“There is a chance that the client will bring in stikitches from outside Vondium. We frown on that; but it is known. I assure you, emperor, on the honor of a Hyr-Stikitche, that we will prevent that if it is in our power.”
What was odd about that was not the talk of assassins’ honor, which is just as real to them as any form of honor code to any other group of people, but the suggestion that in stikitche matters the khand of Vondium might not have the power to do what it willed.
“You have my thanks, Aleygyn. Vallia is sundered and torn, and our enemies press in on us from all sides. I think it is a task laid on all of us to resume peaceful ways. But that will not be possible until these invaders have been driven away-”
He did not so much surprise me as reveal that he, too, was a Vallian.
“Until they are all buried six feet deep and sent to rot in the Ice Floes of Sicce!”
“Agreed.” I chanced a shaft. “There are many fine young men in Drak’s City, men who have proved they can fight. They would be welcomed in the ranks of the new Vallian Army.”
The eyes within the slits of the mask glittered on me. The suns were shifting around and that mingled opaz radiance crept under the arch of the Gate and drove back the shadows.
“I will talk to the Presidio,” he said, whereat I smiled. The folk of Drak’s City aped Vondium and the whole of Vallia in holding their own Presidio, their governing body. It was a charming conceit. “There are men here who would form regiments that would show you soft townsfolk how to fight.”
“I await them in the ranks.”
“Not,” he said, a tang in his voice, “in the Phalanx.”
“No, I agree. As light infantry, skirmishers.”
“We have paktuns here-”
“I do not employ mercenaries. Many paktuns have become Vallian citizens. We are a people’s army. You are Vallians. Your young men will be paid the same as any other Vallians in our ranks.”
He digested that. And then we spoke of the practical side of the matter for a time until I felt I was getting altogether too chummy with a damned assassin, even if he was mindful of the welfare of the country. I twitched Grumbleknees’ reins.
“I bid you Remberee, Aleygyn. I shall send a Pallan to talk with you about the rebuilding I promised. I am serious. As serious as I hope you are in sending men to join the army. The quicker Vallia is back to her old peaceful ways the better. Remberee.”
“Remberee, Dray Prescot.”
But the old warrior did not stand up to say good-bye.
Chapter Four
“And you really had a long conversation with a stikitche! My heart — suppose-”
“But it didn’t.”
“All the same, you are just as feckless as ever you were. I wish Seg and Inch were here-”
“They’re just as bad.”
“True.” She sighed and then laughed. “You’re all as bad as one another, a pack of rascals and rogues!”
“There is a matter I must talk to you about and yet have not the courage to-”
“Dray! Oh — my dear. You are going away again!”
I nodded.
“Back to your silly little world with its one yellow sun and one silver moon and no diffs?”
“By Zim-Zair! I hope not!”
I told her a little of what had passed between me and the Star Lords, and then added: “And it is mighty fine of them to warn me. They do not often do that. But, my heart, rest assured. As soon as whatever must be done is done I shall fly back here just as fast as I can.”
“You make it all sound so — so-”
“I know.”
The warm gleam of the oil lamps shed a cozy glow in our snug and private little room. We had both spent a busy day. We were surrounded now by the good things of gracious living, or as many of them as our straightened circumstances would allow, and we relished this time when we could relax and talk of the doings of the day and of our plans for the morrow. To change the conversation, I said: “What do you make of Vodun Alloran, the Kov of Kaldi?”
Delia made a sweet little moue and tucked her feet up more comfortably on the divan. She wore a lounging robe, as did I, and we joyed one in the other. “Well, he is bright and forthright and, I am sure, a fine fighting man. What he is like as a kov I do not know. But, somehow, I must have more time to plumb him properly.”
I glanced at her. Delia usually knows her own mind.
“He strikes me as a useful man to have in the army. He will fight like a leem to get his kovnate back.”
“I am sure. He is a fighter, of that there is no doubt.”
Again, I sensed that deliberate withdrawal.
“I am minded to give him command of a brigade — as a kov he will never accept less. It is a pity he has no men of his own to form a regiment. But with the expansion, promotion will prove no problem.” I yawned. “I’ll be glad when we can finish with all this fighting and get back to decent living again.”
“So, Dray Prescot, you imagine you are well acquainted with decent living?”
She teased me; but it stung. I had been a wanderer, a soldier, a sailor, an airman, a fellow who struggled and fought and brawled until, it seemed, he could not possibly understand that life was not meant to be lived thus. But, the knotty problem there was, quite simply, that all this took place on Kregen. What a world Kregen is, by Zair! Wonderful, unutterably lovely, unspeakably ghastly, at times it is all things to all men. And yet I would not willingly be parted from that world four hundred light years from the planet of my birth or from the woman who meant more than anything else. I had been a slave and now I was an emperor — well, an emperor of sorts.
“The quicker-” I began.
“Yes. I have had word from Drak. Queen Lush is bringing him home.”
I gaped.
Then: “Drak? Queen Lush — bringing him?”
“He is not hurt,” she said, quickly. “Well, not much. He has rescued Melow and Kardo. The message simply says that we should expect them.” Her eyebrows drew down. “Queen Lush is — well-”
“Queen Lush is Queen Lush,” I said. “She has changed wonderfully from what she was when Phu-Si-Yantong sent her to entrap your father. Then she did as she was told, for all she was a queen with great wealth and power-”
“And beauty.”
“Oh, aye, she looks well, does Queen Lush. And Drak?”
“There is no doubt, at least in my mind. Queen Lush means to marry Drak.”
“She set her heart on being Empress of Vallia. Well, it seems she will have her way, seeing she knows very well that I shall hand over to Drak. She has heard me say so often enough.”
“Mayhap you do her an injustice.”
“I would like to think so. Yes, perhaps I do. I know she was much taken with Drak. Well — any girl with any sense would be. And that brings up Seg’s daughter, Silda.”
“I like Silda.”
“That settles that, then. When she went against Thelda’s wishes and joined in the Sisters of the Rose-”
“Hush.”
But I had already hushed myself. One did not speak lightly of these female secret Orders. And, too, mention of Seg and Thelda brought up a sharp agony I just could not face then. So I went on: “Silda is a charming girl and I would welcome her as a daughter-in-law. And Seg would be overjoyed. But — what says Drak in all this?”
“I think,” said the Empress of Vallia, “you would have to ask Queen Lushfymi of Lome the answer to that.”
We did not play Jikaida that night, for there was a mountain of paperwork Enevon Ob-Eye, the chief stylor, had landed us with. With the morning and a new day in which to work we set doggedly to that work. Rebuilding and healing a shattered city and people demand strenuous and unending efforts. All the time I felt the relief that Drak was safe. He was the stern and sober one of my sons, and yet he could be wild enough on occasion. He had taken over in Valka, as the strom, when I had been snatched back to Earth. He had known me when he had been young, unlike his brothers, for Zeg had been rather too young, and Jaidur had not known me at all. But these were not the reasons I felt he would prove to be a splendid emperor. It seemed to me that he had been born to the imperium. I was just a rough-hewn sailor from a distant planet, schooled by the wildly ferocious clansmen of Segesthes, picking up bits of lore and scraps of knowledge from here and there on Kregen. But Drak was an emperor to his fingertips. I confess I joyed in that.