The stands broke into a bedlam of noise and stamping; but I had not attacked until my foot was inside the square. And he had struck first — a last unavailing blow.
What Yellow’s move was I have no idea. He made a desperate scrabbling attempt to get a piece back to defend. But on Konec’s next move Fropo the Curved, as a Kapt, vaulted over the same diagonal and then pounced on the Princess. The Aeilssa’s Swordsman stepped out to challenge, as was his right, and Fropo finished him off and — amazingly — Blue had won.
In the racket going on all about us, as the young girl who had taken the part of Yellow’s Princess stood there with the tears pouring down her face, Fropo wiped his sword on the yellow cloak of the Swordsman and spoke cheerfully to me.
“I never thought you’d do it, Jak. A bonny fight. I was able to vault right home. Konec will be pleased.”
“I doubt it, Fropo. We have lost a lot of good men.”
At once the Fristle’s cat face sobered. “You are right. Now may Farilafristle have them in his care. Good men, gone.”
The final rituals were gone through and the Blue notched up another win in the prianum. Our player, Konec, also moved up in the league tables. We marched off. But it was hard. There were many gaps in the ordered ranks. Kov Konec’s people had been drastically thinned. And that, I reasoned as we trailed off to our hotel, was the core of the plot against us.
The captured Yellow Princess was brought along in our midst; but she did not make up for all the good men lost.
Chapter Seventeen
I Learn of a Plan
We held a Noumjiksirn, which is by way of being a wake, an uproarious and yet serious evening in which we mourned our vanished comrades. There was huge drinking and singing of wild songs and much boasting and leaping about and the odd clash of blade. Those who knew something of the history of the slain stood forth and cried it out, clear and bravely, and we applauded and drank to them, and called on all the gods for a safe passage through the Ice Floes of Sicce. The Yellow Princess sat enthroned on a dais in our midst, stripped of her yellow robes and chained. But this was tradition only; the days when the captured Aeilssa belonged to the victorious side were long gone, for that kind of boorish behavior smacked too much of the uncouth. She would be ransomed by her losing player, of course, and Konec would distribute a donative and pocket a tidy sum himself. This was just one of the perks accruing to a winning side.
The girl who had acted as our Blue Princess was the daughter of Nath Resdurm, a splendid numim who was a strom at the hands of Kov Konec. His lion-man’s face bristled with pride as his daughter, Resti, danced the victory dance, taking a turn with every one of us pieces who had survived. The drink flowed. Dav took on a load. He danced and pranced with Resti, who laughed, her golden hair flowing, mingling with Dav’s as they swirled across the floor and the orchestra Konec had paid for scraped and strummed and banged away.
Strom Nath Resdurm had acted as the other Kapt, with Fropo. We had lost all our Hikdars, our Paktuns and Hyr-Paktuns, all good fighting men laid to rest. Truly, the lion-girl Resti would not dance breathless with the survivors.
When Dav laughingly yielded her to a Deldar, who pranced her off across the floor, Dav bellowed his way across to the ale table and seized up a foaming stoup. He spied me.
“Aye, Jak,” he said, and drank thirstily. “Aye — it takes strength to grasp a spear in that fashion — or skill.”
“It did for the Kataki.”
“But that bastard Coner has done for us. We are too few, now. And who else will fight for us?”
“Konec has only to hire pieces from the nearest academy-”
“Onker!”
I allowed that to pass. He was by way of becoming a friend, and in the passionate despair at plans gone wrong he knew more than he said and so cried out against fate. Or, so I thought.
“Yes, Jak,” he said, after moment, with the uproar going on all about us. “Yes, you are right. We will hire pieces to fight for us. But Mefto — Mefto-” He drank and was swept up by a mob who shouted him into a song, which he sang right boldly, “King Naghan his Fall and Rise.” The songs lifted, after a space, “The Lay of Faerly the Ponsho Farmer’s Daughter,” “Eregoin’s Promise.” We did not sing that rollicking ditty that ends in “No idea at all, at all, no idea at all.” The mood was not right. And that perturbed me. So I started in my bullfrog voice to roar out “In the Fair Arms of Thyllis.”
After the first couple of lines when they’d digested the tune and the name of Thyllis, Konec stepped forward, his face black.
“We sing no damned Hamalian songs here, Jak!”
“Aye!” went up an ominous chorus.
“Wait, wait, friends! Listen to the words carefully.”
And I went on singing about Thyllis. That song is well known in Hamal, and is beloved of the Empress Thyllis, as it refers in glowing terms to the marvelous deeds of the goddess from whom she took her name and her scatty ideas. One day back home in Esser Rarioch, my fortress palace of Valkanium, Erithor who is a bard and song-maker held in the very highest esteem throughout Vallia, being half-stewed, concocted fresh words about Thyllis the Munificent. The words were scurrilous, extraordinarily melodic, quite unrepeatable and extremely funny.
By the time I was halfway through the second stanza the people of Mandua were rolling about and holding their sides. I do not think Erithor ever had a better audience for one of his great songs. At least, of that kind…
When I had done they made me sing it again, stanza by stanza, and so picked it up and warbled it all through, again, four times.
Feeling that my contribution to the evening had been some slight success I went off to find a fresh wet for my dry throat. Kov Konec joined me, with Dav and Fropo and Strom Nath Resdurm. We all wore the loose comfortable evening attire of Paz; lounging robes in a variety of colors. Konec, for once wearing a blaze of jewelry, looked a kov.
“You do not care overmuch for the Hamalese?”
“Not much.”
How to explain my tangled feelings about the Empire of Hamal? I had friends there, good friends, and yet our countries were at war. As for Thyllis, I felt sorry for her and detested all she stood for, and yet often and often I had pondered the enigma that she saw me in the same light as I saw her. Truly, the gods make mock of us when they set political and class barriers between the hearts of humans. Of course, anyone of the many countries attacked and invaded by the iron legions of Hamal dedicated to obeying the commands of their empress, anyone suffering from oppression and conquest, would not see a single redeeming feature in Thyllis. That seemed only natural. Now Konec began speaking in a way new in our relationship. After all, I was merely a paktun, in employ, and he was a kov, conscious of his power and yet charmingly accessible.
“Mefto the Kazzur, who calls himself a prince. He is hated in Shanodrin by the people he claims as his. Only his bully boys sustain him against the people. Masichieri — scum.”
“He never rode with less than twenty,” I said. “But there were more in the caravan, that he uses in Kazz-Jikaida. When I fought him he had been visiting a shishi. I know, for Sishi told me. But when we fought I know there were others of his men in the shadows, laughing at my discomfiture.” I went on, briskly. “That saved us from the drikingers.”
“So assassination is difficult. Very. Stikitches have been sent — Oh, aye, Jak,” at my raised eyebrows.
“Honor is long gone from desperate men. And we of the countries of the Central Dawn Lands are desperate.”
“Against a single prince hated by his people, dependent on hired swords?”
“No. You do well to question thus. Against Hamal.”
“But-”
“Mefto is the key. Through him Hamal can extend her power where now she must fight.”
I shook my head. “I believe you, Konec, for I have found you an honorable man. But I have been told that Mefto is a real and regal prince, splendid in gold, beloved in Shanodrin-”
“Stupid stories of s
hifs, brainless giggling serving wenches.”
There ensued a pause in this fierce half-whispered conversation then as we all drank, thinking our separate thoughts.
“A great one is coming from Hamal. A kov, or even a prince. He and Mefto meet in Jikaida City under the cloak of Jikaida. It will arouse no suspicion. Our spies have the story sure.”
In the world of intrigue secure meeting places are valuable. Jikaida would explain even a meeting between a Grodnim and a Zairian. But as I listened to Konec talking, I began to see more than I had bargained for.
A pot-bellied ceramic jar of Neagromian ware sprouting wildly with the drooping tendrils of heasmons stood in its alcove and Kov Konec bent to partake of the fragrant aroma of the violet-yellow flowers. He swiveled his eyes to regard me, and I saw that he, like his men, was not a conspirator born.
“By Havandua the Green Wonder!” said Konec, standing up from the sweet-smelling plants, his face revealing all the passions struggling for utterance. “Mefto must be stopped! If his schemes and this rast’s from Hamal succeed — well-” He paused, and his fists clenched. He had sworn by Havandua the Green Wonder. Well, you know my opinion of the color green; I enjoy its serenity, and it is the finest color for Rifle Regiments, and racing cars and Robin Hood and railway engines and passenger rolling stock; but it seemed my fate on Kregen had thrown me into opposition with green, through no will of my own. Men said that the sky colors were always in conflict. The red of Zim, or Far, and the green of Genodras, or Havil. Truly, I confess, the feeling of fighting for the Blue against the Yellow had come on me strangely and strongly; I would take yellow in Jikaida if I could.
“You are with us in this, Jak?” demanded Konec.
“You have not confided any plan as yet,” I reminded him, gently.
If they still harbored any lingering doubts that I was a spy this was a good way to get a sword through my guts.
“Plan!” broke in Fropo, twirling his whiskers. “We are plain fighting men. We have our swords-”
“Aye,” said Dav, with all the fervor in him.
The numim, Strom Nath, bristled up his golden whiskers in complete agreement. Then he said, “But there is a plan. That is why we are here.”
“Ah,” I said, and waited.
Useless to sigh and think back to the brave old days when I was newly arrived on Kregen and would as lief bash a few skulls in as listen. Being an emperor — even a king or a prince or a strom — shackled the old responsibilities on a fellow. But I missed the skirling days of yore. That explained, I fancied, my acceptance of this enforced absence from Vallia. I needed to get the cobwebs of intrigue out of my head and the blood thumping around a body bashing into fights. Mind you, the last time that had been an unmitigated disaster, and I was not likely to forget Mefto the Kazzur in a hurry. Maybe I was getting slothful, complacent, too ready to take the easy way out.
I said, “If you have a scheme to do a mischief to Mefto and the Hamalese, I think I might be your man. If you trust me.”
From what they said, and not only to me, I gained the impression, the reassuring impression, that they did trust me. They saw things in their own lights, of course; they had no real reason apart from our first meeting to suspect me. And Dav and the others, for all their geniality, would keep an eye on me, and cut me down, too, if I played them false.
The rest of the story made me feel again that sense of destiny taking me by the throat and choking all the sense out of my stupid head.
“By Makki Grodno’s diseased left armpit!” I said, in a pause. “I am with you, a thousand times over!”
For what they said boiled down to this — Konec pulled his lip as he said, “The Hamalese are in trouble in Vallia, some island or other far north of here over the equator. I feel comradely sorrow for them. The Hamalese have withdrawn from their insanely ambitious attempts toward the west. Only a horrible death awaits any honest man there. Ifilion between the mouths of the River Os stands aloof.” He eyed me.
“And they have not struck at Hyrklana-”
They believed me to hail from Hyrklana. I said, “The island is relatively large and is wealthy. We have many troops. She would find it a toughnut, this bitch Thyllis.”
“So — it is we here in the Dawn Lands and Vallia. Thyllis seeks to conclude a treaty with certain countries here who tremble at her name, with Mefto acting for her. By this means she will gain the alliance of powerful states. She will have at her disposal thousands of fresh men, professionals, paktuns, mercenaries, regulars. She will be able to advance against us, who await her coming, and free many strong armies to launch afresh against Vallia.”
So I said what I said.
“Yes, Jak. The states will follow the strongest lead. Prince Mefto is the coming man, powerful, glittering, his charisma bright. If he can be taken out of the game, thrown back into the velvet-lined balass box, Mandua can take the lead. We stand firm against Hamal. The balance can be tipped.”
“Jikaida-?”
“Precisely,” said Dav Olmes, and he smiled, and quaffed.
They told me their plan.
Assassination had proved unreliable and a costly failure. Mefto went everywhere he was known with his bodyguard of swarth riders. They did indicate that they wished the gods had directed my sword between his ribs when we’d fought by the caravan; but, as they pointed out with the fatalism I recognized in them, no man could best Prince Mefto the Kazzur in single combat. So they would play in these Kazz-Jikaida games. And when it was the turn of Konec and his people of Mandua to meet Mefto and his people of Shanodrin, why, then, they would simply move their pieces up the board, and consigning the strict rules of Jikaida to a Herrelldrin Hell, charge him in a body and before his pieces could react butcher him and have done.
That was their plan.
I said, after I closed my mouth and swallowed and so opened my crusty old lips again: “The Bowmen of Loh will not tolerate so flagrant a breach of the rules. They will shaft you all.”
“Of course,” said Strom Nath. “But Mefto will be gone and our country will face the future with hope.”
“And you would all give your lives-?”
“If there was more we could give, that, too, we would willingly pay,” said Konec, and there was no mocking his dignity as he spoke — although I wanted to mock this so-called plan. By Zair! What a lot!
And what I had got myself into!
They were standing, all looking at me with a hard bright regard. Konec said, “You look- You are not willing to give your life to save your country?”
“Only if there is no other way. But I have as tender a regard for my own neck as I have for my country.”
At that they would have grown angry; but I said: “Let me think. There has to be another way.”
“You disappoint me, Jak,” said Dav. And, in truth, he looked cast down. “I had thought you a man among men.”
The time was not suitable for me to make the classic rejoinder to that one: “I’d sooner be a man among women.” But, by Vox, there had to be another way!
Then I saw Bevon the Brukaj, drinking quietly to himself in a corner. He had acquitted himself well today and proved himself a fine swordsman, for that, he had said, was his weapon.
“Bevon,” I said. “He was by way of becoming a Jikaidast. Let me speak to him. He has a head on his shoulders.”
The arguments went on a long time; but they were tired and wrung out, and the drink was working on them, and, truth to tell, although I did not doubt for a single instant their burning determination to give their lives, they would welcome another and better way in which they did not face certain death. So we parted, amicably, with my promise that if we could not discover a method of dealing with Mefto, I would join their party and take part in their suicidal plan.
The clincher came when I said, “Your force has been reduced. You are too few to get at Mefto in a body and fight off his men; and they will fight, mark it well.”
“D’you think we don’t know that!” said D
av, and the agony in him twisted in me, too, for him… “And there is no one here we may ask or trust — save you, Jak the Nameless.”
“And yet you would still have gone on?”
“Aye!”
After we left the Noumjiksirn with the bokkertu of the ransom of the Yellow Princess duly finalized, I met Pompino. He came into the room we shared looking the worse for wear. He threw himself on the bed, and yawned, and said, “By Horato the Potent! If I had a golden deldy for each copper ob I spent tonight I would be a rich man.”
“Lucky you.”
He regarded me, sharply enough, and sat up. “I have to see Ineldar the Kaktu first thing. He has kept open two places, but he will not hold them past the Bur of Fretch.” That was two burs after the suns rose. “We must be up betimes.”
“I shall not be taking a place in Ineldar’s caravan guard.”
“What?” He scowled at me as though I’d sprouted a Kataki tail. “You don’t mean that? What of the Everoinye-”
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