“You spoke of Krozairs,” I said. “Krozairs of Zy. Tell me, Zando, what is a Krozair? What is a Krozair to you?”
“I bear a message from a Krozair brother. He is in some desperate straights. It is necessary, for the sake of your vows, that you supply him with arms, with money, with a voller.”
I nodded. “All that I shall do, of course. But tell me of this Krozair brother-”
“I may not do that, Prince.” He got the title out with a slight hesitation, as though playing a part. “It is an interdiction laid upon me. The Krozair said you would give me all I asked for, without questions.”
“That is so,” I said. I felt certain that this could be no confidence trick on a gargantuan scale. No stranger could possibly know of the connection I had with the Krozairs. He could scarcely know of them, although that was a possibility.
“So you will not tell me?”
He was over that fraught reaction, I thought, to the fight. “I may not do that, Dray.”
I looked up quickly.
“That is — Dray Prescot, Prince Majister.”
“Hum,” I said. “Very well. You wish the supplies tonight?”
“As soon as is humanly possible.”
I rang for Panshi and he slippered in, smiling, bringing with him a fresh bottle of Jholaix. I said, “Panshi, give this young man Zando all he requires. Do not stint.” I glanced over as Zando finished his glass at a gulp. He was one relieved mysterious visitor. “As to vollers, you ask a great deal. We have a need for every voller we can lay out hands on.”
We used the word voller, which is more generally heard in Havilfar, although coming more into use in Vallia.
“I understand that. I may only ask of your goodness.”
“Hum,” I said again. I detested the procrastinating word, but it served a purpose. I said to Panshi: “Have Hikdar Vangar ti Valkanium turn out a first-quality flier. The best we have. When he shouts that the order is impossible tell him I know he will shout and object, but that the order is so.”
Panshi bowed, put the bottle down, and went out. A quiet, patient, knowing man, Panshi my chamberlain could organize a twenty-course banquet in the fiercest typhoon of the outer oceans, and bring on a theater production to follow.
Zando laughed. He threw back his head and laughed. “You ask all the right questions and behave exactly as I knew you would. By Zair, Dray Prescot! I praise Opaz the day I met you-”
“You swear by Zair,” I said somewhat sharply. “And you do well to thank Opaz for what I give you. You will leave something of my treasury to me?”
“A thousand talens, I think, will suffice.”
I took some pleasure in not allowing any expression to cross my ugly old face, and so pique him, I thought, by my lack of response. He merely chuckled.
“And Dray Prescot, your iron self-control is also pleasing to me.”
I knew he was mocking me, like so many of my friends, and so I said, still in that sharp voice, “When you are ready to take off let me know and-”
“I shall, with your permission, take the money and the supplies and the voller and depart as soon as I may.” He stood up. “If you would have someone show me the way. .?”
He was a cool customer, all right. I had him seen to and then, on an impulse, I stretched out my hand to shake his, in the wrist-gripping way favored over most of Vallia. He hesitated. When at last he clasped hands I felt his arm trembling. Then he said, “Remberee, Dray Prescot. May Zair have you in his keeping.”
“Remberee, Zando. And tell your mysterious friend, this Krozair brother, that Krozair vows are to be kept.” I then added a few words I did not think Zando would understand, words I knew would bring a grim smile of pleasure to the face of the Krozair. Then Zando was gone. As I say, this whole little episode had been strange in the extreme and also a little unsettling. I went back to the Chavonth Chamber prepared to be unpleasant to Kov Lykon; the man had had the sense to take himself off to bed.
Chapter 7
The twin suns shone down magnificently as I walked out into that secret walled garden with Delia radiant and lovely at my side. There is much to tell of this period in Valka when I labored to prepare the Empire of Vallia to measure her strength against the Empire of Hamal; but I must press on, and indicate with only a few brush strokes the main outlines of the work. This garden was not the one in which we had been surprised by the stikitches. This garden, hung with flowers, shrubs, and trees, glowing, colorful, and odoriferous with perfume, with a pool into which Drak and Lela might push each other, was entirely surrounded by a high stone wall, creeper-covered on the inside but stark and bare on the outer. The door from the fortress of Esser Rarioch was of stout lenk, iron-barred and banded, and the keys were kept always with Delia or myself.
On the grass of this sunshine-filled day in which an argenter of Pandahem was brought into the harbor as prize, I walked with Delia, talking of our plans. On that grass, starred with tiny yellow chremis flowers that Delia had not the heart to order mown, Drak and Lela played and romped with Kardo and Shara, the twin baby manhounds.
Melow the Supple paced by our side. She was dressed now in a way befitting a devoted mother, with good Valka buff relieved by bright colors — for she was genuinely fond of all bright things after her life as a Manhound of Faol — and her yellow hair had been neatly coiffed and delicately scented. How strange to see a fearsome, frightful, unnatural manhound thus walking with us and even laughing at the antics of our children. Delia, with all that womanly virtue and that glorious compassion which made her delightful mockery so precious a facet of her character, had welcomed Melow and her babies with coos of delight. Of course, the two baby jiklos, being manhounds and adapted to run on all fours, with snarling mouths filled with jagged teeth, developed very quickly. Drak would pummel and roll over and over fighting with Kardo, and the snarls, roars, and yells often brought a quick pang of apprehension; but through all their mutual scufflings it became clearer every day that my son Drak and the son of Melow the Supple, jikla, were growing into a close comradeship of love and affection. And the same was true of Lela and Shara, for together they did all the things little girls do — which for the most part are mysteries to grim fighting men like me.
So, on this day, I kissed my Delia and ruffled Drak’s hair and kissed Lela, and swung down the long ways to the harbor.
Here the argenter rode at anchor, surrounded by guard boats as the prisoners and the booty were brought ashore. The argenter had been wounded in the action, her sides caved in by a massive rock flung from a catapult, and she needed attention. Broad, slow, and comfortable are the argenters of Pandahem. I had given my captains of Valka strict orders not to attack an argenter from Bormark, for that was the Kovnate of my friends Tilda and Pando. But this argenter came from Jholaix — glory be! — and was crammed with the finest wines imaginable.
Seg had had to return to his Kovnate of Falinur, and I admit I missed that feckless practical man immensely. So I flung myself into the preparations needful, and one such preparation was the acquisition of information.
The captain of the argenter, a certain Captain Rordhan, a genial enough fellow with the bluff seafaring ways of Kregen making him a good drinking comrade, and yet, to our mutual folly, an enemy of Vallia, was happy to tell us all he knew. He had been on his way to the Chulik Islands loaded with the finest wine to pay for the hire of Chulik mercenaries. Well, the Emperor had sent off a convoy loaded with manufactured goods of Vallia and with a great treasure, to effect exactly the same thing. The price of mercenaries would rise on Kregen, that was for sure.