Alan Akers - Prince of Scorpio

She drank more wine. Then she unclasped her silvery robe and let it fall to the floor. She moved toward me, and threw her round arms about my neck. “Drak, Drak — you would be a Kov!” as though that must clinch the argument.

As gently as I could I detached her fingers from me. Her silvery robe lay strewn about the deck. Her jeweled hair had fallen into a great loose mass, and a fortune rolled about on the priceless carpets of Walfarg weave.

“I am a man, Katrin; not Strom or Kov or Prince have any meaning for me.” I did not say that being a Krozair of Zy held meaning. She would not have understood. “You must find a man more complaisant to your desires.”

She rested a while then, drinking wine, the slanting mingled rays of Zim and Genodras playing over her body. She would resume the fight shortly, I knew. No wonder she had locked the door. But I was learning all the time. I would be a Kov if I married her. I had become a Strom in all legality because I had won the position, and none could say me nay. How these nobles of Vallia had schemed and bribed and fought their way to power! And how they must be ever ready to fend off the plunderers forever following them! What a man could make of himself, what he could hold, that he was, in Vallia. Of course, like any system of its kind, once you were in power, in the saddle, wielding the whip, you tended to build up reserves to keep you in power.

“No,” I said. “No, Katrin. I will be your friend, if you wish that, and perhaps take a lash and an accounting book into the island of Rahart. More than that I cannot be.”

“I have never met a man like you! In a few short burs I knew. Time has no meaning in affairs of the heart. The moment you spoke to me, so rudely, so intemperately, I knew you were the man! I felt myself turn to jelly-”

I didn’t laugh, but it deserved it. Poor soul! But for her, it was all deadly serious.

“I will strike a bargain with you, Katrin. I will be your good friend. I will ride into Rahartdrin and see what is going wrong. And you, in your turn, wipe your face, put on your robe, and tidy your hair — and then help and support me with the Emperor.”

If she rebelled at that, put on her icy hauteur and allowed her hatred to spew forth — well and good. I just wanted to know where we stood. But she was prepared to accept that heavy-handed patronizing attitude — for all that I meant sincerely what I said, it was still insufferably obnoxious — and she did as she was bid, and once more turned from a passionate sobbing submissive woman into a regal and distant Kovneva.

A call came down the tube. The border of Vindelka had long been passed and now we were heading in for a landing at Delka Ob. This was the capital of Vindelka, where Tharu and now Vomanus lorded it over fat realms. At Delka Dwa, right over on the northwestern border, lay a frontier town against the poor lands stretching away up there, lands over which I had trudged hauling the Emperor’s barge. There were few lakes in that area, the ground was thin and sorry, and the wind scoured the landscape into wild and fantastic shapes. Only a few leem-hunters and madmen looking for gold and jewels found much in these badlands over which to feel satisfaction. The River of Shining Spears which ran from the Blue Mountains into the Great River skirted south of these badlands. They were called the Ocher Limits. Beyond them and sharing them as a common frontier, seldom visited, lay the Kovnate of Falinur. Katrin and I went out on deck as the airboat slanted down for a landing. Away across to the west where the twin suns sank in a jumbled blaze of emerald and orange the sky was a mass of glorious color. Fierce black twisted, violent spirals of cloud coiled up, with the beams of the suns striking through and the glow extending far across the horizon.

“We made our landing just in time, my lady Kovneva,” said the airboat captain. He looked ill at ease. Katrin didn’t bother to reply. We all stood there, watching that violence and glory in the sky to the west. Delka Ob was a pleasant enough place, situated at the crossing of two canals, with much greenery, shade trees, and the soothing sounds of water tinkling from fountains and waterfalls created in the gardens of the houses. There was the usual labor section; but here, too, the houses looked neat and clean and the people moved with that alertness and firmness of tread I always welcome, for it means the taint of slavery is not embedded in their bones.

Without question, the Kovneva ordered her palanquin out from the flier’s hold and gave instructions to be taken directly to the palace. This was the palace of Vomanus of Vindelka. Now it hosted the Emperor and the Princess Majestrix. Pela was carried in her sedan chair; I walked with the guards. The suns were declining now, the air growing cooler. Our way from the landing field took us across one of the many bridges over a canal and here I heard the familiar hateful trilling of an Emperor’s stentor, and looking over the bridge parapet down onto the towpath I saw the sorry procession of dun gray barges. The haulers were being flogged into a shambling run, for the guards were impatient. I guessed these barges were carrying supplies, furniture, clothes, all the habitual magnificences of the Emperor, to the palace of Delka Ob, and had been dispatched some time ago, when this visit had been arranged, timed to reach the city for the Emperor’s arrival. This was so.

They had been held up — a canal had burst its banks and the work of reconstruction had chopped all the leeway out of the schedule. The chamberlain in charge of those barges was no doubt trembling in his boots. I saw the savage way the whips rose and fell, the way the knouts smashed down on the heads and backs of the haulers. The red and black arms rose and fell remorselessly. A girl collapsed and was immediately cut out from her leash and pushed aside. She would be dealt with later.

“Hurry, Strom Drak!” called Katrin, putting her head out between the curtains of her palanquin. “Just a moment, Kovneva,” I said. I turned to go. I had seen enough. I turned to go and saw at the head of the struggling knot of figures of the next barge in line a tall man leaning into the rope and hauling and hauling. I stopped turning to go. I swung back, very sharply.

I knew that I grew perilously close to callousness over the Emperor’s slaves. A single man, Strom or not, could not affect that issue at a blow; abolition would take time and immense effort over many years. But, that being so, I must do what appeared to me the right thing to do. Nepotism, if correctly used, can be a worthwhile tool, as witness Nelson and Collingwood, among others. So, feeling shame that I could do nothing for those other poor struggling devils, I ran quickly down off the bridge and onto the towpath. A guard brought his lash down again and again onto the thin naked back of the tall man, striking with a passion of ferocity unwholesome to witness.

“Get on, you stinking cramph! Get on, you kleesh.”

The next act of mine was all over before I had fairly realized it had begun. I struck the guard full on the jaw. He dropped, senseless. Other guards had seen. They came running, up. I looked at the tall man. Seven feet tall, he was, extraordinarily thin of arm and leg, but with a bunching of muscles there that showed the lean sinewy strength of him. From his head a long silky mass of yellow hair fell to his waist. Now that hair was filthy and befouled. And he’d been uncovered when the Maiden of the Many Smiles floated alone in the sky!

“What in the name of Opaz do you think you’re doing, rast?”

The guards hesitated for a moment, as I did not draw but faced them. I glared at them and I know they saw the hatred in my face.

“If you do not instantly release this man, your barges will foul and choke the cut. The Emperor will not like that.”