lives.”
“I do not ask any escort.”
Then he said the revealing thing I had sensed and which had caused my blundering, my stiff-necked talk.
“No,” he said. “No, we are not as other Todalpheme.”
He wore a fine sensil robe of yellow. His thick waist was girded by a scarlet rope. He was, in truth, one of the Scarlet-Roped Todalpheme, men I had sought over the face of Kregen. And now I had found one of that brotherhood and he was proving two-faced, obstinate, greedy, attempting to cheat and defraud me, attempting, also, to browbeat me.
He reached out a hand and touched the bag of treasure.
“I think this is mine, already. I think you had best be gone before worse befalls you.”
I said: “Do you consider yourself sacrosanct?”
His astonishment was genuine.
His eyes glittered through abruptly down-drawn lids. Yet he answered obliquely. “You wear swords, dom.” He paused. His use of the word dom continued to offend me. I saw quite clearly in it a patronizing sneer; dom is the word between friends for friend, or the kindly word indicating no hostility. Except, of course, when it is used in irony, and then the circumstances are perfectly plain. There are subtleties in the use of words. Here, this Akhram was baiting me. Why? He thought he could take the treasure and kick me out. He had guards, powerful armed men at call.
He put his hands together and continued, heavily. “You wear swords. Only a madman would offer violence to a Todalpheme.”
Yes, on occasion I am mad. But I was not as yet mad enough to risk everything on a cheap retort, something like: “I am mad, dom, mad enough to do your business for you if you do not speak up -
quick!”
Instead, I said: “What impediment is there to telling me? Surely the gold is not all there is to it?”
He hesitated again at this. I can judge time passably well. The three burs were drifting away through the glass.
“We have been warned by the Savanti. They do not relish strangers visiting them.”
This sounded likely. I remembered the vexation with which Maspero, my tutor, had greeted the arrival of the flier carrying Delia. With her had been three yellow-robed, scarlet-roped men — and they had all three been dead.
He leaned forward. “Perhaps, if you told me the name and identity of the sick man. .?”
Now it was my turn to pause. Information. The Todalpheme were avaricious for news of all kinds. A mistake now — in all sober truth the fate of Vallia trembled on what I said, hung there, stark and brutal before me.
I said: “It is the Emperor of Vallia.”
“Ah.” He pushed back in his carved chair and smiled. He glanced at the bag of treasure. “One bag of gold is an insult.”
“So that is it. You are greedy.”
He flushed. “Take care, rast, lest you regret hasty words.”
All I had learned as a good Kregan warred within me with myself. I have a nature. My nature has to be quashed. The Todalpheme are sacrosanct; no sane man will raise a hand against them. But what of tradition, what of the truth of the question when a great empire may run red with blood? Where lay my duty now?
He watched me slyly. He saw the twitch of my hand toward the rapier hilt. He smiled wetly. “The fate of a man who raises a hand against a Todalpheme is awful — awful.”
Was my just punishment if I violated the basic tenet of this solemn Kregan belief worthy payment for saving the life of an emperor, of preventing the torrents of blood that would follow? Would my Delia thank me for destroying myself in saving her father?
The decision was mine.
Chapter Ten
Everything so far had gone with such amazing ease I should have been warned. Khokkak the Meddler should have been heeded. Trip the Thwarter should have been propitiated. We had spirited the emperor away from his would-be murderers. We had arrested the insidious work of the poison so that he still lived. We had tracked down the clues and found our way here to where the secret would be told. And now we were thwarted by this cunning, greedy, deceitful onker of a man. He was after the gold, surely, and information, and he did not intend to let me leave alive, I fancied. What could I say to move him in a spirit of conciliation?
If it was a mere matter of gold. .
“If you require gold, then you must know it is yours for the asking. Vallia will pour out her treasures for the life of her emperor.”
“Yet you bring one miserable bag.”
The answer to that was easy.
“It is but an earnest.”
“Ah!” The avariciousness in him was plain now, plain and ugly and degrading. “How soon can you bring more? Much more?”
“As soon as the emperor is well-”
“Not good enough.”
“There is no time to be lost. You have my word.”
“Words are cheap among the canaille.” He used another word; but that is what he meant. I kept my seat. For the moment I had postponed the decision that would destroy me.
“What more do you want of me — treasure-?”
“You could start by showing proper respect and by calling me master, or san, or Akhram.”
I nodded. I’d have to force the words out as a constipated man forces himself; but for the sake of Vallia I’d eat humble pie. And, not really for Vallia. For my Delia. .
“Listen to me, Akhram. Tell me plain. I can have as much gold as you can imagine brought to you. But it must be clear to you that it is not with me now. Yet the emperor must be treated at once.” Then I put a little snap into my words. “If you do not tell me and the emperor dies, you will get nothing.”
He put a hand to his mouth at this, pondering the truth.
I gave him no chance to bluster on. I blustered a trifle myself. “Take the gold we have. Save the emperor. Then you will have the reward of a good deed well done, besides the treasure.” I leaned a little closer and my hand dropped to the rapier hilt. “You say you are not as other Todalpheme, and I see that to be true. You have threatened to kill me. But I am not as other men of Kregen. A Todalpheme has little respect from me if he does not act as a Todalpheme is expected to act. If the emperor dies, I think you may die, also.”
He started up, pushing away from the table, his heavy face red, from shock or indignation or fear, I did not know and didn’t damned well care. I had made no conscious decision; I still sought to sway him with words, even if the words were brutal and barbed and vicious.
“I am sacrosanct!”
I ignored him and he sat down, shaking his hands falling from my sight beneath the table edge. “You know of Vallia. I am aware of that. You know that Vallia has beaten the Empire of Hamal. I do not think you would relish a great armada from Vallia wreaking just vengeance on you.”
He had regained his composure. “You would not find the swods or the officers who would lay a hand on a Todalpheme!” He sneered the words, getting his courage back, vicious. So I saw the answer.
I stood up and glared down on him and all the old intemperate evil power must have flooded into my face, for he started back in his chair, unable to rise, all his new-found bravado fled.
“Listen to me, Akhram! If you do not instantly tell me where we may find the Savanti and so save our
