It takes a long time to sing seven hundred or so stanzas and when, at last, we threw the shutters back it was high noon outside in Vondium. Deldar Vangar had a mad scramble to get back to report for duty. He spoke of a visit the Emperor was paying to Vindelka, northwest of the city. No one took much notice, the fumes of wine coiling in our brains. Seg had left early, saying that as a private Koter he had duties to perform he dare not let lapse now, so close to the time for our departure. He had mentioned Vindelka, too.
We had, in the Kregan idiom, a zhantil to saddle, and we all had our secret parts to perform. To clear my head, after I had shaved that harsh chin of mine, I took a stroll along the quays and watched all the busy loading and unloading of the great galleons of Vallia. Produce from all over the known world flowed into Vondium, and the products of Vallia flowed out. Gulls wheeled overhead, shrieking. The twin suns shone gloriously. The air held that bracing tang of the sea. But — the Star Lords had expressly forbidden me to sail the seas of Kregen for a space. How I longed, then, to take my Delia up onto the deck of a great galleon and sail with her over the rim of the world!
When I returned to The Rose of Valka a sedan chair such as are commonly seen all over the city stood at the door. The two men who bore it were slaves, although decently clad in dark brown shifts, with a lotus-flower emblazoned on breast and back. With them were four soldiers and a Hikdar, wide of shoulder and lean of waist, their raffish hats sporting feathers of yellow and green, with a double red stripe slashed athwart their brightness. I went in, and Young Bargom presented a lady whose face was covered with a deep violet veil. My first glance convinced me this could not be Delia in disguise, and the leap of my heart stilled.
Bargom withdrew and the lady lifted her veil. She was young, pretty, but with a pallid squarish face in which the brown eyes held none of the luster and sparkle to which I was accustomed.
“I am Pela, my lord Strom, handmaid to the Kovneva Katrin. I am bid to tell you that the Kovneva must see you immediately.”
“Yes? Do you know why, Pela?”
“No, my lord Strom. Only that it is urgent, very urgent.”
“I do not know the Kovneva Katrin. Tell me of her.”
“But, my lord Strom!” Her eyes opened wide and for all their dullness they expressed astonishment.
“She is a great and powerful lady. Since the Kov died she has refused to marry. Now she is a devoted attendant upon the Princess Majestrix.”
So that was it, I said to myself. I yelled for Bargom and between us we made me look presentable, with a buff jerkinlike tunic with wide winged shoulders which left the white silk shirt sleeves visible. I buckled on the rapier and main-gauche and took up the hat with the red and white feathers. Down the black-wood stairs I went, following Pela, who got into the sedan chair very quickly. The bearers lifted their poles, the Hikdar gave me a sketchy salute, rapped out his orders, and we started for the palace. The effects of a rollicking night coupled with the fresh air left me feeling alert and breezy, although with the edges of fatigue beginning to creep along my bones. We climbed up through the crowded streets and along wide boulevards where the quoffa carts trundled and the zorca chariots whickered their tall wheels. There were fewer airboats than usual wheeling over the city today. The birds sensed this, and they swooped and gyrated against the twin suns.
Around to the western face of the palace we went beneath the frowning walls where the mercenary guards paced. In through a square opening, faced with marble and gold, and so up again along courtyards and colonnades, and into the rear of the apartments reserved for the Princess. In a small square room, with a lamp burning in the center which cast weird gleams upon the friezes of mythical beasts and birds, the sedan chair was placed down and Pela alighted. The Hikdar saluted and marched his men out.
Pela said, “Wait here, my lord Strom.”
As soon as she had gone I loosened my rapier in its scabbard and looked about. There were but two doors, and Pela had left through the opposite one. When its sturm-wood panels bearing plaques of beaten silver opened and a woman walked in, attended only by Pela, I relaxed a little.
“Strom Drak, of Valka?”
“Yes.”
“I am the Kovneva Katrin Rashumin of Rahartdrin and you address me as my lady Kovneva.”
I said, “I haven’t come here to play games. What do you want of me?”
She flinched back. My words were tantamount to my striking her across the face. I heard Pela gasp. If there was trouble for my Delia there was no time for protocol and fine manners. I took a step forward, fears for Delia uppermost in my mind. I stuck my face at this haughty Kovneva.
“Well?”
She put her hands to her breast. She wore a long silvery gown that fell to the marble floor, and was held over her shoulders by a mass of jewels. Her dark hair was coiffed and curled and smothered with a net of glittering gems. As for her face — it was hard in outline, of undoubted beauty, with fine dark eyes and a mouth rather too thin for my taste. She reminded me, as a candle reminds one of a samphron oil lamp, of Queen Lilah, that proud and sensuous Queen of Paul.
She managed to speak. “I will have you flogged! I will have you torn asunder! To speak to me, the Kovneva, this way! You are a fool, a rast, a cramph, a-”
I took her left wrist into my hand and lifted it before our faces. I glared down into her eyes. Her face altered in contour, changing, going slack, the soggy droop she would never admit appearing beneath her chin. I knew my face wore that old corrosive look of pure domination and harsh authority that, in other circumstances, I have so despaired of. Here it broke this woman’s resistance down in a way that, however unpleasant it might have been, was desperately essential.
“The Emperor,” she whispered. “He has gone to Vindelka. The Princess Majestrix flies with him. I am-” She swallowed. “I am bid by the Princess on behalf of the Emperor to command you to join them.”
I let her wrist go and she rubbed it with her other hand, staring at me the while with a look that should have blasted me on the spot. I nodded.
“Very well, Kovneva. Let us go, in the name of Opaz!”
Pela’s eyes were as round as palines.
“And,” I said in that harsh and hateful voice, “you will receive from me all the deference that is your due. Next time don’t shilly-shally when there are messages from the Emperor.”
“I shall remember this-”
“That is good. Make sure you remember well.”
From this unedifying scene of my bullying a silly woman I took no pleasure, particularly after I had, as I considered, been groveling before the Emperor. But all my fears for Delia had leaped into my mind, and almost I had said “messages from the Princess.” Only a last-minute flash of common sense had made me change that to “Emperor.”
Of course, all the plans were changed. Delia must have managed to remind her father of the Strom of Valka, and arranged for my presence at Vindelka. That she had chosen this woman, this Kovneva Katrin, to bring the message must surely mean she held her in some esteem, even if she didn’t trust Katrin Rashumin. Rahartdrin — that is, the land of Rahart — is a large island off the southwestern tip of Vallia, south of the straits between Womox and the Blue Mountains. All these places I was hearing about now have since come to mean a great deal to me, and to become very familiar, as you shall hear. I was slowly learning my way around Vallia, the land of my Princess.
Rahartdrin is about five times as extensive as Valka. She was a Kovneva and I was a Strom. No wonder she balked at my cavalier treatment of her!
Muffled in cloaks, we went out swiftly and boarded the waiting airboat, and I wondered just what rapier to grind Katrin Rashumin had in all this. She was more than a mere messenger. How much of the Emperor’s trust did she have? And, far more importantly, how loyal was she to Delia?
The airboat was of the usual pattern, petal-shaped, about fifty feet long, with a sumptuously appointed cabin taking up the aft third of the length. Atop this was a sun-deck. I noticed th
at while the usual flag of Vallia — the yellow saltire on the red ground — flew from the stern, Katrin’s own flag — the lotus in yellow and green picked out in red — flew from a staff in the prow. Evidently, this was her own personal airboat.
The luxury of the cabin confirmed this, for it was furnished in a sybaritic and yet realistic way very much of a piece with her character. I threw my cloak onto a chaise longue and looked about for a drink. The airboat bore on through the levels toward Vindelka. The crew wore the yellow and green striped sleeves, with twin slashes of red through the yellow, and they looked competent enough. Although, no one could feel absolutely secure aboard an airboat; I recalled what Naghan Furtway, Kov of Falinur, had had to say about the rasts of Havilfar. Pela brought wine then, a good vintage, and I settled down to what I considered would be the monotony of the aerial voyage.
As soon as the wine was served, Katrin drove Pela out in an abrupt and yet not unkind way, to go and sit in the suns-shine on the forward deck, and then locked the door. I did not think I was going to try to escape from an airboat a thousand feet in the air.
“You know how the racters have forced the Presidio to tax Valka more heavily than is just?” she began without preamble.
“I know, Kovneva.”
“This is why you are in Vondium?”
“Yes.” It was as good an excuse as any. I felt the Emperor had sized me up — whether I liked the man or detested him I still didn’t know — and he had not mentioned the tax situation. I thought then that if it had been my daughter claiming the horrible object that had been Dray Prescot in his chains and filth, I might have reacted as he had done.
“And you are not prepared to do anything about it?”
“Just what had you in mind?”
The very word tax is obscene, of course, to those who pay. To those who collect for causes their honor tells them are just, the word means different things. But then, any taxman believes his cause is just. My people of Valka paid heavy taxes, unjustly heavy, as I had discovered since reaching Vondium. My selfish desires about Delia had driven the matter from my head. Now this woman was obviously seeking allies against the racters.
“Valka is a rich island. Richer, I venture to suggest, than Rahartdrin.”
She flared up at this. But then she nodded, and bit her lip.
“Since my husband, the Kov, died, things have gone to wrack and ruin.”
“You need a man, Katrin.”
Of course, I shouldn’t have said that.
And, indeed, it wasn’t necessarily true. I make no claims for the superiority of men in managing estates, and I know my Delia could manage Delphond like a dream. The Blue Mountains tended to be left in the capable hands of her elders in High Zorcady. But this Katrin Rashumin, Kovneva of Rahartdrin, took my words and read into them what my ugly face and foul manners had kindled in her, and thus confirmed that belief in her mind. She did, in sober truth, need a man.
She drank more wine. Then she unclasped her silvery robe and let it fall to the floor. She moved toward me, and threw her round arms about my neck. “Drak, Drak — you would be a Kov!” as though that must clinch the argument.
As gently as I could I detached her fingers from me. Her silvery robe lay strewn about the deck. Her jeweled hair had fallen into a great loose mass, and a fortune rolled about on the priceless carpets of Walfarg weave.
“I am a man, Katrin; not Strom or Kov or Prince have any meaning for me.” I did not say that being a Krozair of Zy held meaning. She would not have understood. “You must find a man more complaisant to your desires.”
She rested a while then, drinking wine, the slanting mingled rays of Zim and Genodras playing over her body. She would resume the fight shortly, I knew. No wonder she had locked the door. But I was learning all the time. I would be a Kov if I married her. I had become a Strom in all legality because I had won the position, and none could say me nay. How these nobles of Vallia had schemed and bribed and fought their way to power! And how they must be ever ready to fend off the plunderers forever following them! What a man could make of himself, what he could hold, that he was, in Vallia. Of course, like any system of its kind, once you were in power, in the saddle, wielding the whip, you tended to build up reserves to keep you in power.
“No,” I said. “No, Katrin. I will be your friend, if you wish that, and perhaps take a lash and an accounting book into the island of Rahart. More than that I cannot be.”
“I have never met a man like you! In a few short burs I knew. Time has no meaning in affairs of the heart. The moment you spoke to me, so rudely, so intemperately, I knew you were the man! I felt myself turn to jelly-”
I didn’t laugh, but it deserved it. Poor soul! But for her, it was all deadly serious.
“I will strike a bargain with you, Katrin. I will be your good friend. I will ride into Rahartdrin and see what is going wrong. And you, in your turn, wipe your face, put on your robe, and tidy your hair — and then help and support me with the Emperor.”
If she rebelled at that, put on her icy hauteur and allowed her hatred to spew forth — well and good. I just wanted to know where we stood. But she was prepared to accept that heavy-handed patronizing attitude — for all that I meant sincerely what I said, it was still insufferably obnoxious — and she did as she was bid, and once more turned from a passionate sobbing submissive woman into a regal and distant Kovneva.
A call came down the tube. The border of Vindelka had long been passed and now we were heading in for a landing at Delka Ob. This was the capital of Vindelka, where Tharu and now Vomanus lorded it over fat realms. At Delka Dwa, right over on the northwestern border, lay a frontier town against the poor lands stretching away up there, lands over which I had trudged hauling the Emperor’s barge. There were few lakes in that area, the ground was thin and sorry, and the wind scoured the landscape into wild and fantastic shapes. Only a few leem-hunters and madmen looking for gold and jewels found much in these badlands over which to feel satisfaction. The River of Shining Spears which ran from the Blue Mountains into the Great River skirted south of these badlands. They were called the Ocher Limits. Beyond them and sharing them as a common frontier, seldom visited, lay the Kovnate of Falinur. Katrin and I went out on deck as the airboat slanted down for a landing. Away across to the west where the twin suns sank in a jumbled blaze of emerald and orange the sky was a mass of glorious color. Fierce black twisted, violent spirals of cloud coiled up, with the beams of the suns striking through and the glow extending far across the horizon.
“We made our landing just in time, my lady Kovneva,” said the airboat captain. He looked ill at ease. Katrin didn’t bother to reply. We all stood there, watching that violence and glory in the sky to the west. Delka Ob was a pleasant enough place, situated at the crossing of two canals, with much greenery, shade trees, and the soothing sounds of water tinkling from fountains and waterfalls created in the gardens of the houses. There was the usual labor section; but here, too, the houses looked neat and clean and the people moved with that alertness and firmness of tread I always welcome, for it means the taint of slavery is not embedded in their bones.
Without question, the Kovneva ordered her palanquin out from the flier’s hold and gave instructions to be taken directly to the palace. This was the palace of Vomanus of Vindelka. Now it hosted the Emperor and the Princess Majestrix. Pela was carried in her sedan chair; I walked with the guards. The suns were declining now, the air growing cooler. Our way from the landing field took us across one of the many bridges over a canal and here I heard the familiar hateful trilling of an Emperor’s stentor, and looking over the bridge parapet down onto the towpath I saw the sorry procession of dun gray barges. The haulers were being flogged into a shambling run, for the guards were impatient. I guessed these barges were carrying supplies, furniture, clothes, all the habitual magnificences of the Emperor, to the palace of Delka Ob, and had been dispatched some time ago, when this visit had been arranged, timed to reach the city for the Emperor’s arriv
al. This was so.
They had been held up — a canal had burst its banks and the work of reconstruction had chopped all the leeway out of the schedule. The chamberlain in charge of those barges was no doubt trembling in his boots. I saw the savage way the whips rose and fell, the way the knouts smashed down on the heads and backs of the haulers. The red and black arms rose and fell remorselessly. A girl collapsed and was immediately cut out from her leash and pushed aside. She would be dealt with later.
“Hurry, Strom Drak!” called Katrin, putting her head out between the curtains of her palanquin. “Just a moment, Kovneva,” I said. I turned to go. I had seen enough. I turned to go and saw at the head of the struggling knot of figures of the next barge in line a tall man leaning into the rope and hauling and hauling. I stopped turning to go. I swung back, very sharply.
I knew that I grew perilously close to callousness over the Emperor’s slaves. A single man, Strom or not, could not affect that issue at a blow; abolition would take time and immense effort over many years. But, that being so, I must do what appeared to me the right thing to do. Nepotism, if correctly used, can be a worthwhile tool, as witness Nelson and Collingwood, among others. So, feeling shame that I could do nothing for those other poor struggling devils, I ran quickly down off the bridge and onto the towpath. A guard brought his lash down again and again onto the thin naked back of the tall man, striking with a passion of ferocity unwholesome to witness.
“Get on, you stinking cramph! Get on, you kleesh.”
The next act of mine was all over before I had fairly realized it had begun. I struck the guard full on the jaw. He dropped, senseless. Other guards had seen. They came running, up. I looked at the tall man. Seven feet tall, he was, extraordinarily thin of arm and leg, but with a bunching of muscles there that showed the lean sinewy strength of him. From his head a long silky mass of yellow hair fell to his waist. Now that hair was filthy and befouled. And he’d been uncovered when the Maiden of the Many Smiles floated alone in the sky!
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