“Do you think this great untidy port of Pomdermam is my home?”
“Bormark?”
“Of course. Bormark lies on the extreme western border of Tomboram, and the lands run border with those of The Bloody Menaham. We have to reach Bormark, Dray, before Pando can claim his rightful inheritance.”
I looked at Inch. He rubbed his ear and popped a paline into his mouth, and chewed, and refused to meet my eye — a mean and despicable act in a comrade.
“Is there no one here who can help?” I shot a shaft at a venture. “The king in his capital-”
“Him!” Scorn flashed from those lovely violet eyes. “King Nemo? He would as soon lock up Pando and me deep in a dark dungeon and throw the key away. I am sure he hates us, for being the relatives of his brother, Marsilus.”
“All right, then. Anyone else?”
She picked up a paline and began to roll it on her palm. “I was an actress, Dray. Oh, I came from a famous theatrical family, we played all the best houses, and my way seemed set to follow in my family’s footsteps. Then Marker came to the theater one night — and-” She looked at Pando, who was gazing at her, his mouth and eyes wide and the rich paline juice dribbling down his chin.
“Wipe your face, Pando! You look like an urchin!”
All the old adjustments had to be made by me. I was an urchin, a powder monkey who had climbed up through the hawsehole and trod the quarterdeck, bedecked with gold lace and a pair of shoes, cracked and with steel buckles, true. But urchins, to me, are comrades the two worlds over. Tilda watched as Pando wiped. Then she said: “There is the Pallan Nicomeyn. He is old and wise. He was always fond of Marker — he tried to mitigate Marker’s father’s wrath; but uselessly.”
A Pallan was the Pandahem equivalent of a minister of state, a name used, I discovered, also in Vallia.
“The Pallan Nicomeyn, then,” I said. “Let us go and see him.”
It was not as easy as all that to contrive a meeting, for we traveled under assumed names. But, eventually, we were shown into a small and windowless antechamber of the palace where guards -
humans — stood at the folding doors. Presently the Pallan Nicomeyn entered. He was old, for his hair was gray and his face lined, destructions of time that do not overtake a Kregan until he is well past his hundred and fiftieth year. Whether or not he was wise remained to be seen. As soon as he saw Tilda he turned and made a quick motion to the guards. Obediently they closed the folding doors and we were alone with him in private.
He wore a long gown of blue, girdled by a golden chain set with rubies, and he wore on his gray hair a flat velvet cap of a bright blue adorned with the blue tail feathers of the king korf. He carried a book which, I noticed, locked with a hasp and a golden padlock.
He advanced toward Tilda, his arms open to her.
“My dear! I never thought to see you again! You do not know the pleasure these old eyes of mine gain by once more gazing upon your beauty!”
They kissed and I thought this Pallan, this councillor or minister of state, showed some true feeling for Tilda.
“And is this-” He turned to Pando.
“This is my son, Pando.”
“So,” said Nicomeyn. “You are the young Kov-”
I said, loudly, so that they all jumped: “Pando is a fine boy. He doesn’t know much, though.”
“Dray!” said Pando, and he tried to kick me. I moved my foot and he kicked the chair, and I smiled.
“Sit quietly, you young imp, and listen while your elders talk.”
He used the Kregish expression for grups, which I ignored.
“So he does not know, eh?” said Nicomeyn. He nodded. He wasn’t too slow to catch on. “Perhaps that is wise.”
Pando, defying me, said: “Will I see the king?”
“All in good time, dear, all in good time,” said Tilda. She faced Nicomeyn. “You know the truth. Will you help us?”
He pursed his lips so that the lines indented deeply around his mouth. He put a long white finger to those lips, and shut his eyes, and thought. Just as I was about to become angry, annoyed that he should thus insult Tilda the Beautiful, he spoke his own salvation.
“There is no need to ask
“Oh, Nicomeyn!” said Tilda. “Dear Nicomeyn.”
“Old Marsilus was a drinking comrade of my youth. It is dangerous to compare a king to his brother. I will not say more.”
I stood up. “Well, that’s settled, then, and pleased I am, too. Now Inch and I can get on. Kregen is a large place.” I began to make a polite farewell to Tilda, with Pando staring at me as though I had grown another head, when Nicomeyn cut in.
“Please do not prattle, young man. I do not know who you are, but I assume the Kovneva Tilda employs you as a bodyguard. Your brute strength and your sword will be needed now, as it has never been needed before. So sit down and listen.”
Then — with a great swoosh of air, I laughed. The situation tickled me. Inch looked most offended and Pando glowered at me, pursing his lips and fidgeting up and down on the seat; but I had my laugh out. Tilda stared at me and her plucked dark eyebrows rose.
Most men, speaking like that to me, would have woken up in the far corner minus a few teeth. But the Pallan Nicomeyn was deep in conversation with Tilda, and patently anxious to help, so that I was completely disarmed. He did not know me, that is true, and so he escaped the deserts of his rash talk; besides, he was old and he wanted to help Tilda and Pando.
A plan was concocted but of it all the most important lay in the few words Nicomeyn spoke to me. “I have labored long for this realm of Tomboram, and I know the family of Marsilus can play a great part in our future. My loyalties go a long way into the past. I would wish to see Pando where he belongs.” I made no comment, frivolous or otherwise, on that pious hope. “If the usurper Murlock Marsilus can be deposed, and a fait accompli is presented to the king, then the law is clear. The rightful title lies-” He glanced at Pando, and finished: “The title lies where the law obliges it to lie, and cannot be challenged. But, the usurper must be deposed first. While he holds — possession counts for a great deal.”
“And he’s a bad lot?”
Nicomeyn made a face.
“I see. So we must first get rid of him and then it is plain sailing?”
“Yes.” Nicomeyn looked at me. I was dressed in a sober blue tunic with leather shoulder straps rather like winged epaulettes, and my weaponry was belted about me as was my custom. Under the tunic I wore my scarlet breechclout, but that was invisible. I held the broad-brimmed gray hat with its curled blue feather on my knee. As though sizing me up in a different light from that with which he had first conned me, Nicomeyn said: “He is cunning, like a rast. He is strong, like a leem. He is stubborn, like a calsany. He will not be an easy person to dislodge.”
Pando perked up, speaking his clear childish treble. “I don’t know what it is you say, Uncle Nicomeyn. But if anyone can do anything, that one is Dray Prescot. I know.”
I clumped my ex-assassin’s boots on the floor and stood up. The part that Murlock would play was already clear; for he had sent the assassins after Tilda and Pando to make absolutely sure of his inheritance, that was patent. “We had better be about our work, then.”
All the way out from the palace and into the suns-shine of Kregen I was hating myself. For I had once more engaged to do something that prevented me from rushing to my Delia, and claiming her before the world.
On the street with the busy pedestrians, and the zorca riders, and the calsany carts, and all the hurry and bustle of a great port that was also a capital city, Pando piped up, “Why did Uncle Nicomeyn call you a Kovneva, mother?”
Immediately I took his arm and bent and whispered: “Did I not tell you, oh boy of little faith?”
He looked up at me and giggled and then tried to kick me whereat I spun him around and Inch yanked him back onto the pavement and a passing zorca bucked and its rider cursed. I looked up at him, and his curses stopped in midstream, and he swallowed and smiled — rather a sickly smile — and dug in his spurs and cantered off.
