The second man hulked in the room. Massive, bulky, he towered against the lamplight and it was clear from the set of his mouth and the clamping thrust of his jaws and chin that he spoke seldom. Apim, he was, but built like a Chulik. All the time his powerful figure remained planted at the shoulder of his mistress. He wore the heavy brown tunic called a khiganer, double-breasted, the wide flap caught up over his left side with a long flaring row of bronze buttons, from belt to shoulder, and from point of shoulder to collar. That collar stood stiff and hard and high, encircling his neck. Gold glittered there. He wore buff breeches and tall black Vallian boots, gleaming with polish, spurred. He wore no baldric; but the lockets for a rapier and empty main gauche swung from two jeweled belts. His sleeves were banded after the fashion of Vallia, indicating his allegiance. Brown and green bands, with three small diagonal slashes, marked him for Venga. The sheer ferocity of that lowering face impressed me, the lambent bestiality slumbering in the tiny dark eyes, the cragginess of the jaw. He was a notorious Bladesman. This was Nath the Iarvin, ruffler, Bladesman, bought body and soul by his mistress. The third person was a woman.
Thin, she was, hard-edged like a diamond, brittle and bright, with a flame about her that consumed all who were unfortunate enough not to know how to handle her. Her dark hair was caught in a diamond-encrusted net. She wore riding leathers of a sheening green, making her mannish figure even more angular, and long black boots, like a man. On her left shoulder was pinned a golden brooch fashioned into the form of a wersting seizing a korf, the vicious Kregan dog crunching down on the soaring bird. A rapier and dagger were scabbarded at her narrow waist. I fancied she could use them passing well. High, her face, white and scornful, with deep, grey-green eyes, and arched black eyebrows. Red, her mouth, thin and bitter and drawn in at the corners, red and like a wound above her sharp chin. She could have cut ice with her glance.
This, then, was Ashti Melekhi, the Vadnicha of Venga.[3]
She stared at us narrowly, reminding me of the way those carnivorous hunting risslacas stare unwinking at their prey.
“Get out,” she said. And her voice, I swear it, hissed asa risslaca hisses before he pounces. “Schtump!
Layco Jhansi, the Kov of Vennar, the emperor’s Chief Pallan, has placed me in charge of the sick room and of all the emperor’s wants, answerable only to him. I do not care who you are. The Princess Majestrix may stay, because she is the emperor’s daughter. The rest of you — out! Schtump!”
I did not speak.
She pointed her riding crop at me. It did not waver.
“You may be the Prince Majister. But you are nothing more than a trumpery clansman, a hairy barbarian. And you dare to bring in another doctor! Have a care lest you go too far.”
The crop circled to include Seg and Thelda and Katrin, and then rested, accusingly, on Nath the Needle.
“Let the emperor die in dignity, as befits the end of a great man. You profane his greatness. This doddery buffoon pries and prods — beware lest your heads topple before the suns descend.”
I opened my mouth — and then closed it. I speculated on the inner mysteries of philosophy, how the worlds roll through space, how a woman may change a man and the man change an empire, how violence breeds violence, how women are so often nonsensical creatures unfit for their own company, let alone a man’s, how I was the new Dray Prescot.
She slashed the crop down. “Now get this rabble cleared out! Go, now. Or I call the palace guard.”
Seg was staring at me with that old half-mocking smile on his face. I knew what he expected. Nath stood back from the bed, outraged; but keeping his composure remarkably well. Thelda was already boiling up and Katrin was standing by ready to lay in after. These two ladies were high born, coming from great families, kovnevas both. Delia — Delia looked at me and I managed the smile I can always find for her, and I shook my head, ever so slightly, and so she smiled back at me, uncertain, disturbed, but ready to follow my mood, trusting me. What a wonderful woman is my Delia among all women!
I did not speak. Conscious that I was acting a part, I felt a word would shatter that charade. I could with words have broken this headstrong woman, made her see the errors of her ways, given Doctor Charboi the fright of his life. And no damn guards would have stopped us, either. But I did not. Even now, had I done so, I am not sure it would have changed anything that followed. The details of the tragedy and the heartbreak might have been different; the end results would surely have been the same.
“Are you going?” demanded the bitter, icy voice. This Ashti Melekhi switched her crop around and on the instant would have shouted for the guards.
A weak, breathy voice spoke and for a disoriented moment, so wrapped up were we all in the tension of the situation, we could not understand who was speaking. Then Delia dropped to her knees by the bed, clasping her father’s shrunken hand.
“Delia.” The emperor gasped with the effort of speaking. “My daughter.” He worked his thin lips around each word, as though forcing each one out against enormous forces pent within him. “Aph-” He stopped and swallowed, his Adam’s Apple jumping erratically. “Hamal. Todalpheme-”
“No!” shouted Charboi, storming forward. “That is not to be thought of! Do as the vadnicha commands. Go!”
If the rast put his hand on Delia’s shoulder to pull her away from the bed I would have forgotten my play- acting and being the new, considerate, understanding, nonviolent Dray Prescot. But he still had the sense not to commit such a flagrant act of lese-majesty. Perhaps, had he taken refuge in his doctor’s status, and allowed his temper to lay a hand on Delia, and I had acted as I would surely have done, the world of Kregen would be a different place today. I do not know. I do not really think so. It does not matter. For what was to happen, happened, and that is all that matters, in the whirl of vaol-paol.
“You’re not going to stand for this, Dray!” demanded Thelda. Her face betrayed shock and anger, and, also, another emotion. Seg put his arm around her waist and drew her away, and I looked at her, so she went, but not without a squib or two.
The Vadnicha Ashti Melekhi stared with those narrow grey-green eyes after Thelda, and I knew they had sparked before, like a diamond cutting butter — and, suddenly, I knew how much I cared for Thelda, my comrade’s wife, despite all. That would not stop me from gently tormenting her, of course, or stop her from fussing and over- pressuring and, in general, of being Thelda. Seg looked back past me over Thelda’s shoulder, and I put out a hand and so stopped Katrin from blowing up. Nath picked up his sturmwood case and walked with measured tread for the door, but he looked mightily offended. So, at last, Delia rose and kissed her father, the dread emperor of a mighty empire, and we walked out sedately, together, side by side.
Still I had said no word.
The brittle voice cut the air after us. “Good riddance to a rabble! Now, Charboi, see if you can undo the damage that doddering incompetent may have done. I am going to find Kov Layco and tell him to make sure these cramphs never have a chance to sneak in to pester the emperor again.”
“Yes, my lady,” said Charboi, very huffed with himself.
So I took myself off at the side of Delia, and I pondered.
Chapter Five
“In the old days, my Vovedeer, we’d have slipped six inches of good Zeniccean steel into the guts of the cramph! By the Black Chunkrah! I am astonished the fellow is walking about with a head on his shoulders!”
And Hap Loder tossed the rest of his wine down and roared for more. The inner private snug of
“Yes, Hap, you fearsome rascal. That is the way of the clansmen who ride the plains of Segesthes. And I know that is what most of my comrades would have done. But unthinking violence will not solve the problems of Vallia now.”
“That is right, by all the shattered targes in Mount Hlabro!” quoth Seg, who as a kov of Vallia much bethought himself of his adopted country’s welfare. “I’ll own I was surprised at first. But that she-leem would have called the guards. Then there would have been a right merry set-to.”
