Swordships of Scorpio [Dray Prescot #4]

by Alan Burt Akers

  That long hand and arm did not, I thought, belong to Inch.

  Young Pando was a handful, I knew that well enough, and an imp of mischief, and it could well be that he had so upset a new guest in the inn that chastisement had been considered necessary. Yet I hurried inside, anxious that no real harm should come to the lad, and, if the truth be told, growing indignant that someone else other than his mother should lay hands on the child.

  The noise of people in the main room drowned out any sounds of beating that might be coming from the upper floor. Quite a crowd had gathered already as the news and gossip of far-off places were detailed, and the merry sound of clinking glasses and the throaty exclamations of amazement accompanied me, along with the heady smells of wine and cooking food, up that narrow black-wood stair.

  As I reached the top I saw Tilda's door slam shut.

  I stopped at once, making a face to myself. No man with a pennyweight of brains interferes between a widow and her son in moments like these. But then—a stir of unease ghosted over me. That had not been Tilda's slender and shapely ivory-skinned arm that had so roughly pulled Pando back, and I had not passed the owner of the offending arm on the stairs. Strange.

  With a certain hesitation—an unfamiliar sensation for me—I moved quietly toward Tilda's door. I listened. I heard nothing except a hoarse breathing, close up against the polished wood. I kept my own breathing steady and quiet.

  Then a man yelped in sudden pain—as though, for instance, a woman had driven her bare toes agonizingly into his middle—and a woman's voice rang out. Tilda's voice.

  “Help! Help! Murder!"

  * * *

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Wedding plans for Delia, Princess Majestrix of Vallia

  I smashed the door open with a single kick and leaped into the room.

  These were no rapscallion leem-hunters out for a good time, unwilling to kill, ready for a bit of rough-and-tumble.

  I knew this breed. These were killers. There were four of them. They were tall, lithe, poised men, all bronzed from the suns-light, muscular and predatory. Their rapiers and daggers were plain, workmanlike, efficient.

  They wore dark clothing, plain tunics and well-oiled leathers, high black boots, and their broad-brimmed gray hats with the curling blue feathers cast shadows across their faces from which the gleam of their eyes in the suns-light through the windows struck leem-like.

  One held Tilda around the waist and his dagger lifted above her ivory throat, poised to strike. Another stood holding his middle and retching—I did not smile—and the other two swung around to face me. Reasonable odds for the Lord of Strombor.

  There was no time to consider. The dagger was about to plunge down into Tilda's throat, and all Pando's despairing yell as he struggled between the legs of the assassin would avail nothing. My rapier and dagger were in my hands. I threw the dagger. It flashed across the room like a streak of sunlight, buried itself in the neck above the squared tunic. The man gulped and dropped his own dagger. His knees buckled; but I could watch him no more for with a clang and a screech of steel the two assassins hurled themselves upon me.

  Our blades met and parried and I had to dodge and skip for a few wild heartbeats as I avoided their attack, my left hand empty.

  I spitted the first one in the guts, recovered, slashed savagely at the next and did not complete the stroke, leaping back so that he parried with his dagger against the empty air. I ran him through the heart, aiming delicately between the requisite rib members. As I withdrew, the meanness of these men showed itself in the last one's actions—for, knowing he faced a master swordsman and knowing he faced thereby his own death—he turned and dived headlong through the window taking the glass and the framing with him in a great splintering crashing.

  One spring took me to the wreck of the window. I looked down.

  The assassin was picking himself up, his face still with a greenish hue from Tilda's kick and blood on his face from the smashed glass.

  Inch was walking up toward The Red Leem, whistling.

  I shouted, “Inch! If it is not against your taboos, kindly take that fellow into custody. Don't treat him gently."

  “Oho!” said Inch, and ran in and planted a tremendous kick upon the assassin's posterior as he attempted to stand up. I jumped out of the window, landed like a leem, grabbed the fellow by the tunic, and hit him savagely on the nose. Blood spurted. I did not knock him out.

  “Talk, you rast! Or I'll spit your liver and roast it!"

  He gabbled something, something about Marsilus, and gold, and then blood poured from his mouth and he collapsed.

  Inch looked offended.

  “I did not kick him hard enough for that, Dray. Nor would your blow upon the nose have hurt a fly—So why is he dead?"

  I was annoyed.

  “He must have smashed his guts up jumping through the window and falling awkwardly. By the disgusting nostrils of Makki-Grodno! The fellow is dead and that's an end to it."

  We left him there to be collected by the mobiles of Pa Mejab, who were later fully satisfied with our explanation of four dead men, and went back to Tilda and Pando.

  The assassin I had first run through was in the act of dying as we entered the room. There was nothing to be discovered. Pando collected four rapiers and four daggers, which I was pleased to sell later for good silver dhems, and Inch took the best of the leather boots which fitted him, for his feet were inordinately long and thin. I had a pair, also; as an addition to my wardrobe, just in case. Two of the broad-brimmed hats, also, with their curled blue feathers, might come in useful. The tunics would not fit either Inch or me—I was too wide in the shoulder and Inch too narrow—so we sold the rest of the gear.

  “If they have any friends come asking for them,” I said to Nath, the innkeeper, “then let us know, by Zim-Zair, and we will wring the truth from them."

  But no one else bothered us thereafter on the score of the four assassins while we were in Pa Mejab.

  “They swaggered in and demanded to know if the actress Tilda and her son Pando lodged here,” said old Nath, mightily shaken up by the event. He kept a respectable house, as, indeed, he must, otherwise Tilda would not have lodged and performed there. These goings-on were not to his liking. They might be common in The Silver Anchor and The Rampant Ponsho along the waterfront, not here in this respectable street and The Red Leem.

  Not one of the four dead men yielded any personal identification to prying fingers. Apart from money and the usual items to be found in the pockets and gear of any man they were devoid of information. Inch wondered if we might make a few discreet inquiries among the ships; but Tilda, rather alarmed, vetoed this idea at once.

  Looking at her, I caught the impression that perhaps she knew more about this business than she was prepared to discuss with us. After all, Inch and I were strangers.

  A considerable number of people had taken lodgings with old Nath and he had let all his rooms. The main room was crowded that evening. Tilda had insisted that she was perfectly all right and could go on. Old Nath, gallantly protesting that she should rest up after her ordeal, visibly showed his relief that she would give her performance, whose fame accounted for his vastly increased trade and profits. But I do not condemn him for that; he was good to me as well as others.

  When Tilda made her final exit to rapturous applause that thundered to the rafters and set all the glass wine cups on the shelves ajingling, she came over to my table as was her custom. Old Nath did not mind me occupying a table just so long as I paid for what I consumed in the same way as an ordinary customer. Most often I did not bother, saving my scraped wealth, but this night was different. Just as we were preparing to listen to the beginning of Tilda's impassioned rendition of the execution scene from the music drama—not quite the same thing as an opera—known over most of Kregen as The Fatal Love of Vela na Valka—I had heard the light musical voice of a young woman say: “Oh, Pando—there is not a table left!"

  A young couple stood in the doo
rway, looking disappointed. She was young, lissome in the normal way and with fine eyes; at the moment she was pregnant. Her husband was a soldier, a Hikdar, handsome in his Tomboramic uniform. Naturally, I offered them seats at my table, and Wil, who had been brought in to help, quickly brought glasses and wine—a yellow wine of Western Erthyrdrin—so that when Tilda joined us we had already been thrown into the quick and casual friendships of the frontier. Inch had discovered a taboo and now came across, brushing sawdust from his long fair hair, and sat down.

  The young couple told us all the news. The Hikdar was a cavalryman and burning for adventure out here on the borders of the spreading empire of Pandahem. His name was Pando—the cause of my immediate reaction when they had entered—Pando na Memis. His wife's name was Leona.

  “Memis,” said Tilda, gracefully drinking the yellow wine. “I know it well, those tall red cliffs falling to the sea, the islands and their gulls—oh, millions of gulls!—and the wine there.” She laughed. “It is far smoother on the tongue than this Erthyrdrin—"

  Pando na Memis looked somewhat confused and beckoned quickly. I watched the byplay. Young Pando trotted up, he also having, for a change, been conscripted.

  “Bring a better vintage than this, young one,” said Pando na Memis. “It is not to the lady's liking."

  Pando—the urchin of that distinguished name—made a face at me, whereat I lifted my fist, so that he scuttled off, laughing. Tilda looked gracious, oblivious of the exchange. Pando na Memis pushed the bottle of yellow wine away across the table—and a long lanky arm reached out from somewhere and Inch grasped the bottle by the neck. Leona na Memis had not missed a single nuance.

  Much of the traffic and trade of Kregen is devoted to this kind of mutual exchange of commodities. It is an infuriating fact of human nature that the grass is always greener over the neighbor's fence; and that is why wine from Western Erthyrdrin reached Turismond, why in Zenicce we drank Pandahem wine when the good vintages of Zenicce were shipped to Vallia. As to Vallia, her wines were carried to the far corners of Kregen. Despite all that, I still preferred the fragrant tea brewed by my clansmen in far Segesthes.

  Inch, I considered, would be happiest with a bottle of dopa, that fiendish stomach-rotting drink that I had seen at work in the warrens of Magdag.

  Drunkenness is relative on Kregen. Few Kregans consider getting drunk the occupation of a fully rational man, and my two oar comrades, Nath and Zolta, although they might become as merry as nits in an eiderdown, seldom ever achieved that disgusting paralytic sick drunk common in certain so-called civilized countries of this Earth. Kregans love to roister; and that means enjoying themselves. Getting sick drunk and puking over everything is not, really, much idea of fun.

  The conversation wended on, and we heard of Pando na Memis’ plans for the future, of how he craved for action—at which Leona looked alarmed—and of how, soon, the Tomboramin would advance along the old Lohvian roads through the Klackadrin.

  “After the old Empire of Walfarg fell,” said Pando, “the land must have gone back. The Hostile Territories are still there, waiting for strong men to ride in and take over. One day, and soon, we of Tomboram will do just that, before the rasts of Vallia or Menaham or anyone else!"

  I made the right noises, saying nothing.

  Then the name Marsilus came up. A great noble of that name, old, crotchety, more than half-mad, had just died back in Tomboram and his estates, reputed valuable beyond price, had fallen into the hands of a nephew, who was also a nephew to the king. Pando na Memis whistled when Tilda, rather sharply, I thought, said: “Are the estates then so valuable?"

  “Are they not! They rival the king's. Now that Murlock Marsilus, the nephew, has inherited, the king must be greatly pleased, for the kingdom may inherit also when the king dies. There was a son to old Marsilus. Unfortunately, he died."

  Speaking very precisely, Tilda said, “Was the son disinherited, then?"

  “By no means. But he is dead and—there was a story—he was banished in disgrace. Married out of turn, so the story goes. Everyone has heard it—you must have, surely?"

  “Yes."

  “I haven't,” I said.

  After I had given some explanation of myself, brief and almost totally untrue, Zair forgive me, Pando na Memis went on: “Murlock Marsilus is now Kov of Bormark, but the story goes that the old Kov, old Marsilus, screamed and shouted for his son on his deathbed. He relented of his punishment of the boy when he married. There was a grandson—but, of course, he stands no chance of the title and estates now that Murlock holds them under the king's agreement."

  “The old man was stricken with the shrieking horrors,” said Inch, wisely. “It is known. He wanted to go to the Ice Floes of Sicce with a clean mind and with clean hands. One can visualize the scene. Poor benighted of Ngrangi!"

  I leaned forward. “The king,” I said, “and this Marsilus, Kov of Bormark, who had died. They were brothers?"

  “Yes,” said Leona, smiling at me. “You must be from some wild and untamed part of the world!"

  “I am,” I told her. “Oh, yes, indeed, I am!"

  The conversation changed course then; but I noticed Tilda was very quiet after that. The hated name of Vallia came up and with it tidbits of gossip and scandal. Of these I felt my heart lurch when Leona, speaking with a gentle malice quite natural in the circumstances, said: “The Princess Majestrix of Vallia! Such a proud hoity-toity madam! Her father, the emperor has ordered her to marry—"

  “To marry!” I shouted—and they all leaned back from me, their faces shocked, expressive of bewilderment and disgust. They must have seen that devil's look on my face. I made myself calm down. My Delia! My Delia, Princess Majestrix of Vallia, ordered by the tyrant emperor, her father, to marry—to marry some blundering oaf of his choice. I had to hold onto my sanity and my temper then. I do not apologize, so I just said: “You were telling us of Delia, Princess Majestrix of Vallia, Leona. Please go on."

  In a voice she struggled to keep from quavering, Leona went on speaking. And, as I listened, I felt a warm sweet relief flooding me, and I breathed easier.

  For my Delia had defied her father!

  She had flatly refused to marry the oaf picked out for her! She had stood up against his puissant majesty the emperor of Vallia, and told him flatly she would not marry. Not marry at all.

  This made my heart lurch afresh.

  My Delia vowing never to marry?

  Did she—could she—believe that I had abandoned her, as that scheming villain had planned when I had been drugged and dumped under the thorn-ivy bush? Had that foul scheme worked?

  I had to get to Vallia—and yet, was there any greater urgency now than there had been? At least I knew my Delia was safe and well. She refused to marry. The emperor was still hale and hearty and, so the scandal went, quite prepared to wait and let his only daughter rot in maidenhood until she decided to marry the man of her choice. He would not force her; he would let time and nature take their courses.

  Once I had held Delia of the Blue Mountains in my arms and pressed her dear form close to my heart I had known that no other woman in two worlds could compare with her, no other woman could take her place. And I had known many women, blazingly beautiful women of arrogance and power, lovely women of lissome grace and refined artifice, women of passion and glory; and one had been to my Delia as a candle to the radiance of the red sun Zim. I had felt absolute confidence that Delia felt in exactly the same way about me, however little I deserved so marvelous a wonder. Delia was everything. No—she would not despair of me—she would not, she must not!

  “You all right, dom?” said Inch.

  “Assuredly, my long friend. Do I thus break a taboo?"

  He chuckled and pushed the wine over to me and I drank and pushed the problem of Delia's father, the emperor of Vallia, away for a space. At that time I had not settled the question. It rankled. I had to walk away from it for a space.

  Leona, having exhausted herself on the scandal of a pri
ncess majestrix disobeying her father the emperor, had harked back to the Kov of Bormark, and was saying how lovely it would be if all that money were her Pando's. Pando laughed. With what I considered to be deep wisdom, he said: “The money might be fun, Leona, my dearest; but what comes with it—ah, that is a different matter."

  Tilda was still sitting silently and sipping her wine and I saw her face suddenly tauten. I swiveled. Young Pando, his naked legs flashing, his brave zhantil tunic laid aside for the humble job of waiter, his hair tousled, was fleeting between the tables. A big fellow in the blue of a sailorman reached out and cuffed Pando alongside the head.

  “Bring me a flagon, you rast of an imp of Sicce! Hurry, you little devil!"

  Pando picked up his tray and what glasses were not broken. Someone else—a newcomer off the ships—kicked him irritably as Pando bumped into his legs; but that was a reflex action.

  Tilda put a hand to her breast. Her violet eyes were large with anguish. Her supple voluptuous mouth shone, half open, pained, vulnerable.

  I stood up.

  Old Nath waddled across. “Now, Dray, please...!"

  The sailorman laughed coarsely among his mates. He was big and bluff, with the tattoos across his forehead and cheeks that some sailors believe indicate heightened sexual potency or, perhaps, will give them immunity to the demons and risslacas of the seas.

  “You, Nath, have a stinking clientele in here, lately."

  “Please, Dray—"

  I went across to the sailor who was already roaring for the little rast of a waiter and picked him up by the scruff of his blue tunic. He started to thrash his legs about so I clouted him—once was enough—and carried him outside horizontally. It was done quickly and decently, and old Nath put his hands together and cast his eyes up to Zair and Grodno.