Armada of Antares

Chapter 4

“We are not well pleased with you, son-in-law.”

The Emperor looked just the same as when I had last seen him, big and powerful, standing with booted feet thrust firmly on the ground, his back erect, his hands on his hips. He wore a fine Vallian tunic-coat and breeches, and his hat glowed with feathers. He wore a rapier and left-hand dagger, and a cloth-of-gold cape glittered finely, slung from his left shoulder. But the creases at the inner corners of his eyes had grown more deeply etched, and his face showed a pallor that I saw, with a pang, distressed his daughter Delia.

Across this end of Vorgar’s Drinnik the First Regiment of Valkan Longbowmen stood in their long lines, braced, ready, waiting. They made a fine show. I admit I would far rather deal with them and their like than the gilded popinjays who surrounded the Emperor and his suite, the Pallans and the courtiers, the nobles and the high Koters. I made no direct challenge to the Emperor’s annoyance. He had been feeling his way back to greater power than he had enjoyed for many a long season, and all because I had saved his neck, I and my comrades there in the immortal fight in The Dragon’s Bones. So I placidly said, “It is right that the first regiment of this kind formed in Vallia should be honored by their Emperor’s presence at the presentation of the standards.”

“As to that, Dray Prescot, I agree. But I talk of weightier matters.”

The zorcas moved gently in the lessening heat of the late afternoon. Soon Zim and Genodras would be gone. Then we could go up into the Great Hall of Esser Rarioch to see what kind of banquet my people could prepare for the Emperor.

“You do not question my meaning?”

“I know you have surrounded yourself with men who are not worthy of you.”

He felt some shock; but I also remembered that this man was the Emperor, the most powerful man in all Vallia, which made him the most powerful man for many dwaburs around in this northern hemisphere of Kregen. He could order me executed. He had already given that order once, and he had not been obeyed. If he tried to tell his men to take off my head now, they would find an abrupt and unyielding wall of Valkan steel — not protecting me but threatening them.

“You persuaded me to send a great host of men and fliers into Havilfar, son-in-law. A great battle was fought. But what has come of that? Where is the profit? You promised to bring me back vollers, Dray Prescot. Where are they?”

“You do not speak as I hear the Presidio speaks.”

The flush in his face deepened. This was an old story: powerful as he was, the governing body held certain authorities that could check him. I knew I had slackened many of those strings — and all men understood the Emperor had been even more firmly seated on the throne — but the Presidio still counted in council. Also, I had to admit I had been rewarded. I was Prince Majister and Kov of this and Strom of that and Zair knew what else in the amazing glitter of titles and lands of Vallia. All this meant nothing. I think he understood me just a little better now and realized that titles meant as little to me as they did to him. Land, canals, corn, cattle, minerals — these were power. He would have added slaves to the list earlier, but he understood the views that Delia and I held on slaves. He did not grasp that being a Krozair of Zy was far more important to me than all the titles he could bestow.

“There are those in the Presidio who have set their faces against this talk of Vallian fliers.”

“I have talked briefly with Kov Lykon. The man is a fool.”

“Not so, Dray Prescot. He is clever and cunning and wields certain powers. You would do well to be wary of him.”

My surprise was genuine. Was this puissant Emperor nurturing a spark of feeling for the hairy barbarian who had come bashing his way in to become son-in-law? Then I saw Delia trotting out with young Drak, and Lela on an exquisite pure white pony, and the moment dissolved. Delia greeted her father with warmth, although, as I say, she too saw the betraying tiredness in his eyes. I was pleased — I admit, by Zair, I was very pleased — that he seemed genuinely attached to his two grandchildren. He stood, blocky, square, the golden cape glinting in the suns, and he talked with Drak and Lela for a while. I let my bowmen stand and wait for that, for I believed they would understand. Delia met my eye and smiled. It was not too difficult to find a smile for her in return.

The Emperor looked up quickly.

“What is this of men in the garden — men you hit?”

“Later,” I said. “It has been dealt with. The bowmen await their standards and I warrant their throats are drier than the Ocher Limits.”

He took the reference well enough. He was hardly likely to forget it. He mounted up, his zorca stiff with imperial trappings, his massive, handsome face still flushed and dark as we rode out to present the standards.

I will not weary you with a full description, although you must guess the moment was important not only to me but to Valka and Vallia, and therefore to all this part of Kregen, these continents and islands called Paz. The parade was an emotional and moving occasion, filled with meaning; as the standards were presented I saw the ensigns stiffen up with fierce and dedicated pride in the symbols of Valka their regiment would carry into battle.

There lives in Valka a small bird with white wings and back, and a rosy breast. We call it the valkavol. That small bird, normally eating fruits and nuts, will turn into a fighting fury when attacked by the gawky, clumsy brown birds called threngs when the threngs try to steal eggs from the high nests. These are the names we give these birds in Valka, at least, and it is this small bright bird, the valkavol, which crowns the standards of my regiments. This cheeky, loyal, intelligent bird with its peaceful, herbivorous way of life is well liked by farmers, for the valkavol eats those unpleasant gall-like fruits of the deep forests. So far it has not decided to come down to the orchards to sample gregarians, squishes, malsidges, and the many other kinds of luscious fruits we grow. It does eat palines, but no true believer would grudge another living soul the delights of palines. This peaceful bird, a bundle of incredible ferocity if its nest is threatened, was perched atop each standard pole. Oh, the carvings were of wood, but they were gilded so they gleamed and flashed bravely, and the claws were finely sculpted from balass. They presented a fair and heartening sight, slanting into the rays of the twin suns.

The colors beneath each valkavol flared with symbol and number, for I had authorized an individual standard for each pastang and, as was proper, two standards for the regiment as a whole. There was reason in this open-handed distribution of standards. Each pastang numbered only fifty men, when in most of the regiments of Hamal the pastang numbered eighty. There were ten pastangs to this regiment, whereas the regiments of Havilfar were normally composed of six pastangs. Treating the first pastang like the first cohort of a legion, I had given the company its full complement of eighty, so that the regiment numbered five hundred and thirty, plus ancillaries. All this was done with an eye to the future.

And, though I say it myself, who with Seg had wrought the work, they looked grand!

Yes, there was reason for this panoply and this structure, as you shall hear. Young Drak conducted himself well. He sat astride his cub-zorca stiffly and, young as he was, he was already on his own. He carried the affair off superbly, at which I felt all the fond, fatuous, foolish pride of a parent. If I didn’t know my Delia better I’d have thought a tear glistened in the corner of her eye. The banners flared in the suns, the zorcas behaved with perfect composure — always a good omen -

and the men formed and marched in perfect alignment. The bands played cheerful rousing music, The Song of Tyr Nath, The Heart Heights of Valka, Paktun’s Promenade, and a national Vallian song of some consequence to my family and to Valka, Drak na Vallia. This marching song is called by the swods in the ranks Old Drak Himself.

Seg did not fuss as the men took rank to shoot the exhibition three shafts apiece. He looked at the flags fluttering from their staffs, and Jiktar Targhan ti Vulheim — a battle comrade, one of the old freedom fighters selected by Seg with the advice of Tom ti Vulheim — trotted his zorca over for a last-minute word. All the bows leaped into the correct position, all the bows spanned as one. The Jiktar’s rapier slashed down and his bellow made Lela’s pony jump. All the shafts loosed simultaneously. Next to me Seg grunted. “By the Veiled Froyvil! I swear a good twenty out of a hundred missed the mark!”

To Seg that was so miserable an example of shooting as to be beneath contempt. So I said gently, “They will improve.”

“If they do not those rasts of Hamalese will riddle ’em with their confounded crossbows.”

With bands playing and colors flying, the regiment marched back. The crowds who had come out to watch broke up and drifted back to the city. This night there would be many gallons of wine drunk and many boasts made and songs sung, aye, and a few broken heads to show for it in the morning. We are a rough old lot, in Valka, and we take our pleasures when they come.

“So my grandson is Hyr-Jiktar of this new regiment, Dray Prescot.”

“He is, Emperor. And I tell you that in the days to come you will have to accustom yourself to using soldiers of Vallia, formed into regiments, rather than merely sending for mercenaries and paying them to fight for you.”

“We are a nation of the sea. Our galleons-”

“Of course! I grant the galleons are the finest vessels afloat — vessels of Paz, that is — but you face new threats now, Emperor.”

He wanted to pursue the conversation, but I did not wish to talk about those shanks from over the curve of the world, those fishmen with their fast-sailing craft who would, I felt sure, one day pose so great a danger we must all band together to resist them. At the moment Hamal was the great threat. We rode back and I saw Delia with Lela in tow talking to Turko the Shield. He had not brought that massive shield; it still hung in my hall. Drak rode at the head of his regiment, a small and lonely figure, but proud, proud!

I had not asked for him to be born, but I had been very happy with his and his sister’s birth. Now he must face the never-ending threats of life, and I could only help and guide. So we rode back through my capital city of Valkanium to the high fortress of Esser Rarioch. A Hyr-Jiktar is a purely honorary position, of course. Drak would not be leading this regiment into action for a good many seasons yet. I felt a pang. I would far prefer he never had to involve himself in the mad red obscenity of war at all. Tharu ti Valkanium, the leader of the high assembly of my island Stromnate of Valka, arrived as we were about to go in stately procession into the Great Hall for the feasting. Tharu, as always grim with purpose, his leonine head with its shock of brown Valkan hair proudly lifted, greeted me and then said, “I made all haste, Strom. But the flier failed us-”

“You bring no news in that, Tharu.”

“Aye! I heard the terrible news of Lish. He was a good man. I vow there will not be a man of Valka who will not go willingly, aye, and gladly, when we deal with these cramphs of Hamalese.”

Tharu ran Valka for me, with the high assembly of Elders. I trusted him implicitly. He was reconciled to my absences. With Tom ti Vulheim, who had accepted the rank of Chuktar with his reckless laugh and a pledge to see that the men of Valka fought in the ways I directed, Tharu in his grim, thorough way kept Valka as an island paradise. Now he joined us as the feasting and drinking began. Well, I have spent many and many a roistering night in my high hall of Esser Rarioch, and Zair willing, will spend many more before I die. On this evening, as the moons of Kregen floated over the horizon to cast down their mingled pink and golden radiance, I felt restless. My plans were going very well where they touched Valka; they had gone disastrously astray over this business of the vollers we must build. Presently, with a song from Erithor of Valkanium, that preeminent skald, finishing on the last defiant notes of The Lament for Valinur Fallen, the Emperor motioned to me in a sign that meant he wished to retire.

Valinur Fallen did not suit my mood. The lament begins with: “Glaive-bearing marched they in storm-light and thunder.” It finishes on a high note of apotheosis, of the ending of days, and the defiant expectancy that Valinur’s sons and daughters will refresh the land. The last few words are: “The zhantil will rest in the dusty earth under; but the heart in the human breast never.”

I hasten to add that this is a mere literal representation of the words; all the beauty of the original is lost in this clumsiness of my expression. The Valkans practice a finely tuned form of kenning, and one must listen carefully and tease out the meanings from the golden words, the ringing phrases. I did not wish to dwell on death, on the destruction of a country, and of the resurrection and revenge through the children. That was the way of Kregen, of course, but the mood left me hollow and chill, thinking of Drak and Lela, and I welcomed the opportunity to go with a few of my closest people and more of the Emperor’s retinue into the Chavonth Chamber. This room, comfortably furnished, was held for talks that, while not of the stiff and formal kind held in the audience chamber, were not yet so informal that they could be held in my inner and private rooms. The floor was covered by a single enormous carpet embroidered with chavonths engaged in many of the scenes of the hunt; the walls were hung with tapestries where more chavonths snarled and showed their claws. The carpet, the tapestries, the curtains, all were of Hlinnian weave, good and solid and vastly expensive.

The closeness of the room, although it was large, and the sound-deadening effects of the draperies, meant that only one with keen hearing might pick up the racket bouncing from the Great Hall. They’d started on The Bowmen of Loh down there, and Seg licked his lips, picking up a fresh goblet of Gremivoh.

A very great deal of power, wealth, and majesty was packed into the Chavonth Chamber that night. I knew most of those there, and many of them you have already met in these tapes. There were others who were to figure in my story at a later date, but I will confine myself to talking only about those who affected me in the immediate dealings with which we were engaged.

The chief of these, of course, was Lykon Crimahan, the Kov of Forli.

“Let me fill your glass with this excellent Gremivoh, Kov,” I said, very friendly. We wanted no servants with flapping ears when we talked high state business. And I wanted to let this damned Kov think I was something less than he expected. Here I believe something of my double-dealings in Havilfar came to me and, despite the lessons I had learned there, I admit I took a nasty little pleasure from the thought of fooling this Kov Lykon.

Now Gremivoh is a wine of Vallia much favored in the Vallian Air Service. This Lykon, despite my manner, took the point.

“I would prefer a more subtle Pastale,” he said, very — smooth.

I took that point, also. For Pastale — and I admit it is a reasonable vintage — is the export monopoly of the House of Operhalen, whose colors are blue, green, and ivory. And the Operhalens, a noble house of the enclave city of Zenicce, were at that time allied with the Ponthieu and against my own noble house of Strombor. The ruler of Operhalen was a little frog-like man with a stoop and a leer, and a reputation for inspecting his own consignments of Pastale too lovingly and too frequently. This damned Lykon Crimahan would know I was Lord of Strombor and that the Operhalens would like to see me dead, so he asked for a glass of their Opaz-forsaken wine. I smiled.

“Certainly, Kov. As it happens, I was able to board and take a ship of the Operhalens. Their wine is yours, freely given as it came to me, free.”

Seg laughed and then turned away, drinking.

Tharu did not laugh, but his fierce old whiskers bristled up a little more. The Emperor spoke and everyone stopped talking.

“We are here to discuss serious matters,” he began. “I have said I am not happy with you, Dray Prescot, you whom I made Prince Majister. I would like an accounting of what you have done with the treasures we have poured out for you.”

The damned old scoundrel! He’d lent me a parcel of fliers, which he had got back, and some of his Crimson Bowmen of Loh, almost all of whom he had got back. As for hard cash, that had been conspicuous by its absence.

I said, “You found your journey here pleasant, Emperor?”

He didn’t like me calling him by title, and he knew I knew it.

“Yes, it was comfortable. The voller you presented me is a fine craft.”

“It should be. It was taken by the Kov of Falinur and his friends from Hyrklana, and is a first-class voller.”

“That is as may be. Where are the fliers you promised me? There was much fine talk, I remember,” and here he waxed most sarcastic, “of bringing to us the secrets and the methods of the contraptions inside fliers. We should build our own, you promised me. Well, Dray Prescot? Where are these secrets?”

Mind you, the old devil had the right of it, for all that he over dramatized his part. I had signally failed to gain all I had dreamed of. But I did know a very great deal now.

“The wise men are still laboring to reproduce the silver boxes. For reasons I will not go into now, the full secrets did not come my way.”

That was the signal for the dowager Kovneva Natyzha to thrust up her lower lip and let go one of her famous barking laughs, like the blow of an ax striking a tree.

“I warrant you do not wish to go into the reasons, Prince! I warrant you enjoyed yourself in Hamal.”

I stared at her with a cool expression on my face, I hope, my eyebrows raised. This old biddy, this Vallia-renowned Natyzha Famphreon, the dowager Kovneva of Falkerdrin, was a noble woman with whom I had always tried not to cross swords. Her face held that nut-brown, cracker-barrel, experienced look of iron authority exercised over many seasons. Her mouth curved down at the corners, and grooves alongside her chin extended the arc. Her chin thrust forward so that her lower lip was habitually upthrust, giving her a scornful, arrogant look of power. She was well past her one hundred and fortieth year, I knew, and her face showed something of that, although on Kregen people change little from their coming of age to the time when they are battened down for the last journey to the Ice Floes of Sicce. But her body! She had pampered that body of hers, so that it remained firm and pliant, soft and supple. She was known to say that a man couldn’t care less about a pretty face, but no man could stomach an ugly body. She was generally right about it, too, if many of the men surrounding the Emperor at this time counted. She wore a bright red gingerish wig, which gave her a comical appearance as well as a great and horrific presence. In addition, her eyebrows, a fierce and wiry black, jagged upward like black wings over her dark eyes.

“You have heard of the Heavenly Mines?” I asked.

“Some stories,” she said offhandedly. “Answer the Emperor. Where are the fliers and their secrets?”

“Yes,” chipped in her son, the Kov of Falkerdrin. “Answer the Emperor.” He was a product of bad breeding: chinless, weak-eyed, pimply faced. That was not his fault, of course, but the fault of near-incestuous parents greedily grasping each other in lust that did not consider the consequences. The result had made him a straw in the hands of his mother, who ran him and his official position as Pallan of the Armory.

Delia put a hand to her breast. She knew me. She half rose, and, on a breath, said, “You would not go back to the Heavenly Mines?”

“No one but a fool who wished to commit suicide in the most painful of ways would go back there.”

The unspoken thought lay between us. She knew just how much of a fool, a true onker, I am in these matters.

The door opened and San Evold Scavander put his head in, his brown eyes mad and snapping, glee written all over his crusty old face.

“My Prince!” he tried to bellow, sneezed, and wiped his nose, gurgling with laughter. “My Prince! The cayferm is true cayferm! A residue is left — I do not know how. The boiling has been a success! Come, my Prince, and let us test the gift of Oolie Opaz.”

I rose. “Then let us go to the laboratory,” I said, not without a sneaky feeling of satisfaction. “And see if Opaz shines upon Vallia.”