Howls spurted up, execrations against the name of Dray Prescot and dire promises of what would befall him should he be foolish enough to fall into their hands. Himet bellowed.
“You would do well to heed my words and deliver him up for the judgment of Makfaril! Hearken! The torments Prescot would then suffer are beyond mortal men’s comprehension.”
They had not missed the neat turning of what reputation I had in Vallia from that of a warrior prince to that of a villain. Oh, yes, I am a villain. But only in certain matters. There was little more to be gained here. We would have to think on what best to do about this new creed of Chyyanism. We were now acutely aware of the problem and its methods. I cast a regretful glance at the two brothers, the trident-men who stood near the far door. Although uneasy, they showed no more signs of being cowed by words. But their glances at the guards, the masichieri, spoke eloquently enough. One brother shouted above the hubbub.
“And if the Prince Majister were here, among us now, who would know him?”
“Aye!” bawled his brother, red of face. “Who would know?”
Himet quieted conflicting answering yells. He smiled, a slow evil smirk that informed his listeners of his own importance.
“I have seen his representation. I would know. I would know the evil-hearted cramph among a thousand!”
The way the priest phrased this interested me. But it was time to go. The two brothers were scarcely likely to come to serious harm. The thought occurred to me that perhaps Himet had planted them, shills to give him arguments from which to strike sparks. If so, they were consummate actors.
‘To the Great Chyyan with Dray Prescot!”
The chant from below grew in volume. I took no notice. What they wanted to do with me sounded highly unpleasant. What I intended to do with them might be highly unpleasant, at first; afterward they would see clearer. At the very least, this new creed had brought to my attention disquiet in Veliadrin, a disquiet I would see was dealt with fairly and rectified, so that the people of Veliadrin might be as happy as the people of Valka, as was their right.
So, still more confused than I probably realized, still holding down my anger, still blanking out what had been said about Delia and our dead daughter, I took my eye away from the crack in the floorboards and prepared to wriggle soundlessly back to the doorway. Seg had gone and the gap showed only a dark slit. The boards beneath me creaked. They groaned. A spurt of ancient dust puffed past my face. I froze. The gallery moved.
They were bellowing on about what they would like to do to Dray Prescot, making a hell of a noise, shrieking the most bloodcurdling threats. The groan of the ancient timber might be lost in all the uproar. The rotten timbers under me sagged. Even to this day I do not know if the pure welling of savage satisfaction justified or condemned me.
The whole wooden structure shrieked as rusted nails gave way, as wooden pins snapped, as corroded bronze linchpins bent and parted. Rotten wood powdered to dust. A miasmic stench of long-dead fish gusted over me. I was falling.
The yells of hatred for the Prince Majister of Vallia belching up from below, the shrieks of venom for Dray Prescot, changed to a shocked chorus of surprised screams as the wooden gallery collapsed in a weltering smother of dust and chips and flailing timbers upon the mob. Head over heels, I, that same Dray Prescot, of Earth and of Kregen, pitched down onto the heads of the blood-crazed rabble beneath.
Two
For an instant I lay flat on my back amid the splintered wreckage of the gallery. A damned infernal chunk of wood jabbed sharply into my back. The people broke away in a circle, yelling, struggling to tear themselves free from the descending debris. The noise and confusion, the spouting dust from the ancient building, the struggles of men and women, I suppose all the furor was rather splendid. But I had an eye out for the black feathers and leather armor of Himet’s masichieri. They’d recover more rapidly from the shock of surprise than the fisherfolk.
I sprang up. I did not draw my weapons.
People were turning to stare back at me. Broken planks slipped beneath our feet and the dust made us cough. Dust and muck festooned my hair and shoulders, and my face, I suppose, knowing my own weaknesses, revealed the struggle between laughter and downright cussing fury possessing me. To be thus chucked down like a loon among a mob yelling for my blood — well, it was funny rather than not. Himet stood with arms uplifted, his mouth open, glaring as though a demon from Cottmer’s caverns had miraculously appeared before him.
Oh, yes, the cramph recognized me.
Whoever his leader was, this Makfaril, that rast would not be pleased with his priest. For, forgetting what he had been enjoining the folk around, Himet pointed a rigid forefinger at me. His wide-eyed stare blanked into stupefaction.
“It is Dray Prescot, the devil himself!”
After the thunder of the gallery smashing into the floor a silent moment expanded. Himet’s voice shocked out. The fisherfolk understood the enormity of what the priest of the Great Chyyan had said.
“Dray Prescot!”
They repeated the name. A quick babblement flowed through the crowd. They stared at me. Like a monstrous tidal wave growing and surging landward from the wastes of the sea, like a tsunami running from continent to continent, their hatred burst up and broke. In the next instant they roared upon me in a shrieking mob.
A skip and a jump cleared the wreckage. Somehow, the rapier and dagger leaped into my hands. I beat away a reaching trident. A knife whistled past my ear and thunked into a shattered upright. These people were out for blood. These fisherfolk, wrought upon, forgetting what Himet had warned, were out to lay me flat on the floor, to slay me, to kill me stone cold dead.
“Do not kill him!” screeched Himet the Mak. He might as well have shouted into a Cape Horner. With a shout of rage Himet turned and violently gesticulated, a savage, unmistakable gesture of command. At once his guards, his bonny masichieri, leaped down into the press, their weapons glittering. Then began as weird a military dance as you could desire. For I had no wish to be forced to kill these simple duped fisherfolk, yet they sought to slay me. I did not mind if a few of the masichieri were cut down, but the guards were under orders not to slay me. And the fisherfolk would not willingly kill the guards of the priest but, as I quickly saw, the guards would slay the townspeople if necessary. This was a ludicrous three-sided encounter with each of the three sides willing to slay one of the other sides but not the third, and therefore, it must follow, to be slain and not reply. I saw a guard run his thraxter through a burly fisherman who poised to hurl his trident at me. So the preservation of my life for the future evil intentions of Makfaril had already cost the life of one fisherman of Veliadrin, and was like to cost more if I did not act now to stop this blasphemy.
I let out a yell. I bellowed over the hubbub as I had been wont to hail the foretop in a gale.
“Yes! I am Dray Prescot! I am your lawful High Kov. I wish you no harm. I have listened to your grievances and they will be redressed in justice. On this you have my word as a Prince of Vallia!”
I might as well have saved my breath.
The business about listening to them provoked only the shrieked response: “He has been spying on us!
Slay the rast! Kill Dray Prescot!”
“No! No!” bawled Himet. “He must be taken before our leader. Makfaril demanded him for his own justice!”
Enough of the congregation in the hall had not been fully persuaded by Himet’s exhortations and promises to obey blindly the dictates of the priest of the new creed. They had been roused to a sense of injustice. They had been cruelly treated by their new High Kov, and here he was, alone, ready to be chopped down in the violent way of Kregen and thus prove the justice of their own ends. There followed a bout of confused struggle, wherein I found myself backed up against the far wall, beating away the crude implements of the fisherfolk and ever and anon striking with more deadly intent at a black-feathered guard. To defend oneself and not to slay the attacker — yes,
