The dancing began and there was singing and laughter and much drinking of toasts.
Standing a little back from the main throng, a glass in my hand, talking quietly to Strom Vinsanzo, a small and somewhat wizened man who knew how to make one golden talen equal two in a season or so, I could see Mileon Ristemer laughing with his partner in the dance. The pakmort glittered at his throat.
Vodun Alloran, the Kov of Kaldi, returning to his native Vallia as a successful paktun and wishing to fight to regain his kovnate, did not wear his pakmort. That would be, he had said, too flamboyant. Watching Mileon, straight-backed, limber, most gallant with his partner, I wondered afresh.
And it was perfectly clear that old Nomile Ristemer was enraptured by this soldier son of his, proud and strutting, unable to stop prating about Mileon and the return of the warrior son so dear to his heart. I knew just how he felt. I had to turn away from Strom Vinsanzo with a small word of apology.
Delia, with a graceful gesture and her sweet smile, disengaged herself from the group chattering about her. She walked across to me quickly.
“Dray! You look—”
“Aye. I look the ugly old savage I am.”
“Agreed. And the specific?”
“Look at Mileon, there, and old Nomile! I was thinking of Drak, and Zeg, and Jaidur, and—”
“Our three sons make their marks on the world.”
“They do. By Zair, but I am proud of them, all of them!”
“I have been thinking that you ought to know what I’ve been up to in that direction since you went away.”
We kept our voices low and we walked together along the terrace, past the serried columns, and the dancers took no notice of us, as was proper.
“And, too,” I went on, and I know my voice was troubled, “I am thinking of our daughters. You know the wild she-cat Dayra has become, with her whip and her claw and her black leathers. Jilian, who is much the same, refuses to help because of her vows—”
“And so she should!”
“Aye. You Sisters of the Rose have more secrets than an army of bungling men.” I could feel Delia’s hand on my arm, a reassuring and invigorating feeling, and that firm hand did not tremble by so much as a spider’s eyelash. “And there is Velia and Didi, and they will soon grow big enough to bring more headaches—”
“And Lela?”
I sighed. “Lela. I have not seen her since I came back from my long banishment on Earth. I — it is damned hard, my love, damned hard, when a crusty old father feels his eldest daughter refuses to come to see him—”
“She does not refuse!” Delia’s tones were sharp, a rebuke.
“I know, I know. She is busy with the Sisters of the Rose. But you girls of the SoR work her too hard.”
“Now if Jilian Sweet-tooth had been our daughter—”
I stopped. “So that is her name!”
“No. Sweet-tooth is what we call her.”
“She is ready enough to talk about her banje shop, but not anything about the things we really want to know — no. About the things I really want to know.”
“I do not press for your secrets of the Krozairs of Zy.”
This was familiar territory. We were a partnership, a twinned one, Delia and I. And we each had our own inner lives, and mostly we shared everything. But there remained these spaces between us that were not empty, distant, repellent but were spaces filled with the light of love.
Then, and Delia astonished me profoundly, she went on to say that she had arranged for our daughters to visit the River Zelph, in far Aphrasöe, and there bathe in the sacred pool of baptism. I turned her to face me. I looked down into her gorgeous face and I saw the love and the pride in our children there, and the defiance — and a little hint of furtiveness?
“Furtive you should be, Delia of Delphond! By Zim-Zair! You take our girls there, all those perils — the mortal danger — why — why—”
“Yes! And this explains where I and the girls have been. Your explanations of where you have been involve your funny little world with only one tiny yellow sun, and one silver moon, and only apims to flesh the world with color and not a single diff anywhere in sight! I think your story far stranger than mine!”
“But the dangers—”
I could feel myself shaking. We had bathed in the sacred pool of baptism, and were thereby assured of a thousand years of life, and our wounds would heal with miraculous swiftness. But the Savanti nal Aphrasöe guarded the pool. There were monsters. I had gone through some parlous times there. And now Delia was calmly telling me...!
Well, when I’d calmed down, I saw the rightness of it. Truth to tell, it solved a problem that had been bothering me.
“But that does not explain where Lela is gone to now,” I said.
“No. I hope she will not be much longer. She is devoted, to Vallia, to the SoR, to her family—” said Delia.
“Ha!”
“—and to the work entrusted to her.”
“Do you know what that work is?”
“No.”
“And how many eligible young bachelors has she turned down this season? I believe I could form a regiment from them!”
Delia laughed. “I believe you could! Lela has her heart set on no man yet. There is time.”
And, thinking of young men who were in love with my daughters, I felt the wrenching pang strike me that Barty Vessler was dead, struck down by a vicious cowardly blow from Kov Colun Mogper. Well, my lad Jaidur was after that rast, and after his accomplice, Zankov, too... What a tangle it all was! And yet, as always and now with more force than ever, I believed there was a pattern, a grand design, woven by the Savanti who had brought me to Kregen in the first place, or by the Star Lords who brought me here to work for them or hurled me back to Earth on a whim or for the defiance I showed them out of stupid stubbornness.
“It is an unholy thing in a man’s life,” I said, turning and resuming our promenade along the terrace, “when he does not recognize his children and they do not recognize him.”
“But you know them all now, my heart, all, save—”
“Lela.”
“She will come home soon, I feel sure. But—”
I saw Naghan Vanki walk out of the overheated room where the dancing and the perfumes and the feathers coiled among the laughter and the music. He looked swiftly along the terrace, turned, saw us, and started at once to walk down. He wore an elegant Vallian evening dress, of dark green and in impeccable taste. Black and silver leaves formed an entwined border. His rapier and dagger swung. His mazilla was the formal black velvet, smooth and fashionable.
“Majister!”
“But what, Delia? Vanki!”
“I have not heard from her in too long...”
“Get Khe-Hi or Deb-Lu to suss her out in lupu! By Zair! If she is in danger—”
“No, no! I have arranged all that. If she were dead I would know.”
“Majister! News has come in.” Naghan Vanki halted before us. His pallid face was as tight as a knuckled fist. “My people report they are on the track of Voinderam and Fransha.”
“Who?” I said.
Delia looked at me.
Vanki’s face expressed nothing.
Then I said, “I see. This is good news. Tell me where they are and I’ll be off at once.”
Although Naghan Vanki was the empire’s chief spymaster, there were few people in the land aware of that fact. Among the gathered nobility and gentility and bankers here at Bankers Guild, there were, I suppose, not above half a dozen who knew.
So the people, attracted by the intrusion, could leave off dancing and a little crowd gather at a discreet distance along the terrace. Much protocol was relaxed on the Day of Opaz the Deliverer once the formal celebrations were over.
“But, majister—” said Vanki.
“You—” Delia shook her head.
Some of my people walked across. Many of them you know, many have not been mentioned so far. But they were friends, a goodly number ennobled by me. They were concerned for my welfare. I said, “I will go after the runaway lovers and see what they say for themselves. After all, no one condemns them for their actions.”
Trylon Marovius puffed his cheeks dubiously.
“You are the emperor, majister. It is not meet you should go haring about. Send men — I will go for you willingly.”
“Yes,” quoth others, and a whole crowd joined in. “I will go. And I! Me, too!”
They were all well-meaning, anxious, concerned lest their emperor should go chasing off into dangers on the trail of two runaways. I suppose my old beakhead of a face began to draw down into the ferocious expression that, so I am told — tartly — can stop a charging dinosaur in its tracks.
Delia’s warning voice reached me. “Dray...”
“Sink me!” I burst out. “Am I not the emperor! Cannot I go and risk a danger or two?”
They didn’t like that. Lord Pernalsh shook his head. He was taller than I, broader, a veritable man-mountain.
“Not while I live, majister!”
A chorus of affirmation followed. Vanki whispered close to my ear, his breath fluttering, “My people will handle this.” He was not there when I turned to answer. In his customary way he had blended into the background when the crowd arrived. A spymaster he was, Naghan Vanki in his black and silver, and a damned slippery fellow with it.
Delia was making covert signs and the gathered people began to drift away. Something of the sense of petulant frustration that had shaken the old emperor, Delia’s father, was going to rub off on me pretty quick, by Vox! I felt caged. I felt as those savagely noble wild animals, caged and chained for the arena, must feel as they are whipped and prodded behind the iron bars.
I, Dray Prescot, puissant emperor, was caged up.
We stood alone.
“It seems to me—” I started to try to express my feelings of being shut off, caged away from the hurly-burly of Kregen.
Delia was sharp with me.
“The trouble with you, Dray Prescot, is that you are feeling sorry for yourself!”
Sword for Delia
The Lord Farris flew in with more problems. As commander-in-chief of the Vallian Air Service, Farris was entitled to fly about in an airboat. But we were desperately short of fliers. A fresh source of supply for the powered airboats had to be found. I greeted Farris warmly, for his dedicated loyalty to Delia always warmed me, and we got down to the latest series of headaches.
Anyway, I’d had the last laugh on that crowd at the dance at the Bankers Guild. The people sent off after the news reported that the eloping couple — whom they found in an inn enjoying themselves — were not Voinderam and Fransha.
So, I could afford a nasty laugh at their expense.
Farris sat down across from me in my little study and sipped his wine, for it was evening.
“It is these slaves we have freed,” he said. “They have received their plots of land and their allotments of seeds and implements and animals, and they work hard enough — although if they work as hard now as they did when they were slaves and were whipped for nothing, I cannot truthfully say.”
I waited for him to go on.
“They must be protected. The farms on the borders mainly, of course.” He saw my expression. Both of us detested the idea that within the island of Vallia there should be borders between us and our enemies. All Vallia was one country, or should be. “The flutsmen drop down from the sky and raid and burn and kill. We have had incursions over ten dwaburs into what we regard as Vallian soil—”
“It is all Vallian soil!”
“Aye. But these damned raiders don’t understand that yet. And the truth is, the troops we have on the ground cannot be everywhere. The sailing fliers are subject to the winds. And my force—” He spread his free hand.
“There is one clear answer. The freedmen must be able to defend themselves.”
“They fight well enough, given the chance, for it is their homes and wives and children who suffer.”
“Right. I shall see to that. Is there any news out of the Dawn Lands on vollers?”
“Nothing. Anyway, down there in Havilfar they are a strange lot. You might stand a better chance in Hyrklana.”
“If I ever get away.” I told him what had happened at the Bankers Guild. And Farris laughed. I glared at him reproachfully, whereat he laughed the harder.
“I remember when we picked you up in the Hostile Territories,” he said. “My Val! If I’d been told then that you would be the emperor who has my undying loyalty, why—” He stopped himself. His shrewd brown Vallian eyes appraised me. He nodded. “Yes, I think I half-understood it, even then.”
“And Naghan Vanki was with you—”
Then a messenger announced himself to say that Filbarrka nal Filbarrka had arrived.
“Send him in! By Vox, he will be a sight for sore eyes.”
When Filbarrka came in he was just the same. Bouncing, roseate of face, twitching his fingers together, he brought a breath of the clean air of his zorca plains into my study. Filbarrka of the best zorca country in Kregen, he was a man who had organized the zorcabows and the lancers that had so materially contributed to the rout of the ferocious clansmen of Segesthes in the Battle of Kochwold and subsequently.
“What brings you to Vondium, nazab?” I asked.
“That confounded horn rot in Thoth Valaha. They seem to think I can work a magic cure-all for them.”
“Can you?”
“Yes, majister.”
I sat back. Trust Filbarrka nal Filbarrka!
“So I just looked in to see if you were still here.”
“And right welcome you are. We need more zorcas. If we cannot obtain sufficient, what do you say to forming a few regiments of men mounted on marlques, or on freymuls?”
“The poor man’s zorca!” Filbarrka bounced up and down and his fingers performed prodigies of entwining. “They are pleasant enough, but—”
“Quite. But we are poor men, are we not?”
“My stock is down, granted, majister. But the colts come along well, some beautiful little—”
He went on enthusiastically, for Filbarrka and zorcas lived together. As the governor of the blue-grass sections of Delia’s province of the Blue Mountains, Filbarrka rated the rank of nazab. I valued his wisdom. When, in the course of our conversation he heard of Farris’s problems with the freed slaves, he perked up. It was very quickly done.
“Let me at them! I have ideas—”