The Lord Jazipur stared at Brannomar and the sword and his desire to leap forward and grasp the sword was written clearly on his face.
Brannomar turned away towards a table with the sword in his left hand. He drew a knife with his right. Now, I fancied, I’d find out what poor old Strom Korden’s last dying words meant.
The atmosphere in the room breathed of tension. You could taste it. My entrance had interrupted a discussion that quite obviously was a full-blown argument. Passions boiled in these people’s brains. You could almost see them bubbling and steaming ready to break out uncontrollably. Even Nandisha showed her puzzlement at my appearance and Brannomar’s reaction tinged with a ladylike acerbity. ‘What,’ she was saying to herself in extreme annoyance, ‘does this man Drajak want here?’
That, I thought to myself rather ungraciously, I want to find out too, my lady!
Apart from the numim Ranaj they were all apims in the room. The youthful looking man standing and fidgeting away wearing the hard black shamlak with double-looped gold cords wore his weasel face, it seemed to me, in an unpleasant frown that was a permanent disfigurement. Now, unable to control himself any longer, he started forward towards Brannomar. My own thought was that if this pipsqueak wanted to tangle with the Hyr Kov Brannomar he was as big a fool as he looked to be an unpleasant character. Still, you cannot always tell a zorca by the length of his horn and I could be dwaburs wide of the mark.
The very fact that these high-ranking nobles had gathered here during the night must indicate their business was of the utmost importance. As Brannomar went at the sword with his knife and everyone stared like a piranha in a blood-hungry shoal I stepped quietly away to stand with my back against a tapestried wall. Such was the intentness with which they all followed the Hyr Kov’s every action they simply forgot all about me, a mere hireling paktun whose duty was now accomplished.
Anyway, who were the ones in here I didn’t know?
The young man at whose shoulder I’d fought in the Shrine of Cymbaro had given me a single surprised look when I’d walked in, and then had concentrated on Brannomar and the sword. The faded woman must be his mother for the family resemblance was striking. And the other unhealthy-looking whippersnapper? My best guess was that they were the other princes I had heard of in line for the succession.
So that meant one was Ortyg and one was Tom. Which was which?
Weasel-face halted when he reached the table. Evidently the idea had belatedly occurred to him that Brannomar was no man to be hustled. Now the others crowded closer, the principals closer and their retainers or helpers craning over shoulders. My young friend from the temple assisted his mother to rise and allowed her plenty of space before him. Weasel-face positively exuded the sweat of anticipation. As I say, you cannot judge a sword by its decoration; all the same, the contrast here was painfully obvious.
Brannomar ran his knife point around the sword handle just below the pommel. As Naghan and I had surmised, a hollow handle would be the place to conceal whatever it was that so violently exercised these grandees. His knife slit around the bindings. He cut with precision and care and his hands had not the slightest quiver or shake. My impression of the kov as a tough customer, despite his white hair, were confirmed the more I saw of him.
The pommel came off and fell to roll away somewhere under the crowding feet. Brannomar upended the sword and shook. A chunk of lead plopped out.
“Ah!” exclaimed the Lord Jazipur. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
The young fellow I had taken the instant and, to be honest, almost irrational dislike to shoved in further. He jostled Khonstanton.
Mak Khon twisted and looked down and his face showed a heavy flush of anger. “Have a care, Ortyg!”
“There is no chance for you, kov!” flared this fellow Prince Ortyg. “It is you who should have a care!”
“We shall see what the Red One brings, prince. You would do well to bear that in mind.”
“As should you bear in mind the fate of all traitors!”
What might have occurred then Opaz alone knows. Brannomar shook the sword. Everyone expected something to pop out of the hilt, and my guess was Khonstanton and this Prince Ortyg had known what it was some time ago. Nandisha and the other young prince, who must be Tom, I equally judged had only recently found out — probably at this very night time meeting.
Brannomar shook the sword. He shook it violently. Nothing slid out of the hollow handle. The scar slashed down the kov’s left cheek blazed a white line down his bronzed skin.
“Well, kov?” ground out Khon the Mak. His heavy blue-black hair formed a striking contrast to the pallor of his face, intent, dominating, demanding.
Ordinary folk had always to remember that the principals in this room were high-born and high-flown nobles, choleric of temper, impatient if their every wish was not instantly fulfilled. They were used to having their own way. That, I knew from previous harsh experience on Kregen, applied to them all, every last one.
“Here, let me,” rapped out Ortyg. He reached for the sword.
I did not let a little regretful sigh escape my lips, although I might well have done. This was like a vicious leem tangling with a zhantil.
“I am perfectly capable, thank you, Prince Ortyg.” Brannomar’s words came softly from those hard thin lips. Then: “Do not presume too far, boy.”
Ortyg’s face and shocked reaction spoke eloquently of the boiling passions, the vaunting ambitions devouring him. But he had the sense to remain silent.
“These Dokerty-contumed priests of Cymbaro,” broke out Khonstanton. “They have played us false!”
“On the contrary,” spoke up Prince Tom, firmly, his own passions well in hand. “They are to be trusted absolutely.”
“The old king thought so,” said Nandisha, “from what you have told us.”
“The old king was in his two-hundred and fiftieth season dotage!” snarled Ortyg.
Brannomar did not deign to reply; but Khon the Mak took the opportunity to take another crack at Ortyg’s presumptions. “The old king was half-dead when he arranged this stupid and pointless charade. But he could still take you and spit you out before breakfast!”
Young Ortyg’s face resembled those little squirmy beasties that creep and crawl about through the eyesockets of the skulls piled in the Mausolea of Trannimora. Despite his appearance and manner to the contrary there must be in him some shreds of nobility through his inheritance, surely? Or was that just wishful thinking on my part? Here he was, a young and ambitious prince openly desirous of being selected as the legitimate successor to the old king and he was being put down left and right by his elders. Any youngster of spirit detests the know-it-all attitude of the senile oldsters who tell her or him just what to do and think. Oh, yes, despite the dislike for him I had to acknowledge as unworthy on my part, I could feel for him.
Just look at them, gathered at this secret nighttime conclave!
Four strands weaving a net of deception and treachery, they seemed to be to me. Nandisha, devoted to her children. Prince Tom, a little apart from the others in their naked greed for the crown. Prince Ortyg, craving for power and all that goes with it. And Hyr Kov Khonstanton so much more purposeful and deadly even than the others, the outsider, the dark rider, the one whose machinations would brook no interruptions whatsoever from anyone. As well for Dray Prescot if he remembered that that included him.
Brannomar shook Strom Korden’s sword again. He upended it and tried to look into the handle. He prised in with his knife but the blade was too wide. On the instant a long thin poniard appeared in Ortyg’s fingers. That slender lethal blade was not to be seen and then was there in a twinkling. “Here,” he said, curtly. “Try this.”
Brannomar took it, grunted something, and slid it into the sword hilt. He twisted about without success. Everyone stared in rapt fascination.
Ranaj looked on, stroking his golden whiskers, a part of all this because of his allegiance to Nandisha and yet further removed
than the Lord Jazipur and Tom’s mother. Nothing, it seemed, was to be discovered in the hollow handle of the sword.
If looks could kill the room would have been filled with dead bodies, by Krun!
The avarice and mutual hate driving these people filled the place with an almost palpable aura. The suffocating sense of violent passions barely suppressed choked the atmosphere. It made the spine tingle I can tell you! They might seem like small children squabbling over the exact division of a fruit cake; the powers each wielded made them antagonists to be feared. No mercy, none whatsoever in whatever pantheon any of them believed in, would be shown by them or to them. And may Opaz have mercy on the hindmost!
Brannomar looked up, the frustration on his bronzed face twisting the scar into an ivory serpent. “It has to be here, in Strom Korden’s sword! It has to be!”
“Then let me,” rapped out Khon the Mak. He reached out and to my surprise Brannomar handed the sword across.
“I suspect treachery here.” Hyr Kov Brannomar took a breath. “If it is not to be found before the Feast of Beng T’Tolin then I shall sign the treaty with Vallia.”
Khonstanton, who had been prodding and prying around in the hilt, jerked upright. “You! Only the king may sign a treaty of such significance to the well being of Tolindrin!”
“I am well aware of that, kov. But if there is no king then I—”
“Not so fast!” Ortyg stepped forward, pent-up with baffled rage. “I have the best claim and therefore I should sign!”
“Nonsense, boy.” Khonstanton simply snarled it out without any deference to rank. “It needs a man with experience, a man like me.”
Nandisha put a finger to her mouth, eyes wide. Prince Tom said nothing at all but merely watched, a half smile on his lips.
If the bunch of them had drawn swords and gone at one another tooth and nail that would not have surprised me in the mood they were. I was fascinated by the reference to a treaty with Vallia. My lad Drak must have decided in Tolindrin’s favor after all. As the Emperor of Vallia he could call on the advice of the various pallans and the Presidio of Vallia. In addition he had the inestimable advantage of having Silda, the daughter of my blade comrade Seg Segutorio, at his side as the Empress of Vallia. Vallia’s need was for airboats, vollers that did not break down. The lifters of Tolindrin must have weighed in the balance, even against the airboats of the three other nations here who built lifters.
I had been learning a good deal of the entangled politics of this land. What had been said here had opened my eyes to a great deal of what had been going on since my arrival in Amintin. There were still pieces of the puzzle missing. Those, I felt sure in the martial benevolence of Djan, would come my way soon.
Again the sword that lay at the core of all this was shaken. Nothing fell from that hidden secret recess in the handle.
“Two days!” Khon the Mak snarled it out. “May the ibma of Slissur take it! Two days to the Feast of T’Tolin.”
He would have said more; but Brannomar interrupted incisively.
“Two days in which to settle the inheritance.” He glanced away from Khonstanton. “We shall settle it, never fear. Until then I remain in the position I hold and—”
“Oh, no!” Ortyg’s narrow face was now distorted with the ambitions driving him. He was past the reckoning that had so far held him in check. Before he could go on Khonstanton’s voice blattered him down.
“For once I agree with the whippersnapper. Nothing will be settled by this, Brannomar. You must recognize that now. I have reached the end of my patience. This means one thing. War!”
Brannomar snapped around to face Mak Khon. “If you are so foolish—”
Ortyg got out through his distorted mouth. “War!”
Brannomar lifted a hand. “And the very worst kind of war there is. Civil war.”
“Aye!” Khon the Mak drew himself up. “A just war to gain the inheritance that is rightfully mine!”
“You prattle idly, kov.” The fingers of Ortyg’s left hand reached down for the hilt of his missing poniard in a gesture betrayingly automatic. “The people detest you, Khon the Mak. They look to me, to youth, to the future—”
“My twins,” said Nandisha breathily, “have the direct line—”
“Not so!” and: “Rubbish!” from Ortyg and Khonstanton.
Prince Tom half-turned away, raising his shoulders in a helpless little gesture, at once amused and disgusted. “I want nothing of it.”
“Then leave the business for those with the stomach for it!” Mak Khon shook the sword savagely. “All your schemes have come to grief, Brannomar. My troops are ready. We march on Oxonium—”
“As are mine!” flared Ortyg. “We shall see who can march faster—”
“You fools!” roared Brannomar. “You will destroy the nation.”
In a display at once arrogant and repulsive, Khon the Mak turned to Nandisha. He looked down on her, and he tried to make that harsh face smile. “Your twins have always been near my heart, Nan. Join me and—”
Ortyg brayed a laugh as contemptuous as any calsany’s.
What might have happened then Opaz alone knows. By sheer force of personality Brannomar brought them to silence, hand upraised. He ground his words out as the Mills of the Dahemin grind out the fates of mortal humanity. “If you must fight then Tolaar must have decreed it. But there is one thing you must see. Vallia! The treaty must not be jeopardized. Delay your criminal war until after the Feast of T’Tolin.”
Through all the red-roaring passions of greed and anger and pride rattling away in these stiff-necked nobles’ heads, the sheer commonsense of Brannomar’s words struck through. Like fighting cocks stalking one another, although they stood in artificial poses of hauteur, they appeared to circle around, weapons ready, seeking the opening that would lead to the kill.
“Yes.” Khonstanton spoke at last, nodding his head. “Yes. Ortyg—”
The ferret-face turned and a half-shadow fell across the thin features. “Yes. We may curse the name of Vallia; but the haughty shints are necessary. Yes, Khonstanton, to the Feast of T’Tolin.”
Whether or not Mak Khon believed him I didn’t know. I did know I wouldn’t trust any of ’em as far as a baby in a cot could throw a longsword.
“No word must get out.” Brannomar spoke with quiet emphasis that contrasted forcefully with the previous passionate upheavals. “If Vallia—”
“They will not find out from me!” snarled Mak Khon.
“Nor from me. But—” Here Ortyg swiveled so that the shadow turned his face into a mottled mask. He stared at me. “No one must know.”
“That is no problem.” Khonstanton drew his sword.
Nandisha’s little gasp broke from her painfully. “No!”
“The shint means nothing.” Ortyg’s sword was in his fist.
Prince Tom swung back, clearly uncertain. Whatever he or Nandisha might feel, whatever regret might stir Brannomar, nothing was going to stop the other two from trying to chop me down and seal the lips of the only witness to their schemes.
Ortyg and Khonstanton, swords lifted, rushed straight for me.
Chapter eighteen
I went through the flung-open double-doors faster than a hare avoiding a hound. The two guards outside were left gaping. Straight down the corridor I hurtled and the furious and baffled shouts of Khonstanton and Ortyg spurred me on. Oh, yes, surely, I could have stayed in that close room of secrets and fought them and no doubt I’d have done for ’em into the bargain. But that would have been utterly foolish and stupidity of that kind formed no part of my plans.
Around the first corner I sprinted, skidding on a rug, regaining my balance and tearing on headlong.
Once I was fairly away from this high echelon area and among the maze of corridors and passageways and halls I could lose myself. These grandiose palaces of Kregen in general are honeycombed with secret passages and I’d used them before in my lurid goings on in that world four hundred light years from the planet of m
y birth. Now I had to use what skill I’d gained over the seasons to find a hidden entrance. And, by Krun, I had to find the damn thing quickly, very quickly indeed!
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.
Intrigue of Antares Page 15