Secret Scorpio

song, for its cadences and images invite mournfulness. It tells of the last days when the twin suns fall from the sky and drench the world of Kregen in fire and blood, in water and death. I am not overfond of it, for all the deeper truths it expresses in its roundabout way.

So when a flushed fellow, bulging his tunic and wildly slopping his ale, leaped to his feet and started bellowing out the first lines of Sogandar the Upright and the Sylvie, I, for one, joined in with a full-throated roar. And the rafters shook as the swods came to those famous lines that always crease them up, and great gusts of laughter swept across the room as we sang out: “No idea at all, at all, no idea at all.”

Yes.

We kept that refrain going until we were all well-nigh bursting. The serving girls scurried in with more flagons and great was the relishment thereof. We quieted down as the tall thin fellow with the reedy voice favored us with a solo, choosing parts of the song cycle composed from fragments of The Canticles of the Rose City concerning the doings of the part-man, part-god Drak. Naturally my thoughts winged to what my Delia was doing now, how she was faring, and I offered up a fervent prayer that she would be kept safe.

We did not sing The Bowmen of Loh, for almost all the Crimson Bowmen were away with the emperor. It seemed to me my course was reasonably clear. I would have to discharge all those mercenaries who had become untrustworthy by reason of accepting bribes. I would seek to discover who had paid them; I would make no attempt to match the bribes, gold for gold. If a man takes gold from another when in employment his trust is forfeited. I had experience of that when I’d been a renegade and contracted to Gafard the Sea Zhantil, the King’s Striker.

The decision about reporting to the emperor what I had so far discovered about the Chyyanists would have to be taken. There was, in truth, pitifully little to report. A minor religion would appear to offer little danger to the emperor, beset as he was by combinations of powerful nobles. While everyone in Vallia regarded as a foregone conclusion that the conflict with Hamal must reopen at some time in the future, for the present the uneasy state of truce between the two empires offered some hope of continuing peace. The emperor would brush aside any suggestions I might make along those lines, and his Presidio, torn as it was by internecine strife, would greedily pursue the path of individual power. By Zair! The worst thing of all was how lost, how at sea, empty and forlorn I felt without my Delia. When I’d been dragged away from her before I had struggled always to return to her. I had cursed and raved at the forces keeping us apart. But know well, this was a topsy-turvy situation and one I just did not relish at all, at all, as Sogandar the Upright might say.

The swods were just beginning The Maid with the Single Veil and the serving wenches were giggling and laughing as is their wont when that song is sung, when a fellow at the adjoining table, leaning across, began to make directly offensive remarks. He was getting at me. There is no mistaking the idiot who intends to pick a quarrel.

I felt a hot resentment. I’d come out for a quiet evening bellowing out the old songs and this rast wanted to stir up trouble and spoil it all. I determined, mean and vicious, that I’d spoil his fun, that I’d not react, that he could cuss until he was blue in the face and I’d give him no satisfaction. I’d ruin his enjoyment and he could jibe and mock and insult all he liked.

I said to Laka and Nidar, “I’ll play the cramph along. Take no notice.”

Laka knew me and so laughed, falling in with the ploy. Nidar favored me with an old-fashioned look, but said nothing.

The fellow who got his kicks from being unpleasant wore too much gold lace about his buff. His face was lean and marked by a scar, and his mustaches had been clipped. I noticed the emblem he wore at his throat, a little gold strigicaw and swords, swung on a golden chain. He did not speak directly to me but insulted me through his cronies, in the way of these fellows.

“He perhaps thinks we are woflos who come here. His senses probably do not even understand that small thing.”

Nidar leaned across fiercely and said under his breath to me: “Let me blatter the fellow, Nath.”

“Tsleetha-tsleethi,” I said, which is to say, “softly-softly.” Nidar’s offer to bash the fellow in for me amused me. Normally quick to avenge an insult, on this night I wanted to bash this insulting fellow with more subtle weapons than a set of knuckles or a rapier in his guts. He persevered. His cronies tried to help his game. They called him Rumil the Point. I turned my back on them and bellowed for more ale. The song had changed and so we could all sing The Worm-eaten Swordship Gull-i-mo which is a Vallian sailor’s song, for a few swordships are employed in sheltered waters. That song is known in many anchorages in Kregen, and I’d sung it as a render up in the Hoboling Islands.

A hand touched me on the shoulder. I turned. I stopped singing.

Rumil the Point stood up, leaning over me, his lean face black with his sense of insult, because I took no notice of him whatsoever.

“Rast!” he shouted, thumping my shoulder, speaking thickly, either drunk or pretending to be drunk.

“You do not insult me and stand on your own stinking feet!”

I shook his hand off and started to turn back to the two Pachaks, determined to play my part out to the end. By Zair! But he was in a paddy! He just couldn’t believe that I didn’t consider him important enough to worry over. He felt at a loss, puzzled, reduced in dignity, his pride shredded.

“Then I’ll settle you, you zigging cramph!”

I saw Laka’s face go hard and I heard the scrape of steel and so knew I had miscalculated. With a motion I trusted would be quick and fluid enough I slid aside and turned back. This Rumil the Point stood glaring at me. His eyes protruded. The tip of his tongue stuck out, and his face was contorted back, ricked, stamped with an awful terror.

Around his neck clamped a buff clad arm, and the paw-hand gleamed with golden fur.

“Lahal, Nath the Gnat,” said Rafik Avandil. “I see I may be of service to you once more.”

Twelve

A message via the Sisters of the Rose

If I thought that because Delia and I were parted and I was alone in Vondium life would be flat and insipid, I was only partly wrong. Of course, life lacks its deep brilliance and color when Delia is away and I turn to fripperies, but sometimes the trifles turn into matters of more profound importance. The time when I made myself King of Djanduin serves as an example. So life helter-skeltered along in Vondium as I sought to think out the best way of facing the various dangers that threatened. Rafik Avandil, quite enchanted at his opportunity to rescue me for the second time, as he thought, had spent the rest of the evening with us. Laka kept up my disguise as Nath the Gnat, and for this I was grateful. We saw a deal of each other in the days that followed and eventually I was persuaded to move into the inn at which Rafik stayed. I told Turko the Shield, Balass the Hawk, Naghan the Gnat and whoever else absolutely needed to know. Turko and the others grumbled about having to stay in our wing of the palace while I was off roistering in inns, but I explained that I was on to a lead. They were to call me Nath the Gnat. Here Naghan pulled a face, and I chided him, saying, “A great name, Naghan!

And one I am proud to borrow.”

“Just let me have it back, Dray. I shall be Naghan the Arm, I think, if we two chance to meet, in remembrance of that hyr-kaidur.”

“Aye,” I said. “So far I have had no word of a single Black Feather in all of Vondium, and this is strange.”

“Maybe not so strange,” offered Khe-Hi-Bjanching, putting a finger in his book to mark the place. “The signomant held only an empty space for Vondium, remember.”

“I still think that the true reading. By Vox! If only we knew where they would strike next!”

“Agents are out, asking questions. Vallia is being scoured.”

“And,” said Naghan with the old armorer’s shrewdness strong on him, “that is costing a deal of money.”

“If the Opaz-forsaken Chyyanists win, we’ll have no money, you may be sure. And we, along with our people,