At once full of contrition, Lol halted and Thelda sat down in the alcove and began to fuss with the baby. I stood with my back against the wall below and Lol above on the stairs.
Thelda wanted to talk and she asked again about the emperor and his army. I said, “You found yourself in Evir, Thelda. So what then?"
Being Thelda and being faced with something she found incomprehensible, she had simply blotted the incident out as though it had not happened. From the Sacred Pool of Baptism in far Aphrasöe she had been magically transported to her homeland of Evir. She had at once started for Falinur where she was the kovneva and her husband, Seg Segutorio, was the kov, however unwilling a kov he might be. She had arrived just in time to be caught up in the Troubles.
“Oh, it was terrible, Dray! The burning and the looting and—"
I could not help noticing how Lol kept jumping each time Thelda called me by name. Despite all my own views on the idiocy of protocol and suchlike fripperies, I do not accept into the circle of those who may call me by my given name everyone who may imagine he or she has the right. So—beware! And for Lol Polisto it was very clear I should be addressed as majister. So, to smooth one difficulty and to skirt another, I said: “Thelda and I are old friends, Lol. And, it is clear she does not know of Jak the Drang."
“Who?” said Thelda.
Lol started to say something, but I went on speaking, asking Thelda to tell us the rest before we pushed on. From below stairs no sounds reached us. And Thelda was still in a state of shock, too abruptly released. And, also, I wanted to scout the roof before we burst out.
She had been through a lot in her kovnate of Falinur, where she had been thoroughly detested. And, in the way of things, Lol Polisto had come along and rescued her from a particularly nasty scrape. And nature had taken its course. She firmly believed Seg was dead. She had been told so by taunting officers of Layco Jhansi before Lol took her away from them.
The inevitable had happened. For, as she said quite simply: “Seg wasn't there when I needed him."
By Zair, he wasn't! He was busy trying to escape the lash and the chains of slavery with a damned great wound in him, that had healed only to be broken again and again, and now this last breaking would be attended to, or my name wasn't Dray Prescot. The machinations of the Savanti nal Aphrasöe through their creature, Vanti of the Pool, ensured that Seg could not be in the same place as Thelda when she needed him, for he had been pitchforked back to his homeland of Erthyrdrin in Loh. Never had fate—and fate had been employed, this time, by the Savanti—played a much dirtier trick.
By the way in which these two looked at each other, the way they touched, by what they said, I could see with limpid clarity they were deeply in love. Well, that was all very fine. I knew that Seg and Thelda had loved each other very deeply, also. Some people aver that it is possible to love more than one person at the same time; love, I mean, in the intimate, sexual union properly belonging to man and wife. Monogamy was the fashion in Vallia, never mind what exotic goings-on occurred in other parts of Kregen. To love more than one person in sequence, that is understandable, else widows and widowers would never escape happily out of their state. But—at the same time? I was not sure. It is a knotty one, and demands scrutiny. Total love, well, by its very nature that cannot be given to more than one at a time. Can it?
Equally, although I had known Lol Polisto for a short time, a very short time, I fancied I had summed him up as a courageous, upright, honest man, who fought for what he loved and believed in. There was nothing here in this new union of the moist-mouthed contemptible underhand way of Quergey the Murgey, the arch-seducer. The obvious way out meant it was all down to Thelda. For the time being I would not, could not, tell her that her husband still lived.
Lol did not know, for he had been out on his fruitless bid to break through the ring of besieging mercenaries when Seg and I had arrived in the fortress of the Stony Korf. So why destroy the happiness of these two now? Anyway, despite his immersion in that milky fluid that gave such tremendous recuperative powers, Seg might still die of that ghastly wound. And we were not out of the wood yet. Lol might die. Thelda might die. We might all die. I pushed away from the wall and, saying, “Bide a space here while I scout the roof,” went on up the stairs.
What a situation! Maybe it is not new on two worlds, maybe it seems trite to the blasé, I could feel for my comrade Seg, and feel for Thelda, and, by Vox, I could feel for Lol, also. Emotions twist a fellow's guts up in a positively physical way, putting him off his food, making him lean and irritable. And I was feeling highly wrought up as I shoved the door open and stepped out onto the roof, the naked brand in my fist.
The roof was empty.
A single small flier stood chained down, and a tiny wind blew miasmic odors in from the niksuth.
I went back through the doorway and motioned to them to come up. Thelda carried the baby up first, and Lol guarded the rear. We stood on the roof and looked at the flier.
“That is a single place craft...” Lol stated the obvious.
“Hum,” I said, for I had nothing helpful to add.
“It is very clear you must go,” said Lol, speaking with a tightness to his lips that, while it warmed me, made me angry, also. “As for us, we will—"
“Thelda and the baby will go, Lol, and you will ride the coaming. That voller will take you both, I know. I have built the things.” I walked across, not prepared to have any further argument.
Lol wouldn't have it. “But—” he began.
I took Thelda's arm as she came up and swung around to face Lol. “In with you, Thelda. Careful of the baby. Now, Lol, stretch out here, on the coaming, and we will strap you tightly."
“But there is room for you—"
I shook my head, “The way they build these things is a disgrace. All Vallians know that. But this will be built by Hamalese for Hamalese and so should not fail. But she won't take us all. Now, Lol, get aboard!"
“But you! How will—?"
I lifted Thelda bodily and plumped her into the narrow cockpit of the flier among the flying silks and furs. She held the baby with a care that was completely genuine. I faced Lol.
“Do you wish to argue, Tyr Lol?"
His face betrayed the emotions of rebellion, fear for his wife—for the woman he believed was his wife—and loyalty to Vallia represented by me. I wanted to smile at his confusion; but time was running out. I jerked my head at the voller. “In with you."
“But it isn't right—"
“I am perfectly prepared to knock you over the head,” I told him. “But would prefer to say, simply, that your emperor commands you. Would you disobey a lawful command of your emperor?"
“Emperor?” said Thelda, looking up from the child.
“I'd obey any damn command, lawful or unlawful,” said Lol, feelingly, on a gust of expelled breath. “But—"
“Go!” I bellowed. “And buckle the straps tightly."
So, still loath but his conscience clear, Lol climbed onto the coaming. The straps were fastened, Thelda took the controls, the baby started crying, and the voller took off.
“Well,” I said as the airboat lifted away. “Thank Zair that little nonsense is over. What a to-do!"
But what the to-do would be when Thelda discovered Seg still to be alive was past me. It was all down to her, it would have to be all down to her. No one else could dictate what she should do. I found all my feelings for Thelda rising and tormenting me, for she had been a good companion, as you know.
So, feeling treacherously free of the problem, for I had merely shuffled it off for a space, I went back to the stairs and started to think about getting myself out of this dolorous place.
* * *
Chapter Sixteen
The Carpeting of Ros the Claw
Before I could do that desired thing there was another task to my hand. I had not failed to ask about Dayra as well as Thelda on the way in; and had received no useful answers. At the time, with Lol along, Thelda had been
our main concern, and rightly so, for Dayra was here not as a prisoner but as an embassy, bringing offers of alliance from that bastard Zankov.
It seemed to me perfectly proper to find another guard with a fancy uniform, a pakmort and the rank of Jiktar, take what I wanted from him, clean myself up, and then go looking for my wayward daughter. All this I did, and as a smartly turned out Jiktar, with the silver mortil head on its silken cord at my throat, went through from the slave quarters to the inner recesses of Trakon's Pillars.
This stronghold within its encircling bogs was an open place covering a fair amount of ground. Much of it was on stilts, some on mats, and the hard ground was reserved for the highest of the high. The Pillars from which the place took its name were volcanic extrusions, tall separately trunked obelisks of naked tufa, pitted and worn, rising like unformed Easter Island statues in a clump at the center. They provided a pivot around which the busy stronghold revolved.
In lifting terraces below, the palaces had been built, each one more grand than the last. White columns, pavements and walls blinded in the suns as I climbed leaving the dank mists below. I was not stopped, was not even questioned. A Jiktar is a reasonably exalted rank, and the insignia told observers that I was an ord-Jiktar, having risen eight steps in the grade. The pakmort carried more weight, even, than that, here where gold still bought swords.
Now, just because a Jiktar is a pretty high rank, the holder usually commanding a regiment, the disguise took me through the lower ways up to the palaces. But once there I would have to find a swod's gear; for all Jiktars would be known and recognized. A party of men marched across and the dwa-Deldar in command saluted me. I returned the compliment. They were archers, and their bows were long and hefty, round staves of a certain length. They were Bowmen of Loh.
Finding one on his own was not easy; but eventually I was buckling up the leather gear of a Bowman of Loh and settling the bronze helmet on my head. I kept my own bow. Then I went boldly into the first palace, a sea-green confection profuse with satyrs and nymphs carved on the walls.
The quondam owner of the archer's gear had told me that the embassy from Zankov was housed in this place, the Palace of the Octopus. So, in I went. In for a zorca, in for a vove.
Layco Jhansi had been the old emperor's chief pallan and had run things in Vondium most tightly. He had subverted the allegiance of the Crimson Bowmen of Loh. So there were plenty of Lohvians with their red hair about, as well as dark-haired archers from Erthyrdrin. My brown hair, being Vallian, did not attract undue attention. Five-handed Eos-Bakchi, that mischievous Vallian spirit of luck and good fortune, favored me unduly. A Deldar spotted me and bellowed and soon I found myself marching in a three-deep column of Bowmen, en route to provide a guard. Well, the ploy got me in well enough.
Five-handed Eos-Bakchi, however, did not see fit to arrange for me actually to attend in the reception for Zankov's embassy. That would have been to ask too much. We were stationed at intervals along the corridors and the tessellated pavements, and I drew a billet at the head of some stairs that led down to what depths I did not know. I stood there, alert, looking the very personification of one of those guards I have detailed as being fancifully dressed, spear-bearing and ripe for knocking on the head.
Now it is perfectly true that most people inhabiting palaces staffed with a plethora of guards barely notice their guards at all. Old rogues like myself who have served their time do notice; but we are in a pitiful minority. No one noticed me. I'm damn sure they'd have noticed had I not been on duty, like a pickled gherkin at my post.
And so my daughter Dayra walked along the corridor and past the stairs, deep in conversation with that foresworn scoundrel, Tyr Malervo Norgoth, him who had once come with an embassy from Jhansi to me and set his sorcerer, Rovard the Murvish, on me. I just stood there, lumpen, my face shadowed by the ornate helmet. Malervo Norgoth with his gross body and spindly legs looked much as I remembered him. He wore loose robes of a sickly green color, with much gold and silver embroidery. But Dayra—Dayra looked magnificent.
She wore a long dress of the imperial style, all in sheerest sensil, that finer silk of Kregen, of a pale oyster color that shimmered as she walked. Her carriage was that of an empress. There were feathers in the golden circlet around her brown Vallian hair. Her face glowed with conviction and passion as she talked. Her figure was a knock-out. Yes, I well realize the dignity and impudence of that; but it fitted. Fitted perfectly. For I had seen this glowing girl when she had been clad in black leathers, with her long legs flashing, driving wicked steel with her right hand, and her left taloned in those vicious raking claws.
Her jewelry glistered and blinded. She wore far too much. I fancied the massed iridescence of gems was genuine. Just whose gems they were seemed to me—her father—as a matter of moment. But, not for the moment. Why she wore so much jewelry might have been puzzled out by an earthly psychologist, with a glib theory that it reflected rebellion against her mother's elegant and refined taste, which leant more to small and costly items of quality, rather than a massed and vulgar display. I did not think so. This was Kregen. Dayra flaunted the gems so as further to convey the power she represented as embassy from Zankov.
Malervo Norgoth was saying as they walked along: “...doesn't mean a single damn thing, my dear, and it would be best if you did not forget it."
The reply Ros the Claw would make to that insulting comment intrigued me; but she simply said: “Yet Zankov's new allies do mean a damn thing. They mean very much. No one is going to stand before them, you may believe me."
“There are many dwaburs between the east and Vennar."
“They can be crossed. Zankov would cross them in friendship."
“A friendship which he values highly in terms of what he asks in the way of gold..."
They walked on, wrangling, and a few personal guards followed them, whereat I drew up even straighter and angled the helmet to shadow my face even more. Rovard the Murvish trailed along at the rear, emitting his unmistakable effluvium of dead rats and sewers, and shaking his morntarch with a reflective gesture. His furs and bangles and shaggy hair lent him a wild and grotesque appearance. The party moved on and I breathed out and glanced back along the line of guards.
The Deldar was nowhere in sight. Not one of those ramrod guards would move if I walked off. That was a racing certainty. So, shouldering the spear I had taken from the archer, an ornate and highly-polished piece with tufts of white and ochre ribbons, I marched off after Malervo Norgoth, Dayra and the rest.
The search for the two madmen who had broken into Trakon's Pillars from the bogs continued and so I assumed no one had yet discovered the absence of that single-place voller. That pleased me, for it meant no pursuit would take off after Lol and Thelda. So, feeling ready for what might come, I followed the embassy into a cross-corridor where tall windows threw diamonds of brilliance across the carpets and where Norgoth led Dayra into a room through an ochre and silver doorway.
The thought occurred to me that both Zankov and Jhansi were avid for an alliance. Both felt their own weakness and needed additional strength. And both, it was clear, would seek to dominate their partnership. It seemed to me clear-cut that I should do all I could to upset that understanding between them and prevent the alliance. That fitted in with my plans for Dayra. I fancied it was high time that minx answered to her mother and father. That her answers might make the sweetest of sense I have already indicated, and I was fully prepared to take her side in all things, if it came to it, bar, perhaps, a coherent understanding of the man who had slain her grandfather. And, even there, reasons impelled him that were sound, even honorable, to him. I owed him that much. Zankov might not be the black-hearted scoundrel everyone said he was. The odds were against it; but the chance remained.
And, as I walked up with a swagger toward the two Bowmen who guarded the ochre and silver door, I recognized in my thoughts the bias I owed to the condemnation of Zankov that stood in my brain like a lighthouse in stormy seas. I
was prejudiced against him—for good reason—and must attempt in justice to take that into account in my dealings with him.
“Lahal, dom,” I sang out to the first guard, scraping up a frozen grimace that might pass muster for a smile, and nodding to his companion. “You're in luck, by the Seven and Two."
“Oh?” spoke up the first worthy, flicking a glance to his comrade. “And, dom, how are we so fortunate?"
“Why, to be sure. Here am I come to stand your watch while you have fun chasing after these madmen who have broken in. I wish you well of it, although I could do with loosing at fair game rather than the butts."
The guard favored me with a hard look. But I had slipped the longsword on its strap down my back so that the checkered cloak covered it, and although the sword of the Bowmen of Loh was usually the Walfargian lynxter, many of them preferred other weapons picked up in their mercenary trade, so that my drexer passed muster. The second guard let a broad and happy smile part his whiskers.
“That is good news. Come, Nath, let us go and feather a few rasts and earn our hire."
“Gladly, Naghan. I am with you."
And, with that jaunty mercenary swing, they marched off with a perfunctory: “Rember!” and a laugh. I stood by the door and breathed out and considered.
To break in would be easy. To slay a few of the cramphs in there probably also not too difficult. But Ros the Claw would fight. She had fought before, although sparing me in the end. I did not wish once more to face my daughter with naked steel between us.
A Life for Kregen [Dray Prescot #19] Page 17