“Nor mine, by Vox!” said Barty.
“If you were drowning and an unpleasant villain saw fit to stretch out a hand to save you, would you refuse?”
“That’s different!” And: “That’s not fair!”
“Nevertheless, we are like to drown under the weight of the military and aerial force the Hamalese and the insurrectionists can bring against us. We hold Vondium, parts of the midlands, and the northeast. The northwest, at the least, is held by Vallians. All the rest-”
“Quite! All the rest is enslaved by this bastard Wizard of Loh, or his minions, or by damned revolutionaries!” Barty was most wroth. His face shone like that famous polished red apple set out at the forefront of the grocer’s stall. His brown Vallian eyes popped. He would have gone on, but Delia said,
“Barty.” He shut his mouth as a trout shuts on a fly.
“I repeat. At the least, these are Vallians.”
Now, I said this with some malice. I had sojourned long in Hamal, and knew its ways and people passing well. I had good friends there — admittedly, friends who did not know I was at the time Prince Majister of Vallia. Hamal as the hated enemy had wronged Vallia, that was generally acknowledged. But the Empress Thyllis must answer for much of those crimes. Once this mess was sorted out we must march in friendship with Hamal. Common sanity indicated that. So by stressing the very Vallianness of the compact offered, I sought to open their eyes. Once they agreed, then I could spring the snapper… Old Archolax the Bones, spare, wiry, dressed somberly in dark gray with a golden and scarron chain about him, spoke up. His face bore deep lines from nose to mouth, and his air of gravitas was heightened by the emphasis of his diction. He had been newly appointed Pallan of the Treasury — for Lykon Crimahan was still away fighting for his estates of Forli and the money situation needed immediate attention — and he took his position seriously.
“If they offer an alliance through their embassies, majister, they are in need of assistance, one against the other. It would be well to seek to know to what degree and amount they are willing to pay for such an alliance. Opaz knows, the treasury is bone dry.”
“A shrewd thought, Archolax.”
“Anyway,” said Barty, a little mollified and once again able to meet Delia’s eye. “Let them wait a while.”
He handed me a plate heaped with sandwiches and with a cup perched on the side. We habitually stood to talk and eat during these sessions, although comfortable seats, brought from all over the ruins of the palace, were available.
I started to eat, and, wolfing down a bamber sandwich, said, “I’ll keep ’em waiting just as long as protocol demands.”
In the event I gulped down the rest of the meal and wiped my hands on a yellow cloth and went away to the Second Enrobing Chamber, determined to let chance arrange which embassy I saw first. Garfon the Staff had left that from the Racters there, and had shown that from Layco Jhansi to the Samphron Hall’s anteroom. The Samphron Hall no longer existed, being a mere maze of foundations, and the anteroom still persisted in smelling of smoke.
The party from the Racters numbered four, and they were led by a man I knew, Strom Luthien. His thin shrewd face with the bright sharp eyes and the permanently hungry expression did not betray his thoughts as I entered. Guards stood at the door. I wore a rapier, picked up from Emder on the way. We regarded each other for a space.
Finally, with an ironical bow, he said: “Majister.” With a sweep of his hand he indicated his companions and named them. Each one wore the black and white favors of the Racters, flaunting those colors here in Vondium from whence all the known Racters had fled.
Luthien was a Strom — that is roughly equivalent to an Earthly count — by title alone, for he no longer owned lands. He was the perfect agent for the Racters, and knew it and acted the part well. His insolence was veiled just enough so that no offense might be taken — at least, not by me, who was not an emperor in the mold of emperors of the past.
The offer was as we had expected. Alliance between our two forces, first against Layco Jhansi, and then against the Hamalese and the mercenaries and all the other vermin who had flooded into Vallia to pillage. He made no mention of the embassy from Jhansi. I forbore to bring up what was clearly a prickly subject. I kept a graven and serious look on my face — not a difficult task, by Krun! — and heard him out.
The clothes these four Racters wore were the usual decent Vallian buff coats and breeches. Their wide Vallian hats with the black and white feathers lay on a side table. They bore no arms. My guards would have seen to that, and relieved them of their rapiers and main gauches long before they were conducted here. I studied the clothes and discreet insignia. Nothing out of the way there. Memory of the golden image of the grascent, that leaping scaled risslaca with the powerful hind legs and wedge-shaped head of destruction, worn by the Chulik who had attempted to slay us under the Gate of Voxyri, made me wonder if Phu-Si-Yantong had infiltrated the ranks of the Racters. It was most unlikely that he had not. But he would scarcely parade that kind of hidden exercise of power openly. When that particular Wizard of Loh struck, he struck from the shadows. Well, of course, they all do. But Yantong’s menace held a special brand of cunning and absolute conviction of superiority. I still fancied I could find something in him of admiration to ordinary folk; but I had to acknowledge that it would be damned hard to unearth.
“What answer shall we carry back, majister?”
I let them hang a space before I replied.
“I must ponder on this,” I said, at last, keeping a straight face. “It is not a light matter.”
“It touches the well-being of all Vallia.”
‘That is sooth. Tell me, from whom do you come?”
“We represent the Racters.”
“That I know. But who sent you? Who is still alive who commands your allegiance among the black and whites?”
“Those whom you met in Natyzha Famphreon’s garden, and others. We are a strong and virile party, and-”
“Spare me the boasting. Layco Jhansi will no doubt say the same of his powers.”
“That cramph!” burst out Strom Luthien. His narrow face betrayed all the bile in him. “He should be strung up by the heels and left to rot.”
‘Tell me, Strom Luthien. What does Natyzha Famphreon say to the new emperor? Or did she not give you a private message?”
Luthien allowed his thin dark moustache to lift at one corner. “Aye, she did. I give it to you under the code of heraldry.”
I nodded. “Speak.”
“When a leem leads a ponsho flock, the chavonths gather. But it is the Werstings who take the flesh.”
I did not laugh. The brazen old hussy! At least, she recognized that I was in sober truth comparable to a leem, a powerful and elemental force of destruction imprisoned in human guise and apostrophized as a leem, an eight-legged hunting beast of superabundant energy and incredible ferocity. She knew I was not the fake, the pseudo Hyr-Jikai, the publicity-created Prince of Power without a shred of Jikai about him that so many people in Vallia and other parts still believed me to be. And, as you will readily perceive, that did not verge on megalomania, on overweening pride, or on puffed-up vanity. No, by Krun! It was all those horrendous things rolled into one and spread out, like a mirror of truth, for me to stare at my own dark reflection and recoil from — if I still had the morality. But, I sensed dimly that I must distinguish between the sins of evil self-importance and a too-crazed ego-mania, and a sober understanding that to do the things I had set my hand to would demand, must demand, a man prepared to accept the darker destinies of humanity as well as the lighter. These thoughts were not pleasant, and Strom Luthien moved back a pace, his hand falling to the empty scabbard. He no doubt thought my displeasure had been occasioned by the words of Natyzha he had relayed. Well, he was wrong. But I did not disillusion him.
“Those are the words of San Blarnoi, I believe,” I said in that old nutmeg-grating voice. “Very well. Whatever I may decide about this offer of an alliance, there remains this. You may carry back to your masters this word: ‘A man pleads with his wife to do something and she refuses on the ground he is giving her orders.’” I glared hotly at the Racters. “You may tell all the Racters that the new emperor in Vondium is the emperor. There is no other. All
