Prince of Scorpio (17 page)

A man shrieked: “What are you doing —
aaagh!”

I forced my eyes to take in what they saw, and transfer that information to my brain. I saw five dead men, all clad in the dark crimson. I saw a sixth with a bloody rapier in one hand and a bloody main-gauche in the other. He advanced on me and I thought this was the end. And—

“By the Veiled Froyvil, Dray! They were good men, all, and I slew them!”

My brain reeled.

I knew that voice.

I knew — I knew!

But — it could not be.

It was impossible.

I was dead already and treading the path toward the Ice Floes of Sicce.

The impossible voice spoke again.

“By all the shattered targes in Mount Hlabro, Dray! Perk up, my old dom!”

I shook my head. My hands trembled. I could see them, there before me, on the floor, shaking and beating against the marble where a trickle of blood flowed from a corpse slain by a corpse.

I lifted my head. I looked up. I whispered.

“Seg?”

“In the name of all the windy heights of Erthyrdrin, Dray! Get up, dom, and let us get out of here before the Froyvil-forsaken cramphs come arunning.”

“Seg.”

“Well, who else—” Then that old familiar voice, that well-loved voice, altered. Seg — for it was he, it was Seg Segutorio — came to me, knelt, and put a hand under my chin, and lifted. He looked into my face, and I smiled.

“Dray! You’re in a bad way!”

“No, Seg. No — for you are alive, and I have mourned you long and long. Oh — Seg!”

He picked me up then, hoisting me high to his chest, and he carried me out and away, through corridors that led from and to I knew not where in that great palace of the Emperor of Vallia. Presently he brought me to a small space where he lay me on a trundle bed; there he carried water, bathed me, and ministered to my wounds.

“Seg—” I reached a trembling hand up and grasped his forearm. “Thelda?”

He smiled and continued bathing my wounds. “She is a proud mother now, Dray. A fine boy.” Then a look of furtiveness crossed his face, and I could guess, and I said feebly: “He has my blessing. I will bring the Yerthyr shoot—”

“You’re the same Dray, my old dom! The same Dray Prescot!”

“But—” I said. I still could not believe. Out there in the Hostile Territories when the army of Queen Lilah of Hiclantung had been defeated by the Harfnars of Cherwangtung, Seg, Thelda, and I had raced with the remnants of Hwang’s proud regiment, and I had seen what I had seen. “You went down, Seg. Thelda and you. The nactrixes boiled over you like chanks in a bloody sea.”

“True. By the Veiled Froyvil, but they were a ferocious bunch! I slew them until I could slay no more, and their corpses heaped above us. They left us to chase you. I thought you dead, then, Dray.”

“But—”

He smiled and tilted a glass cup to my lips. It held water of an iciness I usually find disagreeable, but now it tasted like the best Zond wine.

“I heard what happened with you and Delia. You did not think, after you were missing from
Lorenztone,
that she would calmly fly off and leave, did you?”

I looked at him.

“Little you know Delia of Delphond, Dray Prescot, if you think that! Chuktar Farris of Vomansoir was ordered — and I can imagine your Delia telling him! — to return and search for you. They did not find you. They found Thelda and me.”

“Thank God for that,” I said. I said “thank God”; I did not say “thank Zair”, or Opaz, or the Invisible Twins, or Pandrite, or use any of the colorful expressions of Kregen.

“So we came back to Vallia and I do not like to think what Delia went through then. Thelda and I were married—”

“And you have a son called Dray.”

He started to look uncomfortable, then the old fey wildness broke through, and he glared at me. “Of course! What better name in all the world is there? Tell me that, you stubborn old onker!”

“And how did you come to be here?”

“Why, I am a bowman, or had you forgotten? I am a private Koter in the personal bodyguard of the Emperor, the crimson Bowmen of Loh—”

I tried to sing a certain stanza of that song, and although my voice cracked and wheezed like a leaky set of bagpipes, Seg got the message. The stanza is a particularly mocking one. It is often omitted. Seg threw back his head and laughed.

“Now, by Vox! I can live again, Dray Prescot!”

After that a confusion set in, and I was aware of shadows moving, and then of a woman sobbing and crying and laughing and holding me in her arms, whereat I grunted and pretended to be much more soggy than I was. Poor Thelda! She meant so well, with her pushy ways, and her constant exhibited concern for everyone’s welfare. But, as I was to discover, she had changed enormously from the plump sweaty earnest girl who had marched with us across the Hostile Territories and tried to suborn me away from Delia on the orders of the racters.

I did say, itching an old sore: “Where are the fallimy flowers for my poultice, Thelda?”

At this she burst into a torrent of tears, all wet and sticky. I heard Seg chuckle, and Thelda went away, crying. Seg bent over me. “You must rest now, Dray. A doctor is coming. Then we will get you out of the palace.”

I opened my mouth to say what I so desperately longed to ask. Then I shut my mouth. I was well enough aware of the situation and what had happened. I dare not ask for Delia. I knew people were risking their lives on my behalf. Seg was a private Koter in the Emperor’s bodyguard, a crimson Bowman of Loh, and thus had been able to dispose of the men carrying me out to execution. They had been his own comrades; he had slain them for me. I felt the shame of that, the fierce leap of pride, and the dark agony of remorse, but it was done, and, in truth, for my Delia’s sake I would wade through oceans of blood, as I have said. I am not a nice man.

“Don’t take chances, Seg. Clear up all traces. For your sake, and Thelda’s — and little Dray’s.”

“Do not fret, Dray. Erthyr the Bow is with me now.”

At this I felt more reassurance, for Seg seldom called on the name of that puissant and powerful spirit, the supreme being of Erthyrdrin; that he felt like that, and I knew it was a genuine emotion, proved he was satisfied.

Later I discovered more of the reasons for that satisfaction. But, even now, Delia will toss her head, grow very hoity-toity, and refuse to discuss just what was contrived. I know a body was found and substituted for me, and a convincing explanation put forward for the absence of five bowmen, four private Koters, and a Jiktar. At dead of night, with only two smaller moons hurtling low across the sky, I was conveyed out of the palace and secreted in a hidden room built into the attic of a lopsided house leaning crazily at the end of a maze of alleyways well away from the canals. The Presidio, the high council answerable only to the Emperor, confirmed his haughty actions in condemning me to instant execution. Korf Aighos and the other eight Blue Mountain Boys were put on trial. I asked about them, and Seg nodded, his face alive with all the old fey qualities, the strengths, the joyousness, the sheer love of life of his character. His black hair and blue eyes looked dearly familiar to me.

“They have been found guilty — as they were, Froyvil knows — but Delia knows your feelings, she’s known you long enough to read you like an illuminated scroll of my childhood, and we have plans to rescue them.”

And, in due course of time, they were rescued and secreted in another safe house in Vondium.

The doctor came. A dried-up little stick of a man with tallow-yellow hair and a wispy moustache, he was competent enough. His first action was to snap the locks and open his velvet-lined sturm-wood case of acupuncture needles. His name was Nath the Needle. Doctor Nath the Needle. Well, there are many Naths in Kregen.

“I don’t know how you survived, my lord,” he said, sniffing. He wore a somber dark-brown suit of clothes, a decrepit old cloak, and a hat in which the two slots over the eyes had worn into a gaping hole, like two gun-ports smashed into one by a thirty-two-pounder roundshot. “The infection from a shorgortz is generally reckoned to result in a terminal disease. But, there, medicine is improving every day in Vallia, and no doubt the Blue Mountain men have acquired an immunity unknown to us. I must look into it, indeed, I must.” He babbled on like this, but he gave me some foul-tasting gunk, and, indeed, I began to mend very quickly.

Delia, of course, was kept under strict surveillance.

I had an idea.

She would seek to find a way to throw off her servitors and guards and visit me, but danger lay there, for all she was the Princess Majestrix. Seg told me that as far as he could tell the Emperor cherished a very real affection for his daughter, but that his ideas on the majesty and aura of an emperor kept interfering with that ideal. He was determined she should marry. She was his only child, and his doctors had told him he could have no more. I had never heard Delia mention her mother, and I assumed she was dead. Now, after Delia’s displays of temper, as the court gossip went, she was to be held on a very tight rein until the Kov Vektor provided a fresh king’s ransom in wedding presents.

I told Seg what I required. He looked at me, chuckled, then laughed, and finally he roared with good humor. Feeling fitter than I had in weeks, I was duly shaved, and new clean clothes were brought in for me to put on. I stared into a mirror of real glass that was the proud possession of Paline Panifer, the girl Seg had found to care for me and the room. Paline is a common name for a young girl on Kregen, like Cherry on Earth, and she was fresh-complexioned, dark-eyed, a little solemn and overawed in my presence, but she cooked a truly delightful squish pie and she could make Kregan tea properly. Also she did the laundry with an amazingly tiny amount of soap.

“A boat is due tomorrow, Dray,” Seg told me. I stood up. I felt good.

‘Tomorrow, then, Seg.”

He didn’t bother to wish me luck. I believe he thought I didn’t need it. Both of us thought the other returned from the Ice Floes of Sicce; and after that — who needed luck?

The next morning, early, I put on my new gear. The buff leather tunic fitted well, and the buff shirt was clean and starched. The hat was gray with a fine curly set of feathers in red and white, the colors that servitors of Valka wore on their sleeves. The tall black boots shone with Paline’s ministrations. I buckled on the belt with the rapier and main-gauche Seg had brought. As always, I sheathed a knife back of my right hip. Swathed in a voluminous gray cloak I went with Paline from that maze of alleys and out toward the canals and quays. The tang of fresh air braced me up. The twin Suns of Scorpio flamed overhead. All the bustle and uproar of a great metropolis flowed about me. The lesten-hide bag given me by Seg, who had had it from the hand of Delia, hung heavily inside my shirt. I looked up and there rose the forest of masts. I felt my pulses quicken. The Star Lords had forbidden me to venture on the sea for a space, but they could not prevent my quick interest in all I saw and in the sealore I absorbed, it seemed, through my pores.

I have spoken of the great galleons of Vallia. Now I could see them. The ship from Valka lay warped alongside the quay, and men were busily engaged in discharging her. Her captain gaped at me as though I had risen from the dead. I recognized him — as he did me.

“Captain Korer!” I said, shaking his hand. “I trust you are well?”

“My lord Strom!” he gasped.

He told me all the news of Valka and I drank it up, every word, for I love my island of Valka. The land prospered. We remained at peace. Trade thrived. Babies were being born at a rate that ensured the depredations of the slavers would soon be obliterated. All my old friends still lived and were happy; and yet all mourned my departure. I sensed the truth in this. Captain Korer was, in the cant phrase, a bluff old sea dog. He would not dissimulate to me, his Strom — or so I fancied.

“Your crew? They are trustworthy?”

“Every man and boy, Strom!”

“Good. Then I took passage with you and am just arrived.”

“I understand.”

After that it was easy to arrange. With a small guard of marines from the ship, and presents bought with Delia’s money — presents that would not betray their origin — carried by smartly-clad men wearing the red and white banded shirtsleeves, we went up to the palace. Gold bought us a way in. Once again I found myself in that immense throne room, under the blaze of gold and jewels. But this time I walked with cracking heels on that shining floor, with a sword at my side, and with my own men carrying gifts for the Emperor.

“Drak, Strom of Valka!”

The Emperor received me kindly, his chamberlain, with fresh gold to jingle, having smoothed the way. The Emperor — how to describe him? He had sired the most beautiful girl in two worlds. He was strong and passionate, fiery-eyed, dominating, accustomed to command — aye, and cruel and ruthless, too, when he had to be. I knew.

“I have a gift for the Princess Majestrix, Majister.”

He grunted. He thought I wanted favors from him over the rights of Valka. “You will get no favors from that young lady, Strom Drak.”

I rubbed my clean-shaven and shining chin. I felt that Paline had dosed me too liberally with scents and perfumes.

“As to that, Majister, I must, at the very least, pay my respects to the Princess Majestrix. Of favors I ask none.”

“That makes a refreshing change.” He stood up, at which there followed a great swirl of activity of protocol and bowing and sorting out of places. “I’ll come with you, for, by Vox, I’ve little enough to please me these days.”

In the guard of honor marched private Koter Segutorio.

We went through brilliant corridors hung with tapestries of such beauty and value that I could not refrain from looking at them. Past precious objects from all the known world we walked, and came to a marble stair, and then a door studded with gold bosses in the forms of zhantil-heads. Everywhere everything was of absolute luxury and refinement. And I wanted to drag my Delia away from all this! How I presumed!

Thick soft carpets from Walfarg beneath our feet, silks from Loh, the scent of spices from Askinard, all the wealth of a world spread out, as we went into the apartments of the Princess Majestrix. Here water tinkled coolly from fountains; brilliant birds fluttered and cooed; the very air breathed a soft and fragrant welcome. I was enchanted. Music wafted soothingly from a silver screen beyond which musicians played. I put my left hand on my rapier hilt and I gripped hard.