Chang-So started to make a snarling grunting but the queen waved a hand at him. To me she said sweetly: “Yes. You were under observation at all times. You would never have reached the inner gates.” Her voice bubbled with laughter.
And I, Dray Prescot, laughed with her.
On that pleasant note I was able to retire and make my way out of the palace. There were still many aspects of this affair to be explored; but I was beginning to resent the amount of my time all this nonsense of thieves and necklaces was stealing away. I did admit it had been quite pleasant to meet the queen. I wasn’t fool enough to imagine that at the moment she had any especial interest in me to account for her actions. Oh, no. She and that damned wizard of hers had other fish to fry, and the new wizard who had just arrived in Makilorn and who wanted the necklace was one of the fish they’d like to see sizzling on the griddle.
Leone trotted along at my side to the main gates past the courts where the throngs still moved backwards and forwards. She touched my arm.
“You will be careful, Drajak?”
“I always am.” A thought occurred to me. “Tell me. What is the queen’s name?”
“Leone.”
“You are named for her?”
“Yes. We are related. It is all complicated, quite apart from being paol-ur-bliem.” She sucked a breath. “Don’t you think she is splendid?”
“Oh, yes, very splendid.”
My neutral tone did not invite further comment. We said the remberees and I went swinging out into the mingled radiance of the Suns of Scorpio.
In no time at all my tail had picked me up and I had spotted her.
Now, I told myself, just before I go and sort out Mevancy at the Springs, I’ll go into business on my own account. I’d find out a bit about these thieves and this new mysterious Wizard of Loh that will owe nothing to Leone or Kei-Wo the Dipensis or this splendid Queen Leone of Tsungfaril. By Vulken the Insinuator, yes!
Chapter seven
With my shadow dutifully following me I walked out of the main gates of the palace. The kyro beyond was filled with clamor and movement as people passed about their business. Many sideshows here added to the color and din. I noticed a group performing on carpets, lifting one another up on poles by their hair. That has always struck me as a painful way to make a living. Still, I suppose the children are born to it and have the roots of their hair strengthened from the time they begin to grow the first fuzz.
Just past them a fire eater was having a flaming second lunch. Jugglers were throwing things about, including themselves. I always detest those shows which include animals, so I turned away from a poor half-dazed creature with a chain about his neck dancing to a pipe.
Any thoughts of hitting his owner over the head and breaking the chain were, of course, fairy stories out of children’s books. Interfering with people’s pleasures and entertainment — so-called — has to be done on a long-term and authoritarian scale, as we had banished slavery in Vallia.
My sharp turn away did not fool the girl following me.
What it did do was bring me slap bang face to face with Naghan the Chik.
He was completely startled, and started back, knocking over a passing slave. He didn’t notice that and the slave ran off — silently.
“You shint!” he got out, gobbling.
Fing-Na closed in from the side. His enormous waxed and pointed moustaches quivered. These thieves did not like to be caught on the hop.
I said in a bright tone: “Why, Lahal. Are you ready to take me to Kei-Wo now?”
“You got it?” growled Naghan the Chik. The knives in the belt around his thick waist were concealed by a flap of his fawn robe.
“That’s for me to tell Kei-Wo.”
“If you’ve got it, give it here. We’ll take it.”
This did not suit my plans at all.
Of course, I was fully aware of the risk involved intaking the necklace into the thieves’ kitchen myself. They’d as lief knock me on the head after I’d handed it across as give me a thankyou.
“Give it here!”
“No.”
“Wha—?” No one would know what Naghan the Chik had been about to say for I struck him neatly on the chin and he fell down, just as the slave he’d knocked down tumbled over. The difference was Naghan didn’t get up at once. In the same action my foot hit Fing-Na in his capacious gut and as he belched and doubled-up I rabbit-punched him down. He lay slumbering beside Naghan the Chik.
Turning like a leem-hunter I fastened my fingers on the neck of the girl who’d shadowed me from the palace. If there were any more followers they’d have to be dealt with when they turned up — if they did.
“Now, girl, I mean you no harm.” I spoke gently and walked her rapidly away from the scene of the fracas. No one had taken overmuch notice and I had a story ready, in case of question, that they’d tried to abduct her.
No one stopped me. Her feet barely touched the ground. I don’t think she was so much frightened as shocked. After all, Naghan and Fing-Na were among the most formidable rogues in the band. And she’d seen what happened to them. Away around a corner I slowed down and set her on her feet.
“Now, young lady, what’s your name?”
She stammered it out, shaking. “Falima—”
“Falima. A nice name. Now I have something to give Kei-Wo so we’ll just go along and see him now.” My voice tried to be gentle and, I own, it was not the old Dray Prescot growl of savagery I’d lived with all my life.
“Yes, master, yes. Please don’t hurt me.”
I felt injured. “Have I hurt you?”
“Well, no—”
“So that’s settled. I might find a silver khan for you, too.”
She perked up at this and seemed to gather herself for she started off along the avenue. I followed with a friendly hand resting on her shoulder.
Now this had not been the plan I’d envisaged. I seriously doubted if I was doing a wise thing. As we went along I began to think that I was your thick-headed barbarian oaf to the life. I was running headlong into a peril that was nothing to do with me, for no profit, and at danger of a life that was spoken for elsewhere. And all out of perverse pride! “Sink me!” I burst out to myself, silently. “I’ll not get myself killed out of pride!”
I fished in my pouch and found a silver coin, one of the few left.
“Here,” I said, stopping and halting Falima. “Here is the khan I promised. And here is the necklace Kei-Wo wants. You just take it along to him, Falima. Keep it safe. Feel the magic in it. Tell Kei-Wo that Drajak the Sudden honors bargains. And if he meddles with me again he is a dead man.” I looked into her little screwed-up face with the staring enormous eyes. “Do you understand?”
“Yes.” She clutched the khan and the necklace and then in a swift practiced movement they both disappeared under her simple brown dress. “I will tell Kei-Wo. And about Naghan the Chik and Fing-Na!”
Her feet were bare. Dust caked up along their sides. On naked flashing legs she ran off and I wondered if this second trumped up plan was any better than the first.
I followed her until she rounded the next corner. Still hurrying along I took off the mass of cloth on my head that wrapped into a turban shape and thumped it into a different shape. This was not your rounded dome-shaped turban but your flat pancake type that might droop here and lump there. I pulled my fawn robes around so they crossed differently. And I did as my comrade, the Wizard of Loh Deb-Lu-Quienyin, had taught me and altered the planes and angles of my face so that a quite different face from that of Drajak looked out. I held an arm up to hide that particular process as I went on; there were few people along here and no one noticed.
Falima was just disappearing into an alleyway ahead and I doubled along to keep up.
We were penetrating into the more insalubrious parts of Makilorn now and the people here looked furtive, with averted faces and downcast heads, their hands gripped around the hilts of knives or swords. Falima appeared to have no fear of them, and I surmi
sed that trouble would start only if you started it. Once we entered the real warrens, the dens of thieves and assassins, live and let live as a rule would probably prevail. These people preyed on those who lived in the wealthier areas. All the same, trouble would flare up from time to time, and then the corpses would be dragged out, their late owners’ ibs gone to investigate the Death Jungles of Sichaz.
The face I’d chosen to wear was not the simple-minded idiot-like face I often chose. In view of possible unpleasant happenings I’d chosen a face that was not mine but was if possible even more hard, vicious and malevolent. I looked a villainous desperado as I followed Falima through the greasy alleyways.
She would be a capital tracker here, I knew; I have some skill in that direction and she was not aware that she was being followed.
She led me across a litter-filled place where two alleys crossed leaving a wider expanse, although nothing that could be called a kyro, to a stucco-walled structure with a flat roof and enclosures at the sides. The door was low and narrow and an amphora swung on a beam above. I simply waited on the shadowy side of this little square and watched.
Half a dozen miners swaggered into the square, laughing and pushing. They wore tattered finery and were clearly in from the workings. A great deal of mining activity took place north and south of the trails leading to the city. Emeralds in particular were found in abundance; but many other fine gemstones could be dug up out there, as well as the more common minerals that fed the forges of countries downriver. Makilorn gained much of its wealth from trade and mining. These jolly diggers tumbled into the tavern and I guessed they’d be there as the Suns declined and through much of the night.
Those same Suns crawled across the sky and the heat of the afternoon mounted. At last, here they came, shambling along like a pair of disgruntled graints seeking to sink their claws and teeth into anything that moved. They pushed people out of their way, and the pushees after a single glance did not argue. They looked most unhappy. They crossed the square and ducked down to enter the tavern. I wondered if the miners would fall foul of Naghan the Chik or Fing-Na. I own I felt quite sorry for the diggers.
Very very quickly, but not surprisingly quickly, the first miner came flying through the doorway headfirst. He squelched on the cobbles outside. Almost immediately another followed and then another and after that the rest of the diggers ran out on their own feet, yelling blue bloody murder. Oh, yes. Naghan the Chik and Fing-Na worked their ill-humor off and loud were the crashings and bashings thereof.
Still I waited.
Patience is not so much a virtue in a hunter as a prime necessity.
Eventually, as the Suns were declining in a welter of reds and greens, the gang slouched out of the tavern. Kei-Wo headed them as they went off along narrow alleyways and up and down the rickety ladders leading from level to level. There were still people about, enough to give me cover as I trailed the gang. Had the queen decided to arrest the thieves she’d left it too late the moment they entered these runnels, havens of villainy.
The gang finally came to rest in a four-storey block that looked to be a fortress in its own right. Few windows pierced the outer walls and these were more like arrow slits than decent civilian windows. The shadows dropped down in the alleyway where I watched the last of the gang sidling through a narrow door opened in a re-entrant angle of the wall. If the queen sent her guards along here they’d have a tough time breaking in.
Houses crowded in on all sides, looming over the alleys and forming a confusing jumble. I’d be able to find my way back here all right even so. I felt strongly there was no point in hanging around here any longer. Kei-Wo would deliver the necklace to this new mage on the morrow. The Wizard of Loh would not come down here. The meet would take place in more salubrious surroundings.
So I decided that as this affair was really of no concern of mine I’d take myself off to bed. If it became necessary to find out about the new wizard, I’d ask around. And, there was always Queen Leone to ask...
The stinks of the alleyways had to be ignored; but the truth was the effluvium mingled into a disgusting brew that would take the skin off your throat and nostrils. I was glad to get back to the fresher air outside and I deliberately took a little stroll by the river. Fins cut the surface, rippling pink and gold, and very soon I tired of this and went off to the lodging house I’d patronized the previous night. Just before my last thought of the night, which is the same as my first thought of the morning, I realized I felt more than a vague dissatisfaction with my day’s doings.
In a very real sense this had been a day wasted.
No matter how long a life you have, you cannot afford to waste a single day, not a solitary single one.
Tomorrow I’d find out what San Chandro wanted done in the spying-on-the-queen’s-enemies line. When that was done I’d see about Mevancy. With these good intentions neatly made and filed and my last as ever thought, I went to sleep.
Chapter eight
The guard slammed the door shut at my back and as I walked into San Chandro’s rooms the Repositer looked up and said: “Hai, Drajak! You are just the man. Come and join me in the second breakfast. There are schemes afoot.”
As we ate he told me that he wanted to know how deeply Yango and Ranal Shang-Li-Po had been involved with the two dead Repositers, Caran and Hargon. “You see, Drajak, if it was just those two villains on their own, why, the damage is dreadful but not anywhere near as awful as it will be if Shang-Li-Po and Yango are mixed up in it.”
“The queen has five Repositers,” I said. “There must be a great deal for her to learn as she grows up.”
He gave me a quick glance. He nodded. “So you have fallen under her spell? I am not surprised; I would have been surprised had you not done so.” He heaved up a sigh. “The man she decides to marry will be — well, were I—” He chopped his words off. I felt sorry for him, of course. Also, I wasn’t about to tell him that much as I admired Queen Leone she was nothing beside Delia. Well, that is a stupid remark. No one is anything in the way he meant it beside Delia.
Carefully, I said: “The queen is a charming and remarkable woman. And, yes, the man she marries is going to be fortunate beyond his wildest dreams. But I was thinking of the burden she carries.”
I knew the chief Repositers and Diviners formed a college to deal with all matters pertaining to the Accursed, the paol-ur-bliem. Now Chandro explained that they also had a large hand in government, planning and advising the queen and making sure the administration functioned smoothly. He went on: “Whilst the queen is growing up each time, of course, the college runs the country.”
“Those two dead Repositers ran the estates whilst the young nobles were growing up. Their greed was such that they wanted to kill the nobles so that they would be reborn as babies, and the Repositers would retain the power.”
I gave him a hard look. “Does the queen stand in danger?”
He sucked in his cheeks.
He looked abruptly haggard as he said: “I dare not believe so; but, yes. Yes! Horrible as it is, I believe she does!”
“And you think it’s this Yango and Shang-Li-Po?”
“I — I do, Tsung-Tan forgive me the thought.”
About to follow the logical if unpleasant thought through I was stopped as he burst out: “They must not be harmed! Quite apart from their position as dikasters, more scandals would ruin the queen’s reputation.”
“Better for the queen to have a little scandal than to be murdered.”
He was shaking with the violence all mixed up inside him. Almost absently, thinking of something else, he said: “Not really. She would be born again and would have served one more life here on Kregen.”
They really believed that the paol-ur-bliem, the Accursed, condemned to live a hundred lives, really did come back again and again to live out their punishment until, at last, they could enter the paradise of Gilium.
“So you think it better for the queen to get herself murdered as many times and as fast as
she can?”
His head went up at my tone. His eyes cleared. “No, no, of course not. The college laws expressly forbid that.”
“I’ll spy on these rasts for you.”
“Good. Excellent. Here—” He moved breakfast things out of the way and spread a plan of the palace. “Here are the secret passages.”
He pointed out the apartments inhabited by Yango and Shang-Li-Po. Secret passages riddled the walls all over the palace, a usual part of palace, temple and fortress building on Kregen. The queen’s outer apartments were marked on the plan. No indication was given of any secret passages there. And the centre of the queen’s area was a blank.
I made no comment on this, and Chandro did not need to give the obvious explanation.
I had determined to be brisk with this Queen’s Repositer. I said: “I don’t intend to hang about all day skulking in passages. I’ll have to know the places the villains will be and the times they will be there.”
He accepted my tone, saying: “Of course. I can tell you that.”
Like many similar institutions, the palace ran on a regular routine. During the hours of duty the Repositers would be in known places. Outside of that their time was their own and they might be anywhere within a circumscribed round of pleasure. Creatures of habit, some of these high and mighty ones.
When I had digested all the information and got it firmly wedged in my old vosk skull of a head I felt I had a chance of eavesdropping successfully. Undoubtedly I felt a keen admiration for the queen. She was a splendid woman. She might believe that when she died she’d return to Kregen as a newborn baby; I wasn’t at all sure I believed it, no, by Krun! Further, I felt that if these villains harmed her, then scandal or no damned scandal, it would go hard with them.
Well, that is what I thought then, and as they say in the Eye of the World, men sow and Zair reaps.
We talked a little further, generally about the situation, and I was able by a few casual remarks to assure myself he knew nothing of the queen’s necklace affair. If Leone wanted to tell him, that would be between them. At last he suggested I ought to be lodged in the palace; there were rooms enough in his own apartments. I accepted and asked that my belongings be brought round from Mishuro’s villa. “There is a particularly fine longbow I just bought from Master Twang. But I don’t think that will come in down these passages!”
Scorpio Assassin Page 6