I said, “Put the lady down, Nath-”
His thraxter blurred before my face.
I beat it away with the dagger, drove the rapier in with a precision that must be exquisite. The blade passed a finger’s breadth by the woman’s dangling body. Nath gave a last-minute lurch, the blade scored his side, and then I let him have the dagger-hilt in the face.
He dropped the woman in black.
He swung ferociously to face me, his heavy face enraged and engorged with blood. His eyes glittered. Nalgre staggered up dizzily, swerved to the door. “Out, Nath, out! The guards! The guards!”
I was not keen to slay these two. They amused me. They were reiving flutsmen, true, but they had failed here. The flutsmen who had slain the poor slave girls were already dead or dying.
“By Gish! This one fights like a Hyr-paktun!” bellowed Nath. He glanced at his companion, then back at me. He made no further effort to engage but ran swiftly out into the sunshine. I heard a fierce yell. Nalgre darted after. I flicked blood drops from my blade and then went across and cleaned both dagger and rapier on the gaudy flying silks of a dead flutsman. Only then could I see to the woman. She was not harmed. She sat on the floor, and her face showed in startling contrast to the black of her costume. She watched me with those slanting green eyes. At last, as I said nothing, she spoke.
“I am the Kovneva Serea of Piraju.” Then, speaking in a low cold monotone that contrasted with what she said as her white face contrasted with the black silks: “Hai, Jikai!”
About to tell her that this little scuffle was in no way a Jikai, high or small, I was stopped by the entrance of a detachment of breathless guards. Bulky, hard men wearing link mesh, and with thraxters and shields handled with a competence that told of long experience, they hustled in — and made straight for me with the clearest of intentions of cutting me down on the spot!
I had to jump and parry for a moment before the Kovneva lashed them with biting invective and cowed them. By Zair, but she knew how to command!
“This Jikai saved me, you cramphs! And you were out chasing phantoms, lured away by those rasts of flutsmen!” She would not hear a word any of them could say. Their faces were the tough hard-bitten chunks of oak veteran warriors. They took her scorn ill; yet they endured. She drove them out icily, viciously, contemptuously. When the guards had gone she turned to me again. I felt my muscles haul my backbone up a little straighter as she fastened those slanting green eyes upon me, as her lips softened from that single scarlet gash to two soft curves. I knew that a Kovneva was a high rank. As for Piraju, that was an island off the northeastern tip of Hamal, precariously attached to the mainland by one of the long chains of tiny islands that stretch out like fingers into the Southern Ocean, the Risshamal Keys.
“You do not speak, Jikai. Your name?”
Well, now.
To give her any of my varied assortment of real names would mean one of two things: those she did not recognize would mean nothing; those she did recognize would brand me as an enemy. To tell her I was Amak Hamun? No — that would blow my cover completely. So, once again, I had to invent a new name, on the spur of the moment, knowing my neck stood at risk. A Kovneva holds real and awesome powers in her own place.
“Lahal, Kovneva,” I said. “I am Bagor ti Hemlad.”
“Lahal, Bagor ti Hemlad.”
I’d steered clear of any noble rankings, contenting myself with being a Horter. Hemlad, you will recall, was the town in which, in company with Avec Brand and Ilter Monicep, I had had an adventure involving smashing my face into an old lady’s basket of ripe shonages. I had been thrown into the basket of ripe fruit by a combination of circumstances including the lurching of an amith-drawn vehicle. Often I saw the trolleys being drawn so cheerfully on their tracks through the streets of Ruathytu by one of those marvelous diffs, the amith, with their apim upper half and totrix rear half, I thought of Avec and Ilter and those days wandering the south central area of Hamal.
It seemed to me, then, as far as I could judge, that I had pitched it just right. This imperious Kovneva would lose interest in a mere Horter. A man of rank would have intrigued her. A mere mercenary, a paktun, a soldier-of-fortune, might have repelled her. Anyway, what I desired occurred, for when I said I was in a hurry, that she was now perfectly safe, and that I must press on, she did not attempt to dissuade me, except that she insisted I drink a glass of wine with her. It was the best Jholaix. I dissembled well; few people can afford the best of Jholaix.
“The wine pleases you, Bagor?”
“It is very fine, Kovneva. My thanks.”
Her amusement made those green eyes flare with all the reflections from Genodras. A mere Horter of slender means might never drink Jholaix from the day he was born to the day he died. I smiled inwardly. I was now able to take my leave. I flew on to make my sale, disposed of the voller, and took a boat back up the River Havilthytus. When the vessel passed that white pavilion, you may be sure I stared; the place was deserted.
Chapter Seventeen
Nothing useful came out of that trip back up the River Havilthytus. Nothing useful, it seemed to me, was coming out of my entire spying efforts in Hamal. The news with which Chido greeted me, although I had heard rumors before I slung my coat down onto the bed for Nulty to clear away in my room in The Kyr Nath and the Fifi, was that something of a reverse had been suffered by the army of Pandahem. That is what the Hamalians called their forces operating in Pandahem; it was not the army of the Pandaheem. I grimaced, thinking, good for them, the Hamalian cramphs.
Chido noticed the glitter of gold falling from my coat as Nulty cleared it away.
“Oh,” I said, offhandedly. “Just a souvenir I picked up.”
“It is magnificent, Hamun!”
Well, I was not about to tell Chido that this little golden trinket had been given to Bagor ti Hemlad by the Kovneva Serea of Piraju for services rendered. It was a nice piece, fashioned into the shape of a zhantil, that golden-maned tawny wild beast of Kregen, studded with a violet gemstone that Chido, handling it reverently, told me was extraordinarily valuable.
“I prefer scarron,” I said.
So I passed it off. For safety I pinned the thing to the scarlet breechclout, and locked the chain on it. I did not want to leave it lying about to excite further comment, and I did not wish to wear it where it might be seen. A spy has to think of these things.
Before I made up my mind to sell it I would have to make careful inquiries concerning the Kovneva Serea, and, in all probability, break the violet-and-gold-zhantil brooch up, which would be a pity. Chido did say, before we went out to a gaming match he had contracted to bring me to, “It seems you are lucky to find it, Hamun. It is clearly a trophy of war. Pandahem work, I’ve no doubt.” Then, before I could comment, he was burbling on in his artless way: “The Havil-forsaken news means that Rees will be marching out before he’s fully fit! It isn’t right, Hamun! Rees’s regiment bivouacs outside Ruathytu tomorrow.”