Intrigue of Antares [Dray Prescot #44]

by Alan Burt Akers

  Along with the other miscreants, drunks, petty thieves, and brawlers dredged from the gutters of the runnels of Oxonium I waited for my doom to be pronounced by whatever lord held my fate in his hands.

  The last thing I remembered hearing was Lingurd yelling: “Dom—the Watch!”

  Their acquaintance I had made. I still had a bruise or two to testify to that introduction. All my weapons and gear were gone. The dark blue shamlak I'd been given was, very very luckily, made from a cotton stuff and not silk. This part of Kregen is world famous for its silk. There were few silk garments in the prison, and those were hand-me-downs on the last frayed thread before being discarded. There was nothing, really, to mark me as being any different from any of the other fifty or so miserable wights arrested during the night. Tunics predominated over shamlaks; that was all, apart from short breeches-like nether garments in place of kilts.

  Broken-down slaves brought us a meal that might laughingly be called the first breakfast. A cracked pottery bowl of water with half-a-dozen unidentifiable lumps floating in the greasy liquid, and a hunk of bread that demanded a hacksaw to address, comprised our repast. Still, always look on the bright side. Even under the Kataki-run City Watch we had been fed. There were no women in the prison. I'd kept myself to myself, nursing my bruises and my aching head, and pondering the best way of breaking out.

  After the pottery bowls had been collected by the tame slaves the iron bars clashed open once more. A Kataki entered, whip coiling and curling and looking for targets. He was backed up by a formidable collection of so-called City Guards, unshaven, grimy, flamboyantly dressed with a deal of tatty embroidery and lace. The prisoners scrambled away, some on all fours, some gibbering in fear, all dreadfully aware of the doom that awaited them.

  A most incongruous note was struck by the young, naive Relt stylor with them. He wore a clean white shamlak and kilt, with the belt of pouches containing the quills and ink and papers of his profession. His pointy-beaked face and his bright eyes were quite at variance with the horrors of this place. He kept putting a scented handkerchief to his beak.

  “The Brass Lily?” growled the Kataki. “We'll soon sort them for you, stylor.”

  The guards moved in among us, ungently. They knew who their captives were and where they'd been picked up. I was hauled out with a dozen or so men and pushed and shoved into a double rank. The whip cracked.

  “Grak!”

  A visible shudder rippled through the prisoners at this hated word.

  We grakked and stumbled along and as the whips whistled I took a couple of cuts. This was not the time or place to make a break. If we were being taken out of this dolorous dungeon then a time would come.

  Among the men marched off along with me I saw not one wearing olive green. That would easily be explained in the gutter politics of the runnels; no doubt the City Watch had arrangements with certain gangs. I saw no one from the party with Dagert of Paylen or of Brannomar's men with Naghan the Ordsetter. These poor wights had been the patrons of the Brass Lily and had been swept up in the chaos of the fight when the City Guard swooped. And—I'd been scooped up with them.

  Lingurd the polsim was not here. I just had to trust he'd had the sense to take Korden's sword straight to Naghan the Barrel.

  Up we went along stone steps and corridors and archways and iron-barred gates. Prisons are like prisons. The stylor kept well ahead. Some of the stinks faded the higher we went and the air freshened.

  In what was probably the charge room, formalities were concluded, the stylor signed for us, and we were placed under the charge of a guard of an altogether different description. These fellows of a variety of races of diffs wore half-armor with a deal of black and red trimmings. Their weapons were workmanlike and they marched like men who had once been soldiers before being taken on as some lord's personal guard. At their head a Deldar with a stomach and many feathers kept up the pace. We stumbled along between the ranks of guards. They took no chances with us.

  The prison doorway in a long featureless gray wall led onto a kyro. Some of the passersby turned to stare at us; most ignored the unpleasant sight. We were crammed into a cable car a batch with guards at a time and transferred across two further hills. At least the sensation of swinging through the air and feeling the scented breeze came as a relief after the stenches of the dungeon. On the final hill we were gathered up and marched rapidly along broad avenues and under a low archway into a courtyard. This was the back entrance to a splendid palace. Through corridors of increasing splendor we stumbled and marched, checked by even more ornately dressed guards at various doors, ushered through until we entered a sizeable hall where the streaming mingled lights of the early morning suns fell athwart gilding and marble and tapestries. This, then, was where whatever was to happen would take place.

  We were herded into the central space where we stood, shuffling our feet and gawping about. A dais in front supported the type of throne-like chair I'd seen occupied by Brannomar, backed by deep plum-colored drapes. Presently a party of servitors came in carrying sacks which they emptied onto a side table. A wonderful collection of wicked weaponry was displayed, an arsenal of muggery and mayhem. Among the coshes and daggers and swords I spotted the rapier and dagger I'd taken from the Bravo Fighter, alongside the braxter. They, then, were evidence.

  As a matter of simple common sense I'd given my name as Nalgre the Unster. If Princess Nandisha wanted to repeat her trick of getting me out of gaol then Fweygo or Tiri would quickly ascertain the truth. So, among a miserable mob of miscreants, I, Nalgre the Unster, waited.

  Next to me a shambling and untidy gauffrer looking rather like a pile of sweep's brooms trembled with uncontrolled fear. His eyes rolled whitely. “Khon the Mak,” he mumbled. “He is death itself. Mak Khon.”

  Just how much religion there might be in this unholy crew I didn't know; but the next fellow, a Gon whose shaven head glistened in the lights, only slightly bristled from the night's growth, said: “Tolaar save us now.”

  He entered without a fanfare of trumpets although the instinctive reaction was that that would have been appropriate. He advanced after his retinue had positioned themselves about the dais and seated himself in the throne. So I looked at him. Well, now. If these whole proceedings resembled those in Hyr Kov Brannomar's palace, why, of course, they would. Great nobles live in palaces and sit in thrones and hire retainers to be at their beck and call. Also, with their own powers within the current laws, they are quite capable of lopping off the heads of rogues like my unfortunate companions and myself. In fact, many of them quite enjoy giving that grim order.

  He was apim, with a face pale like death itself. His hair was very dark, blue-black like, as they say in Clishdrin, a raven's wing. His clothes were black with a little gold lace and red trimmings. He wore a deal of jewelry with fingers crusted with heavy rings. There was armor under the ornate if somber robes. His eyes pierced and he knew how to put an expression of implacable resolve on those pallid features. Oh, yes, he was impressive in that evil showy way, was Hyr Kov Khonstanton.

  The Hyr Kovs of Kregen—the nearest terrestrial term is High Duke—are given the Hyr, as I have said, usually because they have that distinction of nobility or run a kovnate partitioned between different races. In Mak Khon's case the additional meaning applied, like the arch dukes of Austria-Hungary, betokening his blood relationship to the royal house.

  This was one of the fellows Fweygo had warned me of, very possibly in contention for the inheritance to the throne of Tolindrin.

  Had he, then, employed Fonnell's olive-green clad gang?

  He brooded on us miserable wights, a beringed hand supporting his white chin. His lips were thin and almost bloodless. I must confess I was at once repelled by his appearance and manner. Mind you, that could have been because I found myself in the position I was in, by Krun, yes!

  A fat black and red swathed major-domo banged his golden-banded staff on the carpeted stone flags. “Shastum! Silence!” His words came out all
mealy-mouthed. Sweat glittered on his cheeks and forehead. “Which one of you is called Drajak known as the Sudden?”

  The prisoners craned their heads about, looking at one another, silent, wondering who the condemned might be. I stood still.

  “Speak up or it will go ill for you.”

  I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, known as Drajak the Sudden and presently as Nalgre the Unster, said not a word.

  Mind you, I could see all manner of unpleasant eventualities, and I was not at all impressed by this situation, not one slightest bit, by Zair!

  It was perfectly clear they did not know what I or Korden's sword looked like and they were far too canny to dismantle the lot for fear of destroying what they were after. They'd find a way of discovering the truth. That way could be exceedingly painful and unpleasant.

  A word from Khonstanton and a sharp command from the Hikdar saw half the guards unlimber their crossbows. They spanned them with the firm positive movements of men who knew what they were doing. The major domo, sweating, organized the prisoners into a single file. One by one under the threat of the crossbows we approached the table to select our own weapons.

  Among the coshes and blackjacks lay a number of swords of various descriptions—everyone had a dagger, of course. Two other pairs of rapiers and main gauches besides the pair I had filched indicated that I had a chance to get away with them alone. One pair was acknowledged by a tall gangling Rapa who looked ill at ease, and the other by an apim who had a dejected look about him, both attitudes I surmised being over and above everyone's normal apprehension of Mak Khon.

  When it was my turn I picked up the Jiktar and the Hikdar and turned away from the table.

  So, at the end, my braxter lay in lonely splendor.

  The major domo started to shout but Khonstanton waved him to silence. His parchment-like face cracked into a meaningful smile.

  “It would seem,” he said in his thin voice, “we have our sword.”

  Get on with it, sunshine, I thought to myself, and bad cess to you.

  Of one thing there could be no doubt. Khonstanton had been quicker off the mark than Brannomar and had used his authority to have the prisoners transferred from the care of the City Watch to his own charge. There seemed no doubt, also, there would be bitter enmity between the two. That I sensed in the characters of the two men as I had observed the pair.

  The major domo was called up to the throne and a gaunt, gray-faced individual carrying a staff carved with runes and wearing flowing robes of rusty black garnished with red symbols joined them. The three put their heads together and spoke inaudibly. We all waited.

  The gauffrer, who had taken a nasty-looking blackjack, shivered. Of course, we had not been allowed to keep the weapons we had chosen; they had been returned to the other end of the table far away from my lonely braxter. The crossbows did not waver, trained on us.

  Presently the Hikdar received his orders and we were all marched off. The visible signs of terror were slow to part from the prisoners.

  “Khon the Mak's as bad as a Kataki,” said the gauffrer.

  “Worse,” growled the Gon.

  The menace hanging over us had not passed. All my companions regarded us as lost men. Mak Khon or the Kataki run City Watch, either way we were doomed.

  Carefully though I looked at the people gathered in Khonstanton's hall there was no sign of a fat friendly face with a blob of gristle for a nose and with tears squeezing from under closed eyelids as a gut-wrenching laugh erupted. Naghan the Barrel must be quietly going frantic at my disappearance. I could rely on him implicitly; could I rely on him to rescue me once again?

  Along splendid corridors and down stairs and so into lesser passageways we were marched. Khonstanton's dungeons were dungeons; as you know I have had considerable experience of a variety of chundrogs on Kregen and no doubt the future holds further instruction, so I just slumped in a corner, and tried to think. The gauffrer, Nath the Solarkey, and the Gon, Nath the Nose, wanted to chatter on in their fear. I rolled over and let them get on with it and shortly thereafter the guards stamped in, brave and bold in their black and red, armed and armored. Lanterns threw long shards of light into the dungeon. The miserable wretches clawed up, white of eye and shaking of lip, staring in awful fascination at the guards. We all awaited our fate.

  A man was dragged up between the guards and hauled upright. He looked ghastly. He'd been hauled along into the cell and now he was forced to stare at us prisoners in the light of the lanterns. He wore an open-necked white shirt and blue trousers. Both garments were liberally spattered with blood. Blood stained his face and was already seeping through the bandage around his head. His eyes were mere black smudges. He shook.

  Even then, even then, with the guard's hands under his armpits, he tried to pass a trembling finger along his thin black moustache.

  “Well, blintz?” growled out the Deldar. “Which one of the vermin is it?”

  And so Dagert of Paylen pointed one shaking finger directly at me.

  “Him.”

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  * * *

  Chapter fifteen

  The bully boy guards marched us off and they were not particularly gentle with us, not at all, by Krun. Dagert and I were dragged into a small square room with a single tiny window high up, and tied down with bristly ropes in chairs that were clamped to the floor. Neither of us spoke a word.

  The room contained another chair, this one with a cushion, and a table along the side wall. Four lanterns burned. One of them needed to be trimmed and gave off a thin trail of black smoke. The guards waited.

  He strutted in, this Khon the Mak, very brisk and businesslike. A couple of his retainers brought in two rapiers, two main gauches and the bits and pieces of a braxter. These exhibits were placed on the table. Khonstanton sat on the cushioned chair and regarded us balefully, one hand supporting that sharp, pale chin.

  “I do not need,” he said when he fancied his silence had cowed us enough, “to remind you that you are dead men. Unless, of course,” he waved his other beringed hand negligently, “you tell me.”

  “I know only that this is the man.” Dagert's voice sounded painful in the small room. “I own my shame that—”

  “Yes, yes, amak. We share your regrets. You—” His eyes were not unlike two currants in a bun. “You tell me.”

  I looked at the table. They'd taken the braxter to pieces. They'd dismantled it, blade, quillons, hilt, bindings, the lot. I said: “I know nothing of the sword.” There was little more I could say. I was not looking forward to my immediate future, I can tell you, no, by Krun!

  Khonstanton stood up. “I am a busy man. I shall leave you two here to think about your situation. When I return I shall expect answers.” With that he nodded to the guards. They all went out and left us alone.

  “My dear feller. I'm sorry. How can I express it—”

  “Don't try. Pain loosens lips.”

  “Yes; but by Havil the Green! Oh, Hanitcha take the yetches!”

  He winced as he spoke. Red dripped from under the bandage around his forehead and trickled down his cheeks and so fell, drop by drop, onto the wreck of his white shirt.

  “I am an amak and so they hauled me out. But I was hit on the head, as you see. Where the devil that rogue Palfrey got himself to only Hito the Hunter knows.”

  There was no reply I cared to give to that.

  Dagert licked his lips. “You'd think they'd give us something to drink. But, oh no! Kov Khonstanton is a hard man, my friend. We are in bad case here. If I knew about this Malahak-given sword I'd speak up. Hanitcha take it, I would!”

  I wondered how long it would take him to get around to asking me how I'd found my way to the Brass Lily. I'd have to invent some fancy tale. He did not ask that or any other of the questions he might have been expected to ask. Instead he kept blaspheming against Khonstanton and his pack of cronies, laying his tongue most roughly against them. A clicking, brittle snapping sounded f
rom the locked door.

  The door slowly opened. It did not crash back on its hinges. A round, snub-nosed face topped with a shock of untidy straw-yellow hair poked around the jamb.

  “Notor!”

  “Palfrey, you hulu! Get in fast and shut the door!”

  Dagert's manservant sidled in, almost gliding. He held a lockpick in his fingers and his face, with that twisted mouth, expressed great fear. “The guard outside—I had to—I did not kill him, but—”

  “Well, before that, you rogue, unfasten these ropes.”

  The lockpick vanished and a dagger appeared and slashed and the ropes fell away. Palfrey eyed me.

  “Get on with it, you onker!” Dagert rubbed his wrists.

  When I was free and swinging my arms about my first thought was to repossess the rapier and dagger. Dagert took up his. He gave me a shrewd stare. “Not your weapons, I think, my friend.”

  “No. They came to me by way of a flung dagger.”

  “Ah! Well, let us depart. Palfrey!”

  “Yes, yes, notor.”

  Palfrey scuttled for the door. I picked up the dismantled parts of the braxter hilt. Dagert looked startled.

  “That is—?”

  “No,” I told him. “But if that rast Khonstanton believes these bits and pieces contain whatever secret he is after—well, that may give him something to think on.”

  “Ha!” exclaimed Dagert of Paylen. “I like your style.”

  Outside a guard slumbered peacefully. I bent and took off his belt and sword. It was a munitions quality braxter.

  “Yes.” Dagert nodded knowingly. “That is more your weapon. The Jiktar and the Hikdar are hard taskmasters in learning the arts of rapier and dagger work. Years to grasp the higher points.”

  Without replying I set off along the corridor perfectly prepared to spit any guards who got in the way with braxter, rapier or dagger. I glanced back impatiently. Palfrey was already padding along but Dagert had stopped to pluck at his shirt. His face expressed the utmost distaste as he pulled the blood-stained fabric away from his skin. He looked at me.