my lord komees. Would you then question the word of a humble priest of Holy Mother the church? No true son of our Faith would do so.”
Pehtros snorted and the one called Pahvlos chuckled. “Save your verbal goose-dung for those simpleminded souls it impresses, humble priest. The tale you told me on our way here matches that just told by Neeka. Why are you trying to change your story? Are you in fear of that stunted little barbarian apelet? Speak, damn you!”
Koominon squirmed and shuffled his feet. Finally, he said, “Lord komees, you all know who I am, what I really am, and how much in danger I am as a consequence.”
“What the hell,” snapped Pehtros, “has all that got to do with this matter? If you don’t publicly tell the truth in this matter, Neeka could be sentenced to a flogging. Is that what you want to see, humble priest?”
Koominon cleared his throat and looked up finally, speaking in a strong whisper. “All must sometimes make painful sacrifices for our Faith. My background will not tolerate too close a scrutiny, and you know it, my lord. It might well mean my death to appear as a witness in a court. If I aver that I saw and heard nothing, I will not be summoned.”
“I regret that Neeka must suffer, but she should have considered my precarious state in this house, this city, this accursed Confederation, before she so rashly injured her lawful master. ‘Render unto temporal rulers that which is their own.’”
Him called Pahvlos looked as if he needed to spit. “What an utter shit you are, priest. If you are so fearful for your life, if you so fear martyrdom, you should take passage on the next ship for the north. The more contact I have with your kind, the more I find myself in total agreement with the High Lord.”
Pehtros said, disgustedly, “For a bent copper, I’d drag you up to the fortress and turn you in myself were not so many others involved. But the full membership of ee Klirohnohmeea will know of this by tomorrow night, rest assured of that, humble priest.”
Koominon’s whisper became pleading. “But I must do it this way, cannot you see, my lord? I … I have a duty to my flock.”
“Of whom Neeka is one,” snapped Pehtros. “What of your duty to her?”
“But … there are all the others who need my spiritual guidance, don’t you see, my lord. Besides, you’re taking the barbarian, Froh, to jail.”
“Where I am not at all certain I can legally keep him until Gahbros gets back from Danyuhlzpolis.” Pehtros rasped a thumbnail against one stubbled cheek, then turned to Neeka. “Well, my dear, now you know just how much support you can expect from this pious coward, and just how much he can be trusted in future. As for Master Froh, hmmm. I have the right to jail anyone responsible for creating a public nuisance for up to three days and nights without trial or bail. And that racket that was going on above-stairs when I arrived constituted a public nuisance if ever I heard one; I’ve heard Ahrmehnee wardances that were quieter. Then, too, he resisted arrest, which is why my guard hit him, of course. So there’s another two days and nights. After that, we’ll just have to see. Pray as you’ve never prayed before that Gahbros gets back before those five days are up.”
The next day, the Heritage Council notified Koominon that he was thenceforth barred from any full or partial meeting of ee Klirohnohmeea. Sometime that night, he left the house that had once been Master Lokos’. No one ever saw him again in Esmithpolisport.
At the, end of a week, Judge Gahbros still had not returned and the city governor felt compelled to free Pawl Froh, but he himself accompanied the released prisoner back to his inherited property. In front of Neeka and the two apprentice boys—those three being the only other souls now resident in the once busy, bustling, cheerful and happy house—he said, “Master Froh, if you know anything of me by now, it is that I do not often threaten and never idly. But I hereby warn you, I shall be having this house and your operations closely observed. If any harm befalls any of these three, if any of them suddenly disappears, I shall see you brought to full account.”
“Hire on some good servants. Working mistress Neeka and these boys sick will be considered harm. So will starving them and poisoning them with that rotten swill we found in your larders. These boys are now back in this house and they will stay here; in that damned stable loft, they’d have been dead of lung fever before spring. You’ll be in need of a new cook, too; the good Koominon decamped—after breaking open your strongbox. I’ve no way of knowing how much he took, but it would appear several bags are gone.”
At this revelation, Master Froh suddenly began to weep noisily, like a whipped child, and, heedless of Komees Pehtros’ shouts, scuttled rapidly up the stairs toward his rooms and his ravaged strongbox.
Pehtros shook his head. “Not only his body is deformed, Neeka, his mind is too. I think he’s quite mad, and I racked my brains to try to think of a legal means of keeping him in my dungeon where he belongs. But the law is written for all, even such as him. Be very wary of him, all of you. Should he become violent, let me know at once. God keep you all. Now I must go.”
Not wishing to chance a return to the dungeons of the city governor, Master Froh grudgingly obeyed the komees’ dictates, rehiring Ahrohnos, who had been Koominon’s assistant cook, and two elderly women recommended by that worthy. The two boys had been moved into vacant rooms on the onetime servants’ floor and Ahrohnos appropriated Koominon’s small suite. The apprentice dormitory remained vacant, for Froh had been sternly warned that any repetition of the nightlong brawls would see him heavily fined, something which he feared much more than being jailed. When Neeka announced that she would stay in the room that had always been hers, Pehtros sent workmen who fitted the door with a self-locking mechanism, as well as with iron brackets for an oaken bar. Paying them out of the strongbox Koominon had so thoughtfully broken open seemed to make the komees inordinately happy.
But Neeka was no longer worried about nighttime forays by Froh, for Ahrohnos, who recalled the unfair circumstances of his firing, bore no scintilla of liking or respect for his employer and was not at all averse to adding to Pawl Froh’s evening meals certain tasteless herbs given him by Neeka. The heir blamed his constant evening sleepiness on shamefully overheated rooms, but even so he made no move to install another lock to replace the one broken off the charcoal shed at Pehtros’ order.