I have spoken of the great galleons of Vallia. Now I could see them. The ship from Valka lay warped alongside the quay, and men were busily engaged in discharging her. Her captain gaped at me as though I had risen from the dead. I recognized him — as he did me.
“Captain Korer!” I said, shaking his hand. “I trust you are well?”
“My lord Strom!” he gasped.
He told me all the news of Valka and I drank it up, every word, for I love my island of Valka. The land prospered. We remained at peace. Trade thrived. Babies were being born at a rate that ensured the depredations of the slavers would soon be obliterated. All my old friends still lived and were happy; and yet all mourned my departure. I sensed the truth in this. Captain Korer was, in the cant phrase, a bluff old sea dog. He would not dissimulate to me, his Strom — or so I fancied.
“Your crew? They are trustworthy?”
“Every man and boy, Strom!”
“Good. Then I took passage with you and am just arrived.”
“I understand.”
After that it was easy to arrange. With a small guard of marines from the ship, and presents bought with Delia’s money — presents that would not betray their origin — carried by smartly-clad men wearing the red and white banded shirtsleeves, we went up to the palace. Gold bought us a way in. Once again I found myself in that immense throne room, under the blaze of gold and jewels. But this time I walked with cracking heels on that shining floor, with a sword at my side, and with my own men carrying gifts for the Emperor.
“Drak, Strom of Valka!”
The Emperor received me kindly, his chamberlain, with fresh gold to jingle, having smoothed the way. The Emperor — how to describe him? He had sired the most beautiful girl in two worlds. He was strong and passionate, fiery-eyed, dominating, accustomed to command — aye, and cruel and ruthless, too, when he had to be. I knew.
“I have a gift for the Princess Majestrix, Majister.”
He grunted. He thought I wanted favors from him over the rights of Valka. “You will get no favors from that young lady, Strom Drak.”
I rubbed my clean-shaven and shining chin. I felt that Paline had dosed me too liberally with scents and perfumes.
“As to that, Majister, I must, at the very least, pay my respects to the Princess Majestrix. Of favors I ask none.”
“That makes a refreshing change.” He stood up, at which there followed a great swirl of activity of protocol and bowing and sorting out of places. “I’ll come with you, for, by Vox, I’ve little enough to please me these days.”
In the guard of honor marched private Koter Segutorio.
We went through brilliant corridors hung with tapestries of such beauty and value that I could not refrain from looking at them. Past precious objects from all the known world we walked, and came to a marble stair, and then a door studded with gold bosses in the forms of zhantil-heads. Everywhere everything was of absolute luxury and refinement. And I wanted to drag my Delia away from all this! How I presumed!
Thick soft carpets from Walfarg beneath our feet, silks from Loh, the scent of spices from Askinard, all the wealth of a world spread out, as we went into the apartments of the Princess Majestrix. Here water tinkled coolly from fountains; brilliant birds fluttered and cooed; the very air breathed a soft and fragrant welcome. I was enchanted. Music wafted soothingly from a silver screen beyond which musicians played. I put my left hand on my rapier hilt and I gripped hard.
The Emperor strode on and we followed, his guards, my men with presents, courtiers, and attendants, and me, the Strom of Valka.
Delia had been sitting playing the harp. I didn’t know she could play the harp. Handmaidens bowed low before the Emperor. Everyone moved with smooth court ritual into their appointed places, forming a ring around the central figures of the Emperor and his daughter. She looked up from the pile of cushions, and handmaidens, all superbly dressed in sumptuous gowns, took the harp away. Here there was nothing of the naked pearl-strung slave girls of other palaces I had visited.
These magnificent chambers were merely the outer portion of her apartments, to which a visiting nobleman might fittingly be brought. Farther into the recesses of the palace would lie her private apartments. The thought of their beauty and evidences of sensibility dizzied me. She said: “I am glad you visit me, Father. We do not talk often enough.”
“You know the subject on which I wish to speak, daughter. But not now. We have a visitor who brings fine gifts, and also, as I judge a man, knowing something of his history, a man who is not seeking self-advancement.” He glanced at me. “I am aware of what you have done in Valka, Strom Drak. The racters must look elsewhere for slaves now.”
I could see he welcomed that.
“My daughter,” he said, and the icy mask of polite formality descended on him, “this is Drak, Strom of Valka.”
Delia looked up at me. I stood there, clean-shaven, dressed up in my fine new clothes, trying to make my lips form into something that might pass as a smile, looking down on her as if nothing in the world lay between us.
“The Princess Majestrix of Vallia.”
I performed a full incline. It was the perfectly proper thing to do, if somewhat florid, but I wanted to carry off the part. “Your most humble and devoted servant, my Princess,” I said.
“You are most welcome, Strom,” said Delia, Princess Majestrix.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Of presents and whispers
When I had been thrown down before her, with iron chains dragging on me, all bloody and foul and filthy, hairy and horrible, my Delia had recognized me instantly and flown to my side. Now I stood before her, clean and shining and fresh, and she greeted me merely with, “You are most welcome, Strom,” in the cold and distant words of formal politeness. Had she not recognized me? What a comment on the experiences through which we had gone together!
The ritual of greetings and introductions over — I had noticed how the universal formal “Llahal” was used here — we could lapse into more relaxed conversation. Light wine and miscils, which are those tiny fragile cakes that melt on the tongue, were brought, and the presents were looked at. In truth, they had looked fine enough when bought, and although mightily lessened by these gorgeous surroundings, they were still presentable. I had tried for quality and not quantity.
I stood politely talking to Delia and the Emperor, and we exchanged pleasantries. He was interested in Valka, and I was able to assure him that all went well there, and that he himself had personally the loyalty of every man of Valka.
This seemed to me a sensible attitude.
How true it was remained to be seen.
I thought to copper-bottom my bet.
“These are, of course, only small items I could bring myself. I have surprises from Valka that should please Your Majesty mightily.”
He made himself looked pleased. He had a lot of the strengths of Delia about him, her same clear brown eyes, but his hair, still abundant, contained none of those glorious chestnut tints. They must come from her mother. His face was furrowed with lines I could recognize, scars of experience put there by ruling a vast island empire. Then I realized why he was taking this interest in me, an obscure strom from a province many dwaburs away. He needed friends. He was desperately in need of allies against the racters, and the panvals, who were against the racters rather than for the Emperor, and a mysterious third party one heard whispers of.
He was a tragically lonely figure.
He had also ordered my head cut off.
It was worthwhile not forgetting that.
I said, “Has there been any news of Tharu of Vindelka?”
“How strange you ask that, Strom Drak! Vomanus of Vindelka has searched long and in vain — the world is strange and marvelous beyond the confines of Vallia — and he has been much in our thoughts lately.” And here the Emperor glanced at Delia.
She said, “Vomanus is the heir and he searches for Tharu with a devotion I find commendable.”
Po
int taken.
We talked on in general terms, and then Delia said, with a cool effrontery that amused me, “I had heard the Strom of Valka was a hairy man, very violent, who raped a tower of the maidens dedicated to the Maiden of the Many Smiles.” She shot a look directly at me. “You do not look like that, Strom.”
“That is not my idea of recreation.” I had heard the calumny, put about by the racters. “The truth is that a certain Foke the Ob-handed did that foul deed. It happened on a tiny islet on the eastern coast of Valka. I was in the Heart Heights at the time. Foke has not been caught. When he is I shall string him as high as the topmost stone of that tower of the maidens.”
The Emperor nodded, clucking his tongue.
“And very proper, too.” He looked about, his eyes gleaming white, a sudden and revealing gesture from an Emperor. “He belongs to the racters, does he not?”
“He does, Majister.”
“The racters.” He did not say any more. Poor devil — here was I, Dray Prescot, feeling sorry for this dread Emperor!
Delia said, “We had no warning of your coming to Vondium, Strom Drak.”
“I had business here, Princess.”
“Did you know Drak was the name of my grandfather when he ascended the throne?”
I inclined my head. “I have always taken great pride in that, Princess. I feel that our destinies are linked.”
If she could play this game, then so could I!
“Really!” She tinkled her laughter, so gay, so forced, so artificial. “I heard once — a story, a silly trifle
— of a man called the Kov of Delphond. His name, so men said, was Drak.” She laughed again, gesturing negligently with her arm. How I longed to take that rounded glowing arm and haul her to me and plant an enormous kiss on those luscious lips! “Delphond is a sweet place, very dear to me. If that man had been caught, assuming him to have existed, I would have asked you, Drak, Strom of Valka, to hoist him up to the topmost stone of the tower along with Foke the Ob-handed.”
The Emperor threw his daughter a puzzled glance. He reached out his hand to the empty air and immediately a handmaid placed a goblet in his fingers. He had no fear of poison, I judged, and recollected that poison is used so rarely on Vallia that when it is, it is marked and noted and remembered.
He moved away, talking to the Chuktar of his guard. The courtiers moved with him, always at their respectful distance, and only Delia’s handmaids were left with us. I had no idea how proper was my conduct in not moving with the Emperor.
“I ought to go, Princess, with the Emperor your father.”
“That is all right, Strom, in private. Our protocol is not overpowering. Come, sit with me.”
I looked at the Emperor in the instant that he turned to look back at me, his head half bent. He nodded. I bowed deeply. Then I turned around and sat down next to the Princess Majestrix. She waved her hand and the handmaidens seemed to become insubstantial wraiths.
She laughed aloud delightfully — and quite artificially to me, who had heard her laughing as we strode along through the Hostile Territories on our bare feet — and said: “Indeed, Strom, Valka sounds a most outlandish place. Tell me of it.”
Then, leaning forward a little, she said in a voice that snickered in like a rapier between the ribs: “You great onker-headed idiot, Dray Prescot! What happens if the real Strom of Valka walks in?”
I couldn’t stop myself.
I lay back on the silken cushions with their gold and silver embroidery and I laughed. I laughed fit to bust a gut.
The Emperor swung around. All conversation ceased. I was the focus of all eyes, staring at me, uncertain — scared!
I stood up and controlled myself.
I inclined to the Emperor.
“The Princess Majestrix is a worthy daughter to a great father,” I said. I meant at least half of that. “She has the gift of arousing the best in any man, Your Majesty. I did not mean to offend anyone here.”
He nodded, looking a little — puzzled, I thought. He turned away and went on with his conversation with the Chuktar, and I flopped back next to Delia.
“You glorious girl,” I said, changing what I had been about to say to a cliche no one could take amiss. “I am the true strom.”
“You mean — no, Dray, my darling! You can’t be!”
And then I remembered what the Gdoinye, speaking to me for the very first time on Kregen, had said. There was a time loop here. I knew that Delia would have heard gossip and news of this ferocious Strom of Valka, and of how he had cleared out the slavers and aragorn from his island, and received his patent of nobility — and all this would have been happening before she parted with me in the Hostile Territories. I had been on Kregen in two different places at the same time!
No wonder the Star Lords sometimes barred me off from travel!
My explanation was fragmentary and in a low voice. To have to sit here on silken cushions next to my Delia, so close to my own sweet Delia of the Blue Mountains, and be unable so much as to touch her! I knew that a single contact with her would result in my being run outside and at the best having my head parted from my body — and more likely having my body torn apart by red-hot irons. The Princess Majestrix was sacrosanct.
As she should be, of course.
The situation was idiotic, ludicrous, and fraught with terrible danger. Both of us wanted to gasp out our love for each other, to clasp each other in our arms, to tell all our news, and gaze deeply into the other’s eyes in absolute joy and wonder; yet we must sit here, so prim and precise, under the watchful eyes of the guards and the courtiers. I knew there were many eyes of spies there, people working for the racters, for the panvals, men and women working for all the different parties and lords each of whom wanted his own advantage from the Emperor. Drak, Strom of Valka, was a marked man henceforth.
That wouldn’t worry me.
I started to tell her that she must run away with me, at once, back to Valka and then, probably, to Strombor.
“Yes! Oh, yes, Dray, my darling!”
No hesitation, no regrets for leaving the sumptuousness all about her, no thoughts of her life here in Vallia as the Princess Majestrix. If the Strom of Valka kidnapped her, then his head would be forfeit and never more would she be able to return to her home. Strombor, then. . But — no slightest hesitation. She agreed willingly, joyfully, eagerly. Oh, yes, there is no woman in two worlds like Delia of the Blue Mountains!
Everything within the palace of Vondium was — and still is — conducted with order and dignity. I felt the sense of impressiveness, even then, when my every thought was of abducting the Princess out of that palace.
We spent what really amounted to only a few murs together before that audience was over and I had to take my leave of the Princess Majestrix and return with the Emperor to the throne room. He had taken a shine to me. Later we took a meal together in a private apartment with a number of the high men of the realm. These men were strangers to me then, but how well I know them now! Some as good and loyal friends, others as bitter and deadly enemies. As they stride onto the stage of my story I will introduce them to you. But, as always, following my plan, I will speak only of people and places and things as they impacted on me at the time, when I met them, even though I knew of them before that. The first of these to whom you should be introduced called on me the very next day at my new lodgings. He was Nath Larghos, the Trylon of the Black Mountains. A Trylon is a rank intermediate between a Vad and a Strom. The Black Mountains extend northward of the Blue Mountains and, although neither so lofty nor extensive, are composed of a black basaltic rock rich in minerals. Eastward the Trylonate runs into farming and agricultural products.
Trylon Larghos came unannounced into the sunny upper chamber of The Rose of Valka where I sat at breakfast. The comfortable inn and posting house was run by Young Bargom, the son of Old Bargom, who had fled from Valka in the bad days. Naturally, he had changed the name of the inn to remind them of happier times back in Valka, their homela
nd.
“Strom Drak?” said Trylon Larghos, coming forward into the patch of mingled sunlight by the windows. I did not rise. I was in the act of placing rich yellow butter upon a chunk torn from a crisp Kregan loaf, and that is an important operation. I did look up. I saw Larghos then, and I can see him in my mind’s eye now. A big man running to fat, but with the muscles still supple and bulging on his arms and across his shoulders. He wore a Vallian tunic of leather, but instead of the decent buff, the leather had been dyed in a pattern of black and white. His sword hilt glittered with gems. His face, bearded and bewhiskered, contained a pair of close-set shrewd eyes, and his mouth was a rat-trap if ever I saw one. A man of whom to be wary. I summed him up instantly; dangerous, like a leem. Before I could answer he went on: “You astonish me, my dear Strom, that you are not occupying your villa here in Vondium.”
“The place has been deserted for many seasons.”
“So? I am sorry to hear it. I was pleased to make your acquaintance yesterday, with the Emperor. He seemed to find you genial company.”
The Emperor had been laughing a lot more, I recalled, when I took my leave. I did not offer Larghos a seat, but he sat down anyway. Maybe he thought that being a Trylon gave him the edge over a Strom. There had certainly been no desire in my actions or stories to charm the Emperor — quite the reverse
— but from the Trylon’s expression he was clearly accusing me of toadying to the Emperor. I wanted to correct that impression.
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