As one of the inner circle who controlled the actions and plans of the Racters, Nalgre Sultant did what Natyzha bid him. If I ran into him the ending might be six inches of steel through his guts.
As Nalgre the Point and I rode toward the massive gate in those frowning walls I tried to imagine just what Natyzha wanted up here if she thought she was at death’s door. That she held the most powerful voice in the councils of the Racters was without question. Equally the Racters, people like this Nalgre Sultant, and Ered Imlien, whose estates of Thengel were long since lost to him, fought to gain an ascendancy over her and one another.
We rode unmolested through the Thoth Gate of Tali.
Most of the walls surrounding the cities of Vallia are old, built in the long ago when the country was divided up into petty kingdoms. Some are kept up. The walls of Tali were thick through, for I measured off in my mind the paces and there were a full sixty of them. Against the predators from the Mountains of the North those walls had been reared. Now they served as a bulwark against raids from this King of North Vallia.
Thick walls and many regiments guarded against the perils from the north. Was it too arrogant of me to wonder how much peril I posed to this fortress city of the Racters?
Chapter thirteen
On the Day of Nojaz the Shriven
Thwack! slammed the rudis against the soldier’s chest and then quite quickly Smash! against his head. The girl doing the smiting, naked save for a breechclout, panted with effort, her body shining, her hair bound into a fillet. The soldier was carapaced with straw-stuffed wooden armor. He jerked about like a marionette and the girl hit him cleanly about one in four.
Wearing a highly ornate uniform, a confection of ribbons and streamers, slashes and sashes, in a virulent greenish-yellow, Nalgre the Point stepped forward.
He thrust his sword against the girl’s wooden sword and turned the rudis away.
“Not quite right yet, my lady. Look—”
Nalgre showed the girl the trick of turning the hand over between blows. His panda face expressed no impatience. He spoke normally. He taught this high-flown girl the rudiments of swordplay — or the art of the sword, as I prefer — matter of factly. The exercise yard smoked a little dust from the tramp of feet; but a cooling shadowed tree overhung the south wall and this far north in the temperate zone violent exercise could be indulged in without discomfort.
I stood in the shadows of the little porch by the entrance gateway and waited for Nalgre to finish up.
When at last he let her go, streaming sweat and panting as she was, he said: “Tell your father, my lady, I am only half-pleased with you.”
“Oh, Nalgre! You’ll spoil it all!”
She looked a willful thing, long of brown hair and finely formed, with a twisting pout to her lips a little suffering would help — not that I advocate suffering for anyone. More often than not it drags down rather than ennobling the ordinary sort of person.
“All the same, my lady, that is my word.”
Nalgre said to the swod: “Thank you, Garnath. You performed well. Same time tomorrow.”
“Quidang!” rapped the swod, and took himself off.
He was earning an extra silver piece or two. He dumped the wooden armor neatly onto its pole hanger as the girl threw her rudis at the two slave girls who hurried into the yard. She was a most hoity-toity young lady.
The scent of freshly baked bread wafted over the other wall from the bakeries. Nalgre Sultant — or, rather, his son Ornol — lived well on his estates of Kavinstock. Raids from the north might harry the folk here; their food and drink could be brought up from farther south, and in the good old Kregan way they liked their six or eight meals a day.
The slave girls wrapped the young mistress in a cloak and she hustled out without a backward glance for Nalgre, who looked across at me, gave his panda smile, and collected his kit. He walked across.
“Do you have time for a throat-moistener, Kadar?”
“I do, Nalgre, I most certainly do. Trouble, is she, that one?”
“For the fool who weds her, yes. She does what her father Ornol tells her to. I give thanks for that.”
“The Open Hand?”
“I rather thought The Feathered Ponsho.”
“As you wish.”
The narrow streets of Tali thronged with folk come in from the country specially for the Day’s celebrations. If you looked down on the Kyro of Asses, you had to imagine you looked upon a slice of bread running with ants. The people jammed in solidly, dressed in their best, causing a continuous bee-buzzing of excitement. The smells are best left unmentioned.
The followers of Nojas the Shriven, a decent religion of these parts, took full advantage of the license allowed them. That the day happened to be the Day of Opaz the Meek was not overlooked, and the priests of Opaz kept quietly to themselves on this day of Nojas the Shriven.
Nalgre and I squeezed along and eventually popped into the narrow door of The Feathered Ponsho. We were let in by the hefty guards stationed there because we were known, if new, patrons, soldiers, and not a couple of gawp-faced bumpkins from the country.
We were where we were owing to my insistence that I wished to join up with a regiment as close to the person of Natyzha Famphreon as possible. The closest I could manage, given the circumstances, was the bodyguard of Nalgre Sultant. He appeared seldom, and his son Ornol ran all.
No one had seen the dowager kovneva in a month of the Maiden with the Many Smiles; but her edicts came down with their usual frequency. Ornol, it was generally recognized, took more and more power into his young hands.
“When this Ornol hired us on as bodyguards, he was overjoyed to attach two upstanding zhanpaktuns to him,” said Nalgre, and sipped the first soothing slug. He wiped his mouth. “The opportunities are rare enough, Lingloh knows. But to employ me to teach his daughter the sword...!”
“A wise fellow, then.Who better than you?”
“You miss the point, my apim friend.”
“I hadn’t; I merely forebore to mention it.”
Clearly, Ornol Sultant did not want any bright apim blades hanging around his daughter. As an olumai, Nalgre the Point was unlikely to fashion any sexual relationships with the lady Fanti Sultant.
The street outside resounded with brazen gongs, with plunklinglings, with trumpets. The masses swayed to and fro, surging as the tide surges between rocks into a cove. When the processions passed by they remained as still as the rocks themselves, making the secret signs, spraying stinking incense everywhere, and throwing petals with swift, almost furtive movements of their hands and arms only.
A sensible ruler lets people worship what gods or goddesses they prefer, and tries to see that the sects don’t knock their skulls in instead of breaking one another’s arguments with counter debating skills.
The stupidly fanciful uniform worn by Nalgre was of the same issue as the idiocy of feathers, bows and streamers I wore myself. We wore a trifle of armor beneath, to be sure. I’d made certain alterations to the confection so that if I got into a fight a couple of quick tugs at loose threads would enable me to discard the lot in a trice.
This uniform did confer some degree of respect for us. The vad’s personal bodyguard would not be trifled with. And although a vad was the rank below a kov, it was still exceedingly exalted among the nobility.
We had another stoup, and then Nalgre sighed, finished his drink and stood up.
“We are on duty in a bur, Kadar.”
Thinking I’d been running off at the mouth too much lately, and thus belying my sobriquet of the Silent, I said nothing but stood up, downed the last of the drink and started for the door.
Because of the congestion of the streets we only just made the palace in time.
Our Jiktar, Lomon the Jaws, was a Chulik. His yellow skin glistened. His pigtail hung down his back, plaited and threaded with gold and dyed a bright green. His jaw was exceedingly square and heavy, and the two four-inch tusks jutting upward from the corners of
his mouth were banded in gold and gold tipped. His eyes regarded us intolerantly. As a hyrpaktun himself he ran the guard impeccably and was the guard captain, the cadade, and let everyone know it.
Nalgre and I had been given the provisional ranks of Deldar, and we each had four men under command. We had our areas to patrol, corridors and stairs and hallways. We had considerable authority.
Now I have stood guard before in palaces not too dissimilar to Nalgre Sultant’s palace of Tali’s Crown, and the duty is boring, dull, and unless livened up in some way, brain-rotting.
Nalgre used to play over in his head games of Jikaida. This does pass the time. I kept thinking of ways to get higher into the palace and seek out Natyzha. Nothing made sense and so I fumed away seeing my four paktuns stood their watch properly.
Tali’s Crown was an imposing place, ancient, and built atop a crag that dominated the north face of the city.
If you stood on the ramparts of the north wall and looked back and up you could see the towers and walls and terraces of the palace crowning that crag. The cliff face lay in the shadows of the suns rays falling across the southern sections. The rock looked gray and sullen, striated, deeply fissured, a swine to climb.
The ornate buildings atop showed windows and terraces glowing with light in the evening, and many lights remained shining all night.
Well, the inner guards of Natyzha’s personal juruk changed by rote and if I didn’t catch that duty soon I’d have to essay the climb from outside.
During this period I was not unaware that I was taking time off from the problems besetting me. Natyzha had requested my help, and I’d given my promise. She might be an old biddy, the chief antagonist in the Racter Party; she could also prove the fulcrum by which my lever could topple the Racters’ power. This time was not wasted.
There was no hope of stealing an airboat.
For one thing, almost all the tiny aerial fleet here were on constant patrol duty against the Snowy Mountains, and for another the handful in the city were guarded as a maiden is guarded in some countries of Loh. Those guards were not provided by the juruk which Nalgre and I had joined.
I saw no sign of saddle birds or animals.
Ornol Sultant looked not unlike his father, Nalgre Sultant. They had the thin lips and arrogant eyes of your true noble. They knew their position in the world. Ornol, true, showed unmistakable signs of too good living, and he tended to rub his stomach with an irritating gesture which indicated there might be trouble brewing up in his intestinal tracts.
Now during this period there occurred a number of incidents which even to me, accustomed to the cunning interlocking designs of Kregen, seemed totally unconnected.
I should have known better. Experience has taught me that on Kregen events can vary wildly, appear to have not a shred of connection, be totally dissimilar; yet all the time there is a devious brain plotting in the background.
The very next time I assume causes and results are not fully integrated might very well be the last time I make such an elementary mistake. Effects appear to be at random, and often one cannot tease out the pattern. My dealings with the Star Lords and their apparent indifference to my personal plight blinded me to reason.
When we got off duty, Nalgre and I went down to a reserved space on a balcony to the side of the great Kyro of Kavin. The plaza, floored in octagonals of umber, ocher and green, the colors of Kavinstock, lies beneath the south face of the palace of Tali’s Crown. The declining suns set deep shadows from column and tower against the brightness of the stonework. Toward the center of the building a long and wide balcony projected.
Here Natyzha Famphreon showed herself to the populace.
She had chosen well, for the city was crowded on this day when the devotees of Nojas the Shriven flooded in.
She did not speak, for her voice would not have carried. Instead a giant-voiced Stentor bellowed out her words. They were rote stuff, fustian, calculated to please the mobs. They added up to promises to see their futures secured, to prosecute the war against North Vallia and what they called South Vallia. The speech went down well. I noticed, however, that no donations of wine or food or money were on offer.
She made a point of emphasizing how the good citizens of Kavinstock and Falkerdrin, and the other Racter provinces, enjoyed the services of slaves.
“This privilege the foresworn so-called Emperor of Vallia would remove from you!” The massive voice bounced and echoed from the buildings, reverberating across the plaza. A few gawky birds fluttered about, startled at the volume of noise. The crowds shuffled their feet, and cheered, and perfumed the evening atmosphere.
I had no spyglass handy, which was a pity; but I’d see Natyzha soon, I promised myself. If she was the same, then her face was still like a nutcracker, walnut-brown and inscribed with a lifetime of intrigue, and her pampered body was still lush and voluptuous. What an old biddy she was!
She was all a glitter of gold, with black patches to set off the gleam, for black and gold are the colors of Falkerdrin’s schturval, the symbol a chavonth.
She was carried back into the palace in her chair, hooded in brilliants, and the suns flicked a liquid gleam of flame reflecting from the gems as she vanished into the purple shadows within.
That night the city of Tali ran riot. Everyone, followers of Nojas the Shriven or not, celebrated. Torches illuminated the night and the raucous sounds vibrated up to the stars. So — this seemed my opportunity.
The necessity of wearing the stupid green uniform of ribbons and furbelows annoyed me; but that might give me a slender chance of sudden action if things went wrong. I bound up most of the dangling bits. Beneath I wore the old scarlet breechclout. I carried no bow; but I did take the Krozair longsword, suitably lashed across my back, to provide the ultimate argument if the drexer and rapier and main gauche at my belt failed. I could climb well enough in all this kit, being accustomed to such activity.
A goodly length of rope from the totrix stables was filched with ludicrous ease, the hostlers all being paralytic, and I went carefully around to that dark and hostile north face of the crag.
In all probability Nalgre the Point had given up looking for me to go on a debauch, thinking I’d found myself a sweet little shishi. Well, he was out of my hair.
The first section of the ascent proved easy enough, fallen rocks giving me the most trouble. The fissures were usable. I went up like a grundal of the rocks, and soon started on the more severe section of the climb.
The way I’d mapped out ahead of time turned out to be negotiable. I had one or two nasty turns as splinters broke under my fingers; but always I held on with at least two points of contact. Above my head lights bloomed into the night, and below the noise of the roisterers boomed up like surf.
Deepest shadows lay on the face of the crag.
Against a string of lighted windows above I could make out a frieze set against them. If that was a section of grating it would have to be avoided or broken in. Up I went, hauling steadily, testing each handhold and foothold. The angle of the cliff face steepened.
As far as I’d been able to make out there was no question of an overhang. Some of the terraces projected; that would be a bonus rather than otherwise.
Higher still and that puzzling frieze above began to look more ominous by the minute. There had been no sign of it during the day, of that I felt sure.
Closer still and I saw the truth.
By the disgusting diseased liver and lights of Makki Grodno! The situation was perfectly and horribly plain. During the night the guards slid out thick iron bars from slots in the rock. They were set close enough to one another to prevent a normal man from squeezing through. I have shoulders that are broader than most peoples’. Even on my side against the face I’d have a problem.
The shock of this discovery must have nerved my fool foot, for a chunk of rock broke away and clattered off.
For an instant I clung on, swinging, and then found a fresh purchase. I was plastered against the crag
like a poultice on a chest.
A voice spoke from the black wall above my head.
“D’you hear that, Fardo?”
“A stupid bird. Roll your dice.”
The second voice sounded tipsy.
I hung on, seeing blackness, sweating, trying to press myself into the living rock.
The first voice: “Better take a look.”
“Do we have to? I’m winning and your silver is—”
“I’m the Deldar here, Fardo! Take a look!”
“Very well, Nath the Obdurate, by Vox, you hew to rules and regulations.”
There followed the scraping sound of a stool on a stone floor. A metal clang resounded in the night.
Then a shaft of light sprang into being above my head, began to swing down to where I clung on with fingers and toes to that naked crag.
Chapter fourteen
The pakzhan opens a few doors
“By the Black Chunkrah!” I said to myself. “This is an infernally unhealthy spot to be in.”
There was not much of a breeze that night up in the city of Tali in Kavinstock, not even across the face of the crag; but I can promise you I felt a distinct draught across the back of my neck!
And then, to make my night, my left foot began to slip. There was no time at all to think. I acted at once and in the next instant found myself rearing up one-handed for the hard round spike jutting from the socket. My right fist clenched around the iron like the skeletal hand of Death.
Inevitably, I let rip a gasp of effort. That, together with the breaking tumble of the shard from under my foot, brought another growl from the opening above.
“Hear that, you fambly! Shine the light down.”
An unhelmeted head poked out from the sheer wall above the spikes and a hand thrust forth at the end of a rigid arm. The lantern in that hand cast its light in a reflector-shaped beam and it swung down toward me.
Witches of Kregen Page 11
