bowed deeply. Then I turned around and sat down next to the Princess Majestrix. She waved her hand and the handmaidens seemed to become insubstantial wraiths.
She laughed aloud delightfully — and quite artificially to me, who had heard her laughing as we strode along through the Hostile Territories on our bare feet — and said: “Indeed, Strom, Valka sounds a most outlandish place. Tell me of it.”
Then, leaning forward a little, she said in a voice that snickered in like a rapier between the ribs: “You great onker-headed idiot, Dray Prescot! What happens if the real Strom of Valka walks in?”
I couldn’t stop myself.
I lay back on the silken cushions with their gold and silver embroidery and I laughed. I laughed fit to bust a gut.
The Emperor swung around. All conversation ceased. I was the focus of all eyes, staring at me, uncertain — scared!
I stood up and controlled myself.
I inclined to the Emperor.
“The Princess Majestrix is a worthy daughter to a great father,” I said. I meant at least half of that. “She has the gift of arousing the best in any man, Your Majesty. I did not mean to offend anyone here.”
He nodded, looking a little — puzzled, I thought. He turned away and went on with his conversation with the Chuktar, and I flopped back next to Delia.
“You glorious girl,” I said, changing what I had been about to say to a cliche no one could take amiss. “I am the true strom.”
“You mean — no, Dray, my darling! You can’t be!”
And then I remembered what the Gdoinye, speaking to me for the very first time on Kregen, had said. There was a time loop here. I knew that Delia would have heard gossip and news of this ferocious Strom of Valka, and of how he had cleared out the slavers and aragorn from his island, and received his patent of nobility — and all this would have been happening before she parted with me in the Hostile Territories. I had been on Kregen in two different places at the same time!
No wonder the Star Lords sometimes barred me off from travel!
My explanation was fragmentary and in a low voice. To have to sit here on silken cushions next to my Delia, so close to my own sweet Delia of the Blue Mountains, and be unable so much as to touch her! I knew that a single contact with her would result in my being run outside and at the best having my head parted from my body — and more likely having my body torn apart by red-hot irons. The Princess Majestrix was sacrosanct.
As she should be, of course.
The situation was idiotic, ludicrous, and fraught with terrible danger. Both of us wanted to gasp out our love for each other, to clasp each other in our arms, to tell all our news, and gaze deeply into the other’s eyes in absolute joy and wonder; yet we must sit here, so prim and precise, under the watchful eyes of the guards and the courtiers. I knew there were many eyes of spies there, people working for the racters, for the panvals, men and women working for all the different parties and lords each of whom wanted his own advantage from the Emperor. Drak, Strom of Valka, was a marked man henceforth.
That wouldn’t worry me.
I started to tell her that she must run away with me, at once, back to Valka and then, probably, to Strombor.
“Yes! Oh, yes, Dray, my darling!”
No hesitation, no regrets for leaving the sumptuousness all about her, no thoughts of her life here in Vallia as the Princess Majestrix. If the Strom of Valka kidnapped her, then his head would be forfeit and never more would she be able to return to her home. Strombor, then. . But — no slightest hesitation. She agreed willingly, joyfully, eagerly. Oh, yes, there is no woman in two worlds like Delia of the Blue Mountains!
Everything within the palace of Vondium was — and still is — conducted with order and dignity. I felt the sense of impressiveness, even then, when my every thought was of abducting the Princess out of that palace.
We spent what really amounted to only a few murs together before that audience was over and I had to take my leave of the Princess Majestrix and return with the Emperor to the throne room. He had taken a shine to me. Later we took a meal together in a private apartment with a number of the high men of the realm. These men were strangers to me then, but how well I know them now! Some as good and loyal friends, others as bitter and deadly enemies. As they stride onto the stage of my story I will introduce them to you. But, as always, following my plan, I will speak only of people and places and things as they impacted on me at the time, when I met them, even though I knew of them before that. The first of these to whom you should be introduced called on me the very next day at my new lodgings. He was Nath Larghos, the Trylon of the Black Mountains. A Trylon is a rank intermediate between a Vad and a Strom. The Black Mountains extend northward of the Blue Mountains and, although neither so lofty nor extensive, are composed of a black basaltic rock rich in minerals. Eastward the Trylonate runs into farming and agricultural products.
Trylon Larghos came unannounced into the sunny upper chamber of
“Strom Drak?” said Trylon Larghos, coming forward into the patch of mingled sunlight by the windows. I did not rise. I was in the act of placing rich yellow butter upon a chunk torn from a crisp Kregan loaf, and that is an important operation. I did look up. I saw Larghos then, and I can see him in my mind’s eye now. A big man running to fat, but with the muscles still supple and bulging on his arms and across his shoulders. He wore a Vallian tunic of leather, but instead of the decent buff, the leather had been dyed in a pattern of black and white. His sword hilt glittered with gems. His face, bearded and bewhiskered, contained a pair of close-set shrewd eyes, and his mouth was a rat-trap if ever I saw one. A man of whom to be wary. I summed him up instantly; dangerous, like a leem. Before I could answer he went on: “You astonish me, my dear Strom, that you are not occupying your villa here in Vondium.”
“The place has been deserted for many seasons.”
“So? I am sorry to hear it. I was pleased to make your acquaintance yesterday, with the Emperor. He seemed to find you genial company.”
The Emperor had been laughing a lot more, I recalled, when I took my leave. I did not offer Larghos a seat, but he sat down anyway. Maybe he thought that being a Trylon gave him the edge over a Strom. There had certainly been no desire in my actions or stories to charm the Emperor — quite the reverse
— but from the Trylon’s expression he was clearly accusing me of toadying to the Emperor. I wanted to correct that impression.
“Many men have done so. And many others have not.”
“I trust, by Opaz, that we shall get along together, Strom.”
Whatever he was after, he would get from me only what I chose to give. However, there seemed no point in antagonizing him just yet, despite that I didn’t like the look of him.
“Have you breakfasted, Trylon? Would you care to join me?”
He waved the suggestion away with a very white and plump beringed hand. I fancied, though, he could use a rapier.
“Thank you. I have. We are up early in Vondium.”
“Do you then not often visit the Black Mountains?”
If that was a nasty remark he didn’t react. “When I have to. The black rocks offend me. My life is here, in the capital, where politics are!”
We talked for a space until I had breakfasted and then he joined me in a cup of Kregan tea. He worked his way around to the purpose of his visit. He was a racter. The white and black would have told me that. I was an unknown. Oh, yes, he had heard of the panvals and what had happened in Valka, but that was in the past. Now we must face the new realities. The Emperor must have an heir who is not a willful girl; the racter candidate must be the one.
“And who is that, Trylon Larghos?”
He studied me a moment. I had sidestepped his more direct questions, but I had appeared to satisfy him that if the racters could offer me more than the panvals, then I was their man.
