Secret Scorpio

Thirteen

The interview with Delia’s father was short and sharp.

“Where is my daughter?”

“She has gone about her own affairs for a space.”

“That will be the Sisters of the Rose. She’s worse than her mother. I shall have this monstrosity you are building torn down. It means nothing and wastes resources and slaves. The new bagnios will be built.”

“More slaves!” I shouted at him.

“Aye, son-in-law! You have served me well in the past, I own that. I don’t damned well like you, at least not much, and-”

“And you can believe that sentiment returned!”

“Do you forget I am emperor?”

He sat up in his lenken chair with the gold and scarlet cushions, and the gold cup shook and spilled his wine. It was his purple wine of Wenhartdrin. We were alone in that chamber where I had bargained before, where we could speak our minds — well, as much as we’d ever reveal them to each other.

“No. I don’t forget. I saw the disgusting display by these damned racter nobles. You know the plots against you? You are aware of the troubles in the northeast? Do you know your own daughter’s Delphond is growing surly and suspicious because of your stinking slavers, your foul aragorn?”

“I have to rule as best I can. By Vox, it is not an easy thing to rule an empire.”

“I know. You’ll have need of proper stabling for the flyers we must have to meet the Hamalian aerial cavalry. Yet you build more slave barracks. Your agents steal away slaves-”

“Not mine! The business is in the hands of Companies of Friends-”

“In which you have darned high stakes!”

“And if I have, do I not have enormous expenses?”

I breathed in hard. Like the scorpion said, it is in a being’s nature to be himself. Vallia had always been like this since he could remember, so why should he change it now because some wild clansman roared in to marry his daughter and shout around impossible ideas?

To get away from the explosion I saw was imminent, I said, “And this queen, this Queen of Lome, this Queen Lush?”

He fired up at this.

“The queen’s name is Queen Lushfymi! I will not have her called Queen Lush. It is an insult and I’ll have the head off the next cramph who calls her that! She is a remarkable woman.”

So wrought up was I that I did not look at him, and so must have missed the first signs.

“Since we knocked the damned Hamalese out of Pandahem,” I went on, ignoring his outburst, “it makes good sense to improve our relations with all the nations of Pandahem. I have been away-”

“Indeed, son-in-law, you have been away! And no man knows where.” I looked at him and he leaned forward, resting his elbow on the carved arm of the chair. “Mayhap you have been in Hamal again, only this time hatching up plots against me?”

I gaped at him.

Then: “You stupid onker!” I brayed it out, brayed it out to this powerful man, the emperor. “I’ve told you and told you, you are Delia’s father and therefore sacrosanct. I’d as soon skewer a Todalpheme as touch you!”

He reared up, opening his mouth, bellowing at me. He did not offer to strike the golden gong. He could deal with this himself.

“You call me onker!”

“Yes, well, if you deserve it by reason of your stupid remarks, you will get it from me.”

He lifted a lace kerchief and wiped his mouth. His hand was shaking. “You had best leave Vondium, leave at once. And, Dray Prescot, do not attempt to return until I send for you.”

I glared at him. “I’ll go and willingly. If you wake up one morning with a knife in your back or your head looking over your shoulders, don’t blame me. I have warned you.” He tried to interrupt, but I went on, and I confess I shouted louder as I said: “And if my Delia is in Vondium and I wish to return here I’ll come back whether you say so or not, by Zim-Zair!”

He lifted his finger, his hand clutching the scrap of laced kerchief. His finger shook, pointing at me.

“Get out! Get out, Dray Prescot, before I have my guards take your head off your shoulders!”

“I’m going, Majister, but remember you tried that once before, and it did not get you far. Remberee, Emperor, Remberee, and I trust you sleep well in your bed o’ nights.”

With that petty remark I took myself off, not well pleased. I didn’t care a fig about being banished from Vondium. The city is marvelous, without doubt, but I’d seen only a tithe of it and had worked and kept to the Savage Woflo and felt miserable. Now I’d find some better mischief. I dug my heels into the polished marble as I walked down the long corridor. Crimson Bowmen of Loh, standing guard at the tall double-leaved doors each with its freight of gilded ornamentation, took one look at my face and stiffened into ramrod attention, mute, unmoving, and, such was my vicious frame of mind I thought the thought without compunction, trembling in their boots lest I bawl them out. Into my own apartment I stormed and kicked an over-stuffed chair across the room. That was mere petty foolishness. If the stupid onker couldn’t see what was going on! He let the racters fawn on him. Well, he was playing their game in that, I suppose, and appeared to be shutting a very blind eye on the other parties out to topple him from his throne and place the crown upon the head of their own puppets. I removed my court clothes and selected a length of scarlet cloth of good quality. I wrapped it around my waist and drew the end up between my legs and tucked it in firmly. A broad lesten-hide belt with a dulled silver buckle held the breechclout in place. A rapier and main gauche each swung from its own swordbelt went over that. The Jiktar and the hikdar were a matched pair, given me by Delia, superb weapons. My old sailor knife went into the sheath over my right hip. I fastened a neat quiver of terchicks over my right shoulder, the swatch of throwing knives snuggling flat and out of the way. I filled a purse with golden talens and silver coins of various countries. A small scrip on the other side held a few necessaries. I was feeling mad clean through. The great Krozair longsword I slung down over my back, the cunningly fashioned double-handed handle raking up to just the right height for me to take a quick snatch and draw the whole gleaming blade free in a single action. That is a knack and a damned useful one on Kregen. I swirled a medium-length crimson cape-cloak about my shoulders and fastened off the golden zhantil-head bosses with golden chains. This was a trifle foppish, but it was worn with a reason. Then, still feeling murderous, I hung a djangir on another belt about my waist, the very short, very broad sword of Djanduin holding a special significance. Finally a great Lohvian longbow and a quiver of arrows all fletched with the blazing blue feathers from the crested korf of the Blue Mountains joined my array of weaponry and I could feel a little better.

What a get-onker I am! But resuming this familiar rig did, without doubt, serve to calm me. Where Delia was I did not know. I could not, in all honesty, make an attempt, a deliberate attempt, to seek her out. But if I went out of Vondium and trusted to Five-handed Eos-Bakchi, that chuckling Vallian spirit of luck and good fortune, might I not find her? No, I did not really think I would, for Eos-Bakchi does not favor grim faces and hard hearts. But I wanted to rid myself of the feel of Vondium, and I wanted the swift rush of air in my face and the sense of the clean onward surge of life upon Kregen to fill me and drive out the black devils clawing at me like the Imps of Sicce. It was necessary for me, dressed as I liked to be dressed, to remember to pull on a pair of black Vallian boots.

Now, over all, a massive buff Vallian cloak would conceal all, and one of those peculiar Vallian hats, wide brimmed and with two oblong slots in the front brim, could be jammed down on my hair. The feather in the hat was red and white, the colors of Valka.

Just then Turko came in, beaming, able to walk freely through into my apartment for I had given orders. He saw my cloak and hat and his face fell. Although it was quite obvious I was dressed for going out, it should be remembered that despite their preference for buff tunics and breeches, the men of Vallian culture habitually don loose lounging robes of many colors in the evening. They are seldom blue, and somewhere on them will the colors of the house or party favor be displayed.

“I had thought to try a few falls with you, Dray, but-”

“That old fool of an emperor!” I burst out. “By Krun! He’s banished me from Vondium.”

“And you’ll go?”

“Oh, aye, I’ll go! I can’t wait to get away.”

“Then we shall-”

“Oh, no, you won’t! Some of you will have to stay here and carry on the work. Just because Delia’s father is a fambly doesn’t mean we have to desert the onker.”

“Well-”

“I’ll probably go to see Inch or Seg. We’ll think of something. I want to know what Balass uncovers. And keep an eye on the Crimson Bowmen. You know half of them betrayed the emperor last time. Trust Jiktar Laka Pa-Re and his men. Discharge at once anyone who accepts a bribe if it can be proved against him. As for me, I’m off.”

“Dray!”

“Remberee, my old Turko. I’ll think of your great shield, but I doubt it’ll be necessary. When the emperor has had time to cool off I’ll reappear and this time I’ll make the old idiot understand.”

“By the time you’ve had time to cool off, you mean!”

“By Zair! Well spoken!”

“Well, by Morro the Muscle! You take care, you hear?”

“I hear.”

“I’ll come to the landing platform with you.”

“I shall ride a zorca. It is good for the liver.”

So we went out and along the ornate corridors. We passed one of the many entranceways to the apartments of the emperor and I saw a man dressed in black and silver abruptly turn and go swiftly into an adjoining passageway past an ivory statue looted from some forgotten city of Chem, I shouldn’t wonder.

I could have sworn he was Naghan Vanki, that featureless man who had so sneered at my pretensions for the hand of the emperor’s daughter. There was no sign of him as we reached the passage. Turko remarked offhandedly, “That fellow took off like a scorched sleeth. What does he hide?”

“Let it rest. The guards must know him or he wouldn’t have got this far without a pass or, if he did reach here, he’d do it with his head under his arm and with chains a-dangling.”

All the same, I was half a mind to go after Naghan Vanki, if it had been him. He’d been one of the party of the airboat Lorenztone when I’d been drugged and dumped into a thorny-ivy bush in the hostile territories.

Then Oby and Tilly and Naghan the Gnat showed up, all pleased to see me and dismayed that I was leaving. But I slowed them down and went to the zorca stables. Mounted up on Twitchnose, a fine strong zorca with a spiral horn of remarkable length jutting from his chestnut forehead, I looked at my friends.

“Remberee,” I said. And then: “By Krun! It is all Remberees for me these days.”

One or two of the grooms looked up at the oath, for that is an oath of Hamal and Havilfar. But I didn’t care. Let the emperor choke on a little more bile when his spies reported. Turko and the others offered to ride a ways with me, but the Maiden with the Many Smiles was up and the Twins would shortly follow so I declined their offer and told them to have a party instead. Then I turned Twitchnose’s head toward the Mustard Gate, which is a strong battlemented tower set in an angle of the northwest walls of Vondium.

Away to the northeast the monstrous pile of mountains known as Drak’s Seat glowered up darkly against the stars, lit by the Maiden with the Many Smiles. I rode on, sunk in odious thoughts, and the zorca riders closed in on each side.

My rapier came out in a moonlit blur of steel under the overhanging balconies where the moonblooms drank up the light. A hulking fellow swathed in a dark cloak husked out. “We mean you no harm, Prince. We are your friends.”

“What friends ride up so suddenly from the shadows?” He lifted, his hands. They were empty. The street led to the Boulevard of Grape Pressers which, bordered by an arm of the Vindelka Cut, would bring me to the gate I sought. They had chosen their spot well. The overhanging balconies, the pressing walls, the narrow slot of star glitter — yes, they had waited here for me, knowing I would pass this way. How?

The answer to that came more rapidly than I expected.

One of the fellows on my left side, a canny position, reined up. He doffed his hat. The moon showed me a thin face with bright sharp eyes, a narrow face, a hungry face. The jaws were hard and lean. I knew him.

“Strom Luthien!” I said, surprised.

“Aye, Prince. At your service.”

He was a racter. The black and white favors showed dark and bright upon his tunic and cloak and pinned to the hat he had doffed. Now he sidled his zorca closer, disregarding my rapier point like a bar of pink and golden light between us.

“There is much to be said, Prince, between the chief party of Vallia which seeks to save the empire, and the Prince Majister who has been disowned and banished by the emperor.”

Those damned secret ways in the walls of palaces? Spies had listened to the emperor and me talking privately. With a sudden gush of relief I felt reborn. This, then, was what the night held. I fancy he was surprised at my tone, for I have, as you know, a certain unsavory reputation with villains.

“Lead on, Strom Luthien. It is I who am at your service. Let us go and talk, by Vox!”