When they were over and I headed off at once for the palace to strip off the ridiculous outfit, Delia held me back.
A young man, slender, supple, his brown Vallian hair stylishly though decently cut, wearing ornate robes
— as we all did — approached. His face looked freshly scrubbed, bright, cheerful, yet with an anxious dint between the eyebrows he manfully tried to conceal.
He wore the colors of gray, red and green, with a black bar, and his emblem was a leaping swordfish. By these I knew he was of Calimbrev. So this must be Barty Vessler, the Strom of Calimbrev. He made a deep obeisance. Delia gripped my arm. She knows how I dislike this crawling and bowing; but we were still in public and were watched.
“Majestrix, Majister,” said Strom Barty.
“Strom, how nice to see you,” said Delia.
We stood on a marble platform with the crowds yelling below and the pillars and statues of the Temple of Lio am Donarb at our backs. Lio am Donarb, although a minor religious figure attracting a relatively small following, was considered worthy of a visit of thanks. To one side a group of nobles prepared, like us, to take to their palanquins or zorca chariots to return to their villas set upon the Hills. Among all their blazing heraldry of color the black and white favors showed starkly, proud, defiant, arrogant. I nodded at the group who watched us avidly.
“You do yourself no good with the Racters by talking to me, young Barty. But you are welcome.”
He looked up, quickly, taken aback. He must have heard what a crude clansman I was; he had not expected this. And I piled on the agony, despite Delia’s fierce grip.
“The black and whites would like to tear down the emperor and his family. And whatever I may feel about the emperor, he is my father-in-law. You would run a similar risk?”
The flush along his cheeks betrayed him; but he spoke up civilly enough — aye, and stoutly.
“I am prepared for much worse than that, prince. My concern is only for the princess Dayra.”
I did not say: “Well spoken, lad,” as I might have done in the old days. He would have to perform deeds, and not just prate about them, if he aspired to the hand of my daughter.
When Delia invited him back to the palace I had no objection. On the journey — and we took a zorca chariot with Sarfi the Whip as coachman — Barty indulged in polite conversation, inquiring after all the members of the family. Drak must be in Valka still, for Delia had seen him there when she’d raced there to find me. Her distress, which Deb-sa-Chiu had so graphically described, had been all for me. She had by now become a little used to my disappearances and was prepared to search across to Segesthes, aware that in the past she had found me against what must have seemed to her all odds. Barty inquired after Jaidur, and Delia told him that that young rip had decided to return to a place he knew well and where he would visit his brother Zeg. So Jaidur had gone back to the inner sea and a few casual questions elicited the unsurprising fact that Barty had heard of the place but that was about all. Our youngest daughter, Velia, was well and thriving, looked after by Aunt Katri, who was also caring for little Didi, the daughter of Velia and Gafard. Lela, well, she was about her own life in Vallia. And Dayra. .?
“I have had some news, princess,” said Barty, hesitantly, as the zorca chariot rounded the corner past the Kyro of Spendthrifts.
Delia leaned forward. I frowned. Barty sat opposite us and he shifted about, nerving himself. At last he got it out.
“She was seen traveling through Thengelsax. A party left the Great River and hired zorcas. She was recognized by a groom who once served in the palace and had returned home to a posting station in the town.”
I held down the instant leap of anxiety — an anxiety akin to fear. The whole northeast of Vallia resented being a part of the empire, still, although their animosity was being fanned by agitators. They raided down, real border raids, and one of the towns around which their activities had centered was Thengelsax. Its lord had complained bitterly. Was my Dayra mixed up with these border reivers?
That did not seem likely; but it was a possibility and I could not discount it, much though I would have liked to.
“Nothing else, Barty?”
“Nothing, prince. The troubles of the northeast are well known. The lords up there do not like us down here.”
“It is more likely,” said Delia, with calm firmness, as when she demanded one take a foul medicine, “far more likely that Dayra has gone up there with her — friends — to stir up trouble. It pains me to say that; but it is sooth.”
Barty threw her a reproachful look; but he knew enough of Dayra to understand the truth of the remark.
“Listen, Barty.” I paused and looked at him, whereat he grew red in the face and his eyes widened. It is odd how a simple calculating look from me will change a person’s appearance. Most odd. “I’ve had dealings with the Trylon of Thengelsax. He was there today, as squat and bluff and foul as ever. Ered Imlien — he nurses a grudge against me because I broke his riding crop. He had told me what you are telling me now — only he was less tactful.”
Delia was looking at me. Barty swallowed.
“If Dayra is mixed up with this Liberty for the Northeast rot, then, all right, so be it. We will hoick her out of it and if I have to tan her bottom for her, that I will do.” I took a breath and saw the streets passing, the wink of sunlight from a canal, the bunting and flowers and brilliant shawls. “Do you know I have never even seen my daughter Dayra?”
“You are being rather — hard — on her, prince.” Barty spoke slowly, softly; but he did not stammer and he came right out with it. I warmed to him.
“Of course I am. That is natural. It does not mean-”
I stopped speaking and threw my arms around Delia, hurling her to the floor between the seats.
“Get down, Barty!”
The long Lohvian arrow quivered in the lenken wood pillar where it had split the crimson curtains and severed a golden tasseled cord. The feathers were all shivering with the violence of the cast. Those feathers were dyed a deep and somber purple.
“Keep down! Sarfi the Whip!” I bellowed out at full lung-stretch. “Give the zorcas their heads! Gallop! ”
The chariot lurched and bounced on the leather straps of the springing. The sharp, hard clitter-clatter of the zorcas’ polished hooves on the flags of the street beat into a staccato rhythm. With Delia safely on the floor and Barty off the opposite seat, I could peer up. People were leaping left and right as we careered along. Sarfi was wailing away with his whip, sharp cracking flecks of sound through the uproar. We hurtled past a shandishalah booth and the stink whipped past to be swallowed by the fishy smells from the next stall.
“Where the hell are you taking us, Sarfi?”
He didn’t answer; but plied his whip. I looked back. A train of destruction lay wasted in our wake for Sarfi had belted the chariot left-handed off the main street and taken us hell for leather down a narrow souk. Overturned stalls, spilled amphorae, crates and boxes splintered and strewing their silver-glinting fish across the flags, torn awnings and smashed awning-posts, and people — people crawling away, people staggering about like Sanurkazzian drunks, people dancing with rage and shaking their fists after us.
The smells, the sounds, the colors were wonderfully zestful to a man who has just had an arrow past his ear.