“Back to your silly little world with its one yellow sun and one silver moon and no diffs?”
“By Zim-Zair! I hope not!”
I told her a little of what had passed between me and the Star Lords, and then added: “And it is mighty fine of them to warn me. They do not often do that. But, my heart, rest assured. As soon as whatever must be done is done I shall fly back here just as fast as I can.”
“You make it all sound so — so-”
“I know.”
The warm gleam of the oil lamps shed a cozy glow in our snug and private little room. We had both spent a busy day. We were surrounded now by the good things of gracious living, or as many of them as our straightened circumstances would allow, and we relished this time when we could relax and talk of the doings of the day and of our plans for the morrow. To change the conversation, I said: “What do you make of Vodun Alloran, the Kov of Kaldi?”
Delia made a sweet little moue and tucked her feet up more comfortably on the divan. She wore a lounging robe, as did I, and we joyed one in the other. “Well, he is bright and forthright and, I am sure, a fine fighting man. What he is like as a kov I do not know. But, somehow, I must have more time to plumb him properly.”
I glanced at her. Delia usually knows her own mind.
“He strikes me as a useful man to have in the army. He will fight like a leem to get his kovnate back.”
“I am sure. He is a fighter, of that there is no doubt.”
Again, I sensed that deliberate withdrawal.
“I am minded to give him command of a brigade — as a kov he will never accept less. It is a pity he has no men of his own to form a regiment. But with the expansion, promotion will prove no problem.” I yawned. “I’ll be glad when we can finish with all this fighting and get back to decent living again.”
“So, Dray Prescot, you imagine you are well acquainted with decent living?”
She teased me; but it stung. I had been a wanderer, a soldier, a sailor, an airman, a fellow who struggled and fought and brawled until, it seemed, he could not possibly understand that life was not meant to be lived thus. But, the knotty problem there was, quite simply, that all this took place on Kregen. What a world Kregen is, by Zair! Wonderful, unutterably lovely, unspeakably ghastly, at times it is all things to all men. And yet I would not willingly be parted from that world four hundred light years from the planet of my birth or from the woman who meant more than anything else. I had been a slave and now I was an emperor — well, an emperor of sorts.
“The quicker-” I began.
“Yes. I have had word from Drak. Queen Lush is bringing him home.”
I gaped.
Then: “Drak? Queen Lush — bringing him?”
“He is not hurt,” she said, quickly. “Well, not much. He has rescued Melow and Kardo. The message simply says that we should expect them.” Her eyebrows drew down. “Queen Lush is — well-”
“Queen Lush is Queen Lush,” I said. “She has changed wonderfully from what she was when Phu-Si-Yantong sent her to entrap your father. Then she did as she was told, for all she was a queen with great wealth and power-”
“And beauty.”
“Oh, aye, she looks well, does Queen Lush. And Drak?”
“There is no doubt, at least in my mind. Queen Lush means to marry Drak.”
“She set her heart on being Empress of Vallia. Well, it seems she will have her way, seeing she knows very well that I shall hand over to Drak. She has heard me say so often enough.”
“Mayhap you do her an injustice.”
“I would like to think so. Yes, perhaps I do. I know she was much taken with Drak. Well — any girl with any sense would be. And that brings up Seg’s daughter, Silda.”
“I like Silda.”
“That settles that, then. When she went against Thelda’s wishes and joined in the Sisters of the Rose-”
“Hush.”
But I had already hushed myself. One did not speak lightly of these female secret Orders. And, too, mention of Seg and Thelda brought up a sharp agony I just could not face then. So I went on: “Silda is a charming girl and I would welcome her as a daughter-in-law. And Seg would be overjoyed. But — what says Drak in all this?”
“I think,” said the Empress of Vallia, “you would have to ask Queen Lushfymi of Lome the answer to that.”
We did not play Jikaida that night, for there was a mountain of paperwork Enevon Ob-Eye, the chief stylor, had landed us with. With the morning and a new day in which to work we set doggedly to that work. Rebuilding and healing a shattered city and people demand strenuous and unending efforts. All the time I felt the relief that Drak was safe. He was the stern and sober one of my sons, and yet he could be wild enough on occasion. He had taken over in Valka, as the strom, when I had been snatched back to Earth. He had known me when he had been young, unlike his brothers, for Zeg had been rather too young, and Jaidur had not known me at all. But these were not the reasons I felt he would prove to be a splendid emperor. It seemed to me that he had been born to the imperium. I was just a rough-hewn sailor from a distant planet, schooled by the wildly ferocious clansmen of Segesthes, picking up bits of lore and scraps of knowledge from here and there on Kregen. But Drak was an emperor to his fingertips. I confess I joyed in that.
Mind you, I did not forget that I was the King of Djanduin. But Djanduin was dwaburs away in Havilfar, and my friends could run affairs there perfectly. The moment I could snatch the time from Vallia, it would be Djanduin for me. Even, perhaps, before Strombor. As the Lord of Strombor I reposed absolute faith and confidence in Gloag, who was a good comrade and the one handling everything there. That I had some still remaining links with Hamal, the hated enemy of Vallia, remained true. I was, in Hamal, Hamun ham Farthytu, the Amak of Paline Valley. Nulty was the one in charge there. But that seemed to me distant and vague and blurred; one day I would return to Paline Valley. As Hamun ham Farthytu I would seek out my good comrades, Rees and Chido. Good comrades, and also Hamalese and therefore foemen to Vallians.
What a nonsense all that was!
The plans I hoped to see come to fruition demanded that Vallia and Hamal join hands in friendship, and with the nations of the island of Pandahem begin to form that grand alliance we must forge so as to combat the vicious shanks who raided from over the curve of the world. All these things went around in my head continually as we worked on the immediate problems of clearing Vallia of her invaders. The news from Seg reaffirmed his skill in keeping the clansmen off our necks until we were able to defeat them once and for all. Patrols of observation in the southwest reported little movement from the invaders there; but that part of the island had been under the heel of foreign lords with their mercenaries for long enough for us to watch and ward the borders and build our strength for the counterstroke. The Presidio now met regularly in the sumptuous Villa of Vennar, situated on one of the exclusive hills of Vondium. The place had been abandoned since its lord, Kov Layco Jhansi, had proved himself a double dyed villain and a traitor. The deren[1]of the Presidio had been burned to the ground. We would not waste resources on rebuilding that, not until Vallia was free, and particularly when there were abandoned villas with enormous chambers suitable for the purposes of the Presidio lying empty. In the Presidio Kov Vodun na Kaldi proved a volatile and persuasive speaker. Constantly he sought to encourage us to action. His hatred for the Hamalese and the Pandaheem was implacable. With his reiterated calls for the utter destruction of the invaders he reminded me of Cato and his never-ending
Various conversations with him from time to time revealed him as a man with a history. Fretful at being the son of a kov who might have to wait years before he came into the title, the lands and power, and the responsibility, he went abroad and became a mercenary. Because Vallia had not kept a standing army, being mainly a trading maritime nation, many of her young men took themselves overseas to become mercenaries. Many had become famous paktuns. Kov Vodun was one such, entitled to wear the pakmort, the silver mortil-head on its silk cord at his throat. He did not wear it at home for, as he said, that would be too flamboyant.
So, he did understand something of soldiering.
He mentioned various places in Loh, where most of his service had been spent, and, as I summed him up, he grew in my estimation. We needed men like this, tough, no-nonsense professionals to put the polish on the crowds of eager but raw recruits who flocked to the standards. When I offered him a brigade, somewhat diffidently, I must admit, expecting him to refuse, he accepted.
