“You share my sentiments, Trylon.”
“What! You relish a fight — ah! I see.” He winked at me. “You would be a young blood and ruffle it with the best in the sacred quarter of Ruathytu. Well, we shall see what we shall see.” He poured more wine. “But as to this Krun-forsaken war — if only the rasts of Pandahem would leave us alone, we would not be under the necessity of fighting them.”
“Do the Pandaheem then war on us?”
I’ll admit now, that I slid in that word “us” very smartly indeed, getting my tongue around it and so squashing the “you” I had been about to say.
“You know they do, Amak!”
It was no part of my plans to fall out with a powerful man who could materially assist me to betray his own country.
“Of course. I was just wondering if, perhaps, the empire is not too far stretched-”
“Ah!” He leaned forward. “There you touch upon the nub of the question. We are stretched, but the empire is strong. There are thousands of clums available to fill the ranks of the army. And we can call on the guls, if need be. And we have wealth enough to hire mercenaries from overseas. We shall fight on the three present fronts — aye! And if necessary we can open more fronts to destroy our foes!”
You can’t really argue coherently against a belief like that. You have to show a fellow the error of his ways. One way of showing him would be to provide Vallia with a strong and reliable air service. So I nodded and said words to the effect that the new queen would bring good fortune to the empire. He looked at me with those great golden eyes of his very shrewd upon me. He sipped wine, and, deliberately, put the goblet down. “I’ve taken a fancy to you, young Hamun,” he said. There was no incongruousness in the statement to him. He was a good foot taller than I was, broad, bulky, and powerful. He was just leaving youth behind and entering into the full power of his prime. He was also very rich, and a Trylon. So he tended to treat me with a proprietorial air that, you may imagine, irked me. However, I dissimulated, for I had need of this Numim in my murky plans. I, Dray Prescot, patronized by a Numim Trylon!
He went on, speaking carefully: “This new queen of ours we’ve just put on the throne. We’ve done the best for Hamal. But, young Hamun, you take the advice of a man who knows a thing or two. Look out for her. Steer clear of her. She eats young ones like you before breakfast.”
I did not press him on the point. This new Queen Thyllis of Hamal did not figure in my plans. So began a phase of my life in Havilfar that amuses me each time I recall it. Had Trylon Rees of the Golden Wind not turned up I would have found another high-ranking personage to vouch for me. I needed to get near those in power. I knew that the secret of the silver boxes would give me control of the manufacture of vollers. And, remembering my doing in Magdag, when I had lived the life of ease in the Emerald Eye Palace during the day, and had slipped out to the warrens for nefarious schemes by night, I fancied I knew a trick or two that would do nicely for these arrogant lords of Hamal.
Chapter Nine
“No, no, no, Hamun! Your body behind the line! The arm straight before you lunge!” Rees flicked his rebated point away from my chest where his stop thrust would, had the point been sharp, have skewered me. He laughed even as he looked crestfallen. “I swear by Havil the Green — and no man should have to do that, by Krun! — you grow worse every day instead of better!”
He stripped the mask from his massive lion-face and hurled it at one of his slaves. The light from the southerly-aspect windows lay cool and shadowless within the salles d’armes. I stripped my mask off in turn. Had I pretended too far? Had I been too clumsy for belief? It is a sobering task to have to fight, even in practice, with a man and allow his point to reach in past your guard and thunk against your chest. It gave me a shivery queasy feeling, I can tell you.
“We’ll make a Bladesman of you, yet, Hamun!” boomed Trylon Rees. “Ho there, you rascals. Wine!”
His slaves bounded up with wine and clean cloths and sponges dipped in aromatic oils to cleanse him. From his seat under the windows Nath Tolfeyr laughed. “You’ll never make a Bladesman of friend Hamun!” Nath Tolfeyr was an indolent-seeming youth, with long arms and legs, an apim, and very skilled with the rapier and main-gauche. He wore gaudy clothes, all frills and bows and lace, and a hard-brimmed hat with a square outline and round upon the head. . very Spanish. “Never, I swear by Le — by Krun! — never while there are two suns in the sky.”
I did not miss the hesitation as Nath Tolfeyr changed the god he would swear by, as I had not missed that betraying hesitation before, and I filed it away. Tolfeyr was one of many young men who had taken up with extraordinary excitement and energy the exercise of rapier play. The thraxter as the chief sword of Havilfar had developed from its own origins; now these sporting young men felt they needed a new pastime. Duels were common. Ruffling the streets, bravo-fighting, riots, all these things flourished in the sacred quarter of Ruathytu. I had been inducted into this magic circle as the friend of Trylon Rees, a great brawler, and everyone recognized me as his protege. In addition, when my flier had been brought in and I had been found rooms in the fashionable inn patronized by Rees, and I was able, unostentatiously, to show I had money and was wealthy enough to ride and shoot and play and ruffle with them, they accepted me. But as to my prowess with weapons, they laughed and jested and, probably but for the protection of Trylon Rees, would have sought to amuse themselves by cutting up my hide. I was properly contemptuous of the lot of them. For one thing, with their famous empire at war on three fronts, what were they doing at home?
Their lives consisted in the main of drinking, gambling, racing, wenching, and fighting. Some of these occupations may be pleasant, too many and too often and the pace destroys, the sport palls, the fun goes out of it all. These young men kept up their facade of great and luxurious amusement and smothered most effectively the boredom from which their kind suffer as an epidemic. The infection brushed me, but I had work to do and so was inoculated.
There were certain taverns they would frequent at certain times. There were various unpleasant forms of animal combat. There was the Jikhorkdun, the great Arena of Ruathytu; I went there with a professional interest, as you may well imagine. The shouts of “Kaidur! Kaidur!” as a kaidur performed well stirred the sluggish blood and brought phantasmal memories rushing in of the Arena in Huringa in Hyrklana. This Arena in Ruathytu in Hamal was much grander and larger — and messier. I saw the new queen there, this Queen Thyllis. Very smug and supercilious, she looked, and very beautiful, with more than a hint of cruelty in her lips; her tongue caught between sharp white teeth as the swords went in and the bright blood spurted. She had many slave girls in chains. She had male slaves, also, in chains. Everyone yelled when she appeared, standing up and giving the Hamalese salute, and again when she left, surrounded by her retinue. I did not see the sleek, shining forms of coal-black neemus, those gorgeous and lethal hunting cats that surrounded Queen Fahia of Hyrklana on similar occasions.
This Queen Thyllis was named for a goddess in an ancient myth. Thyllis the Munificent had been born to a god and a goddess and had been locked into a lenken chest, bound with iron, and nine bronze locks. She had been cast into the deepest depths of the Ocean of Clouds, but instead of drowning had been suckled by the green-and-turquoise deep-sea-god. She had grown into the most beautiful woman beneath the sea — and whatever race happened to be telling this story, then she was of their race, also (unlike many legends and myths which have identifiable central figures). And then, Under a Certain Moon, Thyllis the Munificent had broken the nine bronze locks and sundered the iron bands, and her dazzling beauty brought the whales to fawn upon her, and to give her assistance to the surface, where she waded ashore. She took the sword of the swordfish with her, for he, poor beast, perished of love, and she walked into the palace of her father and mother, the god and goddess, and she did to them what they had done to her. She did this with the help of the whales and the sword of the swordfish and a colony of local godlings, who lived on a nearby hill and who hated the god and goddess, her mother and father, because they would not let them play upon the hill near the palace.