“And yet what?”
“And yet you are much like my black stallion Eblis. Your muscles are nearly as strong, but like him, I can goad you, drive you, lash you, and set you galloping in whatever direction I choose.”
“Can you?” he snapped. “Don’t try it.” But the spell of her unearthly beauty was hard to face.
“But I think I shall try it,” she said gently. “Hull, do you ever lie?”
“I do not.”
“Shall I make you lie, then, Hull? Shall I make you swear such falsehoods that you will redden forever afterward at the thought of them?”
“You can’t!”
“Do you love me?” Her face was saintlike, earnest, pure, even the green eyes were soft now as the green of spring.
“No!” he ground out savagely, then flushed crimson at the smile on her lips. “That isn’t a lie!” he blazed. “I don’t love your beauty. It’s unnatural, hellish, and the gift of Martin Sair. It’s a false beauty, like your whole life!”
“Suppose,” she proceeded gently, “I were to promise to abandon Joaquin, to be no longer Black Margot and Princess of the Empire, but to be only—Hull Tarvish’s wife. Between Vail and me, which of us would you choose?”
He said nothing for a moment. “You’re unfair,” he said bitterly at last. “Is it fair to compare Vail and yourself? She’s sweet and loyal and innocent, but you—you’re Black Margot!”
“Nevertheless,” she said calmly, “I think I shall compare us. Sora!” A woman appeared. “Sora, this wine is gone. Send the eldarch’s daughter here with another bottle and a second goblet.”
Hull stared appalled. “What are you going to do?”
“No harm to your little Weed. I promise no harm.”
“But—” He paused. Vail’s footsteps sounded on the stair, and she entered timidly bearing a tray with a bottle and a metal goblet. He saw her start as she perceived him, but she only advanced quietly, set the tray on the table, and backed toward the door.
“Wait a moment,” said the Princess. She rose and moved to Vail’s side as if to force the comparison on Hull. Barefooted, the Princess Margaret was exactly the height of Vail in her low-heeled sandals, and she was the merest shade slimmer.
But her startling black hair and her glorious green eyes seemed almost to fade the unhappy Ormiston girl’s to a colorless dun. It wasn’t fair. Hull realized that it was like comparing candlelight to sunbeam.
“Hull,” said the Princess, “which of us do you love?”
He saw Vail’s lips twitch fearfully, and he remained stubbornly silent.
“I take it,” said the Princess, smiling, “that your silence means you love me the more. Am I right?”
He was in utter torment. His white lips twisted in anguish as he muttered finally. “Oh, God! Then yes!”
She smiled softly. “You may go,” she said to the pallid and frightened Vail.
But for a moment the girl hesitated. “Hull,” she whispered, “Hull, I know you said that to save me. I don’t believe it, Hull, and I love you. I blame—her!”
“Why do you delight in torture?” cried Hull after Vail had left. “You’re cruel as a cat.”
“That wasn’t cruelty,” said the Princess gently. “It was but a means of proving what I said, that your mighty muscles are well-broken to my saddle.”
“If that needed proof,” he muttered.
“It needed none. There’s proof enough, Hull, in what’s happening even now, if I judge the time rightly. I mean your Harriers slipping through their ancient sewer right into my trap behind the barn.”
He was thunderstruck. “You—are you—you must be a witch!” he gasped.
“Perhaps. But it wasn’t witchcraft that led me to put the thought of that sewer into your head, Hull. Do you remember now that it was my suggestion, given last evening there in the hallway? I knew quite well that you’d put the bait before the Harriers.”
His brain was reeling. “But why—why—”
“Oh,” she said indifferently, “it amused me to see you play the traitor twice, Hull Tarvish.”
CHAPTER IX
The Trap
THE Princess stepped close to him, her magnificent eyes gentle as an angel’s. “Poor, strong, weak Hull Tarvish!” she breathed. “Now you shall have a lesson in the cost of weakness!”
He scarcely heard her. His gyrating mind struggled with an idea. The Harriers were creeping singly into the trap, but they could not all be through the tunnel. If he could warn them—His eyes shifted to the bell-pull in the hall beside the guard, the rope that tolled the bronze bell in the belfry to summon public gatherings, or to call aid to fight fires.
His great arm flashed suddenly, sweeping the Princess from her feet and crashing her dainty figure violently against the wall. Then he was upon the startled guard, thrusting him up and over the rail of the stair-well to drop with a sullen bump below. And then he threw his weight on the bell-rope, and the great voice of bronze boomed out, again and again.
But Black Margot was on her feet, withthe green hell-sparks flickering in her eyes and her face a lovely mask of fury. Men came rushing up the stairs with drawn weapons. Hull gave a last tug on the rope and turned to face death. Half a dozen weapons were on him.
“Hold him—for—me!” gasped the Princess. “Take him—to the barn!”
Behind the barn a close-packed mass of dark figures huddled near the mouth of the ancient tunnel where the bushes were trampled away, and a brown-clad file of Empire woods runners surrounded them. A few figures lay sprawled on the turf, and Hull smiled a little as he saw that some were Empire men. Then his eyes strayed to the Princess where she faced a dark-haired officer.
“How many, Lebeau?”
“A hundred and forty or fifty, Your Highness.”
“Not half! Why are you not pursuing the rest through the tunnel?”
“Because, Your Highness, one of them pulled the shoring and the roof down upon himself, and blocked us off. We’re digging him out now.”
“By then they’ll have left their burrow.” She strode over to Hull. “Where does this tunnel end?”
File Ormson’s great voice rumbled out of the mass of prisoners. “Hull! Hull! Was this trap your doing?”
Hull made no answer, but Black Margot herself replied. “No,” she snapped, “but the warning bell was.”
“Then why do you spare him?”
Her eyes glittered icy green. “To kill in my own way. Weed,” she said icily.
Her eyes blazed chill emerald fire into Hull’s. He met her glance squarely, and said in a low voice, “Do you grant any favors to a man about to die?”
“I am not disposed to grant favors to you, Hull Tarvish, who have twice laid hands of violence on me.”
His voice dropped almost to a whisper.
“It is the lives of my companions I ask.”
She raised her eyebrows in surprise, then shook her ebony flame of hair. “How can I? I remained here purposely to wipe them out.”
“I ask their lives,” he repeated.
A curious, whimsical fire danced green in her eyes. “I will try,” she promised. “Lebeau!” she snapped. “Hold back a while.”
She strode into the gap between the prisoners and her own men. Hand on hip she surveyed the Harriers, while the moonlight lent her beauty an aura that was incredible, unearthly.
“Now,” she said, passing her glance over the group, “on my promise of amnesty, how many of you would join me?”
Two figures moved forward, and the Harriers stirred angrily. Hull recognized the men; they were stragglers of the Confederation army, Chicago men, good fighters but merely mercenaries, changing sides as mood or advantage moved them.
“You two,” said the Princess, “are you Ormiston men?”
“No,” said one. “Both of us come from the shores of Mitchin.”
“Very well,” she said calmly. With a movement swift as arrow flight she snatched her weapon from her belt, the blue beam spat twice, and the me
n crumbled, one with face burned carbon-black, and both sending forth an odorous wisp of flesh-seared smoke.
She faced the aghast group. “Now,” she said, “who is your leader?”
File Ormson stepped forth, scowling and grim. “What do you want of me?”
“Will you treat with me? Will your men follow your agreements?”
File nodded. “They have small choice.”
“Good. Now that I have sifted the traitors from your ranks I shall make my offer.” She smiled at the squat ironsmith. “Would you, with your great muscles and warrior’s heart follow a woman?”
The scowl vanished in surprise. “Follow you? You?”
“Yes.” Hull watched her in fascination as she used her voice, her eyes, her unearthly beauty intensified by the moonlight, all on hulking File Ormson. “Yes, I mean to follow me,” she repeated softly. “You are brave men, all of you.”
“But”—File gulped, “our others—”
“I promise you need not fight against your companions. I will release any of you who will not follow me. And your lands—it is your lands you fight for, is it not? I will not touch one acre save the eldarch’s.” She paused. “Well?”
Suddenly File’s booming laugh roared out. “By God!” he swore. “If you mean what you say, there’s nothing to fight about! For my part, I’m with you!” He turned on his men. “Who follows me?”
The group stirred. A few stepped forward, then a few more, and then, with a shout, the whole mass. “Good!” roared File. He raised his great hard hand to his heart in the Empire salute. “To Black—To the Princess Margaret!” he bellowed. “To a warrior!”
She smiled and dropped her eyes as if in modesty. When the cheer had passed, she addressed File Ormson again. “You will send men to your others?” she asked. “Let them come in on the same terms.”
“They’ll come!” growled File.
The Princess nodded. “Lebeau,” she called, “order off your men. These are our allies.”
The Princess stepped close to Hull, smiling maliciously up into his perplexed face.
“Will you die happy now?” she asked softly.
“No man dies happy,” he growled.
“I granted your wish, Hull.”
“If your promises can be trusted,” he retorted bitterly.
She shrugged. “I do not break my given word. The Harriers are safe.”
Beyond her, men came suddenly from the tunnel mouth, dragging something dark behind them.
“The Weed who pulled down the roof, Your Highness,” said Lebeau.
She glanced back of her, and pursed her dainty lips in surprise. “The eldarch! The dotard died bravely enough.”
Vail slipped by with a low moan of anguish, and Hull watched her kneel desolate by her father’s body. A spasm of pity shook him as he realized that now she was utterly, completely alone. Enoch had died in the ambush of the previous night, old Marcus lay dead here before her, and he, Hull, was condemned to death. He bent a slow, helpless, pitying smile on her, but there was nothing he could do or say.
And Black Margot, after the merest glance, turned back to Hull. “Now,” she said, the ice in her voice again, “I deal with you!”
He faced her dumbly. “Will you have the mercy to deal quickly, then?” he muttered at last.
“Mercy? I do not know the word where you’re concerned, Hull.” She moved closer. “I cannot bear the touch of violence, Hull, and you have laid violent hands on me twice. Twice!”
“One was to save your life,” he said, “and the other to rectify my own unwitting treason.
She smiled coldly. “Well argued, Hull, but you die none the less in the way I wish.” She turned. “Back to the house!” she commanded, and he strode away between the six guards who still flanked him.
She led them into the lower room that had been the Master’s. There she sat idly in a deep chair of ancient craftsmanship, lit a black cigarette at the lamp, and thrust her slim legs carelessly before her, gazing at Hull. But he, staring through the window behind her, could see Vail Ormiston weeping beside the body of her father.
“Now,” said the Princess, “how would you like to die, Hull?”
“Of old age!” he snapped. “And if you will not permit that, then as quickly as possible.”
“I might grant the second,” she observed.
“I might.”
The thought of Vail was still torturing him. At last he said, “Your Highness, is your courage equal to the ordeal of facing me alone? I want to ask something that I will not ask in others’ ears.”
She laughed contemptuously. “Get out!” she snapped at the silent guards. “Hull, do you think I fear you? I tell you your great muscles and stubborn heart are no more than those of Eblis, the black stallion. Must I prove it again to you?”
“No,” he muttered. “God help me, but I know it’s true. I’m not the match for Black Margot.”
“Nor any other man,” she countered. Then, more softly, “But if ever I do meet the man who can conquer me, if ever he exists, he will have something of you in him, Hull. Your great, slow strength, and your stubborn honesty, and your courage. I promise that.” She paused, her face now pure as a marble saint’s. “So say what you have to say, Hull. What do you ask?”
“My life,” he said bluntly.
Her green eyes widened in surprise.
“You, Hull? You beg your life? You?”
“Not for myself,” he muttered. “There’s Vail Ormiston weeping over her father. Enoch, who would have married her and loved her, is dead in last night’s ambush, and if I die, she’s left alone. I ask my life for her. She’ll die without someone to help her through this time of torment.”
“Let her die, Hull, as I think you’ll die in the next moment or so!”
Her hand rested on the stock of the weapon at her belt. “I grant you your second choice,” she said coolly. “The quick death.”
CHAPTER X
Old Einar Again
BLACK MARGOT ground out her cigarette with her left hand against the polished wood of the table top, but her right rested inexorably on her weapon.
A voice spoke behind Hull, a familiar, pleasant voice.
“Do I intrude, Margaret?”
He whirled. It was Old Einar, thrusting his good-humored, wrinkled visage through the opening he had made in the doorway. He grinned at Hull, flung the door wider, and slipped into the chamber.
“Einar!” cried the Princess, springing from her chair. “Einar Olin! Are you still in the world?” Her tones took on suddenly the note of deep pity. “But so old—so old!” The old man took her free hand. “It is forty years since last I saw you, Margaret—and I was fifty then.”
“But so old!” she repeated. “Einar, have I changed?”
He peered at her. “Not physically, my dear. But from the stories that go up and down the continent, you are hardly the gay madcap that N’Orleans worshipped as the Princess Peggy, nor even the valiant little warrior they used to call the Maid of Orleans.
“Seeing you now, Margaret, I wonder instead if I were not very wise to refuse immortality. Youth is too great a restlessness to bear for so long a time, and you have borne it less than a century. What will you be in another fifty years? In another hundred, if Martin Sair’s art keeps its power? What will you be?”
She shook her head; her green eyes grew deep and sorrowful.
“I don’t know, Einar. I don’t know. I might have been different, Elinar, had you joined us. I could have loved you, Einar.”
“Yes,” he agreed wryly. “I was afraid of that, and it was one of the reasons for my refusal. You see, I did love you, Margaret. All of us did at one time or another. ‘Flame-struck,’ we used to call it.” He smiled reflectively. “Are any left save me of all those who loved you?”
“Just Jorgensen,” she answered sadly. “That is if he has not yet killed himself in his quest for the secret of the Ancient’s wings.”[9]
“Well,” said Olin dryly, “my years will yet m
ake a mock of their immortality.” He pointed a gnarled finger at Hull. “What do you want of my young friend here?”
Her eyes flashed emerald, and she drew her hand from that of Old Einar. “I plan to kill him.”
“Indeed? And why?”
“Why?” her voice chilled. “Because he struck me with his hands. Twice.”
The old man smiled. “But I think I shall ask you to forgive young Hull Tarvish.”
“Why should I?” asked the Princess. “Why do you think a word from you can save him?”
“I am still Olin,” said the aged one, meeting her green eyes steadily with his watery blue ones. “I still carry Joaquin’s seal.”
“As if that could stop me!” But the cold fire died slowly in her gaze, and again her eyes were sad. “But you are still Olin, the Father of Power,” she murmured.
With a sudden gesture she thrust her weapon back into her belt. “I spare him again,” she said, and then, in tones gone strangely dull; “It is a weakness of mine that I cannot kill those who love me in a certain way—a weakness that will cost me dear some day.”
Olin twisted his old lips in that skull-like smile, turning to the silent youth.
“Hull,” he said kindly, “if you’re curious enough to tempt you luck further, listen to this old man’s advice. Go twist the tail of a lion before you again try the wrath of Black Margot. And now get out of here.”
“Not yet, Hull,” snapped the Princess. “I have still my score to settle with you,” She turned back to Olin. “Where do you wander now, Einar?”
“To N’Orleans. I am homesick besides for the Great City.” He paused. “I have seen Joaquin. Selui has fallen.”
“I know. I ride to meet him tonight.”
“He has left Jacob Sair as governor.”
“I know, Einar.”
“He has sent representations to Chicago.”
Old Einar shook his thin white hair. “What will be the end of this, Margaret?” he asked gently. “After Chicago is taken—what then?”
“Then the land north of the saltless seas, and east of them. N’York, and all the cities on the ocean shore. Later South America, Europe, Asia and Africa.”
The Complete Margaret of Urbs Page 20
