Alan Akers - Swordships of Scorpio

“By no means. But he is dead and — there was a story — he was banished in disgrace. Married out of turn, so the story goes. Everyone has heard it — you must have, surely?”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t,” I said.

After I had given some explanation of myself, brief and almost totally untrue, Zair forgive me, Pando na Memis went on: “Murlock Marsilus is now Kov of Bormark, but the story goes that the old Kov, old Marsilus, screamed and shouted for his son on his deathbed. He relented of his punishment of the boy when he married. There was a grandson — but, of course, he stands no chance of the title and estates now that Murlock holds them under the king’s agreement.”

“The old man was stricken with the shrieking horrors,” said Inch, wisely. “It is known. He wanted to go to the Ice Floes of Sicce with a clean mind and with clean hands. One can visualize the scene. Poor benighted of Ngrangi!”

I leaned forward. “The king,” I said, “and this Marsilus, Kov of Bormark, who had died. They were brothers?”

“Yes,” said Leona, smiling at me. “You must be from some wild and untamed part of the world!”

“I am,” I told her. “Oh, yes, indeed, I am!”

The conversation changed course then; but I noticed Tilda was very quiet after that. The hated name of Vallia came up and with it tidbits of gossip and scandal. Of these I felt my heart lurch when Leona, speaking with a gentle malice quite natural in the circumstances, said: “The Princess Majestrix of Vallia!

Such a proud hoity-toity madam! Her father, the emperor has ordered her to marry-”

“To marry!” I shouted — and they all leaned back from me, their faces shocked, expressive of bewilderment and disgust. They must have seen that devil’s look on my face. I made myself calm down. My Delia! My Delia, Princess Majestrix of Vallia, ordered by the tyrant emperor, her father, to marry -

to marry some blundering oaf of his choice. I had to hold onto my sanity and my temper then. I do not apologize, so I just said: “You were telling us of Delia, Princess Majestrix of Vallia, Leona. Please go on.”

In a voice she struggled to keep from quavering, Leona went on speaking. And, as I listened, I felt a warm sweet relief flooding me, and I breathed easier.

For my Delia had defied her father!

She had flatly refused to marry the oaf picked out for her! She had stood up against his puissant majesty the emperor of Vallia, and told him flatly she would not marry. Not marry at all. This made my heart lurch afresh.

My Delia vowing never to marry?

Did she — could she — believe that I had abandoned her, as that scheming villain had planned when I had been drugged and dumped under the thorn-ivy bush? Had that foul scheme worked?

I had to get to Vallia — and yet, was there any greater urgency now than there had been? At least I knew my Delia was safe and well. She refused to marry. The emperor was still hale and hearty and, so the scandal went, quite prepared to wait and let his only daughter rot in maidenhood until she decided to marry the man of her choice. He would not force her; he would let time and nature take their courses. Once I had held Delia of the Blue Mountains in my arms and pressed her dear form close to my heart I had known that no other woman in two worlds could compare with her, no other woman could take her place. And I had known many women, blazingly beautiful women of arrogance and power, lovely women of lissome grace and refined artifice, women of passion and glory; and one had been to my Delia as a candle to the radiance of the red sun Zim. I had felt absolute confidence that Delia felt in exactly the same way about me, however little I deserved so marvelous a wonder. Delia was everything. No — she would not despair of me — she would not, she must not!

“You all right, dom?” said Inch.

“Assuredly, my long friend. Do I thus break a taboo?”

He chuckled and pushed the wine over to me and I drank and pushed the problem of Delia’s father, the emperor of Vallia, away for a space. At that time I had not settled the question. It rankled. I had to walk away from it for a space.

Leona, having exhausted herself on the scandal of a princess majestrix disobeying her father the emperor, had harked back to the Kov of Bormark, and was saying how lovely it would be if all that money were her Pando’s. Pando laughed. With what I considered to be deep wisdom, he said: “The money might be fun, Leona, my dearest; but what comes with it — ah, that is a different matter.”

Tilda was still sitting silently and sipping her wine and I saw her face suddenly tauten. I swiveled. Young Pando, his naked legs flashing, his brave zhantil tunic laid aside for the humble job of waiter, his hair tousled, was fleeting between the tables. A big fellow in the blue of a sailorman reached out and cuffed Pando alongside the head.

“Bring me a flagon, you rast of an imp of Sicce! Hurry, you little devil!”

Pando picked up his tray and what glasses were not broken. Someone else — a newcomer off the ships

— kicked him irritably as Pando bumped into his legs; but that was a reflex action. Tilda put a hand to her breast. Her violet eyes were large with anguish. Her supple voluptuous mouth shone, half open, pained, vulnerable.

I stood up.

Old Nath waddled across. “Now, Dray, please. .!”

The sailorman laughed coarsely among his mates. He was big and bluff, with the tattoos across his forehead and cheeks that some sailors believe indicate heightened sexual potency or, perhaps, will give them immunity to the demons and risslacas of the seas.

“You, Nath, have a stinking clientele in here, lately.”

“Please, Dray-”

I went across to the sailor who was already roaring for the little rast of a waiter and picked him up by the scruff of his blue tunic. He started to thrash his legs about so I clouted him — once was enough -

and carried him outside horizontally. It was done quickly and decently, and old Nath put his hands together and cast his eyes up to Zair and Grodno.

Outside I stood the big fellow up and said, “You hit a young boy, you kleesh. This may be wrong, it may be savage and barbaric, it may be against the divine dictates of Zair; but I do not like men like you who hit young boys.”

So, somewhat sorrowfully, for I know I sinned, I struck him in the belly. I stood aside as he was noisily and smelly sick. Then I kicked him where Inch had kicked the assassin and told him to clear off. I went back into The Red Leem and I managed to force out some sort of smile for Tilda. Old Nath had quickly whipped a round of drinks onto the sailor’s table and his mates were drinking and ogling the local dancing girls Nath had hired especially for the night. Tilda never performed more than once an evening. These girls were fine strapping wenches who danced like chunkrahs. They made great play with gossamer veils, they were heavily made-up, and each one would roll a sailor this night, or she was no true daughter of Pa Mejab!

Pando na Memis said to me as I sat down: “That was the captain of an argenter, you know, Dray.”

“I should hope so,” I said. “Nath runs a respectable house.”

Tilda said she was tired and we all stood up as she left the table. The night roared on and presently, mindful that I must see about a ship the next day, I, too, went to bed. Tilda stood by her door, beckoning to me. She had waited for me to retire. A lamp burned in her room. I had made plenty of noise coming up the stairs. Even then, I believe I knew what she was going to ask me. I sat on the bed, but Tilda prowled restlessly. She wore a long gown of jade, a green glinting and glorious. How strange, how incongruous, that I, Pur Dray, Krozair of Zy, dedicated to the utter destruction of the Green of Grodno, could sit and watch and not be moved!