The rest of the day was administration, that and the caring for the wounded and the burying of the dead. We had lost men, good men; but the Hamalese force had ceased to exist. One indispensable part of the aftermath was the herding of the prisoners into stockades built from their own ripped-apart camp fortifications. That and the recognition of bravery by my men, the awards of the medals I had instituted, the battlefield promotions, the gifts and the congratulations. Over the moans of the dying rose the fierce battle songs. Oh, we cared for the wounded, friend and foe alike, for I would have it no other way; but my men knew what we had accomplished, and we were still an intact force, ready to turn and join with our new comrades of Pandahem and struggle again with the foes from Hamal. A Chuktar strode up, bluff, beefy, his helmet under his arm and showing a dint in the crown, its blue feathers half shorn away. He looked drunk on glory. “My Prince!” he bellowed. I looked up from the camp table where the lists were being prepared. “Chuktar Erling! I am overjoyed you live.”
“My Prince, I have found a young fambly who says you want to see him. A thin, scruffy urchin, with a drunken slut. .”
But I knew as they were wheeled up by a guard party of Pachaks, as always to be trusted in times of victory as well as defeat, I knew so I sighed and stood up and braced myself for the ordeal of meeting Pando, the Kov of Bormark, and his mother, Tilda of the Many Veils.
Chapter 10
Tilda — and Pando!
How I wish Inch could be here now.
Pando had fleshed out, growing tall and straight in the seasons between now and our last meeting. He still carried that cheeky air about him, the urchin description perfectly apt, and I saw that he was short of his full stature of growth and short too, I fancied, in his full stature as a Kov. But imp of Sicce though he was, I had known him as a nine year old, a scamp, but a lad full of brightness and good humor, untidy, mischievous, and lovable.
And Tilda. My heart sank as I looked on Tilda the Beautiful. I remembered her as a genuinely beautiful woman, with that black hair floating around her as she swirled, black and lush as an impiter’s wing. I recalled those violet eyes that could flash into scorn or love, into hatred and mockery, and those sweet luscious lips, soft and melting. Her figure had been marvelous, firm and voluptuous and calculated to drive any mortal man to madness. She had not plagued me, only at the very end, there in the palace of Pomdermam, the capital of Tomboram, just before the Scorpion and the blue radiance had snatched me back to Earth. And no woman can touch me now, not one, not when I hold the form and face of my Delia with me.
So I stood looking at them as they trailed up, and I saw how Pando had changed and knew that with wise counsel he would become good in life. But Tilda! Her face was as beautiful as ever, even if betraying lines showed around her eyes and mouth. But her hair hung lank and bedraggled. And that glorious figure had coarsened, grown fat around the waist, sagging, and she walked in a slovenly slouch that I knew instinctively was not merely because she had been captured. Both of them were dressed in rags, the tattered remnants of finery.
After the battle I had washed and changed into a simple short tunic of finest white linen — that linen called verss — but pandering to old times Delia had caused to be stitched around neck, arms, and hem an inch-wide band of brilliant scarlet. So, I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor, stood cool, clean, and bathed, to greet these two, my friends, in their dirt, misery, and despair.
“Fetch a chair for the Kovneva,” I said. “The Kov may stand.”
Pando glared at me defiantly, finding spirit to drag himself out of his misery and curse me by the gross Armipand.
At the sound of my voice Tilda looked up sluggishly; then a Pachak swod pushed a folding chair forward and she sank down, grateful to rest.
“You were captured, I take it,” I said. “Tell me about it.”
Pando forced his shoulders back. And I recalled him as a nine year old, running, shouting, and tumbling in the dust with the other urchins of Pa Mejab.
“Those cramphs of Hamal beat our army. And now you come to take us prisoner in your turn. If you want money in ransom, you whom men called Prince Majister, then you are unlucky. I suggest you have our heads off now. That is what princes do, as I know full well.”
You couldn’t say much to that.
Chuktar Erling grunted and spoke up in his parade ground bellow. “They were chained up among the calsanys.”
I made a face. I knew as well as anyone on Kregen what calsanys did when they were upset. No wonder these two filled the air odoriferously.
“There is an old apim with them who says he is a Pallan. He is being carried in, being extremely fragile.”
“That is Pallan Nicomeyn, an old and valued friend!” snapped out Pando. I could guess that the miserable King Nemo had in some way disgraced Pallan Nicomeyn, who had helped Tilda in the days when we sought to prove Pando’s right to the title of Kov of Bormark. He must have gone to Pando for help and protection.
“See to the Pallan,” I said. “Let him rest. Give him eat and drink and have him bathed and give him clothes. He is to be treated with respect.”
“At once, my Prince!” Erling bellowed and dashed off to give the orders. I had a shrewd suspicion that even if these two poor wights here did not recognize me, Pallan Nicomeyn would, and quickly.
As though something of her old witchery at reading men and their inmost secret thoughts returned to Tilda, she lifted her head, somewhat drunkenly, for the Hamalese guards had let her drink — no doubt with evil intentions — and regarded me.
“I knew a man, once,” she said, slurring her words. “A man — he looked a little like you, although tougher and harder and leaner — and he wouldn’t — wouldn’t-” She forgot what she was saying, wiped her lips, and started over. “This man I knew, he cared for Pando ’n me. If he was here now he’d knock you down as soon as look at you, grand and a prince though you are.”
I felt like a get-onker.
She might be talking about her husband, she might be talking about Meldi, who had cared for her and Pando, she might be talking about any man she had known recently. . I fancied she was talking about me.
I said, “I am told your husband, Marker Marsilus, was a fine soldier and a good man. It is fitting you should think of him.”
“Onker!” she said. Something of her fire flashed. “For what business it is of yours, you lord of Vallia, I loved my husband and we gave up our separate lives for each other. I have loved no man since. .” Her drunken voice droned on, telling things she would keep fast locked if she was sober. She did not fall off the chair, and her poise was that of the great lady. It boiled down to a maudlin recital of lost hopes and fading memories, of her husband and of her great days on the stage — for she had been a justly famed actress — of memories of this man she talked about so wistfully, this man who had been me, so that I turned to Pando, with a look on my face that made him start back.
Before I could flare out what boiled in me, telling them it was I, their old Dray Prescot, who stood before them, Tilda rambled on, her voice rising: “So between Hamal and Vallia we are crushed like a grain in the mill. Well, so be it. Pandrite knows the whole of it; with Opaz is the right. Have done with us as my son commands, and let Vallia pick over the corpses.”
“You do not like Vallians?”
“I hate and detest them!”
“Yet you have not looked at the banners we fly.”
Pando laughed most scornfully, his lip curling. “A mere trick, Vallian, to deceive. The blue flag with the zhantil is
He moved forward, passionate, and the Pachaks tensed up a little, their deadly tails quivering.
“You have the power now. You have the position, the treasures, and the army. Bormark is gone, gulped by
