“Do not kill him, Rogor!” snapped the lady.
“Yes—” began this guard Hikdar, and I twisted my foot around and kicked him in the guts through the curtains. I got the sword free. The lady stared at me with those fine dark eyes filled with a blaze of contempt.
“Run — go on, run! That is all you are good for!”
The Hikdar was whooping in great draughts of air. I stood up and hit my head on the awning post and cursed and started to climb out. The lady suddenly laughed. She trilled silver malicious laughter. She pointed.
“Is that what you run from?”
Her guards had caught one of the weasely fellows and they dragged him, all a-yelling and a-squawking, up to the canted palanquin. He was in a frightful state. He screamed as they twisted his arm up his back and the knife dropped with a clatter unheard in the din. His thin face contorted with his terror, and spittle slobbered. He looked thin and frail and ridiculous as a would-be murderer, all the weasely deviltry washed away in his fear.
“That was one of them,” I said.
She laughed at me, hard, hating, hurtful laughter.
She did not hurt me, mind; but she would hurt Barty and wound him deeply, if he heard her.
“You carry a monstrous great sword and you run so hard you fall into my chair and ruin it — and that is what you run from, what so frightens you.”
“If you like,” I said. Barty? What had happened to him? I fretted, not giving this great lady much attention and, to be truthful, not much respect, either.
“Get out!” she screamed, suddenly letting her anger boil over. “You stink! You are an abomination! Get out! Get out!”
“I’m going as soon as I—” I started.
Then I saw Barty, bawling into the ears of a guard Hikdar and gesticulating, and so I knew he was safe. I own, I felt a great flood of relief, and let out a breath.
“Go on running,” spat the great lady. “There are a lot more rasts like this one for you to run from. Take your stupid great sword and clear off. You are not a real man. You are just a fake, an apology for a Jikai, a puffed up bag of vomit! Run!”
Six
The Black and Whites Make a Promise
The separate wing of the imperial palace in Vondium given over to the private apartments of the Prince and Princess, Majister and Majestrix, have been decorated with Delia’s faultless taste, and yet, as she would exclaim, flinging up her hands in mock despair, you could never get any life into the place. Still, this austere, frowning pile with all its fantastic traceries of balconies and colonnades, of spire and tower, of concealed grottoes and secret gardens, was where, for the moment, we were living. The villas belonging to the various estates in Vallia kept up in Vondium — those of Delphond and the Blue Mountains, and of Valka, Zamra and Veliadrin — were preferred by us. So I took a bath — a quick, scalding hot bath and not the Baths of the Nine — in the imperial bathroom and changed into the flummery of grand clothes demanded for the ceremony at the Temple of Opaz the Nantifer.
Truth to tell, I was heartily sick of all these endless ceremonies. Perhaps I have not stressed them enough in my narrative. Certainly, they bored me out of my skull. But I was the Prince Majister and the emperor my father-in-law still reigned and I was constrained to attend whenever I was in Vondium.
That seemed to me one perfectly good explanation for my frequent absences from the capital, quite apart from the periods spent in our estates.
“And she spat at you?”
“Well, my heart,” I said as I struggled into the swathing bands of a ghastly pink robe. “Almost. She was uncouth, if that is the word. Crude in a gentlelady.”
“And who was she?”
Delia smiled as one of her handmaids pulled up the long laypom-colored dress. We were never sticklers for the protocol that demanded a husband and wife dress in their own rooms miles apart. Mind you, I had always to keep my mind on my own clothes when Delia was thus engaged.
“Some great lady or other. She was not, I think, of Vallia, for she had violet eyes.”
Delia gave me a quick duck of the head, a fast look and then that graceful turn as she looked away and said: “Not of Vallia, as you say, my heart.”
Well, I imagine I know my Delia and so at the time I fancied she had more than an inkling who this bitchy great lady might be. Being Delia, and therefore a tease as well as the most gracious lady of two worlds, she forbore to tell me. And me, being me, I forbore to inquire.
“Hurry, my love,” said Delia, hauling her jeweled belt tight around that slender waist and buckling up the gold clasp. “We shall be late in two flicks of a leem’s tail.”
“Grab that mazilla,” I said to the palace servant loaned to us to take care of our garments. “The very largest, most ornate and ludicrous one in the whole wide world of Kregen, I do truly think.”
Each rank of nobility of Vallia has its corresponding rank of mazilla it may wear; the tallest and widest and grandest by the emperor, the next size by any kings of Vallia who might happen to be living at the time, then the princes, the kovs, the vads and trylons, and so on through the Stroms down to the ordinary haughty private koter. The koter — gentleman is only an approximation to the ramifications of meaning to koter — wears a neat curved mazilla, rather like a tall collar, of a dark color, usually a distinguished black, relieved only by braiding of his allegiance. The Koters of Vallia are proud of their neat trim mazillas. As I squirmed into the enormous magnificence of the monstrosity I had chosen to wear, I wondered if the game was worth the candle. Might the insult not better be conveyed by wearing a koter’s mazilla in lustrous black velvet?
No time to worry over that now. We buckled on our weapons, slung our scarlet and golden cloaks on the zhantil-bosses, gave a last quick look in the mirrors, and then hared off down the marble staircases and along the rug-strewn corridors to the zorcas we would ride to the Temple of Opaz the Nantifer.
Shadow gave a curve of his head and a whinny to show he was pleased to see me. He was truly a magnificent animal and I was glad afresh each time I bestrode his back that I’d been able to bring him with me all the way from Ba-Domek.
Delia’s zorca, a fine chestnut, had a somewhat small spiral horn in the center of her forehead; but she was a fine mare and Delia was fond of her Firerose.
The service of propitiation to Opaz, the spirit manifest in the Invisible Twins, passed. I will not dull your senses with a detailed description, for all that, of the many religions and creeds of Kregen, that of Opaz shines the truest. I swear allegiance to Zair, as you know, and to Djan; but these two lack something of the essential spiritual transcendence of Opaz; Zair and Djan — particularly Djan — are Warrior Gods. In Opaz lies a very great part of the future well-being of Kregen.
So I will pass on to the moment when Delia and I walked back to our zorcas where they had been tethered with many others and looked after by hostlers employed by the Temple. My usual traffic with the Racters was so minimal as to be nonexistent; public functions provided them with an opportunity to speak with me. I turned as Strom Luthien approached, very seemly to all outward appearances, his hat being in his hand and his head slightly inclined.
Yet I knew he, at least one Racter, would be only too ready to slip a blade between my ribs and then call for assistance too late. Luthien was one of those nobles without an estate, his Stromnate being gambled away, probably, lost at the Jikaida board. Now he worked for the Racters as a messenger and agent.
He smiled at me under his moustache, a sleek, knowing, and yet faintly patronizing smile. My monstrosity of a brown beard bristled up, almost as though it had been grown by me instead of being hooked on my ears. I looked at him as he relayed his information. Those Racters with whom I had done business in Natyzha Famphreon’s hothouse pleasure gardens wished to converse with me again.
“For, prince,” said Strom Luthien, “much was agreed and yet little accomplished.”
I did not make a scathing remark to the effect that I did not discuss details with erran
d boys. I said: “The Black Feathers were routed. Where?”
“The same place—”
“No. I remember the chavonths. And, and you will, convey my regards to Kov Nath Famphreon.”
He kept his smile going famously. “Then where?”
“The Sea Barynth Hooked. There is an upper room. Hire it from the landlord. In five burs time.”
I turned away almost before I’d finished speaking, and the springy feathers of the mazilla swished. What Strom Luthien made of my hauteur and my bad manners I didn’t give a damn. I had to lay the foundations here for subsequent action. Delia, though, favored me with a look that was so old-fashioned as to be positively antediluvian.
We mounted up and shook the reins. Of course we drew disapproving glances from the nobles. The Prince and Princess of Vallia, riding alone, without a proper escort — it was shocking. It was also liberating.
“And what have those infamous Racters to talk to you about, husband?”
“More intrigues to kill your father, wife.”
Her face — gorgeous, radiant — drew down, and I felt a pain at her look of sudden apprehension. She spoke quickly.
“You jest, my heart — but take care! There are spies everywhere — and the Racters are powerful. We all know they but bide their time. When they strike—”
“I firmly believe they will attempt to remain true to their own beliefs. They will obey the letter of the law when they chance their collective arms and try to oust your father. They will not order his assassination — not directly. What we have to fear is some lesser light — like Strom Luthien, for instance — taking the law into his own hands. We have come through great perils and your father still lives.” I scratched my nose. “Anyway, where was he in the Temple? It is not like him to miss a religious ceremony that brings political acclaim with it.”
Delia shook back her hair and the lustrous brown ripples flowed with those glorious chestnut tints glinting in the mingled rays of the suns.
“His Grand Chamberlain excused him. An affair of state that could not wait upon even this ceremony. You did not, I may add, stand in very well for him.”
“I would not have done so had he asked. Not when he is in the city. By Zair! All this flummery is his job as the emperor.”
She looked sidelong at me as the zorcas paced along the stone-flagged way, past the fronts of other temples, and buildings housing the University of Vondium Ghat, with the passersby jostling along and some turning to stare at us. All the time as we rode and talked I kept that old sailorman’s weather eye open. I fancied the Stikitches of Vondium would accept as closed the contract Ashti Melekhi had put out on me; but if they had not done so then I would have to convince them all over again.
During this time in Vondium the sense of great release that had come with the return of the emperor to full health, and the consequent liberation of bottled-up trade that followed, warred with that ordained sense of impending doom. It was as though one half of the citizens laughed and drank and sang while the other half sharpened up their weapons and bolted their doors and shutters.
I guessed what lay in Delia’s mind.
“The moment I have settled up with these Opaz-forsaken Racters, I shall ride for the Northeast. Dayra—”
“We shall ride.”
I cocked an eye at her.
“And the Sisters of the Rose?”
She looked annoyed. “I have certain duties — that I would tell you if I could — that may prevent an immediate start. But do not think you can go galloping off alone, Dray Prescot, and leave me out of it. Dayra has been going through a tumultuous period in her life. She worries me. And that is sooth.”
“She is our daughter. That worries me.”
“I agree. She is your daughter, and that is what worries me.”
We both laughed, then, for laughing comes easily to me when I am with Delia of Delphond. So we rode back to the palace and to one of those slap-up superb Kregan meals that keeps a fellow and a girl going through the long day.
* * * *
The Sea Barynth Hooked was situated down on the Kamist Quay — I say was, for it was burned down a few seasons later after a pot-house brawl — and catered for the skippers of the Vallian ships who frequented the Kamist wharves. It was a place where you might, if you wished, sup from superb eel pies. I usually stuck to roast vosk and momolams there. Sea food has never appealed to me.
The upper room was lit by four square windows. The long sturmwood table was covered by a decent yellow cloth and as I entered with a crash of polished boots, the people in the room stopped talking. They surveyed me with the alert interest of a man abruptly discovering a rattler under a rock.
“Let us proceed,” I said. “Lahal one and all. I have little time for I have business that presses elsewhere.”
Wearing simple Vallian buff, with a red and white favor, with the wide-brimmed Vallian hat in my hand, with a fresh rapier buckled on, with the left-hand dagger to match — the old one was being cleaned now with brick-dust and spittle in the palace armory — and with the longsword a-dangling at my left side, I suppose I looked to them my usual intemperate, boorish, hateful self. The false beards had gone. I was myself, and they knew me.
Strom Luthien motioned to the chair they had reserved for me. I sat down without hesitation. No trick chairs here.
Natyzha Famphreon sat like a parody created out of a nightmare, with her nutcracker old face, lined and shrewish and incredibly vicious with that sharp upthrust lower lip, and her pampered, beautiful, voluptuous body. She nodded to me. She had not forgotten the chavonths in her conservatory.
Her son, Nath na Falkerdrin, was not here.
Ered Imlien, just as boastful, just as bristling, short and squat, shook a fist at me wrathfully.
“Again my estates have been despoiled! And your daughter has been seen—”
He stopped himself. He was shaking. His face looked as red as a scarron. The last time he’d accused Dayra of raiding down onto his estates around Thengelsax from the northeast areas I’d half choked him, and scared him. Now he was harking back to the old sore, and so it was clear that more trouble had blown up — trouble of a serious kind — when I’d been away in Ba-Domek.
I said: “Look at that little fly, Ered Imlien, Trylon of Thengelsax.”
The fly buzzed to a swooping landing along the windowsill. A long, slender, incredibly agile green tendril shot through the air and the suckered tip fastened upon the hapless fly. The flick-flick plant on the windowsill started to reel in his next meal. This object lesson, I thought, should not be lost on Imlien. Then an event occurred that always occasions amusement among Kregans — aye, and wagers, too — for a second flick-flick plant entered the struggle.
The flick-flick plant is found in most Kregan homes and it serves admirably to catch annoying flies. With its better than six-feet long tendrils it gobbles flies like luscious currants.
Irvil the Flagon, landlord of The Sea Barynth Hooked, had positioned the two flick-flick plants in their brightly colored ceramic pots too closely together. He’d been over-anxious to please his unexpected and distinguished guests. The two green tendrils writhed and fought over the fly.
Immediately Nalgre Sultant, an objectionable sort of fellow with whom I’d had trouble before, said: “I’ll lay a gold talen piece on the left-hand plant.”
Imlien did not answer, staring and licking his lips, and so Natyzha Famphreon said: “I’ll take that, and make it two on the right hand flick-flick.”
The trapped fly struggled weakly. The tendrils writhed and pulled. In the event they tore the fly in pieces and each suckered tip retreated, curving gracefully, ready to pop the pieces of the fly into the orange cone-shaped flowers.
“Mine, I think, Nalgre,” snapped Old Natyzha, triumphantly.
“I think not, Kovneva. My plant took the larger portion.”
They appealed to Ered Imlien, who shrugged and would not give a verdict. The evidence was now being digested within the orange flowers. S
o they looked at me.
“It matters not who wins. The fly was Vallia. The flick-flick plants were, one, you Racters, and, two—”
“Two — this bitch queen!” flared Natyzha. She dismissed the matter of the wager with a wave of the hand. Thus important was the matter to her and the others, that a disputed wager which could be the subject of long and enjoyable wrangling should be summarily dismissed. “This Queen Lush of Lome. The emperor did not attend at the Temple of Opaz the Nantifer today, because he was meeting her. Once she gets her hooks into him—”
“He, then, is also the fly.”
“Aye! And we will pull the stronger, if you will honor your promise and assist us.”
“Do not think I forget your insolence, Trylon Ered.” I said this just to keep him on his toes. He slapped his riding crop against his boots, and glowered; but had the sense to remain silent. “And, Kovneva, I made you no promises.”
“We know you have been released from your banishment. But you and the emperor still hate each other. His death—”
“I will have none of that. I have told you. You seek to work in legal ways, or so I believe. But if you forget that and hire assassins to do away with the emperor, you will be brought to ruin. This I promise.”
I do not make promises lightly, and this, I think, they knew. At the least, they were not to be sucked in by any pretense I might make at being an ineffective, a puffed-up Jikai of the imagination, a publicity warrior. They knew better.
Again I found myself considering just what position and just how powerful these people were within the Racter Party of Vallia. Nath Ulverswan, Kov of The Singing Forests, was not here this day — not that you’d notice much for he seldom spoke in meetings. Natyzha was, indeed, a very powerful woman, the Dowager Kovneva of Falkerdrin. But the black and whites extended their tentacles of authority into every part of Vallia. They were owners of vast expanses of rich land, they were shipowners, they were slavemasters. I did not like them overmuch. But — were the people here just a front for the inner cabal of Racters, their High Council, their private Presidio?
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