Demon Lord Of Karanda (25 page)

‘Is there going to be a confrontation?’ Sadi looked surprised. ‘I hadn’t heard about that.’

‘That’s because we haven’t arranged it yet. Vasca’s going to find out—probably tomorrow—that his activities have irritated the General Staff, and that they’re going to send troops into his offices to arrest him and to dig through his records to find enough incriminating evidence to take to the Emperor.’

‘That’s brilliant,’ Silk said.

‘I liked it—but it won’t work unless Vasca’s got enough men to hold off a fair number of troops.’

‘It can still work,’ Sadi said. ‘At about the same time that Vasca finds out about his impending arrest, I’ll offer him the use of my men. He can bring them into the palace complex under the guise of workmen. All the Bureau Chiefs are continually renovating their offices. It has to do with status, I think.’

‘What’s the plan here, Garion?’ Silk asked.

‘I want open fighting right here in the halls of the palace.
That
should attract the attention of Brador’s policemen.’

‘He was born to be a King, wasn’t he?’ Velvet approved. ‘Only royalty has the ability to devise a deception of that scale.’

‘Thanks,’ Garion said dryly. ‘It’s not going to work, though, if Vasca just takes up defensive positions in his bureau offices. We also have to persuade him to strike first. The soldiers won’t really be coming after him, so we’re going to have to make him start the fight himself. What kind of man is Vasca?’

‘Deceitful, greedy, and not really all that bright,’ Silk replied.

‘Can he be pressured into any kind of rashness?’

‘Probably not. Bureaucrats tend to be cowardly. I don’t think he’d make a move until he sees the soldiers coming.’

‘I believe I can make him bolder,’ Sadi said. ‘I have something very nice in a green vial that would make a mouse attack a lion.’

Garion made a face. ‘I don’t much care for that way,’ he said.

‘It’s the results that count, Belgarion,’ Sadi pointed out. ‘If things are that urgent right now, delicate feelings might be a luxury we can’t afford.’

‘All right,’ Garion decided. ‘Do whatever you have to.’

‘Once things are in motion, I might be able to throw in just a bit of additional confusion,’ Velvet said. ‘The King of Pallia and the Prince Regent of Delchin both have sizable retinues, and they’re on the verge of open war anyway. There’s also the King of Veresebo, who’s so senile that he distrusts everybody. I could probably persuade each of them that any turmoil in the halls is directed at
them
personally. They’d put their men-at-arms into the corridors at the first sound of fighting.’

‘Now that’s got some interesting possibilities,’ Silk said, rubbing his hands together gleefully. ‘A five-way brawl in the palace ought to give us all the opportunity we need to leave town.’

‘And it wouldn’t necessarily have to be confined to the palace,’ Sadi added thoughtfully. ‘A bit of judicious misdirection could probably spread it out into the city itself. A general riot in the streets would attract quite a bit of attention, wouldn’t you say?’

‘How long would it take to set it up?’ Garion asked.

Silk looked at his partners in crime. ‘Three days?’ he asked them, ‘Maybe four?’

They both considered it, then nodded.

‘That’s it then, Garion,’ Silk said. ‘Three or four days.’

‘All right. Do it.’

They all turned and started back toward the entrance to the atrium. ‘Margravine Liselle,’ Sadi said firmly.

‘Yes, Sadi?’

‘I’ll take my snake back now, if you don’t mind.’

‘Oh, of course, Sadi.’ She reached into her bodice for Zith.

Silk’s face blanched, and he stepped back quickly.

‘Something wrong, Kheldar?’ she asked innocently.

‘Never mind.’ The little man turned on his heel and went on through the green-smelling evening gesticulating and talking to himself.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

His name was Balsca. He was a rheumy-eyed seafaring man with bad habits and mediocre skills who hailed from Kaduz, a fish-reeking town on one of the northern Melcene Islands. He had signed on as a common deck hand for the past six years aboard a leaky merchantman grandiosely named
The Star of Jarot
, commanded by an irascible peg-leg captain from Celanta who called himself ‘Woodfoot,’ a colorful name which Balsca privately suspected was designed to conceal the captain’s true identity from the maritime authorities.

Balsca did not like Captain Woodfoot. Balsca had not liked any ships’ officers since he had been summarily flogged ten years back for pilfering grog from ship’s stores aboard a ship of the line in the Mallorean navy. Balsca had nursed his grievance from that incident until he had found an opportunity to jump ship, and then he had gone in search of kindlier masters and more understanding officers in the merchant marine.

He had not found them aboard
The Star of Jarot
.

His most recent disillusionment had come about as the result of a difference of views with the ship’s bosun, a heavy-fisted rascal from Pannor in Rengel. That altercation had left Balsca without his front teeth, and his vigorous protest to the captain had evoked jeering laughter followed by his being unceremoniously kicked off the quarterdeck by a nail-studded leg constructed of solid oak. The humiliation and the bruises were bad enough, but the splinters which festered for weeks in Balsca’s behind made it almost impossible for him to sit down, and sitting down was Balsca’s favorite position.

He brooded about it, leaning on the starboard rail well out of Captain Woodfoot’s view and staring out at the lead-gray swells surging through the straits of Perivor as
The Star of Jarot
beat her way northwesterly past the swampy coast of the southwestern Dalasian Protectorates and on around the savage breakers engulfing the Turim Reef. By the time they had cleared the reef and turned due north along the desolate coast of Finda, Balsca had concluded that life was going out of its way to treat him unfairly, and that he might be far better off seeking his fortune ashore.

He spent several nights prowling through the cargo hold with a well-shielded lantern until he found the concealed compartment where Woodfoot had hidden a number of small, valuable items that he didn’t want to trouble the customs people with. Balsca’s patched canvas sea bag picked up a fair amount of weight rather quickly that night.

When
The Star of Jarot
dropped anchor in the harbor of Mal Gemila, Balsca feigned illness and refused his shipmates’ suggestion that he go ashore with them for the customary end-of-voyage carouse. He lay instead in his hammock, moaning theatrically. Late during the dog watch, he pulled on his tarred canvas sea coat, the only thing of any value that he owned, picked up his sea bag and went on silent feet up on deck. The solitary watch, as Balsca had anticipated, lay snoring in the scuppers, snuggled up to an earthenware jug; there were no lights in the aft cabins, where Woodfoot and his officers lived in idle luxury; and the moon had already set. A small ship’s boat swung on a painter on the starboard side, and Balsca deftly dropped his sea bag into it, swung over the rail, and silently left
The Star of Jarot
forever. He felt no particular regret about that. He did not even pause to mutter a curse at the vessel which had been his home for the past six years. Balsca was a philosophical sort of fellow. Once he had escaped from an unpleasant situation, he no longer held any grudges.

When he reached the docks, he sold the small ship’s boat to a beady-eyed man with a missing right hand. Balsca feigned drunkenness during the transaction, and the maimed man—who had undoubtedly had his hand chopped off as punishment for theft—paid him quite a bit more for the boat than would have been the case had the sale taken place in broad daylight. Balsca immediately knew what that meant. He shouldered his sea bag, staggered up the wharf, and began to climb the steep cobblestone street from the harbor. At the first corner, he made a sudden turn to the left and ran like a deer, leaving the surprised press gang the beady-eyed man had sent after him floundering far behind. Balsca was stupid, certainly, but he was no fool.

He ran until he was out of breath and quite some distance from the harbor with all its dangers. He passed a number of alehouses along the way, regretfully perhaps, but there was still business to attend to, and he needed his wits about him.

In a dim little establishment, well hidden up a dank, smelly alleyway, he sold Captain Woodfoot’s smuggled treasures, bargaining down to the last copper with the grossly fat woman who ran the place. He even traded his sea coat for a landsman’s tunic, and emerged from the alley with all trace of the sea removed from him, except for the rolling gait of a man whose feet have not touched dry land for several months.

He avoided the harbor with its press gangs and cheap grogshops and chose instead a quiet street that meandered past boarded-up warehouses. He followed that until he found a sedate workman’s alehouse where a buxom barmaid rather sullenly served him. Her mood, he surmised, was the result of the fact that he was her only customer, and that she had quite obviously intended to close the doors and seek her bed—or someone else’s, for all he knew. He jollied her into some semblance of good humor for an hour or so, left a few pennies on the table, and squeezed her ample bottom by way of farewell. Then he lurched into the empty street in search of further adventure.

He found true love under a smoky torch on the corner. Her name, she said, was Elowanda. Balsca suspected that she was not being entirely honest about that, but it was not her name he was interested in. She was quite young and quite obviously sick. She had a racking cough, a hoarse, croaking voice, and her reddened nose ran constantly. She was not particularly clean and she exuded the rank smell of a week or more of dried sweat. Balsca, however, had a sailor’s strong stomach and an appetite whetted by six months’ enforced abstinence at sea. Elowanda was not very pretty, but she was cheap. After a brief haggle, she led him to a rickety crib in an alley that reeked of moldy sewage. Although he was quite drunk, Balsca grappled with her on a lumpy pallet until dawn was staining the eastern sky.

It was noon when he awoke with a throbbing head. He might have slept longer, but the cry of a baby coming from a wooden box in the corner drove into his ears like a sharp knife. He nudged the pale woman lying beside him, hoping that she would rise and quiet her squalling brat. She moved limply under his hand, her limbs flaccid.

He nudged her again, harder this time. Then he rose up and looked at her. Her stiff face was locked in a dreadful rictus—a hideous grin that made his blood run cold. He suddenly realized that her skin was like clammy ice. He jerked his hand away, swearing under his breath. He reached out gingerly and peeled back one of her eyelids. He swore again.

The woman who had called herself Elowanda was as dead as last week’s mackerel.

Balsca rose and quickly pulled on his clothes. He searched the room thoroughly, but found nothing worth stealing except for the few coins he had given the dead woman the previous night. He took those, then glared at the naked corpse lying on the pallet. ‘Rotten whore!’ he said and kicked her once in the side. She rolled limply off the pallet and lay face down on the floor.

Balsca slammed out into the stinking alley, ignoring the wailing baby he had left behind him.

He had a few moments’ concern about the possibility of certain social diseases.
Something
had killed Elowanda, and he had not really been all that rough with her. As a precaution, he muttered an old sailors’ incantation which was said to be particularly efficacious in warding off the pox; reassured, he went looking for something to drink.

By midafternoon, he was pleasantly drunk and he lurched out of a congenial little wine shop and stopped, swaying slightly, to consider his options. By now Woodfoot would certainly have discovered that his hidden cabinet was empty and that Balsca had jumped ship. Since Woodfoot was a man of limited imagination, he and his officers would certainly be concentrating their search along the waterfront. It would take them some time to realize that their quarry had moved somewhat beyond the sight, if not the smell, of salt water. Balsca prudently decided that if he were to maintain his lead on his vengeful former captain, it was probably time for him to head inland. It occurred to him, moreover, that someone might have seen him with Elowanda, and that her body probably had been found by now. Balsca felt no particular responsibility for her death, but he was by nature slightly shy about talking with policemen. All in all, he decided, it might just be time to leave Mal Gemila.

He started out confidently, striding toward the east gate of the city; but after several blocks, his feet began to hurt. He loitered outside a warehouse where several workmen were loading a large wagon. He carefully stayed out of sight until the work was nearly done, then heartily offered to lend a hand. He put two boxes on the wagon, then sought out the teamster, a shaggy-bearded man smelling strongly of mules.

‘Where be ye bound, friend?’ Balsca asked him as if out of idle curiosity.

‘Mal Zeth,’ the teamster replied shortly.

‘What an amazing coincidence,’ Balsca exclaimed. ‘I have business there myself.’ In point of fact, Balsca had cared very little where the teamster and his wagon had been bound. All he wanted to do was to go inland to avoid Woodfoot or the police. ‘What say I ride along with you—for company?’

‘I don’t get all that lonesome,’ the teamster said churlishly.

Balsca sighed. It was going to be one of
those
days. ‘I’d be willing to pay,’ he offered sadly.

‘How much?’

‘I don’t really have very much.’

‘Ten coppers,’ the teamster said flatly.

‘Ten? I haven’t got that much.’

‘You’d better start walking then. It’s that way.’

Balsca sighed and gave in. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Ten.’