So, in uneasy alliance, Viridia and I sailed back to the island of Careless Repose.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
My changed status aboard aroused considerable controversy and speculation among the hands until I told Valka to lay it on the line for them. Viridia the Render was still the captain, still in command. We had had a little disagreement over plundering the ship of a friend of mine. That had been amicably settled. Now I was going to knock varter-work into their thick skulls — and they had seen the way I had dealt with the four Womoxes with my only weapon a wooden long sword — and they heeded my words. Valka wanted me to take over. I regarded him with a curiosity I did not conceal as we ran into the harbor and the anchorage and the hook plummeted into the calm water.
“You say you are from Vallia, Valka. You have told me nothing of your history.” Among the render crew we dropped into the longboat and brawny arms dipped the oars and we fairly flew over the still waters to the white beach. “I do not expect you to tell me anything of yourself, but I am curious, I admit. Of what use would it be to you if I took command?” He began to speak in his quick and volatile way, but I held up a hand. “Remember, Valka, it would mean the death of Viridia. That is certain.”
“So, Dray Prescot! That is why you did not take the captaincy! For concern of Viridia the Render!”
If he chose to think that, let him. Maybe I should have disabused him, then and there; but I am not a one for giving confidences to any but those I know and trust.
We walked up to the village and were soon well into a bottle taken from the argenter of Jholaix. The stuff was smooth and mellow and, perhaps, it loosened Valka’s tongue.
“You know Vallia, Dray? You have been to that beautiful and wicked land?”
I considered for a moment. Then I said, “No, never.”
He sighed and drank deep. “It is a land where anything the heart desires may be found — but only for those in the privileged positions of power and wealth and authority.”
“That is everywhere the same.”
“True, true, Dray, my old dom.” He looked up and his eyes misted. “In the north of Vallia are the mountains — the wonderful mountains of Vallia! From them flow mighty rivers, pouring in a refreshing flood down to the coasts on east and west and south. Ah! The south coast. Nowhere in all of Kregen is there a place like it.”
He was waxing semipoetical on me now; but I listened with care.
Delia had told me something of her homeland and I had heard of these mountains before. They were not the Blue Mountains. Valka drank and wiped his lips. “The whole island is connected with a network of canals. Canals flow everywhere. As a consequence, the roads are usually abominable. The canal folk are my folk. We form a community-” Then he stopped, and hiccupped, and roared some obscene jest at a render who grabbed a serving wench, and missed, and fell into a waste bucket. Full-flavored accidents like that often amuse the Kregans.
Then he said with as much bitterness as I ever heard him speak: “I offended against a law. The Racter party are all powerful. They do as they please, them and their mercenaries. So I ran away to sea. And was captured. And ended up here.”
“And would you return to Vallia, if you had the chance?”
He grimaced. It was not a pretty sight. “By Vox! I miss the canals. But if I return home, they will hang me, for sure.”
“The Racter party will, or the government?”
“Government?” He spat. “The emperor wields awful powers. He is a devil. But he must walk small when the Racters frown.”
The noise of carousing bellowed on about us as we talked. Soon Valka had drunk enough for him to join in with the songs the renders yodeled out. They sang songs I had never heard of until then: “The Worm-eaten Swordship Gull-i-mo.” The part song, “The Wines of Jholaix,” which they were sober enough to sing more or less correctly through, swordship crew and swordship crew taking parts. “The Maid with the Single Veil,” which brought on a rash of giggles from the serving wenches. And they sang the old ones, too: “The Bowmen of Loh.” They even had a shot at various musicked stanzas of “The Canticles of the Rose City,” but by that time most were too far gone for exact rendering of the cadences of those old myths, three thousand years old if they were a day.
When I wandered off to the room I had been assigned Valka and the knot of men I knew now were faithful to me, for I had seen their reactions during the aftermath of the fight aboard the flagship, accompanied me. They would sleep next door. I went in and the samphron oil lamp was lit and there was Viridia, smokily lovely in a short orange shift which showed her legs and her knees — which were dimpled, I swear it! — reclining on the bed.
In her combed hair a blaze of jewels reflected the light and glittered magnificently. I heard Valka and the others laughing. Viridia pushed up on her arms.
“You were asking Valka of Vallia, Dray.” She smiled and that sensuous mouth parted enticingly. “Come and sit by me and I will tell you of Vallia, also.”
“You are a Vallian?” In truth, I had heard a story that she was, but had doubted it.
“I will tell you, Dray; but come, sit by me.”
I did not relish a repetition of that scene I had endured with Queen Lilah. I discounted women like Natema and Susheeng in this equation; because Viridia fancied herself as a Queen of Pain, which Queen Lilah had in truth been. If I give the impression of Viridia as being less of a person than she was, then I do her a disfavor. She was a real person in her own right, vibrant, alluring now she had tidied herself up, and a genuine force to be reckoned with. I fancied she wanted to place herself under my protection, now that her Womoxes were gone. As I thought of them I gave an involuntary shiver, for they had been gruesome and powerful antagonists indeed.
Viridia started up.
“Dray! You have a fever?”
“It is nothing, Viridia the Render. Now, listen to me, and listen to me carefully. I shall not tell you again.”
At this she sat up on the bed and meekly put her hands together, down between her knees. Her tanned face, warm under the mellow light, assumed an expression of subservience, the eyes downcast. If she was playacting, she did it well. There were no slaves among the renders, but I guessed from this display that Viridia had been slave in her time.
“I listen, master.”
About to bite her head off, I stopped. Very well, if this was the way she wanted to play it, so be it.
“You are now defenseless, except for the strength and skill of your own arms, Viridia. I know you can fight and swing an ax, for I have seen you. But men lust after you.”
“That is true, master. I desire to be your slave. You must chastise me if I am bad, punish me with the knotted cord. I have killed many men who attempted me. But for you I will do as Chekumte desired you to do for him, and kiss your feet.”
I began to think she meant it.
I was naked to the breechclout; but I began to get hot under the collar.
“Listen, Viridia. I do not want your Makki-Grodno pirates! Keep them, and the swordships. If you want me to be your master and carry on in this foolish fashion I shall lift that short nightie of yours and spank you soundly-”
She looked up and her eyelids flew up.
“Oh, yes, please, master!”