of monetary exchange and the clansmen cared for coins only as booty from plundered caravans, which they might melt down for the metal, or use to barter with the city. As a slave, there had been no time for me to acquire the small copper coins that often came the way of slaves. Now by the suitable distribution of some silver coins with the face of Wanek finely executed upon one side, and the Kregish symbol for twelve on the other, plus a bottle of the fiendish drink called Dopa, I was able to make an inspection of the paper.
It was fine, smooth-textured from super-calendering, tough with a rag fiber base, and, I judged with a rush of blood to the head, milled in Aphrasoe. Questions elicited the dismaying information that it had come already packed and wrapped in these very bundles, from ships plying into Port Paros, over across the peninsula three hundred miles away, the last port of call before Zenicce. I had heard of Port Paros, a minor seaport serving a hinterland remote enough from Zenicce not to bother that great city. Port Paros was not a great city and did not count; but I wondered why the paper-carrying ships had docked there and not Zenicce. The merchants winked their bright eyes and laid fingers alongside their noses. They would by this mean avoid the iniquitous port taxes levied by the House of Esztercari on foreign ships. Paper, particularly, was ruinously taxed. Alas, no, they had no idea from which land ships had sailed.
Also, they bought the paper at ridiculously low prices and could look forward to a thumping one thousand percent profit in Zenicce.
One unsettling event took place as we made the last few miles to the city. I do not count the cutthroat who tried to stab me that night having seen the silver Eward coins I had disbursed. I rolled away from his blade and took him by the throat and throttled him a little and then broke his blade over his head, lifted him up and kicked his rump with some force, and sent him stumbling, yelling, into the lines of calsanys, which did what they always did when excited all over him. I did not feel inclined to stain my steel on him.
The event was simply the sight of a gorgeous scarlet and golden raptor, floating high in hunting circles above the caravan. That magnificent bird, I felt sure, must come as a sign that the Star Lords were taking a further interest in me. Undoubtedly, they had been instrumental in bringing me to Kregen for the second time, and, I surmised, with a complete faith in my own reasoning, they had not consulted the Savanti as to their action. The Savanti, I often had to remind myself with surprise, the memory of their warm goodness and fellowship so strong upon me, had kicked me out of Paradise. The Star Lords, I reasoned, would regard me as a very suitable tool if they wished to work against the Savanti. The caravan-master, a lean, chisel-faced black man from the island of Xuntal, an experienced and honest farer of the plains, looked up with me. He dressed in amber-colored gear and cloak, and carried a falchion, and his name was Xoltemb. “Had I a bow with me now,” he said in his slow voice, “I would not lift it. I think perhaps I might cut down a man who lifted a bow against that bird.”
Questions convinced me he knew nothing of the bird; that only its scarlet magnificence awed him, and the stories told around the camp fires about that serene and lofty apparition. I paid him the fees he had earned by the protection, as he supposed, his caravan had extended to me and my four zorcas. The fee was reasonable and I had not traveled far with them. He did say, as we saluted and parted: “I would welcome your company if you travel the Great Plains again. I am always in need of a good blade. Remberee.”
“I will bear that in mind, Xoltemb,” I said, “Remberee.”
Prince Varden, and his father Wanek and his mother and Great-Aunt Shusha were most pleased and relieved to see me returned safely.
“The plains are never safe,” scolded Shusha. “Every year I must make my pilgrimage to take the hot springs of Benga Deste. I sometimes wonder if I do not fret away all the good they do me on that frightful journey.”
“Why,” I said, “do you not take an airboat?”
“What?” Her old eyebrows shot up. “Risk my poor old hide on one of those flimsy, scary things!”
Then they all suddenly looked extraordinarily grave. Varden stepped forward and put a hand on my shoulder.
“Dray Prescot,” he said-and I knew.
I can remember that moment as vividly as though it were but this morning, when-but never mind now. Then- then I knew what he was going to say and I believe my heart turned to ice within me.
“Dray Prescot. Delia of the Blue Mountains took your airboat and left us. She did not say she was going, or where. But she is gone.”
Chapter Nineteen
The next day I had a little recovered.
Wanek was distressed, and his wife even cried a little until Great-Aunt Shusha shushed her and then drove them all away. Varden stood before me, all his friendship glowing in his face. He lifted his chin.
“Dray Prescot. You may strike me, as you will.”
“No,” I said. “I am the one to blame. Only me.” I could not say how much I raged and scathed myself with deep biting contempt. Delia had been dragged into all these miseries because of me, and I had failed her when she had almost found the answer to her way home. If only I had listened to her! If only I had done as she asked! But my stupid pride had blinded me; I conceived it my duty to stand by my promise freely given to Varden when, I felt sure, by a word he would have freed me from it. I had felt we owed much to the Ewards and I owed them my loyalty. How much more I owed all my loyalty, my life, to Delia of the Blue Mountains!
When a retainer reported that the airboat, the one we had captured from the Esztercari, had been only temporarily repaired and that more work was needed on it to make it really airworthy, I felt no more crosses need be hung upon me. Delia could be adrift over the face of Kregen, a prey to any of the many and various ferocious men and beasts, and half-men, half-beasts, loose upon the planet. She could have fallen from the air in a wild swooping plunge that would end with her body broken and lifeless upon the rocks beneath. She could have drifted out to sea and be starving and driven to desperation by thirst-I knew it, I knew it! I do not like, at any time, to recall my frame of mind in those days. Great-Aunt Shusha tried in her own guileful ways to comfort me. She told me of the old days of the Strombors, and I found some sort of surcease from agony with her. Many of the girls and some of the young men had gone to the clans, and most, I gathered, had gone to Felschraung.
“My clan,” I said. “Of which they will not let me loose the reins of leader-of Zorcander and Vovedeer, with Longuelm.”
She nodded, bright-eyed, and I guessed she was turning over ripe schemes in that devious mind of hers.
“I am an Eward by nuptial vows, and they are a goodhearted House, and the family of Wanek is very dear to me. It was Wanek’s uncle whom I married. But they are not Strombors! Only by treachery were we conquered. I think it is time a new House of Strombor arose in Zenicce.”
“You would be its Head,” I said, feeling my affection for her make me reach out and touch her wrinkled hand. “If that were so, then I agree. You would make a superb Head.”
“Tush and flabber-mouth!” Then she turned her bird-bright old eyes up at me, so woebegone and miserable with worry over Delia. “And if I were, and it were so, I could delegate, could I not?
That would be my right by law and custom.”
“Varden,” I said. “He would be a good choice.”
“Yes. He would make a fine leader for a House. I am glad you are friends with my great-nephew. He has need of friends.”
I thought of the great Noble House of Esztercari, and of a certain enameled porcelain jar of Pandahem style over-man-height standing in that corridor between the slave quarters and the noble, and I sighed. Varden and Natema would make a splendid couple. I had fought for her there, against the Chulik guards, and Varden would have done the same.
Varden had something else on his mind.
We were standing in an immense bay window overlooking an interior avenue of the enclave filled with the bustle of morning market and the cries of street vendors and the passage of asses and the squawking of birds and the grunting of vosks, with the slaves purchasing food and clothes and drink and all the busy hustle and bustle of everyday life. Varden tried to open the subject of conversation a number of times, and at last I had to make him
