The warlord's mistress

THE WARLORD’S MISTRESS

Eloise Mellor looked over at the book on the right-hand table, then over at the left-hand volume. Although both were supposedly copies of the same book, even to her untrained eye it was obvious that there were a number of glaring textural anomalies. She sighed; it was one thing being the Human mistress of the alien Mossurid warlord Kapelied Drusin—that at least had some compensations of physical comfort on this harsh, cold island. Being asked to compare the textural differences between these two sacred books—one supposedly the mirror image of the other—was no easy task when she was barely conversant in the language, and only just literate in the Mossurid script.

Eloise looked out of the tall, narrow windows for distraction, but all she saw were the rugged, mist-covered mountains of Zurra stretching away into the rain-greyed distance. Zurra was a long, slim island shaped roughly like a boomerang, set in a silvered sea of ice in the far northern hemisphere of Kuralbiard, fourth inhabited planet of the Tradan system. This pile of rough stones which people had the nerve to call a fortress was situated at the western end of the island, at the one hundredth degree of longitude. It oversaw a supposedly vital pass to the northern coast. It isn’t as if people even travel anywhere in Winter on this Godsforsaken lump of rock, Eloise huffed. They were much too smart for that, preferring to stay home close to their fires.

They have plenty of fuel here anyway, she reflected, surveying the sombre, snow-covered wall of trees that mantled the heights in a uniform of pines. Outside the sleet clattered frigidly against the thick yellow windowpane as a sudden squall passed. Eloise was grateful at least for the warmth of the fire, and the luxurious tapestry drapes hung about the walls of the room. They kept the drafts to a minimum and lent some welcome colour to the otherwise drab stone walls.

Eloise looked over at Nidi and Bidi, her twin daughters, safely asleep in their cot. Their soft skins held that lovely mauve hue that marked all the children of Human-Mossurid unions. Theirs was a common-law marriage with precious little legal status even in Mossurid society. However, at least the birth of the twins had given her a measure of security for the present. Eloise knew this was a precarious comfort; should they be so fortunate as to avoid one of their local wars, Mossurids tended to live about three hundred years. As this was about four average Human lifespans, it followed that Eloise was not the first partner of Kapelied Drusin, nor would she be the last. He had already had at least twenty-four Human wives or concubines, and who knew how many Human servant girls had shared his bed? His horde of mauve children was innumerable.

This was the way of things in the Tradan system. Four hundred years earlier, in the Eighteenth Century of Human Space, the arrival of a damaged Human colony-ship had marked a mild earthquake in the way things were done on Kuralbiard. Having just over one hundred thousand aliens land on your planet because if they had attempted to go any further, they would die, caused more than a slight social tremor for the Mossurids. On the other hand, this was a strictly-controlled fuedal society where everybody had their place.

Pragmatic in adversity, the Humans made themselves useful in various roles, although their manners were strange and rather abrupt compared to the more studied, courtly style of the chivalric, heroic culture of the iron-age Mossurid clans. Still, the Human women were as willing and beautiful as their men were tough and ferocious. These qualities were admirable in the eyes of the warlike Mossurids. The Human men had served since as mercenaries in four centuries of conflict, and proved just as willing to kill each other as well as their local master’s enemies. That was a relief to the warlords, for it wouldn’t do to have such fierce fighters banding together in common cause.

The intermarriage rate between Humans and Mossurids of both sexes had become very high, and there were hardly any remaining Humans who did not bear the mauve skin that marked some level of Mossurid ancestry. In truth, the Humans of the Tradan system bore only a passing resemblance to their ancestors of four centuries past. To all intents they had become merely another branch of the Mossurid race.

Well, they gave us a home and their hospitality, Eloise thought. Things could have been a lot worse, she reflected sagely, looking out at the merciless weather beyond the round, reassuringly thick window-panes. With a resigned smile, she lit another couple of candles to push back the gloomy afternoon and turned again to the tedious task of the translation.