allegiance. The Koters of Vallia are proud of their neat trim mazillas. As I squirmed into the enormous magnificence of the monstrosity I had chosen to wear, I wondered if the game was worth the candle. Might the insult not better be conveyed by wearing a koter’s mazilla in lustrous black velvet?
No time to worry over that now. We buckled on our weapons, slung our scarlet and golden cloaks on the zhantil-bosses, gave a last quick look in the mirrors, and then hared off down the marble staircases and along the rug-strewn corridors to the zorcas we would ride to the Temple of Opaz the Nantifer. Shadow gave a curve of his head and a whinny to show he was pleased to see me. He was truly a magnificent animal and I was glad afresh each time I bestrode his back that I’d been able to bring him with me all the way from Ba-Domek.
Delia’s zorca, a fine chestnut, had a somewhat small spiral horn in the center of her forehead; but she was a fine mare and Delia was fond of her Firerose.
The service of propitiation to Opaz, the spirit manifest in the Invisible Twins, passed. I will not dull your senses with a detailed description, for all that, of the many religions and creeds of Kregen, that of Opaz shines the truest. I swear allegiance to Zair, as you know, and to Djan; but these two lack something of the essential spiritual transcendence of Opaz; Zair and Djan — particularly Djan — are Warrior Gods. In Opaz lies a very great part of the future well-being of Kregen.
So I will pass on to the moment when Delia and I walked back to our zorcas where they had been tethered with many others and looked after by hostlers employed by the Temple. My usual traffic with the Racters was so minimal as to be nonexistent; public functions provided them with an opportunity to speak with me. I turned as Strom Luthien approached, very seemly to all outward appearances, his hat being in his hand and his head slightly inclined.
Yet I knew he, at least one Racter, would be only too ready to slip a blade between my ribs and then call for assistance too late. Luthien was one of those nobles without an estate, his Stromnate being gambled away, probably, lost at the Jikaida board. Now he worked for the Racters as a messenger and agent.
He smiled at me under his moustache, a sleek, knowing, and yet faintly patronizing smile. My monstrosity of a brown beard bristled up, almost as though it had been grown by me instead of being hooked on my ears. I looked at him as he relayed his information. Those Racters with whom I had done business in Natyzha Famphreon’s hothouse pleasure gardens wished to converse with me again.
“For, prince,” said Strom Luthien, “much was agreed and yet little accomplished.”
I did not make a scathing remark to the effect that I did not discuss details with errand boys. I said: “The Black Feathers were routed. Where?”
“The same place-”
“No. I remember the chavonths. And, and you will, convey my regards to Kov Nath Famphreon.”
He kept his smile going famously. “Then where?”
“The Sea Barynth Hooked. There is an upper room. Hire it from the landlord. In five burs time.”
I turned away almost before I’d finished speaking, and the springy feathers of the mazilla swished. What Strom Luthien made of my hauteur and my bad manners I didn’t give a damn. I had to lay the foundations here for subsequent action. Delia, though, favored me with a look that was so old-fashioned as to be positively antediluvian.
We mounted up and shook the reins. Of course we drew disapproving glances from the nobles. The Prince and Princess of Vallia, riding alone, without a proper escort — it was shocking. It was also liberating.
“And what have those infamous Racters to talk to you about, husband?”
“More intrigues to kill your father, wife.”
Her face — gorgeous, radiant — drew down, and I felt a pain at her look of sudden apprehension. She spoke quickly.
“You jest, my heart — but take care! There are spies everywhere — and the Racters are powerful. We all know they but bide their time. When they strike-”
“I firmly believe they will attempt to remain true to their own beliefs. They will obey the letter of the law when they chance their collective arms and try to oust your father. They will not order his assassination — not directly. What we have to fear is some lesser light — like Strom Luthien, for instance — taking the law into his own hands. We have come through great perils and your father still lives.” I scratched my nose. “Anyway, where was he in the Temple? It is not like him to miss a religious ceremony that brings political acclaim with it.”
Delia shook back her hair and the lustrous brown ripples flowed with those glorious chestnut tints glinting in the mingled rays of the suns.
“His Grand Chamberlain excused him. An affair of state that could not wait upon even this ceremony. You did not, I may add, stand in very well for him.”
“I would not have done so had he asked. Not when he is in the city. By Zair! All this flummery is his job as the emperor.”
She looked sidelong at me as the zorcas paced along the stone-flagged way, past the fronts of other temples, and buildings housing the University of Vondium Ghat, with the passersby jostling along and some turning to stare at us. All the time as we rode and talked I kept that old sailorman’s weather eye open. I fancied the Stikitches of Vondium would accept as closed the contract Ashti Melekhi had put out on me; but if they had not done so then I would have to convince them all over again. During this time in Vondium the sense of great release that had come with the return of the emperor to full health, and the consequent liberation of bottled-up trade that followed, warred with that ordained sense of impending doom. It was as though one half of the citizens laughed and drank and sang while the other half sharpened up their weapons and bolted their doors and shutters. I guessed what lay in Delia’s mind.
“The moment I have settled up with these Opaz-forsaken Racters, I shall ride for the Northeast. Dayra-”
“We shall ride.”
I cocked an eye at her.
“And the Sisters of the Rose?”
She looked annoyed. “I have certain duties — that I would tell you if I could — that may prevent an immediate start. But do not think you can go galloping off alone, Dray Prescot, and leave me out of it. Dayra has been going through a tumultuous period in her life. She worries me. And that is sooth.”
“She is our daughter. That worries me.”
“I agree. She is your daughter, and that is what worries me.”
We both laughed, then, for laughing comes easily to me when I am with Delia of Delphond. So we rode back to the palace and to one of those slap-up superb Kregan meals that keeps a fellow and a girl going through the long day.
The Sea Barynth Hooked was situated down on the Kamist Quay — I say was, for it was burned down a few seasons later after a pot-house brawl — and catered for the skippers of the Vallian ships who frequented the Kamist wharves. It was a place where you might, if you wished, sup from superb eel pies. I usually stuck to roast vosk and momolams there. Sea food has never appealed to me. The upper room was lit by four square windows. The long sturmwood table was covered by a decent yellow cloth and as I entered with a crash of polished boots, the people in the room stopped talking. They surveyed me with the alert interest of a man abruptly discovering a rattler under a rock.
“Let us proceed,” I said. “Lahal one and all. I have little time for I have business that presses elsewhere.”
Wearing simple Vallian buff, with a red and white favor, with the wide-brimmed Vallian hat in my hand, with a fresh rapier buckled on, with the left-hand dagger to match — the old one was being cleaned now with brick-dust and spittle in the palace armory — and with the longsword a-dangling at my left side, I suppose I looked to them my usual intemperate, boorish, hateful self. The false beards had gone. I was myself, and they knew me.
Strom Luthien motioned to the chair they had reserved for me. I sat down without hesitation. No trick chairs here.
Natyzha Famphreon sat like a parody created out of a nightmare, with her nutcracker old face, lined and shrewish and incredibly vicious with that sharp upthrust lower lip, and her pampered, beautiful, voluptuous body. She nodded to me. She had not forgotten the chavonths in her conservatory. Her son, Nath na Falkerdrin, was not here.
