Talons of Scorpio (12 page)

“After them!” he cried. “Mount up, all. We’ll overtake them and demand a reckoning, by Odifor!”

A bunch of hersanys were brought from the stables and saddled up. Big ugly brutes, hersanys, with coats of thick chalk-white hair, and their six legs are as ungainly as any totrix’s. But they have stamina, and do well in the bruising jolt of a cavalry charge. Framco’s guards mounted up, and Pompino called down to me from his saddle.

“Mount up, Jak! This is nip and tuck.”

“Listen, Pompino.” I walked across and put my hand on his bridle. “Do you go on after the Ifts. You may find the Lady Tilda with them—”

He looked alarmed.

“You think not?”

“I don’t know, by Pandrite! But I do not think it wise to expend all our energy in one direction.”

He nodded. “Then I’ll follow this clue. If you root out anything, send a messenger — these locals will know the direction we’ve taken.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Maybe I should stay with you and let Framco go—”

“That is your decision. But I want to poke about myself. I want to use my nose.”

“A damned great beakhead it is, to be sure. Very well. I’ll give this chase a day, then I’ll be back.”

“Agreed.”

They clattered off, like a hunt after leems, and I went back into the palace, free to go about my own nefarious activities.

Chapter ten

Of the power of the Lemmites

Looked at dispassionately, the perfectly logical deduction from what had happened was that Twayne Gullik, a conscientious castellan, concerned for the safety of his mistress and much distrusting us rough new arrivals, had taken her off to a place of greater sanctuary. This was perfectly possible. His attempt to get us out of the palace had failed. But — we knew that the kovneva had left the palace before Gullik spoke to us. Copper-bottoming his bet? Maybe.

One way or the other, we had covered the options. If Tilda was safe with Gullik, no harm would have been done. If she was being abducted — and one could hardly say against her will because she was probably in a state of happy befuddlement — Pompino and the crew from
Tuscurs Maiden
and Framco and his guards would take the necessary measures to secure her from the rascally Ift. If he was a rascal.

Framco had left a handful of men under an ord-Deldar to hold the palace. They’d be occupied if anything untoward happened. My judgment was that some of the peril we had anticipated, directed as it was against persons and not property, might have been exaggerated. It might not have been. If a howling mob broke in to loot the palace the guards would see them off; if assassins sneaked in they’d find no quarry, their kitchews all flown, and if any of the other folk who wanted Tilda dead attacked they’d have dust and ashes to show for their pains.

So, feeling discontented but aware that in that direction nothing further remained to be done, I set about the next task.

If I burned a temple before Pompino got back to join in he’d feel cheated of his amusement. But, I could see about finding the locations of the temples. As I did this I’d make inquiries after the Ifts and the kovneva.

A change of costume being desirable I went along to see the grand chamberlain.

He was still in a distressed state, lying shivering in his bed in his apartments. A couple of flunkeys wanted to cut up; but I looked at them, and went across the carpets to look down on Constanchoin.

He glared up, feverishly, black rings under his eyes.

“I refuse to feel sorry for you,” I told him. “If you order girls to be beaten then you must expect to be beaten yourself. As it was, you came off lightly.”

He moaned. This was all shock, indignity, fright; he hadn’t been physically harmed.

“I need a change of clothes. I came to see if you were all right and to tell you that I am plundering the kov’s wardrobe. He will be pleased to let me have whatever clothes I wish to take, believe me. As for you; when you are recovered you will take great care of the people, both men and women, in your charge. Otherwise — well, in the Blue Distance of Pandrite, anything may happen.
Dernun
?”

That rather fierce way of demanding understanding jolted him. He managed a feeble nod. A slave girl wiped spittle from his lips. I looked at her, a Fristle girl with silvery fur and a tail adorned with a blue and green bow.

“If he hits you, fifi, tell me. He will not hit you again.”

With that foolish statement echoing in my ears I went off. As you will observe, I was a trifle warm about the domestic arrangements young Pando kept up in his palace.

In the lavishly furnished apartments given over to the kov’s personal use I found he did himself proud in the wardrobe department. His tunics wouldn’t stretch to fit my shoulders, of course; but I needed a Pandahem hat, and a loose cape-like upper garment known in Pandahem as a puttah. I chose one with a blue ground and not too much black and silver embroidery, for they are foppish in these things. With this slung over my shoulders, the wide hat pulled down, and a fresh pair of gray trousers, I was perfectly decently dressed.

The Fristle ord-Deldar, who reported himself in as Naghan the Pellendur, offered me a hersany. I told him I’d prefer to walk, thanked him, and sauntered out of the gate. I felt a tickle of amusement as the two guards in their little sentry boxes slapped up their spears in salute. I touched the brim of the hat to them, shoved the puttah over my left shoulder in the style of a pelisse, and took myself off to explore Pando’s Port Marsilus.

His hat, I should mention, was of a fine pearl-gray color, most elegant, with a black velvet band. In that band a jaunty tuft of green feathers gave, I now admit, life to the combination. With a gesture I admit, I admit! was entirely petty, I ripped the green feathers out and scattered them on the roadway. Of such things are a fellow’s life made. Meaningless gestures, irrational loyalties, a childish approach to the serious things of life...

The way to handle children... Well, I knew that, didn’t I? Of course I did — or thought I did like any fond parent. But children do not grow up in the same mold as their parents. I couldn’t honestly say that a single one of my children took after me — except in a twisted sense that Dayra would like to take after me with her Whip and her Claw. Although she hadn’t struck that final blow...

So, thinking dark and unpleasant thoughts, all occasioned by a bunch of green feathers, I tried to brisk up my steps. The first port of call would be a tavern, by Krun!

At the sign of the Hersany and Queng I downed a tankard of ale and devoured two cheese sandwiches with a great deal of pickle, and all the time I sized up the clientele — middling tradesmen, a fellow who was clearly an artist from the paint on his fingers and the well-worn portfolio leaning against his chair leg, a farmer into the big city over important affairs and dressed up in a hideous mélange of color and style, a mercenary — a little out of his milieu — who was tazll and being unemployed had a lean and hungry look. To this last customer I insinuated myself with the usual tricks of introduction, and bought him a tankard, and so sat down easily at his side.

The suns light struck across the settle so that he stood out in fine detail, whereas I leaned back in the shadows.

“And they say they’re taking anybody. Masichieri, most likely, so a paktun like me can expect a good position.”

“Hikdar?” I said, lazily.

He blinked.

“Well — perhaps not at first. But shebov-Deldar, at the least.”

Shebov-Deldar — seven steps up the ladder of promotions within the Deldar ranking — would be handsome, I judged. He was apim, like me, well-built, and with a crop of dark hair tied into a knot with a blue ribbon at the back of his head. He wore a leather brass-studded jerkin, and carried a pallixter. He had no helmet I could see.

He said his name was Apgarl Apring, called the Strigicaw; but I did not believe him.

His business on that score was his own; what he could tell me of the recruiting going on was going to be mine also.

“You looked a fine handy fellow when I saw you come in,” he said, quaffing the ale I’d bought him. “Why don’t you come along o’ me, and we’ll sign up together?”

“Why not?”

He looked pleased. If he’d run off from some scrape he’d welcome a friend. He wore neither golden zhantil-head nor silver mortil-head at his throat; but in these latter days on Kregen he called himself a paktun, which is really a name reserved for mercenaries who have acquired renown.

He knew nothing of any party of Ifts, and allowing my voice to rise when the question was posed, I received no response for my pains from anyone else.

This Apgarl Apring possessed no saddle-animal, no helmet, no spear, no shield. The obvious conclusion was that association with him would bring accumulated suspicion down on my head. This might work both ways, of course...

We went along to the Street of the Jiktars where, at an imposing structure stuccoed white, we went in to see about signing up. The courtyard was busy with comings and goings of military men and women, and the place hummed with activity.

In many of the countries in this part of the world in the days following the great war against Hamal, employment for mercenaries had thinned. Men and women to be hired for guard duty and to protect caravans or ships were always in demand; now the markets were overflowing. In the normal course, then, one would expect Apgarl to find some difficulty in securing employment.

No such thing. Oh, no! The moment we sized up the layout, saw the different regimental tables with their recruiting Deldars, the heaps of gold coins, the busy bustle, saw the speed with which any new arrival was snapped up, we saw there would be no difficulty. Apgarl looked at the different tables.

He smiled and then he frowned.

“I shall, of course, choose a first-class regiment.”

“Of course.”

I’d seen enough — already. If they wanted men so desperately as to take on Apgarl Apring — who was in all probability a decent enough fellow except for his unfortunate circumstances — then an expedition of some size was planned. Given the information I was already possessed of, it seemed to me that the destination of the expedition had to be southwestern Vallia.

“Where are you off to, then, Nath?” Apgarl looked surprised. I’d told him I was Nath the Bludgeon.

“A previous appointment, Apgarl. Don’t wait for me.”

“I won’t, by Acker of the Brass Tail! But if you’re in the Hersany and Queng I’ll treat you out of my first pay.”

“Done, Apgarl. Remberee.”

He trotted off to sign up and I wandered in the other direction where a bulbous-nosed fellow wearing a gorgeous uniform that had been stitched together to close the rents, and chalked over the white and painted over the colors, stood at a table and bellowed fruitlessly. A standard of blue and white with yellow slashes hung at his back. Its edges were shredded. His own uniform of similar colors looked as though he’d been ridden over by the same charge of armored cavalry.

“Come along, dom,” he called to me. “You look a fine upstanding fellow.” His spiel followed the usual line of desperate recruiting Deldars. Things were hot, then!

“Tell me, Deldar,” I said in an easy voice. “Just where are you expecting to fight? For, I can tell you, I have a weak stomach. If there’re ships involved—”

“Weak stomach!” He managed a laugh, although his cheeks, bearded and pitted with tiny blackheads, for he was apim, changed not at all and his eyes remained dull. “Why, we can soon cure that for you! We’ll see to it that you get a first-class berth, with all the trimmings. Come along, lad, sign up and take the silver in your hand.” He tossed a silver dhem up and down on his palm.

This time of day the recruiting Deldars might wait at their tables here in Headquarters in the Street of the Jiktars; their serious work took place later in the various taverns about the city. They expected eager volunteers now.

“So it is over the sea,” I said, looking downcast.

“It don’t matter to a fighting man where he fights! When you take up the profession of arms, you look no further than the next meal and the purse o’ gold, the next jovial company and the next battle.”

“Who, Deldar, are you fighting?”

Still his expression remained in that pathetic joviality overlaying deadness.

“That’s for the orffizers to say, dom. Here, take the silver and we’ll make two men of you—”

“You look, Deldar, as though you’ve just staggered off a battlefield. You’re not a good advertisement for your regiment.”

He goggled at me now, taken aback. Then he banged the ornate brass badge set in the front of his leather helmet. Half the blue and white feathers were missing from the socket.

“See that, lad! That’s the badge o’ the Corrundum Rig’ment, known as the Korfs. Proud, we are, and don’t you—”

“Archers, then... You don’t know I can pull a bow.”

He laughed now, and there was some amusement there. “I seen your shoulders, dom. I know a bowman when I see one.”

A Deldar at the adjoining table shouted across.

“Corrundum Krasnys! Step over here, dom, and join a
real
rig’ment!”

He wore a splendid uniform of blue and yellow with much gold ornament and a veritable peacock’s tail in his helmet. Giving him a casual glance, I was held by the small silver brooch at his left shoulder, fastening the flamboyant sash. A small tuft of brown feathers surmounted the silver image of a leem.

About to saunter across, ignoring the pleas of the Deldar of the Corrundum Korfs, I had to step aside as a great wash of men surged in, shouting and laughing, stamping their boots and swishing their capes.

“They’ll pick and choose,” said the Corrundum Deldar. He clearly regarded me as a lost cause. “Proud we are, right enough; but we’ve had hard times lately.”

If a pang touched me I had to thrust it aside.

“Been in it, lately?”

“Aye, dom. Down in Hamal, I was. Paktun.” He was a true paktun, for he wore the silver mortilhead at his throat. “Fought them Pandrite-forsaken Shtarkins, the Shanks. Beat ’em, too—”

Jolted, I said, “You were at the Battle of the Incendiary Vosks?”

His eyes opened. “Aye, I was. You, too?”