Krozair longsword with such uncanny skill. His rapier work was smooth and businesslike, economical, with many touches about the art that reminded of my own style. I watched and, like any fighting man, I became absorbed with the art and the skill as the blades screeched and rang, touched and parted. The torches flared down and the stars shone, and She of the Veils was joined by the Maiden with the Many Smiles, so that a bright and fuzzy, pinkish golden moonslight glowed down and gave all the light needed for the death of a man. The fight was quick and deadly, very close. Handon began with cocksure swagger, confident that he had the measure of this youngster, for all his heavy beard. But soon Handon grew to understand that he faced a swordsman. The blades flung back the golden moonslight in drops of purest gold, and then those drops turned to drops of blood as Zando delicately sliced through Han-don’s guard and pierced his right wrist. The two daggers clashed and fell away, and Handon staggered back, cursing foully. I stepped forward.
“Let this be a finish,” I said. “Jiktar Exand, take the Diproo Nimble-Fingered man away and see him rewarded by ten talens. I shall ask him again, later, so let him keep his eyes and ears open.” I turned to Handon. “You. Go up and have your wound attended to.” I half turned to glance at Kov Lykon. “I think you overreach yourself, Kov. I command here. Go back to the Emperor and ponder well what you nearly accomplished.”
“I go, Prince, and I shall ponder well.”
Well, it was just about all he could say without having me knock him down on the instant. Now I could speak to this Zando.
But he was staring at me with a look of sickly surprise on his face. I looked into his eyes, liquidly gleaming below the wide brim of his hat, and I thought I saw fear lurking there. Fear? I thought I must have misread him. He was pallidly white now above the beard, below the shadow.
“Dray Prescot!” he said. He breathed the words as though he did not believe them. I took his arm. He shuddered at the touch. I led him up the stairs along the wall of Esser Rarioch and through a small postern then, by flang-infested stairways — for this was a private way to which only a few of my intimates had the key — we went up into a small study. There I flopped him down into a chair and poured him wine. I poured him the best Jholaix. He sipped, but he was over his panic and he looked up at me over the brim.
“You spoke of Krozairs,” I said. “Krozairs of Zy. Tell me, Zando, what is a Krozair? What is a Krozair to you?”
“I bear a message from a Krozair brother. He is in some desperate straights. It is necessary, for the sake of your vows, that you supply him with arms, with money, with a voller.”
I nodded. “All that I shall do, of course. But tell me of this Krozair brother-”
“I may not do that, Prince.” He got the title out with a slight hesitation, as though playing a part. “It is an interdiction laid upon me. The Krozair said you would give me all I asked for, without questions.”
“That is so,” I said. I felt certain that this could be no confidence trick on a gargantuan scale. No stranger could possibly know of the connection I had with the Krozairs. He could scarcely know of them, although that was a possibility.
“So you will not tell me?”
He was over that fraught reaction, I thought, to the fight. “I may not do that, Dray.”
I looked up quickly.
“That is — Dray Prescot, Prince Majister.”
“Hum,” I said. “Very well. You wish the supplies tonight?”
“As soon as is humanly possible.”
I rang for Panshi and he slippered in, smiling, bringing with him a fresh bottle of Jholaix. I said, “Panshi, give this young man Zando all he requires. Do not stint.” I glanced over as Zando finished his glass at a gulp. He was one relieved mysterious visitor. “As to vollers, you ask a great deal. We have a need for every voller we can lay out hands on.”
We used the word
“I understand that. I may only ask of your goodness.”
“Hum,” I said again. I detested the procrastinating word, but it served a purpose. I said to Panshi: “Have Hikdar Vangar ti Valkanium turn out a first-quality flier. The best we have. When he shouts that the order is impossible tell him I know he will shout and object, but that the order is so.”
Panshi bowed, put the bottle down, and went out. A quiet, patient, knowing man, Panshi my chamberlain could organize a twenty-course banquet in the fiercest typhoon of the outer oceans, and bring on a theater production to follow.
Zando laughed. He threw back his head and laughed. “You ask all the right questions and behave exactly as I knew you would. By Zair, Dray Prescot! I praise Opaz the day I met you-”
“You swear by Zair,” I said somewhat sharply. “And you do well to thank Opaz for what I give you. You will leave something of my treasury to me?”
“A thousand talens, I think, will suffice.”
I took some pleasure in not allowing any expression to cross my ugly old face, and so pique him, I thought, by my lack of response. He merely chuckled.
“And Dray Prescot, your iron self-control is also pleasing to me.”
I knew he was mocking me, like so many of my friends, and so I said, still in that sharp voice, “When you are ready to take off let me know and-”
“I shall, with your permission, take the money and the supplies and the voller and depart as soon as I may.” He stood up. “If you would have someone show me the way. .?”
He was a cool customer, all right. I had him seen to and then, on an impulse, I stretched out my hand to shake his, in the wrist-gripping way favored over most of Vallia. He hesitated. When at last he clasped hands I felt his arm trembling. Then he said, “Remberee, Dray Prescot. May Zair have you in his keeping.”
“Remberee, Zando. And tell your mysterious friend, this Krozair brother, that Krozair vows are to be kept.” I then added a few words I did not think Zando would understand, words I knew would bring a grim smile of pleasure to the face of the Krozair. Then Zando was gone. As I say, this whole little episode had been strange in the extreme and also a little unsettling. I went back to the Chavonth Chamber prepared to be unpleasant to Kov Lykon; the man had had the sense to take himself off to bed.
Chapter 7
The twin suns shone down magnificently as I walked out into that secret walled garden with Delia radiant and lovely at my side. There is much to tell of this period in Valka when I labored to prepare the Empire of Vallia to measure her strength against the Empire of Hamal; but I must press on, and indicate with only a few brush strokes the main outlines of the work. This garden was not the one in which we had been surprised by the stikitches. This garden, hung with flowers, shrubs, and trees, glowing, colorful, and odoriferous with perfume, with a pool into which Drak and Lela might push each other, was entirely surrounded by a high stone wall, creeper-covered on the inside but stark and bare on the outer. The door from the fortress of Esser Rarioch was of stout lenk, iron-barred and banded, and the keys were kept always with Delia or myself.
On the grass of this sunshine-filled day in which an argenter of Pandahem was brought into the harbor as prize, I walked with Delia, talking of our plans. On that grass, starred with tiny yellow chremis flowers that Delia had not the heart to order mown, Drak and Lela played and romped with Kardo and Shara, the twin baby manhounds.
Melow the Supple paced by our side. She was dressed now in a way befitting a devoted mother, with good Valka buff relieved by bright colors — for she was genuinely fond of all bright things after her life as a Manhound of Faol — and her yellow hair had been neatly coiffed and delicately scented. How strange to see a fearsome, frightful, unnatural manhound thus walking with us and even laughing at the antics of our children. Delia, with all that womanly virtue and that glorious compassion which made her delightful mockery so precious a facet of her character, had welcomed Melow and her babies with coos of delight. Of course, the two baby jiklos, being
