Talons of Scorpio (13 page)

“Aye.”

He looked alive, suddenly. I could not afford to get involved in old-soldier campaigning talk, much as I might have enjoyed it over a wet. He was a mercenary, last season fighting with me against a common foe, this season fighting for my enemies against my own country. All the time, if he were your true paktun of Kregen, he would remain loyal to the employer to whom he had sworn his allegiance. I edged a little away, not because of any ill-feeling against paktuns, but out of the pressing necessity of getting on with the task in hand. I looked at the sumptuously-clad Deldar in the blue and yellow with the badge of the Silver Leem.

A fellow, a moltingur, all proboscis and carapace, was speaking to the Deldar. He wore brass-studded leathers and carried a formidable armory. He leaned over and I heard him say: “Yes, indeed, Deldar, I am choosy; but, as you can see from this I am not your ordinary paktun.” And he touched his own silver and brown badge pinned to his shoulder.

The Deldar simply asked a question, couched in the ritual — and rigmarole — of the secret passwords of the Leem Lovers. I was privy to these secrets, having been inducted into the vile cult to save my life down in Ruathytu. The moltingur had no idea what was being said, and gave a noncommittal answer that branded him as one who knew nothing of Lem the Silver Leem.

Fascinated, I listened and watched.

The Deldar of the Corrundum Korfs sniffed at my back and said in a growly bass: “That lot get promoted, right enough.”

I faced him.

“You know about that badge — the leem and the brown feathers?”

“I know nothing and I want to know nothing. But you see it more and more every day. That moltingur will get made up to ord-Deldar on the strength of it, you mark my words.”

I thought not; I did not say so.

Loath though I was to give any credit to anyone belonging to the Leem Lovers, in what next occurred I saw that, perhaps, some men and women — and particularly the military — might sign up with the cult out of other reasons than religious fervor, misguided ambition and love of orgies. I fancied that this Deldar might be absent when it came to torturing and sacrificing children.

He spoke swiftly to the Moltingur, in a low voice, and then called across to the Deldar of the Corrundum Korfs.

“Hai, Deldar Poll! Here is a fellow for you—”

The Moltingur’s proboscis shoved forward and he grabbed the rich uniform before him, starting to protest. That, as anyone could see, was a great mistake.

The Deldar did not hit him, made no move to withdraw. He simply called: “Glemshos! Autmoil!
[1]
Bratch!
”

The next few moments witnessed a boil of fellows in bright uniforms descending on the unfortunate moltingur and beating anywhere they could reach with stout and heavy cudgels. They knocked him down and kicked him, and then they dragged him up by his ears and threw him into the center of the courtyard.

One of them, a pinch-faced fellow whose brown and silver badge was of an ornateness surpassing the others, spat down: “If you attempt to deceive or impersonate us again, you will try to swim with a slit throat, by Flem!”

The moltingur lay on the flagstones, shattered.

The pinch-faced fellow swaggered back. “That’s the way to deal with that trash, Deldar Loparn. We are not people to be fooled or trifled with.”

The word used by this Deldar Loparn — Glemshos — intrigued me. Clearly the shos part came from the common word fanshos, being a band of companions, a gang of likely lads, all pals together. The Glem was merely one of the ways the Leem Lovers disguised their adherence. But the use of the word in just this way meant that here in Bormark the cult of Lem the Silver Leem operated much more in the open. The words spoken and the acts performed testified eloquently to this. I’d seen Lem the Silver Leem worshipped openly in Canopdrin, seasons ago, and we’d settled up that question. Now the Canops lived on the island of Canopjik and kept watch and ward for the Shanks who raided up into Havilfar. Deldar Poll at my back coughed and said: “Bad cess to ’em.”

“You don’t fear them?”

“Of course I do, dom!”

He wiped a sleeve across his mouth.

I said: “There’s little enough doing here. Come along for a wet.”

He hesitated; but agreed when I took one of Pompino’s golden deldys out and twinkled it between my fingers. He called a shiv-Deldar out to take over, not that there would be much doing, for this fellow’s uniform was in almost as sorry a state as Poll’s. We went off toward the wing of the Headquarters turned into an alehouse for the recruiting period.

Our conversation followed along traditional lines. As Nath the Bludgeon I contrived to put on a half-vacant look, not quite imbecilic, although my friends claim that this is a natural expression. He said he was Tom Poll called the Nose. That organ was not as colorful or as plentiful as many nourished in the taverns of Kregen, but it was of a certain quivering splendor.

A vague idea that I could join up with a Brown and Silver regiment and thus worm my way into the heart of things had been dashed. Tom the Nose said his commander, Jiktar Naghan Lappartom, was a fair man, but short of the readies, both of cash and equipment.

“We’ve been in Vallia, and we had a tough time.” He was into the confidence stage now, past trying to recruit me.

“This new army they’re putting together will probably beat the Vallians; but you never can tell. They fight hard.”

“So I believe.”

“You must have heard of them at the Incendiary Vosks. By Pandrite — they and those devilish Djangs! I was with a regiment contracted to old King Hot and Cold. I can tell you, I’m glad we did not have to thwack it out with the Vallians.”

I hoisted my stein and gave him a quizzical look.

“You sound as though the Vallians you saw then and the ones you fought over in Vallia recently are not the same.”

“Too right, dom! The best Vallian regiments are still in Hamal, or are up in the north of Vallia. It won’t be easy; but this time we can do it. Their King Alloran will sweep most of his section of the country clean. There’ll be rich pickings. I wasn’t at the sack of Rahartdrin—”

“Sack of Rahartdrin?”

He slopped ale.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I knew someone from there. That’s all.”

He leered, his nose wobbling. “A girl, hey?”

”Yes.”

“Don’t we all.”

“By the way,” I said, trying to sound casual and making a pretty poor fist of it, “d’you hear anything of what happened to the kovneva there: Katrin Rashumin, I think her name was. My girl slaved for her.”

He cocked an eye at me.

“She ran off, was all I heard. And the Vallians don’t keep slaves anymore—”

“Figure of speech, dom, figure of speech.”

I drank ale, to hide the fury in my face. Being caught up in my own wishes and orders! Ironical — and infuriating with it. The fact that Vallians had done away with slavery in almost all their provinces was now a well-known item of news even though it remained a marvel.

“So this King Vodun Alloran has conquered Rahartdrin.” That kovnate consisted of a large island off the southwest coast. Katrin Rashumin was a loyal friend to Delia. And this maniacal king was on the move, clearly taking other islands and also making his way up to the northeast. Soon he might reach Delphond — what the hell was Drak doing?

This Tom Poll the Nose, with whom I sat companionably drinking ale, was a zan-Deldar. He wore the silver mortilhead. Now he quaffed ale, and said: “Oh, yes, right enough. As soon as we get there we’ll be off, you mark my words. We’ll be off into Vallia and bring their capital city, Vondium, down about their ears. King Vodun Alloran has vowed to cut off the emperor’s head.” He drank again, a paktun discussing his trade. “It’s certain sure. This Dray Prescot emperor is for the chop this time.” He eyed me. “What’s stopping you from coming along and helping us fight this Dray Prescot?”

Chapter eleven

How the Great Lie spread

“What’s stopping me from going and fighting Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia?” I said. “Why, Tom, I told you. I’d get seasick.”

He looked over the rim of his stein at me, quite clearly nonplussed.

“You were down in Hamal—”

“Certainly. Never again.”

The large hall in this wing of the grandiose building given over as a tavern for the military resounded with the clink of bottles, the surf-foaming-roar of voices, the occasional quick snap of argument. Most of the men were recruiters, conscious of their dignity; the arguments did not degenerate into fights. They’d come later, out at the taverns, when the competition grew fiercer.

I leaned closer.

“Did you see this Emperor of Vallia at the Incendiary Vosks?”

“No. He kept out of it. That’s his style.”

“Oh?”

“Surely. Why, dom, it’s no secret. He was built up as the Prince Majister of Vallia, before the old emperor died, given false credentials, a fake glamour, made out to be a fighting man, when in truth he’s nothing more than a ninny.”

“I’d heard that. But I thought those old stories had been disbelieved by now.”

“Some folk were gulled. But we’ve been told the truth. We know what kind of a devil Dray Prescot is. Cunning, cowardly, scheming, as soon murder a friend and run from an enemy as stand and take decent handstrokes like a warrior.”

“You’ve been told?”

He let a satisfied smile twist his lips. I’d summed him up as a decent sort of fellow, one who followed his profession with devotion, probably pushed into it when he’d been so young and wet behind the ears he knew no better. But, at that, a real paktun on Kregen, a man of honor, has no need in those terms to feel shame. I’d known mercenaries one would put down as a blight upon civilization; others helped to ensure that that civilization endured.

“Oh, yes, dom, we’ve been told. We know the truth. Prescot is no good. Even if he was as brave as two zhantils, which he isn’t, he’d still be evil and crooked and ripe only for the chop.”

Patiently, I said: “It is difficult to believe—”

“Would you believe it if it came from his own family?”

So, then, of course, I knew.

To delay, now, the moment, I said: “He has a son Drak, the Prince Majister. He is fighting you now. He has a daughter, the Princess Majestrix—”

“And who knows where she is? No, dom, this Prescot’s daughter, Princess Dayra. She knows her father only too well. She’s had trouble with him before. She’s the one who knows the truth.”

My fist closed on the jug, and clenched, and I could not speak.

Tom the Nose drank ale, flushed with this imparting of high affairs. I felt sick. I managed to get the jug to my lips, and drank, and wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and did not say: “By Mother Zinzu the Blessed, I needed that!” although it was true, by Zair!

“She must hate her father.”

“Hate? No. She told us, just before the Battle of Corvamsmot. Contempt, that’s what she feels.”

“Did she — did she ride out to the battle? Did she fight?”

“A princess? Not likely!”

Little he knew of the princesses I knew, then...

I had to go on, although Tom the Nose would start to wonder pretty soon at my insistence on matters so far removed from our station. “But you mean she urged you to go and fight her brother?”

He put his stein down. It was empty, and I signaled the Fristle fifi nearest with a replacement. As the ale was poured Tom the Nose picked his teeth, reflecting. He looked just a little puzzled.

“Well — she was there, on the high platform when we formed ranks. Most of the talking was done by King Vodun Alloran and his Kapt-Crebent, a great noble who had been cheated of his estates and inheritance by this Prescot.”

Patiently, now, stalking the meanings like a leem, I said: “Oh? Who was that, then?”

“A great noble called Zankov.”

So it all began to fit into place...

“Zankov? Just that? Nobles usually have a long string of names—”

“Of course! But he called himself that until he’d won back his rightful titles from this Dray Prescot.”

No true paktun was going to get fuddled on three or four steins of ale in the mid afternoon. Tom the Nose was prepared to talk on while I bought the drinks. There was little more he had to say on these scores that burned so painfully in my brain. I decided that I’d better go and see Naghan Raerdu, Drak’s spy, and sort something out of this mess.

As I say, Tom Poll the Nose had little more to say until, as I was rising to leave, he looked up.

“You ought to change your mind. There will be good pickings in Vallia, although we of the Corrundum Korfs always respect the proprieties in these matters. We do not go in for wholesale rapine and slaughter against the ordinary folk. It’s these nobles and emperors who cause the trouble—”

“You are indisputably right there, dom.”

“Well, come with us. Anyway, whether what the great Zankov says is right or wrong, and whether or not the Princess Dayra told him or not is all beside the point.” He suddenly looked fierce, his bountiful nose quivering with a new menace, quite without mirth. “I lost my mother and father when I was a youngster, and I never knew my grandparents. But I wish I had. Any person ought to respect their parents and grandparents.”

“Agreed—”

“This Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia — d’you know how he got to be emperor? Why, dom, I’ll tell you. He murdered the old emperor. He killed the Princess Dayra’s grandfather. D’you wonder she wants to be revenged?”

I tottered out.

This was so new, so shattering, so—

I came to my senses wandering along the Street of a Thousand Clepsydras. People looked at me and then walked on swiftly. I’d been very fortunate not to have been taken up.

The Suns of Scorpio were very low, streaming their mingled radiance along the street and turning everything into a golden-tinged glory of amber, jade and ruby.

The taste in my mouth was of ashes, and dung heaps.

By the time I reached the Zhantil Palace the Suns were gone. I did not feel hungry, just empty.

Then I said to myself: By Zair! So I am Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia, for my sins. I was fetched to be the confounded emperor and I’ve tried to do a decent job and have the place in a reasonable state for Drak. All right! It’s this bastard Zankov — the man who really murdered the old emperor — who’s poisoned Dayra’s mind against me. Quite apart from my absence on Earth which she blames on me — rightly enough, given her understanding. That, I thought, was settled when she refused to strike when she might have done. I marched up toward the gate with the little sentry boxes, and the two guards stiffened up into columns of iron. What my face must have been like, Zair alone knows. Right, I said to myself as I marched on through. Right. That does it. I’ll settle Zankov’s hash and tell Dayra the truth — when I can find the girl — and she’ll believe me. Oh, yes, she’ll believe me.