Alan Akers - Swordships of Scorpio

He gabbled something, something about Marsilus, and gold, and then blood poured from his mouth and he collapsed.

Inch looked offended.

“I did not kick him hard enough for that, Dray. Nor would your blow upon the nose have hurt a fly -

So why is he dead?”

I was annoyed.

“He must have smashed his guts up jumping through the window and falling awkwardly. By the disgusting nostrils of Makki-Grodno! The fellow is dead and that’s an end to it.”

We left him there to be collected by the mobiles of Pa Mejab, who were later fully satisfied with our explanation of four dead men, and went back to Tilda and Pando.

The assassin I had first run through was in the act of dying as we entered the room. There was nothing to be discovered. Pando collected four rapiers and four daggers, which I was pleased to sell later for good silver dhems, and Inch took the best of the leather boots which fitted him, for his feet were inordinately long and thin. I had a pair, also; as an addition to my wardrobe, just in case. Two of the broad-brimmed hats, also, with their curled blue feathers, might come in useful. The tunics would not fit either Inch or me

— I was too wide in the shoulder and Inch too narrow — so we sold the rest of the gear.

“If they have any friends come asking for them,” I said to Nath, the innkeeper, “then let us know, by Zim-Zair, and we will wring the truth from them.”

But no one else bothered us thereafter on the score of the four assassins while we were in Pa Mejab.

“They swaggered in and demanded to know if the actress Tilda and her son Pando lodged here,” said old Nath, mightily shaken up by the event. He kept a respectable house, as, indeed, he must, otherwise Tilda would not have lodged and performed there. These goings-on were not to his liking. They might be common in The Silver Anchor and The Rampant Ponsho along the waterfront, not here in this respectable street and The Red Leem.

Not one of the four dead men yielded any personal identification to prying fingers. Apart from money and the usual items to be found in the pockets and gear of any man they were devoid of information. Inch wondered if we might make a few discreet inquiries among the ships; but Tilda, rather alarmed, vetoed this idea at once.

Looking at her, I caught the impression that perhaps she knew more about this business than she was prepared to discuss with us. After all, Inch and I were strangers. A considerable number of people had taken lodgings with old Nath and he had let all his rooms. The main room was crowded that evening. Tilda had insisted that she was perfectly all right and could go on. Old Nath, gallantly protesting that she should rest up after her ordeal, visibly showed his relief that she would give her performance, whose fame accounted for his vastly increased trade and profits. But I do not condemn him for that; he was good to me as well as others.

When Tilda made her final exit to rapturous applause that thundered to the rafters and set all the glass wine cups on the shelves ajingling, she came over to my table as was her custom. Old Nath did not mind me occupying a table just so long as I paid for what I consumed in the same way as an ordinary customer. Most often I did not bother, saving my scraped wealth, but this night was different. Just as we were preparing to listen to the beginning of Tilda’s impassioned rendition of the execution scene from the music drama — not quite the same thing as an opera — known over most of Kregen as The Fatal Love of Vela na Valka — I had heard the light musical voice of a young woman say: “Oh, Pando — there is not a table left!”

A young couple stood in the doorway, looking disappointed. She was young, lissome in the normal way and with fine eyes; at the moment she was pregnant. Her husband was a soldier, a Hikdar, handsome in his Tomboramic uniform. Naturally, I offered them seats at my table, and Wil, who had been brought in to help, quickly brought glasses and wine — a yellow wine of Western Erthyrdrin — so that when Tilda joined us we had already been thrown into the quick and casual friendships of the frontier. Inch had discovered a taboo and now came across, brushing sawdust from his long fair hair, and sat down. The young couple told us all the news. The Hikdar was a cavalryman and burning for adventure out here on the borders of the spreading empire of Pandahem. His name was Pando — the cause of my immediate reaction when they had entered — Pando na Memis. His wife’s name was Leona.

“Memis,” said Tilda, gracefully drinking the yellow wine. “I know it well, those tall red cliffs falling to the sea, the islands and their gulls — oh, millions of gulls! — and the wine there.” She laughed. “It is far smoother on the tongue than this Erthyrdrin-”

Pando na Memis looked somewhat confused and beckoned quickly. I watched the byplay. Young Pando trotted up, he also having, for a change, been conscripted.

“Bring a better vintage than this, young one,” said Pando na Memis. “It is not to the lady’s liking.”

Pando — the urchin of that distinguished name — made a face at me, whereat I lifted my fist, so that he scuttled off, laughing. Tilda looked gracious, oblivious of the exchange. Pando na Memis pushed the bottle of yellow wine away across the table — and a long lanky arm reached out from somewhere and Inch grasped the bottle by the neck. Leona na Memis had not missed a single nuance. Much of the traffic and trade of Kregen is devoted to this kind of mutual exchange of commodities. It is an infuriating fact of human nature that the grass is always greener over the neighbor’s fence; and that is why wine from Western Erthyrdrin reached Turismond, why in Zenicce we drank Pandahem wine when the good vintages of Zenicce were shipped to Vallia. As to Vallia, her wines were carried to the far corners of Kregen. Despite all that, I still preferred the fragrant tea brewed by my clansmen in far Segesthes.

Inch, I considered, would be happiest with a bottle of dopa, that fiendish stomach-rotting drink that I had seen at work in the warrens of Magdag.

Drunkenness is relative on Kregen. Few Kregans consider getting drunk the occupation of a fully rational man, and my two oar comrades, Nath and Zolta, although they might become as merry as nits in an eiderdown, seldom ever achieved that disgusting paralytic sick drunk common in certain so-called civilized countries of this Earth. Kregans love to roister; and that means enjoying themselves. Getting sick drunk and puking over everything is not, really, much idea of fun. The conversation wended on, and we heard of Pando na Memis’ plans for the future, of how he craved for action — at which Leona looked alarmed — and of how, soon, the Tomboramin would advance along the old Lohvian roads through the Klackadrin.

“After the old Empire of Walfarg fell,” said Pando, “the land must have gone back. The Hostile Territories are still there, waiting for strong men to ride in and take over. One day, and soon, we of Tomboram will do just that, before the rasts of Vallia or Menaham or anyone else!”

I made the right noises, saying nothing.

Then the name Marsilus came up. A great noble of that name, old, crotchety, more than half-mad, had just died back in Tomboram and his estates, reputed valuable beyond price, had fallen into the hands of a nephew, who was also a nephew to the king. Pando na Memis whistled when Tilda, rather sharply, I thought, said: “Are the estates then so valuable?”

“Are they not! They rival the king’s. Now that Murlock Marsilus, the nephew, has inherited, the king must be greatly pleased, for the kingdom may inherit also when the king dies. There was a son to old Marsilus. Unfortunately, he died.”

Speaking very precisely, Tilda said, “Was the son disinherited, then?”