Now he found himself in the living room of the apartment. Before him, doors opened to two bedrooms, a bathroom, and the head of a stair leading down to the third story of the palace. In the mild air of an autumnal warm spell, the doors of the bedrooms stood open. One, Jorian supposed, contained Estrildis; the other her lady-in-waiting, whoever she was.
No light burned in these rooms, and little moonlight mitigated the darkness. Jorian wondered how to determine which bedroom harbored which woman. It would not do to awaken the lady-in-waiting by mistake. He must tiptoe to the door of each room, peer in, and, if still in doubt, approach the bed closely enough to settle the question. While he did not know the lady-in-waiting, he hoped at least that she was a brunet, making it easy to distinguish her from the blond Estrildis.
He started toward the left-hand door and at once tripped over an unseen obstacle. He had assumed, without thinking much about the matter, that all the chairs and tables would be in the same places as when he had fled from Xylar. He had forgotten the womanly passion for rearranging the furniture.
The invisible object fell over with an apocalyptic crash. Jorian staggered and recovered, silently cursing a barked shin.
Before Jorian could take a step nearer the left-hand door, a terrific din of barks, growls, and snarls erupted from that bedroom. Jorian had a glimpse of the moonlit, gleaming eyes and bared fangs of some beast bounding toward him.
Swordless, Jorian snatched up the chair he had stumbled over. He brought it up, legs pointing toward the charging watchdog. The animal fetched up against the chair, snapping at the legs, with a force that almost bowled Jorian over. When it fell back to the floor, it tried to circle round Jorian, who turned to keep the chair between himself and the dog.
Women's voices came from the bedrooms: "Who's there?"
"Help!"
"Who are you?" Then came the buzz of a wheel-lock lighter and a spark of light from the left-hand chamber.
A ghostly figure appeared at the door of the other bedroom. A woman's voice, unfamiliar to Jorian, cried, "Help! Help! Murder!" The woman rushed to the head of the stairway and vanished.
Estrildis, small, stocky, and blond, appeared at the door of the other bedroom, carrying a candle. Still holding off the dog, Jorian shouted: "Darling! It's Jorian! Call this beast off!"
"Oh!" shrieked the little queen. "What—where—come, Thdy! Come back! Come here, Thoy! Good dog! Come, Thoy!"
The dog, which the candlelight revealed as a huge Shvenic mastiff, backed off, growling. Seizing the dog's collar, Estrildis cried: "What do you here, Jorian? I did not expect—"
The cries of the lady-in-waiting came up the stair: "Help! Robbers! Murder! Save the Queen!"
"Sweetheart!" cried Jorian. "I've come to take you away. Come quickly, ere the guards arrive!"
"But how—"
"Never mind! Put down that candle and tie up the dog!"
"But I must know—"
"Damn it, woman, if you don't come instanter—"
A clatter of arms on the stair interrupted Jorian's plea. Men flooded into the living room, the candlelight striking golden gleams from their steel. "Get him!" roared a soldierly voice.
Jorian perceived three naked swords coming toward him, with reinforcements following. He ran out the door to the terrace. There he took three running steps and a flying leap to catch the dangling end of the rope as high up as he could.
"Karadur!" he shouted. "Take us up, fast!"
He began hoisting himself up the rope. The bathtub rose. Before the rope's end had cleared the terrace, a guardsman, putting his sword between his teeth, also caught the rope and began to climb.
The ascent of the tub slowed. On the terrace, other armed figures clustered. One caught the tip of the rope, but the end slipped out of his grasp.
Jorian looked down into the upturned face of the guardsman below him. He thought he recognized the upcurled mustache.
"You're Duvian, are you not?" said Jorian. "I'm Jorian; don't you know me?"
The guardsman, with the sword in his teeth, could only grunt. From below came cries: "Who has a crossbow?"
"Well, fetch one, idiot!"
"You'd better let go," said Jorian. "If you are still there when we leave, I'll kick you loose or cut the rope above you. Then you will fall to your death."
The guardsman, holding the rope with his left hand and with his legs clamped around it, took the sword in his right hand and swung it at Jorian's legs, saying: " 'Tis my painful duty, O King!"
Jorian kicked, and the sword spun out of the guardsman's grasp. It struck the roof tiles, slid bumpily down the slope of the roof, disappeared over the edge, and landed with a crash on the paving below.
Jorian lowered himself on the rope and aimed another kick, at the guardsman's face. The kick missed, but the soldier relaxed his grip, slid down the rope to the end, and fell a few cubits to the terrace. He landed on one of his comrades, so that the two rolled on the terrace with a clashing of mail. Shouts of furious argument arose from the terrace, now dwindling beneath Jorian as the tub rose.
The jarring snap of a crossbow came up, and a bolt thrummed past. Jorian hoisted himself as fast as he could up to the tub and levered himself over the side. Another crossbow snapped, and a bolt hit the tub, making it ring like a bell. Jorian felt the side of the tub at the place whence the sound had come. His fingers found a bump where the bolt had dented the copper.
"Next thing," he panted, "they'll haul out a catapult. Tell Gorax to get us away with all demonic dispatch!"
"Whither?"
'To Othomae. Tell him to head east. As you said, we do have friends there."
Another crossbow quarrel hummed past below, but the tub was out of range. With the half-moon on their starboard bow, they flew eastward through the night. Jorian was silent, breathing deeply. Then he said:
"A plague, a murrian, and a pox on the Xylarians! By Imbal's brazen balls, I itch to burn their damned city down on their heads. What said your Mulvanian wiseacre about expecting the worst? I had the damnedest run of bad luck; Elidora must have it in for me. 'Twas like one of Physo's comedies. First I tripped over a chair in the dark. Then, Estrildis has somewhere obtained a watchdog the size of a lion, who knew me not. Then—"
"My son," moaned Karadur, "I pray you to reserve the tale till the morrow. I must needs get some sleep betwixt now and dawn. I cannot forgo rest as I could when I was your age."
The wizard curled up in his blanket and was soon snoring. When he canned down, Jorian found he could smile at himself. He mentally composed a jingle:
With nobody to listen to his tale of the abortive rescue, Jorian soon joined his companion in slumber.
Chapter Two THE GRAND DUKE'S PARK
GORAX INSISTS HE CANNOT PERSEVERE MUCH LONGER," said Karadur, peering into the murk. After leaving Xylar City, they had flown all day and crossed the Othomaean border. The overcast thickened, and rain began to fall. Jorian and Karadur huddled in their cloaks. But the rain fell more and more heavily, soaking them. Water sloshed about the bottom of the tub.
"Have we nought to bail out our ship with?" quavered Karadur. "Gorax complains of the additional weight of the water."
"Now that you mention it," said Jorian, "the tub has an outlet drain with a plug. It should be under that rope."
He inched his way to the faucet end of the tub and pushed aside the coil of rope. The plug was a large cork, driven in so firmly that Jorian's powerful fingers could not dislodge it. He pried the plug out with his dagger, and the bilge water drained out. Night came on.