Dark Crusade (18 page)

Kane swore and looked to his flagon. He had intended to talk this out in private, but the Prophet had avoided him during these few days.

"Certain of your strategy is incomprehensible," Kane pressed him. "Already Ingoldi is crowded beyond all reasoning. And yet you insist that I send ever more new converts from the fallen kingdoms. As it is, you've more people here than can live within the walls."

"Then I'll raise new walls," Orted said.

"So you'll have the largest city ever built," Kane said. "For what purpose? These people have to eat, they have to have places to live, they..."

"They are the Children of Sataki. It is enough that they dwell before the temple of their god."

Kane studied the Prophet carefully. There had to be some insidious logic underlying the man's fanaticism--some motivation for self-gain behind his rhetoric and platitudes.

"It would be better--after these neophytes have been thoroughly indoctrinated, of course--to send them back to their cities. Granted that it is impossible to hold vast expanses of conquered territory, it would be wise to have loyal Satakis occupying the cities at my army's back. I've conquered kingdom after kingdom, one after another--but if the unconquered kingdoms to the west ever unite their armies, cut between us and our line of supply . . ."

"Then you'll just have to see that that never happens," Orted warned him. "My commands are unchanged. I can't expect you to understand them; I insist that you obey them. Otherwise..."

And neither did he find it necessary to complete his sentence.

The pageant thundered to a close amidst loud ovation. The performers took their bows, then broke to partake of the leavings of the banquet, while a new troupe of musicians and dancing girls took over the entertaimnent.

Kane and Orted Ak-Ceddi maintained a sullen truce while silks and bare limbs whirled frenziedly, and servants dashed from wine cup to empty wine cup.

Eventually the dancers had to rest. In the lull, Orted stood up to deliver an impassioned and interminable oration--expressing Sataki's gratitude for the brilliant leadership of Kane, the unyielding courage of the Sword of Sataki, the wholehearted loyalty of the Children of Sataki, the ceaseless devotion of the priests of Sataki--and that he, the Prophet of Sataki, was also grateful and proud of the common effort--and that while great things had been accomplished, further effort and further sacrifice were yet called for to push the Dark Crusade to final victory. Cheers and applause and a few impromptu demonstrations frequently interrupted his address. Afterward, Kane rose to offer similar comments expressing his own humble pride and sense of personal fulfillment in being able to serve Sataki in his own small way, as well as the feeling of purpose and glory each soldier shared as they fought courageously to advance the Dark Crusade in the face of the forces of oppression and tyranny who would crush the one true faith and its freedomloving faithful--if they but could. More applause. Kane at length sat down, very thirsty.

Musicians and dancers returned. The revellers settled down to earnest drinking and merriment.

Through it all, Jarvo watched impatiently from the shadow. The thought galled him that a suicidal attack might even now slay Kane and the Prophet. It would save countless innocent lives--if he succeeded. It would not win him Esketra.

Let it be Esketra.

The white-and-black-speckle feathers of the kite's mask covered her face like ermine--the sharp, hooked bill curving down over her patrician nose. Behind the tufts of feathers, her grey eyes stirred listlessly about the halldrifting everywhere, seeing nothing. Her black hair was an ebon vignette about her pale perfect features. Cold, aloof, desirable as the kiss of a final dawn. She toyed with a platter of sweetmeats and small birds, cracking their bones in her sharp tiny teeth.

Minutes dragged by. Realizing he must not draw attention to himself, Jarvo drank sparingly and exchanged pleasantries with others of the revellers. The banquet began to assume that frantic state of drunkenness that presages a long night of debauchery. Guests were leaving their places at the tables, wandering over to converse with friends. Small knots of men and women gathered in cliques, moved about the great ball. Servants hustled to clear away empty tables to make room.

Another chamber off from the great hall was opened as a ballroom, and the boisterous crowd quickly overflowed into the new space. Musicians plied stringed instruments, tambourines and flutes, and a number of couples began to form a dance. As guests streamed into the ballroom, others remained in the great hall to pick over the remnants of the feast and stay closer to the wine. A group of cavalry officers commandeered several of the musicians, began to sing loudly "Joyously They March to Their Deaths," beating time with their cups.

Kane remained in the great hall, drinking and singing with his officers. Orted vanished in the general confusion--Jarvo thought he was led away by a laughing blonde who wore a woodsprite's mask. Esketra let herself be taken into the ballroom on the arm of an officer in a devil's mask, and Jarvo followed as close as he dared.

Esketra and her escort joined the dancers, and Jarvo was forced to wait along the fringes of the ballroom, to maintain a guise of drunken conviviality with other garishly masked guests. It was sheer torture to be this close to Esketra, stand helplessly while she was whirled about the floor on the arms of her captors. He wondered how many of the other women in the room were prisoners from the Prophet's seraglio, how many the willing consorts of this gang of cold-blooded plunderers and murderers.

She was wearing a long, full skirt of gauzy grey and silver stuff, her midriff bare, with a tight fitting jacket of similar material cut just below her breasts. Her bare limbs flashed as the dance swirled her skirts, and Jarvo's skull pounded with rage each time a new partner embraced her. After tonight--fortune willing--Esketra would be free. Later he, Jarvo, would have an accounting with her captors.

It seemed possible that he might join in the dance, work his way to her. Jarvo was reluctant to try it. Her astonishment on recognition might betray them. Best to approach her alone.

He waited, and his patience at length was rewarded.

The night had grown late. More and more of the guests were departing with the approach of dawn. In the great hall, the singers were hoarse and exhausted. Not a few revellers snored in corners or half across tables. In the ballroom the dancers grew weary, slipped away couple by couple for more private pursuits. The servants left their masters to their drunken stupor, and most of the performers had long since dispersed.

Esketra, declining the arm of her last partner, turned her scowling kite's mask about the ballroom. She seemed vexed over some matter, from the brusqueness with which she rebuffed the remaining revellers. On none too steady legs, she strolled from the dance floor and made her way through the dwindling crowd of merrymakers. As she passed from the ballroom into the hallway beyond, Jarvo started after her.

He followed her past the scattered couples and comatose drunks who spilled out into the adjacent hallways of the fortress. Esketra seemed to have a definite destination in mind, as her steps took her farther into the recesses of Ceddi.

Jarvo waited until there were no other guests in view, then called softly: "Esketra!"

She was starting for a stairway that led to the upper levels. At his call, she turned sharply. Her lips were deep red, her skin pale, but her expression was hidden behind the kite's mask. Her voice was cold with suppressed anger.

"What is it?" "Esketra!" he repeated stupidly, rushing to her side.

Her eyes were cold behind the mask. "What do you wish with me?"

"Esketra! Don't you know me!"

"You are masked, my drunken buffoon. And may I add that I consider your mask in disgustingly poor taste."

"Masked?"

"Yes, fool. Remove it if you wish to speak to me--or else hurry back to your wine barrel."

Jarvo hesitated, wondering what words to speak.

With impatient fingers, Esketra yanked away the waxen mask that mimicked Jarvo's own face.

"Esketra!" he breathed, stepping toward her.

She recoiled. "Drunken swine! Do you wear two such fool's masks!"

"I wear no mask for you, Esketra."

"Oh." She pressed a trembling hand to her lips. "Oh, no!"

"I've come to take you away, Esketra."

"You're dead, Jarvo."

He laughed, understanding her shocked revulsion. "Kane made his worst error there, beloved. I survived the battle, hid myself in the fens. Two friends found me, nursed me to strength, brought me with them to Ingoldi. I've been living with them in the Theatre Guild for many weeks, laying plans to get you away from here."

She stared at him fixedly. Her flesh did not respond when he held her close. Jarvo felt a shudder pass through her, understood what a shock it was for her to see him here in the heart of her captors' stronghold.

"To get me away from here?" she said in a hushed voice.

"Yes!" Jarvo looked around, mastering his own rush of emotion. No one was yet in sight. "And tonight is perfect. With half the fortress dead drunk and the rest asleep, we can bundle you in a cloak, slip past whatever guard remains. Hundreds of guests have been staggering home all night. A quick change of garments and mask, and we'll look like all the others."

She stared for a moment more, then slowly nodded. "Yes, of course. You're here to rescue me."

"In another hour you'll be free again!" Jarvo exulted. Let the problems of getting out of Shapeli await another day. He knew in a rush of confidence that his ploy would get them safely out of Ceddi. "Of course," Esketra murmured, suddenly throwing off her frozen state. "I'll need other garments, as you say, and a different mask. Wait here, my chambers are close by. I'll get what I need."

"I'm coming with you."

She pushed him back. "Too dangerous! They'd suspect if they saw you with me. Stay here. I'll just get what I need and hurry back to you."

"But if..."

"Do as I say! Wait here for me! Do you want to throw away this one chance?"

"No. I'll wait, of course. But hurry!"

"I won't be but a moment," she promised, blowing him a kiss as she fled up the stairway. "Just wait here for me."

Jarvo waited until her footsteps receded--then the agony of suspense destroyed his momentary bliss, dragging each second into an hour. He paced the hall alert for guards or other guests, They were far within Ceddi, presumably near the Prophet's living quarters. No one else would dare come this far--but that made his own presence here suspect. He cursed silently, looked about for concealment.

What can be keeping her? Impossible to know how long since she left. How long had it been? How long would it take?

A thought shook him--a vision of Esketra darting into her chambers, and finding the drunken Orted Ak-Ceddi. Jarvo envisioned the leering Prophet crushing the struggling girl to his sweaty chest, forcing his will upon her--while he paced about here like a fool!

The thought was beyond enduring. Stealthily Jarvo climbed the stairway up which Esketra had gone. He would follow her--be ready to rush in, if any man sought to hold her back.

The stairway opened onto a level above and hallways stretched darkly in all directions. Doorways led off from the hallways at random intervals--evidently the living quarters for Ceddi's masters were in this area, as Jarvo suspected.

He paused uncertainly, cursed himself. He had no way of knowing which way Esketra had gone. If he sought to follow blindly, he might get lost, miss her as she returned for him. He started back. No, he had come this far for good reason; he would risk following along the hallway for a distance. He would not go farther from the stairway than he could retrace his steps.

He had gone only a short distance, when his straining ears caught the familiar clink of weapons and mail. Guardsmen were coming down the hallway.

Jarvo glared wildly. No time to run, and his presence here would not bear interrogation. A doorway close at hand. Unlocked. Jarvo pushed it open, stepped into the darkness within--just as a party of guardsmen rounded a bend in the halt.

Leaving the doorway cracked, he waited to see if they would pass without alarm. Voices drifted through to him.

"Keep silent. We'll take him before he can run."

That was Orted Ak-Ceddi. But how...

"Oh, the poor fool won't go anywhere. I made him promise not to follow."

"It seems impossible that Jarvo could have been lurking here all this time!" Orted muttered.

"He said he had help from the Theatre Guild," Esketra said, laughing softly. "What's impossible is that the scarface lout believes he's rescuing me. The mistress of the wealthiest and most powerful ruler in the world--and the silly fool thought he'd save me from my fate!"

"If we take him alive, you can explain to him the jest," Orted chuckled. "Softly now!"

A dozen guardsmen crept past him--hastily summoned after Esketra burst in upon Orted and his blonde companion from the banquet. The Prophet, who was expecting a jealous outburst from his leman, did not let surprise slow his reactions to her breathless revelation.

The world crashed into fragments over Jarvo, pinning him in its ruins. For a timeless interval he stood paralyzed heart silent, breath stilled, mind stunned. Had any man found him thus, they might have carved him like a roasted goose, and evoked no more response. As it was, his frozen shock saved his life--had his paralysis been less, Jarvo would have flung himself from concealment and lunged for Esketra's pale throat, though a dozen blades hacked him down.

They passed him without suspecting his presence. A soul cannot scream its agony, so that there was only a soft rustle as Jarvo slumped down against the wall, buried his face in his hands, the pain too intense to endure.

All his hopes and ambitions, all the fool's illusions that had lifted him from the ashes of his blasted existence, all were dead mockeries. The knowledge whose awareness he had so long ignored and rationalized to suit his idiot gropings could no longer be denied--ripped through his shattered defenses. For a black moment his mind reeled on the brink of catatonic madness.