Empire of the East Trilogy

by Fred Saberhagen

  Abner’s decision to stop at the caravanserai offered at least some prospect of a chance. Thus, the plan to send three men behind the same walls as the Constable. The very added security of the walls might induce the enemy to let down his guard, and make some action possible.

  Once in their ground-floor room, which they had claimed by evicting a miscellany of beasts of burden into the open courtyard, the three putative merchants had no difficulty, looking out through their uncloseable window, in picking out the high narrow windows of the Constable’s chambers in the building opposite. It was certain that he would have taken the poor best that the place could offer; and Chup and Loford had had enough experience with caravanserais of similar design to know where the most desirable rooms must be.

  After seeing to their animals, and stowing their meager baggage in the most easily watched corner of their room, the three of them held converse in voices inaudible more than an arm’s length away.

  Chup mused: “It will not be easy, I think, to get near enough to strike.”

  Loford could look the mild tradesman part quite easily, and had been the spokesman at the gate. He answered now: “It is too early yet to tell. Give them a night of carousing, and see if by tomorrow they have not begun to be a little slow to notice things, a little lazy.”

  Rolf said: “Also, remember this. Just getting near and striking will not avail us anything.”

  Chup shook his head a centimeter or two in disagreement. “To kill Abner would be something, a deep wound for the East. Worth taking a chance for, whether or not we can do the job for which we came.”

  Rolf, putting flat authority into his quiet voice, said: “No, to kill Abner is nothing if we cannot get the stone we want and get away with it. So Ardneh says.” Beyond that he could give his friends no explanation, for Ardneh had given none to him. Should Rolf be captured and questioned, still he would be able to say no more. But he spoke with conviction, having faith in Ardneh.

  The other two exchanged a look of age and experience above his head. “Well,” said Chup, “what you say about getting away is suitable to me. I have no objection to my own survival.’

  Loford put in: “Suitable, and interesting. Sometimes it pays to plan from start and finish toward the middle. Suppose we have what we came for, and are getting away—will we absolutely need the animals that we rode in here on?”

  “No,” said Rolf. “Mewick and I discussed that. There are at least three good spare animals with the patrol. If we can rendezvous with them outside the walls all should be well.”

  “And I,” said Chup, “came thinking we might go out over the roof.” He patted his midsection under his loose merchant’s garb. “I have some rope coiled here. That gate seems to be well watched, and not easy to open in a hurry.”

  “Let us suppose,” said Rolf, “we are going over the wall with a rope. What is next to be considered?”

  Chup: “Since the plump wizard here is going with us, I suppose we must consider how to strengthen the strands, with a little magic perhaps.” Chup was better suited for this kind of work than any normal man could be; the prospect of desperate action actually cheered him up. Were it not that some in the West still mistrusted the sincerity of his conversion, he would have held a high command. “As he must have done for the backbone of his riding-beast.”

  Loford did not seem disconcerted. “Would I could strengthen your wits as easily, dull swordsman. About getting away... Rolf, is it any clearer now, where the thing must ultimately be taken?”

  “Let me think.” Trying to find what Ardneh wanted was like trying to find a half-forgotten memory of one’s own. Glimmerings came, as if grudgingly. “Farther than we’ll be able to ride from here in a single night. More I cannot see.”

  Loford: “What I am getting at is this. Could not a bird take it? As described, the stone is easily light enough for one to lift.”

  This time Rolf had to think longer. At last he shook his head. “No. Rather, it will be much better if we do not have to do it that way. Better for it to go by bird than not at all, but... it is important also that I go, there is some job for me to do, at the same place where the stone is needed.” He shook his head again.

  Loford scratched his head. “Then we must try to guard you too, and send you on unscratched if possible... what is it makes your jaw drop, swordsman? Have you managed a clear thought?”

  Chup stopped his fixed staring at the high windows opposite, gave his head a shake, and blinked. “It may be that today I rode too long staring into the sun. I thought I saw—a woman.”

  “Well? And why not?” Loford asked reasonably.

  Chup only shook his head again, and went back to observing the apartment where the High Constable lodged.

  Rolf turned to Loford. “A while ago you said that by tomorrow they may be growing a little careless. But will they not also be on their way?”

  “I think not.” Loford slouched massively on the low windowsill, and with a slight nod indicated the far side of the courtyard. “A groom has begun paring at the hooves of several of the loadbeasts we followed today.” That meant no long journey could be contemplated for those animals tomorrow. “We should have tonight and tomorrow to get ready, and tomorrow night to strike and run.”

  They could not decide on a scheme for getting a closer look at the Constable’s quarters. After a while Rolf said: “One of us at least should go to the tavern, hear what the soldiers in the Constable’s escort have to say.” After a moment he added. “I wish that one of you two would go.”

  Chup gave him a quizzical glance. “Do the painted women make you nervous, young one?”

  “No—yes. Because always in the background there’s one who owns them. And that people should be owned does bother me, though it seems sometimes not to bother the slaves. I am made nervous in such a way that I want to kill that man.”

  Chup emitted a little snort. “Well, I am not likely to tremble with nervousness in yonder house of joy, nor draw curious glances my way by killing someone. I’ll volunteer to go, and brave whatever hardships duty may put in my way.”

  When Chup had taken off his sword, and strolled away, Lofbrd asked: “There is something else we are to do?”

  “I think so. Yes. It will be here in the courtyard—something or someone that I should watch or wait for.” Not long ago, he would have thought the hunch was purely his; but he was beginning to grow accustomed to Ardneh’s subtlety.

  Taking an empty waterbag, Rolf strolled out into the courtyard, leaving Loford to defend their quarters against sneak thieves or possible late arrivals at the caravanserai. The scene was generally quiet now. A servant trotted past on some errand. Animals made plaintive sounds. A few men, apparently herdsmen or lower-class traders of some kind, peered ruminatively from the windows of the lower rooms. From what Chup had called the house of joy came a burst of women’s laughter, and then the thumping of a tambourine. Somewhere the slavemaster would be sitting, his eyes like stone though his mouth laughed or sipped at wine.

  Rolf went to the well, hauled up cold water from its depths, and drank. He took his time filling the waterbag. Watching the building in which the Constable was lodged, he saw a pair of white bare feet descending the uppermost visible portion of the mostly enclosed stair, bearing above them a shadowy figure that upon emergence into the brighter courtyard revealed itself to be that of a servant girl. She was a tall girl, quite young and despite her slenderness apparently quite strong; over her shoulders rode a yoke holding two large buckets that would be quite weighty when they were filled. Her hair and dress were both of undistinguished brown, the former bound up out of the way under a servant’s cap. Her face was hard to judge, its dominant feature at the moment being a purplish swelling on her cheek that came near to closing her right eye. At best, Rolf thought, she would be plain, her nose and mouth being somewhat large though there was prettiness still in the undamaged eye.

  Rolf remained standing near the well while he replaced the stopper in his waterbag. The girl a
pproached, set down her yoke, and began working at once to get the buckets filled. The well was equipped with a rope and windlass by which the wayfarer could lower his own container to the water far below. When the girl began to haul up the first heavy pail from the depths of the well, Rolf caught a hint of her exhaustion in the way she leaned against the crank, pausing momentarily after making a beginning against the weight.

  Then he put his own burden down, and stepped around the well, saying: “I will lift it.”

  She stood straight for a moment, looking directly at him—she was a centimeter or two taller than he—without any readable expression in her face. Then she pulled once more on the crank herself.

  He put her aside from the windlass, moving himself so firmly into position to turn the crank that she had little choice but to stand aside. Only when he had the filled bucket in his hands did he turn to her again, looking at her carefully for a moment before he set it down and took up the empty one. “You have been ill-used, girl,” he said then.

  “My mistress insists on being well served,” she said steadily, without any obvious feeling of any kind in her voice. Nothing about her speech suggested that she was a servant. There were half-familiar accents in it that Rolf could not quite place at first, until he realized that they reminded him of Duncan’s speech, which he had often heard in camp, the tones of the nobility of the Off-Shore Islands in the west.

  “I would use you better than she does,” he said at once, somewhat surprising himself. He spoke out of policy, of course, offering a drop of sympathy to the maltreated servant in hope of getting some information from her in return; but he meant what he said. And with a faint double shock, two things came to him in rapid sequence; first, that Ardneh had wanted him to go out into the courtyard in order to meet this girl; second, that he had a good idea who her mistress might be, what Lady of the East it was whose servants were more likely than not at any given time to bear the marks of her displeasure, who employed plain-faced maids to make her own great beauty glow the more by contrast.

  In the same voice the girl replied: “I doubt that the Lady Charmian would sell me.” This only confirmed Rolf’s premonition, but still he came near dropping the second water-bucket. Demons of all the East! He must warn Chup before Chup was recognized. But it would hardly do to run away from the girl just yet, when it seemed she might be starting to communicate.

  He set the bucket down. “I doubt that I would pay the Lady Charmian in any coin she would willingly accept.”

  The girl seemed to look more closely and humanly at him then, but only for a moment. Saying nothing, she bent to fasten her buckets to the yoke. When she would have lifted it, however, Rolf stepped in her way again, and with a grunt took up the double load.

  “You have been kind,” she said, still distantly, “but it will be better for you if you are not seen aiding me. And better for me if I am not seen receiving kindness from a man.”

  Rolf nodded slowly. “What will help you, girl? And what’s your name?”

  “Catherine, sir. And thank you, but there is no help for me.” The calm in her voice was no longer as true as it had been. She came to him and her tall body brushed his as she took the yoke on her own shoulder.

  He let it go, but walked beside her as she moved back toward the stair. “You have not been long in the Lady’s service, have you?”

  “Not long?” She checked herself. “No—days only, not months or years. What is it to you?” When they reached the bottom of the stairwell they were for the moment alone out of sight of others, and she paused and looked at him somewhat more carefully than before.

  Rolf was thinking rapidly. Whether Ardneh was putting his present thoughts into his mind he did not know; certainly he had no feeling of being controlled. “You will not live long in her service. No one does. She will kill you, or cripple you too badly to be of any—no, wait, I am not speaking to torment you. I said that I would use you better. And I will.”

  She turned her face away, then back to him again. Her whisper was long in coming, but when it came it had a desperate intensity. “There is no way that I can get away from her!”

  He kept his own voice low and quick and calm. “And if there were?”

  Again Catherine paused. Then: “If she has sent you to entrap me and torment me, I do not care. I must take the chance. I say I will go anywhere, do anything, to get away!”

  Now he must think more swiftly still, but now it seemed no help from Ardneh was forthcoming. He could not settle on a detailed plan alone. Feet were moving somewhere above them on the stairs. “Come down again, later. If you can...?”

  “There will be more water to be fetched. Slops to be carried out.”

  “Good. I will meet you, or a friend of mine. He’ll call you Catherine, so you know him. Go up now. Have hope.”

  She gave one abrupt nod and turned her face away, and went on up the stair, despite her burden moving more quickly than she had when coming down.

  In the room where he had left Loford waiting, Rolf saw to his surprise that Chup had returned already, and was standing against the wall where he could not be seen from door or window. Rolf had hardly begun to speak when Chup interrupted him with a gesture. “Yes, I know my beauteous bride is here,” he said leaning cautiously toward the window to glare at the building opposite. “I thought I saw her, earlier, up there. And then hardly had I gotten into the funhouse yonder when I saw an Eastern soldier that I used to know—his mind was on other things, to our good luck, and I can almost pledge he saw me not. He was talking to some friend about the Lady Charmian, enough to make it plain that she is here. Around my neck like some evil charm she seems to hang.”

  “What did you do? Turn in the doorway and come back?”

  “Not quite, for I was fairly in, and to just spin and run out again might look a little odd. Stood with my face in a corner, practically, for a while. You might say that I cut my revelry quite short.”

  Rolf went to the window for a good look round, then turned back in. “It seems you were not recognized, or they’d be after us already. Now, I’ve some better news to tell.”

  He quickly related to the others his conversation with Catherine. They resumed their planning, with at least one of them always watching to see if Catherine came down again.

  The help of Charmian’s personal servant should be a great advantage if only they could hit upon the most effective way of using her. But whether or not the jewel was in Charmian’s possession or with some other member of the Constable’s party was still uncertain; the raiders had to make sure of its location before they could hatch any detailed plan.

  When darkness fell it became difficult to see the stairway from the window of their room, and Rolf went out into the courtyard and strolled about, keeping watch. When Catherine came down again, she was carrying pots to be emptied. Rolf walked to intercept her at the refuse pits, which lay at an angle of windowless wall between tavern and stable. It was a dark and noisome place, and for the moment they had it to themselves.

  Her face looked fearful, but her gaze did not fall away from his. She said: “If you were joking earlier, tell me now.”

  “Catherine, I was not. I will take you with me from this place. But there is something else that I must take, and I need your help for that.”

  “Anything.”

  “It is probably in your mistress’ jewel box, or in the Constable’s.”

  Catherine did not seem in the least surprised. She had had a little time to think things over and form her own idea at what Rolf must want. “The Constable has no strong-box with him, to my knowledge, and I have seen him wear no jewels. I know where the woman’s jewel-case lies, but I have never seen it opened...”

  The lid, massive and strong but elegantly lined within, was standing open at that moment, Charmian having performed the necessary ritual, reciting the three secret words and using the physical key required. She was choosing her jewelry for the evening, while one of her two servant girls, quivering a little as usual, stoo
d by to help with other details.

  Considering the hard times that had recently overtaken her, there was a fair amount of wealth and beauty arrayed in the form of bright gems amid the soft compartments of the little chest. In the bottom, looking at odds with everything else, lay a spherical lump of dark stuff the size of a man’s two fists. It was mounted in a filigree of silver and gold, no part of which pierced the ebon sphere that it enclosed. As usual, when she looked at it, Charmian frowned; the commander of the cavalry outpost had given it to her, as the best he had to give. No doubt most people would think most of the smaller diamonds more valuable, but Charmian was not so sure; it was quite beautiful in its own different way. But its size! A giantess three meters tall might have worn it as a fine ornament, but what was a woman of ordinary stature to do with such a massive jewel?

  She had considered other possibilities, of course. Sensitive to most of the auras of magic, she could feel nothing of power or danger from the thing, no life-potential much above that of any other lump of stone of equal size.

  There was a faint sound at her door, the creak of a board under a quiet but heavy tread. The breathing of the maid became suspended, but Charmian did not turn. Let him surprise her thus. Let Abner see how many spaces remained to be filled with wealth inside this one modest treasure-box of hers. While she kept on looking into the box, readying herself to be surprised, she wondered still what the black thing was. When someday she had joined the court of Ominor, when first class wizards were at her service, she would have to have it properly assayed...

  Abner’s great hand came delicately stroking her bare shoulder and she gave a little cry, and start, seemingly as spontaneous as the last time he had “surprised” her. She was looking round, her eyes innocently and prettily wide, when his face altered, and his hand on her flesh turned to stone. Her surprise turned real.

  He was staring into the open jewel box, and his voice was no longer the voice of an infatuated man, but that of an Eastern Lord. “Where did you get that?”