A Cat Of Silvery Hue by Robert Adams Page A

savagely beaten her with his dog-whip, then shredded her homespun smock and brutally raped her.
    And it had been nothing less than wonderful! Her screams and pleas and agonized whimperings had spurred him on to his complete pleasure as had never the moans and gasps and contortions of the slack-lipped tarts he had tried to bed. He could not even remember rolling off her quivering, bleeding, sob-wracked body. And how long he had lain on the crackling leaves, lost in a private nirvana of delight, he knew not.
    But when at last he returned to the world, he had realized that the girl must assuredly be slain, else what had happened would get to the ears of the
komees
, and the certain consequences of that mischance were too horrible to bear contemplation. For, while the old lord had always been known as a lusty man, he would not countenance rape in his domain any more than he would murder or maiming or thievery.
    It was with a chill of apprehension that Danos thought of that roving chapman who, nighting at Horse Hall, had accosted a serving wench on her way to the privy, punched her into unconsciousness, and been caught while having his will of her senseless body. The peddler had been haled before the
komees
at dawn, and since unlike most of his peers Lord Hari maintained no mercenary soldiers, the senior hunter and Danos had been set to guarding the prisoner, who had claimed drunkenness to be the cause of his attack.
    But the old lord would have none of it, saying, “You be a well-built man and not unhandsome, so you might have had that woman, and many another here, for but a bit of frippery from your pack or even a few winning words; but you felt you must steal not buy, for a rapist be nothing less than a thief and a maimer.”
    “Well, master chapman, you chose the wrong county in which to commit your crime! Some lords might well let you off with a striping or the payment of a suffering price, but Hari Daiviz values his people more highly than that.”
    “In the Middle Kingdoms, where I soldiered years agone, they know how to deal with scum such as you. So rape be unknown, except in time of war or intakings.”
    Danos well recalled how that husky chapman’s face had paled under his tan and dirt, how he had fallen to his knees on the flags, groveling and wringing his raised hands in supplication, his terror having frozen his power of speech.
    And the
komees
had continued in the same tone. “Master chapman, you have dishonored your manhood. Were I a burk-lord, I’d have it off your body, leave you a hollow reed to piss through and seal the stump with hot pitch. But I think me I’ll have done enough for the women of this world if I make certain that you’ll breed no more of your contemptible ilk.”
    The nobleman then addressed the senior hunter. “Rai, you and young Danos drag this piece of filth into the courtyard, have off his breeches and lash him to the whipping frame. I’ll be along presently.”
    They had obeyed their orders. The
komees
, the raped woman and all the men of the hall and the village had assembled in the courtyard, where Lord Hari had recounted the crime, his judgment and sentence, then had called forth the horse master. And Danos’ blood ran cold when he remembered the hideous cries of the hapless chapman when old Vintz stepped forward with his hooked knife and commenced the gelding.
    So Danos had buried his hunter’s blade in the girl’s whip-wealed breast, dragged the corpse far into the forest and secreted it near to where he recalled having seen bear tracks. And when her pitiful remains at last were found, the
komees
, his neighbor,
Komees
Djeen, and several other nobles, with their hunters and retainers, rode out on a week-long hunt that bagged three bears and a host of other animals.
    With his duties to offer excuse for frequent and prolonged absences, to explain bloodstains on his weapons and clothing, and with the wide-spreading forest to conceal his movements, Danos’ rape-murders had