"Good Master Maltho!" said the Captain. "The oracle promises fair weather for the next fiftnight, and I've been lucky in finding a good cargo for Vindium, ready to load. So Talaris will put out on her last voyage of the season the morn."
"Fine," said Jorian.
"But, there's the matter of the payment to the Brothers. Have you sold the wenches yet, so that I can take the money with me?"
"No, I haven't; nor am I in a hurry to."
Strasso frowned. "How so?"
"Naturally, I crave the highest price; for the higher the price, the larger my commission. Therefore, I've hired a man skilled in such matters to make highly trained ladies' maids out of the girls. This may take a month."
"Then how shall I convey the money?"
"Know you an honest banker in Janareth?"
"Oh, certes. I bank here with Ujjai and Sons. Ujjai seems trustworthy even if a Mulvanian."
"Then present me to him. When I sell, I shall deposit the money with him, and you can pick it up on your first voyage next spring."
Strasso clapped Jorian on the back. "Admirably thought of! But won't the Brothers chafe at the delay?"
"Judging by their actions when last I saw them, I think not. When I finish this narange, I'll forth to Ujjai's stall."
Jorian met the banker Ujjai, bade farewell to Captain Strasso, and returned to Simha's Inn. This time he went upstairs to the suite that had been turned over to the twelve.
Here, a man was coaching the girls in the rdles that Jorian had invented for them. Although slightly stooped with age, the man was even taller than Jorian. He had large, handsome features and flowing white hair. His piercing gray eyes and lordly, carefully mannered gestures instantly caught the vision of anyone in the same room with him. He spoke in a rich, rolling voice to Mnevis, who was walking back and forth in the middle of the room while the other eleven sat about, comparing their fine new clothes.
"Remember!" he said, "you are a queen. You are conscious every instant of status and worth far above those with whom you hold intercourse. At the same time, you wish them well and would not for worlds hurt their feelings—unless they presumed to undue familiarity. To express just that right combination of hauteur and graciousness calls for a veritable triumph of the actor's skill.
"I recall that when I played King Magonius, opposite that great actress Janoria, in Physo's The Tinsel Crown, she struck just the right note." He sighed and shook his head. "There will never be another Janoria, even if she would throw things at her colleagues off-stage. Greetings, Master Jorian. As you see, I strive to obey your commands. Now come, Mistress Mnevis—Queen Mnevis, I should say—and try that walk once more."
Jorian was watching the work when Karadur knocked and slipped in, saying, "I was searching for you, my son. I was in the library at the Temple of Narzes and—ah—forgot about lunch in my absorption. Then I chanced upon Strasso, who told me you had returned hither. What takes place here?"
Jorian: "Doctor Karadur, allow me to present Master Pselles of Aussar, a leading ornament of the Novarian stage, now fallen upon certain —ah—temporary embarrassments. I've retained him to coach my girls."
"It does not look to me as if they were being trained as ladies' maids, as Strasso said."
Jorian winked. "Na, na, this is the scheme I promised to reveal to you. Know that these are no ladies' maids, but Queen Mnevis of Algarth and her eleven noble ladies-in-waiting."
"But—but you told me in Xylar that Algarth was only a nest of pirates! How can it have a queen?"
"Mnevis, tell the doctor who you are and what you purpose to do."
"My good sage," said Mnevis in a queenly voice, "know that we, Mnevis widow of Serli, are the rightful queen of Algarth, which is an archipelago off the western coast of Shven, far to the north of the Twelve Cities. A few years ago, these pirates whereof you speak seized our isles for their own fell purposes, slew our husband the king, and kept us captive as a puppet queen, to dance to their strings.
"Lately, with the help of loyal subjects—who have been reduced to serfdom by these bloody corsairs—we escaped from Algarth with these our ladies. Hearing that the mightiest and justest monarch in the entire world was the Great King of Mulvan, we have come hither to pray His Majesty, that he will render us aid in regaining our rightful throne."
Jorian applauded. "Splendid! You should have been an actress in the first place." He turned to Karadur. "Can you think of a better way to ingratiate ourselves into the haughty court at Trimandilam, to whom ordinary foreigners are less than dirt?"
Karadur shook his head sorrowfully. "I know not… I know not. When you get these wild ideas, my son… Will not this imposture be speedily punctured?"
"I think not. They have never even heard of Algarth in Mulvan."
"But what of you?"
"I am now Jorian of Kortoli, their factotum. Since the lassies speak no Mulvani, they will need my constant attendance."
"What if King Shaju says: 'Very good, you shall have the help you require.' What then?"
"We'll make the queen's demands so steep that there shall be no danger of that. How can Shaju send a fleet and an army to Algarth, when Mulvan has no ports on the Western Ocean? They must need cross the desert of Fedirun or the Twelve Cities or the steppes of Shven to come to that sea, and then what should they do for ships to get to Algarth? Tis preposterous on the face of it. And a little skillful exaggeration of the rigors of the boreal Algarthian clime will scare off any Mulvanian tempted to join the ladies from motives of knight-errantry."
Karadur shook his head again. "Meseems I spoke in haste when I denigrated your talent for adventurehood, my son. But it is safe to resume your name again so soon?"
"I think so. We shall be far enough from Xylar so that no report of the doings there will circulate. And I weary of being addressed by other names and not recognizing them, so that people get the notion I'm deaf. Besides, since my name is not uncommon, 'Jorian of Kortoli' might be any one of many persons. 'Jorian of Ardamai' would give me away, Ardamai being a mere village."
"Well, may the gods of Novaria and of Mulvan aid you."
The Bharma wound through the Pushkana Gap in the eastern Lograms, which here had dwindled to a mere range of forested hills. Laboring upstream under sail, the river boat Jhimu was towed by big, black buffaloes around the great serpentine bends of the river where it traversed the gap, the current here being too swift for the sail alone to make headway against. The steep, dark-green slopes soared into the sky on either hand, with no sign of animal life save a thread of blue smoke from a woodcutter's clearing, or a vulture hanging like a black mote in the blue. At night, however, the Jhimu's passengers could sometimes hear the grunt of a tiger or the toot of a wild elephant.
Beyond the bends, the river ran more slowly and comparatively straight between stairlike rises on the east and west to wooded plateaus. Sometimes it widened into marshes where behemoths lay awash, with only their ears, eyes, and nostrils exposed. At night, snorting and grunting, these animals trooped ashore to graze or to raid the Mulvanian peasants' plantings.
From time to time, roads followed the river. On these roads, Mulvanians were always moving, from single wayfarers to parties of fifty to a hundred. There were holy men, religious pilgrims, merchants with laden pack animals, farmers with loads of produce, detachments of jingling soldiery, and miscellaneous travelers of high and low degree. There were people afoot, on asses, in carriages, in oxcarts, on horseback, on camels, and on elephants.
Every league or so, the Jhimu passed a temple to one of Mulvan's multifarious gods. The main structure might be shaped like a dome, a cylinder, a cone, a cube, a pyramid, or a tapering spire; each god had his preferred architectural style. All were encrusted with minutely detailed carvings. The erotic statuary that covered a temple of Laxara, the goddess of love and hate, so embarrassed Karadur when they went near it during a stop that the old man kept his face averted. Looking up at the carvings, Jorian stood with fists on hips, grinning through his beard.