Secret Scorpio (22 page)
“I think not. His letters say that his Black Mountain Men have little sympathy with the Chyyanists. And as for the Blue Mountain Boys, there was a most distressing occurrence with a Chyyanist priest. Something to do with burned tail feathers, I believe. Most injurious to pride and stern ends.”
Seg managed a smile at this. He did not burst out with a complaint that he only wished his Falinurese were of the same caliber as Inch’s Black Mountain Men. For that I respected him. He was entitled to the complaint; fate alone had decided this.
“Well, Dray my dear,” said Thelda in her managing way, “then it will be Delphond, I suppose. Or,” and here she cocked her head on one side in a calculating way, organizing things for me, “or you could go to Strombor. I need some of their beautiful—”
“Thelda!” said Seg, half laughing. So whatever it was Thelda wanted from Strombor we did not find out.
“I shall,” I said, “go to Vondium.”
“But!” said Seg.
“But,” said Thelda, “you are banished! The emperor has published an edict of proscription. The dear queen told me so herself. You will be taken up if you go back to Vondium.”
“Maybe. And again, maybe not. But I am not prepared to let the emperor stand any longer between what I must do and my own frail desires. By Vox! I am tired of shilly-shallying around.”
“So it is Vondium then, my old dom.”
“Aye! And if the emperor or any of his men try to stand in my way it will not be me who will be sorry!”
What chanced during the bath of Katrin Rashumin
Well. From those stupid boastful words you will see exactly how I had been rattled. If only I knew what Delia was up to! If only I was sure that Dayra was safe! To Vondium I would go and try to sort matters out.
And if any chanting, hypocritical, venomous Chyyanist priest got in my way with his damned Black Feathers he had better look out sharpish.
And so, with yet another vainglorious boast in a most un-Dray Prescot-like fashion, I took one of Seg’s fliers back to Vondium.
I’d be either Nath the Gnat or Kadar the Hammer as opportunity offered. On Kregen one has to handle names carefully, for names are vital. I own to a delight in handling names, and yet I do not forget that however important names are, and however much it behooves a man who wishes to keep his head on his shoulders to remember names and get them right, it is the reality behind the names that matters, the personality and inner being that counts.
The twinkle and shimmer of Vondium rose before us and the flier swooped down. Seg’s pilot helped me unload my zorca and the pack preysany, and I stood to wish him Remberee. Then I mounted up and, wearing my old brown blanket cloak and with the bamboo stick across the saddle, started to jog gently along the dusty road toward the city whose topmost towers were just in sight.
If I had been put out of countenance by the changes in Vallia after my absence of twenty-one years on Earth followed by the seasons at the Eye of the World, I could only be dismayed by the changes in Vondium during this my latest absence.
The first thing I saw was a wayside shrine to one of the old minor religions of Vallia, tolerated and even given some small affection by the masses who hewed to Opaz. The shrine’s old statue had been removed and the niche with its symbols and little flickering lamp was bedecked with black feathers, and the crude statue of a black chyyan replaced the old. I reined up, staring.
An old toothless crone at the roadside cackled.
“Come the day, good sir, come the day.”
I said nothing, but shook Twitchnose’s reins and cantered on.
By Zair! Did the emperor — did the nobles — do nothing about this?
There was no difficulty in getting into Vondium. The place bustled with life. People scurried everywhere. The guards at the gate barely gave me a glance. They were Rapas, and usually relished a little idle amusement in hazing travelers they considered suitable game for sport. Now I rode through and found myself in a beehive of rumor and speculation and gossip. The brilliant colors, the jostling lines of calsanys, the palanquins, the tall flickering wheels of the zorca chariots racing fleetly along the wider boulevards, the long steady streaming of narrow boats along the Cuts, the shouts and yells of vendors, all the heady brilliant hurly-burly of a great city broke about me as I guided Twitchnose and the led preysany toward the smith’s quarter and the tavern called the Iron Anvil. The area was known to me only vaguely — this was not Ruathytu — but after a few directions I arrived and, by showing the edge of a golden talen, secured a room in the hostelry above the tavern. From here I would have to work.
It would not be proper for me to reveal all the steps that led in the end to a plain lenken door, brass-studded, in a flat gray stone wall on the Hill of Tred’efir. The hunt began at a hospital for slaves, led by way of a school for the children of poor mothers, through a number of other establishments, to this calm white-stuccoed house in its bower of greenery. The guards would only let me through into an outer courtyard, and there I had to kick my heels. The guards were all girls, young and limber and rosy in their health and strength. They were clad as the messenger from Delia, Sosie ti Drakanium, had been clad, and they handled their rapiers with the professional ease of those who understand pointed and edged weapons. There were also girls wearing cool floating robes of many colors, who came to a pierced stone screen to peer at me and laugh quietly amongst themselves.
Presently a lady whom I can only call the Mother Superior came out, although that is nowise her rank or calling.
“Kadar the Smith?”
“Kadar the Hammer, and it please you, lady.”
She nodded, studying me. Her smooth face within the framing crimson cap and veil reposed in calm confidence. In her I could trust, as far as a man may trust a woman. I told her what I wanted. She did not laugh, but the corners of her eyes betrayed extra wrinkles and her soft mouth turned up, just a little.
“You must know that is impossible.”
“I wish only to speak with the chief of the Sisters. That is all. If you wish I can be blindfolded, in a darkened room. But I must speak with her.” I had no need to put any false emotion into my words. “This is very important to me.”
“Is it important to the SoR?”
“I do not know. I think so.”
“You are honest. But the thing is impossible. Now go, and go in peace, Kadar the Smith.”
“Kadar the Hammer. Very well, I will go. But I will not give up.”
But she turned away and made a sign and lo! four sharply curved reflex bows held in young supple hands — and four exceedingly sharp steel arrow heads — pointed at my midriff. I took the hint. After all, had some wandering gypsy-like woman approached me and asked to see the Grand Archbold of the Krozairs of Zy I might have reacted in the same way. So I went.
Now I would have to play my penultimate card. I had not wished to do so, for although Katrin Rashumin had been a good friend to Delia and had benefited from our advice over her island kovnate of Rahartdrin, I had not seen her lately, for obvious reasons, and had no way of knowing her present feelings. But, as they say in Hamal, one must come to the fluttrell’s vane.
A single inquiry elicited the information that the Kovneva of Rahartdrin was in Vondium.
I took myself off to her villa, a most gorgeous place and splendidly eloquent of her position, for her fortunes had vastly improved after Delia and I had sorted out her island estates for her. We had had to discharge a crooked Crebent and put a stop to certain nefarious practices. Katrin had been grateful then. I think she always remembered a certain flight in an airboat with me, and remembered it with regret. But she had remained loyal to Delia, or so I hoped.
The porter regarded me with disfavor.
“Go away, rast! We have our own smith, young Bargom the Anvil! He will make mincemeat of you!”
The porter was a Fristle, and his cat-face bristled up with his whiskers bright and stiff. I sighed.
At this time I had noticed that the Vallians, as a general rule, did not favor diffs. There were very few diffs among the wealthy and the nobility. They employed diffs as servants and guards and had no scruple about enslaving them.
The villa’s wall ran alongside the road for a space and then shot off at a right angle through woods. Further upslope lay the abandoned villa of Kov Mangar the Apostate. I slipped along between the trees and soon found a place where I might climb over. The way was not difficult and I saw no one, walking rapidly but without obvious signs of haste through a large market garden filled with lettuce and gregarians and squishes. I even picked a handful of palines as I went.
The kitchen gateway showed ahead and just as I was casually about to enter, a Brokelsh guard and a girl, a young Brokelsh slave girl from the kitchens, came out, laughing and talking together. The guard, a big fellow, all bristly hair and bully-boy manner, swelled his chest under the armor. His hand fell to the clanxer at his waist. He wanted to show off for the girl.
“What are you doing here, onker?”
I, Dray Prescot, took a chance. It was a risk. I said, “By the Black Feathers, dom! I am glad to see you. Where away are the confounded stables?”
At this he relaxed at once. I felt my relief at the easy outcome of the confrontation more than tempered by the vast feeling of unease. Chyyanism was here, in a great noble’s villa. Well and truly had the Temple of the Great Chyyan reached Vondium. So much for the protestations of vigilance given me by the racters!
So with a direction to the stables I wandered off, saying my thanks and moaning over the hardness of life. Presently, by taking a smart right turn, I managed to find a smaller doorway near the stables. Actual ingress to the Villa’s interior could only be achieved by my sending a Fristle guard to sleep standing up, but I did lower him gently to the ground. Then I walked swiftly inside, not looking around, and began to nose my way toward Katrin’s apartments. I did not wish to cause too much mayhem, but a little was inevitable.
Had she been anywhere else but Vondium there would have been no problem. The trouble with secret societies is that they are secret. At the least I knew Katrin Rashumin to belong to the Sisters of the Rose. Or so I had gathered from the way Delia had spoken on occasion.
A big burly Womox, his fierce upthrusting horns wound with golden wire, bellowed at me, and I had to skip and jump and put him to sleep horizontally. His harness fitted me, more or less. It hung about my waist, but the shoulders snugged well enough.
So it was as a guard in the employ of Kovneva Katrin I went a-visiting. The colors of Rahartdrin are yellow and green with a double red stripe slashed diagonally across them. Katrin also had a fondness for the lotus flower, so this was emblazoned on the breast and back of the brown shifts of her servitors and was picked out in embroidery on the guard’s tunics. So I marched along and took no notice of anyone and no one took any notice of me, which is perfectly normal in these gigantic households of many slaves and many guards, not all of whom are apim.
I was stopped by two Pachaks at an inner door. You know about Pachaks. There was no talking my way past these two fine fellows and I would not slay them, for Pachaks are dear to me, so I had to feint with one, knock the second down and deal instantly with his comrade. This I did. Then I pushed through, taking the ivory wand one of the Pachaks had gripped in his upper left hand as his sign of office and tour of duty at the kovneva’s private apartments.
I was allowed past a number of girl slaves and somewhat effeminate man slaves until, at the last, I reached places that, by the perfume, the sounds of running water and the warmth and languorous feel in the air, told me plainly enough that no man, and certainly not some hired mercenary, not even a paktun, more likely a thieving masichier, would ever be allowed.
So, saying simply, “If you do not let me in to see the kovneva she will have you girls flogged jikaider,” I walked past the befuddled maids. They shrieked out as I dragged the purple curtains apart. Scents of steam and soap and unguents arose. Katrin was taking a small and private bath, not one of the Baths of the Nine, and a gorgeous black girl from Xuntal dropped the sponge in her terror as I barged in.
I knew I had perhaps ten or so murs before the guards came arunning, and they would seek to kill. I made no mistake about that, no mistake at all.
Katrin turned lazily, the soapy water running over one gleaming shoulder, and she looked at my legs and the bottom half of the uniform and the war harness and she said in her caressing voice: “You realize you are a dead man?”
And I answered, “Only if you give the word, Katrin.”
And she looked up, shocked, the blood rushing into her face, the water swirling in soapy whirls about her body.
“Dray!”
“Aye! And don’t shout all over the villa or—”
“Yes, I know!” She stood up, completely uncaring of her shining soapy nakedness and said in her sharp woman-managing voice to the Xuntalese maiden, “Xiri! My wrap!”
With the lotus-flowered wrap about her she walked swiftly to the door and said to someone outside, “No one enters on pain of death! Tell the Pachak Jiktar! Hurry! No one, mind!”
Then she kicked Xiri out and slammed the door herself, drawing the heavy purple drapes.
She turned to me, and the lotus-flowered wrap half dropped from a shoulder. It was not coquetry. I know she had tried once, and she knew what Delia meant.
“Thank you, Katrin. I have no time. The emperor—”
“I do not know if he will kill you if he finds you in Vondium, my silly woflo. But I would not take bets on it”
“I must know where Delia is.”
“Ah!”
I wasn’t sure. Did she know?
Her dark hair, gathered into a protecting net, broke in a cascade as she ripped the cap off. Her face had softened over the years, but still she could act as haughtily as any fabled Queen of Pain. Her lips, a trifle thin, smiled up as she tossed her hair loose and began to rub her body with a yellow and green towel. The two slashed stripes of scarlet looked like threads of blood.
