I felt sure that Duhrra had either completely forgotten or had never really understood just who I was. After all, there had been only the scraps of quick conversation between Pur Zenkiren and myself, there in besieged Shazmoz, to afford any inkling that I was not the Dak I claimed to be. For Duhrra the task was simply that of escaping from Magdag and returning to the Zairian side of the inner sea. For me, of course, there awaited slavery at a galley oar in Zairia, for I was an unfrocked Krozair, Apushniad.
After we had bathed and eaten a huge meal and were thinking about emptying a few pots, the call came. I took care to dress in my mail and to bear my arms as I followed the Relt messenger along the corridors and so down to Gafard’s private suite, secluded in a separate wing of his palace with the windows cunningly angled so that the occupants might not be overlooked. The suns had long set and She of the Veils rose over the steep roofs and the flat roofs, set alternately in pleasing patterns. The long shadow of the Tower of True Contentment lay across the last corridor. The shimmer of golden light at each end burned unfocused. The Relt hurried on, silent on his foofray satin slippers, and I in my mail clumped on after in my studded sandals.
This was not a private audience. A number of Gafard’s chief officers crowded the anteroom to his study. Grogor, of course, was there, to favor me with a scowl as I entered. The others looked up without speaking and then went back, as I considered, to biting their nails. They knew far more than I of the intrigues festering in Magdag; whatever news Gafard had brought back from the king was not good. The close, oppressive atmosphere as we sat in silence and waited told me that. We were called in at last and trooped through the green velvet-draped doorway and so came into Gafard’s study. There were books here, papers and charts, maps and the paraphernalia of the fighting-man by both sea and land. Also on separate tables lay spread out six separate games of Jikaida, all in different stages of progress. Gafard waved us to seats.
We sat, expectantly, waiting for him to speak.
'Gernus,' he began, and so we knew this was a serious business, for he used the usual euphemism, calling us lords. They do not go in for
'There is serious work afoot. I have to tell you the king is highly displeased with some of the recent actions over against the rasts of Zairians. Shazmoz is not taken. Shazmoz is relieved.' There was a stir at this, a buzz, a murmur of speculation.
'Yes, well may you be astonished. For was not Shazmoz closely ringed, besieged, due to fall like a ripe apple? And now the king, may his name be revered, tells me that not only is Shazmoz undefeated, it is relieved, and the cramphs of the Red press on to the west.'
I own I felt perky at this news. Mind you, I had given up any concern over the outcome of the internecine strife between the Red and the Green; but I own I felt a lift of the heart at this news.
'What, gernu, of Prince Glycas?' Grogor, Gafard’s second in command, spoke up.
'Aye, well may you ask, Grogor! The king has heard ill words of Prince Glycas, who commands our armies there against Zair. But the disaster cannot be put down to him. He was to the last, pushing ahead, when two things happened that deprived us of Shazmoz.'
If Pur Zenkiren, who commanded in Shazmoz, was still the powerful force I had known, for all he had sadly fallen away after he had been passed over in the elections for Grand Archbold of the Krozairs of Zy, then I was not at all surprised at what miracles he might achieve. Gafard went on speaking, and he ticked off two points on his fingers.
'One, a new, fresh strong force came up out of the hinterland and caught the besiegers of Shazmoz unprepared. They were led by a damned Zairian noble, a Roz Nazlifurn. He coordinated his thrust with the commander of their eastern army, Roz Nath Lorft.'
Now I understood what Pur Zenkiren had stopped himself from saying, and I rejoiced. How the Krozairs must be laughing!
Gafard went on, 'And, two, a freak tide swept away the shipping. We lost a great deal of supplies. Explanations are being sought from the Todalpheme, whose task it is to prevent such catastrophes in the Grand Canal.'
I kept my hard old face straight. So the tide had reached Shazmoz and had swept away the damned Grodnim shipping! Well, that was good news. No doubt, also, the tide had created havoc on its way, and many a good man had lost a boat, a shed, a house. I felt sorrow, I felt the guilt I carried, but most of all I felt some deep pleasure that the tide I had created had not only swept away the Menaham argenters carrying King Genod’s damned vollers, but had also contributed to the Zairian victory at Shazmoz.
'So we are for the southern shore, gernu?'
'Aye. We take a swifter squadron, and broad ships with mercenaries and men-at-arms. We make a landing and we strike at the rear of the combined Zairian army. The king, whose name be revered, is confident we can restore all that has been lost.'
Here, then, was a task set to the hand of the king’s favorite general and admiral. Preparations were already well under way under the aegis of the king’s hyr gernu admiral — his lord high admiral. He was a man past a hundred and seventy who would be only too grateful not to have to command the expedition, for he was a hedonist much given to the daily inspection of the bottoms of many glasses. He held the titular rank, to keep up the face and the pretense for the overlords of Magdag; it was Gafard, the King’s Striker, the Sea-Zhantil, who held the real power. In all the bustle, as the final details were attended to, I had to take serious stock of my position. For Duhrra, the future was clear. The moment he reached the southern shore he would break free and rejoin his comrades. With contempt he would hurl the name Guhrra back in the teeth of the Grodnims, and as Duhrra would joyfully embrace Zair.
I said, in the privacy of our room, 'The Grodnims have sent your name to Zo, the king in Sanurkazz. You are renegade.'
He swelled his enormous plated chest. 'Maybe so, Dak — Gadak — but I shall explain. As you have explained to me. The king will understand, for he is wise and just.' I hadn’t seen King Zo in fifty years; I did not smile.
'As to his wisdom, it would be impolitic to doubt that. But his justice — you will run a mortal danger.'
'I know. We both will. But I have faith in the justice of Zair.' You couldn’t say fairer than that.
What I did say, and at that merely giving expression to a thought that had been building for some time, was, 'And if when we were thrown down before King Zo, crying piteously for mercy, we could bring with us, in chains, this same Gafard, the renegade?'
Duhrra turned slowly to stare at me. His idiot-seeming face bloomed with blood, a flush seeping from forehead to neck. He half lifted his good left hand, and let it fall slowly to his side. His hook trembled.
'That would be a deed, by Zair!'
'Think on, Duhrra of the Days.'
He surprised me.
'I hate the Green as any man of the Red must hate the Green. I do not forget my brother. All my friends who are dead and gone. But, yet — for all his villainy, I would not joy in delivering up my lord Gafard to his enemies.'
I looked at him. He was sincere. He shared my thoughts.
In so many ways the early life of this Gafard — who had then been Fard — paralleled my own. From a humble birth he had faced a life completely without prospects. He had striven to improve his lot and had become a Jikaidast, and a good one. Then he had fought for the Red, and fallen foul of Zairian justice -
from what I gathered he had knocked the teeth out of a Red Brother — and had for a space served in the galleys and then had been taken by the Grodnims. As he had said from the moment he had changed his allegiance, aiming for the main chance, his fortunes had dramatically improved. Would I, having served a similar apprenticeship, not have embraced the Green? Was I not a newly converted enthusiast to Zair? All my early convictions remained unimpaired, merely overlaid with newer convictions of Kregen.
'No, Duhrra,' I said. 'He is a man, for all he is a renegade. He is very likable, for all his villainy. And, do not forget, the Lady of the Stars loves him dear.'
'There must be good in him.' Duhrra rubbed his hook flat over his bald head, a trick that, at first, had quite turned my stomach. Now I was used to it. He put his thoughts awkwardly into words, reverting to his old ways. 'Duh — I wonder if his good outweighs his bad. A rogue, yes, but I believe his heart still belongs to Zair.'
He could have said 'his heart is still in the right place,' but that would not have conveyed the flavor of his
