yasticum on the superb Kregan bread; I went for the real stuff. I piled the largest plate I could find with food. I stacked the biggest cup of tea available on the plate. Slaves hopped here and there trying to help people with silver trays of goodies; I brushed them away and got on with the job of loading the plate. Truth to tell; it was all light frothy stuff with not a solid mouthful all along the long table. The slaves wore white instead of slave gray, for they were privileged to wait on their masters here. I had to ignore them. The idea of slavery could always put me off my food, and I was sharp set. Come the day, I said to myself, and not the day which those damned racters dreamed, either. . So, wearing still the buff suit in which I had traipsed over Vondium, my hat hanging by its string down my back, girded with weapons, a monstrous plate of food in my hand, and a cup — it was a basin, really -
of tea to hand, I sauntered across.
The crowd around the emperor saw me and they eased back, moving away to let me through. The crowd was not so much congregated around the emperor as around the woman with whom he was having a delightful conversation, that kept making him roar with laughter and brought his color up brilliantly.
She saw me as I saw her.
Well.
The emperor half-turned to glare at me.
The woman started to laugh, a low malicious, velvety laugh that put my teeth on edge. Delia was suddenly at my side.
The woman laughed her malicious laugh. “At least you are not still running, prince. And the air smells quite sweet.”
I said nothing, half choking on a piece of squish pie.
“You are late, son-in-law!” boomed the emperor. “You have been asked here to have the high honor of being introduced to the Hyr Serenity, Queen Lushfymi, the Queen of Lome.”
I got the piece of pie down. I gulped.
I swung a fishy eye on Delia.
“You knew.”
“I knew.”
By Zim-Zair, but they breed princesses that are princesses in Vallia!
Eight
For my own part I would have liked to have taken myself off to our own apartments in the palace and indulged in a long wallow in the Baths of the Nine. Then I could do justice to a six or seven course meal
— a light meal, that, by Kregan standards — and see about preparing for the coming journey. But protocol demanded otherwise.
The scene hung sparks for a moment, as Delia’s smile ravished me, and the violet-eyed woman, Queen Lushfymi — whom I would not call Queen Lush just for the moment — sipped daintily at her Yellow Unction and eyed me mockingly over the crystal rim of the goblet.
In some traditions it would be in order for me to say to you words after the fashion of: “And now I draw a veil over what followed,” and then go on to tell you of what befell me on that Opaz-forsaken trip to the Northeast.
There are many events of my life upon Kregen I have not related, for one reason or another, many people I knew who have not figured in my narrative, and much, very much, of the customs and mores, the color and pageantry, the religions and the metaphysical aspects of that marvelous world I have omitted. But things were said here that proved of some importance later on. The emperor wanted to know, by Vox, what the hell I meant by not being on time and why was I late. I indicated my clothes and said that if he’d told me the Queen was to be met in this unofficial reception I would have been pleased to attend in proper style. For these kind of early evening functions, that are styled unofficial — as, indeed, in comparison with the stiff formality of public functions they truly are -
people wear clothes that are relaxed and yet formal. Long gowns of bright dark hues, much gold lace, a modicum of decorated collar, the nikmazilla, and a dress sword or dagger complete a costume that is half-formal, half-lounging, relaxed and proper, really quite charming. The emperor looked pointedly at my rapier and at the longsword.
“You are trusted by the guards now, and Kov Layco has vouched for you. I do not forget Ashti Melekhi.”
A white-clad slave girl wearing a tall yellow and red mitered headdress — so she could easily be seen in a crowd — went past with a silver tray and I used my free hand to liberate a glass of Wenhart Purple, the emperor’s favorite wine. I sipped. After I had taken just enough time to get the old devil in a mood, I said cheerfully: “The Melekhi is dead, slain by Kov Layco here.” The Chief Pallan stood watchfully at the emperor’s side, fingering his golden chain of office. “I leave you to remember how her friends died.”
“All this talk of death,” broke in Queen Lushfymi. She turned her violet eyes to the emperor in a long, languishing look. “Let us talk of happier things.”
“Yet is death always with us,” said Kolo York, the Vad of Larravur, a powerful, spare man with a lined wedge of a face. He wore a tastefully executed diamond brooch in the form of a krahnik. He was, so I understood, loyal to the emperor.
“The queen’s commands are to be obeyed instantly!” exclaimed the emperor. He beamed. He was beside himself with pleasure in the company of this woman.
Well, I was forced to admit then, and see no reason to change that opinion, she was indeed splendid. Her full creamy throat, the brightness of her lips, her mass of dark hair and those great violet eyes, all were calculated to dizzy a man. Her deep-blue gown, relieved by green and white embroidery, stood out sharply in that Vallian gathering where blue is a rare color. She wore, I thought, rather too much jewelry. But she radiated charm and a dominating sense of womanliness, a mystery of perfectly controlled sexual allure. And, at the same time, I, for one, sensed in her a hidden and deviously repressed spirit, as though her outward form and the brilliance of her person and character concealed depths of feelings and emotions she would reveal reluctantly and at peril to those who inquired too diligently. She took every opportunity to mock me with our first meeting, privately, between ourselves, malicious and bright and derisive.
She took pains not to stand too close to Delia.
She kept close to the emperor, laughing up at him, sipping her wine, nibbling miscils and daintily chewing palines. Why she did this was perfectly plain to me.
This Queen Lushfymi carried the reputation of being the most beautiful of women, mysterious, almost witchlike in the best sense, ruling her country and bringing fantastic wealth and prosperity. She was fabulously wealthy.
But beside my Delia she glowed as a candle glows in the radiance of the suns. Delia wore one of her long laypom colored gowns, a pale yellow so delicate as almost to be platinum, and her brown hair with those rebellious chestnut tints shone magnificently. Her only jewelry, two small brooches, one in the form of a red rose and the other the spoked hubless wheel I had given her, eloquently destroyed the jeweled opulence of Queen Lush.
But, of course, Delia merely dressed naturally; it was through no fault of hers that other women faded into insignificance beside her. And, to be fair, Queen Lush was a beauty. The talk wended on. There were even a few tentative feelers about the pact to be drawn up between Vallia and Lome. I spoke in favor. There was resistance to the idea from many of the nobles there. Of the racters I knew, only Nath Ulverswan, Kov of the Singing Forests, was present, and his black and white favor looked lonely and forlorn.
Queen Lush would get no real grasp of the true feelings in Vallia, then. . I fancied she would have her spies busy, and was shrewd enough by all accounts to take the pulse of the empire.
Vad Kolo nal Larravur took the emperor’s remark about the commands of the queen as a personal rebuke. He withdrew a little, his face shadowed. I kept the frown off my face. If the emperor could so thoughtlessly upset his own people, he would make himself even more isolated. Vad Kolo’s daughter took his arm and spoke quickly, softly, in his ear. He scowled a bit, and then edged himself back into the group around the queen, forcing a smile. This daughter — she had some courtesy title, of course — was lithe, well-formed, glowing of face, open of countenance.
