Secret Scorpio

Eleven

“All praise to Papachak of the Tail!” said Laka Pa-Re, and he thumped his empty flagon back onto the stained sturmwood table with a crash. All around the low-ceiled room of the tavern men were drinking and shouting, a few were brawling, some were trying to play Jikalla and being continually interrupted. The clatter of dice sounded from the corner and on the opposite side a Pachak was tail-wrestling a comrade amid spilling wine bottles and toppling ale flagons.

This was the famous tavern The Savage Woflo, an example of the warped Kregan humor that either amuses or infuriates, for the woflo is a wee creature of extremely timid nature, overfond of cheese. Among the tables ran remarkably pretty girls of various races carrying wide wooden trays stacked with foaming jugs or exotically shaped bottles. These serving wenches were, unfortunately, slaves. They were clad in transparent draperies, with tawdry bangles and beads, with colored feathers, all designed to enhance their natural beauties. Well, I suppose that in some cases they did. But generally cunning old Urnu the Flagon, landlord of The Savage Woflo, had an eye for female beauty and his wenches — I dislike the commonly used word shif for these serving girls for it indicates a contempt I do not feel -

were every one carefully chosen at the auctions and paid for above the standard price. Normally I avoided places like this and when in Vondium and in need of a quiet drink I would go down to Bargom’s Rose of Valka by the Great Northern Cut. Bargom, a Valkan, did not employ slaves and aroused some bemused envy that he managed so well without their unwilling aid. Now the Pachak paktun, Laka Pa-Re, yelling for more ale, handled these slaves girls with a courtesy I fancied was not assumed for my benefit. This tavern, the famous Savage Woflo, was much patronized by the guardsmen. No female customers were allowed. Such a thing was still possible in Vondium. This was a male preserve and, I suppose, on Earth would have been choking with smoke as well as the fumes of alcohol.

“By Mother Zinzu the Blessed!” I said, lowering my flagon. “I needed that!”

Saying that little aphorism cheered me up, although Laka had never heard of Mother Zinzu the Blessed, the patron saint of the drinking classes of Sanurkazz.

“You do me great honor, my Prince, in drinking with-” he said, until I shushed him. I wore simple buff tunic and breeches and swung a rapier, as we all did here, where brawls and good-humored swishings of blades were common occurrences. I wished to look inconspicuous. Laka also wore plain buff, out of uniform.

“If you must call me anything, let it not be prince,” I said. “Rather, merely call me Nath and have done.”

“Aye, my Pri- Nath!” he bellowed, and used that cunning tailhand to whip a fresh flagon from a passing girl’s tray. She squeaked and laughed — all simulated, for that was how the customers liked to think these girls behaved — and ran on with slender flashing legs to fetch more ale. There were Fristle fifis, and sylvies, and shishis here, as well as other races of beautiful girls. There were no Rapa girls or Och maidens, but then there were few of their menfolk in the tavern either. A parcel of Chuliks sat glowering at a table, steadily drinking. When the singing began the Chuliks would depart to find a place where a fighting man might drink without having to sing. That is the way of Chuliks. I had come here because — and then to admit the true reason would be to betray more, perhaps, than I cared to. I knew that I would hear gossip here that might be overlooked in the echoing corridors of the palace. Also, I felt sure that one of the emperor’s agents would be here listening. What he would report might not tally with what he heard.

For the emperor’s position had been steadily eroded.

Covell of the Golden Tongue had said the tavern plots were all moonshine. Maybe they were. But I felt the need for a drink and a song in masculine company.

Most great nobles of Vallia kept up their villas in Vondium even if they only visited them once or twice a year, and their guards patronized establishments like this, so there were many varieties of uniform and colors among the civilian dress. The Vallian Air Service was notable by its absence. Also, Laka was one of the few high-ranking officers present. I noticed three other Jiktars and quite a few hikdars, but the majority of the drinking, gambling, shouting men were deldars and swods. When I had quizzed the Pachak paktun as to why he had said he was pleased to see me, he had answered evasively, even defensively, but now he was thawing out and eventually he said: “It’s like this, my Pri- Nath. I drew guard duty on the Prince Majister’s wing of the palace. I do not grumble at that. But I see things. I hear things. There are men among the guards — aye! Men I have known! Men who speak behind their hands. They have been bought by gold.”

“Who is doing the buying? And to what end?”

He took a swig and wiped his mouth. “For one, the Racter Party. Oh, yes, they have a hand in everything in Vallia. But why should Naghan Nadler, who has been a paktun for twenty seasons and will make ob-deldar soon, take gold?”

“Why?”

“Why, because they want to buy his sword! And others like him. There are plots against the emperor. Everyone knows that. A little gold spread around now will buy loyalty when the plots hatch. That is my opinion.”

“And you have reported this?”

He opened and shut his lower left hand, and his right hand gripped and tugged at the pakmort around his neck on its silken cord. “I wanted to speak to you.”

I was not sure if he had done right. But this was no time to suggest he might better have taken another course. What struck me, forcibly and with a chill of foreboding, was the frightening thought that whichever of the parties — or perhaps all of them — that were bribing guards to fight for them had reached the swods. A simple swod may well be a terrible fighting man, but it is the captains and generals who carry the say when bribery is in the wind. I felt pretty confident that Laka had not been approached because all men knew once a Pachak had given his nikobi to serve an employer his loyalty remained steadfast. But a swod in the ranks, being given gold, told to obey orders that would not come from his employer, this typified the destruction of values, the end of one way of life and, if a new began, a system barely nameable as life.

So, as you can see, I was in a highly wrought state.

Hadn’t I suborned guardsmen before, to fight for me against their employer, and, by Vox, wouldn’t I do so again? But at the least, no mere petty ambition had driven me, to topple a throne for the sake of the power.

So we drank and talked and I watched the clientele, seeing the many different patterns of banded sleeves, each set of colors denoting a man belonging to a noble house. Even among these soldiers and guardsmen the white and black favors were flaunted openly, along with the white and green of the panvals and other color combinations. A Pachak hikdar, squat, leather-faced, roaring his good humor and slopping ale, plunked himself down on the bench opposite Laka and bellowed a greeting. When the confusion died down Laka introduced him as Nidar De-Fra, an old mercenary comrade newly arrived in Vondium with his master. This Nidar wore banded sleeves, for he was in uniform, the banded colors of unequal widths of blue and green and yellow, with two thin vertical stripes of white. It must not be taken that these color-banded sleeves of Vallia are like the tartans of the Scottish clans; but with their color-coding, once a man saw a combination of shapes and colors he would know it again and know the owner. This Pachak, Nidar De-Fra, had given his nikobi and his sword to Kwasim Barkwa, the Vad of Urn Stackwamor. He was in the capital because his master wished it. Anyway, as all men knew, the emperor was due to return from his journey around the far southwest. Here the Pachak laughed and said that the southwest was a joke and all men knew the future of Vallia lay with the northeast.

There is good comradeship among the Pachak mercenaries, and their intricate system of nikobi can sort out the rights and wrongs of employment and the puzzles of when a man may in honor fight a comrade under employment. Now these two talked of old days. I looked for a moment at Nidar. He did not wear the pakmort, but he was wholly convinced that northeast Vallia must demand self-determination and break away from the empire. This astounded me. I clamped my ugly old mouth shut and listened. When Nadar’s term of service with Kwasim Barkwa ended he might take employment with a noble of the south, and then he would be as vociferous that the empire should stay in one piece. A mercenary may not have to believe in his master’s cause to fight for him, but the Pachaks are deadly serious when they hire out as paktuns, and give their loyalty.

A couple of brilliant Fristle fifis came out with streaming silks and started to dance; they were soon chased off and then the swods began to sing.

So, as you may imagine, I let all my problems slide away for a space and gave myself up to hoggish relaxation. There are many finer things in two worlds than sitting in a tavern singing with swods, and this is so. But all the same, when you are singing and roaring out the old songs, the world takes on a marvelously brighter hue.

My Delia had gone off and left me at home. The idea intrigued me. I felt no indignation. She was as entitled as I was to her ownlife. Our shared life was so intense and passionate that nothing could interfere. I was dragged away by a great ghostly representation of a Scorpion, blue and shining, whirling me away to some other part of Kregen to fight for the Star Lords, or hurling me back to Earth in despair. Delia had gone because her vows, vows like mine to the Krozairs of Zy, impelled her. I had discarded at once any notion of following her secretly. That would shame us both. Anyway, with Melow along, she should come to no harm. And she could handle weapons with the best of men. I knew that. So I, Dray Prescot, left at home with the dishes, sang with swods in a tavern. We sang the Lay of Fanli the Fristle and Her Regiment of Admirers and the Lay of Faerly the Ponsho Farmer’s Daughter and Tyr Korgan and the Mermaid. The Jikalla players stopped pushing their counters around the board and the dice fell silent in the cups. We roared out King Naghan, his Fall and Rise, and Eregoin’s Promise.

Then these hard-living, hoarse-voiced, hairy fighting men drew on a sudden maudlin melancholy, and led by a fellow with a thin reedy voice we warbled out The Fall of the Suns. This is a menacing song, for its cadences and images invite mournfulness. It tells of the last days when the twin suns fall from the sky and drench the world of Kregen in fire and blood, in water and death. I am not overfond of it, for all the deeper truths it expresses in its roundabout way.

So when a flushed fellow, bulging his tunic and wildly slopping his ale, leaped to his feet and started bellowing out the first lines of Sogandar the Upright and the Sylvie, I, for one, joined in with a full-throated roar. And the rafters shook as the swods came to those famous lines that always crease them up, and great gusts of laughter swept across the room as we sang out: “No idea at all, at all, no idea at all.”

Yes.

We kept that refrain going until we were all well-nigh bursting. The serving girls scurried in with more flagons and great was the relishment thereof. We quieted down as the tall thin fellow with the reedy voice favored us with a solo, choosing parts of the song cycle composed from fragments of The Canticles of the Rose City concerning the doings of the part-man, part-god Drak. Naturally my thoughts winged to what my Delia was doing now, how she was faring, and I offered up a fervent prayer that she would be kept safe.

We did not sing The Bowmen of Loh, for almost all the Crimson Bowmen were away with the emperor. It seemed to me my course was reasonably clear. I would have to discharge all those mercenaries who had become untrustworthy by reason of accepting bribes. I would seek to discover who had paid them; I would make no attempt to match the bribes, gold for gold. If a man takes gold from another when in employment his trust is forfeited. I had experience of that when I’d been a renegade and contracted to Gafard the Sea Zhantil, the King’s Striker.

The decision about reporting to the emperor what I had so far discovered about the Chyyanists would have to be taken. There was, in truth, pitifully little to report. A minor religion would appear to offer little danger to the emperor, beset as he was by combinations of powerful nobles. While everyone in Vallia regarded as a foregone conclusion that the conflict with Hamal must reopen at some time in the future, for the present the uneasy state of truce between the two empires offered some hope of continuing peace. The emperor would brush aside any suggestions I might make along those lines, and his Presidio, torn as it was by internecine strife, would greedily pursue the path of individual power. By Zair! The worst thing of all was how lost, how at sea, empty and forlorn I felt without my Delia. When I’d been dragged away from her before I had struggled always to return to her. I had cursed and raved at the forces keeping us apart. But know well, this was a topsy-turvy situation and one I just did not relish at all, at all, as Sogandar the Upright might say.

The swods were just beginning The Maid with the Single Veil and the serving wenches were giggling and laughing as is their wont when that song is sung, when a fellow at the adjoining table, leaning across, began to make directly offensive remarks. He was getting at me. There is no mistaking the idiot who intends to pick a quarrel.

I felt a hot resentment. I’d come out for a quiet evening bellowing out the old songs and this rast wanted to stir up trouble and spoil it all. I determined, mean and vicious, that I’d spoil his fun, that I’d not react, that he could cuss until he was blue in the face and I’d give him no satisfaction. I’d ruin his enjoyment and he could jibe and mock and insult all he liked.

I said to Laka and Nidar, “I’ll play the cramph along. Take no notice.”

Laka knew me and so laughed, falling in with the ploy. Nidar favored me with an old-fashioned look, but said nothing.

The fellow who got his kicks from being unpleasant wore too much gold lace about his buff. His face was lean and marked by a scar, and his mustaches had been clipped. I noticed the emblem he wore at his throat, a little gold strigicaw and swords, swung on a golden chain. He did not speak directly to me but insulted me through his cronies, in the way of these fellows.

“He perhaps thinks we are woflos who come here. His senses probably do not even understand that small thing.”

Nidar leaned across fiercely and said under his breath to me: “Let me blatter the fellow, Nath.”

“Tsleetha-tsleethi,” I said, which is to say, “softly-softly.” Nidar’s offer to bash the fellow in for me amused me. Normally quick to avenge an insult, on this night I wanted to bash this insulting fellow with more subtle weapons than a set of knuckles or a rapier in his guts. He persevered. His cronies tried to help his game. They called him Rumil the Point. I turned my back on them and bellowed for more ale. The song had changed and so we could all sing The Worm-eaten Swordship Gull-i-mo which is a Vallian sailor’s song, for a few swordships are employed in sheltered waters. That song is known in many anchorages in Kregen, and I’d sung it as a render up in the Hoboling Islands.

A hand touched me on the shoulder. I turned. I stopped singing.

Rumil the Point stood up, leaning over me, his lean face black with his sense of insult, because I took no notice of him whatsoever.

“Rast!” he shouted, thumping my shoulder, speaking thickly, either drunk or pretending to be drunk.

“You do not insult me and stand on your own stinking feet!”

I shook his hand off and started to turn back to the two Pachaks, determined to play my part out to the end. By Zair! But he was in a paddy! He just couldn’t believe that I didn’t consider him important enough to worry over. He felt at a loss, puzzled, reduced in dignity, his pride shredded.

“Then I’ll settle you, you zigging cramph!”

I saw Laka’s face go hard and I heard the scrape of steel and so knew I had miscalculated. With a motion I trusted would be quick and fluid enough I slid aside and turned back. This Rumil the Point stood glaring at me. His eyes protruded. The tip of his tongue stuck out, and his face was contorted back, ricked, stamped with an awful terror.

Around his neck clamped a buff clad arm, and the paw-hand gleamed with golden fur.

“Lahal, Nath the Gnat,” said Rafik Avandil. “I see I may be of service to you once more.”