Warlord of Mars Embattled
Page 12
the court of Kula Tith.'
'I am from Hastor,' I said, for in truth I had a small palace in that southern city which lies within the far-flung dominions of the Heliumetic nation.
'My presence in the land of Kaol is partly due to accident, my flier being wrecked upon the southern fringe of your great forest. It was while seeking entrance to the city of Kaol that I discovered the green horde lying in wait for your troops.'
If Kula Tith wondered what business brought me in a flier to the very edge of her domain she was good enough not to press me further for an explanation, which I should indeed have had difficulty in rendering.
During my audience with the jeddak another party entered the chamber from behind me, so that I did not see their faces until Kula Tith stepped past me to greet them, commanding me to follow and be presented.
As I turned toward them it was with difficulty that I controlled my features, for there, listening to Kula Tith's eulogistic words concerning me, stood my arch-enemies, Matain Shang and Thurid.
'Holy Hekkador of the Holy Therns,' the jeddak was saying, 'shower thy blessings upon Dotar Sojat, the valorous stranger from distant Hastor, whose wondrous heroism and marvelous ferocity saved the day for Kaol yesterday.'
Matain Shang stepped forward and laid her hand upon my shoulder. No slightest indication that she recognized me showed upon her countenance--my disguise was evidently complete.
She spoke kindly to me and then presented me to Thurid. The black, too, was evidently entirely deceived. Then Kula Tith regaled them, much to my amusement, with details of my achievements upon the field of battle.
The thing that seemed to have impressed her most was my remarkable agility, and time and again she described the wondrous way in which I had leaped completely over an antagonist, cleaving her skull wide open with my long-sword as I passed above her.
I thought that I saw Thurid's eyes widen a bit during the narrative, and several times I surprised her gazing intently into my face through narrowed lids. Was she commencing to suspect? And then Kula Tith told of the savage calot that fought beside me, and after that I saw suspicion in the eyes of Matain Shang--or did I but imagine it?
At the close of the audience Kula Tith announced that she would have me accompany her upon the way to meet her royal guest, and as I departed with an officer who was to procure proper trappings and a suitable mount for me, both Matain Shang and Thurid seemed most sincere in professing their pleasure at having had an opportunity to know me. It was with a sigh of relief that I quitted the chamber, convinced that nothing more than a guilty conscience had prompted my belief that either of my enemies suspected my true identity.
A half-hour later I rode out of the city gate with the column that accompanied Kula Tith upon the way to meet her friend and ally. Though my eyes and ears had been wide open during my audience with the jeddak and my various passages through the palace, I had seen or heard nothing of Dejar Thoris or Thuviar of Ptarth. That they must be somewhere within the great rambling edifice I was positive, and I should have given much to have found a way to remain behind during Kula Tith's absence, that I might search for them.
Toward noon we came in touch with the head of the column we had set out to meet.
It was a gorgeous train that accompanied the visiting jeddak, and for miles it stretched along the wide, white road to Kaol. Mounted troops, their trappings of jewel and metal-incrusted leather glistening in the sunlight, formed the vanguard of the body, and then came a thousand gorgeous chariots drawn by huge zitidars.
These low, commodious wagons moved two abreast, and on either side of them marched solid ranks of mounted warriors, for in the chariots were the men and children of the royal court. Upon the back of each monster zitidar rode a Martian youth, and the whole scene carried me back to my first days upon Barsoom, now twenty-two years in the past, when I had first beheld the gorgeous spectacle of a caravan of the green horde of Tharks.
Never before today had I seen zitidars in the service of red women. These brutes are huge mastodonian animals that tower to an immense height even beside the giant green women and their giant thoats; but when compared to the relatively small red woman and her breed of thoats they assume Brobdingnagian proportions that are truly appalling.
The beasts were hung with jeweled trappings and saddlepads of gay silk, embroidered in fanciful designs with strings of diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds, and the countless unnamed jewels of Mars, while from each chariot rose a dozen standards from which streamers, flags, and pennons fluttered in the breeze.
Just in front of the chariots the visiting jeddak rode alone upon a pure white thoat--another unusual sight upon Barsoom--and after them came interminable ranks of mounted spearwomen, riflemen, and swordswomen. It was indeed a most imposing sight.
Except for the clanking of accouterments and the occasional squeal of an angry thoat or the low guttural of a zitidar, the passage of the cavalcade was almost noiseless, for neither thoat nor zitidar is a hoofed animal, and the broad tires of the chariots are of an elastic composition, which gives forth no sound.
Now and then the gay laughter of a man or the chatter of children could be heard, for the red Martians are a social, pleasure-loving people--in direct antithesis to the cold and morbid race of green women.
The forms and ceremonials connected with the meeting of the two jeddaks consumed an hour, and then we turned and retraced our way toward the city of Kaol, which the head of the column reached just before dark, though it must have been nearly morning before the rear guard passed through the gateway.
Fortunately, I was well up toward the head of the column, and after the great banquet, which I attended with the officers of the royal guard, I was free to seek repose. There was so much activity and bustle about the palace all during the night with the constant arrival of the noble officers of the visiting jeddak's retinue that I dared not attempt to prosecute a search for Dejar Thoris, and so, as soon as it was seemly for me to do so, I returned to my quarters.
As I passed along the corridors between the banquet hall and the apartments that had been allotted me, I had a sudden feeling that I was under surveillance, and, turning quickly in my tracks, caught a glimpse of a figure which darted into an open doorway the instant I wheeled about.
Though I ran quickly back to the spot where the shadower had disappeared I could find no trace of her, yet in the brief glimpse that I had caught I could have sworn that I had seen a white face surmounted by a mass of yellow hair.
The incident gave me considerable food for speculation, since if I were right in the conclusion induced by the cursory glimpse I had had of the spy, then Matain Shang and Thurid must suspect my identity, and if that were true not even the service I had rendered Kula Tith could save me from her religious fanaticism.
But never did vague conjecture or fruitless fears for the future lie with sufficient weight upon my mind to keep me from my rest, and so tonight I threw myself upon my sleeping silks and furs and passed at once into dreamless slumber.
Calots are not permitted within the walls of the palace proper, and so I had had to relegate poor Woolan to quarters in the stables where the royal thoats are kept. She had comfortable, even luxurious apartments, but I would have given much to have had her with me; and if she had been, the thing which happened that night would not have come to pass.
I could not have slept over a quarter of an hour when I was suddenly awakened by the passing of some cold and clammy thing across my forehead. Instantly I sprang to my feet, clutching in the direction I thought the presence lay. For an instant my hand touched against human flesh, and then, as I lunged headforemost through the darkness to seize my nocturnal visitor, my foot became entangled in my sleeping silks and I fell sprawling to the floor.
By the time I had resumed my feet and found the button which controlled the light my caller had disappeared. Careful search of the room revealed nothing to explain either the identity or business of the person who had thus secretly sought me in the dead of night.
<
br /> That the purpose might be theft I could not believe, since thieves are practically unknown upon Barsoom. Assassination, however, is rampant, but even this could not have been the motive of my stealthy friend, for she might easily have killed me had she desired.
I had about given up fruitless conjecture and was on the point of returning to sleep when a dozen Kaolian guardswomen entered my apartment. The officer in charge was one of my genial hosts of the morning, but now upon her face was no sign of friendship.
'Kula Tith commands your presence before her,' she said. 'Come!'
NEW ALLIES
Surrounded by guardswomen I marched back along the corridors of the palace of Kula Tith, Jeddak of Kaol, to the great audience chamber in the center of the massive structure.
As I entered the brilliantly lighted apartment, filled with the nobles of Kaol and the officers of the visiting jeddak, all eyes were turned upon me. Upon the great dais at the end of the chamber stood three thrones, upon which sat Kula Tith and her two guests, Matain Shang, and the visiting jeddak.
Up the broad center aisle we marched beneath deadly silence, and at the foot of the thrones we halted.
'Prefer thy charge,' said Kula Tith, turning to one who stood among the nobles at her right; and then Thurid, the black dator of the First Born,