one knows who he is although I expect Dayra does.” She finished a little bitterly, on a sigh.
I felt the fury mounting.
Calmly, I said: “And this was the problem you had to go away to attend to? You and Lela?”
“Oh, no.” She looked up. “That was settled. Well, more or less. Dayra has been led astray. That is what I meant when I spoke of her when you talked of going to Hyrklana to fetch Tilly and Oby and Naghan the Gnat.”
“Aye, and we’ll bring the others. But I see.” I took off the ridiculous golden helmet and scratched the false beard. “We must find Dayra first — and this fellow, what’s-his-name — and then we can see about our friends.”
“I think — Dray — I think — yes.”
“Well then, Delia my lovely, we must dress ourselves up and attend the emperor and see your father right. Have you any idea where we should start looking for Dayra?”
“They used to go around smashing up the taverns.”
“Right.”
“And Barty Vessler is here in Vondium and desperately unhappy, wanting to help.”
“Who,” I said, “in Zair’s name, is Barty Vessler?”
Delia shook her head so that those gorgeous chestnut tints in her rich brown hair caught the light, dancing, enchanting.
“You knew the old strom, Naghan Vessler? Strom of Calimbrev?”
“Oh. Oh, yes. So this Barty Vessler is the Strom of Calimbrev. How does he come to be so desperately unhappy?”
But I could guess. Calimbrev is an island of about the same size as Valka situated off the southeast coast of Vallia, just to the southwest of Veliadrin. If this Vessler was unhappy and wanted to help it could only mean he and Dayra had been friends. Probably the loon wanted to marry her. I cocked an eyebrow at Delia, and she smiled, and confirmed the suspicion.
“He is a charming young man. Very well thought of. You mind you are nice to him.”
“And he has nothing to do with Dayra’s running off? Her running with this wild bunch? He’s just a good friend?”
“Yes. I am sure. He had a struggle to hold onto the Stromnate when his father died. But he did.”
“Well, good for him.”
All my hackles had risen at the thought of a man sniffing around my daughter. I thought of Gafard, Sea Zhantil, the King’s Striker, who had wed Velia, and I sighed. .
“If he’s half the man Gafard was then he’ll do, I suppose, providing you approve.”
“For the sweet sake of Opaz, my heart! It is not as definite as that yet. Not by a long way.”
So, bristling more than a trifle, I set about putting on all the ridiculous fancy clothes a state occasion warranted. As was often my custom I deliberately loaded myself down with bright gewgaws, lengths of cloth-of- gold, brilliant silks, tasseled scarves, bracelets, necklaces, and under all a shirt of that marvelously supple mesh- steel they manufacture down in the Dawn Lands of Havilfar. The mazilla was a thing of wondrous beauty or downright irritation, depending on your point of view. Truth to tell, as it jutted up at the back of my head, gaudy with feathers and sensil and gold, it was both. Only the noblest may wear an aristo-sized mazilla. So, adding this to my calculated insult in the whole stupid finery I wore, my mazilla towered, flaunting, arrogant, insolent. I stroked the luxurious brown beard and felt that, at the very least, it should upset more than a few of the best-born of Vallia.
Which seemed to me a delicious and highly desirable achievement.
Delia — well, Delia was simply superb.
Dressed in white, with discreet jewels, with feathers and sensils, she floated like a — well, I will say it and be damned to all and sundry — she floated like a goddess as we sallied out to take our place in the procession.
A long Vallian dagger with the hilt fashioned from rosy jewels swung from golden lockets at her side. As for me, I belted on a veritable armory, well-knowing the frowns such wanton display would provoke. How Delia put up with my contempt for the nobles of Vallia escaped me. Besides a rapier and dagger I belted on a clanxer, a djangir and a small double-bitted axe. Over my back and hidden by the crimson trimmed cloak and the feathers of the mazilla, went my Krozair longsword. I drew the line at a Lohvian longbow. After all, there are limits, and to push beyond them would have been counter-productive.
The procession was gorgeous and immense. Everyone was there. The nobles lined out in order of precedence and a splendid array they made. The whole sumptuous proceeding went off well. Due thanks were offered up at various temples for the safety of the emperor. He, the old devil, strode through it all with a face like a granite block, hard and yet haughty, lapping up the plaudits of the crowds, conscious of the looks and feelings of those who fawned on him, sorting them out in his shrewd old head, those for, those against, those who might be bought by gold.
The stinks of incense blew everywhere. Perfumes covered the smells that might have proved intrusive. The noise blossomed as the crowds huzzahed and screeched. It was all a terrible ordeal, yet an ordeal that had to be gone through so that Vondium might witness that the emperor was safe and in full health. Those of my few friends among the nobility — like the Lord Farris — knew that on these occasions I was like a graint with a thorn in his foot, and so they merely acknowledged my presence and smiled and went on with the business. As for my enemies, they ignored me, which suited me. Kov Layco Jhansi, the emperor’s chief minister, was there and looking mighty pleased with himself. High in favor, now, Layco Jhansi, after his valiant defense of the sacred person of the emperor. I nodded to him, and then turned away, and the proceedings ground on.
When they were over and I headed off at once for the palace to strip off the ridiculous outfit, Delia held me back.
A young man, slender, supple, his brown Vallian hair stylishly though decently cut, wearing ornate robes
— as we all did — approached. His face looked freshly scrubbed, bright, cheerful, yet with an anxious dint between the eyebrows he manfully tried to conceal.
He wore the colors of gray, red and green, with a black bar, and his emblem was a leaping swordfish. By these I knew he was of Calimbrev. So this must be Barty Vessler, the Strom of Calimbrev. He made a deep obeisance. Delia gripped my arm. She knows how I dislike this crawling and bowing; but we were still in public and were watched.
“Majestrix, Majister,” said Strom Barty.
“Strom, how nice to see you,” said Delia.
We stood on a marble platform with the crowds yelling below and the pillars and statues of the Temple of Lio am Donarb at our backs. Lio am Donarb, although a minor religious figure attracting a relatively small following, was considered worthy of a visit of thanks. To one side a group of nobles prepared, like us, to take to their palanquins or zorca chariots to return to their villas set upon the Hills. Among all their blazing heraldry of color the black and white favors showed starkly, proud, defiant, arrogant. I nodded at the group who watched us avidly.
“You do yourself no good with the Racters by talking to me, young Barty. But you are welcome.”
He looked up, quickly, taken aback. He must have heard what a crude clansman I was; he had not expected this. And I piled on the agony, despite Delia’s fierce grip.
“The black and whites would like to tear down the emperor and his family. And whatever I may feel about the emperor, he is my father-in-law. You would run a similar risk?”
The flush along his cheeks betrayed him; but he spoke up civilly enough — aye, and stoutly.
“I am prepared for much worse than that, prince. My concern is only for the princess Dayra.”
I did not say: “Well spoken, lad,” as I might have done in the old days. He would have to perform deeds, and not just prate about them, if he aspired to the hand of my daughter.
When Delia invited him back to the palace I had no objection. On the journey — and we took a zorca chariot with Sarfi the Whip as coachman — Barty indulged in polite conversation, inquiring after all the members of the family. Drak must be in Valka still, for Delia had seen him there when she’d raced there to find me. Her distress, which Deb-sa-Chiu had so graphically described, had been all for me. She had by now become a little used to my disappearances and was prepared to search across to Segesthes, aware that in the past she had found me against what must have seemed to her all odds. Barty inquired after Jaidur, and Delia told him that that young rip had decided to return to a place he knew well and where he would visit his brother Zeg. So Jaidur had gone back to the
