campaigns passed over.
“You are right. But that stikitche, had he wished to assassinate me, would not have missed. Bring me the shaft.”
The arrow was brought and I unwrapped the letter attached.
The message was addressed: “Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia.” The salutation, in the correct grammatical form, read: “Llahal-pattu. Majister.”
I sighed and looked quickly down for the signature.
The scrawl, in a different hand from the body of the letter, was just decipherable. It read: “Nath Trerhagen, Aleygyn.”
This assassin and I had met before, just the once. He was Nath Trerhagen, the Aleygyn, Hyr Stikitche, Pallan of the Stikitche Khand of Vondium.
This brought up painful memories of Barty Vessler and so looking at the writing I forced unwelcome thoughts away and concentrated on the here and now. Nath the Knife, the chief assassin was called. He wanted to meet me. There was an important matter that had come up. The phraseology was all in the mock legal, written by his pet lawyer he kept tucked up in some lair in Drak’s City, the Old City of Vondium, where, so far, the writ of the emperor’s law did not run.
“We should go in there and burn the place out,” quoth Larghos Manifer, a Vondian who had been newly recruited into the Sword Watch. His round face fairly bristled. His words met with general approval.
“Yet the people of Drak’s City held out the longest against the damned Hamalese,” I pointed out.
“They could fight all the imps of Sicce from there, majister.” Larghos Manifer, because he had been born in Vondium the Proud City, and knew what he knew, held a natural resentment against Drak’s City. “For one who is not a thief or a forger or a stikitche or an Opaz-forsaken criminal of one-kind or another it is death to venture in.”
“Nath the Knife wishes to meet me in the shadow of the Gate of Skulls. That, I think, indicates a willingness to come forward. We are, in theory, on neutral ground there.”
So, later on that morning and before we were due to return to eat, we wended our way through the crowded streets toward the moldering pile of old houses clustered behind the old walls that was the site of the very first settlements here, long before Vondium became the capital of Vallia. Targon, Naghan and Cleitar sidled their zorcas close to one another and after a brief conversation, Naghan went haring off. I had a shrewd suspicion about where he was going and what he was up to, and when we rode quietly up to the Gate of Skulls my guess was confirmed. The usual hectic activity around and through the gate was stilled. The striped awnings over stalls had been taken down. People kept away. The space this side of the gate and the Kyro of Lost Souls beyond were deserted. In a double line ranked two hundred paces back from the gate waited the Sword Watch. This was the handiwork of Naghan and the others. Bowman and lancer alternating, the men sat their zorcas silently. The scarlet and yellow, the gleaming helmets, the feathers, the brilliance of weapons, all made a fine show. I rather fancied Nath the Knife might have a similar if less splendidly outfitted array on his side of the wall.
And — he had Bowmen of Loh among his scurvy lot. My men were armed with the compound reflex bow of Vallia, a flat trajectory weapon of great power but not a patch on the great Lohvian longbow. As a matter of interest as I waited for the chief assassin I made a cursory count of the Sword Watch. I was astonished. There were better than five hundred of them. This was news to me. The rascally members of my original Choice Band, with whom I had campaigned and caroused and fought over Vallia, had been busy recruiting. Well, that could be looked into. Now, Nath the Knife made his presence known.
Four hefty fellows walked into the shadows under the Gate of Skulls carrying a heavy lenken table. This they placed down at the midway point between the inner and outer portals. They were followed by four more who carried a carved chair of fascinating design, a chair that breathed authority, a chair that, by Krun, was as like a throne as made no difference.
In the shadows beyond table and chair waited a line of men, indistinct, true; but the long jut of the bows in their fists was not to be mistaken. A bugle pealed.
“They make a mockery of it, majister,” growled Cleitar. He gripped the pole of my personal flag, Old Superb, and he scowled upon the Gate of Skulls. On my other side Ortyg the Tresh upheld the new union flag of Vallia. Close to hand Volodu the Lungs, leathery and thirsty, waited with his silver trumpet resting on his knee. At my back, as always, rode Korero the Shield, that splendid Kildoi with the four arms and tailhand, his golden beard glinting in the light of the suns, his white teeth just visible as his half-smile at the panorama before us matched my own feelings.
The Sword Watch had been reorganized. Now they were clearly arranged in order, the companies each with its own trumpeter and standard and commander. Those commanders I recognized from many a long day’s campaigning. The small body of men who had appointed themselves as my personal bodyguard -
which at the time I had deplored but acceded to at the sense of urgency these men shared — waited close. There were Magin, Wando the Squint, Uthnior Chavonthjid, Nath the Doorn and his boon comrade Nath the Xanko. There were, of course, Targon the Tapster, Naghan ti Lodkwara and Dorgo the Clis, his scar livid along his face.
As we waited for the ponderous arrival of Nath the Knife, Hyr Stikitche, what intrigued me was the apparent lack of a leader of the Sword Watch. Clearly those men I have named ran things. When they gave an order the zorcamen jumped. And they appeared to work together, with a consensus, each one supporting the next. I hoped that state of affairs resulted from the time we had spent campaigning together. There was no mistaking the smooth way things got done in the Emperor’s Sword Watch. The strange fancy struck me, as we sat our zorcas and waited, that we were arrayed as we would be when we waited in battle for the outcome, so as to go hurtling down to defeat or victory. With the flags waving in the slight breeze, with the trumpets ready to peal the calls, with the weapons bright and our uniforms immaculate, we looked just as we looked in battle. We were the emperor’s personal reserve, a powerful striking force under his hand. I may say it was most odd, by Vox, to remember that I was that emperor.
Just as a stir made itself apparent in the shadows of the Gate of Skulls I was thinking that the quicker Drak got home from Faol the better.
Alone, walking steadily and without haste, Nath Trerhagen, the Aleygyn, made his way to the table and passed around it and so sat himself down in that throne-like chair. I smiled.
“The impudent rast!” said Cleitar.
“It is clear,” offered Naghan ti Lodkwara. “He will sit. And there is no chair for you, majister.”
“Let me shaft the wretch!” suggested Dorgo the Clis.
He would have done so, instanter. But I nodded to the line of bowmen in the shadows.
“They are Bowmen of Loh. Each one would feather four of you before you could reach them. Hold fast!”
I rode out a half a dozen paces before my men and turned and lifted in the stirrups and faced them.
“I ride alone. Not one of you moves. My life is forfeit.” Then, to ram the order home, I said quietly to Volodu the Lungs, “Blow the Stand, Volodu.”
The silver trumpet with the significant dents was raised to those leathery lips. Grumbleknees turned again and walked sedately across the open dusty space toward the Gate of Skulls. His single spiral horn caught the mingled light of the suns and glittered. So it was and all unplanned, that the Emperor of Vallia rode toward this meeting with the pealing silver trumpet notes playing about his ears.
The villains of Drak’s City would not know what the call portended. They would probably think it was some kind of pompous fanfare that was sounded whenever the emperor rode out or did anything at all or even wished to blow his nose. I rode on, and I felt the amusement strong in me at the conceit. There was one thing of which I was pretty sure. I was not going to stand up while this stikitche lolled on his throne.
“By the Black Chunkrah!” I said to myself. “Nath the Knife must think again.”
No personal vanity was involved. This was a matter of policy and, of course, of will. Nath the Knife wore ordinary Vallian clothes, that is to say, the buff tunic, breeches and tall black boots. On his breast the badge of the three purple feather was pinned with a golden clasp. His face was covered by a dulled steel mask. When he spoke his voice was like breaking iron.
“Majister.”
I looked down on him from the back of the zorca. I debated. Then, carefully, I said, “Aleygyn.”
The steel mask moved as he nodded, as though under the steel he smiled, satisfied.
