The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian Tales (23 page)

             
At that instance the man who stood beside the king's chair leaned over and spoke in the king's ear. They muttered back and forth, and the king said to Vakar:

             
"Your price is impossible. We will instead give you all the gold you can carry."

             
"No, sir."

             
The king roared and threatened and haggled, and still Vakar held out. Finally Xirnenon said:

             
"If you had not caught us at a time when prolonged continence has driven us nearly mad ... But so be it. If you can put this treaty through you shall have the ring."

             
"Do you swear by the horns of Aumon?"

             
The king looked startled. "You have been inquiring into our customs, I see.
Very well.
I swear by the holy horns of Aumon that if you negotiate this treaty with the Amazons successfully, without impairing our masculine rights to equal treatment, and get me Queen Aramn
ê
to wife, I will give you the Ring of the Tritons. You are a witness, Sphaxas," he said to the man beside him, and again to Vakar: "Does that satisfy you? Good. How soon can you set forth for Kherronex?"

-

             
Queen
Aramnê
was indeed an impressive-looking woman, as tall as Vakar, with a broad-shouldered mannish figure clad in a loose short tunic that left one small breast bare. She sat in a chair of pretence on her galley-barge, the torchlight gleaming on and pearls in her diadem, and rested her chin on one capable fist. Vakar guessed her age as the middle thirties. She said:

             
"Your words are persuasive, Prince Vakar. In fact, a party among us has been urging that we take the initiative in such negotiations. However, before I make my decision, we will undertake a divination to aid us. Zoutha, proceed!"

             
There was a burst of activity among the attendant Amazons. Some set up a small stand with a copper bowl on it while others dragged in a naked man whom they forced to his knees in front of the bowl. There was nothing to indicate what sort of man he was and Vakar thought it injudicious to ask.

             
An elderly woman who seemed to be high priestess or head sibyl prayed, and then the man's head was forced down while Zoutha, the old woman, cut his throat so that his blood poured into the bowl. When the man's throat stopped
gushing
the Amazons threw the limp body over the side, where the crocodiles soon carried it off.

             
Zoutha stared into the bowl a long time. She dipped a finger into the blood and tasted it, and said:

             
"Queen, a thing will almost come to pass."

             
"Is that all?" said
Aramnê
.

             
"That is all."

             
The queen said to Vakar: "I have almost decided to acceed to your proposal—with a few minor reservations. However, words are not enough."

             
"Yes?" Vakar wondered what was in store for him this time.

             
"Before I commit my people to this course, I should like a sample of the benefits offered by King Ximenon."

             
Vakar's heavy eyebrows rose. "You mean, madam
...
"

             
"Exactly.
You shall attend me tonight." A faint smile touched the queen's frosty face. "I too have lost time to make up for."

             
At least, thought Vakar, this new test promised to be one that he was competent to surmo
un
t, even though he had never contemplated it as a method of earning a living.

-

             
The sun was well up the next morning when Vakar confronted a wan and peaked reflection of himself in Queen
Aramnê
's silver mirror as he fumbled for his razor. Behind him the queen stretched like a lazy lioness where she lay and said:

             
"Vakar, if some unforeseen accident should remove King Ximenon, would you be interested in—ah—"

             
"You honor me beyond my wildest dreams, but I fear that duty calls me back to my homeland," he replied, conscious that accidents that happened to his predecessors might some day happen to him also. "By the way, do you Amazons eat breakfast? I could devour one of those beasts you call a hippopotamus whole, I think."

             
Aramnê
sighed.
"Men!
Before they have their pleasure they will promise anything, but immediately afterwards they rush off, full of plans and bustle, with less thought for their late partner than for their favorite hound or hawk."

-

             
For the next few days Vakar shuttled back and forth between
Menê
and Kherronex while King Ximenon and Queen
Aramnê
bargained over the final terms of the treaty: what rights each sex should have in the reunited Tritonian state, the marriage contract between the king and the queen, and other details.

             
At last all was settled. The royal galleys of the two sovereigns should meet in the lake midway between the islands. To show mutual trust, Queen
Aramnê
should come aboard the king's galley for the signing of the contract; then the king should board hers for the wedding ceremony and the feast to follow.

             
The ships met. A dinghy brought the queen across the short stretch of the glassy lake between them. The red ball of the sun was just touching the smooth blue horizon when
Aramnê
, followed by a small guard of Amazons, clambered up the side of the king's galley.

             
Sphaxas, Ximenon's minister, spread a big sheet of brown papyrus on a table on the deck and read the terms. The king and queen swore by Aumon and Drax and all the other gods of Tritonia to abide by the terms of the treaty and called down an endless concatenation of dooms and disasters upon their own heads should they fail. Finally (as neither could write) they impressed their seals upon the papyrus and exchanged a kiss as a pledge of amity. Then they
turned,
the tall woman and the grossly massive man, towards the companionway, laughing at some private joke. Sphaxas followed. Before they put foot over the side the queen turned her head back and said:

             
"You shall come too, Prince Vakar. What would the celebration be without the man who did the most to bring it about?"

             
Vakar followed, grinning. Impatient as he was to get his
r
ing and begone, he saw no harm in one good binge. The gods knew that he had suffered enough in that stinking pen, living on stale bread and barley-porridge.

             
On the queen's ship a priest of Aumon performed the marriage ceremony. The king cut the throat of a white lamb and let the blood trickle on the altar. He dipped a finger in the blood and marked a symbol on the queen's forehead, and she did likewise to him. All sang a paean to the gods of Tritonia, after which there was much familiar back-slapping and lewd jests. Vakar, feeling thoroughly pleased with himself, said:

             
"And now, King, how about my ring?"

             
King Ximenon grinned broadly and pulled the ring off his finger. "Here," he said dropping it into Vakar's palm.

             
"And now," continued the king, "there is one other small matter we must attend to before proceeding with the feast. Seize him!"

             
Before Vakar knew what was happening, muscular hands gripped his arms. His mouth fell open in bewilderment as the king stepped forward and wrenched the ring out of his hand.

             
"I will borrow this," said the king, slipping it back upon his finger. "Strip him for sacrifice."

             
"Ho!" said Vakar. "Are you mad? What are you doing?"

             
Ximenon replied: "We are about to sacrifice you to Drax."

             
"But why, in the name of Lyr's barnacles?"

             
"For two reasons: First, old Drax has not had much attention from us lately. Curiously, since I came into possession of the ring, not one god has visited me in slumber. Secondly, I have sworn by the horns of Aumon to give you the ring. But I have not sworn to respect your life and liberty afterwards, and I cannot let so valuable a talisman leave the kingdom."

             
"Well, take the damned thing!" cried Vakar, sweating, as the guards peeled off the gaudy Tritonian raiment that had been lent him for the occasion.

             
"No, for your giving it to me under duress would not be a true legal gift. On the other hand when you die, having no legal heirs in Tritonia, your property falls to the throne. Therefore the only way I can legally fulfill my oath and retain the ring at the same time is to kill you."

             
"Queen
Aramnê
!" shouted Vakar. "Can you do nothing about this?"

             
The queen smiled frostily. "It is your misfortune, but I fully agree with my consort. We planned this stroke just now on the king's barge, while you were gauping at the flute-girls. And
why should you complain? Better men than you have died upon our altars to insure our land's fertility."

             
"Strumpet!" screamed Vakar, straining in the grip of the guards. "Was my nocturnal performance then insufficient, that you turn me over to this treacherous hyena?"

             
He went on to shout intimate details of an imaginary liaison with the queen on Kherronex. At least, he thought, he might stir up jealous dissention between his two murderers, and escape in the turmoil or at any rate spoil their pleasure.

             
The king put on a sardonic smile, saying: "If you had been wise you would have kept your mouth shut and gained a quick death. Now, for slandering the queen, you must receive additional punishment. Flog him."

             
"How many strokes, my lord?" said a voice behind Vakar.

             
"Until I tell you to stop."

             
The first stars were coming out as Vakar's wrists were bound and hoisted above his head, so that he half-dangled with only his toes on the deck. He had sometimes wondered what he would do if flogged, and had firmly resolved not to give his tormentors the satisfaction of seeing him weep or hearing him scream.

             
But when the whip whistled behind him and struck across his bare back, sending a white-hot sheet of pain shooting through his torso, he found it much harder to bear than he had ever imagined. The first blow he took in silence, and the second, but the third brought a grunt out of him, and the fourth a yell. By the tenth he was screaming like all the others, and felt warm blood trickling down his back.

             
Swish—crack! Swish—crack! He jerked and screeched with each blow, though hating himself for doing so. The pain filled his whole universe. He would do anything— anything—

             
Then a vestige of his natural craft asserted itself. With a terrible effort he stopped screaming and relaxed, letting his legs bend, his head loll, and his eyes close.