Delia of Vallia (21 page)

She glared at the kerchief of food. That would be required after the escape. But she was hungry. Slaves were entitled to eat, for they had to maintain their strength in order to serve their masters and mistresses.

Going down the backstairs to the kitchens this time called forth a greater degree of resolution. She felt as a small animal must feel, penned at the end of its burrow, knowing the savage predators approached nearer and nearer with every passing heartbeat.

A new chief cook was on duty. The old one, Naghan the Meats, had been ill and unable to work, and Nan the Bosom had stepped in. Now she showed her feelings about being relegated back to her soups by thwacking about with her various-sized ladles, each increase in size a measure of her mounting displeasure. The new man, a slave with uppity airs, was Ornol the Rasher, for his specialty was vosk rashers served in a hundred and one different ways. He looked at Delia as she came in, and Silly Nath darted across with an urgent query about the well.

“You should be out there, Silly Nath, not lollygagging about here!”

“Yes, master. But the handle is split...”

Ornol the Rasher threw his hands up in despair. He looked porcine, flabby, with a sheen to his skin. His grey slave tunic bore a yellow and ochre favor. “All right. I will look.”

Nan the Bosom, when they had gone, said: “He’ll never last.” Delia ducked the swing of the third largest ladle.

She found a hunk of bread and a bowl of soup, and Nan looked the other way. As any slave would say, a slave has to eat.

Had she cared to consider the matter, it was a measure of her own personality that these kitchen slaves had not turned hostile and jealous when she’d been promoted out of the kitchens, rising in the slave hierarchy, to be harpist.

The soup was good, a thick ordel, and she wiped the bowl with the crust of bread and wolfed the lot down. She decided not to return to her room but to wait out the last of the Suns here and then steal out into the yard.

Then she made a mistake.

Thinking to take herself out of harm’s way, she went off to one of the small storerooms. This one held flour sacks. She spread a few empty sacks and lay down, continuing to build her strength for the night’s operations. There Magero found her.

He was not drunk. He had been drinking, and he carried a flagon of good red, and he was flushed and jovial and sweaty, but he was not drunk. He smiled. His teeth were gapped. He wore a lounging robe of a lurid pink and blue, and he carried a basket of food of better fare than slaves were provided. Quiveringly alert, Delia was aware of his bulk, and of his belt of plain leather — with cheap bronze fittings — and of the rapier and main gauche. The belt also swung lockets for a clanxer, the straight cut and thrust common sword of Vallia.

He called her his Little Paline. This was a compliment.

“You ran well, girl. I won the gold. That buffoon Cranchar could not deny me, not after I knocked Naghondo’s squint straight for him. Ha!”

She said nothing. She drew herself into herself, warily.

“I like you, my Little Paline. For a slave you are beyond beauty — I have never seen anyone to match you.” He put the red wine down and spilled some food in placing the basket. “I feel we are soul mates. We have much in common. We serve a master who does not appreciate us.”

Delia wet her lips. “The kovneva—”

“She will whistle, and Cranchar will come groveling like a beaten cur. I have seen it.” He smiled gappily. “But I have not come here to talk about onkers like that. You had the gold piece? Or did that slave shif steal it away?”

“No, no,” said Delia. She did not want to bring more trouble on Limi’s head. “I had the gold piece.”

“You see! You see how generous I am. And I can be much more generous. Much more, if you are nice to me.”

Delia decided on a course of action that would have aroused contempt in women like Nyleen Gillois.

“You are so big and strong, and you fight well. Yet you speak ill of the lord. Perhaps it is not safe to know you.”

“Safe? Of course it’s not safe! Cranchar fears me, for I can see through him. Come here, girl, and take off your tunic.”

“Should I not dance for you, first?”

“You have no veils, and I am sharp set.”

He reached for her, and she slithered away on her bottom. Standing up, and making herself smile, she undulated around him, keeping out of the reach of his hairy arms. This was ludicrous; she had to have him dead to rights before she hit him, he was such a great lummox.

“You entrance me enough! You need not dance for me!”

“Oh, Magero, you great zhantil of a man! Do I not dance well?”

She was gyrating and swaying, and weaving her arms about and smiling, her head on one side. Magero gaped. Sweat stood on his brow.

“By vox! You overpower me, my Little Paline!”

She reached up to the latch on her tunic, and undid it, and flapped the grey cloth down and then up. The tunic was one of Sissy’s, and was a tightish fit. She danced lightly around, avoiding him, and he lumbered after her, sweating with passion. Now if she’d chosen the firewood shed, there’d be a handy length of lumber to hit him over the head with...

“Come here, sweet! I am ready for you!”

Despite the desperate appearance of this situation, Delia felt close to hilarious laughter. It was comic, this tantalizing of this great man mountain. She’d have to take him with bare hands, get him in a grip, and hope to finish him quickly. But he was so big, and — unfairly, unfairly! — so mannish brutish strong.

Her plan was this — she undulated around flapping the grey cloth down and up tantalizingly so that his eyes boggled out on stalks — she’d come in close, let him slobber all over her, and she’d have the rapier and main gauche out quicker than he could think. Then the weapon used would be up to her...

She circled to face the door and advanced. He broke into a great slobbering smile and opened his arms wide to enfold her. She moved in quickly, and felt his paunch slog into her stomach with a grunt. Her hands dropped to the hilts of the weapons. He was kissing her neck — and over his shoulder she saw the door open and Naghondo the Squint appear. The man’s face bore an expression of vicious hatred. He lifted the bludgeon and brought it down with savage and unerring accuracy on Magero’s head.

Magero dropped soundlessly, sliding away from her.

Naghondo leaped in.

“That’ll teach the bastard! And I’ll carry on where he left off! C’mere, girl! You’re mine now!”

Chapter seventeen

A Zorca for Two

To speak thus to Delia when she was unarmed was one thing. Even had she been wielding her earthenware pot, perhaps. But to speak thus to Delia with a rapier and left hand dagger in her fists was to commit a grievous error.

The point on which she chose to check this Naghondo and show him his error amused her. It created a pleasant frisson.

“You claimed I cheated in the Shishivakka race, you great blowhard oaf! Draw your rapier and we’ll see if I cheated.”

“Do what?” He looked completely flabbergasted. The billy lowered. He looked stupidly at the rapier and dagger whose points hovered before him. Then he let rip a great bellow.

The roar was compounded of amusement, not even of contempt.

“C’mere, girl! I’ll show you what fun is!”

Had she been of the truly murderous kind she sometimes thought she was, Naghondo would have been dead by now. When she thrust, he had time to skip back to the doorway. He looked puzzled. Then his face cleared. “You wish me to show you? Right!”

He whipped out rapier and main gauche and bore in.

“I’ll show you a few things, my girl, and then I’ll show you a few more. Hai!”

She realized he intended not to spit her but to hit her with the flat, punish her for her effrontery. That was his misfortune. She did not stop to curse herself for not having the courage to stick him through on the instant. She set herself, met his first attack with ease, set up her own attack, and missed the final thrust as he stumbled away and only took a sliver from his ribs.

“You bitch!”

Now he came in with more deadly intent.

Circling him, feeling the strength of his wrists, the speed of his reflexes, sounding him out, she was aware of faces looking in at the door. Well, this was a free show. Come one, come all. She’d have to remember to put out a hat or a bowl to collect the copper obs after the show.

Then she banished thought and allowed the transparency of the sworder to enter her soul.

Naghondo was a fair hand with the rapier, but he was not in her class, nowhere near. She circled his bald attacks, checked his twinned onslaughts, the left-band dagger held and deflected out of the true line. She stuck him through the arm and he yelped. Then she stuck him through the other arm, and he yelped again. He staggered over Magero’s prostrate mountain of a body and twisted and fell. She stepped in, smoothly, rapier ready to dart down and finish him.

Hands grabbed her shoulders and waist. She was dragged back. A rapier pointed at her midriff, and Chica said: “Enough, girl. You think you are a sworder — well, desist, or you will meet someone who knows the Jiktar and the Hikdar.”

“Treat her gently,” said Kovneva Nyleen, over Chica’s shoulder. “She is worth gold. Bring her to me when I summon. The rest of you carrion crows — back to work!
Grak!
”

The rush and scurry to obey cleared the area outside the door of the flour storage. Nadia with her bodyguard crowded up, carrying their weapons. Nadia’s full-fleshed face looked savage.

“Let me at her! I’ll show her what rapier work is!”

“Yes, yes, Nadia, you are very good,” said Nyleen. “But the girl is deranged. She is a harpist. Not a Jikai Vuvushi.”

“All the same, my lady,” said Chica, taking the rapier and dagger from Delia. “She seems to know one end of a sword from the other.”

Nyleen looked scornful. “Naghondo cannot make a fist of rapierwork. He should stay with his clanxer. That is more his mark. And I shall want to see my brother over this.”

“Quidang!”

Nadia looked disappointed she was not to have a bout, and Chica led Delia off. Nyleen did not even bother to speak to her slave harpist.

As for that same slave harpist, she was so savagely condemning herself as would have made all the saints in The Golden Grottoed Halls blush.
Why
had she been so stupid?
Why
hadn’t she just got on with escaping?
Why
hadn’t she killed these men instead of trying to be so clever? The excuse that Nyleen had returned and so scotched any escape plans was merely an excuse. Damn the woman!
Why
had she skulked in the flour storage? It was all so — so
infuriating!

Also, it was deadly...

Nyleen was saying in her hectoring voice: “What’s that there, Magero? Give him a kick and rouse him. Is he dead? That would not worry me. He is getting too big for his boots. My brother will have to watch him...”

The sound as of some leviathan of the deep breaking the surface and uttering a distress signal would be Magero the Obstreperous regaining consciousness.

Naghondo the Squint, carried off, complained loudly and bitterly that the fool girl had only stuck him because he’d fallen over that oaf Magero. Since when did a slave shishi know anything about swording?

The reason for the puzzlement and clash of sympathies in these women was perfectly plain. They were women. A man, a common brutish man, had attempted another woman, who had defended herself — and with naked steel. But the woman was a slave, a nothing, one of the grey ones. Where should sympathy lie?

The last Delia heard before she was assisted up the stairs was a fruity bellow from Magero, frothing.

“The girl was my steed, Naghondo the Squint! Not yours! And she has a fire you don’t understand.” The spluttering voice pounded out words that must have caused Magero’s aching head to throb even worse. “If you touch her I’ll have your tripes!”

Stupid to warm to man-mountain Magero the Obstreperous... Still, the idea of having Naghondo’s tripes spilled out wasn’t altogether a bad idea, at that...

When they’d dumped her back in her room, Nadia looked back, scowling, and said, “One of my girls will stand outside your door until my lady sends for you. Keep you out of mischief. Mind you behave yourself, slave.”

She stretched out on the bed, feeling her bruises, and contemplated with thoughts that were exceedingly hot the fiasco of the evening. What a leem’s nest she’d made of it all!

Not being in the habit of feeling sorry for herself, she didn’t lament over that end of the mess. And to start longing for what might have been was worse. She’d just have to start over.

But it was cruel, damned cruel, by the disgusting diseased left eyeball of Makki-Grodno!

So that little memory of him made her feel even more determined and, truth to tell, even a little better.

Then Sissy waltzed in, prattling on, all agog, and with a few words upended all Delia’s plans. Delia experienced a piercing shock. She trembled and went pale. Sissy, chattering on, did not notice.

“Yes, Alyss, I know you have had an exciting time. But my lady is fond of you, as she is of me, of course. And dear Nath will do all he can.” Sissy’s rounded shoulders drew back as she thought of Nath the Muncible. Then: “And with the poor kov so near to death in the Lud Tower, who knows what is to become of us?”

“Kov?” Delia’s words croaked.

Sissy, busily unpacking, rattled on. “Poor Kov Vomanus. He is like to die, and the needlewoman can do nothing. It is very sad.”

Delia stood up. She swallowed down and some of the bile went away. Vomanus was a reckless scamp; but he
was
her half-brother.

“In the Lud Tower?”

“So dear Nath said. Alyss! You cannot go out. There is a Jikai Vuvushi, and she was very strict with me when I came in. Alyss!”

Delia opened the door.

The Battle Maiden was hefty, big-breasted, thick of thigh, with a high color. Delia put an arm around her neck, above the gilt-rimmed corselet, and twisted. She did not kill the girl. She dragged the unconscious body into the room and, unheeding Sissy’s squeals of terror, stripped the armor. She put it on. It fitted here and there, for, and she would not say it herself, there were few, very few, women in all of Kregen with so perfect a figure as Delia of Delphond. She strapped on the weaponry.