"In a swifter?" I said. "Passing strange, for a woman to be in a swifter in action."
"It is known."
"Aye. It is known. And is that all?"
"None know her name, none know her face. Four men — trusted men — have been flayed alive by Gafard’s orders for trying."
The majority of the personal bodyguard maintained by Gafard about the tent were not apims. That would greatly reduce the dangers, of course, although no sane man trusted a woman to the protection of some races of diffs. Gafard chose wisely.
The moment came to which I had been looking forward with an interest that had led me to keep Blue Cloud always in perfect condition, a bag of provisions knotted to his harness, to sleep lightly and to have the edges and points of all my weapons honed razor-sharp.
The summons reached me carried by one of Gafard’s aides. I went with him to the campaign tent in which Gafard dictated his orders and kept his official being. Only when he had discharged his duties would he dress and anoint himself and go to the great tent where the Lady of the Stars awaited him.
Among his retinue I had, as I have said, made no real enemies apart from his second in command. This was a certain man called Grogor. He was a renegade, also. The situation was obvious. Grogor feared lest I, the new friend of Gafard’s, might oust him from his position. I had been at pains to tell the fellow that I had no intentions of doing any such thing. He had not believed me.
Now Grogor, a bulky, sweaty man, but a good fighter, motioned me into the campaign tent. Gafard sat at a folding table affixing his seal to orders and messages. He looked up and waved me to sit at the side and wait.
His stylor, a slave with privileges as a man who could read and write, was, as was common, a Relt. The Relt gathered up all the papers and their canvas envelopes in his thin arms and, bowing, backed out. The flap of the tent dropped. Gafard lifted his head and looked at me. I had not been called to ride with him since the episode of the lairgodont and the hunt.
"You have been wondering why I have been cold to you in the last few days, Gadak?"
It needed no quick intelligence to understand why. I said, "Yes, gernu."
He put his hands together and studied them, not looking at me as he spoke.
"I owe you my gratitude. I do not think I would care to live if my beloved no longer lived and walked at my side."
"I can understand that."
He looked up, his head lifting like the vicious head of a striking lairgodont itself.
"Ah! So you are like all the rest—"
There was no way out of this save by boldness.
"I saw the face of the Lady of the Stars. Yes, it is true. You have had men flayed for less. But when a lairgodont rips at one, and the green veil is already torn away, there is not much choice."
He still stared at me. He measured his words. "Have you ever seen a more beautiful woman in all the world?"
I have been asked that question — and most often by silly women seeking to gain power over me — many times, as you know.
Every time, every single time, the answer was automatic, instant, not needing thought. No woman in two worlds is as perfect as my Delia, my Delia of Delphond. Yet. . .
I hesitated.
He thought I feared, perhaps, to speak the truth, hesitated for the reason directly opposite to the truth.
Often, although my own feelings needed no thought to arrive at the truth, that none could compare with my Delia, I had temporized — most particularly on the roof of the Opal Palace in Zenicce. Now my hesitation held none of calculation.
I said, "The lady is more beautiful than all women — save, perhaps, for one."
He seized on that.
"Perhaps?"
"Aye. But beauty is not all. I know nothing of the lady’s perfections — and I do know a lady whose perfections are unmatched, in her beauty, her spirit, her love of life, her courage, her wisdom, her comradeship, her love—"
He sat back. That small ironic half-smile flitted on his lips and vanished.
"I do not think you lie. You speak too warmly for lies."
Here there was no need for me to go on. He would decide what to do with me. If he decided against, then I would decide if he must be killed at once or if I dare leave him merely gagged and bound.
Perhaps something of those wild leem thoughts showed in my face, although I own I would have been extremely wroth had I thought that possible: perhaps he realized more than I gave him credit for at the time.
"You know little of my history, Gadak."
"I know little, gernu. Men say you were a Jikaidast. If that is so it is no wonder you always win."
His smile broadened, became genuine, warm. "Were I not so busy — with this and that — I would call for the board at once, the grand board. Yes, I was a Jikaidast, in Sanurkazz."
These Jikaidasts are a strange lot, strange in the eyes of ordinary men who love the game of Jikaida and play when they can. A Jikaidast lives only for the game. As a professional he plays to earn a living, and these men are found all over Kregen earning their living from the highest to the lowest levels. The greatest of them even aspire to the title of
San,
which is given to great savants, wise men, and wizards.
There is much to be said about Jikaida and Jikaidasts, as you will hear. The odds would be against the manner of the master’s winning, not if he would win. Handicaps would be set, a simple matter of removing a powerful piece, say a Paktun or a Chuktar, or of giving the privilege of extra moves.
Gafard, the King’s Striker, said, "I was known as a Jikaidast who could win after having surrendered my Pallan from the call of ’Rank your Deldars’."
I resisted the temptation to fall into the deadly trap of talking Jikaida. That way lies the engulfment of many burs of a man’s life.
"You were a hyr-San, gernu. But of aught else, I know nothing."
He showed his pleasure. This was the first time I saw him as a human being apart from those traumatic moments when he had clasped his lady to him after the hunt of the lairgodonts.
"There is little to tell, as a Zairian. My home was too small, the people too small, my opportunities too small. When I fought for Zair men smiled. I was taken by the Grodnims. I did as you have done. I think the decision hardened me, made of me different flesh. I am a man among men now, the keeper of the king’s confidence, his Striker."
"And Sea-Zhantil," I said.
I couldn’t resist that little dig. He nodded. "Aye. I value that. You know it. It was borne by a man who—" He glanced up sharply at me, and I saw he felt his own surprise.
"You were brought here to listen to me, Gadak. I tell you this because I have taken a liking to you. But treachery is rewarded by a knife in the back, just under the ribs."
"Aye. Perhaps that is all it deserves."
Again that probing look. If I was to take him seriously, for he was a mortal powerful man in his own surroundings, I would have said, then, that he was puzzled by my attitude, realizing he dealt with a man who might be of more use to him than he could have imagined.
"That is sooth." He picked up a dagger that threw scattered shards of light from the gems packing the hilt, and he twirled it as he spoke. If there was a meaning here, he was underlining it too obviously. "I am a king’s man. King Genod is a wonderful man, a genius at war, commanding, powerful — he has the yrium. I do not forget that. But—" Here he again broke off and flicked the dagger into the ground. The sharp blade struck and stuck, the hilt vibrating just enough to fill the tent with leaping colors. "But he demands women. He takes women and uses them and discards them. It is his only weakness; and, for a man such as he, it is not a weakness."
"I can see that. But the princess Susheeng?"
"She carried much weight when King Genod defeated the overlords of Magdag and took the throne. She supported him and in return is his official queen — although, well, it is all in the loving eye of Grodno. I tell you this, Gadak—" He interrupted himself yet again, rising and prowling about the tent, his fierce face thrust forward. "It is all probably common knowledge. Susheeng has her powers. She must tolerate Genod’s caprices. Do not whisper this in your cups, for you may wake up minus your head."
"I believe I understand, gernu. The veil, the concealment so that no man may see her face — yes, I understand."
"Be sure that if you do understand you tell no one."
I felt it was about time he eased up from this fraught excitement. And, anyway, confidences like this were damned dangerous secrets. So, to goad him, I bellowed.
"Your orders, my commands, Gernu!"
He turned on me, saw me standing bolt upright, my ugly old face blank, and he caught himself and lowered his hand.
"Yes, yes you are right, Gadak. That is the way it must be. Regulations. Just remember. I let you live even though you have seen the face of the Lady of the Stars."
"I shall not fail you."
"I do not think you will. I would have you slain out of hand, you know that. And yet I would feel sorrow were that to be so."
As I went out I said to myself, rather obviously for all it was the perfect truth, "Not half as sorry as I would be, dom!"
Concerning the mystery of the escaped prisoners
There followed a short campaign that, although viciously and bloodily fought, contained nothing of interest apart from a demonstration of the overlords’ methods of maintaining order in their own lands and of dealing with incursions over their borders.
The people who lived beyond the river were mainly nomads, although cities existed as well, built by settlers in favored positions. No one knew very much of this whole vast area of Northern Turismond, and we were much less than two hundred dwaburs into a space of land stretching, it was estimated by the Todalpheme, for six hundred dwaburs to the pole.
These nomads did not remind me of my own Clansmen.
Oh, they possessed vast herds of chunkrah, and they lived in magnificent tents, and when they moved they shook the earth. I do not think the land was as rich here as it is in the Clansmen’s areas of Segesthes. These folk had their ways and their customs, traditions and folklore, and pretty and fascinating it all was to me at the time, to be sure. These people called themselves the Ugas, in their various tribes, and many races of diffs formed the tribes and nations. They had no zorcas. They had no rarks. Their weapons were inferior longswords and small bows. They did have the hebra, which I have mentioned, and a form of dog I believed they called
ugafaril —
the derivation is obvious — but which the Grodnims called rasts and cramphs and all manner of obscene things, for the dogs kept watch and alerted the camps and it was damned difficult to carry out a neat smart raid.
In all this I acted my part with as good a grace as I could muster. Duhrra, rumbling like a vessel of San Evold’s boiling with the cayferm, followed.
I will not weary you with the details of the campaign. We caught leemsheads who were very dreadful men with atrocities upon their heads, so that I had no compunction about dealing with them. The Ugas were another matter. But they were worthy foemen and after they caught a strong party of Grodnims and slaughtered them to a man the atmosphere eased. And, anyway, I did not see much fighting, being used by Gafard as an aide, a messenger, a trustworthy conveyer of orders and instructions.
One day we surprised a war party of Ugas, and Duhrra and I had a taste of the reckless charge, swinging our swords, going up and down on the sectrixes, lumbering into a bone-crunching collision with the Ugas. Hebras went down. Swords whirled. The dust rose in driven clouds. When it was all over we inspected what we had captured.
This had been a slave caravan. The Ugas required slaves, as was common over Kregen except where Delia and I had stamped out the practice, and we were happy to release a number of Grodnims who fell on their noses and upended their bottoms and gave long howls of thanks to Grodno for their rescue.
Among the slaves I saw a group of men and women with stark white hair.
I thought, as was natural, that they were Gons, that race who habitually shave their white
hair
religiously until they are bald, out of shame.
"Not so, Gadak," said young Nalgre, the son of an overlord of Magdag on Gafard’s staff, and therefore one day to be an overlord himself and so a candidate for the edge of my sword. He would have been a smart young man had he worn the red. As it was, he had no chance to learn what humanity meant. "They are the Sea-Werstings. Best we slay them all, here and now, and so save trouble."
"Are they so dangerous?"
"Little you know, renegade." They liked to rub our noses in it, these puppies, when Gafard was not around. "They are a sea-people and they should be sent sailing to the Ice Floes of Sicce, by Goyt!" He half drew his Genodder, scowling at the huddled group of naked white-haired slaves, and thrust the shortsword back into the scabbard with a meaningful snap.
Later there was a chance to talk to these Sea-Werstings, for Gafard had issued orders they were not to be slain but were to be kept awaiting his pleasure.
Their language was but little different from the universal Kregish, an imposed tongue, and it would have been easy to talk with them even had I not been blessed by Maspero’s coded genetic language pill given to me in Aphrasöe, the city of the Savanti.
I selected a strong man in the prime of life, who sat with bound hands and feet in a protective fashion by the side of a woman who, although not beautiful in the accepted sense, was firm of body and pleasantly faced, with a fineness about her forehead where the white hair had been cut away.
"You have fallen on hard times, dom," I said, sitting at his side and offering him a piece of bread soaked in soup. He opened his mouth sufficiently to speak, and shut it at once.
"Thank you, master. Give it to my woman."
I did so and then gave him a second piece from the earthenware bowl. I kept my weapons well away from his bound hands, just in case he had been working on his bonds.
"You are Sea-Werstings?"