by Hugh Cook
Both stopped and stared at Drake. ' You!' said Drake, curtly, pointing his stave at the man. 'Your name?'
'Prothon. Who are you?'
'That you'll learn tomorrow,' said Drake grimly, 'when you answer for your actions before the Holy One himself. Don't make things worse for yourself. Get back to your own quarters!'
Drake thwacked Prothon over the buttocks to emphasize his point. The sinner fled.
'You,' said Drake, to the woman. 'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?'
'I'm not religious,' she said, in very poor Galish, pouting as she did so. Her face was gaudy with paint, her body lush with perfume. 'I'm just a maid. Why make trouble over a simple of simples? Ease your hard back, why don't you. Do we have to have trouble?'
And, without warning, she kissed him.
Heavy boots sounded on the stairs.
'It's the Patrol!' she hissed. 'Are you in, or out?'
'What?' said Drake.
'Will you denounce me or - '
'We'll talk about it inside,' said Drake. They fled into her cubicle, closing the door on the Patrol. Inside, there was nowhere to sit down but on the bed.
Some considerable time later, Drake kissed his maid-minx goodbye, made an assignation for the following night, and set off for the room supposed to be Zanya's. On arrival, he entered without knocking. Saw her. Saw her bedroom.
Her chamber was large, and warm. Around the walls were pictures of lewdness. She had an enormous bed, canopied with silks. The air was heavy with perfume. The place would have reminded Drake of a high-class brothel, but for the fact that he was innocent of the charms of any establishment so elevated.
As he entered, Zanya was sitting on a padded stool, peering at her reflection in a bronze mirror. She was unfastening an earbob. She had let down her hair, which flowed about her, reaching in a tide of fire almost as far as her waist. She turned, slowly, and looked at him.
'Surprise!' said Drake.
'Not so,' she said. 'It's just like you to try something crazy like this.'
'What am I trying?'
'I don't know yet. But I'm sure it's madness.' After that unpromising start, they simply stared at each other for a few moments. A contest of wills. Then Drake
dropped his gaze, telling himself he did so to admire the loft of Zanya's breasts beneath her free-flowing silks, the strength of her thigh and the turn of her ankle.
'So what do you think you're doing here?' said Zanya.
'Looking for my wife, as it happens,' said Drake, cool as cucumber bathed in liquid helium.
'Your wife. Have you married, then?'
'Darling! I married you!'
'We were never married.'
'Weren't we?' said Drake, thinking. Then: 'No, I suppose we never were. But does it matter?'
'It matters that you can't remember one way or the other!'
'I've been as good as married,' said Drake. 'I've never had another woman since I met you.' 'Oh yes!'
'Why so sharp, my sweet? Come, my dearest cony, my—'
'I'm not your cony!'
'Why so cruel?' said Drake. 'So cruel to your dearest treasure-snake? You were always my cony, nearest and dearest.'
'Oh, grow up!' said Zanya. 'I'm not your cony. I'm not your anything.'
'Then what are you?' said Drake, with a touch of anger in his voice. 'Something of Muck's, perhaps?'
'Perhaps,' she said.
Hard. Defiant.
'Is this where he takes you, then? Preaching for prudery then rutting his balls dry?'
'It is Permitted,' said Zanya, angry herself. 'It makes me proud. Yes, proud! I am the guardian of his purity.'
'You screw!' said Drake, in fury. 'With him! How could you?'
'It is holy!' she said.
Hot. Fierce. Unashamed.
'He's a dirty old man,' said Drake, savagely.
'Who stole .your whore. Right? That's what I was to you, wasn't it? A hole. A cheap hole. A whore who didn't need to be paid by the night.' 'Dearest sweet—'
'Oh yes, it was "dearest sweet" to start with. But once you were sure, then you forgot about me.'
'Forgot?' said Drake. 'I lavished attentions on you! Most tender skill imaginable!'
He was truly indignant, thinking he had discharged his duties to Zanya well enough by providing food, clothing and protection, and (most of all) by his diligent concern for the female orgasm (a gentlemanly concern he knew to be entirely lacking in most of the world's men.)
'You lavished?' said Zanya. 'Oh yes, come night, you lavished, all right. When your snake wanted a hole it could snout into. How would you like to be used like that? As a lump of meat! Yes, used like a slab of wet liver!'
'Let's say I did,' said Drake. 'It's not true, but if it were - did that make it right for you to side with Muck in Runcorn? Remember Runcorn? You screamed that I was the Demon-son. What did I do to deserve that?'
'You lied to me.'
'When?'
'When you said you weren't the Demon-son.'
'Oh come on!' said Drake. 'Do you really think I was sired by the demon Hagon?'
'No. But you were Muck's apprentice, weren't you? You were the one who stole his mastersword, isn't that so?'
'That's true,' admitted Drake.
'The truth, yes. But who told me the truth? Why, Sully Yot and Gouda Muck. Because you never admitted the truth to me. You didn't trust me. You pleaded that you weren't that Dreldragon Drakedon Douay. Oh no, you were someone altogether different!'
'What does it matter who I was? Or who I am?' said Drake.
'Don't you understand anything?' said Zanya, in a voice close to a wail. 'You didn't trust me! You treated me like an enemy or like - like a child. You lied to me. Not for a day or a couple of days but for month after month on end.'
'Then I'm sorry,' said Drake, with very little grace.
'That's not good enough,' said Zanya. 'You've lied once too often.'
'But there's one thing I haven't lied about,' said Drake. 'I've not had a woman since you left me. In fact, I've never had another woman since I met you.'
'So you told me just a few heartbeats back,' said Zanya. 'I didn't believe it then. I don't believe it now.'
'Dearest cony,' said Drake, easing honey into his voice, 'my dearest sweet, I can't lust after another woman because - because, deat heart, it's you I love. And love, my dearest, has made casual lust impossible.'
'Then why,' said Zanya, her voice rising to a shriek, 'are you standing there with a whore's cheap lipstick plastered all over your face? I suppose there's the same on your pizzle!'
'Zanya! Darling! I can explain! I can—'
'You can drag your balls back to the sewer you came from,' said Zanya savagely, 'or die where you stand!'
'Listen,' said Drake, grabbing her. 'I've heard enough of this nonsense. You're my woman, and you're coming with me.'
She tried to claw for his eyes, to spike fingers into his throat, to smash him with an elbow, to pound his testicles. But Drake - this time - was not drunk. And Drake, by this time, knew her fighting style well.
'Give in,' he said, panting, 'or I'll break your arm.'
'Rape!' she screamed. 'Demon-son! Rape! Help! Fire, fire! Murder!'
And clawed him as he tried to muscle her to the door. Which burst open. In came a man, nostrils flaring. Drake dropped Zanya. Then felled the man with a jaw-breaking blow. Boots pounded down the corridor. Drake slammed the door then shoved Zanya against it.
'I love you,' he said.
He pinned her arms. Kissed her. Then fled. Out of the window he went, dropping clean and neat to the courtyard.
'Ho!' shouted a voice, as half a dozen stave-men came racing out of a side-door.
'He went that way!' yelled Drake, pointing. 'After him! It's the Demon-son, he went that way! Faster, faster! He'll get away!'
The stave-men pounded off in the direction Drake had indicated. Drake made for the gate. And came face to face with something which had two eyes and a much greater number of warts.
His shout was terminated by Drake's fist. Half a heartbeat later, Drake had Yot's stave in his hand. He used it to demolish the first hero who jumped to the courtyard from Zanya's window.
'There he is!' shouted a voice.
No bluff would serve him now!
Drake fled to the gate, fought his way past a daring duo which tried to stop him, then escaped into Libernek Square. At which point he realized there was a dog attached to his ankle. Where had that come from? He had no idea - but the spunky little tyke was clinging on tightly. Drake shook it off. And a voice shouted:
'Stand fast for the Watch!'
He saw five grim men, each dressed in a stovepipe hat and the black rig-out of the Law. He saw, also, swords quintuplicate. He surrendered. Then turned his attention to the task of kicking a cur unconscious.
Stave-men dressed in Flame spilt into the piazza, but halted when they saw the Watch. As an Outsider Religion, Muck's temple could not afford antagonizing the Law by rumbling with the Watch. Instead, the stave-men stood silent as Drake was led away.
And still the nightingale exercised its syrinx in song.
46
Watashi: one of the sons of the Kingmaker Farfalla, refuses to accept his role as professional nonentity; has generated political crisis by his aristocratic pretensions, which alarm both the bureaucracy of the Regency and the Federated Guilds (which between them have much of the real power in the Harvest Plains).
Drake was taken to a lantern-lit whitewashed building full of off-duty lawmen and their gambling partners, the clatter of beer mugs and the smell of frying onions. This cheerful place was the Santrim Watch-house. He was then taken Down Below to a torture chamber where the dominant smell was that of burnt hair.
'What was all the fighting, about?' asked an interrogator, testing the point of a bodkin on a much-scarred table. 'Come on, what was it all about?'
'Man,' said Drake. 'How do I know? Some fellow invited me back to the place for a quiet drink or three. Next thing - riot, man!'
'No religious of that temple drinks.'
'Don't they just? It's a regular rolling brothel-bar they've got inside there. Check it out some time.'
'How did you get those robes you're wearing?'
'They wanted me to wear alike what they were wearing. So when this fellow invited me back for a drink, he lent me these.'
'Search him,' said the interrogator.
So underlings searched Drake, and threw onto the table
three knives, a throwing star, two garrotting wires and a stray caltrop.
'What's all this for?' asked the interrogator.
'I'm a peddler,' said Drake promptly. T deal in weapons. This is part of my stock in trade.'
Since there was no law against carrying murder on the streets of Selzirk, the interrogator pressed him no further about that.
'Do a strip search,' he said.
'You've found all that's there for finding already,' protested Drake. 'What will you strip me for. You seek to unman me, perhaps?'
'That I do,' said the interrogator, blandly.
And Drake was stripped.
And the amulet he wore around his neck was revealed. Causing great excitement.
'Where did you get this from?' said the interrogator.
'It's a family heirloom,' said Drake. 'I inherited it from my grandfather.'
'Oh yes? I doubt Watashi would agree with you.'
'Who's Watashi?' demanded Drake.
The interrogator and his underlings all laughed. Richly. Honestly. He realized he must have asked a very stupid question.
'Playing innocent, are we?' said the interrogator. 'By rights, I should put the jaws to you, then choke you for the truth. But. . . we've got the evidence, so what more do we need?'
'Evidence of what? Man, that's my amulet! My property! Is there a law against amulets? And who's this Watashi?'
'There is, young cock, a law against stealing - whether the thing stolen be amulet or other. And Watashi, of course, is the man you stole from.'
'I never! I don't even know who he is.'
There was more laughter. Then the interrogator, who had other business to attend to, had Drake taken to a holding cell.
'Don't give me no trouble, now,' warned the gaoler who locked him up.
'I won't,' said Drake, through the cell bars, 'if I can get a straight answer to a simple question. Who's Watashi?'
'The son of Farfalla, of course.'
'Farfalla?' said Drake, blankly.
'The dynast of Selzirk! The ruler of the Harvest Plains!' 'Oh.'
'You've never heard of her?'
'Man,' said Drake, 'I vouch she's never heard of me, either, so why so surprised?'
The gaoler grunted, and, ignoring Drake's demands for further debate, went about his business.
At noon the next day, Drake was back in the torture chamber, facing not one interrogator but half a dozen.
'See this?' said one, letting the amulet swing backwards and forwards in front of Drake's nose, 'we want to know the truth about this.'
'Truth, yes.'
'Truth your tongue, lest you end up face down in the sea.'
'Yes, if lucky enough to have facejeft to you.'
'What truth are you after?' said Drake.
'The truth of your thieving. Accomplices. Conspiracy. A plot for treason.'
So they were not trying to convict him for theft. They wanted to do him for treason!
'Narazabarajok, gamos,' said Drake.
Which earned him a punch in the stomach.
'I want a lawyer!' cried Drake. 'I'll have the Regency on you!'
This drew laughter.
'Man,' said one of the interrogators, 'we give no allegiance here to the Regency. No. We're for the prince. We'll see empire true before we' re finished.'
But this declaration meant nothing to Drake, who was still ignorant of the politics of Selzirk.
'Until I get a lawyer,' said Drake, 'I'm saying nothing further.'
And he shut his mouth and refused to speak, despite kicks, blows and a thorough cudgeling.
'What shall we do?' said one of the interrogators, 'Shall we pull his fingernails out?'
'Best speak to the prince, first,' said one of the others. 'He might want to work on this animal personally.'
So Drake was taken back to his cell.
After three days in captivity, Drake was told he was to be brought into the presence of Watashi. By now he knew a little more about the fellow, including the fact that Watashi liked to be addressed as 'Noble Prince'.
'You're lucky,' said one of the lawmen who came to collect Drake from his cell.
'How so?'
'We're keeping the Mucks away from you.' 'The Mucks?'
'The Goudanites, or whatever they are. Those people who worship fire.' 'Oh, Gouda Muck!'
'That's the mob. They think you're a dybbuk or something. They want to burn you alive.'
'And they know you've got me prisoner?'
'Oh no! But they know you're somewhere in the city. They're offering rewards for your head.'
'Is that legal?'
'You're a regular little law clerk, aren't you? When you come back - if you come back - I'll get you to write some letters for me.'-
'Man,' said Drake. 'I can't even read, let alone write!'
'Of course you can. You're just lazy. But I've ways to unlazy people, oh yes, that's part of my pleasure in life.'
And Drake, with that happy news to refresh him, was ushered into a curtained cab, which took him from the Santrim Watch-house to somewhere elsewhere. Then, with his head hooded, he was led by way of halls and stairs to a big bare room of grey stone, where he was unmasked.
'What now?' said Drake to his guards.
'Now we wait on the prince's pleasure,' came the reply.
And wait they did. For a long time. Nobody bothered to offer them refreshments. Drake picked his nose clean, excavated earwax, dug dirt from under his fingernail
s, practised curling his tongue and, concentrating very hard, managed to make his ears wiggle. Then, with fingertips lightly touching each eyebrow to monitor their position, he practised raising one while keeping the other steady.
Someone, somewhere, was playing a fipple-flute. Two orthree notes. Then silence. Then a few more notes, broken off by error. Drake wondered how long he had been waiting. He wished there was some sun in the room, so he could watch shadows move.
'I have to piss,' he said, abruptly.
'Out that door then hard right,' said a lawman.
Drake went, and found himself on a high balcony overlooking much of the city. This balcony was an excrescence of a modern tower built hard up against the gatehouse keep of the ancient wizard stronghold which served the Kingmaker Farfalla as a citadel-palace. While much of the old battlements remained, together with the original wizard towers, enormous additions had been made.
Drake relieved himself at a urinal set in the balcony's low wall. A rill of his urine went trickling down a funnel into a gargoyle which spat his wastes into the air. Where would those wastes fall?
Drake looked over the wall, and found himself staring down, down, down into a yawning gulf at the bottom of which, far, far below, lazy dragon-backed flames writhed slowly. He realized he was looking into a flame trench. He was not impressed. Compared to what he had seen at Drangsturm, this was nothing.
He raised his eyes, and looked out over the realms of the free. A lean wind keened across the city, begging for bones. Dull clouds dampened out the sun. Drake could see half a dozen galleys and a string of gabbarts on the river's pewter, which wound away to the west, to a menace of clouds which obscured any possible view of the distant sea.
Drake experienced a peculiar sensation of desolation. He longed to be home, yes, truly home, at his parents' hearth. How long was it since he had seen a decent coal fire?
'You'd best be back,' said a lawman, who had come to see what had happened to the prisoner. 'The prince is approaching the audience chamber.'