I stepped forward into the light.
If Gafard wanted to make an issue of this, well, now was a time I would not have chosen; but it was a time I would make serve. I saw the silver glitter run up and down his blade.
'Gadak! You heard?'
'I heard ’Ob, dwa, so,’ gernu. That is all.'
The reflections of the blade shimmered and then were engulfed in that scabbarding screech.
'Make it so.' The slur in his voice was barely noticeable. I made no formal bellow of loyalty.
I said, 'But, all the same, it is hard.'
He did not bite.
Instead he answered me in a way that showed he had thought about this thing and had reconciled himself.
'I am Gafard, Rog of Guamelga, the King’s Striker, the Sea-Zhantil. Few men carry the honor I command. You would do well to think of who your just masters are, Gadak the Renegade.' My hand rested limp and relaxed, ready to whip the Genodder out in a blur of steel.
'You told me, gernu, that no overlord would treat me as you have done. This I believe. I think had you been an ordinary overlord of Magdag one of us would be dead by now.' He stepped into the light and smiled. He was not quite perfectly composed. 'If that were so, I think it would be you who lay stretched in his own blood on the kitchen floor.'
'Yet you did not strike.'
'My Lady has said — it is a thing I marvel at-' He put something of his old imperiousness into his words. 'She has taken a fancy to you, Gadak. For that alone many an overlord would have you done away with.'
'Yet this business with the king — it is a worry.'
He lost his smile and scowled.
'I have said before, this is no matter for you to concern yourself with. I am the King’s Striker! The king has the yrium! That is all there needs to be said.'
'That is all — until the next time.'
'You step dangerously near the bounds of impudence, of insubordination. If one of us accused the other of singing ’The Swifter with the Kink,’ who do you think the overlords would believe? Riddle me that, Gadak!'
'You are secure in your power, gernu. Yet-' I stopped.
'Yes. Yet?'
'I will say no more. I serve you and my Lady. You know that to be sooth.'
'I know it is sooth now. Let it remain sooth.'
If I clouted him over the head now I’d have the devil of a job hauling him back to Magdag and then of taking the king and the voller. Better by far to grab the king first, with the voller, as I planned, and then bundle up this Gafard after. Yes, far better.
As I stood there with him in the kitchen I thought how dark and dangerous and powerful a man he was. I would then and there have joyed in hand-strokes with him, for he was a doughty fighter. But I let the opportunity pass.
'When, gernu, do we return to Magdag?'
'You are tired of this holiday? Aye, it palls.' He stretched and yawned. 'Give me the thrust of a swifter, to stand as prijiker in the bows, to bear down in the shock of the ram — aye! That is living.'
'It is,' I said. I believed the words as I spoke them.
'We will roam the Eye of the World, Gadak! We will create many a High Jikai! Soon all men will forget that Pur Dray existed — he will be a name, lost and forgotten with Pur Zydeng, the greatest Krozair of five centuries past. Dead with the great Ghittawrer Gamba the Rapacious, who went to the Ice Floes of Sicce these thousand seasons gone. Aye!'
'And yet, gernu, you speak always of the Lord of Strombor. I know you have no fear of him. But your interest interests me. I am fascinated not by Pur Dray but by your fascination.' He had forgotten to be imperious. His eyes held a long-lost look of a man sinking in a death-race of the sea.
'The Lord of Strombor was the greatest Krozair of his time. Greater than any Ghittawrer of Magdag. I would prove I am his match — and there is more. For this matter between us — and I speak to you like this only because my Lady smiles on you. I shall be sorry, tomorrow, and you may tremble lest I have your head off for it.' He was, I could see, more than a little fuddled with wine. He was not drunk. I never saw him drunk or incapable. But he had had his tongue loosened.
Irritation at his petty problems flooded me. Perhaps I might have flamed out, in my stupid, prideful arrogance: 'Sink me! You stupid onker! I am Pur Dray and what is this matter between us you prate so of?'
But I did not. I do not think, had I done so, it would have made any difference. He probably would not have believed me, anyway, then.
He pulled himself erect and slapped his left hand down on his longsword hilt. 'Enough of this kitchen talk! I came here to — to vent a little spleen. I want no more of them in there this night. Attend me to my room.'
'Aye, gernu.'
We went up the back stair to his suite of chambers in the Zhantil’s Lair. They were lavish and expensive, as one would expect, hung about with trophies of the chase. A lounge had been furnished by a man’s hand. But through the inner doors lay the apartments of my Lady of the Stars. He slumped down in a chair and bellowed for wine.
'You, Gadak the Renegade. Have you ever been outside the Eye of the World? Out to the unknown, improbable lands there?'
I poured him his wine and pondered the question.
'Yes, gernu.'
'Ah!' He took the wine. The shadows of the room clustered against the samphron oil lamps’ gleam.
'You have never seen my Lady — before you met me?'
'No. I swear it.' This could be dangerous. 'I respect her deeply. I feel I have proved that, yet I would not in honor speak of it.'
'Yes, yes, you have served. And you swear?'
'I swear.'
'And she is very tender of you. She was much impressed when you slew the lairgodonts. That was a Jikai. You trespass where no man has trespassed before — and lived.'
'I am an ordinary man. I know my Lady has the most tender affection for you. Do you think I would-?'
'What you, Gadak?' He drank the wine off, and laughed, and hurled the glass to smash against the wall, splattering a leem-skin hung there with dregs and glass, shining in the light. 'No, Gadak, for I recognize you. You are the upright, the correct, the loyal man. You know which side your bread’s buttered. With me you have the chance of a glittering career. You may be made Ghittawrer soon.'
'If the king’s man, this Nodgen the Faithful, does not have my head for the king.'
'No. No chance of that. The king and I — we play this game, but for him it is a game. For me the stakes are too high. I do not know what I would do if my Lady was taken from me-' He bellowed for fresh wine then, to cover his words.
'She must not fall into the king’s hands.' He drank deeply. I had never seen him drunk; he was in a fair way to showing me that interesting phenomenon for the first time. 'She must not! He would do what I should do — should do — and, by Green Grodno, cannot, will not — will never!' I saw clearly that some oppressive matter weighed on his mind. As a renegade he was not fully accepted by the overlords. He believed in the king and yet in this matter he could not talk to the king. He desperately wished to confide in someone, as is a common practice among people, I have noticed. If he decided to tell me, I wondered if that would make my position more secure or destroy me utterly. I rather thought it would be the latter. Yet this man fascinated me. I could feel the strong attraction he exerted despite the evil of him. He was a mere man, as was I. He would pay for his crimes. Was the changing of allegiance from Red to Green so great a matter anywhere but on the inner sea? I found it hard to condemn him as I knew him now, as I had found it easy to condemn him when I did not know him.
'Riddle me this, Gadak. Which is more important, the good of your lady or the good of your country?'
'That has had many facile answers, and every case is different.'
'But if it was you — you! Your answer?'
