“Oh,” I said, and could say no more.
Zenicce! That great enclave city of a million souls, threaded by canals and boulevards, where Delia and I had been slave, where Princess Natema lived, happily married now to Prince Varden! Where I had met Gloag, my comrade who, although not a man, was all the more human for that. Where I had slaved in the black marble quarries. And where now my own powerful enclave of Strombor no doubt wondered what had happened to their Lord. I hoped that Great-Aunt Shusha — who was not my great-aunt — ran Strombor in my stead, as was her right. Then I saw the colors of the banners. They flaunted there, purple and ocher, blazing in the streaming light of the twin Suns of Scorpio.
“Ponthieu,” I said. “She is of the House of Ponthieu.”
Well, Prince Pracek had led my Delia to the altar to wed her, although his plans had tumbled at that point Ponthieu was an enclave aligned with the foes of Strombor. So. . Valka said, “Now how can you tell that, Dray? You must have visited Zenicce, to know the colors of the houses-”
“Not so, Valka. Any sea-leem knows the colors of his victims.”
“True. Still, it is passing strange. All the Zeniccean colors are alike to me.”
So Valka had not heard of me all he might that night I had been dumped down into the slave benches of the old Nemo.
We took her without trouble. I must give her name, for it was, having regard to her speed, ludicrous on two counts. Her name was Splash Zorca.
She was clinker-built. Swifters and swordships and argenters were all carvel-built. This made me ponder.
That same day we made the island of Careless Repose where lay our renders’ nest. We had made a good cruise and the men were in the mood for relaxation. Viridia wanted to negotiate with another pirate captain for a new swordship to replace the ill-fated Venus. From this island with its entrance hidden by a small and unsuspected vegetation-clothed islet and with its beach of white sand and its village of comfortable houses we would sally forth on our roving raids against the sea commerce of the area. So far, no King’s Swordship had discovered the anchorage.
The pirates, like any good Kregan given half a chance, started in carousing. I went for a stroll along the white sand of the beach by the light of She of the Veils, brooding to myself. As was my custom I wore my scarlet breechclout and my weapons slung about me. In the warm weather of these latitudes that was ample clothing, even at night. By the pinkish light of the moons — for a lesser moon hurtled past above — I walked on with bent head, pondering.
Strom Erclan almost caught me.
He leaped on me from a boulder beside the vegetation’s edge and I saw the wicked flash of his dagger. I got his wrist in my fist and jerked him back; but he kicked me low down and sprang away, ripping out his rapier as he saw he would have to fight me for real.
I drew.
“You stinking cramph!” This Strom was reputed good with a rapier and main-gauche. I had seen him in action when we boarded and he showed no fear. I put myself in a position for fighting and waited, for I had no wish to kill him — then. “You mildewed rast! You lump of offal!” He went on shouting for a space, hoping, no doubt, to enrage me.
After a bit, I said, “Kleesh. Walk away quietly, or you are a dead man.”
Whether his breeding goaded him into madness, then, whether he was simply mad clear through with jealousy, matters little. He threw himself on me, his blades whirling and thrusting in a positive flurry of action and a fury of venom. I parried, caught him, twisted; but he eluded that one, having been caught once before. A swordsman need only see a fighting trick once to know it again. If he doesn’t, he is dead, of course.
Our blades crossed and slithered with that teeth-vibrating screech of metal. He leaped, I forced him back, I thrust, he took my blade on his dagger and held and thrust for me to take his blade on my dagger in turn. For a space the four slivers of steel slanted up in the pink moonglow, evil and slick and lethal, smooth and unbloodied.
Then, quick as a striking leem, he withdrew his dagger and thrust low. I swayed sideways, recovered and once more we fell into our fighting stances.
He was good. There was no doubt of that. I thought of Galna, whom I had fought in that corridor in what was now my own palace of Strombor; yes, it is all a long time ago, now; but I can still feel the jar of steel on steel and I can hear yet again the ring of blades as they met and crossed. Then he essayed a complicated passage, and I took him, and in the pink wash of moonlight from She of the Veils, Strom Erclan slumped with my rapier through his heart.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Raucous shouts and good-humored arguments broke the stillness of the night as the renders of the islands caroused in the wooden houses of the pirates’ lair.
In the fringe of the vegetation back along the beach lay the skewered body of Strom Erclan. Very soon the creeping crawling denizens of those woods would convert his body to bones and then these, too, would rot away until all that remained to show a man had existed would be the memory other men might carry in their minds.
I knew no one would mourn Strom Erclan for very long.
In the wooden barn-like house where most of the higher ranks in Viridia’s confidence were carousing, the atmosphere billowed thick with the fumes of wines culled from the freight holds of a hundred ships. Heaping platters of food loaded the heavily-timbered tables. Disheveled wenches darted in and out avoiding clutching hands in giggles or shrieks or abuse, each according to her nature. Food appeared on the tables in bounteous abundance, and disappeared down gullets with fascinating speed. The wine that was drunk! Men would suddenly screech and leap up and dance a wild jig, or leap head-over-heels across the floor, or two would fall into a deadly dagger fight that ended with one coughing his guts out bloodily across the floor, the other ready to face the render court of inquiry. Other half-men half-beasts drank and caroused in their own ways, and all were equal here, under the captains. To this select company Viridia had bidden me, Dray Prescot.
As I approached where she sat at the head of a long table, quaffing her wine and roaring like any jack-booted man of the sea, I noticed Valka sitting at the lower end of the table, his nose in a blackjack. He looked up as I passed, and winked. Shades of Inch, I said to myself, and planted my feet down on a clear space among the litter of bones and discarded meats on the floor. One blessing there was in all that pandemonium and guzzling and drinking and wenching, one evil we were spared; the only smoke in the room came wafting in from the glowing cook fires or rose from the succulent dishes covering the tables.
“Dray Prescot!” shouted Viridia, lolling back. Her blue eyes were not clouded with wine and I saw in their depths a deep and shrewd intelligence; yet her body lolled and her head jerked and she laughed shrilly, as though she were drunk. Near her a Chulik captain sat, a mass of gold lace and crimson silk, his tusks gleaming and — a fashion I had noticed before — tipped with gold. He was plying Viridia with wine. She laughed and drained the cup, and thrust it forward for replenishment. In general Chuliks can be trained into seamen; of the halflings the Hobolings are unquestionably the finest top-men in the business, and I wouldn’t give berth space to a Fristle, be wary of an Och, and detesting Rapas as I then did, would haul up the gangplank before letting one aboard my command. I knew that the Relts, those more gentle cousins of the Rapas, went to sea as supercargoes and clerks, but I doubted even them.
This Chulik captain, one Chekumte, was trying to sell a swordship to Viridia. His ploy was transparent to me, and, I saw, to Viridia also. I fancied she could drink him under the table.