Intrigue of Antares [Dray Prescot #44]

by Alan Burt Akers

  The state architect of the great deren in Vondium had taught me much and I'd developed the knack of looking out for the extra thickness of wall here or the oddly angled buttress there. Down half a dozen passages further on a door leading to a medium-sized chamber with dolphins as decoration was guarded by a Rapa leaning on his halberd. Before the feathered fellow had time to squawk he went to sleep standing up and as I eased him to the marble floor the thickness of the wall in which the door was set attracted my immediate attention.

  Various protuberances in the carved and gilded foliage architrave merited further inspection. It was no use looking for a worn away knob. If you have a secret passage and wish to keep it secret then you do not advertise its presence. After a deal of pushing and pulling and pressing a nicely rounded dillope fruit, a juicy form of satsuma, yielded. There was no loud click; but a stem and branches revolved to disclose a narrow dark opening. Quick as a ferret down a rabbit hole I was in and the panel revolved shut at my back. Even without the Everoinye-bestowed lack-of-light vision, I could see by the aid of the pencil-thin shafts of radiance falling from various spyholes. Immediately I felt quite at home.

  Although this was in the middle of the night the palace was astir like a disturbed ants’ nest. That, by Vox, was my doing!

  Well, bad cess to all of them. I knew what I had to do. The how of it was the problem. Hyr Kov Brannomar would be well guarded.

  In addition, and on Kregen it is a weighty matter, by Krun! I was in need of sustenance, both food and drink. Particularly a wet. Off I set along the runnels between the walls, looking out, going silently, directing my cautious steps in the general downward direction of the kitchens.

  When by the smells I knew I was close it was also borne in on me that whilst food was prepared day and night, for guards, servants, slaves, this level of activity meant the whole place was aroused—aye! aroused and searching for me.

  After a succession of store rooms I at last peered through a small hole into a kitchen. I say a kitchen, for undoubtedly there were more than one in such a large establishment. A rotund, buxom, sweating woman was unmercifully thrashing a scrawny knobbly-kneed lad who yelled blue murder.

  Nonplussed I just stood for a moment, watching. Had that been a big man thrashing a young girl there would have been no problem. Oh, yes, I am well aware of all the contradictions in the contradictory nature of the fellow known as Dray Prescot. The girl or the lad could have done something so heinous that the punishment on the cruel world of Kregen was richly deserved. This strong woman with the bulging biceps was laying it on a bit thick, though. The lad was a mere bag of bones. The rolling pin being used on him would have laid out a zhanpaktun with a five-foot long pakai. So, being Dray Prescot and unable to stop putting my big nose into other people's affairs, I pushed the lever and jumped into the kitchen.

  My foot landed on something greasy and off I went, skidding across the floor with my arms waving about like a manic orangutan. A desperate clutch at a table served only to overset the lot and a cascade of pots and pans clattered to the floor.

  “Lawks ‘a mussy!” screamed the woman. She used a round Kregish phrase; the meaning was the same and then I'd skidded all the way and was wrapping my arms about her massive frame to try to keep my balance.

  She dropped the lad. She did not drop the rolling pin.

  The boy let out a single bellow and was off like a greyhound.

  The rolling pin went up and came down and bounced most tellingly off my ear. So, to be in the fashion, for the uproar was splendid, I let out a tremendous yell—the confounded rolling pin hurt!—and span the woman about. She collapsed and then we were tumbling to the floor.

  “Murder!” she screamed. “Help! Guards! Help!”

  The lad was well away by now. There was nothing left here for me to do except try to avoid the frenzied flailing of the rolling pin.

  Somehow or other, all mixed up with greasy and smelly aprons and voluminous petticoats, I staggered to my feet.

  “Get off! Get off! Murder! Help!”

  I, Dray Prescot, emperor, king, prince, lord of this and that, just ran.

  Now I may only be an apim, a Homo sapiens sapiens, with a mere two arms and hands. In like circumstances my kregoinye comrade Fweygo, a Kildoi, would have done much better. As it was, I regained the shelter of the secret passage in the kitchen wall with a thick ham in one hand and a flagon in the other. The panel was closed by a smart doubling up so that my rear end clacked the door into place. I did not hang about.

  These passageways were uniformly dusty, with spiders’ webs festooning everywhere and flang skins littering every nook and cranny. Perhaps Brannomar had no use for hidden corridors. I had. When I was a goodly distance away from the debacle in the kitchen I slumped down with my back wedged comfortably into a corner and started on the provisions.

  What a night this was turning into! First it was rolling barrels and then it was rolling pins. What next in the rolling menagerie awaited me?

  The ham was good, the wine poor. After a time I stood up and started off again. This time my way led upwards.

  There is no need to detail all the passageways and crevices I essayed in my search. Suffice it to say that towards morning I at last reached my goal.

  Breathing silently, I stared through a chink in the wall into Kov Brannomar's retiring room. The place was furnished like a study, with well-filled bookshelves, desk, a comfortable chair, a lounging sofa, and a table at which sat Brannomar in person. I was unable to see the other end of the table from my point of observation and there were no other slits in the walls. I stood quietly watching and listening. Brannomar was speaking in a decisive, intolerant, almost menacing way.

  “...you deserve to be calsany-whipped around the palace for your stupidity. Do you fully realize the damage you have caused?”

  A woman's voice answered. As she spoke she advanced into my view.

  “For my children, kov! Only for them—please, you must believe me!”

  “But I do not believe you.”

  She wore a lounging robe of deep blue, gold trimmed with much lace. Her bright bold face, so much like a hawk's, was now set in lines of desperation. She was pleading for her life. Her hands clutched the lace at her breast and her hair fell to straggle across her shoulders.

  “Please, notor, I meant no harm to you! I swear it!”

  “You may swear on all the gods in creation, my lady Vita; all the same, what you have done has created much mischief. The kingdom is like to fall. By Beng T'Tolin, woman, your selfish meddling has brought war!”

  “But I did not want—”

  “I know what you wanted, Vita. The Lord Jazipur was good enough for you when you married him. He is a fine upright man—”

  “Yes!” she flared at him. “So upright he has no ambitions left!”

  “He serves me and my kovnate and through me the kingdom. He well understands his position. I value him as a friend. But you—”

  “I did not know that they would do such dreadful things!”

  “Had you taken counsel of your husband you would have understood more of the realities of politics. As it is, your ambitious meddling is past the point where anyone may intervene. The die is set. There will be war, woman, a war you have created!”

  She shrank away, seemingly at last conscious of the enormity of her treachery. I'd seen her in Khonstanton's palace. It was not hard to guess what she'd been up to there. Any woman has the right to ambition and the right to want her husband to prosper. Destinies have been played out, empires risen and fallen on the desires of women. Men and women have no rights when they are born save those that lineage and civilization confer. Misuse brings tragedy. Poor Lady Vita had vaulted with her ambitions, and they had undone her.

  They went on in much the same vein, arguing, recriminations and passionate defenses alternating, and the sense of much of it came clear.

  Truth to tell, after a time I grew impatient with the pair of them. Brannomar was actually wrangling with the wom
an. This surprised me completely. Then, from what they said, I gathered the Lady Vita had once harbored ambitions to marry Hyr Kov Brannomar. He had refused her. She already had two children from an early marriage and this first husband had died. There was every reason to wonder if his death had not been accelerated by Vita. So she had married Brannomar's trusted right hand man. Jazipur had Brannomar's confidence and so far I judged that confidence not misplaced—save in this one instance of Jazipur's marriage.

  At last the hyr kov stood up. He placed both hands flat on the table and so stood, glowering down on the Lady Vita.

  “I shall not decide your fate yet. I must speak with the Lord Jazipur. You must add to your crimes of treachery the pain you have caused a good and honorable man. Guards!”

  In they came in their bronze and iron and they took the Lady Vita away. To her credit, the last I saw of her then, she stopped her sobbing and wailing. She stuck her chin out and that bold hawk-like face up, and she stalked away surrounded by guards armed and in armor.

  And then, confound it! Brannomar took himself off after them.

  I was left fuming in my hidey-hole.

  The trouble now was—would the Star Lords regard all this intrigue as a legitimate part of the task assigned Fweygo and me? If they did not, then I could face being hurled four hundred light years back to languish on Earth until either they relented or were in need of my services once more.

  As they say in the jargon of Clishdrin, I reviewed my options. Eventually I came to the conclusion my best course of action was to hang on here until Brannomar returned to his study. He must work in private in this comfortable snug on his state papers, and the situation now with war looming meant he would carry a heavy work load. I stayed put.

  Naturally enough, being fallibly human, I fretted over this decision debating with myself if I wasn't making a dreadful mistake. I shifted incautiously and a whole flood of dust and cobwebs fell about my head.

  The clinging powdery dust got right up my hooter. I could feel the mother and father of a sneeze overtaking me. Scuttling like a demented crab I rushed off along the dark passage and then let rip with an almighty atishoo! Tears sprang to my eyes. I sneezed again. I sneezed half a dozen times, and then I swiped at my eyes and nose and felt better and so gingerly made my way back to my spyhole.

  Brannomar was just turning around in my vision as I peered in. If he'd heard those gargantuan sneezes he gave no sign and in my agitated state I didn't pick up just what he was doing. I reached for the lever and pulled, the secret panel slid open, and I tumbled through.

  He was quick. Oh, yes, Hyr Kov Brannomar was no slouch when it came to swordhandling. The braxter ripped free of the scabbard and the point snouted towards me.

  I opened my mouth ready to say something like: “All right, kov. Stand easy.” I opened my mouth all right and the sneeze roared up from the soles of my feet and through my shaking body and just erupted like a coruscating volcano. I sprayed everything in the vicinity. Water clouded my vision. Shaking my head and trying to get things in focus I was ready to try again when a gasp of utter astonishment burst from the side of the room I had not been able to see. Hands in the air I swung about.

  The man who had just been ushered into the room, for the door was just closing at his back, wore sturdy buff clothes, the wide-shouldered jacket, the buff breeches and tall black boots I recognized immediately. His hand clasped the wide-brimmed hat with two slots cut in the forward brim and the jaunty feather was red and yellow. I knew him. He stared goggle-eyed at me. He knew enough not to go into the slavish full incline. That indignity had been done away with during my early days as Emperor of Vallia. He drew himself up to his full height.

  “Majister!” said Elten Larghos Invordun na Thothsturboin. “By Vox! Majister!”

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  * * *

  Chapter nineteen

  “Majister?” Brannomar's sword thrust forward. “What nonsense is this?”

  “I have to tell you, kov,” said Elten Larghos in a direct metallic voice, “if you try to harm this gentleman I shall kill you, immediately, without reck of the consequences.”

  Brannomar swung to face him and it was quite clear he'd never heard Larghos speak in that deadly tone of voice before.

  “Now, now,” I said. “Lahal, Larghos. There's no need of killing among friends.”

  “Majister!” spluttered Brannomar. “What the hell is going on?”

  Elten Larghos in his usual diplomatic voice said: “Hyr Kov Brannomar, you have the honor to be in the presence of Dray Prescot.”

  Brannomar opened his mouth, shut it, and still carrying his sword he crossed to his chair and sat down. Rather, he collapsed into the seat. “Dray Prescot! Emperor of Vallia!” And then, of course, he realized the enormity of the disaster that he assumed had blighted his plans. “You heard everything!”

  Ignoring the kov, Larghos said: “You are well, majister?” He eyed my dust-covered clothes with the cobwebs entangled in my hair. Now because of the many books and plays and puppet shows about Dray Prescot in Paz that portray him leaping about Kregen wearing the brave old scarlet breechclout and wielding the great Krozair longsword, no one is very much surprised when I turn up in unexpected places—like now. Larghos was not amazed at seeing me after the first moment; now he wanted to know if all went well with me in view of my deplorable condition.

  “Perfectly well, thank you Larghos. Now I believe we have some explaining to do to the good kov here.”

  Looked at unemotionally—which could not, of course, be done—this whole situation was totally unreal. Here was a great and puissant noble in his own snug in his own palace suddenly confronted by a dust and cobwebbed figure leaping out of the wall at him. Then this lunatic turns out to be the ex-emperor of the very country with which the good kov so desperately needs to become allied. No wonder Brannomar with his white hair abruptly looked so haggard.

  The Vallian ambassador to Tolindrin gave me a wry smile. “Aye, majister. I came in here to tie up a few loose ends in the treaty. Now I believe I need to know a great deal more before I sign on behalf of the Emperor Drak and Empress Silda and Vallia.”

  “Indeed, and so do I. There's skullduggery afoot in Oxonium. I know some of it and can guess more. Much of it is simple-minded. But there are one or two items of interest outstanding.” I spoke directly to the hunched figure slumped at the table. “Brannomar! Perk up, man!”

  “Dray Prescot.” He spoke half to himself, whispering. Oh, surely, he'd read the books about that roaring desperado Dray Prescot!

  Larghos fulfilling an ambassadorial function in a most diplomatic way poured a glass of parclear for the kov. Brannomar took it and drank and placed the glass down precisely before him. He looked up. He visibly took control of himself. Some of the old hard look of resolution returned.

  “I believe you to be Dray Prescot. You now know how important the treaty is. I work for Tolindrin. I could summon guards and no more would be heard of you or the Vallian ambassador—”

  Elten Larghos did not bother to draw his rapier or main gauche. He said, almost off-handedly: “But you would be dead first, kov.”

  “You boasted just now, Elten. Like you, do you think I reck the cost of service to my king and country?”

  I sighed and said: “I could do with a wet right now, Brannomar. And, also, your old king is dead.”

  His head snapped up. Then his lips curled back. “You listened to us. It was not difficult to understand what was going on.”

  “True. By the Feast of Beng T'Tolin, when the old king was due to show himself to the people, you must have a new king.”

  “And you, of all people, had to be the one to bring the old king's will!” He shook that white poll. “Well, you know the will was not in Strom Korden's sword. The succession is not known. The old king trusted the priests of Cymbaro and they have played him false.”

  “Would the contestants have abided by the old king's will?”

  “Yes.”
<
br />   “And, kov, you have no idea who it was he chose?”

  “No.”

  “It is a moil. I gather the Lady Vita sold out—”

  He was past being surprised at new revelations of what had been revealed of the intrigues festering away in Oxonium. “The Lady Vita is a lady of spirit, too much spirit, perhaps. I refused her, and am thankful for that. Poor Jazipur got a bad bargain there. She was discovered in her treachery by Naghan the Ordsetter. Ironic that Jazipur's spymaster should catch the wife of his employer. She planned well, one must say that.”

  It occurred to me to reinforce the impression he had of Dray Prescot by a piece of arrant boasting. This, I plead in my defense, was not pompous pride but calculated for effect.

  “I saw the Lady Vita in Khonstanton's palace.”

  He just took that in with all the rest. “She has a granddaughter. She told Khonstanton about the will in the sword in return for a promise that Khon the Mak would marry the granddaughter to his son. Vita has absolute power over her children and grandchildren.”

  “So that's how that devil knew. From what I've seen of Khon Mak she was a fool to trust his word.”

  “She was blinded by ambition.” He made a weary gesture. “Her grandson was to marry the infant daughter of Prince Ortyg—”

  “By Krun!” I burst out. “So she played both ends against the middle! Whoever inherited, she thought she'd be running the show.”

  “Ortyg employed the Fristle, Fonnell the Fractious, and his olive green clad scum. He imagined they could not be traced back to him because—”

  “He used a Bravo Fighter from Zenicce as a go between.”

  Oh, well, it was all adding up now. What Nandisha's chances in all this imbroglio were I couldn't tell. They looked slimmer by the moment. Then Brannomar added another piece to the puzzle.