shaped shafts of pikes and halberds, and the smiths were forging the heads to fit. Grindstones were being stolen and if a Rapa guard was found with his throat slit, wasn’t that what they hired themselves out to expect?
“My dear Drak,” said Susheeng. “I swear you are thinking of something else.”
A naturally gallant man might have mumbled that no man could think of anything in the presence of Susheeng except her; that way lay dragons. I said: “Yes.”
“Oh?” Her eyebrows lifted. That cruel look flashed over her face.
“I was thinking how strange it is that neither you nor your brother, the noble Glycas, are married.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “You — would-?
“Not me, Princess Susheeng.” I took a breath. “I am spoken for in Vallia.”
“
I thought that would finish the matter. She had known that my urgent desire to return to Vallia — as she thought of it as a return — had cooled lately. She had thought it was on her account and now she knew otherwise. I made a big mistake then.
The next night I was able to slip into the warrens with the pattern I had worked out for the shields. They were large, rectangular, curved into a semi-cylinder, and I insisted that they be built to withstand an arrow from the short straight bows of the overlords’ mercenary guards. If this meant they must be backed with metal, then the metal must be stolen from the building sites where it was being fashioned into masks and wall-coverings to the greater glory of Grodno. I overrode all obstacles. The weight of the shields thus produced, I said, was not important. I had in mind their use as a kind of pavise. I showed how they might be used in the testudo. I got through to my men in command. Susheeng was waiting for me as I climbed back in through my window.
“I have been waiting for you all night, Drak.”
I kept my composure.
“I was restless, Susheeng. I have been walking — to clear my head.”
“You lie!” She flamed at me then, passionately. “You lie! You have a girl out there in the city, a whore for whom you deny me! I’ll kill her, I’ll kill her!”
“No, no, Princess! There is no other girl in Magdag.”
“You swear by Grodno that what you say is true?”
I’d swear anything by Grodno; false deities mean nothing. But there was no girl — and then I thought of Holly. I said, harshly and with an acrid contempt: “I do not need to swear, Princess. There is no other girl in Magdag.”
“I do not believe you! Swear, you rast! Swear!”
She lifted her white hand on which the green rings flashed. I caught her wrist and so for a space we stood, locked, looking into each other’s eyes. Then she moaned softly and sagged against me, all the rigidity gone from her body. She leaned into me and I could feel her softness. “Tell me true, Drak. There is no other?”
“There is no other, Princess.”
“Well, then — am I not beautiful? Am I not desirable? Am I not fair above all other women in Magdag?”
What had Natema said, and what had I said, when I thought Delia was dead? Now I was by that span of years more mature.
“You are indeed the finest flower of Magdag, Susheeng,” I said, and felt shame at the vicious irony of my words.
A crisp knock at the door followed by a Vomanus who concealed his chagrin at sight of Susheeng, who was smoothing down her hair now, effectively chopped off that scene. When Susheeng had left with a long lingering glance at me, Vomanus said enviously: “Well, you lecherous old devil! So you managed it in the end!”
“Not so, good Vomanus.” I looked at him, and I found he ranked favorably with those other young men who had followed me to death. “And aren’t you supposed to treat a Kov with some kind of respect, hey, young lad?”
He laughed delightedly.
“Of course. But I told poor old Tharu not to tell you who I was, and I don’t intend that you should find out now. Just take it from me, Drak, my friend, Kovs are Kovs and Kovs to me.”
I glowered at him from under lowered eyelids and he, despite that he had known me for a little while now, started back and I knew I wore that corrosive look of pure authority and domination on my ugly face that I despair so much of.
“And are you going to tell me you aspire to the Princess Delia yourself, good Vomanus? That I am a rival?”
“Drak — Dray! What are you saying?”
I never apologize. I turned from him. Then: “Vomanus — I thank you for your help and comradeship. But I fancy that she-leem Susheeng will set spies on me. I am going to have to disappear.”
“What!”
“There is work waiting for my hand. I love the Princess Delia as no man ever loved a woman before in all this world of Kregen, aye! and all of Earth-” He stared then, thinking me going off my head, I shouldn’t wonder. “But before I can return to her and clasp her in my arms again I must discharge the obligations laid on me. A Vallian ship was signaled last night — you did not know?” For he had started and his face had lighted up. “Listen carefully, Vomanus. I take a great comfort from your comradeship and your ready wit and help — now, hear me out! I want you to return on the ship, go to Delia, and tell her I am well and dying for her and that I shall return just as soon as certain business has been conducted here. She will understand, I know. I know she will!”
“But, Drak — I dare not return without you!”
“Dare not? When your Princess Majestrix awaits news of me, thinking me dead, perchance, suffering. Go back to Vallia, good Vomanus. Give the good news to your princess. Tell her I shall return just as soon as I am allowed. She will understand.”
“But what keeps you here? Not Susheeng of a surety.”
“Not Susheeng, nor any other girl. I cannot explain. But you will return to Vallia and give my message and my undying love to Delia of the Blue Mountains.”
Besides, I wanted him well out of the way when my slave army struck. I didn’t want his head stuck on a pike and paraded along the harbor wall.
He shook his handsome head, and thrust his fist down on his rapier hilt so that the scabbard stuck up into the air, arrogantly. “But, Drak, to return without you!”
“Go! For the sake of Zair, go now! Tell Delia I long to clasp her in my arms — and I will, I will, but go, now, before it is too late!”
He stared at me as though, at last, I had taken leave of my senses. I calmed myself. “All will be explained. And, too, you could return with an airboat to Proconia. I know Vallia does not like using the airboats in the inner sea. I can join you there.”
He frowned. Then: “Very well, Kov Drak. I will do as you ask.”
We made the final arrangements and then I said “Remberee” to Vomanus and went back to my room that evening to collect all that I might need. I was about to leap onto the windowsill when Susheeng called. It was weak of me, I know. But I felt I could not leave without a kind of warning. After all, she was acting of her nature, like them all. So I went to the door and let her in. She was magnificent.
She was dressed as barbaric murals showed Gyphimedes, the divine mistress of the beloved of Grodno, to be dressed in the old legends. Kregen is a maze of myth and legend, some of it beautiful, some horrible, all of absorbing interest. Storytellers weave their fantasies in every marketplace and on favorite street corners beneath the sturm trees. The very air of the world breathes a scented miasma of romance and wonder. Now Susheeng stood gracefully before me dressed as a living mistress from one of those old legends.
Her hair was coifed and ablaze with jewels. A thick rope of it had been left free and this hung down, coiling lushly over one rounded shoulder. Her body was clad in strings and ropes of emeralds. A priceless fortune glowed against her white skin. The rosy hue in her cheeks was not entirely artificial. Her eyes gleamed and sparkled from lotions. Barbarically bedecked, more nude than if she had been naked, she glided toward me, the golden ankle bells chiming. The breath clogged in my throat.
“Drak — my Prince — do I not find favor in your sight?”
It was a rote question, as old as man and woman.
“You are exceedingly beautiful, Susheeng.”
