Transit to Scorpio

Chapter Seventeen

Now life took a completely fresh turn for me, Dray Prescot. If I had missed companionship before, finding that rare commodity at last on Kregen among the tents and wagons of the clansmen with Hap Loder and his like-for Maspero and those, as I thought godlike beings, of Aphrasoe created always in me a breath of awe-I found it once again with Prince Varden and his drinking companions in the House of Eward of the city of Zenicce. And, too, most strangely, I found a compelling sense of friendship, warm and human and very luxurious to me, in the wise companionship of old Great-Aunt Shusha. I owned she might one day recall what she knew of Aphrasoe; but I did not need that hope to make me respect and admire her, and I admit my fondness for her grew almost foolish, if affection can ever be called foolish. Airboats are rare and precious objects in Segesthes and Wanek sent a party to repair and bring back the one Delia and I had escaped in, regarding it as another trophy wrested from the hated Esztercari. Delia said that she was familiar with airboats, and added that they were not manufactured in her land. That ruled out Havilfar, where I understood the mining was done on which the airboats depended for their lifting force.

I had entered with some spirit into the plans of the House of Eward to take down more than one peg the House of Esztercari. Dressed in the powder blue of Eward I would ruffle it with the other young blades as we strolled through the arcades, patronize the drinking taverns, watch the varied amusements in the Barbary Coast area of Zenicce. I went to the impressive Grand Assembly buildings, and watched as the never-ending debates took place, with men and women walking in and out to leave or resume the seats allotted to their Houses. We even got into one or two bravo-fights, all flurrying cloaks and the clink and rattle of rapier and dagger, and shouting and laughing, and hurried retreat as the crimson-and-emerald of the city wardens was espied hurrying to break up the fracas.

Once across the canal and within the cincturing walls of our enclave, of course, we were absolutely safe. To break into a House enclave would take an army and although many sporadic raids took place-often, I learned with an amusement so grimly ironic Prince Varden was surprised, to steal a girl-no House felt strong enough alone to challenge another directly. The Esztercari’s had by chicanery, murder, corruption and then naked force, ousted the previous House from the enclave and further estates in which they had now settled some hundred and fifty years ago. Some of Great-Aunt Shusha’s venomous hatred for the emerald green was explained when I learned she had been a Strombor, a girl of the previous House and recently married into the Eward’s, when her family, her friends, her retainers were killed and scattered. Some had been sold as slaves, some had gone to the clans, some had vanished in their ships over the curve of the world and never returned.

By the twin forces of law and custom all the rights, ranks and privileges of the House of Strombor had passed to the House of Esztercari.

Each House enclave was a city in itself: tasselated pavement, marble, granite and brick walls, domed roofs, colonnades, towers and spires, all the whole gorgeous jumble of splendid architecture enclosed and supported a living entity within the greater entity of the city. The Eward beer was extremely good; Zenicce was famous for its beers, although its lagers, as all are, were weak and dispirited. We young blades would go ruffling a long way to sup a new brew of beer, commenting wisely and with many hiccups on its quality and strength. Zenicce claret, too, is very fine. I looked very kindly upon being a citizen of Zenicce, and of having the undisputed run of the enclave-city of the Ewards with its own canals, avenues and plazas.

There were temples throughout the city, of course, mostly erected to Zim and Genodras; but each House also maintained its own temples and churches to its own personal House deity. In all this frenzied pleasure-seeking I indulged in at that time I could see, even then, that it was merely a hollow scrabbling at an anodyne. The problem of Delia remained forever with me, and nothing would remove it. I hugged my ache to myself, hating it and yet incapable of cauterizing it. Delia must be returned to her own land; yet to find that land was the difficulty.

We pored over the maps and charts in the library, and I saw with a nostalgic pang how similar and yet how different were the charts of these people. There were portolanos in the great library of the Esztercari’s; we could not study those. The globes were so like those of Medieval Europe, the confident coastlines of countries near at hand, the gradual loss of definition as distance threw a pall of ingorance across knowledge until, on the opposite sides of the globes, only the most general outlines of those of the seven continents and nine islands thought to lie there were represented. Aphrasoe was never shown; neither was Delphond.

Looking at the maps, Delia shook her head.

“My country is not shaped like any of these.”

I had shared the gems three ways, and Gloag had smiled his wolfish smile, and taken them; but he remained with me as a raffish drinking companion. Delia had pushed the gems back to me across the shining sturm-wood table, her face disdainful, her mouth prim.

“I would not take anything from that woman.”

I kept in a chest those gems, promising myself they were in trust for Delia of the Blue Mountains.

Wanek and his son, Varden, insisted that we regard the captured airboat as our own. Delia took me flying and showed me how to operate the controls, which I found magical and wonderful, and of which I will speak at another time.

During this period I talked long into the night with Great-Aunt Shusha, for she needed little sleep, and I have grown accustomed to doing without all my life. She had witnessed that terrible attack on her House, and had seen the young girls carried off and the men killed. She did not, I noticed, maintain a great retinue of slaves, and, indeed, the Ewards were as humane as they could be, given the circumstances and the nature of the thing, in all their dealings with their slaves.

At last we had fomented our plan and it was time for me to play my part. I had more or less given my word to Varden that I would assist him. The Esztercaris, we had discovered, planned a great rising against the Ewards, and the Reinmans and the Wickens, Houses in alignment with the Ewards. The stroke was audacious; but it could be accomplished, and we must get in our blow first, or we would be lost. Almost inevitably, whichever way the contest went, the city would be up. The stakes at risk were enormous. From the zorcas and the equipment we had taken on the day I’d helped beat off the clansmen’s attack on the caravan I had selected a fine beast and set of equipment. I donned my scarlet breechclout and then over it pulled on a clansman’s russet leathers with the fringings. I would say a brief farewell to Delia and then be on my way. It was on this day, strangely enough, that I learned just which girl it was that Prince Varden mooned after, and had told me of during our tavern-times and ruffling strolls through the city. Varden, it seems-and I felt a jolt of incongruous guilt strike through me-had lost his heart to the Princess Natema. He had seen her many times, always with a powerful bodyguard, and his hopeless passion festered in his breast.

“She is promised to another, to that oaf Pracek of Ponthieu. And, anyway, how could our two Houses consent to such an alliance?” I felt very sorry for the prince; for I would have you know he was a true and gallant friend.

“Strange things have happened, Varden,” I told him.

“Aye, Dray Prescot. But none as strange as the chance I shall ever hold Natema in my arms!”

I said: “Does she know?”

He nodded. “I have had word taken to her. She scorns me. She sent back insulting- It is enough that she refuses.”

“That is her father’s doing. It may not be hers.”

“Ha, Dray! You seek to cheer me and mock me more!”

If I told my friend Prince Varden that I had come from the planet Earth which I now know is four hundred light-years from Kregen under Alpha Scorpii, Antares, and that the strangeness of that must surely outweigh the strangeness that a girl would change her mind, he would have gaped at me. I thought again of Natema, of her willful obstinacy, her complete lack of understanding that others besides herself had any desires that should be fulfilled. Her obstinacy, I knew, was a pliant reed beside the steely obduracy of Delia of the Blue Mountains. Delia had stood at my side as we fought hostile men, Chuliks and wild animals. Delia had even smiled at me over the smoke of our camp fire as we ate the meat from my kill she had cooked. Delia wore the white furs I had stripped from the fresh kill I had made for her in protecting her life.

I noticed that Delia of the Blue Mountains wore those white furs I had given her when she might have had the choice of a hundred furs far more magnificent.

She must do that, I thought in my ignorance, to mock and humiliate me, and I could not blame her for that, seeing to what distress I had brought her, and I feel nowadays the shame of my worthless thoughts; but then I was in agony for Delia of Delphond, knowing, as I thought, that she hated me, despising and scorning me for my clumsiness and high-handed actions toward her. If Varden had had the same experience with his Natema as I had had, and if he had gone through what I had with Delia, I wondered, very bitterly, how he would regard her then. Delia was always kind to Varden and, it seemed to me, went out of her way to be pleasant to him. He would be a good match, if the Esztercaris did not slit his throat. But I refused to allow jealousy to foul our friendship.

And so I went that morning in the turn of the year to see Delia and bid her what I hoped would be a brief farewell. She was sitting in a powder blue gown reading an old book, its pages browned and crumbling. On the low seat at her side the white ling furs glowed silkily.

“What!” She started up as I finished telling her. “You’re going away! But-but I think-”

“It will not be long, Delia. In any case, I do not think my absence would displease you.”

“Dray!” She bit her lip, then thrust the book toward me, her pink and shining nail, perfectly trimmed, pointing out a smudgy woodcut.

The art of printing varies widely as to quality and technique throughout Kregen; but this was an old book, and the woodcuts messy, the print heavy.

“I believe, Dray, that that is a map of my country.”

At once I felt the flare of interest.

“Can we reach it-in an airboat, say?”

“I believe so-but I must compare this with the more modern charts. And, they do not compare. So-”

Then I remembered why I had come to see her, and my promise to Varden. I felt my eyebrows pulling down and my lips thinning, and knew my ugly face wore its ruthlessly forbidding look. “I have promised Varden. I must go.”

“But-Dray-”

“I know with what contempt you must regard me, Delia of the Blue Mountains. It was my selfishness that has dragged you through all the dangers you have undergone. I am sorry, truly sorry, and I wish you were back with your family.”

I make it a rule never to apologize-but I would say I was sorry a million times to Delia of the Blue Mountains. She started up from the seat, and her face flushed painfully, her eyes bright and brown and glorious upon me. She grasped the white ling furs convulsively.

“If you think that, Dray Prescot, you had best be gone on your mission.” She turned away from me, holding the book in one small hand limply at her side. “And when you are successful and have conquered the Esztercaris, the Princess Natema will be freed from her father’s domination. I think perhaps you welcome that.”

Delia had seen me in that ridiculous emerald, white, scarlet and golden turban and robes, coming out of Natema’s boudoir. She had seen me fighting desperately for the princess’ life. She had seen and scarcely understood the drama on that high rooftop of the opal palace, when I had scorned her for the sake of the dagger at her heart, and Natema had had me held over nothingness. What did she think of that? How could I explain? I looked at her and I felt as low as a man has any right to be in his life.

Then I swung away with a clash of my swords-for I wore clansman’s gear-and stamped out, seething, furious, sad and empty, all at the same time.

The powder blue of the Ewards escorted me until I was safely well away from the city, and then astride my zorca. With three more in a following string, I galloped headlong out toward the Great Plains and my clansmen.