Galna saw me.
His eyes were always mean; but now they narrowed and the hardness and meanness drilled me. He lifted his rapier.
“Galna! Dray Prescot is-” Natema stopped. Her voice lifted again, once more arrogant, once more assured, the mistress of the utmost marvels of Kregen. “He is to be treated well, Galna. See to it.”
“Yes, my Princess.” Galna swung back to me. “Give me your sword.”
Obediently I handed across the nearest Chulik sword I had already picked up against this moment. I also handed across the Chulik dagger that had not, like its Jiktar, failed me. Now my breechclout concealed the broad belt, and the scabbard flapped against my legs, empty, Galna let me keep those, as he supposed, tawdry souvenirs of my struggle.
I tried to hurry after Delia; but there was much coming and going in the barricaded nobles’ quarters as arrogant young men, gentlemen, officers, bravos, from Esztercari and from Ponthieu and many of the Houses who were aligned with those two Houses’
axis, congregated for the great hunt and slaying of slaves that was to ensue. I lost Delia. I was ordered by Natema to take the baths of nine and then to go to my room. As though I were some infant midshipman caught in a childish prank, banished to the masthead!
“I will send for you, slave,” were her farewell words to me. I didn’t give a tinker’s cuss for her. Delia… Delia!
Natema for the sake of her dignity and position must display her pride and arrogance before all men. She could not own to anyone the love for a slave she had only recently been so ardently displaying to me, naked and begging on her knees. But when she would send for me-what could I do, say?
A knock sounded on my door, rather, a furtive scratching that lacked the courage to knock loudly. When I opened it Gloag stumbled in, his body blood-stained, his face ghastly, his fist still gripping the stump of a spear. He looked at me.
“Was this the day, Gloag?”
He shook his head. “They brought their airboats, flying to the roof, they brought men onto our rear, men and beasts and mercenaries-swords and spears and bows-we did not have a chance.” He sagged, exhausted.
“Let me bathe your wounds.”
He wrenched his lips back. “This is mostly accursed guards’
blood.”
“I am pleased to hear it.”
He did not say what had brought him here. He did not need to. This man had struck me with the rattan. I fetched water in a bowl, and salves left by the old crone for his wounds and bruises, and fresh towels, and I cleaned him up. Then I pulled my trundle bed away from the wall and pointed to the space beneath it, between wall and floor.
He grasped my hand. His great booming voice husked.
“Mehzta-Makku, Father of all, shine down in mercy upon you!”
I said nothing but pushed the bed back, concealing him. The killing of slaves went on for three days in the opal palace of the Princess Natema Cydones of the Noble House of Esztercari. Many were the brilliantly-colored liveries of the different Houses in alignment with Esztercari as they came hurrying to suppress this slave revolt. The city wardens in their crimson and emerald also acted with vigor; for this was a matter that touched the security of the whole city of Zenicce.
During this period I brought food and wine for Gloag, hidden beneath my bed, and saw to his toilet needs, and talked to him, so that we came to understand each other better.
“I hear you are a great swordsman with rapier and dagger,” he said, licking his bowl with a crust.
“I could show you a style of fence with a smaller sword than a rapier, without a dagger, that would astonish these rufflers.”
“You would teach me swordplay?”
“Do you know the layout of the palace?”
Gloag did; he might know little of the city, but he could find his way about the opal palace readily enough by its secret warrens and runnels. He had not escaped before because his duty lay with the slaves; now he was trapped in my room. I promised him. I believe that only Delia and the two slave girls in their strings of pearls, Gloag and myself, and one other, escaped the dreadful retribution wrought upon the slaves. When all had been killed the Noble House spent of their fortune to buy more slaves. That hurt them-the sheer financial loss on the slave revolt.
Natema sent for me and, once more dressed in my offensive clothes, a new set even more luxurious than the last with a great deal of brilliant scarlet, I went with guards and Nijni-who as slave-master held a post of some authority and had hidden during the revolt-up to a high roof overlooking the broad arm of the delta on its seaward side. Wide-winged gulls circled overhead. The suns sparkled off the water, and the air smelled fresh and sharp with sea-tang after the close sickly confinement of the palace. I opened my lungs and drew in that old familiar odor.
Landward of us lay the city, a blaze of color and light, with tall spires, domes, towers, battlements, creating a haphazard jumble of perspectives. Across the canal the purple and ocher trappings of the House of Ponthieu flamed from a hundred flagstaffs. Beyond their walls there were other enclaves built upon the islands of the delta. Seaward I could see-and how my heart leaped-the masts of ships moored to jetties hidden by the walls and the intervening roofs.
This hidden roof garden rioted in a thousand perfumed blooms, shady trees bowed in the breeze, marble statuary stood in niches of the walls where vines looped, water fountains tinkled. Natema waited for me reclining in a swinging hammock-type seat facing a rail overlooking a sheer drop of a thousand feet. Gulls whirled there, shrieking.
Delia of Delphond, clad in pearls and feathers, crouched by her jeweled feet.
I kept my face expressionless. I had sized up the situation instantly, and the danger made me tremble for Delia.
For Delia had uttered a low gasp at sight of me, and Natema’s proud patrician face had turned to her, a tiny frown indenting her forehead above her haughty nose.
The interview wended its way as I had expected. My refusal astonished Natema. She bade her slaves retire out of earshot. She regarded me tempestuously, her hair ruffling in the breeze, her cornflower blue eyes hot and languorous, together, so that she seemed very lovely and desirable.
“Why do you refuse, Dray Prescot? Have I not offered you everything?”
“I think,” I said carefully, “you would have me killed.”
“No!” She clasped her hands together. “Why, Dray Prescot, why? You fought for me! You were my champion!”
“You are too beautiful to die in that way, Princess.”
“Oh!”
“Would you offer me all this if I were not your slave?”
“You are my slave, to do with as I will!”
I did not answer. She looked back to where Delia sat, idly sewing a silken bit of tapestry, and pretending not to look at us. Her cheeks were flushed. Natema’s ripe red mouth drew down. “I know!” she said, and her voice hissed between her white teeth. “I know! That slave wench-Here! Guards-bring me that wench!”
When the Chuliks stood grasping Delia before us, she lifted her little chin and regarded Natema with a look so proud and disdainful all my blood coursed and sang through my body. Delia did not look at me.
“This is the reason, Dray Prescot! I saw, in the corridor where you slew the five treacherous guards! I saw.”
She gave an order that froze me where I stood. A Chulik drew his dagger and placed it to Delia’s breast, over her heart. He looked with his oily yellow face to Natema, stolidly awaiting the next order.
“Does this girl mean anything to you, Dray Prescot?”
I stared at Delia, whose eyes now remained firmly fixed on me, her head lifted, her whole beautiful body taut and desirable and infinitely lovely. Queen among women is Delia of the Blue Mountains! Immeasurably the most beautiful woman in all Kregen and all Earth, incomparable, radiant, near-divine. I shook my head. I spoke roughly, contemptuously.
