Alan Akers - Prince of Scorpio

Around to the western face of the palace we went beneath the frowning walls where the mercenary guards paced. In through a square opening, faced with marble and gold, and so up again along courtyards and colonnades, and into the rear of the apartments reserved for the Princess. In a small square room, with a lamp burning in the center which cast weird gleams upon the friezes of mythical beasts and birds, the sedan chair was placed down and Pela alighted. The Hikdar saluted and marched his men out.

Pela said, “Wait here, my lord Strom.”

As soon as she had gone I loosened my rapier in its scabbard and looked about. There were but two doors, and Pela had left through the opposite one. When its sturm-wood panels bearing plaques of beaten silver opened and a woman walked in, attended only by Pela, I relaxed a little.

“Strom Drak, of Valka?”

“Yes.”

“I am the Kovneva Katrin Rashumin of Rahartdrin and you address me as my lady Kovneva.”

I said, “I haven’t come here to play games. What do you want of me?”

She flinched back. My words were tantamount to my striking her across the face. I heard Pela gasp. If there was trouble for my Delia there was no time for protocol and fine manners. I took a step forward, fears for Delia uppermost in my mind. I stuck my face at this haughty Kovneva.

“Well?”

She put her hands to her breast. She wore a long silvery gown that fell to the marble floor, and was held over her shoulders by a mass of jewels. Her dark hair was coiffed and curled and smothered with a net of glittering gems. As for her face — it was hard in outline, of undoubted beauty, with fine dark eyes and a mouth rather too thin for my taste. She reminded me, as a candle reminds one of a samphron oil lamp, of Queen Lilah, that proud and sensuous Queen of Paul.

She managed to speak. “I will have you flogged! I will have you torn asunder! To speak to me, the Kovneva, this way! You are a fool, a rast, a cramph, a-”

I took her left wrist into my hand and lifted it before our faces. I glared down into her eyes. Her face altered in contour, changing, going slack, the soggy droop she would never admit appearing beneath her chin. I knew my face wore that old corrosive look of pure domination and harsh authority that, in other circumstances, I have so despaired of. Here it broke this woman’s resistance down in a way that, however unpleasant it might have been, was desperately essential.

“The Emperor,” she whispered. “He has gone to Vindelka. The Princess Majestrix flies with him. I am-” She swallowed. “I am bid by the Princess on behalf of the Emperor to command you to join them.”

I let her wrist go and she rubbed it with her other hand, staring at me the while with a look that should have blasted me on the spot. I nodded.

“Very well, Kovneva. Let us go, in the name of Opaz!”

Pela’s eyes were as round as palines.

“And,” I said in that harsh and hateful voice, “you will receive from me all the deference that is your due. Next time don’t shilly-shally when there are messages from the Emperor.”

“I shall remember this-”

“That is good. Make sure you remember well.”

From this unedifying scene of my bullying a silly woman I took no pleasure, particularly after I had, as I considered, been groveling before the Emperor. But all my fears for Delia had leaped into my mind, and almost I had said “messages from the Princess.” Only a last-minute flash of common sense had made me change that to “Emperor.”

Of course, all the plans were changed. Delia must have managed to remind her father of the Strom of Valka, and arranged for my presence at Vindelka. That she had chosen this woman, this Kovneva Katrin, to bring the message must surely mean she held her in some esteem, even if she didn’t trust Katrin Rashumin. Rahartdrin — that is, the land of Rahart — is a large island off the southwestern tip of Vallia, south of the straits between Womox and the Blue Mountains. All these places I was hearing about now have since come to mean a great deal to me, and to become very familiar, as you shall hear. I was slowly learning my way around Vallia, the land of my Princess.

Rahartdrin is about five times as extensive as Valka. She was a Kovneva and I was a Strom. No wonder she balked at my cavalier treatment of her!

Muffled in cloaks, we went out swiftly and boarded the waiting airboat, and I wondered just what rapier to grind Katrin Rashumin had in all this. She was more than a mere messenger. How much of the Emperor’s trust did she have? And, far more importantly, how loyal was she to Delia?

The airboat was of the usual pattern, petal-shaped, about fifty feet long, with a sumptuously appointed cabin taking up the aft third of the length. Atop this was a sun-deck. I noticed that while the usual flag of Vallia — the yellow saltire on the red ground — flew from the stern, Katrin’s own flag — the lotus in yellow and green picked out in red — flew from a staff in the prow. Evidently, this was her own personal airboat.

The luxury of the cabin confirmed this, for it was furnished in a sybaritic and yet realistic way very much of a piece with her character. I threw my cloak onto a chaise longue and looked about for a drink. The airboat bore on through the levels toward Vindelka. The crew wore the yellow and green striped sleeves, with twin slashes of red through the yellow, and they looked competent enough. Although, no one could feel absolutely secure aboard an airboat; I recalled what Naghan Furtway, Kov of Falinur, had had to say about the rasts of Havilfar. Pela brought wine then, a good vintage, and I settled down to what I considered would be the monotony of the aerial voyage.

As soon as the wine was served, Katrin drove Pela out in an abrupt and yet not unkind way, to go and sit in the suns-shine on the forward deck, and then locked the door. I did not think I was going to try to escape from an airboat a thousand feet in the air.

“You know how the racters have forced the Presidio to tax Valka more heavily than is just?” she began without preamble.

“I know, Kovneva.”

“This is why you are in Vondium?”

“Yes.” It was as good an excuse as any. I felt the Emperor had sized me up — whether I liked the man or detested him I still didn’t know — and he had not mentioned the tax situation. I thought then that if it had been my daughter claiming the horrible object that had been Dray Prescot in his chains and filth, I might have reacted as he had done.

“And you are not prepared to do anything about it?”

“Just what had you in mind?”

The very word tax is obscene, of course, to those who pay. To those who collect for causes their honor tells them are just, the word means different things. But then, any taxman believes his cause is just. My people of Valka paid heavy taxes, unjustly heavy, as I had discovered since reaching Vondium. My selfish desires about Delia had driven the matter from my head. Now this woman was obviously seeking allies against the racters.

“Valka is a rich island. Richer, I venture to suggest, than Rahartdrin.”

She flared up at this. But then she nodded, and bit her lip.

“Since my husband, the Kov, died, things have gone to wrack and ruin.”

“You need a man, Katrin.”

Of course, I shouldn’t have said that.

And, indeed, it wasn’t necessarily true. I make no claims for the superiority of men in managing estates, and I know my Delia could manage Delphond like a dream. The Blue Mountains tended to be left in the capable hands of her elders in High Zorcady. But this Katrin Rashumin, Kovneva of Rahartdrin, took my words and read into them what my ugly face and foul manners had kindled in her, and thus confirmed that belief in her mind. She did, in sober truth, need a man.