Emperor and Clown (20 page)

“Evil-accursed
carelessness!” he bleated. “Serious error ... grave inconvenience ... dismissed
without notice ... no references ... your job to look for hazards . . .”

Despite
the cold and his already drenched condition, Odlepare was fascinated. He had
never seen the fat fool so aroused before, and there seemed to be an excellent
chance that the dismissed postilion would retaliate with a right hook to the
jaw, or some equally appropriate demonstration of lese majesty. But no, alas!
Modern youth was sadly lacking in the nobler virtues-the man merely cowered
back in dismay, accepting the destruction of his livelihood without a murmur.
How disappointing!

Angilki
ended his tirade. With a final bellow that was probably “Odlepae!” he spun on
his heel, stormed around the back of the immobilized coach and straight into
the pothole, falling prostrate and hurling a deluge of icy, muddy water over
his secretary.

“You
do yourself proud, uncle!” said the newcomer, glancing around the hall. Having
just come in from a very dark and moderately stormy night, he was screwing up
his eyes against the lamplight.

Krushjor
flinched. He could, of course, reply that this was a very modest mansion by
Hubban standards, but the raider would probably not believe him. “It is our
national embassy-would you want the Impire to believe that Nordlanders are
barbarians?”

“Yes,”
Kalkor said, without hesitation. “This sort of decadence disgusts me.” He scowled
at the marble pillars, the soft rugs, the chintz-covered chairs.

“It
is customary,” Krushjor insisted uneasily. “It is revolting.”

The
thane was still wearing only his leather breeches and boots. Dagger and
broadsword hung at his belt. He was soaking wet from the rain and ought to be
chilled to the marrow, although he did not seem so. With a practiced eye for
value, he chose the richest rug and wiped his muddy boots on it.

The
embassy staff had been lined up to receive the noble visitor. Most of them were
jotnar, and even they looked apprehensive. The imps among them were obviously
terrified as the killer strolled down the line, deadly blue eyes inspecting
them.

Krushjor
was wishing he had not dressed himself up in local finery to greet his nephew.
Probably Kalkor believed that fine clothes were decadent also. He would never
comprehend that in Hub a handshake was worth a hundred fists. “Would you care
for a hot bath?”

“No.”.

“Then
may I present our embassy staff ?”

“No.
At least, not most of them. I want a meal, with red meat and strong wine. I
want a room with a straw pallet. And . . .” The raider looked over the staff
once more. “Are any of these women your daughters, Uncle?”

“No.”
Krushjor felt himself tense, and hoped his dangerous nephew would not notice.

He
did, but he misunderstood. The sapphire eyes twinkled with sudden amusement. “You
are wiser than you look. Very well-I shall have that one and that one.”

“But
. . .”

“Yes?”

Krushjor
gulped. “I am sure they will feel honored. “

“I
don’t care what they feel,” Kalkor said. “Send in the meal as soon as it is
ready. Them and the wine now.”

The
innkeeper had insisted that the room would sleep seven. So Azak had paid for
seven, but five tatty pallets pretty much covered the whole floor. A single
lantern dangled from the sagging ceiling, smoking and guttering, stinking even
worse than the heaps of sodden, horse-saturated garments by the door. There was
no other furniture. Inos had folded her bedding into a thick bundle and was
sitting on it, pouting at the ratholes in the wainscoting opposite, while Azak
was leaning back against the wall, legs straight. The other three all sprawled
full length, still gnawing desultorily at the last of the rolls and smoked
meat. No one could find energy enough for talk. Rain beat steadily against the
casement, and a draft whined somewhere. Downstairs the tavern patrons were into
rousing chorus already. They would sing half the night away, but they would not
disturb Inos’s sleep.

The
ride through Ilrane had been hard, a physical torment of uninterrupted riding.
In the Impire danger had added a new element to the strain, while Azak had set
the same brutal pace, racing from post to post as if he were an imperial
courier, bribing the postmasters to give him the best horses, paying penalty
for what he had done to the last lot. Day after day of unending pounding, and
now also rain and gales and winter cold. The effort needed to keep a horse
cantering through sleet and near darkness was enough to kill a woman all by itself.

Ranchland
and farmland, city and town-the Impire had flowed by in wet and gloom without
Inos appreciating any of it. This style of traveling was not a beneficial
exercise that one grew accustomed to. It was an ordeal to bleed one’s strength,
to crumble mind and body to ruin.

Every
night she was convinced that she could take no more of it. Every morning she
somehow found the strength to clamber on a horse again and ride one more
league.

Then
another. And another ...

Azak
knew what he was doing, though. Talk of war was everywhere: tales of djinn
atrocities and provocations, imps in Zark being molested, maidens abducted and
hidden away in vile seraglios, needing rescue. Much the same stories had been
used a hundred times before, about djinns or dwarves or elves as politics
required. There were other slanders that could be dragged out when needed to
justify war on other races, fauns and trolls and merfolk and anthropophagi, who
could be depicted as subhuman. The legions would march in the spring, but the taxes
were needed now, so the people must be prepared.

In
Zark Azak was conspicuously huge, in the Impire a giant. He could have dyed his
face and hair, but not his eyes. The civilian population was hostile-several
times he and his company had been booed in cities, and once almost stoned,
while the military reacted to djinns like dogs to cats. On the highway they
would give chase, and half the postmasters refused to do business with the
enemy until they had obtained permission from a centurion, or at least an
optio.

Six
or seven times a day Inos had found herself ringed by armed men with twitchy
sword arms and hate in their eyes, but so far the elves’ document had been
respected. She had no idea what was in that imposing forgery, for Azak kept it
to himself, but it cowed the average centurion like a blaze of dragons. Yet one
or two had clearly remained suspicious, and that reluctance to believe was
becoming more and more evident as the travelers neared Hub. Here in the center,
even a common sword-banger would likely be better educated and more
sophisticated than his provincial equivalent. Sooner or later some smart young
legionary was going to take the strangers in for questioning, and then the
wasps would be in the jam. The post inns offered a wide range of board, from
sumptuous to squalid, and Azak invariable accepted the cheapest. He had plenty
of gold, he just wanted to avoid notice. His strategy was likely sound, for
djinns in the dining rooms or public baths would have attracted attention and
hostility. Each evening he hired a common sleeping room, bought food, and kept
his company out of sight as much as possible. Wise, perhaps-but the wretched
living conditions were doing nothing to improve Inos’s state of mind.

“Two
days to Hub,” Azak said suddenly, and she jumped, realizing that she had been
almost asleep. The other three men exchanged glances. Then Char sat up stiffly.
“Majesty . . .” He stopped at the look he received. “I beg pardon-Master Kar.”

“Better!
And you are about to be presumptuous. Well, go ahead and get it over with!”

Char
flinched and looked at the other two as if to see if they were still with him. “We
were wondering ... why do we stay on the Highway? Surely we would be less
conspicuous if we-”

“-traveled
overland,” Azak said. “By the lanes and byways?”

“Yes
... Kar.”

“Because
strangers off the beaten track are rare and therefore conspicuous. We should
seem furtive, hence suspicious. Because only the Great Ways have horseposts, so
we should have to buy livestock of our own, and half a day of this would kill
them. Because time is short and we must travel by the fastest route. Do you
question any of those points?”

Char
shook his head vehemently.

Azak
stretched, as if it hurt to stretch. “You don’t have the brains you were born
with. Now take away those scraps so the vermin don’t fight over them all night.”
He turned to Inos. “Beloved, do you wish to go outside?”

“No.”

Azak’s
red eyes swung back to his men. All three scrambled to their feet and headed
for the door, Char carrying the remains of the meal. The door thumped shut
behind them. Azak twisted himself around, turning his back on his wife. Even he
moved like an old man.

Wearily,
aching everywhere, Inos spread out her bedding and then dug in her saddlebag
for her jar of elvish unguent. Trying very hard not to wince aloud, she hauled
off her clothes and began salving her abrasions, gently massaging the bruised
muscles at the same time. Many of her blisters had bled, and even the clean
bits were black and blue. She did this every night, and Azak always turned his
back. That might be a politeness-for her sake-but more likely he was avoiding
the torture of viewing beauty he could not possess. If so, he had not guessed
how little allure he was missing at the moment.

She
had never wanted anything in her life so much as she now wanted a bath and
change of clothes. She wondered if there were a God of Suppleness, Who might
listen to a repentant cripple. She really ought to go the bathhouse, but Azak
would insist on escorting her there, and a djinn hanging around those quarters
might well provoke a lynching. She promised herself that she would do it
tomorrow.

“Azak?”
she remarked as she smeared. “My love?.”

“Where
will we go in Hub? You can hardly expect to walk up to the Red Palace and have
the warlock ask you in for a cup of tea. These things take time.”

“Some
inconspicuous hostelry.”

“I
have friends and relatives in Hub. Senator Epoxague is a distant-”

“No.”

“Kade
always spoke very highly of his daughter, and-”

“No!”

Useless
to argue with the ox. Her head was stuffed with rocks; she could hardly keep
both eyes pointing in the same direction. Maybe in the morning she’d try to
talk some sense into him. She squirmed to an even more painful position to get
at some of the difficult places.

“Inos,
I want your parole,” Azak said.

He
had turned around and was watching her, but she was too weary to feel
embarrassed. Besides, he was her husband and entitled to look. And her battered
brain seemed strangely unable to digest what he had said. “Parole? What do you
mean, parole?”

His
face was in shadow, but she recognized the expression. Here we go on the
insanely jealous ride again ...

“I
mean that you will make no approach to these friends and relations, nor-”

“Gods
give me strength!” Inos muttered. She capped the salve jar and pushed it into
her saddlebag. “You think I’m planning to desert you, is that it?”

“You
are my wife!” he shouted.

Yes,
that must be what he was thinking. And she recalled the elves’ offer, Lith’rian’s
offer. After a few days’ consideration, she had somehow seen as obvious what
had not been obvious at the time-that the offer must have come from Lith’rian.
Who would dare commit a warlock to anything without his knowledge, or venture
to speak in his name? Who knew what a warlock looked like? Inos might even have
met him. He might have been one of the riders, possibly even Lia’scan herself.

What
a fool she had been not to accept! By now she would be a pretty girl again,
instead of a freak; dancing at balls in Hub, perhaps, while Azak would be
rotting in an Imperial jail. That would be a kinder fate than Rap had met in a
Zarkian jail.

She
pulled on her filthy nightgown, thinking that her whole life seemed to be a
steadily growing mountain of errors, a human trash pile.

“Your
parole!” Azak demanded angrily.

“Parole?”
Inos repeated. She had not told him about the message from Lith’rian. She wasn’t
going to. She grunted with effort as she reached for the blanket. “I’m your
wife. I swore oaths to you and to the Gods. Why should I desert you now?”

His
eyes shone like rubies-not like sane, ordinarysort-of eyes. “You are in the
Impire and have the advantage of me . . .”

Inos
eased herself down on her back, and then had to rise on one elbow again to pull
the saddlebag over. She heaved it behind her head as a pillow, and even that
was an effort. “You already have my most solemn vows, husband. What more can I
say? I am a woman of my word.” She sank back with a sigh and pulled the
scratchy cover up to her chin. “You can let the three deadly virtues back in
now, if you want. I’m respectable.”

He
came scrambling closer and knelt beside her, glaring down menacingly. Mad as a
bull camel at mating time? No-it was just that Azak was accustomed to holding
all the cards, and here he was out of his element and unsure of himself.

“You’re
tired,” she said. “Don’t get carried away.”

“You
will swear your parole! Swear that you will not-”

Inos
failed to suppress a yawn. “Azak! If I wanted to escape from you, and turn you
in to the Impire as a spy, and return to my friends ... do you really think it
would be difficult?”

He
bared his teeth in fury. He actually had a hand on his dagger, too. It would be
funny if she wasn’t so beat.

“Swear,
or I shall tie you to the saddle, and tether. . .”

“Oh,
don’t be so silly! You’re my husband and I’m stuck with you. If I wanted my
freedom, darling, all I need do is scream. In the postyard. In the streets.
Even right now.” She yawned again, enormously. “Help me, sirs, these wicked
djinns have taken me prisoner and are dragging me off to their den of lust. I
haven’t done that, have I? I don’t mean to. Now can I go to sleep, please?”