Clark frowned. "Sir – I assure you, nothing of yours has been touched."
"Almost truth," Nuskere interjected in a whispery voice, snout wrinkled in distaste. "The young kujen drained every last egg of voodku in the house."
"That will be paid for!" The corporal twitched slightly, trying not to glare at the majordomo. "Mi'lord, I was careful to pack away all of your clothes and other personal effects and -"
Gemmilsky's eyes narrowed. "Very thoughtful," he said coldly. "Some of my men will be arriving outside in short order. Bring all of my carefully packed belongings downstairs and see them properly stowed. A bill has already been submitted for the rest to the Legation in Parus."
Clark nodded, hoping the man wouldn't lose his temper and have to be restrained. Gemmilsky turned to the old Jehanan and produced a sheaf of documents from his coat pocket.
"Nuskere Pol, I am pained to inform you that I will no longer require your services or those of the staff." Johann pressed the heavy documents into the majordomo's claw. Clark could see they were affixed with wax stamps and different kinds of seals and some were bound in metallic thread. "Here are papers of release from your service to the household and severance pay. Generous, I hope. There are also letters of recommendation, for I trust you will find a worthy household to serve in future."
The corporal stiffened a little at the man's tone and was about to speak sharply with him when the front door banged open and the cook burst in, bags of eggs clutched to his heavy coat. The Jehanan was hissing and warbling at a tremendous rate, far faster than Clark's translator could keep up. Old Nuskere stiffened in alarm, but Gemmilsky – his face softening for the first time – replied to the agitated cook in a calm tone, managing a very respectable version of the same wavering hoots and trills.
Catching a bit of the conversation, Clark stepped to the open door and looked out warily. The front gates had been thrown wide and a procession of enormous hairy behemoths was striding up the drive. Each hrak – an untranslatable word the corporal's translator supplied from context – bore a creaking howdah of wooden slats and leather fittings. The lead hrak slowed to a halt, guided by a tiny, short-faced type of Jehanan the corporal had never seen before, and then knelt with a snuffling groan.
"Wouldn't expect to see mammoths here, would you?" Gemmilsky said, coming to stand at Clark's shoulder. "They're not the real thing, of course, just an unusual Jehanan analogue. True mammals, too. Quite rare on this world. A biologist I consulted in Parus thinks they might actually be native. Now, you had carefully packed baggage to bring down, didn't you?"
The corporal nodded, tore his eyes from the hrak settling onto the lawn, and hurried back down the hall. Old Nuskere was wringing his hands, watching the near-legendary hrak and their drivers with wide eyes, when Johann turned from the door himself.
"Master? Are you…are you going to the Cold Lands? Truly?"
Gemmilsky nodded, a faint sparkle in his eyes. "I am. Too many Imperials here for my taste. I hear many wild tales of the lands beyond Capsia. I would like to see the cities in the ice for myself, if they truly exist."
The Jehanan shuddered and pushed the door closed with both hands. "Horrible fates await those who pass the White Teeth, master. Horrible…you should stay here – I am sure the brown-faced men will leave soon. This is your home!"
Johann looked around the hallway with a pensive, sad expression. "It was, for a little while. Now, I want you all out of here before the sun is high. No one is to stay! Let these Mйxica and their minging lapdogs feed themselves." He paused, a grin starting to twist his lips. "Tell cook to give all the food and drink in the house to the poor. My gift to the city. And I give you and the other servants all the bed linens, towels, everything but the furniture and the manse itself."
Nuskere stared at him for a moment, then began to trill helplessly in laughter, sides shaking, hiding his snout in stiff old hands.
Tezozуmac waved cheerily at a Gandarian nobleman moving quietly through the scrub higher on the slope and looked down quizzically at Colmuir. The master sergeant was down on one knee, the long-barreled rifle at the ready.
"What was the name of that one?" The prince pointed over his shoulder. "The one with the particularly long snout and the green and black felting on his jacket?"
"Lord Pardane Fes," the Skawtsman whispered, tensely scanning the plane trees rising above the high grass. "Cousin of the kujen I believe and an avid hunter… Mi'lord, you really should lower your profile. The xixixit – -"
"What exactly is this fearsome creature?" Tezozуmac interrupted. He was feeling rather good – the aerocar ride had cleared his head a little, the day was pleasantly cool, and there had been a fine selection of beverages laid on by the kujen. While the natives had not made their way into the hills by air, they still managed to put on a very respectable luncheon in a pavilion under spreading trees. "Dawd tried to show me a picture, but I was busy throwing up at the time."
Colmuir did not look up, keeping his attention focused on the upper branches of the nearest copse. The Ghuhore district lay in the rain shadow of jagged mountains on the southern side of the Kophen. The vegetation ran to grassy hillsides spotted with clusters of dry-leaf trees and thickets of a spiny bramble. Steep ravines filled with thick brush split the slopes. The tu grass varied in height from two to four meters, which made visibility difficult for men on foot and excellent hunting territory for the triply-winged, uncannily silent xixixit.
"A native wasp, mi'lord, of uncommon size and ferocity. Hangs in the trees like a three-meter-long bat. Carries a bifurcated stinger – the poison dissolves the innards of the victim – very grisly, you understand."
Tezozуmac frowned, checking his teeth for bits of grilled meat. He had found the roast zizunaga fillets very savory. "Are they colored like a wasp? I'd think yellow and black would stand out in this country…Or are they sort of a mixed brown and green with tan legs?"
"Sir, I don't rightly – what did you say?"
The prince pointed, Colmuir snapped his head around and an enormous, mottled insect burst up from the high grass between Tezozуmac and Lord Pardane Fes and his loaders. The master sergeant hurled himself between his charge and the xixixit, swinging the rifle around. Shoved off balance, the prince fell backwards into the grass, broke through a screen of immature tu stalks and tumbled down the hillside.
The wasp, crystalline wings blurring into near-invisibility, darted to the right. Colmuir's rifle bellowed, spitting a long tongue of flame and sending the crack! of a gunshot echoing across the hillside. Lord Pardane's servants bolted, the noble Jehanan flung himself flat on the ground and the slender tree above him burst into flames as the self-fusing high-explosive bullet smashed into the trunk and blew apart.
Colmuir cursed, jacked back the ejector lever on the side of the rifle and groped for a fresh round. The Jehanan lord bounced back up, shrilling lurid insults at the clumsy human and caught sight of the xixixit blurring downslope, weaving between the isolated trees with fluid grace. Burning branches falling around him, Pardane Fes braced his rifle, took aim and squeezed the trigger.
The master sergeant felt the air over his head snap with the passage of a bullet, and rolled up himself, shouting in alarm. "Mi'lord! Mi'lord Prince, where are you?"
Downslope, the Jehanan bullet narrowly missed the fleeing xixixit and blew apart in a stand of red-barked brush. Flames licked up from the wounded trunk, caught among dry leaves and began to smoke furiously. The insect dodged into the unexpected cover and daintily wiped its feeding mandibles clean of fresh blood. Having only whetted its appetite, the xixixit then noticed a bipedal figure stumbling through the brush at the bottom of the slope and took flight, pleased at the prospect of a second meal so soon in the day.