E.C. Tubb - The Winds of Gath

She waited until the guards had closed on the others, ready to grip or strike should the need arise. Irritably she sniffed at her pomander. The drugs were too weak. She needed something stronger to sharpen her mind and strengthen her voice. She found it in her anger.

"You!" She rose and glared at Dumarest. "Explain!"

"My Lady!" The girl was oblivious of her guards. "How can you allow such a man to insult me? A penniless traveler to make such an accusation. Men have died for less!"

"As he will die if he cannot prove his statement," promised the Matriarch. She stared at Dumarest, her face cruel. "It will not be an easy death, that I promise. Now. Explain!"

"Yes, My Lady." He paused, looking at the girl, the cyber, the watchful guards before looking back at the old woman. "I can only guess at your reasons for coming to Gath," he said. "But I would imagine that one of them was to arrive at a decision concerning your successor. Would that be the case?"

"You digress!" snapped the old woman, then: "Yes, that is correct."

"It would not be hard for a man trained in the arts of prediction to guess whom that successor would be." Dumarest did not look at the cyber. "Almost anyone, knowing you, your attachment to your ward, knowing too of this journey could have made a similar guess. The worlds of Kund are rich, My Lady?"

"Very."

"Such a prize would be worth a great deal of trouble. That trouble was taken. If the successor of your choice could be replaced by a tool of their own—what then of the worlds of Kund?"

He paused, conscious of the heat of the room, the scent of spice, the rising tension. Conscious too, of the narrow path he trod. The girl had been quick to point out their relative positions. Had the Matriarch been of the same nature as the Prince of Emmened he would be dead by now. But she, of all people, could not dare to make a mistake.

"Continue!" She held a golden pomander to her nostrils; it muffled her command.

"A man named Sime arrived on the same ship as the Prince of Emmened. With him traveled a crone and a man little more than a boy. Sime carried a coffin in which reposed the dead body of his wife, or so the crone told those who were curious. They believed her; why not? Gath is a strange world with strange potentialities was natural for him to have carried such a burden to such a place."

"Why?"

"As a disguise. How else could a tall young woman, attractive, regal, be shielded from view? You were alert, watchful for assassins, wary of anything you could not explain or trust. Once your suspicions had been aroused the plan would certainly fail. But there was nothing to arouse your doubts. A man with a coffin. A poor, deluded creature more mad than sane. How could anyone guess that, beneath the outer shell, rested the twin of your ward?"

"You lie!" The girl lunged forward, sobbed with frustrated anger as she felt the restraining grip of her guards. "My Lady! He lies!"

"Perhaps." The Matriarch put aside her pomander. "If so he will regret it. Continue!"

"The crone was working with Sime. It was she who told the story, circulated the rumors, watched the coffin while he slept. The young man traveled with them by chance. She killed him during the storm. She tried to kill me in the same way but failed. Now she is dead."

Dead at the bottom of the cliff, driven over the edge by the confusion of the winds, dead and taking her secrets with her. Muscles knotted at the edge of his jaw as he thought about it.

"The rest is simple," he rasped. "At the height of the storm the substitution was made. The Lady Seena was lured into a quiet room. This girl had been smuggled into the tents. They changed clothes and the impostor answered your summons. She stands at your side. The person who you would make the next ruler of Kund."

He fell silent, waiting, guessing what the questions would be.

"An ingenious fabrication," said Dyne in his soft modulation. "You will note, My Lady, how much has been glossed over. The Lady Seena lured into a quiet room. The supposed impostor smuggled into the tents. How?"

"I penetrated your guards," said Dumarest. "that I could do, almost unaided, others could do far easier with help." He looked at the Matriarch. "I found the empty coffin. In it, below the empty simulacrum of a dead woman, is a hollow compartment. The girl rested there drugged with quick-time. She left the scent of her perfume. I smelled the same odor in a room belonging, to the cyber's retinue. The girl is wearing it now."

"My perfume?" She was bold, he had to give her that, but how else could she be? "You must know it, My Lady. It is a scent I always wear."

The old woman nodded.

"And how does he know so much?" The girl was triumphant. "He is lying, My Lady. He had no reason to suspect Sime. How could he?"

"Because I am a traveler," snapped Dumarest. "I know how they act, how they feel, how they are after a passage. No genuine traveler could have carried that coffin from the ship. Sime realized his mistake and asked for help. He got it. But later, when I offered him a lift for his coffin, he refused it. That box was heavy; I know, I helped to carry it. Sime was a fake." He saw the expression in the old woman's eyes.

"I have met others of his type before," he said quietly. "They look gaunt, starved and almost dead but they are far from that. Their muscles are more efficient, their metabolism a little different, that is all. Your physician will verify that. Sime was no experienced traveler. My guess is that both he and the crone bribed the handler and rode High. Their companion had to die to seal that knowledge. The stakes were too high for them to take any risk."

"And you?" The old woman was shrewd. "Why should they want to kill you?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "Perhaps because I had been close to the Lady Seena. Perhaps because someone wanted me dead. I think the crone shot at me on the journey but I can't be sure. I am sure that she tried to kill me during the storm."

"So you say," said the Matriarch. Then: "Is that all?"

"Yes, My Lady."

He knew that it wasn't enough.

The Matriarch thought the same but the seed of doubt had been planted and she had to be sure. Unerringly she asked the one question he couldn't answer.

"Where is this man Sime?"

"I don't know, My Lady." He added to the answer, "He is not with the other travelers. I saw no sign of him by the coffin. He could be making his way back to the field or—"

"Yes?"

"He could be hidden in your tents." He realized the emptiness of the suggestion. "I doubt that he is but—"

"Search the tents!" snapped the Matriarch to her guards. "Send outside to find the coffin and bring it within." She returned her attention to Dumarest. "You claim that this girl has been substituted for my ward. Now, if she came from the coffin, as you claim, where is my ward now?"

The cyber gave him no chance to answer.

"Surely that alone proves the fallacy of his claim, My Lady. Assuming the logic of what he says there could only be one place where the real Lady Seena could be hidden. Inside the coffin. I assume that he has not found her?"

"No," said Dumarest shortly. "I have no doubt that she was supposed to be hidden in the coffin after the substitution. No doubt either that Sime, still acting his part, would pretend grief and rage and throw it over the cliffs into the sea." His eyes met those of the Matriarch. "It would be the only safe thing to do," he explained. "The coffin had to be as it was. The weight had to be the same in case anyone was curious. And there would be no need to keep the Lady Seena alive longer than was essential."

"I am the Lady Seena Thoth!" The girl screamed her rage. "Remember that!"

"Quiet, child." The old woman was disturbed. The traveler made good sense, assuming that he knew what he was talking about, and he had never struck her as a fool. But one thing troubled her. "Why? Why have you bothered to tell me all this? What is Kund to you?"