"Aye, gernu."
We went up the back stair to his suite of chambers in the Zhantil’s Lair. They were lavish and expensive, as one would expect, hung about with trophies of the chase. A lounge had been furnished by a man’s hand. But through the inner doors lay the apartments of my Lady of the Stars.
He slumped down in a chair and bellowed for wine.
"You, Gadak the Renegade. Have you ever been outside the Eye of the World? Out to the unknown, improbable lands there?"
I poured him his wine and pondered the question.
"Yes, gernu."
"Ah!" He took the wine. The shadows of the room clustered against the samphron oil lamps’ gleam. "You have never seen my Lady — before you met me?"
"No. I swear it." This could be dangerous. "I respect her deeply. I feel I have proved that, yet I would not in honor speak of it."
"Yes, yes, you have served. And you swear?"
"I swear."
"And she is very tender of you. She was much impressed when you slew the lairgodonts. That was a Jikai. You trespass where no man has trespassed before — and lived."
"I am an ordinary man. I know my Lady has the most tender affection for you. Do you think I would—?"
"What you, Gadak?" He drank the wine off, and laughed, and hurled the glass to smash against the wall, splattering a leem-skin hung there with dregs and glass, shining in the light. "No, Gadak, for I recognize you. You are the upright, the correct, the loyal man. You know which side your bread’s buttered. With me you have the chance of a glittering career. You may be made Ghittawrer soon."
"If the king’s man, this Nodgen the Faithful, does not have my head for the king."
"No. No chance of that. The king and I — we play this game, but for him it is a game. For me the stakes are too high. I do not know what I would do if my Lady was taken from me—" He bellowed for fresh wine then, to cover his words.
"She must not fall into the king’s hands." He drank deeply. I had never seen him drunk; he was in a fair way to showing me that interesting phenomenon for the first time. "She must not! He would do what I should do — should do — and, by Green Grodno, cannot, will not — will never!"
I saw clearly that some oppressive matter weighed on his mind. As a renegade he was not fully accepted by the overlords. He believed in the king and yet in this matter he could not talk to the king. He desperately wished to confide in someone, as is a common practice among people, I have noticed. If he decided to tell me, I wondered if that would make my position more secure or destroy me utterly. I rather thought it would be the latter. Yet this man fascinated me. I could feel the strong attraction he exerted despite the evil of him. He was a mere man, as was I. He would pay for his crimes. Was the changing of allegiance from Red to Green so great a matter anywhere but on the inner sea? I found it hard to condemn him as I knew him now, as I had found it easy to condemn him when I did not know him.
"Riddle me this, Gadak. Which is more important, the good of your lady or the good of your country?"
"That has had many facile answers, and every case is different."
"But if it was you — you! Your answer?"
"No man can answer until he has faced the situation and the question."
"Do you know that my Lady of the Stars and I are married? No — only a very few know. Grogor knows. We married permanently. Not in the rites of Grodno—" He picked up his glass and spilled most of it. He barely noticed.
"Then the king would honor a legal and sanctified marriage."
"Fambly! He has the yrium. And the rites were not the rites of Grodno." He chuckled. "Even though there were two ceremonies, neither was that of Grodno." And he drank and let the glass slip through his fingers.
I felt a prod might bring him back to reason. For so strong and powerful a personality he was letting go of his will, was allowing this matter that tormented him to undermine all the strength he possessed, and so I knew this was no ordinary matter that so obsessed him. I spoke carefully.
"If the king succeeded in taking my Lady, would your men fight to regain her? If the fact was over and done, would they risk treason against the king? In that situation would not their loyalty to the king transcend their loyalty to you?"
He struggled to rise and slumped back, panting.
"So that is how you answer the question of loyalty to your lady and loyalty to your country!"
"You should know better — if this is the case you present, then—"
"It is the case! Grogor would go up against the king for me, I know! And I picked you, for I thought you would be loyal — even if I could not, for the king has the yrium, even if I could not — you—"
If that was his problem I fancied the stab of an emergency would quickly make up his mind for him.
As though Drig himself had heard me and mocked me, on that thought the door opened and Grogor burst in. He looked ghastly. Both Gafard and I knew, at once, almost word for word what he would say. Gafard lumbered up, screeching, drawing his sword. Swords would be useless for a space, I fancied.
"Gernu! She is taken! Stikitches — real assassins in metal faces, professionals . . . They ride toward the Volgodonts’ Aerie!"
The Volgodonts’ Aerie, another hunting lodge like the Zhantil’s Lair, stood some three burs’ ride away in the woods. That, we could not have foreseen.
Gafard’s face appeared both shrunken and bloated. His eyes glared. All the drink he had taken made his face enormous and yet the horror of the moment shriveled him. He gasped and struggled to breathe. I caught him and lowered him into his chair. Grogor stood, half bent, expecting an avalanche of invective. Gafard croaked words, vicious, harsh words like bolts from a crossbow.
"We must ride, Grogor! Have the sectrixes saddled up. Gather the men. We must ride like Zhuannar of the Storm!"
"Rather, master, call on Grakki-Grodno—"
I knew what he meant. Grakki-Grodno was the sky-god of draft-beasts of Magdag. So for all his brave talk, he had failed the test.
But Grogor said, "The king has taken my Lady and she is now his. He is the king and he has the yrium. The men would have fought for you —
have
fought for you, master — when she was rightfully yours. Now she is rightfully the king’s. No man will raise his hand against the king." Then, this bulky, sweaty man, a renegade, drew himself up. "I would ride, my lord. Would you have me ride alone against the king?"
He had a powerful point. Gafard looked crushed. The strength and power oozed out of him. I felt a crushing sorrow for the Lady of the Stars. Evidently the little shishi had failed to convince the king. Spies had done the rest. There were those in Gafard’s household who did not love him, that was certain, and we had made a splendid spectacle riding out of Magdag. There was no point in my offering to ride. If Gafard roused himself, if Grogor rode, that would be three of us against a band of professional stikitches. The assassins of Kregen are an efficient bunch of rasts when they have to be, and on a task of kidnapping they are no less ruthless. No, sorrowful though this made me, I would have to go with the majority.
My own concerns for my Delia must come first. My Delia — ah! How I longed for her then . . . How could a pretty girl, even a girl with the fire and spirit and charm of the Lady of the Stars, stand for a moment in my thoughts against my Delia!
The shadows in the corner of that masculine room — with the harsh trophies of the hunt upon the walls, the stands of arms, the pieces of harness and mail, the tall motionless drapes — all breathed to me of softer, sweeter things: of Delia’s laugh, the sight of her as we swam together in Esser Rarioch, the love we had for our children, all the intimate details that make of a man and a woman, make of a marriage, a single and indivisible oneness.
No, I would not throw away my Delia’s happiness for my Lady of the Stars.
Gafard was breathing in hoarse, rattling gasps. The drink, the shock, the fuddlement, had left him bereft of that incisive command. He had been stricken down.
"The men will not ride!" He shook his head, hardly able to believe and yet knowing the stark truth of it. He turned to me and stretched out a hand. "And you, Gadak the Renegade, the man I chose and pampered — will you, Gadak, ride for me this night?"
"No," I said.
He fell back in the chair. His face sagged. He looked distraught, wild, near-insane.
Then he proved himself.
"Then to Sicce with you all! I will ride myself, alone, for I know well what my Lord of Strombor will say!"
I felt no shock, only puzzlement.
He staggered up, waving his arms, casting about for his mail. I gripped his arm and Grogor jumped. I said, "What is this of the Lord of Strombor?"
Gafard swung a wild, sweaty face upon me. The sweat clung to his dark, clustered curls and dripped down his face. The lines in that face were etched deep. His beard bristled.
"You onker! If the king takes my Lady — Pur Dray is in the city! He has been seen in Magdag, it is very sure." He spoke down from that high screech, as a man explaining a simple problem to a child. He put a hand on my hand. "Let me go, Gadak, traitor, ingrate! I will save my Lady for Pur Dray and then I will deal with you."
I held him. Grogor moved and I swung my head and glared at him. "Stand, Grogor, as you value your life!" I shook Gafard, the King’s Striker. "Listen to me, Gafard! You prate of Pur Dray, the Lord of Strombor. What has he to do with this matter? Tell me the matter that lies between you, Gafard! Tell me! What has the Lord of Strombor to do with the Lady of the Stars?"
Some semblance of sanity returned to him. He was Gafard, the Sea-Zhantil, and he was not to be shaken by a mere mercenary, a renegade, a man he had made!
"You cramph!" he said. He spoke thickly. "You are a dead man — for you sit and let my Lady go to certain death — hideous death — death by torture for what she knows, and, before that, to humiliation and the baiting of a trap."
"Tell me, Gafard, you nurdling great onker!
Tell me!"
He shrieked as my fingers bit into the bones of his arm.
He twisted and glared up, his fierce, predatory face close to mine and so like my own, so like my own.
"You fool! Pur Dray, the greatest Krozair of the Eye of the World, is here, in Magdag. And King Genod takes the Lady of the Stars! When he finds out, as he will find out — for he has the yrium, he will find out — then — and then—"
I shook him again. I bore down on him, all the hateful ferocity in my face overmatching his own. Grogor took another step and I said "Grogor!" and he stopped stock still.
"When the king finds out what, Gafard? What is this trap? Tell me or I will break your arm off!"
He shrieked again and foam sprang to his lips. He tried to pull away and Grogor moved once more so I swung Gafard, the King’s Striker, about, prepared to hurl him at Grogor. I could feel his bones grinding under my fingers.
"Now, Gafard, now!"
"You are a dead man, Gadak! For King Genod has taken Velia, who is the daughter of Pur Dray, the Lord of Strombor."
Stricken by genius
Gafard screamed it out, foaming, as I hurled him into the chair.
"The king has taken Velia, Princess Velia, daughter to Pur Dray, the Lord of Strombor, Prince Majister of Vallia!"
Everything blurred.
I remember colliding with Grogor on my way to the door and knocking him flying. There were stairs. There were people shouting and milling. Men stood in my way and were suddenly not there. There were softnesses under my feet. The air was suddenly cool and fresh. Stars blazed. The moons were up, gliding silently through the starfields. The sectrix stalls lay shrouded in darkness. Harness — no time, no time — bareback! A sectrix beneath me. A vicious kick, more vicious kicks. The lolloping six-legged gait. Hard, merciless kicks, the flat of my sword, then sharper, more urgent bounding. The dark flicker of tree branches overhead. The dazzlement of the moons. The harsh, jolting ride, the clamor of hooves, the rush of wind, the pain, the agony, the remorse—
Velia!
My little Velia!
Fragments, I remember, of that night ride with the horror gibbering and clawing at me, the ghastly specters obscenely taunting me, mocking me—
I knew what this kleesh of a King Genod would do when he discovered he held in his hands the daughter of Dray Prescot, the Lord of Strombor, the notorious and dreaded Krozair of Zy.
I would consign all the Krzy to Sicce to save my daughter.
What would Delia say? What would be her agony?
I galloped and galloped and I galloped as a man who has no heart, has never had a heart, and is never likely to find a heart in this wicked world.
Velia . . . Velia . . . The sectrix hooves beat out her name on the hard forest paths, over the rippling grasslands silver and pink and gold beneath the moons, the breeze swaying them as a breeze ruffles the inner sea.
Years and years ago I had last seen her. I had not recognized her, and she had not recognized me.
Yet — was not that strange feeling I had suffered now explained, the weird compulsion in me to do nothing to destroy the happiness of the Lady of the Stars? Now I knew why Gafard, the King’s Striker, was not bundled in a blanket and safely in the hands of the Krozairs upon the fortress isle of Zy.
If we had not recognized each other’s faces, and our names had been strange and false, had not the blood called, one to the other? Oh, maybe that is sentimental nonsense, maybe it is mere wishful thinking; but there
had
been some deep psychological force drawing and binding me to my daughter. Perhaps the racial unconscious, if there be such a thing, is most pronounced and powerful in relatives, and the only bond as powerful as that of a father to his daughter is that of a mother to her son.
The sectrix’s hoofbeats echoed in my ears, a strange triple echo. I twisted about. In that streaming moonlight a second sectrix followed me, bounding along, its rider’s cape flaring in the golden light. The man rode like a maniac. He rode as I rode.
I recognized Grogor.
I smashed at my mount again and he responded. We flew out into a clearing of the tall grasses and splashed across a stream. On and on — the stikitches would take my daughter to the king at the Volgodonts’ Aerie. There was every chance he would have flown here in the little two-place airboat. If he had I would take his voller. Somehow I did not think I would bother to take him back to Zy.