Armada of Antares

Chapter 10

Tilda — and Pando!

How I wish Inch could be here now.

Pando had fleshed out, growing tall and straight in the seasons between now and our last meeting. He still carried that cheeky air about him, the urchin description perfectly apt, and I saw that he was short of his full stature of growth and short too, I fancied, in his full stature as a Kov. But imp of Sicce though he was, I had known him as a nine year old, a scamp, but a lad full of brightness and good humor, untidy, mischievous, and lovable.

And Tilda. My heart sank as I looked on Tilda the Beautiful. I remembered her as a genuinely beautiful woman, with that black hair floating around her as she swirled, black and lush as an impiter’s wing. I recalled those violet eyes that could flash into scorn or love, into hatred and mockery, and those sweet luscious lips, soft and melting. Her figure had been marvelous, firm and voluptuous and calculated to drive any mortal man to madness. She had not plagued me, only at the very end, there in the palace of Pomdermam, the capital of Tomboram, just before the Scorpion and the blue radiance had snatched me back to Earth. And no woman can touch me now, not one, not when I hold the form and face of my Delia with me.

So I stood looking at them as they trailed up, and I saw how Pando had changed and knew that with wise counsel he would become good in life. But Tilda! Her face was as beautiful as ever, even if betraying lines showed around her eyes and mouth. But her hair hung lank and bedraggled. And that glorious figure had coarsened, grown fat around the waist, sagging, and she walked in a slovenly slouch that I knew instinctively was not merely because she had been captured. Both of them were dressed in rags, the tattered remnants of finery.

After the battle I had washed and changed into a simple short tunic of finest white linen — that linen called verss — but pandering to old times Delia had caused to be stitched around neck, arms, and hem an inch-wide band of brilliant scarlet. So, I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor, stood cool, clean, and bathed, to greet these two, my friends, in their dirt, misery, and despair.

“Fetch a chair for the Kovneva,” I said. “The Kov may stand.”

Pando glared at me defiantly, finding spirit to drag himself out of his misery and curse me by the gross Armipand.

At the sound of my voice Tilda looked up sluggishly; then a Pachak swod pushed a folding chair forward and she sank down, grateful to rest.

“You were captured, I take it,” I said. “Tell me about it.”

Pando forced his shoulders back. And I recalled him as a nine year old, running, shouting, and tumbling in the dust with the other urchins of Pa Mejab.

“Those cramphs of Hamal beat our army. And now you come to take us prisoner in your turn. If you want money in ransom, you whom men called Prince Majister, then you are unlucky. I suggest you have our heads off now. That is what princes do, as I know full well.”

You couldn’t say much to that.

Chuktar Erling grunted and spoke up in his parade ground bellow. “They were chained up among the calsanys.”

I made a face. I knew as well as anyone on Kregen what calsanys did when they were upset. No wonder these two filled the air odoriferously.

“There is an old apim with them who says he is a Pallan. He is being carried in, being extremely fragile.”

“That is Pallan Nicomeyn, an old and valued friend!” snapped out Pando. I could guess that the miserable King Nemo had in some way disgraced Pallan Nicomeyn, who had helped Tilda in the days when we sought to prove Pando’s right to the title of Kov of Bormark. He must have gone to Pando for help and protection.

“See to the Pallan,” I said. “Let him rest. Give him eat and drink and have him bathed and give him clothes. He is to be treated with respect.”

“At once, my Prince!” Erling bellowed and dashed off to give the orders. I had a shrewd suspicion that even if these two poor wights here did not recognize me, Pallan Nicomeyn would, and quickly.

As though something of her old witchery at reading men and their inmost secret thoughts returned to Tilda, she lifted her head, somewhat drunkenly, for the Hamalese guards had let her drink — no doubt with evil intentions — and regarded me.

“I knew a man, once,” she said, slurring her words. “A man — he looked a little like you, although tougher and harder and leaner — and he wouldn’t — wouldn’t-” She forgot what she was saying, wiped her lips, and started over. “This man I knew, he cared for Pando ’n me. If he was here now he’d knock you down as soon as look at you, grand and a prince though you are.”

I felt like a get-onker.

She might be talking about her husband, she might be talking about Meldi, who had cared for her and Pando, she might be talking about any man she had known recently. . I fancied she was talking about me.

I said, “I am told your husband, Marker Marsilus, was a fine soldier and a good man. It is fitting you should think of him.”

“Onker!” she said. Something of her fire flashed. “For what business it is of yours, you lord of Vallia, I loved my husband and we gave up our separate lives for each other. I have loved no man since. .” Her drunken voice droned on, telling things she would keep fast locked if she was sober. She did not fall off the chair, and her poise was that of the great lady. It boiled down to a maudlin recital of lost hopes and fading memories, of her husband and of her great days on the stage — for she had been a justly famed actress — of memories of this man she talked about so wistfully, this man who had been me, so that I turned to Pando, with a look on my face that made him start back.

Before I could flare out what boiled in me, telling them it was I, their old Dray Prescot, who stood before them, Tilda rambled on, her voice rising: “So between Hamal and Vallia we are crushed like a grain in the mill. Well, so be it. Pandrite knows the whole of it; with Opaz is the right. Have done with us as my son commands, and let Vallia pick over the corpses.”

“You do not like Vallians?”

“I hate and detest them!”

“Yet you have not looked at the banners we fly.”

Pando laughed most scornfully, his lip curling. “A mere trick, Vallian, to deceive. The blue flag with the zhantil is my flag. Mine! Had I my strength and my army I would make you rue the day you flaunted the flag of Bormark, which is a sign given by this same man of whom my mother speaks.”

He moved forward, passionate, and the Pachaks tensed up a little, their deadly tails quivering.

“You have the power now. You have the position, the treasures, and the army. Bormark is gone, gulped by the cramphs of Hamal. And now Vallia stoops in to claw the corpse. A fitting act for a vile nation.”

“By Vox!” I said. “You’re still a confounded spitfire!”

“And I would shoot fire-arrows into your eyes if I could.”

“Hikdar Re-Po!” I bellowed as loudly as the Chuktar had. The Pachak Hikdar of the guard stiffened up, his straw-yellow hair beneath the smooth round helmet of his race glimmering in the suns’ light. “Hikdar!

Clear these two off to be bathed and clothed decently. Give them food! I do not want to see them again until they are no longer an offense in a man’s nostrils, and until the Kovneva is sober!”

The Hikdar’s tail flashed in the Pachak salute. He turned to march his detail off and I shouted, very passionate, despising myself: “And treat them with respect. See that the Kovneva is cared for, for she is a great lady.”

“Yes, my Prince!” bellowed Hikdar Re-Po, and Pando was politely invited to step between the ranks of armored men, and his mother was carefully assisted away. I glared after them. By Zair! I should have found time to come back to Bormark and make sure Pando developed like a proper Kov. It was all my fault, and I was not prepared to blame my Delia or any of my friends or enemies who had detained me in Valka or Havilfar.

But, I vowed, I would have Tilda dried out, and I’d talk to that young rip Pando and sort him out — I would! It was a task I had withdrawn from for far too long. And if you ask why I considered this my business at all, then you have no understanding of the madman who is Dray Prescot. My own despicable action lay, of course, in that I had not come straight out with it and let them see who I was. But I felt this would shame them as much as it would me. Relationships are prickly bedfellows. Once they were bathed and well fed and dressed fittingly, feeling more human, then would be the time to let them know that the lordly and puissant Prince Majister of Vallia was only their old friend and helpmeet Dray Prescot.

As it happened there was inevitably so much to do after the battle that I could not spare a thought for Pando and Tilda for most of the day. Hikdar Re-Po sent an ob-Deldar to inform me that my orders had been carried out, that the prisoners — guests — were sleeping fast, for they were exhausted. I sent the ob-Deldar back with orders that they were not to be disturbed, but that I was to be informed two burs after they awoke, by which time I indicated I expected them refreshed, filled with a good meal, ready to meet me — and sober.

One of my concerns meanwhile lay with Kytun, who reported in his losses, shaking his head. He brightened up as he described the flyers and fliers he had captured. What with the masses of zorcas and totrixes we rounded up, and the saddle-birds and vollers Kytun brought in, we were reasonably well provided. I told Chuktar Tom ti Vulheim that we would mount up a goodly proportion of the footmen, turn them into mounted infantry. I cocked my head on one side. Tom ti Vulheim had served well and faithfully in those dark and harrowing days when we had cleansed Valka, all of which you may hear in the great song: The Fetching of Drak na Valka.

“Tom,” I said, and I spoke in my no-nonsense voice, so that he braced up. “Tom. You struggled against being made a Chuktar. You run the foot soldiers perfectly. Your Archers are a wonder. Yet you refuse a second name. Why?”

He stared at me, nonplussed. He was a blade comrade. “Do I need a whole raggle-taggle tail of names?”

“You do not, and neither do I. Yet, for my sins, I have been saddled with a rainbow of pretty names. I wish to unload some of my sinfulness upon your head.”

He knew I had something in my mind, so he smiled and nodded and waited for the ax to fall.

“We have just gained a victory — oh, it was not one of the greatest battles in all history — but it was a smart little win, all the same. Beneath Tomor Peak. And, too, there is a nice estate not too far from Vulheim, a place of samphron bushes and nectarine plantations, a charming place called Avanar-”

“I know it.”

“Well, Tom ti Vulheim, whether you like it or not, whether you own it or not, from henceforth you are Tom Tomor, Elten of Avanar, with all the rights and duties of your rank and all the goodness of your estate for yourself — save what the law requires you to part with in the way of taxes and imperial dues.”

He bowed. He actually bowed. “I thank you, Prince.” Most formal, this, for Tom ti Vulheim, who was now an Elten! “I accept with all gratitude, and I do so for the sake of Bibi, the granddaughter of Theirson and Thisi the Fair.” I nodded at this, the memories rising. “And, if it pleases you, I will call myself Tom Tomor ti Vulheim.”

“And you, Tom, the man who mocked a string of names!”

But I understood his meaning.

Well, as you may imagine, all this was highly gratifying to me, in the old selfish way. I’d make all my friends princes and princesses, if that was possible. Mind you, on Kregen, it is entirely possible, entirely. .

I mentioned earlier that I had instituted a mark of valor within the Valkan regiments. A silversmith of Vandayha, one Eckermin the Graver, had designed a round medal showing the little valkavol flying above and the symbol of Valka in the center, the trident shooting up from the bow. Below was a scroll of leaves and sacred plants and, on the reverse, a space for the name of the recipient, the place, and occasion. These medals were more like phalerae and those men who distinguished themselves in battle received them at my hands and proudly wore them on their war harness. Well, petty it may have been, but it seemed the least I could do, that and the addition of tidily heavy bags of golden talens. My men called these phalerae “bobs.” This was a typical ranker’s way of contracting and abbreviating their full name, which was of the order of “The Strom’s Medal for the Valor of a Warrior Heart.”

I had not, needless to say, chosen that name myself. The High Council of Elders of Valka, warming to my suggestion, had given the name. I, like the swods, preferred bobs. So we worked all that day. With the sinking of Antares I took up a cup of Vela’s Tears and drank deeply, preparing to plunge afresh into the reorganization and forward planning of my little army. We must not be trapped by the vastly superior forces of Hamal before I had made proper contact with the King of Tomboram, who had not turned up, as I had expected. Mind you, he had his hands full elsewhere. Now we must march and throw ourselves into the battle line alongside him. Kytun Kholin Dom and Tom Tomor would handle the troops; I had no fears on that score. So I planned and, the night being hot, threw off the white tunic and sat in a plain blue breechclout, drinking, and working by the mellow gleam of the samphron-oil lamp within my tent.

Stretching, I yawned. The close air clogged my lungs, so I rose and, hitching a fine Vallian rapier and main-gauche about me, strode outside the tent for a breath of fresh air. The guard slapped his glaive across as I went out and I spoke a few words to him. I wandered along in the fuzzy pink moonlight, with the camp about me filled with those nocturnal noises of a sleeping army. . A shadow moved against a darkened tent. I halted at once but the shadow had gone. I went on quietly and saw a guard — a Chulik — sleeping peacefully on the ground. About to bellow at him to stand up and get on guard, he’d face a charge in the morning, I held my tongue. A thin thread of dark blood trickled down behind his ear. He was not dead. I straightened up, looking around, and the pink moonlight fell full on my face.

I heard a gasp. Then a voice spoke, a blustery lion-voice that strove to whisper in that moonshot darkness.

“Hamun! By Krun! Hamun!”