“She is mad with love for me,” the Prince said loudly, almost boastingly. “Every day that passes seems to her an unendurable delay!”
“Ah? Well, let us pass to more significant matters,” Arkola said.
Turning from the boastful Prince, Arkola directed his attentions to the one member of this council who had yet to speak. The little wizard-priest, Ool, had sat quietly through all this, plump soft hands folded in the deep sleeves of his robe, his bald, buttery face placid and unreadable. Like a cold, malignant little Buddha he squatted, clever slitted eyes roving from face to face, listening to every word, but never permitting the slightest shadow of a reaction to mar the calm indifference of his impenetrable serenity.
“What says the Uncanny One to these dangers that now confront us?” demanded Arkola. The little priest put his head on one side, considering. Then he spoke, and his voice was mild and gentle, soft and high of pitch.
“Like all mighty men of valor, my lord, you reduce the range of possible actions to the simple alternatives of battle or surrender. However, there remain other avenues open to us.”
“And what are they?” Arkola growled. “I confess I can see no other choice but to either pay the price the Zanadarians ask, or refuse to pay it and face a battle.”
The priest nodded, candlelight glistening on his round bald pate.
“Yet other solutions do exist,” he said mildly. “Let me call them to your attention, and to the attention of my lords. Suppose―” a sweet smile hovered about his lips and benevolence beamed in his cherubic expression “―suppose we refuse to acknowledge our debt, and yet Thuton is unable to attack us.”
Murrak, the grizzled old war leader, stared at the calm little priest in puzzlement.
“How `unable’?” he rumbled.
“From illness, perchance,” Ool purred, his face placid and his voice gentle. “There are ways, you know, my lords! A letter from this council to his hands―a letter imbued with a toxic venom―or a gift of nubile female slaves, each infected with a virulent fever―or a jeweled gaud, some precious bauble, with a sharp edge calculated to cut his fingers, an edge steeped in some poisonous decoction … .”
I have heard the voice of evil in my time, but I must confess that my blood ran cold as I listened to the soft, mild voice of this smiling little priest as he discussed the ways and means of poisoning a man without his knowledge. And I consider it much to the credit of the lords of the Black Legion, simple, hard, practical war veterans all, and no subtle Borgias, that they were almost as revolted as I at the oily, purring suggestions proffered by Ool the Uncanny.
“My Lord!” Murrak appealed to Arkola. “Never would a Black Legion warrior sully his honor by stooping to such vileness! Surely, you cannot consider ―will not consider―”
Arkola pondered the priest’s words, jaw resting on one scarred fist, his cold eyes thoughtful. I could see his mind exploring, however reluctantly, the possible avenues of action opened up by such a plan. But his grim mouth was puckered with distaste and sour disapproval was stamped into his features.
His reply temporized without actually giving a firm answer to the little priest’s proposal. Then the conversation turned to a more general discussion of fighting strength and military preparations. I gathered from the following converse that Prince Thuton of the Sky Pirates demanded payment for the person of Darloona. Some while before she had been captured by the Chac Yuul, Darloona had been a guest or prisoner of the Zanadarian monarch; our escape from the City in the Clouds had been occasioned by my chance discovery that the treacherous Thuton, while pretending to espouse her cause, had actually been negotiating secretly with Arkola over her person. He had demanded a heavy price for her, but had been willing to sell the Princess of Shondakor to her enemies.
Now that her escape from Zanadar had brought her so swiftly into the clutches of the Chac Yuul, Thuton evidently believed that Arkola had somehow had a hand in that escape which was completely untrue. But it seemed he now demanded full payment of the ransom, on the threat of all-out war. This was the dilemma in which the conquering legions of Arhola now found themselves.
Little of the conversation that ensued registered on my mind. My brain was a whirling turmoil of consternation, caused by the incredible discovery that the woman I loved would soon wed the sly, foppish Prince of the Black Legion―and by her own desire, or so it was given out. I could not and would not believe this terrible news to be true. Doubtless a helpless prisoner of the Prince, Darloona was being forced into this wedding.
Whatever the true reason for her acceptance of Vaspian’s proposal, I must know it. I must hear from her own lips that she truly desired to wed the Black Legion Prince, or I would never believe it.
A thousand thoughts went through my dazed mind. That I loved the proud and beautiful Princess with every atom of manhood in my body, mind, and soul, was known only to me. She knew nothing of my love, for never had I dared to speak of it―indeed, the full realization of my love had only burst upon me when she had been taken from my side, and hence the opportunity to speak of it had never arisen.
I know not what she thought of me. Surely, by now, her first contempt had been allayed. Through a series of confusions and accidents, Darloona had become persuaded that I was a coward and an honorless weakling. My labors in her behalf, my striving to rescue her from the grip of her wily and treacherous enemy, Thuton, must have proved to her that her original opinions of me were inaccurate. At any rate, I must hear the truth from her own lips.
And I dreaded the moment when I should learn the truth!
Not long after this, the Black Legion council broke up and the lords departed their several ways. My patron, Prince Vaspian, rose languidly to his feet, drawing about his slender shoulders a hooded cloak of dark green velvet, and left the chamber after directing a secret glance of dismissal at the hidden position where I stood, concealed from all eyes by the draperies.
In obedience to his command, I retreated from the opening and made my own exit from the chamber by means of the secret passageway whose presence he had indicated to me.
This passage, I noted, connected with yet others. The walls of the royal palace of Shondakor were thick, and it seemed they contained a maze of secret tunnels and sliding panels and spyholes even as had the mighty citadel of Zanadar.
Whim directed me to explore these passageways a bit before going to my quarters in the Prince’s suite. I had no way of knowing but what a working knowledge of this secret network of hidden passages might someday soon become valuable to me.
The walls of the tunnels were at intervals pierced with spyholes. Small shields masked these eyeholes. Sliding them aside I saw that the passageways had carried me deep within the royal precincts of the palace.
I vowed to explore just a bit farther before turning back and going about my business.
The sound of muffled voices conversing in low tones drew me to one particular eyehole. I slid the shield aside, set my eye to the tiny aperture, and found myself gazing into a sumptuously appointed apartment. From the delicacy and luxuriousness of the decorations, I assumed it was a lady’s boudoir.
I had but slender opportunity to observe the decor, however, as my attention was seized by the two figures who stood within the center of the room. They were a man and a woman, but I could not see their faces and from the faint murmur of their voices I could not even make out what they were saying to each other, except that the woman seemed to be pleading tenderly and the man giving quiet refusal.
With a shock of amazement I saw that the man was none other than my princely patron, Vaspian himself!