I looked at her, and then dismounted. “Mind you do,” was all I said.
Sleep came easily enough and I awoke to her hand on my shoulder. By the stars and the Moons I knew she’d judged half the night. I said: “Mind you sleep, my girl—”
She lay down and spoke in a composed way. “I am not your girl, and you will speak with civility. I can manage without your assistance, so do not forget that.” She turned over and in a changed voice but one she knew I could perfectly hear, she finished: “What rubbish the Everoinye do employ!”
It indicates a great deal of my feelings that I immediately took it that she teased me. I didn’t think she was built of vindictive stuff.
All the same, her earlier remark remained true; she was running this show and I was content that it should be so.
Nothing happened for the rest of the night and in the morning we breakfasted cold as we watched the caravan pack up and get under way.
“They will take Leotes back and bury him with great pomp,” she said. “I shall attend the ceremony. That is settled. You need not, cabbage.”
I said: “I’ll just reserve my decision.”
She swallowed bread and picked up a handful of palines. “Tell me, Drajak, whilst we wait, all about yourself and your life. And this time, tell me the truth!”
So I told her a farrago, a lot of it true, and mentioned the time I’d had to rescue old Mog from the Manhounds of Faol. “I wasn’t sure who I had to hoick out of it, and took out a number of the wrong people. The Everoinye allowed me to see each to safety before dumping me back among the Manhounds.”
“Reminds me of the time old Suringlas couldn’t make up his mind who was the target—”
“Suringlas was a kregoinye?”
“Well, of course, fambly! We stopped a gang of footpads bashing the kov, and all the time it was the kovneva we had to look out for.”
I thought I’d essay a little test. “You’d think, would you not, if the Everoinye are so all-fire powerful and wise they’d have the common sense to tell us who they want—”
“Cabbage! Have a care!”
Her face expressed a lively appreciation of imminent catastrophe. I sighed; but to myself. Here was another like Pompino, then; devoted to the Star Lords, believing they could do no wrong, kow-towing all over the place. Pompino thought they were gods. I had an idea Mevancy might not believe that. What she did believe was written on her face; the Everoinye were above criticism. They demanded absolute faith and obedience and they got them. Queyd-arn-tung![2]
She composed herself and was about to speak when I said: “Have you discerned any pattern in your work for the Everoinye?”
“Pattern? I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
I judged she had not been a kregoinya for very long. And, it was clear, she’d been out as Number Two. This Suringlas and poor Rafael who was dead, had been in command. Now she was compensating for that, and taking command of this new team. I didn’t mind that.
“Some of the people I’ve rescued have done things that revealed why the Star Lords wanted them kept alive.”
“We-ell,” she said, screwing up her eyes. Then: “No. No, I can’t say I’ve noticed anything like that.”
“For instance, a religious teacher and prophet I saved has been getting a better deal for the gentler kind of diffs. They don’t get put on so much now.”
“That was not in Loh!”
“No. In Hamal.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s in Havilfar.”
So I gathered a new impression; Mevancy hadn’t been to the great continent of Havilfar across the sea to the east.
Talking of this reminded me of Strom Irvil again and his wondrously amusing numim ways; amusing to me only, of course, for he was very strict with his body slaves, as he said, very often. And the thought followed from what Mevancy had said in her immediate comment that that had not been in Loh. There was more food for thought there...
We talked more as we waited for the caravan to move off; both of us were cautious in what we revealed. At last the carts and carriages rumbled off and the lines of pack animals trudged rhythmically through the dust. Two figures still stood where the camp had been, each holding the reins of a Lictrix.
“What are they waiting for?” demanded Mevancy, fretfully.
I stood up.
She started to rap out: “Get down you—”
I said: “That’s Pondo and Nafty. They’re waiting for you.”
“What!”
She couldn’t believe this. She started to say something, changed her mind, stood up, shaded her eyes to stare at her two employees.
“What in the name of Gahamond the Wise do they think they’re doing?”
“Earning their hire. Looking out for you.”
“But nobody knows we’re here, you onker!”
A shadow fleeted across the dust and grit, over the ridge, flattening towards us, separating into two shadows as it neared. The twin suns cast light into the other’s shadow: one flying object threw this twinned shadow.
I said: “Here is someone else who knows we’re here.”
She looked up.
That expression on her face! It mirrored the expressions worn by Strom Irvil, by Pompino, when they thus stared up at the Gdoinya, the spy and messenger of the Star Lords.
She swallowed. Abruptly, she looked radiant. Then she astonished me. She waved cheerily at the giant raptor, glistening up there in his golden coat of feathers, scarlet and black, proud and arrogant, circling in hunting circles above us.
The Gdoinye planed lower, wings stiff, and then he swept upwards with tremendous velocity. He let rip a single squawk. Then he was a dot and then he was gone.
“The Gdoinya,” said Mevancy, letting out her breath. “We are in good hands!”
She said Gdoinya quite clearly, using the female form. That made sense, I’d always suspected that there was more than one spy for the Star Lords, and already had some evidence for that. She, like myself, knew that Pondo and Nafty could not see the Gdoinya. Now she went on: “Well, that is good. Let us find out what those two famblys want.”
With that she looked at me. “Well, cabbage? What are you waiting for?”
So I trailed off down the back slope and brought up her zorca and Snuffles.
We mounted up and rode towards her two men. Nafty greeted us with a laugh and Pondo even managed not to growl too much.
“Lahal, my lady!” called Nafty. “We are to tell you it is safe now.”
“How did you two hulus know I was there?” demanded Mevancy.
“Why — we were told, my lady.”
“Who by?”
“Tuong Mishuro,” said Pondo. “The creepy one.”
“He’s not creepy!” protested Nafty.
“Well, how did he know?”
They started a wrangle, and Mevancy snapped, hard, “Shastum! Silence!” Then she said: “Tuong Mishuro told you I was out here, and to say it was safe?”
“That’s right, my lady,” said Nafty, somewhat subdued.
“Like I said,” repeated Pondo as we started to trot after the caravan. “The creepy one.”
Neither of these two fighting men expressed surprise at their employer creeping off into the wasteland, apparently hiding. They’d kept clear of involvement with Hangol. They were not slaves, being caravan guards hired for pay; but what their lady employer did was what she did. That was no business of their’s unless they had to draw sword to protect her.
This line of thought made me say quietly to Mevancy as we trotted along: “I hope Llodi is all right. He’ll be wondering—”
“If he’s got any sense he’ll ride on to Makilorn.”
“Probably.”
“And what does that mean, Drajak?”
Had I been other than I am, I’d have laughed easily, casually, and made some light evasive answer. As it was, I said: “I value good comrades.”
She rounded on me like a spitfire.
“Do you mean to stand there and s
uggest I don’t—”
“I’m sitting in a saddle,” I said in a mild voice.
By Vox!
She let me have it, as we’d say on Earth, she let me have both barrels.
The feathers flew.
After a space she halted to draw a breath. Her face was flushed clear to the hairline. She had a strong face, not beautiful but pleasant with her wide generous mouth now compressed into a thin line after she’d drawn breath. Her eyes were bright. The flush of color in her face was high, very high. The red pulse of blood under the skin surprised me with its brilliance.
I decided to try to calm things over. Ha! I, Dray Prescot, decided! It makes me hoot with laughter to think of it. I said: “Calm down, Mevancy. You’ll burst with blood pressure.”
My Val!
She started all over again, ranting and raving and calling me the lowest of ingrates, the stupidest of onkers, the most heinous of hulus. In the end I touched my heels to Snuffles and cantered on ahead a space and joined Nafty and Pondo.
“And don’t think I won’t let them know!” she yelled after me.
As far as reporting me to the Star Lords was concerned, which was clearly what she referred to, she didn’t understand my relationship with those mighty and lofty but essentially lost superbeings. They knew by now they could discipline me. They flung me back to Earth for twenty-one miserably awful years; because I disobeyed. Now I felt I’d reached a better understanding. All the same, they knew how I contumed them, them and their Gdoinye. Oh, no. Poor Mevancy with her awe of the Star Lords had no conception of the way I treated them.
Mind you, it was probably true to say that I was the onker in these relationships. Past humanity though the Star Lords were supposed to be, it seemed to me they still retained enough petty humanity to treat me as they habitually did instead of in the far more generous way they treated Mevancy. Again, I could be completely wrong in this mean estimation of them; and I suppose to be honest in my heart I realized I was. Perhaps, I promised myself, perhaps next time I might not indulge in a slanging match. Mind you, that perked up the old bloodstream no end, by Vox!
This silly squabble with Mevancy meant that I could not ask her the questions about Leotes and what he had meant just before he willingly fell to his death.
Anyway, the hoity-toity miss probably wouldn’t tell me, a weakling onker wished on her as a stupid assistant.
We rode gently on and caught the caravan and Tuong Mishuro, half-smiling, did not explain but simply said that San Hargon had spurred ahead to the city. Hangol had been hurt and they sought better medical attention than that afforded by Doctor Slezen and Doctor Nalgre the Needle, Leotes’ doctor. There had been unexplained murders and everyone was a little jumpy. Still, we should reach Makilorn soon, and then everything would be all right.
“Who did the killings?” demanded Mevancy.
“No one knows,” replied Mishuro. “Also, I do not think anyone cares.”
As you may imagine, that depressed me. When I was Emperor of Vallia I found out what I had known before. It is everyone’s duty to care about what happens in a country. It’s no good leaving it to the other person.
Mevancy said: “Thank you. Lynxor Mishuro—”
“You may call me san,” Mishuro interrupted mildly.
“Of course.” Instead of a lord, this Tuong Mishuro was a san, a sage or dominie, master. Mevancy went on: “Thank you, san. We will sort things out when we reach the city.”
So we went on our way and in the fullness of Tsung-Tan’s time we reached the River of Drifting Leaves and the great city of Makilorn built upon its banks. I, for one, rode in wondering what the hell happened next.
Chapter twelve
“I must make a list,” quoth Mevancy nal Chardaz. She spoke with a fine confident ring of authority. We sat in the upstairs room of Lulli Quincy’s lodging house. The remains of the first breakfast lay upon the table, the radiance of the suns slanted in the square windows, and Mevancy was all business.
Shades of G&S! I said to myself. I’ve gotta liddle list!
“This is serious, cabbage. I’ve not forgiven you yet for—”
There must have been a curve to my lips, thinking of G&S and their liddle list, that she mistook for a smile. “I agree it’s serious,” I said, and I tried to make my tones portentous. “Can you remember all of them?”
“Of course, fambly.”
“If you recall, I was lying flat on my back, rigid.”
“Oh, I remember dragging you out all right.”
I started to say what I’d done, and then stopped. That was not what a gallant koter of Vallia would say to remind a lady. Instead I said: “I picked up a little gold or brass ornament poor Rafael was trying to reach—”
“You did! Well, where is it?”
“Drikingers.”
She started to swear in her ladylike way and then checked. “That means it could be with the gear Leotes brought back from the raid on the bandit camp. You know, when we got that rapier you carry about like an onker.”
“What’s so all-fired important about the trinket?”
She frowned. “I don’t know. And that’s the truth. But San Tuong Mishuro was very upset that he’d lost it. He kept on about it.”
“H’m. Well, he’s on the list, then.”
She wrote the name down at the head of the paper. “And Lady Floria.”
“The Lynxora Floria Inglewong, yes. And Lynxor Nanji na Fuokane.”
“Nanji Tawang,” she said, and made a face. “Yes, I suppose so. Him too.”
“There was mention of a lynxor and lynxora Shalane.”
“Oh, the obese Thyllis. They remained in Larishsmot.”
“So that’s all—?”
“No. If you wish to work for the Everoinye you must be smarter than that, Drajak. There were the servants and slaves. Also there were Olipen, a merchant, from Guishsmot, a young newly-married couple, Listi and Larrigen Parfang of Makilorn, Margon the Ron, a zhanpaktun, and mistress Telsi, a lady of uncertain occupation. They were all with the caravan.”
“And were safely rescued?”
“Of course.”
“Well,” I said, a little stuffily. “It’s not a liddle list anymore, is it?”
She tapped the paper. “One of them has to be protected...”
I spoke up. “In my view it has to be San Tuong Mishuro. He is the obvious kind of person the Star Lords look out for.”
“Your views will be taken into consideration when I make my decision,” she said with grave equanimity. I did not burst out laughing.
I busied myself with the pottery dish of palines. At least, they were real in this situation which, in my view, was rapidly becoming unreal.
All the same, this was reality. I knew that if I fouled up the Star Lords would have no compunction in flinging me back to Earth.
And yet — and yet, as I had been thinking recently, maybe they wouldn’t...
“Yes,” she said. “I rather think our zhanpaktun, Margon the Ron, fits the bill.”
Carefully, I said: “Have you had much experience with mercenaries?”
“I know a person who wears the pakzhan glittering gold at the throat is a great fighter and renowned as a warrior.”
“Well, some of ’em.”
“Oh, you!” she flared up. “What does that mean — besides sour grapes?”
“You mean am I jealous of ’em — no.” I felt my lips ricking back. “Oh, no.”
“Well, we’ll find out where he’s lodging and see what is to be seen.”
“As the leader of the expedition,” I said, “you can’t say fairer than that. Lead on, my lady!”
Now this great city of Makilorn was remarkably small by the standards of cities I knew — Ruathytu, say, or Vondium or Zenicce. There were probably not more than a hundred thousand or so inhabitants. The city stretched out on both banks of the river, a place of architectural surprises. Many of the buildings reminded me of the tomb of Genghis Khan: domed, jutting of eaves, eight or si
x-sided, solemn — what one would call po-faced. Yet they were not tombs but the bustling homes of a busy people. The tombs were out in the wasteland which here barely merited the description of desert. The land rose in an escarpment and following customs old before mankind left the caves, the folk buried their dead in mausolea and tombs cut from the living rock. When I visited the city of the dead out there in the wasteland I was not reminded of the majestic tombs of Egypt; rather I called to mind the mysterious city of Petra and the riches there to be discovered. After all, Jean Louis Burckhardt, rightly credited as the first European since the crusades to see legendary Petra, was there for only one day, sacrificing a goat to Haroun. Some of the glamour brushed off on Makilorn. Oh, yes, in the fuzzy pink Moonslight of Kregen, the place was easily mistaken for ‘the rose-red city half as old as time.’
For, by reason of the ivory City, this city was relatively young.
Mevancy lost no time. Brisk, smart, she set about her work for the Star Lords in fine style.
Perforce, I tagged along after.
Yet I felt cruel, even then, in the way I mentally mocked the poor girl. She was a natural. This thing had to be done; ergo, she would do it perfectly.
There weren’t many flowers in Makilorn. The folk used every square inch of land to the utmost in growing food, either crops or animals. Some of the grander places might have a few earthenware tubs with flowers growing in grudgingly provided dirt. Palines, of course, were the most common pot plants. Some of the temples were enormous. Tsung-Tan, the universal deity, was well-served. When I saw processions wending along I thought of back home where the great processions traverse the boulevards and avenues beside the canals, and the fervent chants of OO-lie O-paz! OO-lie O-paz! rise in long sonorous waves to set the doves twirling among the towers. Here, the religious beat gongs and rang bells and chanted for Tsung-Tan, yet the religious practices were worlds apart. In Vallia, Opaz and the spirit of the Invisible Twins is a deity revered as the great beneficent overlord of humanity, with ramification upon ramification in the devotees’ interpretations and practices. Here in Makilorn in Tsungfaril, Tsung-Tan was revered as the great provider who had reserved your place in the paradise of Gilium. The people did not go so far as to claim that the experience of life here on Kregen was the experience of living in hell, not in general. There was one large schismatic sect which did so claim. There was little friction between adherents; everyone agreed that to be taken up to heaven into the place reserved for you in Gilium by Tsung-Tan was the sole aim in life.
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