A Life for Kregen (7 page)

“Your commands, majister,” he said. And then he added: “My fingers itch to feel Racter gold. But my heart would not be in it.”

“Of course,” put in Nath Nazabhan. “We could take the Racter gold, anyway.”

“What, Nath!” exclaimed Barty. “Double deal ’em?” He screwed up that incredibly naive face, and one could almost see the wheels whizzing around in his head as he once more confronted the thrill of skullduggery in action.

The idea was intriguing; but it would not do, and we all saw that. Nath’s flyer remained unsaddled.

Pallan Myer walked over from the door, and coughed, and stood waiting. He was youngish, stooped over from long hours of reading, with always a book or a scroll tucked under his arm or, to be honest, more often opened as he walked along reading, a constant terror to anyone else who did not look where they were going. I had put him in charge of education, the Pallan of Learning, and I was due to go with him to see about a group of new school buildings being fashioned quickly from materials left over from a slave bagnio, after it had burned, and many of the poor devils inside it, too.

Acknowledging Pallan Myer, I said: “Educating the children of Vallia is more important than wrangling. Nath. Do you go and see Strom Luthien and give him our word. And, Nath. Try to be gentle with the rast.”

“Aye, majister. I will try.”

Barty chuckled. “That’ll be a pleasant surprise for him.”

Myer started in eagerly talking away about the plan to give each child in the new building his or her very own desk. That way, he said, they’d do a lot more work without the jostling and larking you always found when the children sat on long benches, all scrunched up. I nodded, agreeing, and figuring out where we could find the artisans and the wood. Barty fell in with us as we went. Delia called across, saying she had work to do, and I smiled at her as we went out.

His face shining like one of those fabulous polished apples of Delphond, Barty Vessler strode along with us out into the suns shine. I saw Delia looking after him as I turned to give her a parting smile. Barty was deeply in love with Dayra and she was off somewhere adventuring on her own account and had been numbered in the ranks of those who opposed us. She had been or was still, for I did not know, a boon companion to Zankov and that crowd of cutthroats. Now that the Hawkwa country had declared for Jak the Drang and I was emperor in Vondium, now that Phu-Si-Yantong had withdrawn from this area, what in a Herrelldrin Hell Zankov was about posed a prickly problem.

Zankov had slain the old emperor. That emperor was Dayra’s grandfather. I wondered if she knew that her comrade Zankov had murdered her grandfather.

Attitudes are easy to strike and damned difficult to un-strike.

Barty burbled on about the coming campaign as we mounted our zorcas to ride out to the new schools. We had already traveled a fair bit of the road in freeing all Vallia and we looked forward to riding side by side to finish the task. Every day Barty grew in stature, in wisdom and cunning. Of courage there had never been any doubt. You will perceive, I think, that I was looking with increasing favor on Barty Vessler, the Strom of Calimbrev. I knew practically nothing of my daughter Dayra. Yet the hope, barely formed and certainly not articulated, was that Barty would match up to Dayra, who was also Ros the Claw.

Ros the Claw. The suns slanted their radiance down about us and the day smiled with promise, and I thought of that wicked steel taloned glove she wore on her left hand. Those cruel curved claws could have your eyes out in a twinkling. A real right tiger-girl, Ros the Claw, a she-leem, clad in her black leathers hugging her skin tight, all grace and lithe lissomness and striking feline beauty. And Barty had no idea that Dayra was Ros the Claw.

My own feelings muddled my thinking. I had not been on Kregen when Dayra and her twin brother, Jaidur, had been born, and Delia had shouldered a heavy burden — two heavy burdens. And there were the other children, also. The Everoinye had banished me, then, and I had now firmly made up my mind not to cross them again in any open way. The feelings about Dayra made me itchy, fretful, tearing open tender wounds I had thought long since scabbed over.

No matter where Dayra might be in Vallia, no matter what she was up to, it seemed to me right that I should talk to her in friendship and love. She hated me. I had had proof of that. And, also, I thought I had proof that she did not hate me, for she had drawn back and had not struck me from the instant she understood that I had at last recognized Ros the Claw as my daughter Dayra.

That gave me hope.

Emotions and feelings run all tangled, like disturbed water in a stream choked with fallen rock. We must have reliable news of Dayra soon. We must.

So I rode in the suns shine to see about facilities for educating the young, and I realized with a sober chill that I had few and contemptible qualifications for the task.

Chapter Five

Justice

Plots and counter-plots. Masks and disguises. The shadow in the night and the swift glitter of a blade. Well, they are all a part of Kregen, just as much as the pomp and grandeur, the armies, the brilliance of nobility and the shining of courage.

There was the matter of Renko the Murais.

Where I rode I noticed that the members of my choice band, those fighting men who were veterans now although so short a time ago being simple tradesmen or farmers, had strengthened their number by mustering more of the old comrades. They formed a powerful little mounted squadron riding at my back. And, with them, rode a formed and formidable body of upwards of fifty Pachaks. While welcoming this, I was puzzled. I mentioned the matter to Nath as we rode forward along the gutted Avenue of Hope and out into the virtually untouched Kyro of Taniths. This kyro was a particular pride of Vondium, being graceful in architecture, bright with color, a perfect place to take one’s ease after the strife and turmoil of the day. The luxurious and headily perfumed trees and bushes growing in a profusion of beauty like a woman’s hair and trailing splendor along the tessellated walks and cool colonnades always offered a welcome and a surcease. A man could expand his lungs here, and yet relax, safe and with the feeling he had come home. I smiled at Nath as I asked him, and he merely answered with a casual comment that, by Vox, a man needed friends at his back.

With this sentiment I agreed.

I did not press the matter. In truth, the thought that ferocious and loyal fighting men rode with me, keeping a weather eye open against assassins, stikitches dropping on us from any direction, was mightily comforting.

Each man of this impromptu bodyguard wore a tiny tuft of yellow and red feathers in his helmet, a brave show of color, highly evocative.

The business with the schools happily concluded and an old friend, Anko the Chisel, proving only too happy to place the entire resources of what was left of his workshops at our disposal, the matter of the desks was attended to. With them, also, grave details of ink and pens, of paper and tablets, and the correct clothes the youngsters should wear had all to be attended to with the same strict punctilio I might give to the decisions over the number of shafts an archer should carry in his quiver when we marched out, and how many with the regimental wagons, or the best method of ensuring next season’s crop, or of how I might receive a deputation from a province seeking alliance. The work of empire is made up of details, great and small, and who is to mediate between them?

So, with the schools, and a faulty aqueduct to be seen to, and repairs to the walls where battering engines had breached them, and a swift and summary decision between a man and his brother over the rightful possession of a shop their father kept, he now being dead and nothing decided, I at last turned my zorca’s head in the direction of the palace and a meal and the inquisition into Renko the Murais.

Well, the meal was a splendid affair, and I shall not spend time on such gourmet delights. Enevon Ob-Eye, Nath, Barty, the responsible officials and whoever else thought they had a hand in the affair all assembled in a relatively undamaged chamber where once music had flowed to delight lazy afternoons. The charred triangles of harps still stood in the corners, and the twisted remnants of many of the exotic musical instruments of Kregen had been hastily swept away into an alcove under the windows. I sat at a long table, with the dignitaries flanking me, and the condemned men were led in under guard.

I knew Renko the Murais. It was the same Renko who had fought with us as a Freedom Fighter in Valka.

I treated him as I treated the other miserable wights, showing no special favor.

“Have the charges and the findings read out.”

This was done with due solemnity.

The contrast between the genuine solemnity of these proceedings, despite the deliberate air of informality I had introduced, and the fascial solemnity of the twin embassies from our foes, amused and depressed me. Nath had seen Strom Luthien off, treating him, as he reported hard-faced to me, with all due civility. The Racters, too, had been seen off with a zorca hoof up the rump.

The charges having been read out — a dismal catalogue of rapine and plunder and murder — the findings were studied. Here I welcomed the presence of Nath Nazabhan. His meticulous eye, his keen nose, his habitual and natural aptitude for turning over stones to discover the truth, were wonderfully displayed. The judges had judged fairly, we decided, in all but three cases of the thirteen. And all three had been dealt with in the court of Tyr Jando ti Faleravensmot.

I frowned.

“Is Tyr Jando here?” I spoke very mildly.

Enevon Ob-Eye shook his head. “He has been called away to his estates in Faleravensmot, majister. Some business of a cracked cistern and ruined flour.”

“Important enough to warrant his absence, then, in a time of shortage.” I pondered. Two of the wights standing in their gray breechclouts, chained, hang-dog before us, had been accused of raping two little Fristle fifis, and their story was that they had been over on the Walls of Opaz the Deliverer, hoisting stones, for they were powerful, hairy apims, with faces that would normally have been frank and open, and were now shattered and frightened and destroyed.

“Majister,” said one, Tom the Stones. “False witness was borne against us by Tabshur the Talens—”

Nath, Barty and I listened and weighed the stories. A matter of a debt to this Tabshur the Talens, an inheritance, a squabble between siblings, and a charge of rape to remove Tom the Stones. The inheritance would then by default fall to Tabshur through the sibling. Tabshur the Talens was a moneylender. Well, men must live in the world however they can shift. The unfortunate comrade of Tom the Stones, Nath the Ears — they were, indeed, remarkable — had been caught up in the plot because he was a comrade and could have borne counter-witness. Now we heard it all out and sent a guard of Pachaks to find this Tabshur the Talens and the sibling and hear their stories.

“Stand aside, Tom the Stones and Nath the Ears. Rest easy that justice will be done.” How easy to say that! And how damned hard, by Vox, to make sure!

Then it was the turn of Renko the Murais.

He had been so dragged down by his ordeal that he kept his face lowered and his gaze on the floor, and so had not looked up once, being prodded into position by the guards. He wore a gray breechclout and was chained, and although the laws had seen to it that he was clean and deloused, he looked defeated and tattered.

Because he was an old blade comrade I must allow no favor to overbear my judgment.

The Relt that the stylor Renko had been found guilty of murdering had been discovered in the cellar of a ruined pothouse down on the Canal of the Cockroaches. The Relts with their bird-like faces are the more gentle cousins of the warlike Rapas, and are very often employed as clerks and accountants. This particular Relt appeared to be a stranger in Vondium. His satchel was missing and the leather straps had been slashed through. He had been searched, for his tunic had been ripped to shreds exposing the linings and the hems.

“Was the satchel discovered in the possession of Renko?”

Nath’s words were pleasantly mild.

Enevon Ob-Eye said, “The records state the satchel was not recovered.”

“And no one thought to search, or inquire?”

“The records state that Renko the Murais was discovered crouching over the body, as you have heard. There was a knife in his hand, and there was blood on the blade. The Relt had been stabbed six times in the small of the back. It does seem the proof was plain.”

“Plain enough for me, by Opaz,” declared Barty.

I said, “Was there blood on the cut straps?”

Renko the Murais jumped.

His shaggy head lifted with a snap. He looked up. He looked at me. An expression — a sunrise, dawn, the flowering of a bloom — shocked across his face. His eyes widened. His mouth abruptly trembled — trembled and then firmed.

“Strom Drak!”

“Aye, Renko, Strom Drak. And a pretty pickle you have got yourself into.”

“I did not slay the Relt, strom! I swear it by Opaz the All-Glorious! I found the body and was set on, and so fought for my life, and was knocked on the head and left for dead. And when I woke—”

“You were taken up.” I looked at Nath and then at Barty and the others at the table. “The law of Vallia — the new laws of Vallia that the new emperor will see maintained — demand absolute proof of guilt. No one saw this man slay the Relt. You must prove beyond all doubt he did the deed before you pronounce him guilty.”

“But he was standing over the body with a bloody knife in his hand!” Barty spluttered, his face perplexed and yet clearly showing the way he struggled with preconceived notions.

“The chavnik knocks over the bowl of cream and the slave girl comes in to set it right and the mistress sees her and has her whipped for stealing and spilling the cream.”

“Yes, majister, but—”

“Enevon. Read out the description of the wounds.”

Enevon rustled his papers and then read: “Six stab wounds in the small of the back, close together, deep.”

I looked at Renko. “You were an axeman, as I recall.”