spanked, the hussy.”
They saw me.
Delia simply flew at me, wrapping her arms about me, kissing me, laughing and sobbing, saying breathlessly, “I know, my heart! I know what you will say! But this cannot wait!”
I held her close, feeling her heart beating against mine, holding her, the dizzying scent of her in my nostrils, twining around me, making me wonder why I ever was fool enough to leave her. I forced myself to regain my senses. I took her by the shoulders and held her off, looking at her, at her face, her eyes, her mouth, her hair. “Delia! What cannot wait?”
“I am forbidden to tell you.”
I felt outrage.
“Who can forbid the Princess Majestrix of Vallia? Your father-?”
“No.” She looked gorgeously lovely, yet filled with a distress I could not hope to understand then.
“All I can say is that I love you, that I must go, that — by Vox!” she cried, which made me realize how serious a matter this really was. “By all that I hold dear I will tell you as much as I may — and more, I dare say, if you hold me so and look at me like that.”
My ugly old face must have been a sight, by Zair!
“Well?”
She spoke more calmly. “I must hurry. You know I am of the Sisters of the Rose. .”
“Yes.” I began to have an inkling now.
“I dare not tell you, even though you mean all there is in the world to me. But, but, dear heart, you are a man.”
“And you are a woman and, to pile the cliche upon the banal, I give thanks every day to Zair that it is so.”
“Do not laugh at me, my darling! This is women’s business. The Sisters of the Rose, we hold our secrets
. . well!” She flared up as her thoughts sought utterance. “Do I question you too closely about your precious Krozairs of Zy?”
I felt only a small shock.
“No, my love, you do not. For you know I am under vows.”
“And may not a woman, even if she is your wife, also be under vows?”
Instantly I felt the biggest boor in two worlds. I felt an onker, a calsany. What right had I to pry into exactly those areas of my Delia’s life that were, through other forces, denied her enquiry in mine?
I drew her to me and kissed her. The kiss was long and passionate and if she was in a hurry to be about this mysterious business of the Sisters of the Rose she was in no hurry to end the kiss. At last I stepped back and released her.
“You have everything for the journey? Melow will go with you? Weapons, clothes, money, food, the fastest voller?”
“Yes, yes, my heart!” She laughed. “Do not take on so!”
“When you go venturing out into Kregen, my love, you must take all the protection you may.”
“That is true. But the Sisters of the Rose take care of their own. We do a great deal of good, in a quiet way. We have opened two new hospitals for sick slaves in the past year. And when there is a war. . well, you know.”
Yes. I did know. The Sisters were invaluable. There were other feminine orders, of course, notably the Sisters of Samphron and the Order of Little Mothers and the like. Delia often abbreviated in the Kregen way, calling the Sisters of the Rose the SoR, as I abbreviated the Krozairs of Zy to Krzy. This was important, truly important.
So I contented myself with making sure she had everything I could think of — save myself — upon her journey. Melow would go, and a female Manhound, a jiklo, can rip up a wersting or a neemu and the chances of a strigicaw are not all that bright.
Melow the Supple jagged her fangs and said in her hissing voice, “Do not fret, Dray Prescot. The princess is a canny girl and knows her way about. I can but wish you had eased two more sets of twins into the world for me.”
“Hush, Melow!” said Delia.
The Manhounds of Kregen are indeed a fearsome sight. Artificially bred to run on all four like hunting cats, ferocious of aspect, deadly in killing skills, superbly muscled, they can strike terror into the stoutest heart. Yet this Melow the Supple, for whom I have a great fondness, savage and vicious as she was, was a kindhearted mother of twins. She was dressed in bright clothes, for she loved brilliance in dress, with neatly groomed hair and wearing sandals over those gut-ripping claws. I put out my hand and touched her cheek.
“Take care of her, Melow.”
She grimaced and hissed, as much as to say what an onker I was and I ought to know better than even to mention so obvious a thing.
Then I said another stupid thing.
“Thelda?” I said to Delia.
Well Thelda, Seg’s wife, had been companion to Delia in some fraught moments in our lives, and she always meant well, and she always said that she was Delia’s best friend. I knew Thelda belonged to the Order of Sisters of Patience — I invariably found a high amusement at that particular trifle of appositeness — so I couldn’t be surprised when Delia very calmly said, “This is a matter for the SoR, my love. Now you have delayed me long enough. Come on, Melow.”
She kissed me again and I let her go reluctantly, saying, “But you haven’t said when you’ll be back.”
“When you see me.” Then she relented, and said, “I’ll be as quick as I can, I promise.”
I saw her to the voller. And it was no joke; she’d selected our fastest four-place craft. I saw the way she solemnly observed the fantamyrrh as she stepped aboard.
I stood back. The guards and the retainers stood in a ring, all looking up. The voller sprang away, with Melow looking over the side like some frightful gargoyle, and rose up into the limpid air with the streaming mingled lights from the Suns of Scorpio lighting up her side and blazing like a beacon.
“Remberee, my love!”
“Remberee, my heart!”
And the flier spun up and away and soared over the glittering rooftops of Vondium. Damned independent in their ways are the girls of Kregen.
But, then, that is just as it ought to be.
Eleven
“All praise to Papachak of the Tail!” said Laka Pa-Re, and he thumped his empty flagon back onto the stained sturmwood table with a crash. All around the low-ceiled room of the tavern men were drinking and shouting, a few were brawling, some were trying to play Jikalla and being continually interrupted. The clatter of dice sounded from the corner and on the opposite side a Pachak was tail-wrestling a comrade amid spilling wine bottles and toppling ale flagons.
This was the famous tavern The Savage Woflo, an example of the warped Kregan humor that either amuses or infuriates, for the woflo is a wee creature of extremely timid nature, overfond of cheese. Among the tables ran remarkably pretty girls of various races carrying wide wooden trays stacked with foaming jugs or exotically shaped bottles. These serving wenches were, unfortunately, slaves. They were clad in transparent draperies, with tawdry bangles and beads, with colored feathers, all designed to enhance their natural beauties. Well, I suppose that in some cases they did. But generally cunning old Urnu the Flagon, landlord of The Savage Woflo, had an eye for female beauty and his wenches — I dislike the commonly used word
