The stands broke into a bedlam of noise and stamping; but I had not attacked until my foot was inside the square. And he had struck first — a last unavailing blow.
What Yellow’s move was I have no idea. He made a desperate scrabbling attempt to get a piece back to defend. But on Konec’s next move Fropo the Curved, as a Kapt, vaulted over the same diagonal and then pounced on the Princess. The Aeilssa’s Swordsman stepped out to challenge, as was his right, and Fropo finished him off and — amazingly — Blue had won.
In the racket going on all about us, as the young girl who had taken the part of Yellow’s Princess stood there with the tears pouring down her face, Fropo wiped his sword on the yellow cloak of the Swordsman and spoke cheerfully to me.
“I never thought you’d do it, Jak. A bonny fight. I was able to vault right home. Konec will be pleased.”
“I doubt it, Fropo. We have lost a lot of good men.”
At once the Fristle’s cat face sobered. “You are right. Now may Farilafristle have them in his care. Good men, gone.”
The final rituals were gone through and the Blue notched up another win in the prianum. Our player, Konec, also moved up in the league tables. We marched off. But it was hard. There were many gaps in the ordered ranks. Kov Konec’s people had been drastically thinned. And that, I reasoned as we trailed off to our hotel, was the core of the plot against us.
The captured Yellow Princess was brought along in our midst; but she did not make up for all the good men lost.
Chapter Seventeen
We held a Noumjiksirn, which is by way of being a wake, an uproarious and yet serious evening in which we mourned our vanished comrades. There was huge drinking and singing of wild songs and much boasting and leaping about and the odd clash of blade. Those who knew something of the history of the slain stood forth and cried it out, clear and bravely, and we applauded and drank to them, and called on all the gods for a safe passage through the Ice Floes of Sicce. The Yellow Princess sat enthroned on a dais in our midst, stripped of her yellow robes and chained. But this was tradition only; the days when the captured Aeilssa belonged to the victorious side were long gone, for that kind of boorish behavior smacked too much of the uncouth. She would be ransomed by her losing player, of course, and Konec would distribute a donative and pocket a tidy sum himself. This was just one of the perks accruing to a winning side.
The girl who had acted as our Blue Princess was the daughter of Nath Resdurm, a splendid numim who was a strom at the hands of Kov Konec. His lion-man’s face bristled with pride as his daughter, Resti, danced the victory dance, taking a turn with every one of us pieces who had survived. The drink flowed. Dav took on a load. He danced and pranced with Resti, who laughed, her golden hair flowing, mingling with Dav’s as they swirled across the floor and the orchestra Konec had paid for scraped and strummed and banged away.
Strom Nath Resdurm had acted as the other Kapt, with Fropo. We had lost all our Hikdars, our Paktuns and Hyr-Paktuns, all good fighting men laid to rest. Truly, the lion-girl Resti would not dance breathless with the survivors.
When Dav laughingly yielded her to a Deldar, who pranced her off across the floor, Dav bellowed his way across to the ale table and seized up a foaming stoup. He spied me.
“Aye, Jak,” he said, and drank thirstily. “Aye — it takes strength to grasp a spear in that fashion — or skill.”
“It did for the Kataki.”
“But that bastard Coner has done for us. We are too few, now. And who else will fight for us?”
“Konec has only to hire pieces from the nearest academy-”
“Onker!”
I allowed that to pass. He was by way of becoming a friend, and in the passionate despair at plans gone wrong he knew more than he said and so cried out against fate. Or, so I thought.
“Yes, Jak,” he said, after moment, with the uproar going on all about us. “Yes, you are right. We will hire pieces to fight for us. But Mefto — Mefto-” He drank and was swept up by a mob who shouted him into a song, which he sang right boldly, “King Naghan his Fall and Rise.” The songs lifted, after a space, “The Lay of Faerly the Ponsho Farmer’s Daughter,” “Eregoin’s Promise.” We did not sing that rollicking ditty that ends in “No idea at all, at all, no idea at all.” The mood was not right. And that perturbed me. So I started in my bullfrog voice to roar out “In the Fair Arms of Thyllis.”
After the first couple of lines when they’d digested the tune and the name of Thyllis, Konec stepped forward, his face black.
“We sing no damned Hamalian songs here, Jak!”
“Aye!” went up an ominous chorus.
“Wait, wait, friends! Listen to the words carefully.”
And I went on singing about Thyllis. That song is well known in Hamal, and is beloved of the Empress Thyllis, as it refers in glowing terms to the marvelous deeds of the goddess from whom she took her name and her scatty ideas. One day back home in Esser Rarioch, my fortress palace of Valkanium, Erithor who is a bard and song-maker held in the very highest esteem throughout Vallia, being half-stewed, concocted fresh words about Thyllis the Munificent. The words were scurrilous, extraordinarily melodic, quite unrepeatable and extremely funny.
By the time I was halfway through the second stanza the people of Mandua were rolling about and holding their sides. I do not think Erithor ever had a better audience for one of his great songs. At least, of that kind…
When I had done they made me sing it again, stanza by stanza, and so picked it up and warbled it all through, again, four times.
Feeling that my contribution to the evening had been some slight success I went off to find a fresh wet for my dry throat. Kov Konec joined me, with Dav and Fropo and Strom Nath Resdurm. We all wore the loose comfortable evening attire of Paz; lounging robes in a variety of colors. Konec, for once wearing a blaze of jewelry, looked a kov.
“You do not care overmuch for the Hamalese?”
“Not much.”
How to explain my tangled feelings about the Empire of Hamal? I had friends there, good friends, and yet our countries were at war. As for Thyllis, I felt sorry for her and detested all she stood for, and yet often and often I had pondered the enigma that she saw me in the same light as I saw her. Truly, the gods make mock of us when they set political and class barriers between the hearts of humans. Of course, anyone of the many countries attacked and invaded by the iron legions of Hamal dedicated to obeying the commands of their empress, anyone suffering from oppression and conquest, would not see a single redeeming feature in Thyllis. That seemed only natural. Now Konec began speaking in a way new in our relationship. After all, I was merely a paktun, in employ, and he was a kov, conscious of his power and yet charmingly accessible.
“Mefto the Kazzur, who calls himself a prince. He is hated in Shanodrin by the people he claims as his. Only his bully boys sustain him against the people. Masichieri — scum.”
“He never rode with less than twenty,” I said. “But there were more in the caravan, that he uses in Kazz-Jikaida. When I fought him he had been visiting a shishi. I know, for Sishi told me. But when we fought I know there were others of his men in the shadows, laughing at my discomfiture.” I went on, briskly. “That saved us from the drikingers.”