The Towers Of Melnon

Chapter EIGHT

Blade talked into the microphone for the better part of an hour. Sometimes he had to stop and grit his teeth at the pain as the surgeon probed his wound, or smeared salve over it, or took stitches in the flesh with what felt like a sailmaker's needle. But the man seemed to know his business, and at the end of the hour the wound was cleaned, stitched up, bandaged, and no longer hurting much.

Blade managed to get through that entire hour's interrogation by the First Scribe without any obvious slips. He played his cards very close to his chest, volunteering no information, and answering only the most direct questions as briefly as possible. But he had to be careful there, since answering too briefly would be likely to arouse suspicion. Admittedly the First Scribe seemed fairly unsophisticated and unsuspicious, for all his rank. But Blade was too familiar with the range of poses a trained interrogator could take to trust any of them on outward signs.

He was also very careful to say as little as possible about English methods of war or the organization of English society. Those seemed to be the two areas where people in Melnon were most likely to cry heresy and try to burn you at the stake-or at least send you down among the Low People. When the topics did come up, Blade tried to give the impression that he really hadn't been especially happy with the way things were in England. In fact, he implied that he was very happy to have finally arrived where society was properly organized and fought its wars the way he had always wanted to fight. Again he had to be careful, since he didn't want to show more enthusiasm than he could make sound authentic. But he managed to keep a straight face, and the First Scribe showed no signs of suspicion.

If answering questions about the «Low People» of England was ticklish, asking about the «Low People» of the towers was even more so. Blade kept his mouth entirely shut on that subject, as much as he would have liked to learn more about it. But luck was with him again. Before he left the recreation chamber, he had learned a good deal about the relative position of High and Low in at least the Tower of the Serpent. Much of it he needed to know, but would never have dared ask. However, the method of learning it left something to be desired.

By the time the interrogation was completed, Blade's throat was dry. He asked for a drink.

«Certainly,» said the First Warrior. «What is your desire? We have water, wine, fujol, wolmnas-«going on to list about twenty names. Blade supposed they were all things to drink, but they made as much sense to him as if they had all been in medieval Sanskrit. He held up a hand to stop the flow of hospitality.

«Water will be fine,» he said. He wanted a clear head if he was going before Queen Mir-Kasa. Almost as important, it was harder to slip drugs or poisons into water than into something that might conceal their taste with its own. No doubt a psychiatrist sitting in some paneled office in London would call this attitude paranoid. Blade preferred to think of it as common-sense survival.

The First Warrior nodded. «Again, you show the wisdom of a hero. Wine or other strong drinks inflame the blood and slow the healing of wounds. But water purges inner imbalances and speeds the healing. Is that not right, Surgeon?»

«It is.»

The First Warrior stepped to the desk and reached over the scribe's shoulder to press a button in a complex rhythm. There was a moment's delay, then a beep and a red light that flashed three times. «Your water will come shortly,» said the First Warrior. «And I asked that bath servants come also, and a clothing worker. Queen Mir-Kasa may wish to see you as you are, for she cares little for things which stand between her and her curiosity. Such is the nature of women, and of queens. But she may also wish you fitly garbed.»

«Indeed,» said Blade. It was a word he had found useful in half a dozen different dimensions, to register agreement on topics that he did not entirely understand. But he made yet another mental note. Queen Mir-Kasa sounded like a strong-minded and self-willed woman. Good or bad? No way of telling at the moment.

The various servants called for must have been only a few chambers away, because they arrived less than two minutes later. There were four of them, all women, all naked as babies except for tight-fitting masks over their mouths and noses and elbow-length gloves. In fact, they were quite unnaturally naked. Except for a sort of Indian scalp-lock, every speck of body hair had been shaved off. And their bare skins glistened unnaturally with some sort of grease or oil with an unmistakably antiseptic smell. Blade found himself looking at them with barely controlled distaste, although all four were young and all four had more than presentable figures.

One of them carried a green enameled tray with a large jug and a small cup on it. The other three carried large sacks that bulged, no doubt, with bathing gear and clothing. Blade rose, stepped up to the water-bearer, and without thinking about it picked up the jug and poured himself a cupful of water.

There was a sudden metallic clatter that made Blade stop with the cup half-way to his lips. The girl had dropped the tray and jug to the floor, and was standing as if turned to stone. Her eyes were wide with unmistakable terror, as they shifted from the spreading wetness on the rug, to Blade, to the First Warrior, and back again. The First Warrior's face also seemed frozen, but his expression was obviously one of almost apoplectic rage. With an effort, he seemed to calm himself and shake his head, more in sorrow than in anger.

«Ah, Blade-Liza, I grieve that the Servant Master should have been so lax as to send such wretched people to wait upon the hero of this day's war. She should have known her people better than this. I will see that she is sent among the Low People for this.»

The First Scribe shook his head. «Perhaps it would be better to merely send her to the Pleasure Chamber for a week. Is it reasonable to ask that she should know which servants can be trusted to wait upon Blade-Liza, a man completely unfamiliar with the Peace Wisdom?» He looked severely at Blade. «You should know that no High Person may take anything directly from the hands of one of the Low People. The Low People must always place whatever they bring upon the floor at the High Peoples' feet.»

Blade nodded. «I am indeed in many ways ignorant of both your War and your Peace Wisdom. But in that case, why should anyone be punished. If the ignorance is mine, so is the-«

«Silence!» boomed all three of the officials together, in one deafening roar. «If you speak further, it will be necessary to administer to all four of the servants, instead of just the one who is at fault. What you were going to say is forbidden to one of the High People in the presence of any of the Low.»

Blade was not entirely sure he understood what he had just done, but decided that the safest course was to keep his mouth shut. It was obvious in any case that he could not save the girl. The First Warrior went on, in a more reasoned tone, «The fault is and must be that of the Low Person. Were she properly trained and obedient to the Peace Wisdom for the Low People, she would never have let you take the cup from the tray. She would have dropped it on the floor before you could do so.»

Blade felt compelled to raise an objection, purely on grounds of logic. «But then I would have received no water.»

The First Warrior's expression seemed to be hanging between a laugh and a glare. «The Peace Wisdom says nothing about you getting the water. Had she dropped it, she would have been only lightly administered, for soiling the rug. As it is, she will receive the Principal Administration, for without that the Peace Wisdom will be weakened.» That seemed to settle the argument as far as the First Warrior was concerned. Blade mentally shrugged his shoulders. He had better resign himself to never finding logic or even common sense in either the War or the Peace Wisdom.

Now the First Warrior stepped toward the offending girl. As he did, the other three girls slowly backed away from her, until she stood alone, still frozen stone-stiff. The First Warrior snatched the mask from her face, then reached down to his belt and unhooked the white wand hanging there, holding it carefully by its silvered end. He lifted it, then pointed it toward the floor. Slowly, as if her joints needed oiling, the girl knelt down, then bowed her neck. The First Warrior stepped up to her, stood over her, and pressed the green end of the wand to the base of her skull.

Instantly the girl's mouth snapped open, and the most appalling scream Blade had ever heard from a human throat tore through the chamber. Blade could not imagine the degree of pain that must be behind that scream. He did not even want to try. The girl began to shake all over, as though she were suffering a violent chill. Her scream continued, though, until there was no more air in her lungs. Then her eyes rolled up in her head, and she fell forward onto the floor, still shaking. The First Warrior kept the wand in place and did not raise it for another minute. By that time the girl's shaking was like the motion of an earthworm cut in two-something Blade had never seen or hoped to see in a human being. When the First Warrior stood up and lifted the wand from the back of her neck, the girl finally stopped moving.

The First Warrior stepped back for a moment, then with a look of infinite distaste on his face he thrust one booted foot under the girl's belly and lifted. She rolled over on her back, as limply as if all her bones had been turned to jelly, and the First Warrior's expression of distaste deepened. So did Blade's.

The girl's eyes were mere blank red pools, from which blood flowed as she turned over. And more blood was trickling from every body opening-ears, nose, mouth, genitals. The blackness of bleeding under the skin stood out vividly in her temples, wrists, ankles, breasts, and groin.

The First Warrior looked sourly at the blood trickling out onto the immaculate green carpet, and shook his head. «I am getting sadly out of practice, Blade-Liza. I would not have done such an-inefficient-job of Principal Administration a few years ago. Then I could have kept an erring servant girl building slowly toward the final peak for fifteen or twenty minutes, conscious all the while. As it is, I have cause to be ashamed. I shall have to ask for the next few Principal Administrations to be entrusted to me, so that I can regain my touch. Perhaps you would like to help me, Blade-Liza? You will need to learn how to conduct all levels of administration among the Low People if you are to rise as high among us as I think you will.

«Indeed,» said Blade. He did not dare say anything more. He could not, without his tone of voice making his true opinions unmistakably clear. The administration he had just seen made him feel sick to his stomach. The thought of having to give administrations himself made him even sicker. Any ideas of asking for food vanished on the instant.

The First Warrior, oblivious to Blade's clenched teeth and quick breath, went about observing the proprieties. He went over to the desk, punched a different rhythm into the signal button, then turned back to the three remaining servants. He raised his hands, pointed at Blade, then made a series of signs in the area. Apparently, there was some taboo about communicating verbally with the Low People. But the girls obviously understood, because they in turn pointed to Blade, then towards the bath. One of them went over to the gilded nozzles at its head and began turning on the water. Another motioned that Blade should take off his sword belt. He did so, stepped over to the bath, and sat down on the marble bottom. The water rose around him, faintly perfumed and exactly the right temperature. He felt the filth and sweat of the day's exertions floating off his body, and the kinks and knots easing out of his over-worked muscles. In fact, he found it hard not to simply drift off to sleep, letting the servant girls do with him what they would.

Abruptly a gong rang out, loud and brazen and booming, the sound rolling through the air of the chamber. All three of the officials jumped a foot in the air and stared at each other in nervous surprise. The servant girls jumped even higher, dropping the soaps and brushes and bottles of oil they were pulling from the bags. One of the bottles broke open as it struck the stone edge of the tub. An almost overpowering smell of perfumed oil filled the air of the chamber.

Blade sat up in the bath. «What the-? What is happening now?»

The First Surgeon was the first of the officials to recover his voice. «Queen Mir-Kasa.»

«What about Queen Mir-Kasa? Is she dead, or being crowned, or what?» Blade's impatience showed in his voice.

His commanding tone seemed to restore some of the three men's courage and composure. The First Warrior shrugged as he turned to Blade. «I told you that Her Splendor is a willful woman who lets nothing stand in the way of what she wants.»

«So?»

«She is coming here. That gong announces her.»

«Yes, she is coming here,» repeated the First Scribe. «This is most irregular. You are not properly prepared. We can-«

«I am a damned sight readier than you are!» snapped Blade. He was torn between anger and amusement at the sight of the three sadistic chair-warmers falling all over themselves at Mir-Kasa's apparent violation of custom. «And I suggest that somebody go to the door and let her in. In England it is considered very much against any wisdom to keep a queen waiting outside a door.»