young Brokelsh slave girl from the kitchens, came out, laughing and talking together. The guard, a big fellow, all bristly hair and bully-boy manner, swelled his chest under the armor. His hand fell to the clanxer at his waist. He wanted to show off for the girl.
“What are you doing here, onker?”
I, Dray Prescot, took a chance. It was a risk. I said, “By the Black Feathers, dom! I am glad to see you. Where away are the confounded stables?”
At this he relaxed at once. I felt my relief at the easy outcome of the confrontation more than tempered by the vast feeling of unease. Chyyanism was here, in a great noble’s villa. Well and truly had the Temple of the Great Chyyan reached Vondium. So much for the protestations of vigilance given me by the racters!
So with a direction to the stables I wandered off, saying my thanks and moaning over the hardness of life. Presently, by taking a smart right turn, I managed to find a smaller doorway near the stables. Actual ingress to the Villa’s interior could only be achieved by my sending a Fristle guard to sleep standing up, but I did lower him gently to the ground. Then I walked swiftly inside, not looking around, and began to nose my way toward Katrin’s apartments. I did not wish to cause too much mayhem, but a little was inevitable.
Had she been anywhere else but Vondium there would have been no problem. The trouble with secret societies is that they are secret. At the least I knew Katrin Rashumin to belong to the Sisters of the Rose. Or so I had gathered from the way Delia had spoken on occasion.
A big burly Womox, his fierce upthrusting horns wound with golden wire, bellowed at me, and I had to skip and jump and put him to sleep horizontally. His harness fitted me, more or less. It hung about my waist, but the shoulders snugged well enough.
So it was as a guard in the employ of Kovneva Katrin I went a-visiting. The colors of Rahartdrin are yellow and green with a double red stripe slashed diagonally across them. Katrin also had a fondness for the lotus flower, so this was emblazoned on the breast and back of the brown shifts of her servitors and was picked out in embroidery on the guard’s tunics. So I marched along and took no notice of anyone and no one took any notice of me, which is perfectly normal in these gigantic households of many slaves and many guards, not all of whom are apim.
I was stopped by two Pachaks at an inner door. You know about Pachaks. There was no talking my way past these two fine fellows and I would not slay them, for Pachaks are dear to me, so I had to feint with one, knock the second down and deal instantly with his comrade. This I did. Then I pushed through, taking the ivory wand one of the Pachaks had gripped in his upper left hand as his sign of office and tour of duty at the kovneva’s private apartments.
I was allowed past a number of girl slaves and somewhat effeminate man slaves until, at the last, I reached places that, by the perfume, the sounds of running water and the warmth and languorous feel in the air, told me plainly enough that no man, and certainly not some hired mercenary, not even a paktun, more likely a thieving masichier, would ever be allowed.
So, saying simply, “If you do not let me in to see the kovneva she will have you girls flogged jikaider,” I walked past the befuddled maids. They shrieked out as I dragged the purple curtains apart. Scents of steam and soap and unguents arose. Katrin was taking a small and private bath, not one of the Baths of the Nine, and a gorgeous black girl from Xuntal dropped the sponge in her terror as I barged in. I knew I had perhaps ten or so murs before the guards came arunning, and they would seek to kill. I made no mistake about that, no mistake at all.
Katrin turned lazily, the soapy water running over one gleaming shoulder, and she looked at my legs and the bottom half of the uniform and the war harness and she said in her caressing voice: “You realize you are a dead man?”
And I answered, “Only if you give the word, Katrin.”
And she looked up, shocked, the blood rushing into her face, the water swirling in soapy whirls about her body.
“Dray!”
“Aye! And don’t shout all over the villa or-”
“Yes, I know!” She stood up, completely uncaring of her shining soapy nakedness and said in her sharp woman-managing voice to the Xuntalese maiden, “Xiri! My wrap!”
With the lotus-flowered wrap about her she walked swiftly to the door and said to someone outside,
“No one enters on pain of death! Tell the Pachak Jiktar! Hurry! No one, mind!”
Then she kicked Xiri out and slammed the door herself, drawing the heavy purple drapes. She turned to me, and the lotus-flowered wrap half dropped from a shoulder. It was not coquetry. I know she had tried once, and she knew what Delia meant.
“Thank you, Katrin. I have no time. The emperor-”
“I do not know if he will kill you if he finds you in Vondium, my silly woflo. But I would not take bets on it”
“I must know where Delia is.”
“Ah!”
I wasn’t sure. Did she know?
Her dark hair, gathered into a protecting net, broke in a cascade as she ripped the cap off. Her face had softened over the years, but still she could act as haughtily as any fabled Queen of Pain. Her lips, a trifle thin, smiled up as she tossed her hair loose and began to rub her body with a yellow and green towel. The two slashed stripes of scarlet looked like threads of blood.
“I have an appointment with Master Hork in two glasses. He is a master Jikaidast and I hope to learn much of the game.”
“I’m playing no game.”
“You cannot see Delia, has she not told you?”
“Only that she has gone away, and an onker knows that.” I eyed this Katrin Rashumin evenly, knowing what I knew about her. “I am in a desperate hurry. I must speak with the chief lady of the Sisters of the Rose. She will help me, I am sure she will.”
“The chief lady,” Katrin said, laughing, and there was a deal of mockery in that laughter. “I do not think there is a single man who knows her name or title.”
“Well? Blindfold me, then, a darkened room. Katrin!”
“You remind me, my dear Dray, of Tyr Korgan and the mermaid. You Valkans are famous for your songs.”
“In the end you know what the song says occurred between Tyr Korgan and the mermaid. I must meet the Lady Superior — I do not know her rank or name or title. Katrin! Listen, my daughter Dayra, there is some trouble and-”
“Trouble!” About to go on with a quick and passionate outburst, Katrin held her tongue. The effort brought a flush again to stain her cheeks, made her grip the green and yellow towel. When she had recovered, she said, “Let me do what I can, Dray, out of our friendship. But I will promise nothing.”
“A message for Kadar the Hammer at the Iron Anvil will reach me. But for the sweet sake of Zair, hurry!”
“It would be more appropriate to swear by a goddess, do you not think?”
Katrin had probably never left Vallia. Certainly she had never visited the inner sea where the power of Zair was very real. So I said, “In the blessed name of the Invisible Twins made manifest in Opaz, neither man nor woman. Katrin, hurry!”
“And my Jikaida?”
So I knew she had learned from Delia. Her Jikaida, I knew, along with the Jikaidast, this Master Hork who was famous in Vondium for his command of the Chuktar’s right-flank attack, could be forgotten. We had been old allies, against her will; now I thought with sincerity she would do what she could.
“I will have you smuggled out of the villa. Talk does no one any good, these days in Vondium. The queen. .” And here Katrin revealed the differences between herself and Thelda. “The queen is a dear creature and has her damned spies everywhere.”
My own calmness amazed me. This calm was like those brazen flat calms which often precede a violent rashoon of the Eye of the World. But I managed to say, “This Queen Lushfymi. Is the alliance progressing? Does the
