The great gate was shut and barred. Soldiers stolidly tramped the ledges of the palisade, pike on shoulder, beads of moisture glistening on their steel caps. They glanced uneasily at the fires on the beach and stared with even greater fixity toward the forest, now a vague, dark line in the crawling fog. The compound now lay empty of life—a bare, darkened space. Candles gleamed feebly through the cracks of the hub, and light streamed from the windows of the manor. There was silence except for the tread of the sentries, the drip of water from the eaves, and the distant singing of the buccaneers.
Some faint echo of this singing penetrated into the great hall, where Valenso sat at wine with his unsolicited guest.
“Your men make merry, sir,” grunted the count.
“They are glad to feel the sand under their feet again,” answered Zarono. “It has been a wearisome voyage—aye, a long, stern chase.” He lifted his goblet gallantly to the unresponsive girl who sat on his host’s right, and drank ceremoniously.
Impassive attendants ranged the walls: soldiers with pikes and helmets, servants in satin coats. Valenso’s household in this wild land was a shadowy reflection of the court he had kept in Kordava.
The manor house, as he insisted on calling it, was a marvel for that remote place. A hundred men had worked night and day for months to build it. While its log-walled exterior was devoid of ornamentation, within it was as nearly a copy of Korzetta Castle as possible. The logs that composed the walls of the hall were hidden with heavy silk tapestries, worked in gold. Ship’s beams, stained and polished, formed the lofty ceiling. The floor was covered with rich carpets. The broad stair that led up from the hall was likewise carpeted, and its massive balustrade had once been a galleon’s rail.
A fire in the wide stone fireplace dispelled the dampness of the night. Candles in the great silver candelabrum in the center of the broad mahogany board lit the hall, throwing long shadows on the stair.
Count Valenso sat at the head of that table, presiding over a company composed of his niece, his piratical guest, Calbro, and the captain of the guard. The smallness of the company emphasized the proportions of the vast board, where fifty guests might have sat at ease.
“You followed Strombanni?” asked Valenso. “You drove him this far afield?”
“I followed Strombanni,” laughed Zarono, “but he was not fleeing from me. Strombanni is not the man to flee from anyone. Nay; he came seeking for something— something I, too, desire.”
“What could tempt a pirate or a buccaneer to this naked land?” muttered Valenso, staring into the sparkling contents of his goblet.”
“What could tempt a Count of Zingara?” retorted Zarono, an avid light burning in his eyes.
“The rottenness of the royal court might sicken a man of honor,” remarked Valenso.
“Korzettas of honor have endured its rottenness with tranquility for several generations,” said Zarono bluntly. “My lord, indulge my curiosity: Why did you sell your lands, load your galleon with the furnishings of your castle, and sail over the horizon out of the knowledge of the regent and the nobles of Zingara? And why settle here, when your sword and your name might carve out a place for you in any civilized land?”
Valenso toyed with the golden seal-chain about his neck. “As to why I left Zingara,” he said, “that is my own affair. But it was chance that left me stranded here. I had brought all my people ashore, and much of the furnishings you mentioned, intending to build a temporary habitation. But my ship, anchored out there in the bay, was driven against the cliffs of the north point and wrecked by a sudden storm out of the west. Such storms are common enough at certain times of the year. After that, there was naught to do but remain and make the best of it.”
“Then you would return to civilization, if you could?”
“Not to Kordava. But perhap to some far clime—to Vendhya, or even Khitai…”
“Do you not find it tedious here, my lady?” asked Zarono, for the first time addressing himself directly to Belesa.
Hunger to see a new face and hear a new voice had brought the girl to the great hall that night, but now she wished that she had remained in her chamber with Tina. There was no mistaking the meaning in the glance Zarono turned on her. Although his speech was decorous and formal, his expression sober and respectful, it was but a mask through which gleamed the violent and sinister spirit of the man. He could not keep the burning desire out of his eyes when he looked at the aristocratic young beauty in her low-necked satin gown and jeweled girdle. “There is little diversity here,” she answered in a low voice.
“If you had a ship,” Zarono bluntly asked his host, “you would abandon this settlement?”
“Perhaps,” admitted the count.
“I have a ship,” said Zarono. “If we could reach an agreement—”
“What sort of an agreement?” Valenso lifted his head to stare suspiciously at his guest.
“Share and share alike,” said Zarono, laying his hand on the broad with fingers spread wide, like the legs of a giant spider. The fingers quivered with nervous tension, and the buccaneer’s eyes gleamed with a new light. “Share what?” Valenso stared at him in evident bewilderment. “The gold I brought with me went down in my ship and, unlike the broken timbers, it did not wash ashore.”
“Not that!” Zarono made an impatient gesture. “Let us be frank, my lord. Can you pretend it was chance that caused you to land at this particular spot, with a thousand miles of coast from which to choose?”
“There is no need to pretend,” answered Valenso coldly. “My ship’s master was Zingelito, formerly a buccaneer. He had sailed this coast and persuaded me to land here, telling me he had a reason he would later disclose. But this reason he never divulged because, the day after he landed, he disappeared into the woods, and his headless body was found later by a hunting party. Obviously he had been ambushed and slain by the Picts.”
Zarono stared fixedly at Valenso for a space. “Sink me!” quoth he at last. “I believe you, my lord. A Korzetta has no skill at lying, regardless of his other accomplishments. And I will make you a proposal. I will admit that, when I anchored out there in the bay, I had other plans in mind. Supposing you to have already secured the treasure, I meant to take this fort by strategy and cut all your throats. But circumstances have caused me to change my mind…” He cast a glance at Belesa that brought color to her face and made her lift her head indignantly, and continued: “I have a ship to carry you out of exile, with your household and such of your retainers as you shall choose. The rest can fend for themselves.”
The attendants along the walls shot uneasy, sidelong glances at one another.
Zarono went on, too brutally cynical to conceal his attentions: “But first, you must help me secure the treasure for which I’ve sailed a thousand miles.”
“What treasure, in Mitra’s name?” demanded the count angrily. “Now you are yammering like that dog Strombanni.”
“Have you ever heard of Bloody Tranicos, the greatest of the Barachan pirates?”
“Who has not? It was he who stormed the island castle of the exiled prince, Tothmekri of Stygia, put the people to the sword, and bore off the treasure the prince had brought with him when he fled from Khemi.”
“Aye! And the tale of that treasure brought men of the Red Brotherhood swarming like vultures after carrion— pirates, buccaneers, and even the wild black corsairs from the South. Fearing betrayal by his captains, Tranicos fled northward with one ship and vanished from the knowledge of men. That was nearly a hundred years ago.