let him go. He fell to pitch forward into Karina’s arms. She glared at me venomously; but a flicker in her eyes, a swift betraying gleam of sympathy? I was not sure.
But she said: “Zankov may overrate himself. But he is one of us. You are a southerner — a clansman -
prince.”
“If I were. And is that all? That the Prince Majister is a stranger?”
“Aye!” said Firn, looking at me with scathing contempt. Her red hair looked marvelous. She breathed deeply and unsteadily. “A stranger. A stranger to Vallia for all of the time. A no-good calsany, a rast who betrays those who love him.”
The bewilderment would not leave me. I looked around them, at those lovely faces, all flushed and bright- eyed, all staring accusingly at me. Contempt, hatred, disgust — all were written clear on those fair faces ringing me.
I shook my head.
Zankov held his throat, croaking, trying to speak and unable to force out a sound. The marks of my fingers glowed in livid weals.
“I’ll go,” I said. “And I will go peacefully. By Vox! But if I really were this Prince Majister then I truly think I’d begin to feel a little sorry for myself.”
I did not. But I wanted to test still further the way the wind blew. But no one responded. Trylon Udo had summoned male guards. He did not know it; but that was a mistake. Had he done so before, I might be away from here now, cleaning up a blood-splattered sword. As it was, I had said I would go peacefully, and so I went. Spear points ringed me as I started off. It was left to Udo to have the last word.
“The reports are true; and yet I harbor a doubt.” He was speaking to Zillah and Jodi. “Prescot is a Hyr Jikai only through the proclamations; he is a puffed-up image, we all know that. And yet-”
“He took the spear smartly enough, Udo.”
“Yes, well, that is a common trick. Guard him well. You have a great prize there, for the Princess Majestrix will pay an emperor’s ransom for him. That is well known.”
I heard a gasp at my back, and I turned. The girls tautened up instantly; but I raised a hand to calm them. I decided not to let the trylon have the last word, after all.
“It is well known, Udo. Do you know also that she will have your head and your tripes into the bargain?”
And with that I, Dray Prescot, Prince Majister of Vallia, did my best to stalk out.
Fifteen
They tied me up as they would tie up any common criminal and chucked me into a narrow wooden stockade by the town wall. Captive — I was a captive once more. Well, by Zair, I’ve been captive before on Kregen and plenty of times since that occasion in Hockwafernes. Being a Captive of Kregen is an occupational hazard to a wild leem of a fellow like me. Or so I am led to believe. The guards were prattling on about the great news the trylon had brought and how on the morrow the tremendous ceremony would be performed and all the promised and looked-for supernatural powers would come to the assistance of the Hawkwas.
Male and female guards took turn and turn about to stand watch outside the wooden cell. The thongs broke free after a bur or so. I stretched and felt the blood tingling. They didn’t know me, then. .
So far I have spared you the innumerable aphorisms widely current upon Kregen attributed to San Blarnoi. He was either a real person of wide learning or a consortium of misty figures of the dim past. Either way, many sayings are attributed to San Blarnoi. He is a fount of wisdom, both superficial and of deeper significance, and among the many maxims are to be found one or two to fit almost any situation. Some are merely of the order of: “San Blarnoi he say. .” Others are Christmas Cracker mottoes in scope. Some give a little comfort or insight.
It was Filbarrka na Filbarrka who first told me of the saying that I used now. Filbarrka, as you know, is that wide and marvelous area south and east of the Blue Mountains that is zorca country supreme. I think there are few finer zorcas bred on Kregen anywhere else. Filbarrka ran the area. He was not a Blue Mountain boy. His name and that of the land were as one.
Anyway, in his bluff, red-faced, cheerful way he’d once cautioned me: “As San Blarnoi says, waiting is shortened by preparation.”
I had the remainder of the day to wait through. It was clearly useful to be able to spend that waiting time in this prison cell as a captive, out of mischief. If this sounds paradoxical, it is; but it was, nonetheless for that, true.
So, unwilling to break out at once, I perforce followed San Blarnoi’s dictum and prepared myself in the only way left. I thought. I pondered the problem.
Dayra would arrive on the morrow. And on the morrow the trylon would produce his miracle that would make his army invincible. He was well known in the occult areas, and had a wizard in his employ, not a Wizard of Loh, who was one of these renowned Northeast Vallian sorcerers, a Hawkwa necromancer. Natyzha Famphreon had spoken of them, calling the ghastly practitioners Opaz-forsaken corpse-revivers.
Brooding in my cell it occurred to me I might wisely pay a visit to the ceremony on the morrow. Dayra must come first. But from the guards’ conversation I learned further disquieting information as the day wore on. The rumor of the arrest of the Lord Farris on treason charges was confirmed. And, with him, other men I would have sworn loyal to the emperor had been imprisoned. I had distinguished company as I languished in prison. Also, an army had landed in the south, west of Ovvend, and was marching on Vondium. This news caused me grave concern. That the army had come from Pandahem seemed reliable information. The emperor had marched out to destroy them. Everyone awaited the outcome. There had been only a slight panic in Vondium. I chafed. But, this close, I had set my thoughts and desires on Dayra, and I was not prepared to change my direction now.
My careful preparation of hard thinking led me to the unpalatable conclusion that this Opaz-forsaken ceremony might include me as a sacrifice. It would be in keeping with all those dark and horrific forces of the occult side of Kregen. If that were so, I’d best be about my business a little ahead of the time I had set myself.
The time to make the break came, I felt, when the guards were a mix of Fristles, Rapas, Khibils and apims. No women stood outside my cell door. The guards talked among themselves in desultory fashion. But they’d be alert enough.
A Rapa was saying in his vicious hissing way: “And the rast knows nothing of all this?”
The voice of the apim talking, which had been a mere mumble before, strengthened and grew clearer as he approached. He laughed.
“Know? He is a fambly, that one. I know it to be so.”
“His fearsome reputation is all a make-believe — yes, that is known. He is no true Hyr-Jikai. But, this other-?”
“I had it from my second cousin twice removed. He was in Vondium at the time. Oh, yes, this precious Delia, Princess Majestrix, is notorious. Her lovers are legion.”
I listened, flexing my muscles, waiting until they positioned themselves just so.
“Before she took up with this Turko fellow it was a Bowman of Loh — a Jiktar, I believe. And there was a visiting diplomat from Tolindrin — and where that is, Vox knows.”
“In Balintol. And?”
The apim started asking about Tolindrin; but the Rapa, who was joined by a Fristle, although they were stiffly polite one with the other, wanted to know more about the amatory exploits of the Princess Majestrix. This gossip was all over Vallia.
“She has a secret room furnished erotically in all her villas. She spends money like water. Her lovers -
mind you, dom, they don’t last.”
“No?”
“No. It is a sack and a leaden weight and the Great River for them.”
“Bitch.”
“Aye. Leave well alone there, if ever her eye falls on you.”
