their vile trade, we had met them with a wall of steel and an invincible purpose. We had organized, for I had put all my own experience in these matters at the disposal of the Valkans, and our Jiktars and Hikdars, our Deldars, had led disciplined formations into action. Once again the island was a fair and clean place in which to live and bring up children. And the word spread and the slavers came no more for, as the song triumphantly proclaims, no longer was Valka a supine carcass rotten for plunder. The slavers, with their patents from the court of Vallia, turned aside from Valka and sought easier conquests. And then — and then I understood what they all meant by the word “fetching.”
For I had fetched the men and women out of the Heart Heights, and I had fetched them weapons, and organization and the understanding that they could triumph if they willed it. And then they fetched me. Grim Tharu ti Valkanium, sword-girted, robed in the orange of the high assembly, strode the length of the high hall of the fortress of Esser Rarioch, and inclined to me — whereat, I remember, I was moved to anger, and bade him stand up like the man he was, and never cringe — and, with a smile, he said: “And for you, Drak, Strom na Valka, all men will bow. Aye! And joy in it, for it will show the world what we think of our Strom!”
I was astonished.
But they were serious. Everything had been arranged behind my back. I had known nothing. The song does not tell of these circuitous dealings, the messages, the sacks of golden talens dispatched, the complicated resorts to law, and the quoting of precedents. I was the Strom of Valka. The whole island was my fief. Everything upon it, whether living or dead, whether of man or nature, was mine, inalienably mine.
I tried to refuse, and saw the hurt in their eyes. I sat back in my seat and marveled. This, I felt sure, was no outcome envisaged by the Star Lords or, given that I had completed what poor Alex Hunter had set out to do, the Savanti, either. But I have remarked before of this strange and frightening charisma I possess, unasked, unsought, that serves me sometimes so well and sometimes so ill. Now I could only stand before them all, and humbly take what they offered. The rapiers leaped, glittering in the torchlight in that great hall.
“Hai, Jikai! Drak, Strom na Valka! Hai, Jikai!”
And so the seven hundred and seventy-eighth verse was added to the song. The emblem of Valka is the reflex-compound bow, placed horizontally, half drawn and aimed upward. Vertically upon this is a trident, as though about to be shot from the bow. The Valkans are great fisherfolk. Also, up in the rolling hills and wild crags of the Heart Heights that form the broad central massif of the island, they are proficient bowmen, using not the great longbow of Loh and Erthyrdrin but the shorter, stiffer, compound bow of cunning double-reflex curves, such as is used by my clansmen. We had driven our arrow storm into the aragorn, and they had shriveled before us. But, once on a time, Tharu ti Valkanium said to me: “We of Valka are great bowmen. Yet the Emperor keeps a personal bodyguard of the Bowmen of Loh. We are just a distant province, rich for plunder, ripe for slaves.”
And I had said to him: “You are great bowmen, still, Tharu; but no longer is Valka a province ripe for plunder!”
The other favorite weapon of the Valkans is the glaive. I do not mean by glaive a sword, in the archaic meaning of the word, gladius, a sword; but in the meaning in general use of a pole-arm, of the fifteenth century or so. The Valkan glaive is formed of a long narrow head, somewhat more robust than a bayonet, mounted on a shaft about five feet long. From the head along the sides run strengthening pieces of steel that serve also to prevent a slashing sword blow slicing the shaft in two. With the glaive the warriors of Valka go up against rapier men with complete confidence. So, in the fullness of time I, Dray Prescot, of Earth, became Drak, Strom na Valka. If there was any regret that my own name had, by a chance, not featured so far in Valka, I had quickly gone along with the name of Drak, for I saw that this might serve me well as a disguise and an alias when I penetrated Vallia. For the name of Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor, would be that of a wanted man there.
Also, through this incident, I had discovered that titles — for what they are worth — were obtainable as much by merit and effort as by birth and heredity in Vallia. Once I had cleared Valka and established myself in fact as the chief of the island, and the whole people concurring, I became a Strom and no one would say me nay. I did discover that a great deal was owed to the panvals I had rescued; for they had joyed in arranging the contracts, bribes, and agreements in Vondium, and in obtaining the Emperor’s great seal and signature — Earthly custom is paralleled in this on Kregen — on the letters patent. The illuminated patent itself was kept safely locked away in the fortress of Esser Rarioch. Now a Strom, with all the responsibilities of rebuilding the island’s economy and reinforcing her people’s confidence, I plunged headlong into work. Do not think I forgot Delia. More than once I took a boat out toward Vallia, to the west, and invariably the storm clouds gathered and the lightning and thunder roared and crackled menacingly, and the waves sought to smash the boat to fragments. Valka was a rich province, as I found, and by management I made her richer and more pleasant. Also, storing up credit for the future I had sworn must come, I so arranged matters that the high assembly could function with greater and greater freedom and authority. Tharu ti Valkanium often told me I was placing power into their hands, whereat I would say: “And do you believe I do not trust you, Tharu? And the elders? After all we have been through together?” And, again, I would say: “One day, Tharu, I must leave Valka, for a space, and go upon a mission that is dear to my heart. When that day comes, I want the island to continue to prosper, andyou to remember me, so that when I return — with my bride — the whole future will be bright and glorious.”
“We will not forget, Strom Drak, we will never forget.”
Already, the girls were preparing the elaborate dresses and jewelry and all things needful that the Stromni, my bride, would require. Erithor of Valkanium could not make a song about that triumphal return yet, but he would strum out a merry tune, and hum words beneath his breath. When the girls of the place begged him to continue he would laugh and say: “Not so, you handmaidens of frivolity! I but tune my strings against the day the Stromni comes!”
How could I tell them that this Stromni was a princess, was the Princess Majestrix of all Vallia?
One day, among a group of friends on the terrace of Esser Rarioch with all of Valkanium spread beneath us and the suns of Antares blinding back from spire and tower and gabled roof, and the wide sweep of the bay beyond where the sea sparkled its impossible Kregan blue, I began idly to hum and then sing a few snatches of
Erithor drew his slender fingers across the strings of his harp with a harsh and jangling discord. I looked up in surprise. They were all looking at me — Tom, Tharu, Theirson, Logu, and even Borg, who was a Vallian, stared also — and I looked at them in surprise.
Tharu said: “We do not sing that song in Valka, Strom.”
I never apologize. It is a weakness. I said: “The song is mild and harmless, but if I have offended you, my friends-” And then I stopped. We had sung songs together a hundred times more bawdy, and they had not complained.
“The Emperor keeps a personal bodyguard of Bowmen of Loh. Therefore we do not sing that song.”
I nodded. “I see. Rest assured, it shall remain among the great unsung epics.”
At this they all laughed. On Kregen there are many classics that are honored more in the breach than the observance in their rendition, as on Earth. The tension of the moment was broken, but I was displeased. I like that song. It reminds me of Seg Segutorio, and that memory, then, was bittersweet and full of a masochism I relished as a punishment. I was young then, as you know, young and headstrong and foolhardy, although trying to control myself. I could take pride that I had not, back in Theirson’s village, rushed with empty hands on the aragorn. I was learning, slowly. What was more disturbing was the evident antipathy these good people of Valka had for the Emperor’s choice of a personal bodyguard. I welcomed their hatred of the Racter party, who, although never in the open, were the instigators of the slaving raids, for they gained much of their wealth thereby. I did not relish this hatred of my beloved’s father.
For all that I would have to walk in and teach him how to behave to a son-in-law, a prospect full of unpleasantness.
This incident, I believe, finally made me make up my mind to act positively. I had been growing lethargic
— oh, not in the amount of work I dispatched each day, but in the attitude I had adopted. I love Valka and I could see all the fantastic promise of the island even then. I had become wrapped up in the place. I saw it as the home to which I would bring Delia of the Blue Mountains in triumph as my bride. Encar of the Fields came in then with a query about the new acreage of samphron trees we were clearing — from the gnarly-trunked samphron trees
