Prince of Scorpio (20 page)

I frowned.

Delia detested slavery as much as I did.

I had thought I had been brought to Kregen to help stamp out slavery. My own plans called for the fulfillment of my own selfish ends. To hell with the Star Lords and the Savanti! Delia was all I cared about.

Many times, as you have heard, I had been deflected from my intentions. Now, again, I was prevented from putting our plans into operation that day, as I had wished, by the distraught arrival of Kta. Angia.
[2]
A plump, homey, beeswax kind of woman, she sobbed out her story. Her son was a proud and headstrong youth, but they were in debt, for he was a cabinet-maker and had had words with his employer and could not find fresh work. He would not ask friends of the Valkans here in Vondium for help. And now he had been dragged off to the bagnios. She was desperate. Could I help?

The story is quickly told. Quickly — in that I went with her to the bagnios and found her son, Anko the Chisel, and paid off his debt, and in the process being arrogant and insulting to the guards with their red and black sleeves. But not so quickly — in my discovery of the bagnios themselves. I have seen many slave barracks, and barracoons and bagnios, and those of Vallia were no worse than many. Here criminals, debtors, hostages, prisoners, those who had forfeited their liberty in any way, were kept for dispersal among the slave farms, or the haulers, or the mines, or in any of the many places that slaves were employed. We took Anko the Chisel out of that place and his mother, Kta. Angia, fell on her knees before me, whereat I felt all the nausea of myself rising, and I bid her get up and take her son home, and start again in the search for work.

The point I had had thrust upon me I did not want to face, would not face, refused even to countenance.

Delia. That thought alone was all that mattered.

A certain Bowman of Loh comments on the Archers of Valka

That evening everyone crowded in and
The Rose of Valka
rocked with the roistering songs of Kregen. And, chief among these, sung for all its seven hundred and seventy-eight stanzas, was
The Fetching of Drak na Valka.

Among the Valkan revelers, dressed like them in the flaunting red and white, sat Seg Segutorio. I had told him, swiftly, not to start singing
The Bowmen of Loh.

“I’ll fight any man who denies me!” he had started to roar out and I had hustled him away up the black-wood stair to my upper chamber.

“By Zim-Zair, you onker-headed bowman!” I exclaimed. He calmed down and then, with that strong streak of practicality that runs intertwined with the feyness of the men of the mountains and valleys of Erthyrdrin, he nodded, understanding. “Although, Dray, you know that there is no better bow than the longbow. All these made-up sinew and bone and horn bows, curved like a pregnant duck; they are as toys beside the longbow.”

“True, true. But — watch it!”

“All is ready. By the Veiled Froyvil, but Delia is a true princess! She has made the arrangements for the airboat. Thelda and I and little Dray are ready. We can—”

I felt shock.

“You — you wish to come, too, Seg?”

He looked at me as though I had slapped him around the face.

“Of course.” His bright blue eyes glittered on me in the soft radiance of the samphron oil lamp. “You want me to, don’t you, my old dom?”

I managed to say, “I couldn’t get along without you,” and turned away so that he should not see my face.

The noise from below was reaching fantastic proportions and we went down and took up the wine — it was the best of Jholaix, precious and rare and saved for super-special occasions — and joined in the singing. Vangar ti Valkanium sang. Anko the Chisel sang. Everyone sang. We sang of Valka. A lithe and lissome girl, very beautiful, with a heart-shaped face and a figure to stir men to immediate action, recited some of the more sublime passages from
The Fatal Love of Vela na Valka
and we all joined in the choruses. Then, for the third time, we roared out all the seven hundred and seventy-eight stanzas of the song commemorating my fetching of Valka out of the shadows and of the Valkans fetching me to be their Strom.

It takes a long time to sing seven hundred or so stanzas and when, at last, we threw the shutters back it was high noon outside in Vondium. Deldar Vangar had a mad scramble to get back to report for duty. He spoke of a visit the Emperor was paying to Vindelka, northwest of the city. No one took much notice, the fumes of wine coiling in our brains. Seg had left early, saying that as a private Koter he had duties to perform he dare not let lapse now, so close to the time for our departure. He had mentioned Vindelka, too.

We had, in the Kregan idiom, a zhantil to saddle, and we all had our secret parts to perform.

To clear my head, after I had shaved that harsh chin of mine, I took a stroll along the quays and watched all the busy loading and unloading of the great galleons of Vallia. Produce from all over the known world flowed into Vondium, and the products of Vallia flowed out. Gulls wheeled overhead, shrieking. The twin suns shone gloriously. The air held that bracing tang of the sea. But — the Star Lords had expressly forbidden me to sail the seas of Kregen for a space. How I longed, then, to take my Delia up onto the deck of a great galleon and sail with her over the rim of the world!

When I returned to
The Rose of Valka
a sedan chair such as are commonly seen all over the city stood at the door. The two men who bore it were slaves, although decently clad in dark brown shifts, with a lotus-flower emblazoned on breast and back. With them were four soldiers and a Hikdar, wide of shoulder and lean of waist, their raffish hats sporting feathers of yellow and green, with a double red stripe slashed athwart their brightness. I went in, and Young Bargom presented a lady whose face was covered with a deep violet veil. My first glance convinced me this could not be Delia in disguise, and the leap of my heart stilled.

Bargom withdrew and the lady lifted her veil. She was young, pretty, but with a pallid squarish face in which the brown eyes held none of the luster and sparkle to which I was accustomed.

“I am Pela, my lord Strom, handmaid to the Kovneva Katrin. I am bid to tell you that the Kovneva must see you immediately.”

“Yes? Do you know why, Pela?”

“No, my lord Strom. Only that it is urgent, very urgent.”

“I do not know the Kovneva Katrin. Tell me of her.”

“But, my lord Strom!” Her eyes opened wide and for all their dullness they expressed astonishment. “She is a great and powerful lady. Since the Kov died she has refused to marry. Now she is a devoted attendant upon the Princess Majestrix.”

So that was it, I said to myself. I yelled for Bargom and between us we made me look presentable, with a buff jerkinlike tunic with wide winged shoulders which left the white silk shirt sleeves visible. I buckled on the rapier and main-gauche and took up the hat with the red and white feathers. Down the black-wood stairs I went, following Pela, who got into the sedan chair very quickly. The bearers lifted their poles, the Hikdar gave me a sketchy salute, rapped out his orders, and we started for the palace.

The effects of a rollicking night coupled with the fresh air left me feeling alert and breezy, although with the edges of fatigue beginning to creep along my bones. We climbed up through the crowded streets and along wide boulevards where the quoffa carts trundled and the zorca chariots whickered their tall wheels. There were fewer airboats than usual wheeling over the city today. The birds sensed this, and they swooped and gyrated against the twin suns.

Around to the western face of the palace we went beneath the frowning walls where the mercenary guards paced. In through a square opening, faced with marble and gold, and so up again along courtyards and colonnades, and into the rear of the apartments reserved for the Princess. In a small square room, with a lamp burning in the center which cast weird gleams upon the friezes of mythical beasts and birds, the sedan chair was placed down and Pela alighted. The Hikdar saluted and marched his men out.

Pela said, “Wait here, my lord Strom.”

As soon as she had gone I loosened my rapier in its scabbard and looked about. There were but two doors, and Pela had left through the opposite one. When its sturm-wood panels bearing plaques of beaten silver opened and a woman walked in, attended only by Pela, I relaxed a little.

“Strom Drak, of Valka?”

“Yes.”

“I am the Kovneva Katrin Rashumin of Rahartdrin and you address me as my lady Kovneva.”

I said, “I haven’t come here to play games. What do you want of me?”

She flinched back. My words were tantamount to my striking her across the face. I heard Pela gasp. If there was trouble for my Delia there was no time for protocol and fine manners. I took a step forward, fears for Delia uppermost in my mind. I stuck my face at this haughty Kovneva.

“Well?”

She put her hands to her breast. She wore a long silvery gown that fell to the marble floor, and was held over her shoulders by a mass of jewels. Her dark hair was coiffed and curled and smothered with a net of glittering gems. As for her face — it was hard in outline, of undoubted beauty, with fine dark eyes and a mouth rather too thin for my taste. She reminded me, as a candle reminds one of a samphron oil lamp, of Queen Lilah, that proud and sensuous Queen of Paul.

She managed to speak. “I will have you flogged! I will have you torn asunder! To speak to me, the Kovneva, this way! You are a fool, a rast, a cramph, a—”

I took her left wrist into my hand and lifted it before our faces. I glared down into her eyes. Her face altered in contour, changing, going slack, the soggy droop she would never admit appearing beneath her chin. I knew my face wore that old corrosive look of pure domination and harsh authority that, in other circumstances, I have so despaired of. Here it broke this woman’s resistance down in a way that, however unpleasant it might have been, was desperately essential.

“The Emperor,” she whispered. “He has gone to Vindelka. The Princess Majestrix flies with him. I am—” She swallowed. “I am bid by the Princess on behalf of the Emperor to command you to join them.”

I let her wrist go and she rubbed it with her other hand, staring at me the while with a look that should have blasted me on the spot. I nodded.

“Very well, Kovneva. Let us go, in the name of Opaz!”

Pela’s eyes were as round as palines.

“And,” I said in that harsh and hateful voice, “you will receive from me all the deference that is your due. Next time don’t shilly-shally when there are messages from the Emperor.”

“I shall remember this—”

“That is good. Make sure you remember well.”

From this unedifying scene of my bullying a silly woman I took no pleasure, particularly after I had, as I considered, been groveling before the Emperor. But all my fears for Delia had leaped into my mind, and almost I had said “messages from the Princess.” Only a last-minute flash of common sense had made me change that to “Emperor.”

Of course, all the plans were changed. Delia must have managed to remind her father of the Strom of Valka, and arranged for my presence at Vindelka. That she had chosen this woman, this Kovneva Katrin, to bring the message must surely mean she held her in some esteem, even if she didn’t trust Katrin Rashumin. Rahartdrin — that is, the land of Rahart — is a large island off the southwestern tip of Vallia, south of the straits between Womox and the Blue Mountains. All these places I was hearing about now have since come to mean a great deal to me, and to become very familiar, as you shall hear. I was slowly learning my way around Vallia, the land of my Princess.

Rahartdrin is about five times as extensive as Valka. She was a Kovneva and I was a Strom. No wonder she balked at my cavalier treatment of her!

Muffled in cloaks, we went out swiftly and boarded the waiting airboat, and I wondered just what rapier to grind Katrin Rashumin had in all this. She was more than a mere messenger. How much of the Emperor’s trust did she have? And, far more importantly, how loyal was she to Delia?

The airboat was of the usual pattern, petal-shaped, about fifty feet long, with a sumptuously appointed cabin taking up the aft third of the length. Atop this was a sun-deck. I noticed that while the usual flag of Vallia — the yellow saltire on the red ground — flew from the stern, Katrin’s own flag — the lotus in yellow and green picked out in red — flew from a staff in the prow. Evidently, this was her own personal airboat.

The luxury of the cabin confirmed this, for it was furnished in a sybaritic and yet realistic way very much of a piece with her character. I threw my cloak onto a chaise longue and looked about for a drink. The airboat bore on through the levels toward Vindelka. The crew wore the yellow and green striped sleeves, with twin slashes of red through the yellow, and they looked competent enough. Although, no one could feel absolutely secure aboard an airboat; I recalled what Naghan Furtway, Kov of Falinur, had had to say about the rasts of Havilfar. Pela brought wine then, a good vintage, and I settled down to what I considered would be the monotony of the aerial voyage.

As soon as the wine was served, Katrin drove Pela out in an abrupt and yet not unkind way, to go and sit in the suns-shine on the forward deck, and then locked the door. I did not think I was going to try to escape from an airboat a thousand feet in the air.

“You know how the racters have forced the Presidio to tax Valka more heavily than is just?” she began without preamble.

“I know, Kovneva.”

“This is why you are in Vondium?”

“Yes.” It was as good an excuse as any. I felt the Emperor had sized me up — whether I liked the man or detested him I still didn’t know — and he had not mentioned the tax situation. I thought then that if it had been my daughter claiming the horrible object that had been Dray Prescot in his chains and filth, I might have reacted as he had done.

“And you are not prepared to do anything about it?”

“Just what had you in mind?”

The very word tax is obscene, of course, to those who pay. To those who collect for causes their honor tells them are just, the word means different things. But then, any taxman believes his cause is just. My people of Valka paid heavy taxes, unjustly heavy, as I had discovered since reaching Vondium. My selfish desires about Delia had driven the matter from my head. Now this woman was obviously seeking allies against the racters.