Kieron drew the draperies closed and the observation lounge of the huge ancient liner grew dim and warm.
"What's ahead, Kieron?" the girl asked with a sigh. "More fighting and killing?"
The Valkyr shook his head. "Your Imperium, Your Majesty," he said formally, "a crown of stars that a thousand generations have gathered for you. That lies ahead."
"Oh, Kieron! Can't you forget the Empire for the space of an hour?" Alys demanded angrily.
The Warlord of Valkyr looked at his Empress in perplexity. There were times when women were hard to fathom.
"Forget it, I say!" the girl cried, her eyes suddenly flaming.
"If Your Majesty wishes, I'll not speak of it again," said Kieron stiffly.
Alys took a step toward him. "There was a time when you looked at me as a woman. When you thought of me as a woman! Am I so different now?"
Kieron studied her slim body and sensuously patrician face. "There was a time when I thought of you as a child, too. Those times pass. You are now my Empress. your vassal. Command me. I'll fight for you. Die for you, if need be. Anything. But by the Seven Hells, Alys, don't torture me with favors I can't claim!"
"So I must command then?" She stamped her foot angrily. "Very well, I command you, Valkyr!"
"Lady, I'll never be a Consort!"
The girl's face flushed. "Did I ask it? I know I can't make a lapdog out of you, Kieron."
"Stop it, Alys," Kieron muttered heavily.
"Kieron," she said softly, "I've loved you since I was a child. I love you now. Does that mean nothing to you?" "Everything, Alys." Lust rose as he felt the tensions in her.
"Then for the space of this voyage, Kieron, forget the Empire. Forget everything except that I love you. Take what I offer you. There is no Empress here…"
The silver fleet speared down into the atmosphere of the mother planet. Earth lay beneath them like a globe of azure. The spaceships fanned out into a wedge as they split the thin cold air high above the sprawling megalopolis of the Imperial City.
The capital lay ringed about with the somnolent shapes of the star-kings' great armada. Somewhere down there, Kieron knew, Freka waited. Freka the Unknown. The unkillable? Kieron wondered. For weapons he had his sword and a little knowledge. He prayed it would be enough. It had to be. Five thousand warriors could not defeat the assembled might of the star-kings.
Shunning the spaceport, Kieron led his fleet to a landing on the grassy esplanade that surrounded the city. As the hurried debarkation of men and horses began, Kieron could see a cavalry force massing before the gates to oppose them.. He cursed and urged his men to greater speed. Horses reared and neighed; weapons glinted in the late afternoon sunlight.
Within the hour the debarkation was complete, and Kieron sat armed and mounted before the serried ranks of his warriors. The afternoon was filled with the flash of steel and the blazing glory of gonfalons as he ordered his ranks for battle. . a battle that he hoped with all his heart to avoid.
Across the plain, the Valkyr could make out the pennon of Doorn in the first rank of the advancing defenders. Kieron ordered Nevitta to stay by the Empress in the rear ranks and to escort her forward with all ceremony if he called for her.
Alys rode a white charger and had clad herself in the panoply of a Valkyr warrior maid. Her hips were girded in a harness of linked steel plates, her long legs free to ride astride. Over her chest and breasts was laced a hauberk of chain mail that shimmered in the slanting sunlight. On her head a Valkyr's winged helmet — and from under it her golden hair fell in cascades of light to her shoulders. A silver cloak stood out behind her as she galloped past the ranks of Valkyrs, and they cheered her as she went. Kieron, watching her, thought she resembled the ancient war-goddess of his own world — imperious, regal.
With a cry, Kieron ordered his riders forward and the glittering ranks swept forward across the esplanade like a turbulent wave, spear-heads agleam, gonfalons fluttering. He rode far ahead, seeking a meeting with old Eric of Doom, his father's friend.
He signalled, and the two surging masses of warriors slowed as the two star-kings rode to a meeting between the armies. Kieron raised an open right hand in the sign of truce, and old Eric did likewise. Their caparisoned chargers tossed their heads angrily at being restrained and eyed each other with white-rimmed eyes.
Kieron drew rein, facing the old star-king.
"I greet you," he said formally.
"Do you come in friendship, or in war?" asked Eric.
"That will depend on the Empress," Kieron replied.
The lord of Doom smiled, and there was scorn on his face. He was remembering Kalgan and Kieron's reluctance. "You will be pleased to know, then, that the Imperial Ivane bids you enter her city in peace — so that you may do her homage and throw yourself on her mercy for your crimes against Kalgan."
Kieron gave a short, steely laugh. So Ivane had already learned of the Valkyr sack of Kalgan. "I do not know any 'Imperial Ivane,' Eric," he said coldly. "When I spoke of the Empress, I meant the true Empress, Alys, the daughter of your lord and mine, Gilmer of Kaidor." He signalled Alys and Nevitta forward.
The gonfalons of the Valkyr line dipped in salute as Alys trotted through the ranks. She drew rein, facing the amazed Eric.
"Noble lady!" he gasped. "We were told you were dead!"
"And so I might have been, had Ivane had her way!"
The old star-king stammered in confusion. There was more here than he could understand. Only a week before, he and the other star-kings had done homage to Ivane and hailed her as their savior from the oppressions of the Emperor Toran, and the nearest living kin to the late Gilmer. And now…!
Eric frowned. "If we have been made fools, Freka must answer for this!"
"And now," asked Kieron grimly, "do we enter the city in peace or do we cut our way in?"
Eric signalled his men to swing in beside the ranked Valkyrs and the whole mass of armed men moved through the fading afternoon toward the gates of the Imperial City.
It was dusk by the time the cavalcade reached the walls of the Imperial Palace. Kieron called a halt and ordered his men to rest on their arms. Taking only Nevitta and Alys with him, he joined Eric of Doorn in challenging the
Janizaries of the Palace Guard.
They were passed by the stolid Pleiadenes without comment, for the lord of Doom was known as a vassal of the Imperial Ivane. Faces set, the small party strode up the wide curving stairway that led into the Hal! of the Great Throne. The courtiers had been warned by the shouts of the people in the streets that something was happening, and they had already begun to gather in the Throne Room.
He had come a long way, thought Kieron, from the day when he had stood before the Throne begging an audience with Toran. Now, everything hung on his one chance to prove his case — and Alys'—to the assembled nobles.
Kieron noted with some concern that the Palace Guards were gathering too. They covered each exit to the chamber, cutting off retreat.
By now, the Hall of the Great Throne was jammed with courtiers and star-kings, all tensely silent — waiting. Nor did they wait long.
With a blast of trumpets and a rolling of tympani, Ivane entered the Throne Room. Some of the courtiers kneHt, but others stood in confusion, looking from Alys to Ivane and back again.
Kieron studied Ivane coldly. She was, he had to admit, a regal figure. A tall woman with hair the color of jet. A face that seemed chiseled out of marble. Dark, predatory eyes and a figure like a Dawn Age goddess. She stood before the Great Throne of the Empire, mantled in the sable robe of the Imperium — a robe as black as space and spangled with diamonds to resemble the stars of the Imperial Galaxy. On her head rested the irridium tiara of Imperatrix.