“Wow! You’ll do fine here,” the Ambassador said. “That’s the ticket.” Flint wondered what a ticket was.
The girl flushed very prettily, her face, breasts, and hands turning so dark they were almost green. That made her look better. Flint realized that the flunkies outside had been blue too, but he hadn’t noted it in the poor light. Just as his own people were green, and Sol’s people were shades of white, brown, and black, these Capellans were blue. It all depended on the environment, especially the type of stellar radiation they received.
“You must be the envoy from Etamin. We know there are real men there.”
“Yes,” Flint agreed. “Will you guide me to the…”
“Throneroom,” the Ambassador supplied.
“Throneroom?” Flint finished. “I am a stranger here.”
“Gladly, sir,” she agreed, putting one hand on his elbow, sliding her arm inside his. “I am Delle.”
“I am Flint of Outworld,” he said as she walked him down a long hall. “I am from a primitive world.”
“Yes. The gossip is all over the palace, how you brought Old Scorch to heel. That must have been some—”
“The dragon?” But of course it was. Just as the most ornery dinosaur of his region of Outworld had been dubbed Old Snort, a term both respectful and descriptive, the most ornery dragon here would be Old Scorch. Evidently news traveled like lightning in the palace, unless the girls had been watching from a window. “He’s a fine animal.”
“He’s burned eleven men in his day,” she said. “That’s approaching a record. Usually an animal is destroyed after three, but he’s the Queen’s pet. He never scorches her, you bet. He’s not supposed to be used beyond the palace grounds, but there must have been a foulup.”
“Very interesting,” the voice in his skull remarked. “They were supposed to send a docile animal.”
“As I said,” Flint proceeded, “I am primitive. Please do not take offense—but I am unfamiliar with your apparel. Does it reflect your form?”
“My form?” She looked perplexed.
“On my world, women have thinner arms and—”
“Watch it!” the Ambassador snapped.
“—legs,” Flint finished.
Delle laughed so heartily her breasts actually flopped in the rigid half-cups. “Here, I’ll show you.” She glanced back down the hall, then drew him into an alcove. When she was satisfied they had privacy she pulled the side of her neckline away from her shoulder, baring her upper arm and half of the rest of her breast. “See, these are padded sleeves. It’s the fashion, also warm on cold nights. I’m really quite skinny underneath.”
And all blue. “Oh.” Flint was relieved. “Forgive the confusion of a barbarian.”
“You really thought all that was me?”
“I could not be certain. The skirt—”
“What a fat ass you thought I had!” she exclaimed, delighted. “Well, catch a glimpse of this!” And she drew up a bulging hank of her skirt and petticoats to display as slender and symmetrical a pair of blue legs as Flint could have wished. “This is a farthingale, a kind of bustle under the skirt. I’m quite human underneath. I have all the things a woman needs. Here, put your hand—”
“Careful!” the voice in his skull cried.
“Why?” Flint asked both girl and voice.
“To feel my thigh,” Delle said. “To prove it’s real. And whatever else you may doubt. It really is all there.”
“Because she’ll seduce you if she can, quite without qualm,” the Ambassador explained at the same time, like a conscience. “You are a handsome man from an enticingly primitive planet, and she would gain notoriety. Don’t let it happen. Suppose the Queen wanted your service, and you just had exhausted yourself with a handmaiden, little better than a chambermaid? Very bad form.”
Oho! Flint did not know the distinction between a handmaiden and a chambermaid, but he got the drift. First the dragon, then the flirt, testing him. The Queen was taking a greater interest in him than he had supposed.
Flint put his hand on her firm thigh. “Excellent,” he remarked sincerely. He slid his fingers up to cup her supple buttock. “How I regret I cannot explore this matter further.”
“Oh, but you can,” Delle said warmly. “I know a room where no one goes, and it has a huge bed—”
“But my urgency to wish Queen Bess a happy birthday is so pressing that all else palls. I may not dally.” And as he spoke the word “pressing” he gave her buttock a good hard pinch, so that she jumped involuntarily, and withdrew.
“Beautiful!” the Ambassador said. “You are a born diplomat!”
No, Flint thought. No diplomat. He merely liked to make his own decisions, to seduce rather than be seduced. The more someone pushed him, the more he went his own way. As the bastard speaking in his skull might find out in due course. The Ambassador was taking entirely too much interest.
The girl could make no serious objection. She was loyal to her Queen—perhaps a direct agent doing the Queen’s specific bidding. Flint had learned on the slave world of Sphere Canopus not to confuse the relation between master and servant. People who failed the Queen could lose their heads. Probably nothing that went on in this palace was hidden from the monarch. This place was like a giant spider web (one of Sol system’s more intriguing phenomena), and woe betide the visiting fly who misstepped.
They came sedately to the entrance of the main hall. “Now you must wait for the herald,” Delle explained. “Then walk slowly up and make obeisance to the Queen.”
“That’s right,” the Ambassador said. “I will guide you. After that formality, you should have no trouble. Once the liquor starts flowing, just about anything goes.”
Flint clicked his teeth once in acknowledgment. Maybe then the Ambassador would kindly take a nap and leave Flint to his own devices. He needed no advice in handling liquor, food, and pretty girls.
“His Excellency Lord Pimpernel, Envoy Extraordinary of System Sheriton, realm of the Ram,” the herald announced. A rather pudgy little man with spotty skin minced up and made a deep bow to the Queen, who was out of the line of Flint’s vision.
“The Lord High Poopdoodle of Pollux, Most Gracious Tzar of the Twins, Gentleman of Gemini.” And a tall, thin, old man marched out, almost stumbling over his hanging sword, while Flint stifled a laugh. Poopdoodle of Pollux? It sounded like dragon refuse.
But the next introduction was even worse. “The Regent of the Fabled Green Planet, Scion of Star Etamin, Conqueror of the Dragon, Flint of Outworld!” the herald bawled.
Flint stood still, stunned by the audacity of the fanciful credits he had been assigned. Outworld had no Regent, and he had no authority even in his local tribe, let alone his planet. Were they trying to mock him?
“Get in there!” the skull-voice cried. “All their titles are ludicrous. Popdod of Pollux is just an ambassador, same as me. He didn’t balk!”
So Popdod had become Poopdoodle. The Ambassador was right: Flint had nothing to complain about.
He marched in. Now he saw the Queen, standing before her throne. She was short and blue, but impressive in padded sleeves and farthingale hoops that made her skirt even more like a barrel than that of Delle’s. The material of her dress was thick and quilted, with golden thread and bright jewels at every interstice. She wore several necklaces of jewels that hung halfway down her body, reaching out to the edge of the vertical skirt. On either side of her neck were huge ruffs and wire frames extending the lines of her head out a foot or more. She wore an obvious wig pinned to her scalp, but still looked almost bald beneath it Her crown perched at the top like the spire of a church. In her right hand she held the scepter of power.