she cocked her head on one side in a calculating way, organizing things for me, “or you could go to Strombor. I need some of their beautiful-”
“Thelda!” said Seg, half laughing. So whatever it was Thelda wanted from Strombor we did not find out.
“I shall,” I said, “go to Vondium.”
“But!” said Seg.
“But,” said Thelda, “you are banished! The emperor has published an edict of proscription. The dear queen told me so herself. You will be taken up if you go back to Vondium.”
“Maybe. And again, maybe not. But I am not prepared to let the emperor stand any longer between what I must do and my own frail desires. By Vox! I am tired of shilly-shallying around.”
“So it is Vondium then, my old dom.”
“Aye! And if the emperor or any of his men try to stand in my way it will not be me who will be sorry!”
Seventeen
Well. From those stupid boastful words you will see exactly how I had been rattled. If only I knew what Delia was up to! If only I was sure that Dayra was safe! To Vondium I would go and try to sort matters out.
And if any chanting, hypocritical, venomous Chyyanist priest got in my way with his damned Black Feathers he had better look out sharpish.
And so, with yet another vainglorious boast in a most un-Dray Prescot-like fashion, I took one of Seg’s fliers back to Vondium.
I’d be either Nath the Gnat or Kadar the Hammer as opportunity offered. On Kregen one has to handle names carefully, for names are vital. I own to a delight in handling names, and yet I do not forget that however important names are, and however much it behooves a man who wishes to keep his head on his shoulders to remember names and get them right, it is the reality behind the names that matters, the personality and inner being that counts.
The twinkle and shimmer of Vondium rose before us and the flier swooped down. Seg’s pilot helped me unload my zorca and the pack preysany, and I stood to wish him Remberee. Then I mounted up and, wearing my old brown blanket cloak and with the bamboo stick across the saddle, started to jog gently along the dusty road toward the city whose topmost towers were just in sight. If I had been put out of countenance by the changes in Vallia after my absence of twenty-one years on Earth followed by the seasons at the Eye of the World, I could only be dismayed by the changes in Vondium during this my latest absence.
The first thing I saw was a wayside shrine to one of the old minor religions of Vallia, tolerated and even given some small affection by the masses who hewed to Opaz. The shrine’s old statue had been removed and the niche with its symbols and little flickering lamp was bedecked with black feathers, and the crude statue of a black chyyan replaced the old. I reined up, staring.
An old toothless crone at the roadside cackled.
“Come the day, good sir, come the day.”
I said nothing, but shook Twitchnose’s reins and cantered on.
By Zair! Did the emperor — did the nobles — do nothing about this?
There was no difficulty in getting into Vondium. The place bustled with life. People scurried everywhere. The guards at the gate barely gave me a glance. They were Rapas, and usually relished a little idle amusement in hazing travelers they considered suitable game for sport. Now I rode through and found myself in a beehive of rumor and speculation and gossip. The brilliant colors, the jostling lines of calsanys, the palanquins, the tall flickering wheels of the zorca chariots racing fleetly along the wider boulevards, the long steady streaming of narrow boats along the Cuts, the shouts and yells of vendors, all the heady brilliant hurly-burly of a great city broke about me as I guided Twitchnose and the led preysany toward the smith’s quarter and the tavern called the Iron Anvil. The area was known to me only vaguely — this was not Ruathytu — but after a few directions I arrived and, by showing the edge of a golden talen, secured a room in the hostelry above the tavern. From here I would have to work. It would not be proper for me to reveal all the steps that led in the end to a plain lenken door, brass-studded, in a flat gray stone wall on the Hill of Tred’efir. The hunt began at a hospital for slaves, led by way of a school for the children of poor mothers, through a number of other establishments, to this calm white-stuccoed house in its bower of greenery. The guards would only let me through into an outer courtyard, and there I had to kick my heels. The guards were all girls, young and limber and rosy in their health and strength. They were clad as the messenger from Delia, Sosie ti Drakanium, had been clad, and they handled their rapiers with the professional ease of those who understand pointed and edged weapons. There were also girls wearing cool floating robes of many colors, who came to a pierced stone screen to peer at me and laugh quietly amongst themselves.
Presently a lady whom I can only call the Mother Superior came out, although that is nowise her rank or calling.
“Kadar the Smith?”
“Kadar the Hammer, and it please you, lady.”
She nodded, studying me. Her smooth face within the framing crimson cap and veil reposed in calm confidence. In her I could trust, as far as a man may trust a woman. I told her what I wanted. She did not laugh, but the corners of her eyes betrayed extra wrinkles and her soft mouth turned up, just a little.
“You must know that is impossible.”
“I wish only to speak with the chief of the Sisters. That is all. If you wish I can be blindfolded, in a darkened room. But I must speak with her.” I had no need to put any false emotion into my words. “This is very important to me.”
“Is it important to the SoR?”
“I do not know. I think so.”
“You are honest. But the thing is impossible. Now go, and go in peace, Kadar the Smith.”
“Kadar the Hammer. Very well, I will go. But I will not give up.”
But she turned away and made a sign and lo! four sharply curved reflex bows held in young supple hands — and four exceedingly sharp steel arrow heads — pointed at my midriff. I took the hint. After all, had some wandering gypsy-like woman approached me and asked to see the Grand Archbold of the Krozairs of Zy I might have reacted in the same way. So I went.
Now I would have to play my penultimate card. I had not wished to do so, for although Katrin Rashumin had been a good friend to Delia and had benefited from our advice over her island kovnate of Rahartdrin, I had not seen her lately, for obvious reasons, and had no way of knowing her present feelings. But, as they say in Hamal, one must come to the fluttrell’s vane. A single inquiry elicited the information that the Kovneva of Rahartdrin was in Vondium. I took myself off to her villa, a most gorgeous place and splendidly eloquent of her position, for her fortunes had vastly improved after Delia and I had sorted out her island estates for her. We had had to discharge a crooked Crebent and put a stop to certain nefarious practices. Katrin had been grateful then. I think she always remembered a certain flight in an airboat with me, and remembered it with regret. But she had remained loyal to Delia, or so I hoped.
The porter regarded me with disfavor.
“Go away, rast! We have our own smith, young Bargom the Anvil! He will make mincemeat of you!”
The porter was a Fristle, and his cat-face bristled up with his whiskers bright and stiff. I sighed. At this time I had noticed that the Vallians, as a general rule, did not favor diffs. There were very few diffs among the wealthy and the nobility. They employed diffs as servants and guards and had no scruple about enslaving them.
The villa’s wall ran alongside the road for a space and then shot off at a right angle through woods. Further upslope lay the abandoned villa of Kov Mangar the Apostate. I slipped along between the trees and soon found a place where I might climb over. The way was not difficult and I saw no one, walking rapidly but without obvious signs of haste through a large market garden filled with lettuce and gregarians and squishes. I even picked a handful of palines as I went.
The kitchen gateway showed ahead and just as I was casually about to enter, a Brokelsh guard and a girl, a
