The Star Kings

Chapter VII. Star-Princess

JOHN GORDON for the second time that night held in his arms a woman who thought he was the real Zarth Arn. But the dark-haired, lovely young woman who had thrown her arms around him was far different from the proud princess Lianna.

Warm lips pressed his own in eager, passionate kisses, as he stood bewildered. The dark hair that brushed his face was soft and perfumed. For a moment, impulse made Gordon draw her lithe figure closer.

Then he pushed her back a little. The beautiful little face that looked up at him was soft and appealing.

“You never told me that you had come back to Throon!” she accused. “I didn't know until I saw you at the Feast.”

Gordon stumbled for an answer. “I didn't have time. I-”

This final surprise of the day had staggered him badly. Who was this lovely young woman? One with whom the real Zarth Arn had been conducting an intrigue?

She was smiling up at him fondly, her little hands still resting on his shoulders.

“It's all right, Zarth. I came up right after the Feast and I've been waiting for you.

She snuggled closer. “How long will you be staying on Throon? At least, we'll have these few nights together.”

Gordon was appalled. He had thought his fantastic imposture difficult before. But this – A name suddenly bobbed into his thoughts, a name that both Jhal Arn and Lianna had mentioned as though he knew it well. The name of “Murn.” Was it the name of this woman?

He thought it might be. To find out, he spoke to her diffidently.

“Murn-”

The woman raised her dark head from his shoulder to look at him inquiringly.

“Yes, Zarth?”

So this was Murn? It was this woman of whom Lianna had mockingly reminded him. So that Lianna knew of his intrigue?

Well, the name was something, anyway. Gordon was trying to grope his way through the complexities of the situation. He sat down, and Murn promptly nestled in his lap.

“Murn, listen-you shouldn't be here,” he began huskily. “Suppose you were seen coming to my apartment?”

Murn looked at him with astonishment in her dark blue eyes. “What difference does that make, when I'm your wife?”

His wife? Gordon, for the twentieth time that day, was smitten breathless by the sudden, complete destruction of his pre-conceived ideas.

How in Heaven's name could he keep up the part of Zarth Arn when he didn't know the most elementary facts about the man? Why hadn't Zarth Arn or Vel Quen told him these things?

Then Gordon remembered. They hadn't told him because it wasn't supposed to be necessary. It had never been dreamed that Gordon, in Zarth Arn's body, would leave Earth and come to Throon. That raid of Shorr Kan's emissaries had upset all the plan, and had introduced these appalling complications.

Murn, her dark head snuggled under his chin, was continuing in a plaintive voice.

“Even though I'm only your morganatic wife, surely there's nothing wrong about my being here?”

So that was it. A morganatic, an unofficial, wife. That custom of old had survived to the days of these star kings!

For a moment, John Gordon felt a hot anger against the man whose body he inhabited. Zarth Arn, secretly married to this child whom he could not acknowledge publicly and at the same time preparing for a state marriage with Lianna-it was a nasty business.

Or was it? Gordon's anger faded. The marriage with Lianna was purely a political device to assure the loyalty of the Fomalhaut Kingdom. Zarth had understood that, and so did Lianna. She knew all about Murn, and apparently had not resented. Under those circumstances, was Zarth Arn not justified in secretly finding happiness with this woman he loved?

Gordon suddenly woke again to the fact that Murn did not doubt for a moment that he was her loved husband and that she had every idea of spending the night here with him.

He lifted her from his lap and rose to his feet, looking down at her uncertainly.

“Murn, listen, you must not spend tonight here,” he told her. “You will have to avoid my apartment for these next few weeks.”

Murn's lovely face became pale and stricken. “Zarth, what are you saying?”

Gordon racked his brain for an excuse. “Now don't cry, please. It isn't that I don't love you any more.”

Murn's dark blue eyes had filled with tears. “It's Lianna! You've fallen in love with her. I saw how you paid attention to her at the Feast.”

The pain in her white face made it seem more childlike than ever. Gordon cursed the necessities of the situation. He was deeply hurting this woman.

He took her face between his hands. “Murn, you must believe me when I tell you this. Zarth Arn loves you as much as ever-his feelings have not changed.”

Murn's eyes searched his face, and the intense earnestness in it and in his voice seemed to convince her. The pain left her face.

“But if that's so, Zarth, then why-”

Gordon had thought of an excuse, by now. “It's because of the marriage with Lianna, but not because I love the princess,” he said.

“You know, Murn, that the marriage is designed to assure the support of the Fomalhaut Kingdom in the coming struggle with the Cloud.”

Murn nodded her dark head, her eyes still perplexed. “Yes, you explained that to me before. But I still don't see why it should come between us. You said it wouldn't, that you and Lianna had agreed to regard it as a mere form.”

“Yes, but right now we must be careful,” Gordon said quickly. “There are spies of Shorr Kan here at Throon. If they discovered I have a secret morganatic wife, they could publish the fact and wreck the marriage.”

Murn's soft face became understanding. “Now I see. But Zarth, aren't we going to see each other at all?”

“Only in public, for a few weeks,” Gordon told her. “Soon I shall leave Throon again for a little while. And I promise you that when I come back it will all be the same between us as before.”

And that was truth, Gordon fervently hoped. For if he could get to Earth and effect the re-exchange of bodies, it would be the real Zarth Arn who would come back to Throon.

Murn seemed relieved in mind but still a little rueful, as she threw on a black silk cloak and prepared to leave.

She raised herself on tiptoe to press warm lips lovingly to his. “Good night, Zarth.”

He returned the kiss, not with passion but with a queer tenderness. He could understand how Zarth Arn had fallen in love with this exquisite woman.

Murn's eyes became a little wider, faintly puzzled, as she looked up at him after that kiss.

“You are somehow different, Zarth,” she murmured. “I don't know how-”

The subtle instinct of a woman in love had given her vague warning of the incredible change in him, Gordon knew. He drew a long breath of relief when she had gone.

Gordon stretched himself on the bed in the little sleeping-room, but found his muscles still tense as steel cords. Not until he had lain many minutes staring at the glowing moonlight that streamed into the dark room, did his nerves relax a little.

One paramount necessity cried aloud in Gordon's mind. He had to get out of this crazy imposture at the earliest possible moment. He couldn't much longer carry on his weird impersonation of one of the focal figures in the approaching crisis of the great star-kingdoms. Yet how? How was he to get back to Earth to re-exchange bodies with Zarth Arn?

Gordon awoke next morning to glimmering white dawn and found the blue Vegan servant standing beside his bed.

“The princess Lianna asks you to breakfast with her, highness,” the servant informed.

Gordon felt quick surprise and worry.

Why had Lianna sent this invitation? Could she suspect something? No, impossible. And yetHe bathed in a little glass room where, he found by pushing buttons at hazard, he could cause soapy, salty or perfumed waters of any temperature to swirl up neck-high around him.

The Vegan had a silken white suit and cloak ready for him. He dressed quickly, and then went through the palace to Lianna's apartments.

These were suites of fairylike pastel walled rooms beyond which one of the broad, flower-hung terraces looked out over Throon. Boyish in blue slacks and jacket, Lianna greeted him on the terrace.

“I have had breakfast laid here,” she told him. “You are just in time to hear the sunrise music.”

Gordon was astonished to detect a faint shyness in Lianna's gaze as she served him iced, red-pulped fruits and winy purple beverage. She did not now seem the regally proud princess of the night before.

And what was the sunrise music? He supposed that was another of the things he should know but didn't.

“Listen, it is beginning now!” Lianna said suddenly.

High around the city Throon loomed the crystal peaks of the Glass Mountains, lofty in the sunrise. Down from those glorious distant peaks now shivered pure, thrillingly sweet notes of sound.

Storm of music broke louder and louder from the glittering peaks. Wild, angelic arpeggios of crystalline notes rang out like all the bells of heaven. Tempests of tiny tinklings like Pizzicati of fairy strings was background to the ringing chords.

Gordon realized now that he was hearing the sounds given forth by the sudden expansion of the glassy peaks as Canopus' rays warmed them. He heard the crystal music reach its ringing crescendo as the big white sun rose higher. Then it died away in a long, quivering note.

Gordon exhaled a long breath. “That was the most wonderful thing I've ever heard.”

Lianna looked at him, surprised. “But you've heard it many times before.”

He realized he had made another slip. They had walked to the rail of the terrace, and Lianna was looking up at him intently.

She suddenly asked a question that startled him. “Why did you send Murn away last night?”

“How did you know about that?” he said.

Lianna laughed softly. “You should know there are no secrets in this palace. I've no doubt it is buzzing right now with the news that we breakfasted together.”

Was that so? Gordon thought in dismay. In that case, he might have some explaining to do to Murn when next they met.

“Did you and she quarrel?” Lianna persisted. Then she flushed slightly and added, “Of course, it's really none of my affair.”

“Lianna, it is your affair,” Gordon said impulsively. “I only wish-”

He stopped. He could not go on, to say that he only wished he could tell her the truth.

He did wish that with all his heart and soul, at this moment. Murn was adorable, but it was Lianna whom he would never forget.

Lianna looked up at him with puzzled gray eyes. “I don't understand you as well as I thought I did, Zarth.”

She was silent for a moment, and then suddenly spoke a little breathlessly.

“Zarth, I can't fence with people. I have to speak straight out. Tell me, did you really mean it when you kissed me last night?”

Gordon's heart jumped, and the answer sprang from his lips. “Lianna, I did.”

Her gray eyes looked up at him gravely, wondering. “It seemed strange yet I felt you did. Yet I still can hardly believe-”

She suddenly, with the imperiousness that betrayed regal training, put her hands on his shoulders. It was open invitation to kiss her again.

Not if the whole palace had crumbled about them could Gordon have resisted doing so. And again, the feel of her slim, electrically alive figure in his arms, the touch of sweet, breathless lips, shook him.

“Zarth, you've changed,” Lianna whispered, wonderingly, unconsciously repeating Murn. “I almost believe that you love me-”

“Lianna, I do!” burst from Gordon. “I have, from the first moment I saw you.”

Her eyes softened, clung brilliantly to his. “Then you want our marriage to be a real one? You would divorce Murn?”

Gordon came to himself with a crashing shock. Good God, what was he doing?

He couldn't compromise the real Zarth, who loved Murn with all his heart.