A Victory for Kregen (12 page)

So, moving cautiously but with purpose, we successfully reached the safety of Horter Rathon’s questionable establishment.

“By Havil! I don’t intend to sit here mewed up like a blind bird!”

“I agree. And I’ll tell you something else, Tyfar. If we’re not back at the camp before very soon, the Pachaks will come in after us. Or even, Krun forfend, Hunch might—”

“What!” And Tyfar lay back on the pallet and roared.

Horter Nath Rathon joined in the laughter, although he wasn’t at all sure what the jest might be. He was like that. He was a jolly, fat, smiling, hand-washing little man, clad in a long green and red gown with a silver chain around his neck and depending from it a bunch of keys reposing on the proud jut of his belly.

He had sent one of his servants out to spy the land.

This fellow, Ornol — a massive Gon whose shaven head gleamed brilliantly from the application of unguents, a fashion some of the Gons have — came back to report not the hair or hide of a Havil-forsaken mercenary to be seen.

Nath Rathon burbled and jingled his keys.

“Excellent, Ornol. Now go and keep watch.”

Ornol went off, his pate glistening, and I looked carefully at Tyfar. Young Prince Tyfar was high of color, and a trifle breathless, and given to wider gestures than usual. He was not drunk. The nearness of his escape from death in the little swamp was beginning to work on him, and he was going through the shakes like a true horter. Also, I fancy the idea that he had been saved and his life preserved to him by the quick and skillful actions of a girl came as a novel surprise.

“You will assuredly have to wait until the suns set,” cautioned Nath Rathon.

“That is a pesky long way off,” grumbled Tyfar.

“I think,” I said, “our friends will wait until nightfall.” I did not add that I felt it highly unlikely they would venture into Khorunlad before Quienyin had sussed the city in lupu for us.

There might well be a period of fraught explanation if his apparition appeared, ghostlike, to scare the others half to death.

But, then, I had come to the conclusion that it would take a lot more than that, a very great deal more than that, to scare this mysterious young lady Jaezila witless.

She had tended to Barkindrar’s wound, and the Bullet had declared stoutly that he was fit to walk out with us. The situation was complicated — some situations are and some are not and most times they are resolved by death but not always — and we understood that while the official policy of Khorundur toward Hamal was neutrality, factions inevitably arose. The common folk labored under the delusion that if the Empress Thylliss took over their country they would miraculously inherit a better life, with free food and rivers of wine and not a day’s work in a sennight. If this is pitching the stories they believed too high, think only of the slaves that would come onto the market after a successful invasion and conquest.

Hamalian gold was in this.

Rathon clinched that for me when he said to Jaezila when she walked in, smiling, “I fear, my lady, you will buy no vollers now.”

She frowned, quickly, losing that smile on the instant, whereat I surmised her mission to buy vollers for Hamal was a secret one. Thyllis had been prodigal with her treasure and had given patents of nobility for gold. She had lost many fliers. Clearly, she was desirous of purchasing what she could not make.

“Why so, Horter Rathon?”

“You were seen when — these two Hamalese — It were best you left the city, my lady. It is hard enough work as it is.”

He might smile and jingle his keys; but he was a man for Hamal, and if the common folk welcomed invasion, the better-off did not. That was obvious. They had hired bands of mercenaries, and because paktuns were hard to come by had had to hire men who were not of the top quality, or even of the second or third quality. I did not think the paktuns who had chased us were as low as masichieri; but I was told that masichieri, mere bandits masquerading as mercenaries when it suited them, were in the city in large numbers to keep order.

This, as you will readily perceive, placed me in a quandary.

I was opposed to Hamal, although pretending to be Hamalese. The poor folk were deluded. But those who were opposed to Hamal employed means I did not much relish. I would not strike a blow willingly against folk who stood up in opposition to mad Empress Thyllis. So, as I listened to the others debating what best to do, I felt myself to be shoved nose-first into a dilemma.

“My work must be completed,” Jaezila was saying, and her composure remained. There was the hint, the merest hint, of her true feelings boiling away.

“How, my lady?” Rathon spread his hands. “You will be taken up by the watch. These mercenaries the nobles have hired, they are little better than drikingers, bandits who will slit your throat for a copper ob.”

“And, my lady,” put in Kaldu, “the voller manufacturers here are all rich.” His brown beard tufted.

“Well, that follows, by Krun, does it not? They will not welcome you.”

“And it was all arranged!” said Jaezila. Her face — what a wonderful face she had! Broad-browed, subtle, perfect of curve of cheek and lip, illuminated by a passionate desire to esteem well of life — I felt myself drawn to her. As for Tyfar, he was goggling away. “Everything was going splendidly,” she said.

Some lesser girl would have been crying by now. “And then these people against Hamal seized the power, and the vaunted neutrality of Khorundur — where is it now?”

“I and my associates will get the common folk out into the streets,” said Rathon. “But that is going to take time. And there will be a great deal of blood spilled.” He lifted his keys and then let them jingle against his gut. “Well, they are common folk and so ’tis of no matter.”

I turned away from him, and took my ugly, hating old beakhead of a face off out of the way. By Vox!

But wasn’t that the way of your maniacal, empire-puggled Hamalese bastard?

Tyfar followed me.

“What ails you, Jak? Your face — you look as though you have fallen among stampeding calsanys.”

“No matter,” I said. Control returned to me, and with it common sense. “I think it would be a good plan to take a few vollers for ourselves.” I did not add that I would fly mine to South Pandahem and then Vallia.

“Capital!” Tyfar brisked up. “Let us make a plan.”

Rathon began at once to put all manner of obstacles in the way — the sentries were alert, we had no chance of reaching a landing platform, didn’t we have gold to buy a voller, it was madness. Jaezila looked fierce. “The plan is good!”

I was not so sure. This lady, if she was not Hamalese, at least worked for my enemies. I felt drawn to her and she was, in truth, splendid. But she was an enemy. Well, poof to that. Were not Chido and Rees enemies, and were they not good friends, Bladesmen, comrades? In this, at least, we could work together.

I noticed that this Jaezila had an odd little habit of suddenly turning her head, and looking slightly to her side and rear, as though expecting to find someone there.

Now, in this enterprise going forward I had to think most carefully. We were a bunch of desperadoes, yes. But we purposed taking a voller from folk who were aligned against us in the political arena, and folk who were fighting against my enemies. It was a puzzle. In the end I did the only thing I could do, and went along and placed the outcome in the hands of Zair.

Barkindrar the Bullet would have to be figured into the calculations. Eventually we persuaded Nath Rathon to apprise us of the best location for picking up vollers, and he said that the bright sparks flew in from the outlying districts and parked on the roof of The Rokveil’s Head.

“They’ll be inspecting the undersides of tables with Beng Dikkane[3]long before the hour of midnight.”

And he laughed.

I forced myself to be polite to him.

“Then, good Nath Rathon, you will show us this place a few burs before that.”

“Me? Oh, no, dom. I will send Ornol—”

Jaezila and Tyfar looked questioningly at me.

“Oh, no, dom,” I said, “you will show us.”

He spluttered indignant protests. What my face looked like I do not know; but I do know I fought for control. I made myself relax. Just why I acted as I did, Zair forgive me, you may more readily perceive

— now — than I did — then.

“I wish that you, Nath Rathon, should show us The Rokveil’s Head. I do not think you will argue.”

He blinked. His keys jangled. He opened his mouth, looked at me, closed his mouth. His face, fat and plump and merry, on a sudden looked amazingly long. He shut that glistening mouth. Then, weakly, he said, “As you wish. I shall lead you.”

“Good,” I said. And I smiled most genially.

Our preparations made, we ventured out when She of the Veils cast her rosy golden light over the nighted city. The way was not far. We walked as a party of roisterers, out for a good time, and we made no bones about singing a few ditties. There was no problem as to who was to fly the vollers. Retainers of nobles and adventurers as we were, flying air-boats was a mere matter of normal occupation.

The Rokveil’s Head turned out to be an imposing place, lit up with many lanterns, pillared and porticoed, and doing a humming business. Tyfar and I, allowing our expensive cloaks to conceal our armor, had no difficulty in entering. That mark of the notor we now realized had brought us with the ease that had puzzled us into the city. The lords ran this city. And the common folk looked to Hamal for relief.

Truly, that was a colossal and vile joke on innocent people, to be sure!

Nath Rathon had dressed himself in popinjay fashion, which we assumed to be normal for him. Jaezila had borrowed a demure but still devastating evening gown, all sheer peach-colored sensil. Rathon had taken it from one of the women of his establishment, and with the gown a display of gems. They were all fakes. And Kaldu wore a sober evening lounging robe of dark green. We all wore weapons — except Jaezila, outside our clothes — and this was a mere natural part of evening attire.

The flunkeys wanted to bustle about and take our wraps and cloaks; but Rathon assured them that this was not necessary as he had just happened to meet this party and they were desirous of patronizing the best establishment in the city and so he had just gone out of his way to bring them here. No, they were not friends of his and he did not know them, and now he must take himself home to his house and family in the eastern suburbs.

The majordomo thanked Rathon for bringing him the custom; but Rathon, whose hand hovered now continually at his mouth, smiled and bobbed and went off very quickly. We did not know if his deception would pass muster.

As we went up the wide balustraded stairway with the carved statues of sylvies flanking the treads, Tyfar said, “I am not sure that was a clever move, Jak. It seems to be you may have placed Rathon in some jeopardy if he is recognized.”

“Oh,” I said, airily, “he will get away with it.”

Privately, I would have no sorrow if Rathon were discovered and thrown out of Khorundur. That would be one agent of Hamal the less. So we went on up. The halls were palatial. There were many slaves, all stupidly dressed in feathers and bangles and little else. Much wine was in evidence. The sounds of laughter and horseplay reached us from the various magnificent chambers. We passed a room in which Jikaida was in full swing, with great piles of gold wagered on the outcome. Jikalla too was being played, along with Vajikry. We saw no rooms devoted to the Game of Moons and that surprised no one.

People were staggering about, this early already the worse for wear. And so, steadily, we passed on up the wide stairways until we reached the top floor.

Sometimes I have swift attacks of nostalgia for remembered struggles. Sometimes; usually I am too bound up with the struggle going on at the moment. We found the door leading to the roof and stepped out under the stars of Kregen.

“We take three if we can,” said Tyfar. “Is that agreed?”

He was brilliantly excited, keyed up. “We strike a blow for Hamal tonight! Do not forget that.”

“How can we forget it?” said Jaezila.

Tyfar colored up again, and then shook himself, dark in the starlight, and we padded off in search of a suitable voller for the first of us to fly away. Our first port of call would be to pick up Barkindrar and Nath, and then we’d make for the camp and pick up the others. Then it was Hamal...

The airboats were parked neatly and the guards moved about, dim silhouettes against the stars.

Tyfar crept forward with Kaldu at his elbow.

Jaezila and I, for the moment, waited in the shadows.

“That one, I think, Jak, for me.”

“Yes. A fleet craft. But you cannot trust a voller from Khorundur as you would trust one from Hamal.”

“No — yes. You are right. But, I am not sure if I should go to Hamal. My work here has been spoiled—”

“You’ll never obtain fliers now that the lords are against Hamal. Is there nowhere else you can try?”

“You mock me, of course. I find your manners — uncouth.” She used the word sturr. I laughed. Oh, yes, I laughed.

“You have the right of it, my lady. That is my name. Jak the Sturr.”

She gazed at me. And then she, too, laughed. The look of her, the way her head tilted, the star-gleam in her eyes . . . I felt my stupid old heart give a leap. She was magnificent, and she worked for my enemies.

Quietly, the laughter still bubbling away but held now within her poised manner, she said, “I shall not forget the way you dealt with that beastie that sought — it was quick.”

“No quicker than the way you loosed to save poor Tyfar.”

“Poor Tyfar! Indeed! He is a ninny, is he not?”

“No . . . No. He is a gallant young man a little out of his depth.”

And, a ghost rising to torment me, I carried on the thought in my head — like Barty Vessler.

“Well, Jak the Sturr,” she said, and there was the bite of decision in her voice, “you are not out of your depth in this midnight murder and mayhem, that is very sure.”