the best of Jholaix, precious and rare and saved for super-special occasions — and joined in the singing. Vangar ti Valkanium sang. Anko the Chisel sang. Everyone sang. We sang of Valka. A lithe and lissome girl, very beautiful, with a heart-shaped face and a figure to stir men to immediate action, recited some of the more sublime passages from
It takes a long time to sing seven hundred or so stanzas and when, at last, we threw the shutters back it was high noon outside in Vondium. Deldar Vangar had a mad scramble to get back to report for duty. He spoke of a visit the Emperor was paying to Vindelka, northwest of the city. No one took much notice, the fumes of wine coiling in our brains. Seg had left early, saying that as a private Koter he had duties to perform he dare not let lapse now, so close to the time for our departure. He had mentioned Vindelka, too.
We had, in the Kregan idiom, a zhantil to saddle, and we all had our secret parts to perform. To clear my head, after I had shaved that harsh chin of mine, I took a stroll along the quays and watched all the busy loading and unloading of the great galleons of Vallia. Produce from all over the known world flowed into Vondium, and the products of Vallia flowed out. Gulls wheeled overhead, shrieking. The twin suns shone gloriously. The air held that bracing tang of the sea. But — the Star Lords had expressly forbidden me to sail the seas of Kregen for a space. How I longed, then, to take my Delia up onto the deck of a great galleon and sail with her over the rim of the world!
When I returned to
Bargom withdrew and the lady lifted her veil. She was young, pretty, but with a pallid squarish face in which the brown eyes held none of the luster and sparkle to which I was accustomed.
“I am Pela, my lord Strom, handmaid to the Kovneva Katrin. I am bid to tell you that the Kovneva must see you immediately.”
“Yes? Do you know why, Pela?”
“No, my lord Strom. Only that it is urgent, very urgent.”
“I do not know the Kovneva Katrin. Tell me of her.”
“But, my lord Strom!” Her eyes opened wide and for all their dullness they expressed astonishment.
“She is a great and powerful lady. Since the Kov died she has refused to marry. Now she is a devoted attendant upon the Princess Majestrix.”
So that was it, I said to myself. I yelled for Bargom and between us we made me look presentable, with a buff jerkinlike tunic with wide winged shoulders which left the white silk shirt sleeves visible. I buckled on the rapier and main-gauche and took up the hat with the red and white feathers. Down the black-wood stairs I went, following Pela, who got into the sedan chair very quickly. The bearers lifted their poles, the Hikdar gave me a sketchy salute, rapped out his orders, and we started for the palace. The effects of a rollicking night coupled with the fresh air left me feeling alert and breezy, although with the edges of fatigue beginning to creep along my bones. We climbed up through the crowded streets and along wide boulevards where the quoffa carts trundled and the zorca chariots whickered their tall wheels. There were fewer airboats than usual wheeling over the city today. The birds sensed this, and they swooped and gyrated against the twin suns.
Around to the western face of the palace we went beneath the frowning walls where the mercenary guards paced. In through a square opening, faced with marble and gold, and so up again along courtyards and colonnades, and into the rear of the apartments reserved for the Princess. In a small square room, with a lamp burning in the center which cast weird gleams upon the friezes of mythical beasts and birds, the sedan chair was placed down and Pela alighted. The Hikdar saluted and marched his men out.
Pela said, “Wait here, my lord Strom.”
As soon as she had gone I loosened my rapier in its scabbard and looked about. There were but two doors, and Pela had left through the opposite one. When its sturm-wood panels bearing plaques of beaten silver opened and a woman walked in, attended only by Pela, I relaxed a little.
“Strom Drak, of Valka?”
“Yes.”
“I am the Kovneva Katrin Rashumin of Rahartdrin and you address me as my lady Kovneva.”
I said, “I haven’t come here to play games. What do you want of me?”
She flinched back. My words were tantamount to my striking her across the face. I heard Pela gasp. If there was trouble for my Delia there was no time for protocol and fine manners. I took a step forward, fears for Delia uppermost in my mind. I stuck my face at this haughty Kovneva.
“Well?”
She put her hands to her breast. She wore a long silvery gown that fell to the marble floor, and was held over her shoulders by a mass of jewels. Her dark hair was coiffed and curled and smothered with a net of glittering gems. As for her face — it was hard in outline, of undoubted beauty, with fine dark eyes and a mouth rather too thin for my taste. She reminded me, as a candle reminds one of a samphron oil lamp, of Queen Lilah, that proud and sensuous Queen of Paul.
She managed to speak. “I will have you flogged! I will have you torn asunder! To speak to me, the Kovneva, this way! You are a fool, a rast, a cramph, a-”
I took her left wrist into my hand and lifted it before our faces. I glared down into her eyes. Her face altered in contour, changing, going slack, the soggy droop she would never admit appearing beneath her chin. I knew my face wore that old corrosive look of pure domination and harsh authority that, in other circumstances, I have so despaired of. Here it broke this woman’s resistance down in a way that, however unpleasant it might have been, was desperately essential.
“The Emperor,” she whispered. “He has gone to Vindelka. The Princess Majestrix flies with him. I am-” She swallowed. “I am bid by the Princess on behalf of the Emperor to command you to join them.”
I let her wrist go and she rubbed it with her other hand, staring at me the while with a look that should have blasted me on the spot. I nodded.
“Very well, Kovneva. Let us go, in the name of Opaz!”
Pela’s eyes were as round as palines.
“And,” I said in that harsh and hateful voice, “you will receive from me all the deference that is your due. Next time don’t shilly-shally when there are messages from the Emperor.”
“I shall remember this-”
“That is good. Make sure you remember well.”
From this unedifying scene of my bullying a silly woman I took no pleasure, particularly after I had, as I considered, been groveling before the Emperor. But all my fears for Delia had leaped into my mind, and almost I had said “messages from the Princess.” Only a last-minute flash of common sense had made me change that to “Emperor.”
Of course, all the plans were changed. Delia must have managed to remind her father of the Strom of Valka, and arranged for my presence at Vindelka. That she had chosen this woman, this Kovneva Katrin, to bring the message must surely mean she held her in some esteem, even if she didn’t trust Katrin Rashumin. Rahartdrin — that is, the land of Rahart — is a large island off the southwestern tip of Vallia, south of the straits between Womox and the Blue Mountains. All these places I was hearing about now have since come to mean a great deal to me, and to become very familiar, as you shall hear. I was slowly learning my way around Vallia, the land of my Princess.
Rahartdrin is about five times as extensive as Valka. She was a Kovneva and I was a Strom. No wonder she balked at my cavalier treatment of her!
Muffled in cloaks, we went out swiftly and boarded the waiting airboat, and I wondered just what rapier to grind Katrin Rashumin had in all this. She was more than a mere messenger. How much of the Emperor’s trust did she have? And, far more importantly, how loyal was she to Delia?
The airboat was of the usual pattern, petal-shaped, about fifty feet long, with a sumptuously appointed cabin
